[Guide] Installing AMD Radeon Mobility 6970 / 6990 in your M17x R2 (Single GPU and CrossfireX)

[Greywolf22]

Nice Stealth! Do you happen to have any pics?

[Stealth55]

Here i found my old post with pic and directions.M17x-R2 + GTX 580M + SLi

[Easirok]

The 6990 seems to be working fine, temps are good too.

But I can't seem to get the VGA out to work at all. I have three external flat panels, and with the 4870 I had no trouble using HDMI for one, VGA for another, and an external USB adapter for the third.

With the 6990, the HDMI works fine and the external USB adapter works fine too. But I can't get it to use the VGA output. Windows sees it, but won't let me turn it on or extend my desktop to it. When I try to do so, it gives me an error message as shown here:





Likewise, Catalyst can see the third monitor (although it can't see the USB one, which I wouldn't expect it to). It sees it correctly as "analog" (since attached via VGA), but shows it as being disabled with no way to enable it:



Is this a known issue with the 6990? If so, is there any workaround? Perhaps using the DisplayLink port with a DisplayLink<->HDMI converter?

[kenny27]

Vga or hdmi works fine for me but I'm only using 1 external screen, I have had troubles with displayport not working and I know others have this issue as well
But this is the first time that I have seen the vga to not work properly.
Have you just tried just connecting the the vga port to see if its actually the port, if it works then I would say the 6990 wont support 3 external screens (unless some one has any other ideas?)

[Easirok]

(I know the 6990 will not support 3 external screens - neither will the 4870 - I am using one of these to power the third one and it works very well for this task: Universal Multi-Display Adapter. You won't be gaming on that display, but I use it to keep Outlook visible and other stuff like that while I work on the other screens)



If I disconnect the HDMI display (and make no other changes), then the VGA display wakes up immediately. However, it does not allow me to bump the resolution to the proper level - it appears to think my VGA connection is only 4:3 instead of 16:9.

Then, if I plug the HDMI cable back in (so all three displays are connected again), the VGA display remains operational and automatically switches up to the correct 16:9 resolution. The HDMI display which is now connected remains dark.

Upon clicking the "Detect Displays" button it goes back to the starting point where VGA has no signal but everything else seems fine.

I can only conclude that the 6990 seems incapable of emitting a video signal on both HDMI and VGA ports at the same time. Or at least my card cannot.

The other thing that might be potentially going on here is that I have not been able to flash this new 6990. I am not sure if I even need to, but so far all of my attempts to create a bootable CD/DVD with the flash files have been unsuccessful, and none of the handful of USB flash drives I have tried has worked as a boot device when following the procedure mentioned on page 1 of this thread. If anyone has a suggestion for solving that issue, I would very much appreciate the input. Also, this is what GPU-Z is showing for my 6990. Perhaps I already have an up-to-date BIOS?

I have had troubles with displayport not working and I know others have this issue as well

What kind of issues? Is it buried in this massive thread somewhere?

One of my options would be to get a DisplayPort<->HDMI adapter and use that instead of the VGA port. But if DisplayPort isn't going to work then that would just be a waste.

[aarpcard]

What kind of issues? Is it buried in this massive thread somewhere?

One of my options would be to get a DisplayPort<->HDMI adapter and use that instead of the VGA port. But if DisplayPort isn't going to work then that would just be a waste.

Display port to HDMI/DVI works fine. I think display port by itself works fine too. Might be wrong on that.

What doesn't work is the displayport specific pins that enable the use of 120hz monitors or eyefinity.

Still skeptical on the eyefinity. . . I'm able to run eyefinity fine using my laptop screen and an external on HDMI. I'm going to try running a third monitor now both on VGA and displayport.

But yeah all this was covered pages ago.

[Easirok]

Yep, I picked up a DP -> HDMI converter today and tried it - works fine. I now have all three of my displays back up and running as an extended desktop, just as it was when using the 4870. Even better in fact, since the one panel is now attached via hdmi instead of analog vga.

My only concern now is my video bios version. I will go back and dig through this thread to see if my current bios is appropriate or if I should consider trying to get an update flashed to it (and resolving my USB boot difficulties in the process).

And, I solved my USB Boot issue. I just needed to enable the option in system BIOS to "Enable Legacy USB".

My 6990 card came with the same version of the bios that DR650SE has. As shown in my screenshot a few posts back, GPU-Z reports it as "AMD Radeon HD 6900M Series" / "Blackcomb".

So, everything is good to go here. The upgrade was pretty painless really. Worst part was those C-Clips. Figuring out the perfect way to remove the first one took probably half an hour. The other three took about 2 seconds each after that - super easy once you figure out how to get the proper leverage on them.

[Greywolf22]

Agreed...once you get the c-clips off everything else seems like a piece of cake

[Aristotelhs2060]

sorry for my noob question but does the DP to hdmi cable also transfers sound unlike hdmi when using 69xx gpus?

i am thinking of this

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Display-Po...item27bf311ed2

does it also transfer sound on M17X with clevo 6970 gpus? deserves to buy? have something better to propose?

[katalin_2003]

Aristotelhs, this is the cable you need:

Male Dispalyport to Male HDMi cable

But if HDMi doesn't already output sound, this cable won't solve the problem :/