AW18 980m SLI issues.

doesn't matter i use in normal windows and it works fine.

stock dell 980M vbios here: https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/4/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=9W9F7

do not use clevo prema vbios mod in alienware 18 or you will cook your secondary card, you muse use either stock dell vbios or prema alienware 18 specific vbios mod.

 

I have premas v2 which if I’m not mistaken is for the AW18 or am I wrong in thinking so. Did let him know this before he sent it to me.


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no longer true. I use stock nvidia driver from the nvidia website.

@Raja786 if you cannot figure out how to flash vBIOS, you shouldn't be playing with these kinds of systems. make sure your 980ms are plugged in, reset bios to default settings, reboot into windows, run ddu, reboot, run latest nvidia installer, reboot, and they should be working. you could try a fresh windows install, but this is rarely necessary and i've never had to do it. if none, you have a hardware fault somewhere. a12 bios is required to run 980ms in legacy mode.

 

@Raidriar oils this be an issue?




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I’m in uefi. I was told uefi was needed for 980m install?


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Who told you UEFI was needed? It is not needed at all for M18x R2 or Alienware 18. Just say yes and clean everything.....its not a hard process.

 

There was a few on here that told me it was needed. I’ll just do a fresh install and hopefully everything should be ok. Thanks for the input. +1 rep


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@Raidriar one last thing. Do I need to change back to mbr to work on legacy or can I keep it as gpt?


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my advice for fresh install:
1. Use windows 7, because windows 8.1 and 10 are cancer
2. download the wifi driver first, save it to a USB flash drive. for example, the wifi in my alienware 18 is the intel 7260, so I download that driver and keep it on hand offline.
3. Download slimdriver, let that one install all the updated drivers. it works really well.
4. Go to dell website, find and download the OSD and alienware command center, as well as the free fall sensor driver
5. download latest nvidia driver, install this last, after the chipset drivers are all installed.

use legacy and don't bother with GPT.

 

Ok pal thanks.


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Install 1 980M, the master.
Get the driver installed tested and running.

once it's running as single card setup, then add the second card, do everything you had to do to install the first card, again.

Don't remove the driver before installing the next.

Should trigger SLI and work.

This is how we had to do it on the M18X-R2.

There is a system bios for AW18 that if you have the right vbioses, you can install them in one go.
If not, I always recommend doing it like this, to be thorough.

 

windows 7 should not work with SLI, not any driver past 344.xx or something from 2-3 years ago.
so avoid windows 7 and 8.

 

I’m just in the process of a fresh install of windows 10.


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Modifying the vbios yourself can void warranty, you shouldn't have to mod it if you purchased it from someone who supports you, as an example, all cards from me and EUROCOM are always flashed to the proper vbios before even leaving the factory or being packaged.
We do this so you do not have to tamper with that stuff, because there is always inherit risk and waste of time in flashing it yourself.

Anyways DELL does have support for AW18 and 980M.

That's all contrary to better performance and better security though. (being on windows 7)

 

Nope and Nope. Windows 10 saps extra CPU cycles that it doesn't need, security on 7 is the same as 10, if not better, since there are no intrusive ads or background keyloggers. The only reason to ever change to windows 10 is if MS stops security patches for 7 (which they haven't) or if somebody needs DX12 support (complete joke, vulkan easily closes this gap on Windows 7)

Also wrong. M18x and Alienware 18 work just fine in SLI with the latest nvidia driver. M18x R2 just needs an extra hard power cycle, Alienware 18 needs nothing.

Nowhere in this thread is it stated he bought the card from you or Eurocom, but I suppose it's possible. He hasn't commented either way.

Completely unnecessary. You can do everything from scratch on both the Alienware 18 and M18x R2 with both cards initially installed.

 

Pretty sure he told me he bought the card from @woodzstack and when he was talking bout windows 7 I think he meant better performance/security in windows 7 not 10.

 

I purchased the cards from CEG. My bios is the A12 unlocked. Going to revert back to the standard bios. Couldn’t at the moment as my battery does not hold any charge and when I try running the bios setup I get a pop up window that says my battery needs to be at least 10% charged before the process can start. So ordered a replacement.

So far I’ve done a clean install. Gone back to legacy mode. Installed majority of updates. Initially when I did a fresh install the first thing I checked was device manager and as before there was about 6 unknown devices still showing up. Started installing drivers and now I only have 2 showing up which have to be the cards. Cards are definitely seated properly because otherwise when you plug them in and push them down to screw in there’s a cut at both sides of card where if they wasn’t pushed in all the way they wouldn’t be able to go down and be screwed in. The cards were brand new. CEG sent me the original Alienware 18 980m sli bios which i had to execute once the cards were installed and the cards would be flashed.

Waiting for battery to be delivered in next few days so will revert back to standard A12 and finish all driver updates and then try flashing with dells AW18 980m bios.

Will keep you guys updated.


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Standard bios won't help u

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I haven’t really got a choice. I’ve got to try everything. Got lots of drivers to finish downloading today so will give it a go later.


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Anyone know if I can try flashing GPU bios in DOS?


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Right installed all drivers. Gone into device manager and under display drivers I just get the intel he showing, but now there is no unknown devices showing. Everything’s up to date.


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Anyone think a bios reflash is a good idea just to see it it somehow recognised the 2 cards?


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if your intel GPU is showing up then you are either in SG mode or IGFX mode, you need to be in PEG mode in the BIOS. Reflashing will not help and at this point either your 980Ms are flaky or your Alienware 18 board has a problem.

 

you can

 

this is probably because you are in iGPU Mode

 

Just took out 980’s to put my 770’s back in and now on startup I’m getting black screen and 30 beeps at first, then 8 beeps pause 8 beeps continuously.


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At this point, you've probably damaged something on either your GPUs or your motherboard.

 

Removed cmos held power button 30’secs, switched on and got 5 beeps. Then did ram hot swap and it booted up. Went into bios and for some reason it went into raid, so changed to ahci. Booted and windows came up. Downloaded and installed drivers for my 770m and now going to install 980’s again.


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go to device manager, rightclick one of your GTX 980M, send a screen of your hardware ID.

 

Just thinking out loud, is there a chance you were sold g-sync 980Ms....because those won't work in the M18x or Alienware 18 in SLI, G-sync 980Ms require G-sync panels and the best you can do is use one g sync 980M in SG/optimus mode.

 

That’s the thing nothing shows up. It used to say unknown device. But now it doesn’t. The xbracket posts are a little in the small side and I’m struggling to screw it down. Don’t want to put pressure on dye in case it cracks. So used xbracket off my 770’s and one of the posts ended up coming out... what a carry on. So I’ve left for today, stressing myself out.


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I don’t think a reputable seller like CEG wouldn’t know the difference between a g-sync and non g-sync. I told him what laptop it was for.


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I’ve just confirmed with CEG to be on the safe side and he said 100% they are not g-sync. Maybe it’s doing it because there’s no bios currently on the cards. As soon as I installed my 770’s back in they was showing in bios. Installed drivers and they are good so that’s the only thing I can think of.


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Once you return back to the AW, go to device manager and post the hardware ID of both cards.

 

The 980m’s don’t show up in device manager. But if you mean the 770m’s I can do that they are both in now and laptop runs just fine.


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I've never heard of a card sold blank without a vBIOS. If thats the case they would have never showed up in device manager or the BIOS because there is nothing to control the HW I/O. I've even had corrupt vBIOS cards come up in BIOS recognition.

 

That’s what he did he sent me 2 blanks and emailed me the dell vbios to flash them once installed. That’s why I’ve been trying to flash them once their installed in my laptop to no avail. Any ideas of what’s the best route to take?


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Sort of an SPI programmer.....no. One thing you can do is to boot in SG mode and use a DOS USB environment and get a dos version of nvflash and write the dell vBIOS to the appropriate cards (there is a master and slave vBIOS, make sure you write the master vbIOS to device 0 (or may be 1 if you have iGPU enabled), and slave bios to 1 (or 2, if iGPU is showing up as device 0)

 

I’m not familiar with this sort of stuff. So a lot of what you said just went through one ear and out the other. Didn’t make any sense to me. I’ve asked CEG if I can send him the cards back so he can flash them.


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They are either under video as microsoft display driver or something, or they are the 2 unknown devices you have, either way just post the hardware ID of the unknown devices or if u dont microsoft display driverthen those.

 

They was coming up as unknown devices yesterday. But then I did a fresh install of windows. Now nothing shows up even when they was installed.


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What about display adapters? Do you find any Microsoft Basic Display Adapter under display adapter or display?

 

Just used to come up with intels igpu. But now I have the 770m’s back in.


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That's what I'm looking for. Next time when you put the GTX 980M in and get those display adapter/s then post the hardware ID of that one/s.

 

Why is there a way to flash them, just curious. Save me sending them back to Germany.


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It's best to provide information to those trying to help you.

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Danish? We have talked over pm.


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This is what Hardcorecustom has told me.

“The graphics cards of you have a factory VBIOS, so the cards in your Alienware 18 run.

With the DELL VBIOS is only optimized
The original DELL VBIOS can only be reflashed in an Alienware18.

First you have to flash the original A12 Bios on your Alienware 18.”


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told you.

 

Yes I know. Well I’ll do what you said tonight and hopefully we should make some progress.


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