7970M survey!

[jclausius]

What was AW's route then?

Assuming Meaker's post is correct (and I have no reason to doubt him), the Alienware laptops use a multiplexer (MUX) to allow signals from different sources to be routed to the display. The Clevo directly wires the card to the iGPU which then goes to the display.

See Why you can't disable enduro. for a nice diagram.

so can we mod the hardware to make it like dell?

It is physically impossible to re-route this to the display outputs, and unless you are really good at cutting and soldering circuits directly found on a PCB, there's nothing more that can be done except wait for AMD to flush all the performance problems from the 7970 drivers.

[shadowprophet99]

... not possible in Sagers/Clevos. The image being rendered by the 7970m goes through and is outputted by the Intel integrated card. It is simply not possible to create a BIOS fix for it as it is a hardware limitation.

I'm still not entirely convinced this is true. I mean... obviously it's true that it's a hardware issues, and that Alienware uses a hardware MUX which is why they can turn it off, but unless i'm wrong the old HM series still uses a pass-through just like the EM series, but the HM series doesn't "support" enduro, so it just doesn't turn on. So why not mod the BIOS so that the EM series doesn't support enduro, or have a toggle so that it doesn't, or something like that?

Or if not a modded BIOS, maybe a modded vBIOS that just makes the 7970m not ever initiate enduro.

[columbosoftserve]

The HM series also doesn't have an integrated card like the EM series does, that's why it doesn't use Enduro. All evidence points to it being a problem with Enduro.

[shadowprophet99]

The HM series also doesn't have an integrated card like the EM series does, that's why it doesn't use Enduro. All evidence points to it being a problem with Enduro.

I see. I haven't done much research on the HM series, I just assumed they had the older intel HD3000 integrated video like most Sandy Bridges. Anyway, would a modded vBIOS that disables enduro directly on the card be possible? I mean... it's not like there aren't BIOS mods that disable hardware features.

[columbosoftserve]

Nah there is absolutely no way. It is a hardware limitation caused by the image NEEDING to go thru the integrated card due to the way it has been wired. There is no way to circumvent this unfortunately as the 7970m itself isn't wired to the display, only the Intel card is. We will just have to wait for updated 7970m drivers.

[NeoCzar]

Did they just delete the Beta drivers Sager thread? I can't find it anymore ...

[Montage]

Did they just delete the Beta drivers Sager thread? I can't find it anymore ...

Yup. Seems like it.

[shadowprophet99]

Nah there is absolutely no way. It is a hardware limitation caused by the image NEEDING to go thru the integrated card due to the way it has been wired. There is no way to circumvent this unfortunately as the 7970m itself isn't wired to the display, only the Intel card is. We will just have to wait for updated 7970m drivers.

I understand that it passes through the Intel display adapter... that's not the same thing as using Enduro. Enduro is an on-card feature that turns the dGPU into a sort of "sleep mode" and lets the Intel iGPU take over when the dGPU supposedly isn't needed (like watching blu-rays or surfing the web, which the iGPU can handle just fine). Even when the dGPU is being fully utilized, it passes through the iGPU... so why not just disable it's ability to go into "sleep mode" so that it always uses the dGPU and just passes it through?

P.S. I'm not trying to be contrary, I just don't understand why passing through the iGPU means that enduro has to be enabled. I'm pretty sure the functionality of enduro can be turned off and still have the data pass through the iGPU on the way to the display.

P.P.S. The thing is, with Alienware, the MUX doesn't allow them to turn off enduro, it allows them to turn off the Intel iGPU. THAT is what we can't do on P150EM because of the pass-through.

[columbosoftserve]

I think because the AMD card is wired directly to the Intel card, it has to use Enduro. I could be wrong but this is the way I understand it. There may be a way to circumvent this on a driver level if people are keen to experiment I guess.

[hackness]

so why not just disable it's ability to go into "sleep mode" so that it always uses the dGPU and just passes it through?...

...I'm pretty sure the functionality of enduro can be turned off and still have the data pass through the iGPU on the way to the display.

AMD will not do that even if it's possible, it'll defeat the purpose of the original design, what they can do now is only the optimization of Enduro.