***M18x - NVIDIA SLI (Driver Questions, Performance, Problems) Discussion Thread***

Thank you. I guess I will have to see what dell comes up as a solution... I just love waiting so long to get things fixed...

 

Hey,

Just wondering if this is normal :

Imageshack - 83105654.jpg

I am running dell stock VBIOS after trying some tweaked VBIOS for benchmarking

for card 1, the voltage is showing 0.92 but its showing 0.87 in the overclock window !

Is this normal ?? isn't it supposed to be 0.87 MAX on the sock VBIOS ?!

Thanks

 

That is a fault of Nvidia's newer drivers. No problem there hsvadm. A good way to confirm would be to use hwmonitor to look at voltages.

 

Exactly. I had the same thing. +rep littleone!

 

Hi, I just recieved my R2 with 680M SLI and I'm looking for all the best drivers for the laptop:

Which are the best drivers at the moment for the GTX 680M SLI?

Thank you! As soon as I get all installed I'll post some benches

have a nice day ppl

 

Best drivers as of now for 680M are the 302.77 from laptopvideo2go.com or the driver download page from the m17x r4 on dell's website. They are OEM dell drivers and do not need to be modded.

 

Just in case anyone in here can help.

I have the 680M in SLI, I did a clean install and installed the drivers. When I run games with SLI enabled, as soon as it opens I get a red screen, occasionally solid, occasionally flickering. I can alt+tab out of it but it won't run the game. I can hear the games sound in the background if it makes a difference.

When I disable the SLI and run a single card it runs perfectly fine. If anyone has any advice I would be more than grateful.

I've tried changing the driver to both the most recent one and also the beta and it didn't help.

As a possibly relevant side note, when I tried to update the BIOS it says the update from dell isn't compatable?!

 

I had the same problem where I had to disable the SLi, but had a purple haze color instead of the red.
The problem was corrected when a technician noticed the SLi cable was loose on the right side GPU of the laptop.
Once he re-seated the SLi cable, the problem was gone and I am now playing full-time SLi.

Hope this helps.

 

as the title says what are the best performing drivers!
thanks in advanced, and links would be great also

 

Your always welcome to use Dell's

Dell GTX 680M

 

Hey compay Pablo, What Happen Wiith The 680M Any Clue,Clue?

 

Sometimes people don't see what is directly under their nose. The best driver is the one that works best, and that is sometimes not the newest one.

If I were a betting man, I would bet that it's only a problem with supply and demand. You cannot offer something for sale if you don't have it available to sell.

 

NVIDIA suspended operations of the NVIDIA Forums (forums.nvidia.com)

 

They did so for a valid reason...

 

http://us.download.nvidia.com/openg...ok_win8_winvista_win7_64bit_international.exe

305.67 Mobile driver .

 

anyone confirmed using these drivers yet?

i cant find them on nvidia.com

 

I have them installed

 

report back with performance gains?

 

Hey there fellow cunuck , ny luck with the new drivers?

 

They're about the same for me but I'm on 675s not 680s.

 

Ok. Thanks for the reply.


These cards can overclock very well IMO. That i would share this pic.

 

how did you manage to overclock them.

 

Spoiler

View attachment 82586

I used a moded vbios and then used msi afterburner.

 

Oooh! can i haz bios?

 

Maybe Postal Painmaker will post a link to it here for you.

 

Nvidia 'Kepler' GPUs - modified VBIOS files

Svl7 did a great job on this v-bios. Credit goes to him.

 

what did you use to update the bios and did you disable SLI before the update.

 

I used nvflash from windows. I didn't remove drivers or disable sli before flash. Just flash each card and reboot. Good to go.

 

Hey Postal looks like you have quite the beast.

I was successful in saving my current vbios for both my cards for backups.

Would you mind posting the exact command you used to write the modded vbios to your cards? Since you were successful

I would and probably others would appreciate it.

Thanks dude.

 

i cannot figure out how to use nvflash, and i dont wanna just mess around and brick something, so i'm gonna pass until someone can give me some step by steps that are pretty clear.

 

When I get home from work today I will post what command I used to nvflash to upgrade my cards.

You need the latest version on nvflash - http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2133/NVFlash_5.118_for_Windows.html

First thing you want to do is backup you current vbios from the cards, I believe i used command: ( I forgot this part as I was writing it so the next paragraph was first explaining that nvflash uses windows cmd to do everything.

nvflash --save m18xvbios.rom (m18xvbios.rom is what ever you want to name it but it has to have .rom at the end)

This version is meant to be ran through windows - open start menu and type "cmd" in the search field. Click on CMD when it finds it. From here hpoefully you know how to use the CMD but you would navigate to the NVFLASH folder. This is where you want to have the modded vbios for the cards Downloads

So again when I get home I will post the command I used and I haven't had any problems with my cards and I was able to OC it pretty good.

 

thanks i'll be waiting! also is there a bios that is a overclock and allows for even more OC through Msi Afterburner?

 

Not sure if I know exactly what you mean, but this modded vbios for the 680m will allow you to OC it with tools such as MSI Afterburner, nvidiainspecter, precision x, and even through the nvidia control panel if you have the nvidia tools installed (forget the actual name).

Here is the command I used when flashing my card -

nvflash -5 -6 yourbios.rom OR
vnflash -f -5 -6 yourbios.rom

yourbios.rom" being the modded bios you would have downloaded. When I did that I received a message saying something like ID mismatch and it still gives you the option to flash. I think it's an ID mismatch because these cards are still too new and haven't made it into their code.

Make sure you save your originals first (nvflash --save ********.ROM

Also like Postal mentioned as well, I didn't uninstall drivers and I also left it in SLI. When your flashing it will flash 1 card and when that is finished it will ask the same thing for the second card. Reboot after your done and reinstall the drivers just incase.

 

everytime i try to use c:\nvflash in CMD logged in as admin and granting it admin right before opening, it gives me the error....

is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

 

have you tried the usb boot version?

 

i got it working, with some help, i just wasn't using the right commands, i'm not very savvy with dos...
i take that back... I've used dos maybe 3 times in my life, thats how bad i am.

 

Are there finally official 680M SLI drivers out??
Is there an official VBios so far??
Are the cards still throttled ex plant ??
If yes what is to do to unlock them and how risky is it??

Many thanks

 

Could anyone tell me how I can test my RAM clock speed ? GPU-Z freezes and the Crucial website
tells me I have 204-pin SODIMM, DDR3 PC3-12800 which doesn't actually confirm my clock speed...?

 

GPU-Z or CPU-Z? If that is not a typo, try the latter utility instead.

 

You're right!! Here I was thinking and cringing that I'd need to be fiddling around freezing with GPU-Z.
CPU-Z has done the trick!
Thanks again champ!

Rep +1

Lol! You were my last Rep +1 and NBR won't let me
I'll will have to wait a little.

 

I'm going to be upgrading my current 560 cards to the 580's...can I use the same SLI cable?

 

Yes, you sure can.

 

have you guys ever tried to flash your 580m card to 675m in the M18x-R1?

this link bellow is from alienware m17x-r3 forum which most of the user flashed their 580m to 675m
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/656685-guide-flash-your-gtx-580m-gtx-675m-r3.html

I am using Nvidia 580m running SLI in it
thanks ahead

 

For purposes other than lying to yourself, or trying to deceive others, this endeavor is pointless. All you're doing is changing the name of the GPU. You can do that with a driver tweak, too.

I moved this into our NVIDIA thread, since a thread dedicated to this subject is not necessary.

Spoiler

 

I have posted an update to my earlier post regarding the back brackets "shorting" against the GPU's PCB. There are new revised brackets available.

 

Thank you so much, Brother Zer0WaitState. Your post is now a thread all its own. Should help improve Google ranking for people searching for solutions on the web. +1 Rep.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...gtx-580m-error-code-43-revision-ff-error.html

 

Your welcome Brother Fox... it's all about "community" here on the forums. Glad to help out.

 

Hello all!!!

Ok So I intially had an M17x for around a year and some bad things happened so Alienware upgraded me to an M18x around christmas of last year! It has been great, although I have been playing games on and off. Not quite as often as I thought. But regardless I have been having some problems recently while playing games. It runs flawlessly for around 10 minutes(Think 60+ FPS on Skyrim) and then CRAWLS for around 4-5 minutes before starting back up again, and then crawling for another 4 to 5 minutes(think 3-6 FPS). It has become so annoying that I went back and cleaned out all the crap on my PC, uninstalled games and almost started from scratch. That still didnt help. Im kind at a loss for what could be causing this. Is it an over heating issue? I never noticed the laptop running INSANELY warm, or having any problems. Plus I keep it elevated so the vents are not covered. And its only been happening with games. No problems with movies, flash games or anything super CPU intensive. I figured with 4 gigs of ram and 2 580's running in SLI, that it could handle something like skyrim without a problem...And like I said, it runs AMAZINGLY for the first 10 minutes or so...


Specs:


Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20GHz, 2201 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Alienware A04, 10/7/2011
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
Adapter Description NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M running in SLI

 

Use a program like hwmonitor to see max temps on the gpu's while gaming. Throttle starts at 89-90 degrees celsius for those cards.

 

Is there a way to disengage the throttle or a better way to cool it down?



I also found it odd that it only started doing this within the last couple month. I played Skyrim around the time it was released and had NO problems then.