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M18X HD7970M Crossfire VSync loss
Hi, My M18X R2 has developed a problem in the last few months which I'm hoping someone out there can give some advice.
Any game - (BF1,4, Supreme Commander....etc, which uses the crossfire mode will start to lose vertical sync after 30 seconds or so, initially tearing, then the two identical frames superimposed and out of sync(rolling). It looks a bit like an old crt type tv which has lost its vertical hold.
Disabling crossfire mode stops the rolling and the game can be played as normal but at a reduced frame rate of course.
The graphics cards pass all the usual Dell diagnostics. The laptop was de-fluffed a year or so ago when it started slowing due to over-heating (frame rate dropping).
I'm guessing either one of the cards is faulty or the link between the two is failing (is this a cable?). I've tried many driver and setting options but always the same problem.
Any advice on how I can trouble-shoot without actually buying another HD7970M?
Radeon Software Version - 16.11.3
Radeon Software Edition - Crimson
Graphics Chipset - AMD Radeon HD 7970M
Memory Size - 2048 MB
Memory Type - GDDR5
Core Clock - 850 MHz
Windows Version - Windows 7 (Service Pack 1) (64 bit)
System Memory - 16 GB
CPU Type - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3740QM CPU @ 2.70GHz
Thanks
89fordprobee
1.2K Posts
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November 21st, 2016 07:00
okay last time heatsinks cleaned out? year ago ? ouch... last time fans were popped out (under keyboard) for a good cleaning as they accumulate inside.. its a 3 year+ old system .. dust does accumulate.. I cleaned mine out every 3-4 weeks and a good strip clean out every 6 months, and i don't smoke nor do i have pets , but mine was NEVER turned off unless it was being cleaned or modified... in the 3 years I owned it LOL used as a desktop, originally got for work but work provided me with a better(lighter) alternative hahahah
With above said and what you have done, either its overheating the secondary card or it has overheating and the RAM is starting to go bad, cause if it was primary card it would have same issue with Xfire disabled, if it was cable you would get an error message..
Also if you read about the AMD cards, they were very unlikely to last longer then a year under heavy use, my 7970's again same problem secondary failed, I actually had a burn mark on mine and that's even from constant care, failed funny part was it past all the tests cause it doesn't stress it.. but enable xfire, run a game.. pink/green screen .. haha , I had swapped out for 680's and never a problem, but also did much more to it then just that at the time ..lol
only real way to trouble shoot the secondary card would be to tear down remove the secondary and primary card, swap heatsink from primary to the secondary to make the secondary card have the ability to go in primary slot, then place in system then ONLY run that card leaving previous primary out for the test and then try running the game.. if this succeeds, then try your previous primary as the secondary and try again.. if it fails.. power is probably an issue but I won't get that far into it at this time..
doing all this will require much complete teardown and while it is fairly easy to do and dell has complete guides on accomplishing this, just take care in were every screw is as some are different length I learnt this the hard way after a few complete tear downs on my M17X R1 and R2's and my M18X R2 .
SF650
2 Posts
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November 21st, 2016 08:00
Many thanks for your quick reply. That all sounds like a good plan. When I cleaned out the lap top a year ago I was surprised at how the internal filters had clogged up, in fact at first I thought they were layers of felt-like material there for a purpose, only to realise they were compacted dust and lint, etc.
I need the laptop for other than gaming so will probably wait until the Christmas break before tearing it down.
I'll post back with my findings.
Thanks Again