M15x & 6970m:
It works great! Idle temps are about 40-50°C and when gaming about 70-80°C (The VRAM is the hottest part... the GPU core doesn't get up to 80°C, this can probably be improved, e.g. with better thermal pads)
This card is really amazing... and there are no issues with the power draw, not even with an extreme processor.
Only if you have a 920/940xm CPU and highly overclock both CPU and GPU you will have to be careful when having a very high load on the processor and the video card.
What doesn't work is the fan control (they constantly run at a high speed), but that's not a big problem since we can control the fans manually through HWinfo32.
Things to do before exchanging the card:
Download the drivers. This one will work: http://downloads.eurocom.com/support/drivers/zip/ATI/HD6970/win7/8.80WHQL-101110a1-109153C-ATI.zip
The modded 11.4 preview should work as well: http://downloads.guru3d.com/AMD-Catalyst-11.4-Early-Preview-7-Vista-x32-x64-download-2687.html
Also download HWinfo32 for the fan control: http://www.hwinfo.com/download32.html
Make sure you have thermal paste, maybe some new thermal pads as well as something to clean the heatsink (e.g. Isoproply alcohool) and some cloths around. I also highly recommend using a grounded ESD-mat and a wristband.
Note from MXM-Upgrade: we supply premium thermal paste with all our cards, free off charge. If you have a ESD mat and wristband: great! If you don't, you can work on the kitchen sink (if it is metal). The plumbing will ground it perfectly as well.
The exchangement procedure:
Before opening your system, do a power drain:
- unplug the AC cable
- remove the battery
- press and hold down the powerbutton (Alienhead) for about 20 seconds
Remove the following six screws:
Then gently remove the media board. Be careful with the cables.
Carefully remove the media board cable. You need to push the two little black clips (see arrows) to the front to release it.
Remove the following screws:
Remove the last screw that is securing the vent and pull out the vent:
Note: He's not kidding. I tried to remove the grill without it and broke a part in the process.
The fan needs to be removed as well. Take out the two screws, remove the fan and carefully unplug it.
Now the heatsink. It is fixed by four screws. Remove the heatsink. Maybe you need to twist it a little bit or apply some force if the paste has dried out.
Properly clean the heatsink. The old paste needs to be removed completely. If necessary replace the thermalpads. If there are other pads than the ones for the VRAM modules make sure they're properly placed for the 6970m.
The GPU is secured by two screws, remove them and take out the old GPU. (This pic has been take with the 6970m already in place, it fits perfectly)
You will need to remove the retention bracket from the back of your old GPU and put it on the 6970m. The bracket of the GTX 260m and 5850 will not fit properly and touch some resistors. I don't know about the bezel of the GTX 460m.
Make sure you have the black plastic pad on the bezel, this is insulating and is needed to prevent the metal bracket from accidentaly shorting some parts on your card. If there's no plastic pad uses some thin insulating tape or similar.
Here's a picture of the 6970m with the retention bracket of the GTX 260m . I highlighted the part where the bracket should be with orange. You can see it does not fit perfectly, but it works. The space beneath the card becomes tight, but it still fits.
About controlling the fan with HWinfo32:
There's a problem with the fan control... the fans will always run at a high speed, but not full speed. You will need to use HWinfo32 to manually adjust the fan speed.
To get to the fan control open HWinfo32 (sensor only) and press on the little fan next to the "Logging start" button. This will open the fan control window.
Ignore the GPU2 fan, you only need to adjust the CPU fan and GPU1 fan value.
The programm needs to override the fan setting of your system in short intervals all the time, the standard value is 100ms. (See the "respin period" box). But the fan needs some time to slow down again, even when the EC already reset the value of HWinfo32, that's called the respin time. If you set it to about 11000ms your fans should run all time at the value you set. If they start to slow down and then spin up again you need to decrease the respin period.
For adjusting the fans set the slider to the desired value and click "Set Manual" You will need to do this for both fans.
ATTENTION: Adjusting the fan speed can be dangerous!! Always keep an eye on your temps and never forget to adjust the values before doing something CPU or GPU intense!
I use the fan control to set the speed down while browsing (less noise) and raise it while gaming or similar.
Prepare yourself thoroughly, check out the M15x service manual (http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/m15x/en/index.html), as well as the official teardown video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7KUTPbDX1Q)
The below links may only be used for the m15x v3.0 notebook. If it is used for any other platform, we reserve the right to refuse returns or warranty. |