m17x 8800M GTX SLI issue..

Hey guys,

I just got my m17x two days ago. It is a solid machine but now I found out that there is a problem in SLI. When I enabled SLI and played some games, the screen was flashing in blue. It's like one frame is fine but next frame is a blue screen. It happens in everygame and also 3dMARK 06. If I disable SLI then it's fine.

Since m17x has one master card and one slave card and they are connected by a SLI bridge. I tried interchanging them, but it didn't help.(YES, IT IS INTERCHANGABLE) The problem still happens in SLI mode and is gone without SLI. I think that indicates both video cards are OK. Maybe there is a problem in that bridge.

Also, I have tried a few drivers includes alienware's stock one and 174.74, 175,95, 177.70 from laptopvideo2go. None of them works.

I think I am gonna do a system recovery to see if that can help. After that Im gonna shout to ALIENWARE..

Anyone has some bright ideas?

Thanks for reading..

 

Sorry, have not had that happen on my machine. Have noticed that some games play better without SLI enabled. But have not had any flashing screens.

 

In your position, I would try disabling one card in the hardware properties, test it in a few games, Re-enable the first card, then disable the second to test both out individually. To be really sure both cards are working, take one out, test it, then pull the other out. You may also want to try testing one 'known' good card and move it into each motherboard slot to test the motherboard.

 

Sli is great on games that have been out for awhile, but perform rather terribly on newly released games. Also, looking for SLi drivers will be your new 'hobby' for the duration of owning an SLi rig, notebook or otherwise.

Also, there is no one driver that will perform best across all your games new and old. It's a rather frustrating experience imo.

 

Hi, In my sig, check out the Notebook Care & Maintenance Guide link, in it you will find Stone's Sli guide, maybe it will help?

OB

 

well this is definitely a faulty GPU from my understanding of SLI...what SLI does is one GPU does a frame then the second GPU does the second and so on... so its a faulty GPU i dont think you need to restore your hold computer... its very frustrating when this happens i know but it happens do what Grey728 said test each card out so you find the faulty one and yes it could also be possible that the motherboard connector could be doing this so if you have a good card and it does not work in both position then the motherboard is bad... hope this helps and everything works out soon enough

 

I will check this out...thanks

 

I have interchanged them. From my understanding, if I disable SLI then only master card will work. When I switched them, the previous slave card works. I will maybe try switch them again.

thx for responding

 

if they both work fine then i guess it could be a problem with the motherboard for which you will have to send it back to AW usually they only have it for a week

 

In my experience (m9750 with 2x7950gtx sli) Sli will work in some games and not work in others but it has always worked with 3dMark06. If you have tried multiple drivers and none of the games you have tried work with SLI including 3dMark06, then I don't think it is a driver problem.
Before ruling out the video cards remember that the fact that one half of the screen is not showing its half-frame might indicate that the bridging hardware on the video card is not communicating with the other card (I am assuming the SLI cable is ok). This would not prevent each card from working in non-SLI mode.

 

I have the exact issue. I was amazed with my M17x's performance. Then I realized I was not even running in SLI mode. Once enabled it does exactly what yours is doing. A fast blue flashing and some noticeable horizontal banding on the refresh.

I too have done the "driver shuffle" and have not found one that works yet.

I'm calling AW tech support today to try and resolve the issue. I'll post more here after the call.

 

Interested in what Alienware techs have to say. Getting a little nervous even though i have not had this problem with my M17X. (yet)

 

Swapping the cards will give you very little information since you're using alternate frame rending in most SLi games. Bhe 'blue flashes' will remain and you still won't be able to tell which card is working and which is not (or which motherboard slot is working).

Without physically uninstalling anything try the following.
1. Disable SLI then disable one of the cards in the hardware manager. Don't remove it, just disable it.
2. Play a few games in single card mode, try furmark for fast results.
3. If everything works fine, re-enable the first card, then disable the second.
4. Repeat steps 1 &2.

This test should isolate which card/motherboard slot is having an issue. I also recommend going into a game so you can tax the GPU and make it work to try and repeat any errors that may come up.

After you perform that test (hopefully successfully) you've identified which GPU/motherboard slot has a problem. Time to move to the physical part.
1. Uninstall the 'bad' GPU.
2. Uninstall the 'good' GPU and place it into the 'bad' GPU spot. Leave the other GPU out and uninstalled.
3. Boot up and test the GPU by playing a game for oh.. 30 min.. Something like furmark will do.
4. If a fault occurs with the good GPU installed, you have a faulty motherboard. If nothing happens, then it's most likely the GPU.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 with the 'bad' card installed and leave the 'good' card out.

I hope these instructions are clear and make sence, if not, let me know.
Good luck.

 

i have had the worst performances with my stock AW video driver, 174.82, for my 8800m gtx sli m17x.
with the stock driver, i could barely run Crysis in 1024x768 high while in SLI.
not to mention one of my favorite game, warcraft 3 tft, had the flickering problem. when i called aw tech this, all they told me was for such old game such as warcraft 3 tft, i can try disable the SLI feature. sure then, it worked, the flickering stopped, but i would need to restart my computer every time when i want to switch between wc3 and crysis between SLI modes.

another time i called aw tech again regarding the poor performance of the videocard, aw told that they would email me once new drivers are released...

after taking almost 2-3 weeks of researching and trying differernt drivers. i would like to share my findings with all your x17x 8800m gtx sli owners hope to save u some trouble. especially for crysis players.

below is a real breif desc of the drivers i tried from laptopvideo2go.com

169.09 (the nvidia made Crysis driver) Doesnt recongize hardware, can not install
169.44 (nvidia made Crysis patch 1.2 driver) blue screen upon reboot after installing (tried twice)
177.73 good performance for 40mins in crysis then starts to slow down and stutters
177.79 great performance for 40mins to 1hr of crysis then Power adaptor shuts off!!(blue light on the power adaptor shut off!!)
174.74 recommended by many online, but shuts off the alienware name light on bottom of the screen for me!

the best performance and the most stable so far for me, being an owner of the m17x 8800m gtx sli is the 175.19 driver, which is also recommended on the nvidia's website. but make sure to download it from laptopvideo2go.com with the modded .inf file to make it work for laptops.

i can now running crysis at native 1900x1200 with all options on high, except shadows and shaders on medium(only because i enjoy the 30-40 fps so i sacrifice a lil here), in dx9. but i got to say it runs great with no lag or stutter.

and of course, make sure to read Stone's "SLI GUIDE" thread regarding clean installation and virtual memory tweaking. i tried the force frame rendering and others, but it didnt really work for me. still using nvidia recommended settings.

hope this helps somebody. and if anyone has better findings for performance on the m17x, would love to hear.

My setup is X9000 Extreme, 8800m GTX SLI, 4GB RAM, Vista 32Bit Home Premium

 

Was on the phone with AW tech support for about an hour. FIXED! Turns out the SLI cable was not seated properly. I am running the default AW drivers and all my issues with the blue screen flicker are resolved. I'd check and RECHECK the SLI connection or as said before try each card separately.

I do still have an issue with Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 and some odd graphics artifacts and tearing but only in SLI.

 

Is there any trick on that SLI bridge I may ignore ?

 

Doesnt AW claim they have tested ur system when u get it?

If I hear this it sounds like utter crap.

 

I had to do it twice before I got it. There is a little "bar" at the end of each side of the connector. It runs perpendicular to the connector. It was just missing the bar but still seated. Also make sure the vid cards are slid in to the gold connectors and not out of alignment. I also saw this was a possible point that could come into problem.

The FPS in all SLI apps jumped considerable once the two cards were engaged and I could see 2x's the activity in the SLI indicator (available in the Nvidia control panel) when SLI apps were running.

This app also showed me that SLI is NOT working in "Rainbow Six - Vegas 2" so the issues I was having with it are resolved. Simply turn off SLI before launching R6 and of course reboot.

Hope that helps some jacktheripper.wang.

They test it BEFORE you get it. I don't doubt it was tested but over it's 5,000+ mile journey to me something came loose.

 

I just found out that my SLI cable is actually broken....

Im contacting alienware for a new cable...

Thanks for replying btw..

 

That'll do it! The blue flickering will be fixed with a new cable.

 

Dated post, but bear with me.

I had the same screen flicker with my m17x in SLI. I have a dual boot notebook with XP Pro (SP3) and Vista Ultimate and was experiencing the same problem under both OSes and 3D games with SLI enabled. Connected the machine to an external montior to rule out the screen being a problem. Reseated both video cards and the connecting cable. Tried the latest video drivers (mostly from Laptopvideo2go.com) but could not get rid of the screen flicker unless SLI was disabled.

I then took the connecting cable off of the video cards and noticed that about 4 pins on the inside of the cable were pushed down/out of alignment. Using a microscrewdriver, I pushed the pins back into place and checked the connectors on the GPUs themselves. Replaced all of the covers and screws and fired the machine back up. Problem was solved. No more screen flicker.

Hope this helps.