m17x R1 Rebuild - video card problems

All,

Had to finally rebuild my m17x R1. I have rebuilt, updated, and optimized all drivers. Everything in hardware manager shows good to go - but I can't get the GTX 260M(s) to work. It only shows the 9400 in nvidia (granted it does show the 260 in SLI config - but it won't let me enable them.)

So, I have updated my graphics drivers, no luck. double checked graphic setting in BIOS, no luck. I don't know if there is a secret order things need to be installed in order to work. It is frustrating.

Also Fn+f7 doesn't work. Because it is not initializing the cards.

I have the latest NVIDIA drivers installed.
All Win 7 64 updates are finished.
I installed the Alienware software that allows you to change your key colors etc... it all appears to work fine.

Hoping someone can help. I will rebuild from ground up again if I missed something.

Thanks in advance.

 

Use the default Dell drivers for the SLI 260's to begin with. Then make sure the VBIOS on the GFX cards are up to date. See if those make it work.

 

Hi Dractul,

As radji said, use the Dell drivers to avoid any issues, but, also, check out this article . I think you are just missing the On Screen Display driver (OSD) and that is probably what's not allowing you to switch the graphics cards with the Fn+F7 combination. On that article, there's a link that will direct you to that driver but, before you install it, go to the control panel and check if it's already there as: Alienware On Screen display, OSD, On screen or anything similar, and remove it, then restart the computer and download and install it again.