Aw m18x R2 Dual 980m SLI upgrade!!

Your spikes are way off the chart... As Mr. Fox said the Compal EC does cause huge spiking...But I've tried all methods on Compal & Dell EC settings with HWInfo + MSI AB (On a side note, this causes spikes in Optimus mode, had to use this coz HWInfo won't report reltime values with optimus crap on), but the latency won't get below 500us on Win8.

Spoiler: Use this setting

More over the DPC latency checker webpage states that piece of software doesn't support Win8+ properly, So better use the one that Mr. Fox posted (LatencyMon).

Spoiler

 

Can't say I recall any crashes of that kind before the modded vbios, it is just an odd problem to have usually if something is messed up you will get crashes when you start games.... can you finish any benchmarks with SLI enabled and are both cards definitely working while in game?

 

Juang, your laptop is starting to sound like it belongs in the 5th Dimension with all the problems you're having! Have you thought about starting from a clean slate, and reinstalling Windows or restoring from a known clean image, and then you could go about replacing the cards, etc - might bring it back to our 4 dimensions!?

 

Thanks for the help it was HWInfo64 but I can not fix the issue with that program running :/ I've never had this problem before.

Do you mind to share your HWInfo settings with me? Or at least the settings pages?
Thank you.

PS: Regarding the vbios, sorry because if we are going faster is not because of Prema's work. it is my system or being more specific my cards are not working as they should (I am talking with Eurocom for warranty replacement) so sorry for that. :/


EDIT: (The best I can it working is by setting polling rate to very high number but still happening sometimes)


EDIT 2:

This program seem to report everthing is working just fine after tunning some options in HWInfo

 

From your adjustments the rate of spiking has been reduced significantly, I guess you had disabled the Compal EC (which offers more RPM tables for fan control on AW17 and AW18's but trade-off is high latency causing issues, though the M18x R2 does have a better fan table than the older ones...so no sacrifice with RPMs), the rest of the spikes might be because you didn't disable the Dell EC monitoring in HWInfo, that feature shows the RPM speed and temps, which is not quite an essential over the latency...

Spoiler: HWInfo Snapshot

My settings are no EC support, so no Compal EC DPC spikes, Plus that SW SMI check means Dell EC which is better and disabled that monitoring.

 

My settings:

 

Although the CPU will have some effect, here is a down-and-dirty comparison of 780M SLI vs 980M SLI for the fans of this franchise (which I am not, but I like the benchmark).

Alienware M18xR2 - 3920XM | GTX 780M SLI	Clevo P570WM - 4930K | GTX 980M SLI

 

@kenny27 Yeah i think its probably some kinda driver conflicting with the machine. I will try to reinstall the OS and run it on windows 8 instead of 8.1 see how that goes.
and yes Kenny i have played crysis for 2 hours straight and super high frames persecond on high settings... everything runs flawless untill i exit the game.

I exit the game, i see my desktop and 2 seconds later it freezes, some times i get an nvidia driver has stopped responding and sometimes the laptop restarts by itself.

what are your thoughts?

 

@Robbo99999 LOL actually, it was a bit of a nightmare for me to upgrade to the 980ms SLI but now actually my only problem is the crashing. everything else runs flawless. Like i mentioned even gaming on 980m sli is super sweet, the problem is when i Exit the game 1 or 2 seconds leter on my desktop it freezes and sometimes restarts on its on sometimes i gotta hard restarted myself. so strange.

 

Do you mind posting some pictures of your temps while running 3DMark 11 in loop mode or valley benchmark for a short time? Also where are you from because here in Madrid (Spain) it is veeery hot this last week and the hot keeps going on during this week too

 

Make it crash on purpose, then look for the button for "Details" to open it up, then copy and paste the crash details here. If you do not have the latest .NET Framework and all of the C++ and VS libraries, or if any of them are corrupted, it can cause game crashing, including when exiting the game. Need more info to work with that what we have here. You might find crash details in Event Viewer as well. Also, be sure to install the DX 9.0c runtime update if you haven't already.

 

belive it or not, I dont have any benchmark programs. is there a free one i can try for you?
I did checked the memory temps on hwinfo64 and they were nowhere near as high as urs after playing crysis 3 for 1 hr. U must have not installed the thermal pads correctly.

 

That would annoy the hell out of me if my laptop did that each time or occasionally after exiting a game. It just sounds like a weird problem, so I was thinking a cleanly installed or an install from a known good image could sort out your problem or at least rule out an OS issue.

 

Mr Fox,
Thanks for the response, Hopefully we can figure this out, My system is finally working good would hate to have this little bug spoil the party.
I will go in to event viewer tonight and upload the details to you guys here.

 

that's not a bad idea. that's going to be my last resource. Gonna try to figure this out with @Mr. Fox 's help. Gonna get some crash details and post screenshot here.

 

In addition to posting the crash details...
Download and install this (yes, for Windows 8.1): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109
Download and install the latest .NET framework package if you haven't already: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42335
Also confirm Windows 8.X setup installed its own .NET packages (see below). If the boxes are not selected, select them and let Windows do its thing.

Make sure all of the x86 and x64 Visual C++ libraries are installed (see below)


Are you running Windows 8.1 Update 1, or just Windows 8.1?

You can also generally find DirectX, .NET and Visual C++ installers included with games. You can browse to those Steam and Origin folders and run them manually rather than going online and downloading them.

 

I Cleaned installed windows 8 Then download the update for windows 8.1 at the moment there are no other new updates available the last time I checked.
I will download and install all of the above then get back to you guys with the details. Thanks again @Mr. Fox @kenny27 for the help much appreciated.

 

Sometimes going through 8 > 8.1 > 8.1.1 is not a very smooth process. Best to download an 8.1 ISO and use that for a clean install as a starting point if you can. If you end up having to do a clean OS install, I would recommend doing it that way instead of starting with Windows 8.

If Update 1 has not already applied, it might be helpful to read this thread: Windows 8.1 Update 1: Having issues with it on your Alienware?

 

If I end up doing the clean install, Ill find an 8.1 ISO and install that. It makes sense to just install a clean version of 8.1. I think i played a game real quick on windows 8 before the 8.1 update and didn't experience the crash, But gotta say I Didnt test it enough for me to be sure about it.

 

Where can I find a clean 8.1 iso?
I got my own genuine cdkey

 

Sorry I don't know much, but can't we slipstream the Update 1 into 8.1 ISO avoiding the complications...?
lifehacker

 

I think there is a link in that thread I gave you (in the post that you quoted).

Probably so. I've never done it before.

 

@Juang1985 if you are comfortable & wanna try something new get the Update 1 Slipstreamed into Win8.1 installation media...

So it's this way...
nLite- Win XP & 7
RT Se7en - Win7
WinReducer - Win8 and up.

I'll just end my point here..don't wanna let this thread go OT...

 

I think there are even some ISO out there with the work already done. If I am not mistake, MDL has some.

 

I couldn't find the link. I found your post saying you downloaded iso for 8.1 with update 1 and it work great for your aeroglass but i did not see any links of where you got it from.

 

I will send you a PM.

 

PM sent...

Look at the information and link in this post also: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...d-discussions-here.735333/page-7#post-9607303

This guy (Philip Yip, aka natakuc4) is really sharp: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/software-os/f/3524/p/19580562/20623632#20623632

 

Okay here is the screenshot of whats going on

 

Here is another shot. After a fresh install of windows 8.1 it still happening. now im really thinking is a hardware issue, but so strange that while gaming everything works fine. only when I exit the damn game. this is frustrating me.

 

Okay I want to try flashing my Vbios. Now, I am a total noob at this and I would need help from you guys. But I need help like DUMMY prove instructions for me. I remember slv7 released some instructions that I still have with me but that was via bootable flashdrive
this new nvflash is thru windows and I have no idea on how to use it. I also wanna back up my original Vbios incase I need to return one of the cards that could possibly be bad.

hopefully someone can give me step by step instructions on how to flash my 980ms I ready have the Nvflash and the vbios rom file

Thank you for your patients ** I have only flashed one card before

 

Extract the contents of the RAR file from @Prema and everything you need will be in that folder, assuming you follow the instructions on his web page and download things for the Alienware system. He made it really easy. Double-click the ModMe.bat and when it is finished do the same with ModMe2.bat. I prefer to disable both GPUs in Device Manager before starting. If you have the new version of NVFLASH it is not supposed to be required, but I like doing it anyway. After flashing, reboot and you're all set.

 

@Juang1985
The reason I asked if you knew both cards were working is because good fps doesn't necessarily mean sli is working, unless your are getting much better fps with sli enabled...

A google search of "Microsoft Windows Kernel Power 41" suggests that the event message you have got here is just a generic message for when your computer was not shutdown cleanly.
Solutions ranged from replacing power supplies, disabling conflicting drivers (audio drivers in particular), making sure your power cord is plugged in properly, changing sleep and power setting to be more conservative settings (by conservative I mean use more power/sleep and hibernate less), re-installing windows, disabling windows automatic updates etc etc.
This thread had a lot of info on it, to many options for me to post here would be worth reading though and double checking all the easy stuff.

To the flash the cards:
Your screenshot shows the NVFlash_Certs_Bypassed.... folder with the CLEVO_8GB_GTX980M_OC_PM_v1.1.rar file you will need to extract this archive with 7-Zip in order to access the vbios which is a .rom file, once you have extracted the files copy the Modme.bat, Modme2.bat and 980MPMOC.rom files into the NVFlash Directory.
Now Uninstall your Nvidia drivers and reboot the system.
Go into device manager and disable both 980m cards.
Hit the windows key and type: cmd, right click on the command prompt and run as administrator
Use the command "cd"to navigate to the NVFlash folder for example I would type in:"cd C:\Users\Kenneth\Downloads\NVFlash_Certs_Bypassed_v5-218-0-1_x64"
Now you can use the commands that svl7 uses in his nvflash guide to save a copy of your vbios ("nvflash -b <romname>.rom") (Note: replace "<romname>" with what ever you want to call the rom/vbios)
You can continue using the commands to flash the cards ("nvflash -i 0 -6 <romname>.rom" to flash card 1 and "nvflash -i 1 -6 <romname>.rom" to flash card 2) or you can:
Exit the command prompt and then run modme.bat and modme2.bat (no need to restart in between flashing each card) answering y when asked (Note: the modme.bat files use the name that Prema has given the vbios which is 980MPMOC.rom so just make sure that the vbios you want to flash is called this or use the comand prompt and your own file name to flash the cards)
Enable both cards in device manager, reboot and install drivers as per usual

I think that is all......

Edit: @Mr. Fox beat me

 

@Mr. Fox @kenny27 Thanks guys for the help and patience with this NooB the instructions s given seem pretty straight forward and i will try it again tonight when i get home.
@kenny27 I know SLI is working properly for a few reasons. First the performance, i have tried disabling SLI and i can see my frames in battlefield 4 around 60-80 FPS and when i enable SLI is 120-100 FPS. Also I have msi OSD information while gaming and i can see both cards are working and both getting hot. top temperature is 76c on one cards and 75c on the other one.

performance is much much better with sli. FYI this crash doesn't happen with SLI DISABLE. only happens with SLI enable.

I wanna flash my cards, because I read someone having similar issues and he flashed cards and fixed the issue, now this is a desktop user so is probably irrelevant to my problem but at least it gave me hope

Look at the end, he says how he fixed the error

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1965518/crashes-exiting-game.html

 

Hey Guys,

I got my cards in! but I don't have the secondary heatsink or the sli cable Anyway I of course couldn't wait and I installed the first one. I'm still installing some updates and stuff. But I don't see the 980 in my device manager. I have disabled the driver enforcement and I tried to install the custom drivers but I don't know how to run the nv_dispi file. Those are my problems so far... It's really late over here so I'll be going to bed soon but if anyone could get me some clues that would be awesome!

Thanks!

 

If you see Intel HD Graphics showing in Device Manager you will not be able to see the 980M unless you switch to discrete GPU. Look in the BIOS and see which one is active if you're not sure.

If the drivers are not installed, it won't be called a GTX 980M in Device Manager. It will have a generic name... something like "Microsoft Display Adapter" or whatever Windows 8 calls it when it doesn't know how to identify it without drivers.

 

@ALL v352.86 >TDRs< stock clocks all games & benchmarks, desktop identical issues...another hotfix soon. DDU in safe mode, reinstall v350.12 .Don't update GeForce Experience to v2.4.4.24 >TDRs<, _v2.4.3.22 uncheck "beta" option.

Single & SLI, I've included v352.86 game profiles "Witcher 3: Wild Hunt" M18xR2/SLI users feedback please.

• Disable driver signing
• GeForce 350.12 MOD (PEG) AW/900M Stock Throttling Removed (P1 switching)
• Display.Driver folder (v350.12) -> copy/overwrite nvdrsdb.bi_
• Clean install option
  
  
  nvdrsdb_v352.86.zip

- - - Updated - - -


*PEG* Win7 - UEFI/CSM... NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3940XM,Alienware M17xR4

 

Very nice 3DMark 11 run.

Question: how to add the new profiles to new driver or existing installation? I know you posted this before, but I cannot locate your instructions. Unzipping the file to an older driver setup folder, say 345.20 for example, installation process fails even with DSE disabled.

I tried putting it in my 350.12 setup folder in the Clevo with 980M and driver installation fails even with 350.12. Is there something in the INF mod that is needed to add the newer profiles even though the file name is unchanged? If I put back the original file the driver installs file. Not sure why it fails with the newer nvdrsdb.bin_ file.

Can we unzip, rename and overwrite profile files on driver already installed? If so, do we name it with "0" or "1" .bin?
There are two files in the C:\ProgramData\NVIDIA Corporation\Drs folder.

 

@j95 - your 350.12 mod for Alienware works fine on my Clevo with 980M SLI.

For GTX 780M SLI, this driver and the new Witcher 3 driver are garbage. It even throttles with no GPU overclocking, even using your mod. (Not using your mod it only throttles when overclocked, not when stock).

345.20 DT CUDA Mod... excellent driver... no drama


Time to do more screaming at the losers working for the Jolly Green Giant... LINK

 

First try installing v350.12 + nvdrsdb.bi_v352.86, delete all the other folders. Optionally Install GFE standalone installer v2.4.3.22



Second option, Install v352.86 backup C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\Drs nvdrsdb.bin & C:\ProgramData\NVIDIA Corporation\Drs\ nvdrsdb0.bin & nvdrsdb1.bin

Reinstall v350.12, close installer dialog , overwrite all 3 nvdrsdb.bin, reboot.

ProgramData nvdrsdb0.bin / nvdrsdb1.bin should read "DVSReal r349_00 350.12 DVS-Applications"

Program Files nvdrsdb.bin "Official r352_72 352.86 DVS-Applications"



If it still doesn't work, copy nvdrsdb.bin ( C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\Drs) and then delete nvdrsdb0.bin & nvdrsdb1.bin (ProgramData), reboot.

Lastly, v350.12 installed. Try these.

 

Okay Guys im trying to back up my stock vbios and nvflash doesn't do anything

 

Okay so I manage to get past that screen
nvflash --save 980mstock.rom and it says invalid extension. im I doing something wrong? trying to save the vbios of my cards it says invalid extension but I am putting the .rom

 

Try specifying a file name with 8 charaters, from memory that was a limit in dos might be the same here as well

 

I tried just stock.rom and it didn't work

 

Try telling it which GPU so it knows what you are asking it to do. Add -i0 or -i1 and drop the "b" in the command. You are confusing NVFLASH by entering conflicting instructions. You use one dash "-" for short commands (such as -b) and double-dash "--" (such as --save) for word instructions.

Code:

nvflash -i0 --save OEM980M.ROM
-or-
nvflash -i0 -b OEM980M.ROM

 

it looks like nvflash -i0 --save OEM980m.rom is not a good command. or maybe not recognized

 

Hmm... just worked perfect for me. See screen shot. Try -b instead of --save. Both accomplish the same thing.

It also looks like you are using the wrong version of NVFLASH in that screen shot. I've attached the one I am using. Try that one. Unzip it, open an administrator command prompt and try typing the same command as before.



Using -b instead of --save...

 

ok I just restarted my pc and I manage to saved the vbios on both cards. now when I try to flash the vbios is not doing anything.
check this out

 

Use the version of NVFLASH I just gave you, or try disabling both GPUs in Device Manager before flashing. If the GPUs are not disabled first it's going to be a problem with the older version of NVFLASH. It appears you did not download the UEFI-friendly version of NVFLASH from Prema's instructions.

Open Task Manager and kill the instance of NVFLASH on your screen if it is stuck there and doing nothing. If you just let it sit there for several hours there is a chance it might do something, but I don't think you're wanting to wait that long, LOL.

Put the @Prema vBIOS ROM file and ModMe batch files in the folder you unzip. Run the batch files one at a time. After both GPUs are successfully flashed, re-enable the GPUs in Device Manager and reboot to re-load the new vBIOS firmware.

 

Okay I think I got it!!!! Can some you guys confirm this is the correct modded vbios version?

here is a screenshot of gpuz

 

Yay! I knew you could do it! Yes, it looks like the right version number in GPU-Z. If your voltage slider is totally unlocked and the +135 core offset limit is removed, then you're all set.