***M18x - NVIDIA SLI (Driver Questions, Performance, Problems) Discussion Thread***

[nhorn1983]

ya let us know how it goes i am thinking of buying the same system and am a heavy heavy gamer

[DanXbix]

I'm running nvidia drivers 295.51, A05 modded bios and as of late I have noticed GPU2 is 10c higher then GPU1. Either idle or while gaming. I have also noticed in HWmonitor that the fan on GPU2 is 1000rpm lower and it doesn't seem to speed the fan up like GPU1. I normally use the laptop with nvidia cards off while doing basic stuff. Kinda stumped as to why it's happening all the sudden?? Any ideas

[Mr. Fox]

Dan - so, did it do it before you installed the latest beta, or this started after installing it? My GPU modules are very seldom the same temperature, but they are not normally off by 10°C at idle. They're usually closer to the same, like maybe 5°C difference.

[DanXbix]

Sorry for posting in the wrong section. Just was worried thats all mainly because the fans were not on at the same speed. And idling its always off 10c as GPU2 fan isn't running as fast. I can force both to full in HWmonitor so its not a dodge fan?? Playing Skyrim and GpUs seem right 61c 66c Side not The m18x is with this config runs everything in ultra truly awesome

On idle GPU1 fan is defiantly higher RPM. Idling for 10mins GPU1 - 61c GPU2 - 59c is that ok? just worried as I have had a m1730 & m17xr2 die on me due to heat.

[Mr. Fox]

There are a number of us that started out with an M1730 and followed a similar path to the M18x, so concerns are understandable. I don't see those temps as being high enough to be a problem as far as causing harm, do you. I'm not sure why there is a larger difference in temps at idle.

[jlyons264]

I have around a 10c difference while mine is not doing anything, but I think mine comes from one is stuck in high mode and the other is in low. What I mean is one the shader speed is at 1550, the other is 101. When I do any kind of test it brings within a couple degrees of each other.

[tble]

I have the same situation it might be that while not running anything that uses SLI it uses the one card only. At least that's what I've equated it too, because again like jlyons264 I've noticed under load like in game the temps pretty much are within a couple degrees of each other.

[mobiousblack]

So I am messing around with MSI afterburner, and I am kind of confused. Right now I am running a vbios that does not throttle, so no matter what I stress test it stays at stock clocks, now I overclock with MSI Afterburner and the clocks change in GPU-Z, but when I run a stress test the clocks start off overclocked but then instantly go down to stock clocks, is there something else I have to do to keep them at those clocks?

[Mr. Fox]

mobious - MSI Afterburner is not going to do you much good because you cannot use it to change the clock speeds on P1, only P0. That's why NVIDIA Inspector is so useful. Your cards are throttling down to P1 under stress, which is why we use Inspector to make P1 clock speeds the same as P0. The throttle condition still exists no matter what you do, but it becomes irrelevant when P0 and P1 are set at the same clock speeds with Inspector.

MSI Afterburning works very nice for the OSD application to monitor in-game clocks and temps, and it has nice in-game screen shot and video capture features. Other than that, it's pretty worthless on the Dell GTX 580M because of the throttling.

[mobiousblack]

Originally Posted by Mr. Fox

mobious - MSI Afterburner is not going to do you much good because you cannot use it to change the clock speeds on P1, only P0. That's why NVIDIA Inspector is so useful. Your cards are throttling down to P1 under stress, which is why we use Inspector to make P1 clock speeds the same as P0. The throttle condition still exists no matter what you do, but it becomes irrelevant when P0 and P1 are set at the same clock speeds with Inspector.

MSI Afterburning works very nice for the OSD application to monitor in-game clocks and temps, and it has nice in-game screen shot and video capture features. Other than that, it's pretty worthless on the Dell GTX 580M because of the throttling.

I see, well right now I just went ahead and got Svet's vBios tuner and went ahead and created my own vBios ROM. I was wondering about another thing though, is it bad to constantly flash the vbios with new settings to test for overclocking? I will use nvidia inspector from now on but I would like to know if constant vbios flashing can cause problems?