XPS M1730 Video Card in Device Manager and BIOS

I have installed Win7 64bit and Win8.1 64bit and neither seems to recognize the dual SLI 9800 GTX. Both see once instance of it in the device manager and there is one instance of it in the BIOS (version A10). I remember under XP or below it used have two instances in device manager. I am not certain that the BIOS had two instances of the card. Can anyone share an experience that may help?

Also I would be interested to read from those who upgraded the BIOS to A11 of any positive or negative experiences. Thanks.

-=Sunnah=-

 

UPDATE: I got dual cards SLI working. Somehow the installation of the newest DirectX drivers from Microsoft did it.

 

I don't know about your O/S but Win8 doesn't give a non touch screen XPS M1730 much benefit...and using 3rd party software to get Windows 7 start menu functions is also a no brainer to should've installed Windows 7 to use as the O/S. So have said on reports on various sites A11 speed up the GPU fans excessively if you google it you will find some users saying to stick with A10. IMHO....

 

@StormJumper,

Thanks for your insight. HDD was damaged so I replaced it with an SSD. I ended up choosing Win 8.1 to install as I find it more friendly for my wife and my children to use. It is a bit more intuitive. But I will not hesitate to go to Win7 64bit if I have to. But I was surprised to see my hardware recognized. My main development platform is a MacBook with OS 10.9. I am going to be touching the Windows machine very little so I do not think I will have much issues. Surprisingly, I was amazed at its speed using the Samsung SSD 840 Pro Series.Fastest boot process and response time working in the OS. I read about Win8.1 handing processes more efficiently but I am sure much of it is the SSD.

I also read the alarming issues of the A11 BIOS and have chosen not to upgrade my A10 BIOS.

 

A11 will be kept low temperatures, but it is loud . I'm on the A11. I prefer louder and longer than the quieter and shorter life for gpu.
What kind of alarming problems with the A11 you say? . I would like to know

 

When I used to game often I bought the CM Storm Gaming Laptop Cooler. (The 19" one has two fans) You may want to invest in it. If you over clock the CPU from the BIOS it also produces a very loud sound form the fans. This cooler does the job very nicely. I do not game anymore. The XPS does run hot but I never had it shut down even without the fan. For a long time I had a couple of block type erasers under the back side just to lift it up a little to give the vests some room. And that helped too.