[Guide] - M15x with AMD 7970m

[Jesse Rojas Manzanares]

hi svl7, i have aome doubts or questions, we are from mexico, and buy a mx15 r2, that comes with a 260m, i read i few post in this forum and other, i finally get an options, can U tell me what is the most accurrance or the best choice??, because i want to have hdmi work fine, and i want to do less modification to do, my option are:

ALIENWARE M17x R2 VGA Upgrade Kit - Dell HD 7970M; 2GB GDDR5; MXM 3.0b | eBay by eurocom

and

Untitled Document by MXMUpgrade

the MXMupgrade come with the back plate??? or i must use the 260m old one??

The eurocom one seems like is a dell oem, AMD logos in the card, but the MXM is the same?? is DELL OEM???

The Dell OEM have a native fan control??? or none one of this have a native fan control?? in both of them HDMI and sound works fine??

There a way to get the thermal pads with MXMupgrade???

Sorry about my english, i write at my best =D

I hope U can anwser my question, and thanks for post's information =D

[Jesse Rojas Manzanares]

hi svl7, i have aome doubts or questions, we are from mexico, and buy a mx15 r2, that comes with a 260m, i read i few post in this forum and other, i finally get an options, can U tell me what is the most accurrance or the best choice??, because i want to have hdmi work fine, and i want to do less modification to do, my option are:ALIENWARE M17x R2 VGA Upgrade Kit - Dell HD 7970M; 2GB GDDR5; MXM 3.0b | eBay

by eurocom

and

Untitled Document by MXMUpgrade

The first one is more expensive, but contains all part that needs, i woory about the tittles said mx17 no mx15...

the MXMupgrade come with the back plate??? or i must use the 260m old one??

The eurocom one seems like is a dell oem, AMD logos in the card, but the MXM is the same?? is DELL OEM???

The Dell OEM have a native fan control??? or none one of this have a native fan control?? in both of them HDMI and sound works fine??

There a way to get the thermal pads with MXMupgrade???

Sorry about my english, i write at my best =D

I hope U can anwser my question, and thanks for post's information =D

[fatnoah]

Another hello to SVL7! First I want to say thank you for your excellent guides and work letting us know how to get more mileage out of our Alienware laptops.

I also have an Alienware m15x with the 260m that I'm considering upgrading with the 7970. I'm planning on getting a dell OEM version with the proper X bracket. Other than thermal paste/pads will I need any additional hardware? Will the screw post modification you reference in the 6970/6990 thread be necessary?

Thanks in advance!

[OCM15x]

oo lord.. seems like there is a bit of more work than I thought with upgrading to a 7970m and it being plug n play. I guess you really have to make sure that you have all the parts before you start. Ugh

[mw86]

hi svl7, i have aome doubts or questions, we are from mexico, and buy a mx15 r2, that comes with a 260m, i read i few post in this forum and other, i finally get an options, can U tell me what is the most accurrance or the best choice??, because i want to have hdmi work fine, and i want to do less modification to do, my option are:ALIENWARE M17x R2 VGA Upgrade Kit - Dell HD 7970M; 2GB GDDR5; MXM 3.0b | eBay

by eurocom

and

Untitled Document by MXMUpgrade

The first one is more expensive, but contains all part that needs, i woory about the tittles said mx17 no mx15...

the MXMupgrade come with the back plate??? or i must use the 260m old one??

The eurocom one seems like is a dell oem, AMD logos in the card, but the MXM is the same?? is DELL OEM???

The Dell OEM have a native fan control??? or none one of this have a native fan control?? in both of them HDMI and sound works fine??

There a way to get the thermal pads with MXMupgrade???

Sorry about my english, i write at my best =D

I hope U can anwser my question, and thanks for post's information =D

Our Moderator SVL7 is on military training and will be back to answer your questions in just a week or two. Please excuse his absence in the mean time.

[Jahnsinn]

oo lord.. seems like there is a bit of more work than I thought with upgrading to a 7970m and it being plug n play. I guess you really have to make sure that you have all the parts before you start. Ugh

as long as you buy the card at eurocom on ebay, you will have all the parts you need. Backplate, screws, thermal pads, thermal paste. You just need to drill down the holes of your backplate a bit to get your heat sink a bit more tightened. 5min work for amazing performance. It's worth it

[Jahnsinn]

So let me move that to here. Would become off topic in the BF3 server thread and would get blamed by Michael

GPU or CPU overheating? And yeah it does look great on a 55". I use my panasonic 55" plasma in 3d with it + nvision.

oops, sry @Brian, missed your post. The gpu is overheating straight after launching BF3 or even 3dmark. cpu is stable on 80°c. I'll wait for the liquid cooling now, that should kill the heat

Won't play on that big sceen anyway because it's facing the living room/sofa and my laptop is placed in the dinette. So I would have to carry the tv from the living room to the dinette just for playing. Also I can't sit in front of the tv in the living room because the lowboard where it's standing on is too high. Maybe when the liquid cooling is working propperly I will give it a shot again.

@Jahnsinn Okay well my 7970m dont seem to be stable for gaming but in try the clocks it can do and volts plus seeing SVL7's work... Cant you use lower volts than that? I never needed mkre han 1.075v for a range like that. Id consider dropping vram by 50mhz so thats 200mhz less quad pumped... So if you do that you could probably use stock volts or even the 1.075v but I think stock volts should get you there. If there is a post you mentioned what testing youve done twith your 7970m I missed it so sorry for the questions and suggestions if you already went through all that.

Well yeah, I could try using lower clocks but as mentioned above there's no rushing doing that. Clocks are stable and as long as they are on the laptop screening I won't change it again. I guess I changed them 50 times or more with several custom clocks till I got stable clocks. The strange thing is the stock clocks and voltage lead to throttling. 0.975v and 1.100v@900/1300 are the only ones which don't throttle. Long time I had a flash with these clocks even in 2d mode with amazing increasement in 3d mode. But the cpu was throttling down due to too less power supply.

I will play a bit with that again when the liquid cooling is running. so plenty of time now

[mw86]

So let me move that to here. Would become off topic in the BF3 server thread and would get blamed by Michael

oops, sry @Brian, missed your post. The gpu is overheating straight after launching BF3 or even 3dmark. cpu is stable on 80°c. I'll wait for the liquid cooling now, that should kill the heat

Won't play on that big sceen anyway because it's facing the living room/sofa and my laptop is placed in the dinette. So I would have to carry the tv from the living room to the dinette just for playing. Also I can't sit in front of the tv in the living room because the lowboard where it's standing on is too high. Maybe when the liquid cooling is working propperly I will give it a shot again.

Well yeah, I could try using lower clocks but as mentioned above there's no rushing doing that. Clocks are stable and as long as they are on the laptop screening I won't change it again. I guess I changed them 50 times or more with several custom clocks till I got stable clocks. The strange thing is the stock clocks and voltage lead to throttling. 0.975v and 1.100v@900/1300 are the only ones which don't throttle. Long time I had a flash with these clocks even in 2d mode with amazing increasement in 3d mode. But the cpu was throttling down due to too less power supply.

I will play a bit with that again when the liquid cooling is running. so plenty of time now

Okay I wasnt sure what you may have tried already. I got ya now. weird that. 975 and 1.1v work but no in between. I have feeling my handling of cards vs your observed handling of the cards has something to do with the difference in our systems. M18x has much more power to tap so I guess thats why the difference. You've found what works best for your system so thats whats important. Glad it works just fine at that on the internal display.

Also thank you for moving our conversation here.

[Lamer]

Hey, is the GT555m in any chance resembles to your Graphic cards Slv ?

[svl7]

Nope, not a tiny bit.

[hitokiri_jaguar]

Hi svl7, I installed the 7970 and it worked fine for half an hour and then the pc frooze and now it freezes with black screen every time I power it up. I checked the gpu themperature and it is below 40°C

Could you help me to know what is wrong?

Thanks

[Jahnsinn]

are you able to see the alien head bios screen or is it just a black screen from the beginning on you press your power button? How do you check the temps when your screen is black? You're able to boot in safe mode?

[mw86]

Can you enter safe mode of windows? Guess you beat me to the question lol.

[hitokiri_jaguar]

Sometimes it freezes while booting, sometimes after login, while running a game, while doing nothing, it doesn't last 5min after login without freezing. so when I can login I a start sensor apps to check temperature. c

I'm currently using a 150W adapter, could this cause to freeze? It also freezes on battery.

Thanks

[mw86]

Can i suggest attempting to reseat the card? Maybe after going into safe mode and removing all the drivers and try to reinstall the drivers fresh.

[hitokiri_jaguar]

Can i suggest attempting to reseat the card? Maybe after going into safe mode and removing all the drivers and try to reinstall the drivers fresh.

Hi, thanks for your suggestion, but it freezes trying to do that, even in safe modshe, so o I don't think it is a drivers problem. Bios

more info:

some times it shows lines of different colors when freezing, and if I turn it on several times in a short period of time it freezes in less time and finally it doesn't even show the alien Bios screen and the scroll and caps leds blink while the num led stays on.

[Jahnsinn]

Hi, thanks for your suggestion, but it freezes trying to do that, even in safe modshe, so o I don't think it is a drivers problem. Bios

more info:

some times it shows lines of different colors when freezing, and if I turn it on several times in a short period of time it freezes in less time and finally it doesn't even show the alien Bios screen and the scroll and caps leds blink while the num led stays on.

according to Dell's table either your gpu or your mobo is fucked.

Alienware

lost the overview a bit. Have you flashed your gpu again? Do you have the latest bios? I don't think it's the psu because when I had my 150w fitted the laptop just turned off with no prompt.

So what I'd do is flashing your vbios again, checking your mobo bios, if not up to date, do update it.

If you got the chance to use a 240w psu try it, but I recon it's not the psu.

also, you can try the newest beta driver of the 7970m:

AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta 9.001 – 7900 MOD – BenchmarK3D

[svl7]

Hi svl7, I installed the 7970 and it worked fine for half an hour and then the pc frooze and now it freezes with black screen every time I power it up. I checked the gpu themperature and it is below 40°C

Could you help me to know what is wrong?

Thanks

Which driver are you using?

[hitokiri_jaguar]

Hi, Thanks for your answers, I have the latest bios and I tried with both the seller's drivers and the latest. same result, besides the laptop turns off while booting so I don't think it is a driver problem.

I got the laptop checked by a technician an he said it is a mobo problem, some transistors are damaged, U$60 hope that's the price for that

he also said that the new psu is damaged. the psu is not causing the freezes but it is not charging the laptop.... Can I use an m17x one? like this one? Original Genuine 240W AC Power Adapter Charger/Cord for Dell Alienware M17x | eBay

[svl7]

Yeah, that PSU works, I'm using one of the same type, you just need to disable the PSU warning in the bios.

Probably not a driver issue, yeah, but that depends on when exactly the problem appears...

[Keattong91]

Is this plug and play for people who have done the upgrade with 6xxxm series already or for someone who has nt done any upgrade to the m15x before

[loafer987]

Just wondering guys but do i need to have thermal pads on the mosfets? (little black chips in groups of four at the top of the card) i don't have thermal pads thick enough and I cant think of a good way to cool them otherwise. Let me know what you think.

Also, what thickness of thermal pads are you all using for this upgrade? i only have .5mm and they seem to make good cantact with the ram in my tests so far. Please help!

[svl7]

Is this plug and play for people who have done the upgrade with 6xxxm series already or for someone who has nt done any upgrade to the m15x before

Yeah, pretty plug and play if you follow all the instructions properly.

Just wondering guys but do i need to have thermal pads on the mosfets? (little black chips in groups of four at the top of the card) i don't have thermal pads thick enough and I cant think of a good way to cool them otherwise. Let me know what you think.

Also, what thickness of thermal pads are you all using for this upgrade? i only have .5mm and they seem to make good cantact with the ram in my tests so far. Please help!

I'm still using my original vram pads, 0.5mm sounds good. You don't really need the pads on the mosfets, I didn't have them covered either, but they might get a bit hot, though I never had issues. You could also use some copper to bridge the gap and then use paste or a thermal pad if you really want them to be covered by the heatsink.

[frostie]

This has been an excellent thread. Think I've read it start to end about three times. This is my first post as a new member on TI, so forgive me if the format is not correct.

To Jahnsinn: You mention in a post on the 15th September that you are going to try liquid cooling on the GPU in the M15x. Is this a custom modified heatsink or where are sourcing the heatsink from? What is a liquid cooling heatsink? (copper tubes filled with mercury or the like?)

To Jahnsinn: In one of your earlier posts you made reference to purchasing the 7970M through eurcom on Ebay and provided a link. The link you provided is just to Ebay.co.uk and not to an ebay item. Are you referring to Upgrademonkey on Ebay? I've bought upgrades from these guys before and the service and products have been good.

Nice work by SVL7, I’ve found your threads really knowledgeable and can tell you know what you are talking about. If I upgrade to a 7970M and use your bios, I'll definitely be buying you a pint.

[mw86]

This has been an excellent thread. Think I've read it start to end about three times. This is my first post as a new member on TI, so forgive me if the format is not correct.

To Jahnsinn: You mention in a post on the 15th September that you are going to try liquid cooling on the GPU in the M15x. Is this a custom modified heatsink or where are sourcing the heatsink from? What is a liquid cooling heatsink? (copper tubes filled with mercury or the like?)

To Jahnsinn: In one of your earlier posts you made reference to purchasing the 7970M through eurcom on Ebay and provided a link. The link you provided is just to Ebay.co.uk and not to an ebay item. Are you referring to Upgrademonkey on Ebay? I've bought upgrades from these guys before and the service and products have been good.

Nice work by SVL7, I’ve found your threads really knowledgeable and can tell you know what you are talking about. If I upgrade to a 7970M and use your bios, I'll definitely be buying you a pint.

Welcome to Tech Inferno! To address a specific member and have them notified you are talking to them type their name with an @ in front of it. I will mention @Jahnsinn for you so he can answer you questions faster. Again welcome.

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