XPS M1730 and SLI problems

Still waiting on DELL to get back to me about the BIOS update..

I did get this reply from another DELL person tho

 

I removed the 169.04 drivers and reinstalled them and the problems with counter strike are gone and I got 8276 in 3dmark 06, which is way better than before I properly uninstalled the drivers, now I need 4gb RAM and I hope I can upgrade to 8800 cards when and if they are released.
The 169.04 drivers are by far the best drivers I have tried and they have no bugs that I have noticed

 

Great to hear wogstaa! My 8,150 is lacking compared to some of you guys...

 

So you guys are installing these modded drivers. Are they supporting SLI or are you just enabling one card?

 

I got that score after I closed almost every process in the task manager that isn't needed to run the computer.

They support SLi and they seem to work way better than the Dell drivers with SLi on

 

And lets face it.. the Dell drivers are just rebranded nvidia drives anyway..

 

But one would think and hope that they are tested by Dell though, which could explain their lack of bugs besides the gaming performance, which Dell probably didn't test

 

Come on DELL - if you want to enter the gamers domain you have to be more "on the ball" - old drivers on everything. I really hope you to guys are emailing and calling their support to.

 

I took the leap and installed the 169.04 drivers also. All I can say is wow. These things are way better than the dell drivers. I was playing The Witcher and I had the "stopped working" error every 5-20 minutes. Unplayable. Now it plays awesome and smoothly with the new drivers and all settings to high. Thanks for the info on this thread about those drivers.

 

I love these drivers too, they kill any other drivers I have tried and are very stable. I don't think Windows Dreamscene works with them for some reason, but I don't really care about it. That is the only thing I found wrong with them, lets hope NVIDIA keeps improving on these drivers and lets hope that Dell can give us some good drivers in the future.

 

Great to hear more success stories with these drivers, I suspect that they are very close to a new official release...fingers crossed eh.

 

I've noticed another issue with these drivers... well actually i'm not sure if it is driver specific...

But when I use the dvi output to my TV (52inch Sony XBR3, 1080p), I cannot for the life of me get it to use the entire screen. It's outputting in 1920x1080, but there is ~1inch unused spaced on the actual TV so it looks all messed up.

With the 156 series drivers I was able to get it to use the full screen by switching from 720p/1080i then 1080p.... but I have had zero success with the 169 series drivers. It's driving me nuts!

Anyone else have any issues like this? I am 95% sure it is the drivers because my M170 has zero issues outputting the proper signal w/ the same cable and tv but much older drivers... I would try the 169 series on it but I don't have it with me right now (gave it to my rents since I got the M1730.... boy what a mistake!)

 

I only have a 720p high definition TV but I will try connecting to that through the DVI to HDMI adapter and see if that works, I know it worked before, so if it doesnt work now, I'm pretty sure we will be able to narrow it down to a hardware issue.

 

Hmm

DELL have offered me a refund, there is nothing more they can do now..

I created another thread with the details.

 

Did you guys get a DVI to HDMI adapter??? I didn't!

 

Yeh, its supposed to come with it, you better chase that up, I'm sure they will send you one if you call them and tell them that you didn't get one.

 

I have ordered my new

Dell XPS M1730 Core 2 Extreme X7900 2.8GHz, 800Mhz, 4M in Crimson Red
4GB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x 2G)
400GB (7200rpm) SATA RAID 0 Stripe (2x200GB)
Blu-ray Disc DVD+/-RW Optical Drive
XPS M1730 Backpack Carrying Case
Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 8700M GT graphics with NVIDIA SLI Technology
Ageia PhysX Processing Unit Card
Vista Ultimate (32Bit OS)
1 Year Consumer Accidental Damage Support.

Before reading this thread so I e mailed Dell the following.

“It has come to my attention after reading comments posted on NotbookReview.com @ http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=179479
That there are ongoing problems’ regarding the Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 8700M GT NVIDIA SLI Technology in relation to the SLI Technology as it appears not to be working correctly. Can I have full assurance that my new XPS Dell M1730 order will be received in fully working order? If not please contact me as I will need to come to a resolution for this issue.
Yours sincerely
Paul”

And I got this response…..

"Hi Paul,
There are no more compatibility issues with the graphics card and I assure you that your new machine would be in complete working order.
Regards
Dell"

My order should arrive in about 10 days, so i will find out soon….

 

I got sick of sli problems, I must have tried some 6-10 driver versions, even tried x64 vista. Couldn't get sli to work properly with good driver stability when using it as a laptop.

Disable sli and the whole laptop becomes rock solid though.

I have a courier coming to pick mine up at the end of this week and I'm getting a full refund.

 

Strange, the brief time i had my M1730 SLI appeared to work fine (once i turned it on ~ its off by default which is strange). I had problems with some of the NVIDIA beta drivers, but all in all things were ok game wise.

A few games like CRYSIS and HL2 appeared to not make use of SLi at all, but other games did. Maybe you just got a bad egg?

I'm not saying SLI works perfectly, it does not, there is still tons of room for improvement, but i cant say i couldnt get it working at all.

 

You know what, i didnt either. I will check when my replacement comes tomorrow ~ but the first one i ordered had no adapter. Did you order from the UK site?

My new order went through pretty quickly...

 

No I ordered from the danish site. Don't think everybody gets one, but might be wrong.

 

Can someone that has successfully overclocked their processor through bios please let me know what version you are running? I don't see the slider options under performance. I'm running the MXG71A01 or "A01" bios. Dell.ca/support doesn't have any other bios available for download.

 

Oh yeah, and if you have your m1730 running well with high fps or 3dmark06 benchmarks, please let us know if you are running in XP or Vista.

 

Guys am I the only one emailing and calling dell about the performance issues? They promised us a beast .... more like a dog ....running in medium quality (crysis and graw2)... really not the ultimate gaming experience. Are you guys in denial? The rig will perform as dell promised but only when it gets the 8800M GT cards 2 x 512MB.

 

Well i'm running CoD4 with 169.04 drivers at 1600x1200 no aa, everything on high and i'm getting solid and great FPS!
I'm also playing FLight Simulator X and it runs SOOO smooth, and it's a HUGE CPU hog!

 

OK I've tried a number of the 169 drivers and I'm having no luck with CoD4. Are you running WinXP or Vista? Does CoD4 select option "Dual Card" for you if you click "Optimal Settings" or does it not recognize the SLI setup?

 

I'm using Vista. It's imperative that you remember to set your battery setting to Performance. Click the battery icon at the bottom of the Vista/XP desktop and choose performance. It makes a 30-40% change in performance!
I don't think the "optimal settings" chooses dual card support for you. But what you should do is choose everything at high, except "sync every frame", choose dual card (of course) and 1600x1200. What setup do you have?

I hope i don't offend you with the battery remark, but I heard of a guy who sent his system back because it didn't do better than his friends rig (m1710 with SINGLE 7900GTX). It would be a shame to send a system back because you just don't know it right

 

Is that the full version of Call of Duty 4? Does it play better than the demo did? I played the demo on my system with those drivers and it worked great and I hear that the retail version has gone through more optimisation than the demo

 

I've been running at a lower resolution, and some settings lower, and I'm struggling to hit 30fps, far lower in some busy sections of the game.

I'm not clear what impact high performance battery setting would have a notebook while its plugged in.... but just in case it does I changed that setting. I'll report any changes.

I am running the t7500 (dual core 2.2 processor), 8700M GT SLI, 2 Gig Ram. But so far the CPU and RAM benchmarks have never maxed out during game play, leaving me to believe that its the GPU that can't keep up.

 

The battery settings is Vistas way of saving power, so if they are set to high performance, the system will run at full power, wheras if it is set to battery, the GPU and CPU will run slower to save battery power.

 

I've had the same problem as several here. Wish I'd found this page before the couple dozen hours I spent with tech support.

Things we tried:
full system restore to factory settings
uninstall and reinstall video card drivers (several times, several versions)
uninstall and reinstall chipset drivers
full system hardware diagnostics
BIOS update
replace both video cards
replace motherboard
replace system memory
disable PhysX card

None of these have worked. I still get dramatically reduced frame rates with SLI on, plus weird crashes. Like another poster, I've found that SLI frequently makes Solitaire, of all things, crash.

As a last resort, we're doing a system exchange. They're sending me a new one and I'm sending this one back. I hope to get lucky, but I'm not optimistic.

Oh, I also tried to instal the 169.04 drivers. For some bizarre reason, I get an NVDIA error message telling me I'm not running 32-bit vista. That's not correct. I also tried to install the 64-bit version, just to be on the safe side, but that didn't work either. I don't know what OS the machine thinks I'm running, but I'm definitely running 32-bit vista.

The tech guy who's been to my house twice now says vista just sucks and I should downgrade. I don't want to do that, though, because I need Vista for Direct X 10.

I'll post the results of the system exchange, when I get it.

 

That sucks man, there are a lot of people who aren't having these problems, with SLi but there are still some minor problems. Try going into the NVIDIA control panel and check that SLi performance mode is set to single gpu, if it isn't change it to that, it normally is buggy on any of the other modes

 

Yeah, things run much better with SLI turned off (single GPU), but I'm not going to settle for that. I paid a bundle to get the benefit of both GPUs!

Here's hoping the next one works!

 

Alright guys, listen up. I believe I have the found the ultimate solution to ALL mine and possibly your SLI problems, and you will be surprised by what it is! (HOPEFULLY everyones).

I had a tech come to give me a new gpu, and because i didnt *think* my old was was working, he replaced it. I even had them send me a completely new laptop, only to figure out that, when i got the new one, I found out why my older one *didnt work* ! It was ofcourse my fault, and I bet you it is your fault too (SOME of you) and just dont realize it!

Take into account what wogstaa says about the battery thing. Although, it goes further than that guys.

Its a little thing in the bios called...

INTEL-SPEEDSTEP.

This little damn thing will make ur laptop act as if you have ony one GPU if its DISABLED! You MUST have speedstep ENABLED in your bios!

I cannot hit myself enough times in the head for noticing it earlier. I went and did a billion driver updates, bios updates, you name it i did it, and it nothing seemed to *work* right with my SLI.

but it was ALL because i had SPEEDSTEP disabled!!!

alot of the more hardcore gamers etc will know what this is, in the bios, and disable it out of habit. that is what i did, and TOTALLY forgot about it!

It was literally lowering my fps 50% ( FIFTY FREAKING PERCENT! ) by having it disabled.


SO PEOPLE, turn ON SPEEDSTEP in your bios! Its under one of the tabs! I cant recall which one but it should be obvious which one it is when u go thru them!

Just hit F2 during the time ur computer is starting up to access the bios, for all the peeps out there that dont know what im talking about!

Goodluck to all you guys having problems! I know i fixed my now for sure.

BTW for those who wanna know, I have an xps 1730 with vista, 2gb ram, etc, and am using 169.04 drivers, and its absolutely FANTASTIC now!

 

Congrats on fixing your problem. Unfortunately, that's not mine. I just checked, and speedstep is already enabled on my system.

Of course, I also have the strange quirk that I can't install the 169.04 drivers, but that's a whole other problem.

 

Single GPU is still SLi, I think it treats both GPUs as one and shares the processing, like dual core CPUs, I always have problems when I set it to any of the other settings and I get around 8000 in 3dmark 06 when its set to single GPU

 

Absolutely was not it for me. You know, the other major thing you changed was your notebook and cards. Hmmm.

Although, my first statement was misleading. Too many posts in this thread are not specific. For example, I run Battlefield 2142 and Team Fortress 2 very very well. And I can confirm SLI is working as I'm using the drivers SLI overlay to display how the driver is working.

The SLI overlay will not load, however, when I load Call of Duty 4, a game where I am suffering terrible performance.

Please, if you are having problems let us know:

1) With what application? Are any applications running well?
2) What driver version?
3) What operating system?
4) Have you tried viewing the SLI overlay with the problem application?

See this post for more infor on the SLI overlay:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=188779

 

Lets get back in the game guys - has nobody found a way to make this so called BEAST run SLI. Sure the drivers 196.09 etc. gave some increase in performance, but I am afraid it is still not running real SLI.

Sure the green indicator shows up in DX10 games, but try sign up to the Nvidia Club SLI, the Nvidia application tells the truth ....SLI not enabled.

http://www.slizone.com/content/slizone/clubsli.html

This is a joke - and all the CNET etc. that has tested this, their tests is worth nada... did they even turn it on?

What shall the do? DELL stonewalls us - when we contact them. Can somebody make a website where we can publish our M1730 ID.

With this statement:

DELL please respond to this:

1) Medium, canno select high quality, in the game GRAW2 .. that came with the laptop. BEAST?

2) SLI on HD TV not working. BEAST?

3) SLI not recognized by Nvidia on signup to the Club SLI. BEAST?

4) DELL Graphic drivers 60 days old - cannot play Crysis etc. BEAST?

5) And the big qustion what will DELL do to keep their promise of a BEAST?

We can send the website to [email protected] (CEO) and Glen Robson (XPS product manager).

 

FREE UPGRADE TO 2 X 8800M GT (2x512MB) in SLI - so the we can use the laptop for serious gaming.

Thats all she wrote..

 

PS. They can keep the 8700M GT card

 

I'd settle for one 512MB 8800. Probably at least as fast as the 2 8700s would be even if they were working properly.

 

Check under the battery.

 

Hi,

I’m from Sweden and I have the same problem with my XPS M1730, which I received 2007-11-21.

I have been in contact with Dell Tech-support which claimed that they didn't know a thing about it. They didn’t know how to solve the problem either, and just told me to wait for a update from Nvidia.

I noticed that under the installation of GRAW2 it checked my system and it said that it could only find 256 Mb of graphic memory. Does that have something to do with the SLI technology?

Found this URL on Google. Have anyone of you guys tried it?

It is a driver with a modded INF.

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=16311

Someone have tried though! Check the URL.

My XPS M1730:
Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900 2.8GHz
4 Gb RAM
200 Gb 7200 rpm
Dual Nvidia GeForce Go 8700M GT with SLI Technology
Ageia PhysX

 

Is there anything special that you need to do installing any of the 169 series drivers?

It looks like it is just a matter of installing the driver with the modified inf right? No special procedures?

 

You have to make sure that you uninstall the drivers properly!!

1. Go to "My system" --> Device Manager --> under the video card section choose "Remove" and check the box where it says something about removing drivers... DO NOT REBOOT YET!

2. Go into control panel --> Program and features --> Remove any nVidia drivers that might still be there

3. Use CClean to make sure you get all of your previous driver's data removed.

4. Reboot and install the new driver with modded INF. file, or go to notebookforums.com and get a NBF Enhanced Driver (they are good but the latest enhanced driver didn't really do anything more for me).

5. Reboot

 

I also purchased the M1730 about 4 weeks ago and noticed some problems with SLI with select applications, though when I started to dig further I discovered that these problems weren't isolated to just the 1730 but other SLI rigs too.

I've updated my laptop to v169.12 (laptopvideo2go.com is your friend), installed Rivatuner, FRAPs, nHancer, and purchased Lavalys Everest for monitoring (don't want to cook anything!). The CPU is OC'd to 3.0ghz and the video OC'd to 729/1458/850 (Riva will show 675/1350 because the GPUs are already hardware OC'd 8%or so). It's solid and for games that work well with SLI it's performing as expected compared to other 8x00 SLI rigs. For games that don't play well with SLI, I disable it and it plays like an OC'd 8600 GT.

I agree that there is a problem with SLI and some games (like Lord of the Ring Online in my case) but we're not alone. The video forums over at forums.lotro.com are rife with SLI complaints from all sorts of folks running a wide array of hardware.

In terms of GRAW2, if you disable SLI and run the game you'll see there is a marked decrease in FPS versus running it in SLI. That second GPU is definitely kicking in an added 30-40% FPS.

If I had to make any complaints about this laptop it would be that Dell was wanting too much for the 2GB to 4GB upgrade ($400CAD) and that it should have come with 512mb per GPU, not 256mb. Coincidently, I just ordered a Kingston 4GB upgrade kit (2x2GB) for $300CAD and would have likely paid that much with the original laptop order if it was offered. $400 for 2 extra GB is a bit of gouge.

 

Could you tell me where did you find these memory modules? On Kingston's web site? The only 2GB memory modules I could find there are $67.82 CAD each.
http://www.memorydepot.com/dbsearch.asp?showmodel=66798&modelname=XPS+M1730

Are they the same as you ordered? I am also thinking of upgrading from 2GB to 4GB but I understand that cheaper memory modules suffer performance wise. I love the price, though

 

Those look like the ones! I special ordered them from tigerdirect.ca at $126CAD each. No deal there but I wanted Kingstons. I've seen Kingston prices as low as $100USD out of the US though. Check pricewatch.com.

 

Thanks. That price of $67.82 CAD for 1 x 2GB Kingston module looks kind of suspiciously low, though I obviously love it. I could not find any 2GB memory modules on tigerdirect.ca at all Perhaps they are sold out. Dell wants $165.99US for 1 x 2GB in the accessories section. I wonder if the price difference between the two does have something to do with the performance. Interestingly, Dell does not show a Kingston made module, when I searched for memory upgrade for XPS.

 

Guys! Can anybody make the Club SLI reg. application see your SLI?

http://www.slizone.com/content/slizone/clubsli.html