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

you need both dashes.

The last part shows all 3 video cards active. On your's you only see either or and not all 3.

 

Oops, I lied. For some reason, my video settings reset to Auto, which isn't Ultra on all options. I could have swarn I was on Ultra last night when I was running that nice FPS. Now, on Ultra, I'm getting a whimpy 50-60 FPS again and with the changes I mentioned previously. So those of us with dual 580Ms are pretty much stuck at this crappy frame rate?

Also, I don't know if this is really much of a heating problem, but for the past few days, my GPU fans have been kicking on full blast just from surfing the web on sites such as this. I decided to view the temperatures right from when I start my system, and the temps for GPU 1 gradually go from 37 to 63 or so while nothing is running, and then the fans kick in to bring them back to the high 30s. I'm worried that these GPUs are going to crap out on me like the AMDs did on the M18X I had previously. Am I just overlooking things or might I be in trouble? I mean, the GPU fans shouldn't be kicking in to the max just from having a few web tabs open..

 

We already knew that...Just waiting on you to figure it out.

As to fans... Are you running them (gpus) on full time at full time clocks or are you running them in adaptive mode? And im pretty sure that is not even close to full blast.. . But to also note that with the new bios they have a better fan ratio profile going on. What kind of cpu do you have?

 

Well finding out that I wasn't on Ultra was quite the disappointment, but BF3 looks amazing even on High.

My GPUs are just on their default settings with the exception of the modification explained in the other thread regarding the throttle fix. As far as my CPU goes, I have an Intel Core i7 2760QM, so nothing too fancy, but it gets the job done. Is there really much else I can do as far as FPS goes while running BF 3 on Ultra? Or are future drivers the only real answer?

 

And a single gtx580 is doing about 65 fps while dual is doing 130 to 150.

Not sure what you can do to change your numbers, but im sure there is something.

 

Are you referring to the desktop models?

 

Yes.
desktop gtx580
mobile = gtx580 M

 

So how did you get all 3 cards active?

 

oops, wrong one...lol

wait a sec.

 

Ah, that must be why. That is most likely the problem. I did not use the index commands. I used the following commands...

For the primary card: nvflash -i0 -5 -6 ***.rom

For the second card: nvflash -i1 -5 -6 ***.rom

(replace *** with the file name)

...I have not tried the syntax John is recommending, but apparently either method (using "i" or "index) will work.

 

I never tried the i0 way myself.

 

John - how are you getting to view the 580M's in device manager when running on the IGP? Mine are not visible running on IGP. Is there a different setting in the unlocked A05 system BIOS that makes them visible at the same time as the IGP? This could come in very handy... much like resurrecting a dead AGP or PCIe video card from a bad vBIOS flash using a desktop computer and booting with an old PCI video card in a legacy PCI slot.

No, I didn't need to do this. Did not have to do anything different with drivers, in fact. Be sure your cards have P0 and P1 at their stock core/shader/memory clock speeds before flashing. If you have them bumped using nvidia inspector to stop the throttle, disable that first. That may somehow interfere with the flashing... not sure, but just a suggestion to rule it out.

 

Having a hard time trying to remember now. Had to do a few bios recovery flashes.

 

If you cannot remember, maybe we can compare screen shots of the display adapter settings in our BIOS settings to see what is different. The ability to do that could prove to be very valuable. When the M18x R1 is retired and replaced by an M18x R2 with newer GPUs, this could be handy in experimenting with unsupported MXM module upgrades and testing different vBIOS files to see what works.

 

Yep. That's why i did that, but now i forgot what i did..haha.

Ok, i figured it out.
You have to have all the drivers installed first. Meaning nvidia and intel graphics driver.
Once they are installed, then you change the boot video to SG. And it will boot showing all devices. You of course can't use them all at the same time.
And i would advise having a recovery flash drive handy just in case.

 

So if you boot using secure graphics before you flash, you can always boot the PC even if you do a bad flash on the graphics cards?

Can you still get into windows or do you need to use a bootable USB or CD?

 

From my testing, yes, but you have to have the drivers installed for both graphics. (hd/gtx)

 

Thats a great thing to know!!! I thought it just failed to post regardless. Perhaps it should be added to the flashing guides as a safeguard?

I'm gonna reboot now with SC enabled before I try reflashing my cards again

 

OK just rebooted in secure graphics mode and installed the driver, then rebooted again, but my NVIDIA GPUs aren't detected at all.

If I switch back to non SG mode, it detects my NVIDIA GPUs but not the Intel chipset.

how do you get it to detect both at once?

I tried flashing my nvidia GPUs while in SG mode and NVFlash says that no GPU is detected.

SO assuming you can only flash your GPUs when running in non SG mode, how do you then force the PC to boot in SG mode in the event of a bad flash? Is there a key you hold down while powering on or something? Even still, if you do a bad flash and have to boot in G mode, you still wouldn't be able to reflash the card because it's not detected in SG mode.

Looking forward to your answers John, it would seem you know something we dont!

 

You have to install the intel graphics driver first. Do it while your in intel graphics mode.
Once that is installed, then it should work.

Give me a few to test some things

 

Ahh perhaps you need to have the unlocked BIOS for it to work?

I'll have another play with it tomorrow, but For me when I boot into Integrated graphic mode, my nvidia cards aren't detected at all.

 

Im thinking you need the unlocked bios for that.

 

Yes, definitely need unlocked BIOS. I'm just not sure which setting to use.
With the standard BIOS, the IGP/GFX cards appear only individually, depending on which mode you booted.



Here are some screen shots... Brother John, do you see any differences in how your settings are?

Spoiler

Booting from discrete graphics (GFX)

Booting from Intel IGP (IGFX)

Interesting settings. I don't want to assume anything, but my guess is one of the last three screen shots enables IGP and GPX simultaneously. The "Muxless Dynamic" and "Muxless Fixed and Dynamic" settings really have me curious. I am apprehensive about changing anything and having the system not POST, then having to monkey around with resetting defaults.

 

Brother Fox:
Looking at your screen shots...It's going to be the last one on the left. You set that to SG. Then save and exit. But be forewarned. You need to have the intel and nvidia drivers installed or you wont get a screen. Then you would need to do a recovery flash to get back. Easy enough. Just put in a flash drive with the recovery file on it. Hold the end key while plugging the power back in. Let go of end key once fans turn on max. and just wait like 2 to 4 minutes and it will be back to normal.

 

Thanks, John. I have all the drivers installed, so that should not be an issue.

What is the "recovery file" you are referring to? Where can I find that?

 

Just make a copy of your unlocked bios file and rename it to PAR10X64.fd. (Meaning - copy the fd file to flash drive and rename it.)
And that's it. The system will do the rest. Just make sure it's in the root of the flash and not is some folder.

 

Cool. Thanks, bro. I hope I never need to know that, but if I do it will be priceless.

 

Yep. Thanks goes to Barcode for that one.

 

I just added a link to that post ( M18x BIOS Recovery Process) to the list of useful links in my signature. If you or barcode know of a post where that is in a step-by-step for noobs, please let me know and I'll link that post instead.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...overy-process-all-m18x-case-corrupt-bios.html

 

Perfect - thanks - updated signature links. Not sure how I missed that thread, LOL. I don't remember ever seeing it before. How strange is that?

 

Because you probably never thought you would need it..haha

 

Sandman - I moved your question to this thread by mistake at first and meant to move it here: M18x and Crysis 2 Crashes. (I responded on the other thread, bro.)

 

Hey folks, so my best friend (on my advice, and in jealousy of mine) just got his m18x with 580m SLI in it ... BUT ... its going back already. Apparently one of his 580s is 'shot' corrupt video memory or some such ?

In GPU-Z one card reads Revision A1 the other reads Revision FF

its weird, anyway most of the time his system wont boot up (gets artifacts during boot and crashes) So he has to boot with the IGP ...

Just saw another couple posts about this at other Forums that were recent and wondering if anyone else out there with a new unit is experiencing it ... I'd ask if there was a work around, but he is pretty adamant about getting a replacement ... don't really blame him since he is within his 21days ...

Thought I would toss it in the mix and see if its an isolated incident (I assured him that this kind of stuff does happen) or something worse that people should be aware of.

 

Shaden, that's not new, but it is not a common thing to my knowledge. There was at least one member of our forum that had that problem. I cannot remember which member, but he has posted in this forum and the Tech Inferno forum about that problem.

I've seen a couple of posts with similar issues on the AMD 6990M cards as well. If Dell is getting its MXM modules for AMD and NVIDIA from the same source, there may be an occasional glitch in their firmware flashing or an occasional faulty vBIOS chip that is causing this type of thing. Thank goodness it is not very common on either brand of display adapter.

Edit: just did a quick Google Search and found these posts... it was littleone562

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/609433-flashing-580m.html#post7891237 and http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/609433-flashing-580m-3.html#post7894473

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ons-related-crashing-issue-2.html#post7743518 (apparently not isolated to 580M) http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...crashes-discussion-thread-34.html#post7734639

 

The FF revision means the bracket on that card is causing it to short. Nothing is wrong with the card usually, mine was fixed easily by fixing the short.

 

Hey John, using your tweak (having both adapters showing at the same time) is it possible to swap without between igpu and discrete without reboot?

 

Thank you for the info. That's very good to know. Is it the bracket that the heat sink screws onto? If so, did you just remove that bracket and put something between it and the PCB, like electrical tape or something of that nature? Or, did Dell send you a new bracket with the 3M adhesive insulator attached?

 

No, You can not. And Louis explained this in detail to us on why.
Now if you ran one gpu, then technically it would be possible, but since they did not add the code for it....It's not. (speculation of course)

In his case, send it back. It's better that way.

 

I fixed mine by slightly stretching out the thermal pad on the underside bracket so it covered a spot which I thought was suspect.

 

Hi guys first of all happy new year:

I'm new to Nvidia and I have several questions I hope to see if it is possible that you can respond when you can, thanks.

I noticed that one of the two cards is warmer than the other and I notice on the left side of the keyboard, I wanted to know if that was normal.

I assume that is because one of the two graphics are disabled and therefore is cooler. At this point one of them is in 55 ° C and the other at 44 ° C.

Today I applied a little overclock to the graphics. I used the MSI afterburner for overclocking. Is it correct to use this program?

It increased about 1000 points in 3DMark 2011 (7000 points more or less). I applied the following values ​​(725/1450). This values come from this forum that I read they are acceptable without flashing VBIOS.

If I increase a bit more frequencies could it suffer some kind of problem?

On the other hand I did a clean install to install the SSD when installing video drivers I've used the latest drivers available into nvidia page.

Which drivers I will get the best results in battlefield 3?

Is there any type of CAP program from ATI that will improve SLI performance?

Should I change some kind of parameters on the control panel options from NVIDIA?

Thanks for your patience and your answers

 

My answers in Bold

 

Guys, I wonder if any of you could check something out for me or advise.

I have been closely monitoring how my new system is performing in all areas. One thing that I picked up on today was some odd fan activity - well, I thought it was a bit odd, but it could be perfectly normal - hence asking you guys to see if you experience the same, or have done already.

Basically, I left my system at the desktop, with IE9 open and 3 tabs. I came back maybe some 20 mins later and noticed that the left (primary) gpu fan was on high.

The system had auto dimmed the screen and turned the screen off in this timeframe (set on high performance & I havent changed any power settings) so I came back to a black screen (expected to) and everything normal apart from the primary gpu fan being extremely active when I would have expected it to be kinda dormant.

Any feedback appreciated.

Cheers.

 

I've noticed similar behavior on my system. Even though the GPU activity is less than 5%, sometimes the left fan goes ballistic.

 

Thought it was maybe just me....I've just let the system idle into turning the screen off without a browser open, left it for a while and the gpu fan is behaving.

Maybe it is to do with flash or something, not sure. I just know that its quite annoying to come back to a dormant system with system fans, for gpu 0, "on" - more or less full blast. The fans actually do "back off" whilst the system is "dormant" after a while, so its not as if its overheating (I hope!) - the fact that they DO turn off whilst still dormant is a good thing (I guess) but I dont think it should be like that in the first instance.

Side note: Just flashed the latest A05 (the slightly newer A05 that everyone was wondering what the difference was between the previous A05) on the other rig I have sat here (identical spec more or less) and did the same "test" with browser open......no irregular fan activity on that system, now, with the very latest A05.....so far, anyway - and the same activity WAS happening on that rig too...up until I flashed the latest A05. Weird or what? lol

The description/fix/enhancements on the "latest A05" were to fix irregular gpu fan activity on AMD systems - maybe Dell applied a slight "tweak" to rectify this odd behaviour on Nvidia systems too....I seem to recall that I read on another thread that lots of people were wondering why there was another A05 up on Dell with a different date with no apparent modifications to the previous version.

Wishful thinking but I will carry on testing both rigs. Just for the hell of it really.

 

I didn't realise there was a 2nd A05 update :S I'll give it a go tonight. I thought the date thing was just because Dell were rolling out their new support site right at the same time that the new BIOS was released.

 

Could be just that. Who knows! - if it works, great - if not, nothing lost. I am gonna carry out some more testing to see if it actually HAS made the difference or not...could simply be a coincidence or placebo effect!

 

Well, the rig that I flashed to the latest A05 has just let rip with the left gpu fan again, so whatever I thought *may* have been quietly fixed in the very latest A05, hasnt been. Wishful thinking!

Something else must be causing the primary gpu to spin up when its dormant. I will try again without browser and see what gives.....

 

It spins up how high?

 

Well, not far off the level of a bios flash from an audible perspective. I didnt monitor the rpm's as Im not using Hwinfo but suffice to say its loud, so they must be spinning pretty high - thats why I thought it was odd. The fans do return to a normal level "without" any user intervention but it was kinda worrying to hear them thrash up to that level with no real need.