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

Your saying the 580m is an upgrade over the 6990 and is worth 360.00 more than the 6990? I think they are more equal than not. 580's do rock but so don't the 6990's it's all opinion.

 

I have my M18X now for three (3) months. I purchased it with the GTX 560, and I'm planing on up-grading and I want to know if it is wiser to go GTX 580m, or get another GTX 560 and do a SLI bridge configuration?

 

Tough one. 560m Sli should perform roughly on par with a single 580m, maybe a bit faster. The thing with any dual gpu system is that you *can* get micro stuttering as the two cards render the frames. Obviously a single 580m would negate this possible issue. (btw, dont have any problems with my 580m sli setup - smooth like butter)

If those are your choices, personally, I would go single 580m.

Have a look here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gaming-software-graphics-cards/629790-gtx-580m-2x-gtx-560m.html

 

You are right both are very equal. But having Physx, Cuda, Verde drivers and Nvidia 3D vision is worth the difference in price. I and other users upgraded from 6990M CF to 580M SLI have witnessed that our games run smoother and lacked certain objects/details in game on AMD based systems. Have you seen the difference in PhysX in games like Batman:AC and Alice in Wonderland?
It's awesome!!!!!!!!




Sent from my iPad 2

 

I do not think it is worth a 360$ increase. The cost of upgrading according to their configuration site is not nearly as much...it was like a $50 difference if i remember correctly.

All the features touted by skygunner is only beneficial if you use them, with PhysX being the only feature I think if valuable to a gamer. Is PhysX worth 360? I'd say no.

 

We all are entitled to our own opinion. Either option is a good choice. The OP asked for our opinion/advice. So I gave it. My intentions are not to start an argument which I think maybe coming. This topic is always a sensitive issue amongst Alienware owners. In addition to the premium features bundled with Nvidia GPU's my opinion/advice was based most on the fact that I and so many others I know faced ongoing problems with AMD and have finally found the perfect utopia outside of dpc latency. Please don't take offense to my post. If you see things different, take my post/opinion with a grain of salt.


A good person to ask would be Sentinel196.

 

I see no argument coming, I agree Nvidia has Physx and AMD can't compete with it really. Thats why some spend the time to add a Nvidia card to their AMD desktop card just for the Physx. But 360.00 to give back the 6990's and upgrade to 580's that's a little too steep for what he is getting. I think the 50 to 100 would be a go but not 360.00

 

I've owned both systems (6990m and 580m in otherwise identical M18x systems)

Fact 1:
The AMD system performs slightly better in terms of raw numbers when benchmarking.

Fact 2:
Frame rates in most games are around 5-10FPS better with the 580m configuration

Fact 3:
On the 6990m configuration, I found that anything over 60FPS (n the laptop screen) resulted in tearing and over-buffering issues, requiring 3rd party software to fix. No such issues with the 580ms.

Overall gaming experience with the 580ms is superior to the 6990ms, regardless of the reported frame rate.

Fact 4:
I had to option to return either the 6990m or 580m system and I chose to return the 6990m system due to the better performance of the 580m system.

Fact 5:
The 6990ms run 10C hotter than the 580ms under load so the system fans spin up sooner, meaning the system is louder.

Fact 6:
Driver support from AMD sucks. Many games simply do not work with newer drivers, and newer games don't work with older drivers, meaning you literally have to install different drivers to play different games.

The NVIDIA drivers on the other hand are much more compatible and user friendly.

Fact 7:
NVIDIA has DPC latency issues which do not exist with AMD. As yet there is no fix other than using OLD Dell drivers. If you want to use your machine for audio processing or production, get the AMD system.

Conclusion: Both systems perform well, and I would not pay more than $500 more for the 580m system over the 6990m system as the performance is too similar to justify the difference in price.

 

To me, that's worth $360.00....for others maybe not so much.

 

Having owned M18x systems equipped with AMD and NVIDIA cards, I would definitely pay $360 extra for 580M SLI. I do agree with alienwolf that they are not giving you a deal and don't understand why they would charge you more than the upgrade difference on a new system. Still, if push came to shove I would pony up the $360 as opposed to getting replacement 6990M CrossFire parts.

I would choose 6990M CrossFire over the lower powered NVIDIA 560M SLI, as the 6990M CrossFire is on par with 580M SLI and both are way ahead of the 560M SLI in performance.

You can use MSI Afterburner as a replacement for RadeonPro. (I loved RadeonPro with AMD cards.) The standard Verde drivers include the dual GPU indicators (on screen bar meter and icon) like RadeonPro adds to AMD cards. I don't recommend MSI Afterburner for changing clock speeds, (it doesn't offer enough flexibility to do that well enough,) but its OSD features do a fantastic job of showing FPS, GPU clock speeds and GPU temps on screen during gameplay and logging the data for analysis. And, it does a nice job of screen shots and in-game video capture. It will do everything with NVIDIA cards that RadeonPro did for AMD cards and more.

All the profiles for games that I created with RadeonPro can be done with standard NVIDIA drivers. NVIDIA drivers will do many things that require third party apps with AMD cards.

 

I had a single gpu 560m the sli upgrade was a nightmare! Before you do anything on a single system ck & see if you have software in Nvidia CP.I also had ran my m18x with single 580 & it smoked the 560 by alot!For me also it's well worth the upgrade.But most people already had dual configs dell has issues with alot of single gpu swaps to sli. (waiting on my new sli gtx580 new m18x replacement)!

 

Anyone experience completely freezes that last from around 5-10 seconds while gaming? I recently started playing Alice: Madness Returns, and every now and then, the computer would completely freeze (not lag -- unresponsive, and then just resumes as normal).

 

minnus - are you overclocking your video cards? What are you selecting in the NVIDIA Control Panel under "3D Settings > Adjust Image Settings with Preview" page?

 

Anybody have a link to the 580m bios collection, now that megaupload.com is dead?

 

Btw I have a 560m sli configuration in m18x im going to be upgrading to a 580m sli. Is the sli bridge currently in use for the 560ms compatible with the 580m?

 

Yes it uses the same SLI cable Hope this helps ya

 

ah thanks alot! also last question do you reckon the new nvidia 600 models will be compatible with the m18x r1s? I dont want to upgrade and then regret it if it were the case!

 

If I where you I'd just wait and stick it out till we all know for sure Maybe the 580m prices will even go down some. Also I'm pretty sure the Alienware gurus on these forums will get the 600s working one way or the other. Hope this helps ya

 

Hey bro... sorry, I missed your question until now. Use the attachments here.

 

please help one of my cards wont work, in device manager it says
Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43 but they are new g cards

 

Another Beta release from Nvidia........

NVIDIA DRIVERS 295.51 BETA

 

Thanks Stevie! Oil Rush And Mass Effect 3 SLI profiles!! yehaa!

 

Hehehe - I thought the Oil Rush profiles would tickle your fancy

 

It did...lol. Now I have it up an running at max(including max AA) with EVERYTHING enabled. With SLI, I get 112 to 99 FPS. This game is absolutely breath taking. This Steam compressed image doesn't do the game justice.
http://i.imgur.com/4o9r9.jpg

 

As the title suggests I am looking for the vbios for the gtx 580m that is undervolted to .80 and has the throttling fix. I found it over at mkv but all the links are for megaupload (Which is down )
Thanks!

 

The zip file previously posted by Red Line earlier in this thread includes an under-volted ROM similar to the file you are looking for. For your convenience, that zip file is attached to this post. I could not locate the post with the under-volted vBIOS ROM that you mentioned. All I noticed was 0.85v and higher on that thread.

I think you may still experience throttling and a general performance decline using the ROM in the attached zip file. You can try it and see how it works out. Is there something in particular you are looking to accomplish by under-volting the 580M? If someone else has the 06 version under-volted to 0.80v, perhaps they can post it for you.

Side note: Please post in the correct thread whenever possible. New threads are only needed for new discussion topics.

 

Hey everyone,
I have another problem with my M18x and its new video cards. When playing The Old Republic I noticed the left side of the keyboard was uncomfortably hot. So I closed SWTOR and ran furmark. Card 0 got to 81 degrees followed by a bsod(report included) Card 1 was I believe at 79. I am using the stock Vbios and nVidia driver version 285.62. I cleaned the fans/vents and even have it on a CMStorm cooling pad with Silent Typhoon fans and the bottom cover removed as well as the fans set to 100% manually. Without all these precautions card 0 jumped to 90 degrees. The paste on these cards is Arctic Silver 5. Please let me know your thoughts.
Thanks!
timinator94

Spoiler

==================================================
Dump File : 020212-8486-01.dmp
Crash Time : 2/2/2012 10:30:21 PM
Bug Check String :
Bug Check Code : 0x00000116
Parameter 1 : fffffa80`0a69d130
Parameter 2 : fffff880`0fc50ae4
Parameter 3 : ffffffff`c000009a
Parameter 4 : 00000000`00000004
Caused By Driver : dxgkrnl.sys
Caused By Address : dxgkrnl.sys+5d000
File Description :
Product Name :
Company :
File Version :
Processor : x64
Crash Address : ntoskrnl.exe+7cc40
Stack Address 1 :
Stack Address 2 :
Stack Address 3 :
Computer Name :
Full Path : C:\Windows\Minidump\020212-8486-01.dmp
Processors Count : 8
Major Version : 15
Minor Version : 7601
Dump File Size : 498,872
==================================================

 

Something tells me Nvidia sets the sensors to display lower values than they are in reality. Could be that the cards are overheating. One of the reasons could be a poor GPU to HS contact. Did you replace the thermal pads alone with the paste?

 

No I used the stock dell pads the only thing is I cleaned off the dell paste with paste remover and applied AS5 only on the die. That is interesting about the lower value theory. What would they (dell/nVidia) gain from doing that? Have they done it with past cards?

Also should note that it all worked great until today. Have had them for about a week with no issues what so ever. Played Metro, Crysis 2 (in 3d), TONS of SWTOR etc..

 

Not Dell, Nvidia would benefit from showing "lower" temps than AMD. Back when I had the M17xR1 with 2 sets of cards (280Ms and 4870s) the Radeons always showed higher temps in games but with the greens the keyboard was always hotter. So I thought that the sensors were calibrated differently. Just a theory though, I don't have enough info to prove it.

Were the temps always maxing @ ~80C in games or were they lower at first?

 

No afaik they were lower... at least the keyboard never got warm.

 

Mine was getting really hat or overheating but it was because the HS was full of dust.
Another thing I noticed is that the graphics card temperature is retching about 65 degree celcius in idle.

 

Bump help

 

timinator94 - did you under-volt the cards, or were you looking to under-volt to try to correct this? Is the BSOD with everything at stock core and memory clock speeds and voltage? Before trying to troubleshoot anything, set everything to stock clocks and voltage on the GPUs. Also, be sure the CPU BCLK is set to 100. Go into the system BIOS and reset everything to defaults. I have found that there are some BCLK settings that video cards (AMD and NVIDIA) don't like and this sometimes causes TDR problems.

Please install WhoCrashed and use it to analyze the BSOD stop error. (It is faster and a little more precise than web browsing most of the time.)

http://www.carrona.org/bsodindx.html#0x00000116

Try forcing the fans to 100% using SpeedFan or HWiNFO64 and see if the temps stay low and the problem goes away. This is not a permanent solution, just want to see if lowering temps stops the problem from occurring. If it doesn't, then it's not an issue with temps.

Have you tried a different driver? I had some strange behavior with 285.62 in particular. Do a clean driver installation. http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=169555

Did you re-paste to try to stop this, or did the problem start after re-pasting? If the latter is true, try re-seating both video cards in their PCIe slots.

 

The BSOD points to a video driver TDR error. I would re-install the video drivers and also update DirectX (if you havent done so already) here: Download: DirectX End-User Runtime - Microsoft Download Center - Download Details

You mention in your first post about temps - was that whilst running Furmark or whilst gaming? - what are the max. temps whilst gaming? (obviously, Furmark is gonna heat them up ridiculously high but during gaming, they shouldnt be getting into 80c, realistically). I would also suggest using Mr. Fox's "Fox-Fix" method of reducing throttle under full load - its in his sig. and works great if you dont want to flash your gpu's vbios'

If your temps during gaming are getting hotter than that, I would imagine that you need a better paste job - maybe you will have to open her up again and have another go if they are still that high during gameplay.

 

Hey brother terminator94, this is my temp. on Idle

 

I have the same setup and my 580s idle around 57. I thought this was kinda high, considering I also have a m17x r2 with dual 5870s and they idle around 39.

 

My 580's idling:

 

those temps are normal. when idle the gpu will go up to 65c and back to low 40s in cycles.

 

Will try all of your suggestions and get back to yalls tomorrow. and Those temps are furmark temps

I tried to undervolt to remedy the issue, everything is stock, bios is reset, problem goes away with fans at full speed (stays at 74), installing beta 295.51 drivers now. If all else fails Ill repaste. Not to start a flame war but what pastes are good now? All I have ever used is AS5.
Thanks!

temps get up to 90 now before crash. trying undervolted bios and if still hot ill re paste

 

Have you checked to make sure the radiator fins on the GPU heat sinks are not clogged with dust and lint? You should not need to undervolt to stay cool. My GPUs stay quite a bit cooler than 90°C even in a Furmark run, so something is really odd with your temps.

 

Yeah the fins were the first thing I checked :/ I blew them out for good measure

 

I just bought a new Alienware M18x. Unfortunately it looks like it is almost DOA. Of course the first thing I tried to do was play a game on it, but whenever I try to play any games it crashes. The symptoms are:

- screen goes black, sound hangs and continues to play, computer freezes
- screen freezes, sound hangs and continues to play, computer freezes
- screen freezes, game freezes but can be closed via task manager

This has happened with Lord of the Rings Online, Witcher 2, StarCraft II, Portal (which came with the machine), and even Plants vs. Zombies. One additional symptom is that

- the hibernate and sleep buttons on the Windows start menu sometimes become grayed out

When I try to re-enable hibernation via the Windows 7 command line functions, I receive the message, "an internal component is preventing hibernation."

I find these problems happen when

- the screen resolution changes when starting a game
- in the first few minutes of playing a game

Here are the specs for my system:

Intel core i7 2760QM 2.4 GHz cpu
16GB dual channel DDR3 1600 MHz memory
Dual 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M with SLI video
512 GB RAID solid state SATA drive

So far, I ran the Dell Support online PC-Doctor based hardware tests and passed all of them. Next, I ran the "extended" hardware test accessible from the boot menu (the one that takes 40 minutes) and passed everything. I updated the drivers for everything I could think of using Windows Update. No change in the symptoms.

Searching the forums, it sounds a lot like a video card problem to me. A lot of people seem to report similar problems with NVIDIA cards with SLI. Could that be it? I tried to look into diagnosing the video card a little more but I don't know what I am doing.

I will put in a support ticket but from my prior experiences (all horrible) with Dell Customer Support, I think I need to find out as much as possible on my own as well. Does anyone have any ideas that would help? I very much appreciate your thoughts.

I am so sad that I spent this much money and apparently got a lemon. I hope this purchase wasn't a bad idea.

Christian

I forgot to add: It is running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

 

Christian, it sounds like you have a messed up Windows installation to me. There are too many weird things going on.

The M18x is an awesome machine and if you paid for more than the standard warranty they will bend over backwards to make it right for as long as the system is under warranty. Be sure to call Alienware Support ( not Dell Support) at 1-800-ALIENWARE. Their support is outstanding and better than I have experienced with any other computer manufacturers.

If you did not purchase the Advanced Warranty for at least 3 years, I recommend you take care of that when you call Alienware Support for assistance with the current issue. It will pay for itself and the machine is way too expensive to risk having nothing but the basic warranty for 1 year.

Also, welcome to NBR and especially the Alienware Forums. We're glad you joined our Community and look forward to seeing more from you in the days ahead.

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I moved this into the NVIDIA SLI thread that it actually belongs in.

Well, as you can see from looking at the attached thumbnail, even with a heavily overclocked setup and 0.92v on the GPU my temps are under 70°C. I don't think undervolting your cards is a good solution. If it even helps, it will simply be compromising performance and masking a more significant underlying issue that needs to be resolved. Something else is wrong. Sounds like it is time to call 1-800-ALIENWARE for hardware support. Be sure you have the approved vBIOS and Dell recommended display driver installed before you call. They don't provide support for anything else.

 

Thanks for the welcome. Elsewhere on other forums I've found posts explaining that the video card can disable hibernation and sleep modes in the OS when it is not working properly. Combine that symptom with the freeze-on-screen-resolution-change symptom and it seems like video. I spoke with tech support and they agreed that it was likely the video card, but said it could also be the memory or some other thing -- it's hard to be certain.

The Alienware tech support was fantastic. Very impressed. They used that remote control application to fix the machine while I watched.

The rep told me that they have experienced a number of quality control problems with the m18x and indeed all new alienware machines shipping around Christmas time. She wanted to reinstall my video drivers and I said (naively): "Why would the system not work with the driver configuration that it ships with? I haven't changed anything."

She said that in fact some of the new machines have shipped with no drivers installed (!) and/or all kinds of things not working out-of-the-box because the fulfillment people were rushed to complete their holiday ship quotas so they simply skipped steps of the installation to get the boxes out the door. That is distressing to hear.

Here are the steps she took to work on my machine in case you have a similar problem:

She downloaded a beta version of the NVIDIA card driver Drivers and Downloads | Dell [United States] and the most recent version of the video card BIOS (which was newer than what I had even though the machine arrived on my doorstep new just days ago). She had me make a bootable CD with the video BIOS updater disk image.

She then uninstalled the NVIDIA sound driver, rebooted, uninstalled the NVIDIA graphics driver, rebooted, and installed the beta Dell/NVIDIA driver, rebooted, then booted from CD to install the new video BIOS. Then she ran a video card stress test / benchmarking application that I am not familiar with (but it looked like WoW). I passed with flying colors (max FPS 75) and the machine did not crash. This is the first time that has ever happened.

So her closing advice was to play a lot of games and see if it crashes again. I'll do my best on this; luckily it is Sunday afternoon. Here's hoping for the best. If this did NOT solve my problem and I get more crashes, I'll update this thread with next steps.

I thought people would want to know about the quality control issues she mentioned.

 

how can you have a temp. of 31C and 29C?

 

Good to hear. Thanks for the info. I hope it was a simple fix.

I am amazed that your system did not have the new vBIOS. The old one has serious throttling issues. That update will produce much better results for you.

 

cold air conditioning ...it does wonders for benchmarking as far as overclocking the XM CPU is concerned.

Here is a screen shot of temps without the assistance of air conditioning, just fans forced to 100%. This was when I was running my 2760QM proc. Although, the temps are not a great deal different on the GPUs. Normal room temps leave plenty of headroom for my 580Ms. They are almost always under 80°C, even in the most demanding performance situation.

 

Indeed, I received mine a few weeks ago and it did have the latest Bios, there definitely are some quality control issues with the m18x but then again it is a laptop that is demanded quite alot. And I definitely see why