SLi Guide (Installing, Troubleshooting + Increasing Performance)

Then why does it only happen when I use drivers other then the alienware ones? Nothing else in my system changed.

 

The white screen when coming out of Sleep is a common issue with the m9750. SP1 made it not happen as much. I've had it happen with AW drivers also just not as much. It is not to big of a deal for me, since all you have to do is type your password and hit enter. Then everything is fine.

BTW, I would stay with 174.16 there has been many folks who say they had issues with 174.74, including myself. Plus all the drivers after 173.xx seem to have the same performance gains -/+ 3 or so FPS in UT3 and COD4.

 

I still get the white/gray screen even on the 167.46 beta drivers when coming out of sleep. It is pretty annoying.

 

I have a m9750 and have yet to experience the white screen I've seen mentioned a lot on the boards. Maybe I got lucky.

I haven't gone from 174.16 to the 174.74 yet, is it worth it? My system is so stable right now I'm afraid to change anything. I guess I shouldn't worry so much, system restore is a beautiful thing. Anyone have any more input on the 174.74 drivers?

 

hey tokaygecko!
AW sent me a new 8700m GT The old one was toassed!!!
NOW it works like a dream.
Im using 174.74 but im to affraid to change too .
Dont worry theres not a big difference between 174.16 and 174.74.

RULES = Dont take any risk if everything's fine

 

Yeah, I'm a big fan of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

 

The only reason that I went from 167.46 - 174.16 was the fact that my laptop wouldn't hook up to external devices properly such as my TV.

 

Definitely, stick with what you have, if it is stable and fast. My system is running so well I don't want to install anything. Thats why the Drivers thread has been so quiet lately. I don't want to mess my system up testing them.

 

I just wanted to let you know that you might be just a tad bit off with the above statements. The "Single-GPU" is correct as it takes both cards and makes them act as one. Thus trying to split the work load evenly. So card 1 might get frames 1 4 5 8 and then card 2 would get 2 3 6 7. The alternate frame rendering 1 alternates frames from one card to the other. Meaning card 1 gets frame 1 and card 2 gets frame 2 then card 1 gets frame 3 and so on. The alternate frame redering 2 gives odd frames 1 3 5 7 to card 1 and then gives even frames 2 4 6 8 10 to card 2. The below links are a really good sources of information. Other than that great guide!

SLI FAQ

How to Create a Custom SLI Game Profile

How to Enable SLI Antialiasing

 

I dunno... I pulled this off laptopvideo2go stickied on top of the SLI laptop support forum.

'Single GPU' Sli Performance Mode, Understanding this and the 'Global' Sli Setting

Of course, this guy has been wrong in the past, but hey, who hasn't been wrong in their life

Lastly.. I looked up your links to Nvidia's website but found no explanation of Single-GPU which describes what you're saying is correct. If you've found it, could you please link to it?

 

Hmm, that brings up a good point, but I guess I create custom profiles for all my games lol. I'll try to get a better confirmation than hear say. Sorry if I mis spoke. Also be sure to check the game profiles for the games you play. They might be set correctly when the game is loaded.

Edit: I have found a few more sources to point to you being right and be being wrong.

http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?showtopic=8281
http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?showtopic=19393
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=26023564

So basically it does 99% of what I thought lol... If you have it set to single display mode it only uses one card. This is set so that games that don't support/ don't work well with it won't try to use SLI. The game profiles is where you should probably change the SLI setting; unless you just want to do it globally for all games/applications. Again sorry for the confusion.

 

ok so i just ran the 3D BenchMark and im still gettin low 7000 and these are the specs im running... can anyone help me please? and yes i have done basicly everything this thread has told me too..

****Alienware m9750****
Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo T7600 2.3Ghz @2.33Ghz
Dual nVidia Geforce 8700M GT 512mb SLI
2GB Ram
Windows Vista Home Premium 32-Bit SP 1
174.93 Drivers

thank you guys agian u guys are hella helpful!!

 

Nate, You're score is on Par with everyone elses as far as I can tell. A single A single 8700M GT would give you a ~4800ish score
A single 7950M GTX would give you a a ~5200ish score

There's really not much you can do to improve your score other than to overclock your card. Besides, this is just a generic benchmark. Try playing some games and tweak your settings for those. Getting a great score in 3DMark does not translate to great framerate in games when dealing with SLI.

 

Luke,
Thanks for the links. They were very informative

 

That's definately a low score for that spec. I have the 8700m sli with a t7200, and get around 7600 without any overclock.

Make sure that you havent messed with any profile settings for 3dmark and global, and also that you are actually using them. The driver shouldnt make a big difference, as with any drivers I have used my score has never gone below 7500 @ stock.

 

hmm well i must have not read up much about the graphics cards offered for the alienware M9750, cause i was think when i was building this laptop that the higher the number in the graphics card such as the 7950M GTX and the 8700m GT that the 8700m would preform better.. i was wrong i guess =\ but anyways i messed with a few settings and now getting around 7900 score in benchmark.

i also downloaded this deal from nvida that puts the option in the nvida control panel for the gpu clock, my core bus is at 625 and memory bus is at 799, dose anyone have any suggestions or experience at what these can be clocked to for better performance and stability?

 

WOW! i just benched marked a 8550



****Alienware m9750****
Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo T7600 2.3Ghz @2.33Ghz
Dual nVidia Geforce 8700M GT 512mb SLI
2GB Ram
Windows Vista Home Premium 32-Bit SP 1
174.93 Drivers

 

Nice how are the 174.93 drivers?

 

Amazing! I've been using them for awhile and they are great. No "driver stopped responding" issues, no win32.rundll stopped working.

Also great for oc'ing. I can get the 8700m's running at 760/819 (for some reason on my cards overclocking the memory further gives insta 3d application crash, with all drivers; though i get an extremely high core clock) for only an additional 2 degrees to usage temps.

With a clockgen overclock I'm easily past the 9k barrier on default 3dmark. Now just trying to get 10k... if i had the t7600 it would've been easier

Its good for games too. It improved my Assassins' creed by around 5 fps from 174.82.

I definately recommend for 8700s

 

wow what overclock are u using.. im using http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=226745 and what settings are you running at to get 9000

 

A combination of clockgen @ 2.15, 8700s @ 750/799 and running vista in safe mode (with only the necessary services ofc)

 

Hi,
I yesterday my Aurora m9700 arrived to my door from alienware refurbished systems in ebay
its comming with turion 64 2.4
and 2 gig of ram and Dual Go 7900 GS 512MB total 1GB in SLI
and 160 of HDD running @ 7200 rpm

what is the best driver for me? cause I am looking to play crysis even on med setting.

 

maybe I ask how much it cost you?
your card is about the same performance as a single 7950GTX and I am not sure if you can play it on med setting, of course it depends on the resolution.

 

What OS are you going to be running?

 

Hi,
Its cost me 1530$ shipped + Alienware Odessy Backpak + Logitech cord less mouse all of them from ebay.

Its come orginally with home edition but I installed a Fresh XP SP2.
my bechmark in 3DMark05 is 10155 Points.
with the driver from Alienware Site.

 

Download the 174.16 drivers in my guide, enable SLi, download 3Dmark06 and run it and let us know what you get. That should help determine if you will be able to play Crysis on med.

 

Fellow Aliens,

I have installed Vista SP1 and updated all drivers except Video, and I have the 174.16 ready to go, but apparently need a "modded inf" for my 8700GT in SLi.

Anyone help? I can find all of the support info on laptops2go, and have downloaded the nv_display.inf file, but have no idea what to do next, and I am struggling to understand the limited instructions they provide.

Can anyone point me to a thread, or explain to an AW Noob how to update his drivers?

Thanks,

Clean.

 

once you extract the driver files to a folder, the driver will have its own inf file. you take the modded inf file and replace it with the one in the folder. then you can go ahead and install. if you dont have the modded inf file the driver will not install.

 

Is the modded inf file the one that I have downloaded from laptopps2go entitled nv_display.inf?

Do I just add that to the folder created by extracting the update exe file?

 

Its in my SLi guide I believe. Check it out there.

 

Aaarrr, OK, Igetchya!

Thanks very much.

+1 Rep.

 

How's it going Clean,
I'm glad that your Area 51 m9750 came and it works well. If you're still having trouble getting the driver to install, here's the steps:

1. Dowload driver and modded INF
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17609
2. Extract the files to an easy place like your desktop
3. Drag the INF file and drop it into your video driver folder
4. Agree to move and replace.
5. Install the driver using the install file
6. Make sure and enable SLI

Hope this helps,
Gabe

 

my new 3dmark06 result is 5633 points so what do you guys think can I play crysis on med setting?
running SLI

 

If you change your res to 800x600 it should play but most likely very painfully slow on the winter levels.

 

the good thing is that I am playing crysis @ all high exept the shader on med and shdows are at low @ 1024 x 768.
with a very very very little lag in some places.

 

Where can I find a good custom configuration for crysis for my laptop?

 

OK, this may have been answered elsewhere... but I can't find my issue anywhere.

I finally got my m9750 back from about 3 months of repairs going back and forth from Alienware (a totally different issue). Finally, the damn thing will run a 3dmark06 test without crashing with a Display Driver error, but now I have a different problem.

My current machine has 2 8700 cards, 4gb RAM, and the 2.0 ghz processors. I did a fresh install of Vista with the 174.16 drivers. When I run 3dmark06 without SLi enabled I get a score around 4700. When I enabled SLi I get a score of around 7500 but I have a huge problem with the screen flashing.

When the first test is loading, the screen flashes really bad. When the test is running, only the bottom 3dMark06 information bar flashes, the rest of the image looks ok. Same with the other tests... unless there are bright images such as the big guy with the chaingun in the first test, and pretty much the whole thing for the last test in the snow.

Anyone have any ideas, or can point me in the right direction?

 

@Swigmore - I actually had this issue but not with the 174.16 drivers. It was with a different set of drivers. However, in your case since you have the 8700GT cards I would recommend following this SLi guide to uninstall your drivers and install the 174.74 drivers or another version such as 175.16

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18548 (175.16) -- KockM got an 100 point increase in 3dmark with them.
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18049 (174.74)

 

the best costum config for crysis is the triple C 1.31 cuban mod.

 

Update: Removed old driver list and updated with 174.74 drivers.

 

Took the plunge and followed the first post to getting the latest drivers.
Worked like a charm. Thanks very much.

 

Finally got it working.

Appreciate the guide!

 

I'm glad it worked out for you. Its nice seeing my guide being put to good use.

Edit: I actually wouldn't mind if Alienware used this guide as long as they gave me credit + linked back to the source or something like that. They could even instruct their tech support agents to use this, as others who have posted here have had to send back their systems for what is a issue with the drivers

 

Updated: Tweakforce 175.63 Drivers!

 

Yay Thanks for adding the XG Stone825 they'll be very helpful for guys with SLI

 

Cool good job, I probably should add them to the drivers thread too. Since it seems to be the best driver out.

 

I need some help guys. Great guide by the way. Well I installed those drivers and followed all the instructions (windows xp) but for some reason my nvidia control panel has gone missing. It disappeared after I installed the drivers, and I can't find it anywhere. I have tried looking in the control panel and it is not there or on my desktop bar. Also, what was I supposed to do with the modded INF folder? Was I supposed to extract it into the drivers folder, because that is what I did. Any help is much appreciated. I am running 2 sli nvidia Geforce GO 7900 GS cards. I have the alienware m9700. I downloaded the xp 32 drivers, not the XTreme one. BTW with the EXtreme driver, do you need to add a modded INF? Also I cannot uninstall my drivers now. It says...."Failed to uninstall the device. The device may be required to boot the computer."

 

Hopefully you have a system restore point you can fall back on. I'd revert back to a tiem before installing the driver and restart from there.

 

@L3sty - Use the XTreme drivers, they are better. You do not need a modded INF file for them. Also, to uninstall, just do into device manager and right click the video card and uninstall the driver for it.

 

thats my problem. I would do that but it won't let me uninstall my drivers. It gives me an error message saying, "Failed to uninstall the device. The device may be required to boot the computer." Should I just install the XTreme drivers over them? Or would that be a horrible idea lol.