GTX280M SLi not detected!

hi everyone. this is my first post in here actually

regarding to the title above, thats the problem that i face today.

like usual, i shut down my lappy before taking a nap and after i woke up, i did start my lappy.
once i pressed the On button, i take my cup to make a cup of coffee and leave my lappy alone during startup.
thats when i heard a weird sound, making me to stop walking and hear closely.
sound like something wrong with the fan or something for a second and suddenly silence.

presuming that it was nothing, i just continue to make my coffee and when i came back to use my lappy, it stated that my GPU is Nvidia 9400M, instead of GTX280M.

triple-double check my DC - checked.
power plan - checked.
driver - checked.

everything is normal except those two cards cannot be detected, like they don't exist.

i feel kinda weird because it is perfectly normal before i shut down.


any idea what i am facing now?
hardware failure?

 

Shut down the notebook, remove the battery and AC adapter - leave the unit COMPLETELY isolated from power. Press & hold the power button for ~20 seconds. Re-power and reboot.

If that doesn't fix your problem, I'll eat my socks.

 

Please take a video if you do... (uploading and posting a link here is implied)

@OP: When you turn on your laptop, go into the BIOS by pressing F2, then go to Advanced, then at the bottom go to graphics options and make sure that Hybrid SLI is enabled. Save and Exit (F10) and when you log into windows the 280's should be enabled.

 

OK, if I post a video of me eating my own socks, I'm going to demand some serious rep. Screw the rules, I'll demand it at that point.

Back OT, if my idea doesn't work, definitely try airplaneman's idea.

 

Is Hybrid Graphics and/or Integrated Graphics enabled in the BIOS?

The M17x BIOS automatically switches Hybrid Graphics off and Integrated graphics on when booting from battery. Maybe that has happened.

Go to the BIOS and enable Hybrid Graphics if you want to still be able to switch between the integrated 9400M and the discrete graphic card(s) (280Ms in your case) on the fly, or switch off both Hybrid Graphics and Integrated Graphics in the BIOS if you have no need for the 9400M at all and wish to run only on the discrete graphic cards.

If that doesn't help, then something else might be wrong and it might be good to give Dell tech support a call.

 

thanks for all the reply.

i definatly will try all the above, especially the idea from Explosivepotato.

but did anyone think it have something to do with the weird sound. i think it is physically damage rather than error in setting or problem with power plan.

 

err hate to say this, but your idea bring no improvement at all my friend.

 

thank you to you and Glzmo.

but really, when i tried this method yesterday, it won't solve my problem.

but this morning, everything is just like normal once i set up the BIOS again.

still i don't know what causing it.

 

Crap, I might have to eat my socks then.

But is SLi working now? It sounds like it is, but it's still curious why it stopped there for a while..

 

yep. working strong and steady as before.
i really don't know why the setting changed in my BIOS.
i already checked about 4 times already, and suddenly it just become normal.
-.-"

 

by the way, i noticed that my mark in 3DMark06.

my marks are :Overall - 10782, SM2.0 - 4159, SM3.0 - 5364, CPU - 2811 @ 1920x1200

and my specs are Q9000 + GTX280M.

is that normal?

 

do anybody know how to fix it?

 

run it at the default 1280x720 res. That high resolution is going to skew your scores downwards.

Also make sure both video cards are heating up. I had a problem after updating my video drivers where SLi was "enabled", but I was getting about 20FPS in Crysis. I had to do some fancy dancing around the video drivers involving several reboots, and a program called DriverSweeper. PITA, but now at least I can run it maxed out again.