Anyone have any idea what would cause this

XPS m1730, refurb (stupid me). This happens when in SLI only, there is ghosting/tearing/i have no idea of some sort. It happens in WoW, Crysis, Crysis WH, and 3dMarkVantage. Doesn't happen in "the Orange Box" or Bioshock. I've reloaded every driver I can find, dell factory image with all microsoft updates, dell factory image no updates, and verified it happens on both the Sharp panel in the system and my Samsung Syncmaster 24". Please help. I'm within my 21 day mark, and I'll probably return it if I can't get it fixed soon. Should probably tell ya, x9000 (stock clock) 4GB, 320HDD, SLI 8800GTX's, Vista 32bit.

 

Bios is A09. At first occurence, Idle temp was 63C and underload hit 78C. The unit stays ontop of a Zalman cooler. DirectX has been patched before the last clean factory install and I've used so far, the stock drivers, the 175's, the 178's, and currently on the 179's. Physix software was also updated. Even disabled the physix chip to see if there was any interefence. I've swapped memory just to eliminate that as a possibility. I think I've convinced myself the second card is dying

 

Thanks X3lectric. Non-Sli mode is fine, as is SLI Single GPU mode (which basically uses just one card). I love the laptop, would love to get it fixed, but, I'm military, and looking at deployment beginning next year. Have exercises for the next month. Think I'm going to return it, and reorder a new one, just with a lesser spec.

 

Tearing can be from the gpu's in SLI not operating in sync properly. Unfortunately your case doesn't look like the traditional tearing that can pop up in SLI. The Nvidia tearing looks like someone selected long narrow sections of the image and shifted it sideways a little.

I use the same setup and have tried plenty of drivers. Don't bother using 167.xx or 175.32 (Dell performance). Back then SLI implimentation was still in it's infancy when these drivers went through their certification and so their handling of SLI is not as good as it could have been. I only use those drivers to establish a datum for performance comparisons for eliminating variables when problems come up.

I currently use 177.98 from laptopvideo2go and find it to be the best all rounder so far of the Blu-ray signed drivers. The later generation drivers handle SLI a lot better. Some drivers are better than others for doing certain things on certain cards. There is no such thing as the perfect driver for every card and setup.

Go to the Nvidia control panel and try switching the 'sli performance mode' to 'Force alternate frame rendering 2' and see what changes it makes. I doubt it will change much, but some driver versions respond to this.

My feeling is the 2nd card is failing. I've never seen or heard about these symptoms that you are having so it seems unlikely to be just an sli implementation issue, but I could be wrong though.

Go to this forum http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=173512 and post your question. A lot of the guys there really know their **** about this model.

 

Thanks Old Dawg. I'll post there and see if they can shed some light. I have tried the Force Render 2 like you mentioned before, and it changed nothing. I talked with Dell, and the 21days for you RMA, is from the day they ship, not the day you recieve, and since it took DHL a **** week to deliver, well, I'm pretty much owning this beast now. Unfortunately, I'm military, and will be on work ups for the next month, so I'll have to wait till then. I did, however get the situation "accelerated" so I will be sending it to Dell as soon as I get back.

What is the chance of this being a mobo problem? or is this SLI bridge located on the cards? thanks again for the suggestions guys. keep 'em coming.

 

agreed the 2nd card is probably failing or already past its point now... i dont think its the display. although another member said he had this problem and went the 179 drivers and it solved his issue..

 

yeah. I'm on the 179's now. Those photos we're taken with 179's on a fresh dell factory image, no updates to anything else. Just trying to see if it was a driver conflict or something else. Hopefully when I send it to Dell next month, they can fix it. Or better yet, 8800GTX will be no more and they'll have to upgrade to 9800's. Heh, wishful thinking

 

I would contact Dell about it,they should fix it ASAP. I`m with Z on this one, the card is dying...

 

Card is definitely dying! Get it sorted asap

 

u can ask for replacement 1st, usually dell gives a better one configuration wise for replacement.