Vista Not recognising my second GPU??

[Joe186]

Hey everyone!

I recently purchased a Alienware m9700i(i know its fairly old)and was planning to use it for mobile gaming. I purchased it from ebay so it is second hand. The laptop came and i booted it up. It had Windows Vista. I looked on it and it said all the specs and said that SLI was on which was awsome. However! I didnt want to stay with windows vista so for that reason i install windows 7 64bit and wanted to work from there. I installed all the drivers for Intel chipset, graphics drivers etc etc
Then, when i went into control panel i realised that there was no enable sli option anywhere!
So i decided to check device manager, and it seems that only 1 graphics card has been recognised. So i thought i should go back to windows vista, so i installed windows vista and went back to how it was before, and funnily enough now windows vista isnt recognising my second gpu. There is no recognition at all that SLI is even there.
Can any light be shined on the situation here? I really want to boost up my frames in crysis.

P.S: It seems that when i play crysis on High my gpu hits around 93 degrees and starts to lag. Is this because its meant to be in SLI or what? I thought that i might buy a cooling pad for that anyway.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Joe186]

Can noone help here???

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

Well, not that I ever had a SLI-enabled gaming laptop, but on my desktop rig, SLI is enabled through nVidia control panel. You might want to try that.

 

[COLGeek]

You need to load the current Nvidia drivers to enable the feature. Go nvidia.com and you'll be good to go.

 

[Joe186]

I have got all the latest drivers and updated with everything :/ And there is no sli option in the nvidia control panel(it doesnt even seem to realise there is a second gpu there at all?

 

[COLGeek]

Are you sure the second GPU is installed AND enabled in the BIOS? Are any unknown or problem devices indicated in your Device Manager? Does Device Manager see both GPUs?

 

[Joe186]

Doesnt look like there are any errors in the device manager, just 1 gpu. However what do you mean by checking in the bios?

 

[COLGeek]

Also, is this the driver you installed?

http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_notebook_winvista_win7_64bit_179.48_beta.html

 

[Joe186]

It says that drivers for 64bit OS, but ill have a look and see if i can find a 32bit version

 

[COLGeek]

OK. Your original post indicated that you were using 64-bit Windows. Also, go into your BIOS and see if you can determine whether or not 2 GPUs are actually installed (or not).

 

[Joe186]

Oh yeh i forgot to say that i went back to vista 32 bit :/ Btw when you say bios do you mean when i boot up. Because i checked in there and it says nothing about my gpus?

 

[COLGeek]

Oh yeh i forgot to say that i went back to vista 32 bit :/ Btw when you say bios do you mean when i boot up. Because i checked in there and it says nothing about my gpus?

Understood on both. Yes, when you first boot up (usually press the F2 or DEL key to access). Somewhere there should be an area that tells you the basic system configuration or an area that has peripheral details.

Still, are you 100% sure the system has 2 GPUs? If not, SLI can't be enabled. Also, if your GPU is hitting 93C, that is getting pretty hot (water boils at 100C). Since this is a used system, the fans may be dirty and not cooling efficiently. Try a blast of compressed air into the intake and exhaust ports to clean the pipes (so to speak).

 

[COLGeek]

32-bit drivers: http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_notebook_winvista_win7_179.48_beta.html

 

[Joe186]

Understood on both. Yes, when you first boot up (usually press the F2 or DEL key to access). Somewhere there should be an area that tells you the basic system configuration or an area that has peripheral details.

Still, are you 100% sure the system has 2 GPUs? If not, SLI can't be enabled. Also, if your GPU is hitting 93C, that is getting pretty hot (water boils at 100C). Since this is a used system, the fans may be dirty and not cooling efficiently. Try a blast of compressed air into the intake and exhaust ports to clean the pipes (so to speak).

Thanks for all the Help man But yeh im positivily sure that my config had 2 gpus when i got it. It definatly said SLI enabled. But now installing over it has lost the ability of enabling it again. I would be suprised if one of my cards died while installing windows 7 and windows vista because ive only had it for a couple of days now. And with the overheating thing, yeh i need to clean out the inside

 

[COLGeek]

Try the 32-bit driver link I sent to see if that helps.

Also, here are the 32-bit drivers listed by Alienware themselves:

http://support.alienware.com/Support_Pages/Restricted_Pages/driver_downloads_processed.aspx?os=WV&cat=2&manu=29&item=958

 

[Joe186]

Ahhh damn the Nvida driver didnt work! And the alienware one you sent was for the GO 7900.

 

[COLGeek]

Ahhh damn the Nvida driver didnt work! And the alienware one you sent was for the GO 7900.

The specs for the M9700 list either a 256MB or 512MB 7900 GS mobile GPU. What does yours have?

 

[Joe186]

Mines a M9700i which is a 8700m gt.

 

[COLGeek]

I just saw in your OP the little "i" after M9700. To clarify, you have an Intel processing and not the AMD version, right? If so, that is an M9750, I believe. Like this one, right?

If so, the same drivers should apply (as provided by Nvidia). The Alienware link is:

http://support.alienware.com/Support_Pages/Restricted_Pages/driver_downloads_processed.aspx?os=WV&cat=2&manu=29&item=1005

 

[COLGeek]

Disregard the earlier Nvidia drivers. This is the one for your rig. I hate confusing model numbers!

http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook-win7-winvista-270.61-whql-driver.html

The Alienware link is:
http://support.alienware.com/Support_Pages/Restricted_Pages/driver_downloads_processed.aspx?os=WV&cat=2&manu=29&item=1040

 

[Joe186]

Yep, i have an intel core 2 duo. Im downloading the first one that is on the list right now. Lets pray

 

[Joe186]

Oh wait, ok i look at that one

 

[COLGeek]

Oh wait, ok i look at that one

Any progress yet?

 

[Joe186]

Ahhhh, still not worked! Damn, my hopes are getting low here now ( I dont know whats up with it, because the other day it was all fine but as soon as i installed windows 7 bam 1 of my gpus dissapeared! Now back to vista and still no luck :// What else can i try??

 

[COLGeek]

Going back to Vista and installing the SLI enabled drivers should have done the trick if both GPUs are operational. I think you need to dig through the BIOS to verify the second GPUs presence. Also, another way to check would be to load a Live Version of Ubuntu (or any modern Linux distro) to see what it detects.