GTX 780m SLI problems [Fixed]

Hello World !

I just got my new Alienware m18 today, and i am really happy with this product (compared to the BEAST M17X-R2) except for the crappy software as always, i was thinking with Nvidia is better than ATI/AMD but no ! same again !
Any way, so my config is 16Gb ram, i7-4800 2.9 Ghz overclock-able to 3.9 Ghz, SLI GTX 780m 4Gb, and 128 m4 SSD and 2 HDD. I installed BF3 to test the SLI, first with the stock driver 311 (i think) i was getting around 100 FPS Ultra setting, depends on the maps, but the fps seemed a bit not stable, i though why not update the driver since the new ones offer better performance and then BOOM ! On SLI activated i am having 30-40 fps ! and it drops to 10 !

I used driver sweeper to clean and make a new install but still the same problem ! i also used 319, 320, 326 (some of the version with modded INF) drivers again, the same problems, any advice or tips would be much appreciated.
What is the best driver, most stable ?

 

Keep the stock DELL drivers until proper updates are made.

 

Thank you mate for the reply, I can't, i did a stock recovery (using AlienRespawn) and still experiencing the same bad performance, i tried every thing i could but same situation, i am thinking that the driver flashed the vbios some how, because i can't go back to the initial performance even with a stock recovery ! BTW the driver I installed is form Nvidia website and it is not beta !

Any suggestion and help is much appreciated !

 

You have any tool that looks at HW info ? to see if both cards are detected. Also if clock speeds are normal and do not drop.

 

Thank you DH48, every thing is detected, SLI running no problems, i just noticed that the GPU usage is under 20% for both of them, even when i choose performance setting, the usage is still below 20%, i tested couple of games (BF3 and Black ops 2) still the same usage !

 

Some games perform a lot worse with SLI enabled. Not saying that's your problem though. You don't need more than 100 FPS anyways.

 

thank you Saint for the replay, yes some of them, but these 2 games have a year and a half since they came out, so they are well optimized for multi-GPU, just to confirm your saying i tried with SLI disabled, the GPU1 usage is still under 30%. BTW i used to play BF3 on my M17X-R2 with crossfire. I am thinking that when i updated the driver first time, it changed the vbios version, can you confirm what version you have since we both have the same config, vbios mine is: 80.04.AF.00.03. thank you for your help

 

GPU usage has always been low on BF3 and BO/BO2 because they are unfortunately poorly coded, and usually rather CPU heavy. Along with that, SLI isn't always a good thing, as mentioned.

Have you tried installing Intel XTU to boost your CPU a little bit higher, to see if that makes your FPS jump a bit?

 

Anyone getting really bad choking in online FPS play? I can't play online games and that was when I had a stock driver and Vbios. Something is causing online choking and I don't know what it is....

 

Do you have a Killer wireless card in your system?

 

Nope. The standard wireless setup. I will be returning my computer anyway, just having a very difficult time getting it facilitated with the right people. I already see the same system config I have for much cheaper on the AW website lol. This has been a very trying experience and I have had many experiences with AW!

 

sOUNDS LIKE YOUR STUCK IN 1.0 MODE INSTEAD OF GOING TO 3.0 WHEN the 3d acceleration starts..
down load gpu-z and run the render test... see if the cards go from a 2.0 state to 3.0 state.. and check both cards//the tab at the bottom will let you do that..
I had an issue like yours and 1 card wasn't coming out of the lower state affecting the performance.. a quick reseat of the cards cured this..

 

Thank you everyone for your help and suggestions; Hybrys you got it, when i monitored the CPU, the thing was running at 0.8 Ghz :O ! i have no idea how ! so i downloaded XTU and thank to Mr.Fox response to another post, i tweaked the the 4800qm, and now i am able to get close to 4.0 Ghz on turbo boost (temp 70° C max). All games, all of them are running Ultra setting at more than 60fps, some of them 200+ fps ! This thing is a sexy beast ! Thank you again everyone

 

800Mhz is the minimum CPU speed so yeah, that needed fixing lol.

 

I'm glad you're all fixed up! Happy to help.

 

Has anyone come up with a way to stop the throttling on the 780M?

 

The 780M vBIOS mod from svl7 should fix that for you.

 

Any idea where I can get this moddedvBIOS from please Mr. Fox?

I'd be forever in your debt!

Also, are there any guides to installing it?

Cheers!

 

Yes, check your PM for the info.

 

Any chance I could get this too please, a link to the posting where it is, I have the same new alienware 18 with SLI 780m..

 

NVIDIA Kepler VBIOS mods - Overclocking Editions, modified clocks, voltage tweaks

 

Thanks prankone.. +1 !

 

Nothing like a good unlocked vbios to get the juices flowing inside a gaming machine, have fun and watch those temps like a hawk.

 

i have the problema, that my secundary gtx 780m drops in clock speed then i experience a very bad performance, what can i do to solve this???

 

i HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM MY SECUNDARY CARD WORKING FINE AND SUDDENLY DROPS CLOCK SPEED, WHAT CAN I DO

 

I hope you don't have pre-rendered frames set to like - default or 1 only.. if your cards are soo fast, that they have no more work to do, they're not going to go past 20-30% etc.. gives them something more to do, let them render more frames per second, and bingo, smoother everything, they try to keep up as fast as they can, and when they get past 50% usage and stuff, they kick into the full performance mode too and use their full potential, thus you will get better performance. hope that helps. this is some old experience of mine. I manually set mine to like 8 with NVidia inspector.

remember - if the cards don't need to even clock fully to do the jhob, they just might not... you WANT to trip them into struggling and fighting for their lives.. make sure the textures are set to largest sizes in games, resolutions are highest, make sure pre-rendered frames is high, heck if your still over 60 and stuff, or its not clocking, try different modes of V-sync

another thing, sometimes, if the coltage is set high - it wont trip into a higher mode either, because it in a way does not need to, so careful what you, know what your doing when playing with voltage on the gpu's, but then again, we all had to learn from making mistakes. course hardware might have been cheaper back then to replace.

 

this advice helped me immensely.
was getting 120+ fps, then random drops to 50 or below with my 780m SLI / 4930MX setup. i had used a custom vBios to increase voltage and clock settings.
after reading this i downloaded nvidia inspector, changed my pre-rendered frames to "6", and then decreased my voltage back to stock as i didn't need a voltage increase for the amount i was oc'ing. runs smooth as silk now. 60fps constant with vysnc on, no drops and lower GPU temps.

thanks a ton.

 

That will introduce quite a bit of input lag.

 

really want to buy the alienware 18 with 780m sli but i saw many post over the internet reporting of problems with the sli, should i buy it or wait for the 880m version ?

 

You need to be specific, what sort of issues? SLI will usually have it's caveats regardless of generation.

 

Careful about what you read. You can't rely on a lot of it. I'd call that baloney. There are no particular issues with it. SLI and CrossFire problems are more accurately identified as symptoms that reflect a lack of talent and care on the part of game developers. Once you get a multi-GPU setup that performs correctly you may never want to own another single GPU computer again. What's not to love about a 60 to 100% performance increase compared to another machine with the same hardware base. The same kind of d-bags hate on Alienware and anything else that is awesome but falls outside of their budget.

 

I'm just smitten by the doubling of memory bandwidth from SLI/CFX which basically propels mobile VRAM to top-notch desktop territory.. Scaling has come a long way from when multi-GPU first came about too.

 

You get increases to read memory bandwidth (not double due to overheads) and a slight loss to memory write bandwidth (since both have to do identical writes in order to keep the data coherent and the associated overheads).

It's ok since they care more about read performance than write performance but it's incorrect to say you get double.

Also my Vram runs at 1750mhz (7ghz data rate or 224GB/sec) which is desktop territory by itself thank you very much

 

You can also always turn OFF SLI if it causes any problems in whatever you are playing...I agree that it's unlikely I'd ever get anything without dual GPUs (unless they stop making it of course)...

 

on bf4 ive had not one issue no matter what driver ive used... your frame rate drop is odd..

 

I know this is an old thread but I did a render test on my GTX780m SLI and got 1 that goes to 3.0 but stays longer on 2.0, while the second card mainly stays @ 1.1 and seldom 2.0 but never hit 3.0. Aside from opening up the laptop and re-seating it what else can I do to fix this issue? I am a new so please be gentle with the jargons

 

try reseating them and se what happens..

 

Will try that but first will watch video how to disassemble. What driver version are you using? and if re-seating does not work whats next?