AW18 880m Sli Problem Help!

Hi guys i am a new member on the forum and need some help regarding a problem i am facing with my AW18


I have these weird glitches/ artifacts in some games while using Sli they look like the image is outta sync with horizontal flickering lines in some parts of the screen also it sometimes ends in a black screen system lockup which forces me to hard reset the system but works perfectly with SLI OFF

things i have tried to no effect reinstalled graphic driver after using DDU in safe mode
redownloaded Latest driver 355.60 after DDU safemode
Removed and re-seated the Sli cable


Specs are windows 10 4700mq 16gb ram gtx880m 8gb Sli

any help will be appreciated thanks

 

Hi, and welcome to our community. Sorry you had to join for help. After we get this sorted, hopefully you can stick around for a while and be part of the gang.

Let's see if we can narrow it down a bit. Can you please clean install this driver and let us know if those issues are resolved?

Mr. Fox's GeForce 345.20 Desktop Driver Mod for Alienware and Clevo Mobile GPUs

If everything is still the same, you may have a hardware issue. And, just to confirm, you're not running Windows 10, correct?

*** Windows 10 Upgrade Warning for Alienware Owners ***

 

It sounds as if one of your GPU is going bad. I went through this with my cards when one was dying. To make sure test your cards one at a time. Of course this means you will have to open your PC and remove one card from the GPU 2 slot, using only the GPU 1 slot. The GPU 1 slot is the master slot in the PC the 2nd slot is the slave. If you get the artifacts, black screen etc you have found the bad card. If it's not your cards it could be the sli cable. Hopefully, your PC is under warranty and you can get a new GPU or sli cable.

 

@mr.fox yes iam using Windows 10 also know about your thread it hasnt effected me also have installed your modded driver but i cant enable sli because nvidia control panel needs windows shell experience host and searchui.exe disabled from the taskbar but everytime i endtask it just reinitiates dont know how to proceed :S

@Scanner God i hope the gpu isnt Bad just got these from Upgrademonkey for today, no i dont have warranty also i live in a somewhat third world contry so its not possible to send them back. i will switch the card around and check if they work or not weird thing is Single gpu mode works great also not getting any problems during boot or windows usage just games .

 

I remember that problem from the Technical Preview, but don't remember what process or task to kill. It wasn't searchui.exe, but you can probably find it by Googling it. I think it was the Windows Store you needed to kill. Newer drivers addressed that.

I still have random issues with NVCP not launching in Windows 10 even with drivers that supposedly fix it.

Edit: try reinstalling the same drivers with Driver Signature Enforcement disabled a second time, on top of itself, without using DDU cleaning. That's what fixed it on my Clevo with Windows 10.

 

Got Sli to work but no dice still getting the same glitches and lines btw is this a known issue of the Sli cable going bad or something else ?

 

Do what @Scanner suggested. Remove the secondary GPU (right side) and check operation of the primary GPU. Take the heat sink off the primary GPU, put it on the secondary GPU and install that in the primary (left) slot and see if everything works OK. If both work OK in the primary slot with the secondary slot open, GPUs are probably OK and you would be looking at a bad SLI bridge cable. If either GPU has issues running solo in the primary slot, that bugger is the problem.

If you look in Device Manager right now, with SLI enabled, are both of them OK? No problem codes?

Was it like this on Windows 7/8/8.1, or did all of your issues surface after installing Windows 10?

Yes, SLI bridge cables do go bad. It's not something that happens all the time, but it does happen now and then. We typically see several examples here in our community every year.

 

Device manager has both cards "working properly" no problem codes.
I am afraid i didnt have the 880m's just got them earlier today but when i was on windows 7 my earlier 765m sli never caused me grief on either win7 or win10. guess my only option is to try your suggestion about the cards atleast i will know who the glitchy culprit is.

Thank you guys for the response i will report back after checking.

 

Did you obtain new 100W heat sinks for 780M/880M when you upgraded? I ask because the 75W 765M/770M heat sinks are not going to be able to adequately cool 780M or higher GPUs.

You need the following parts if you are using the 75W heat sinks:
TJ6G8 - GTX780m/880M GPU Thermal Module Right 100w
HTXFC - GTX780m/880M GPU Thermal Module Left 100w

 

Okay well i tried both cards one by one on the master slot both work perfectly ran some games and the Arkham Knight benchmark no artifacts glitching lines or anything working perfectly, so now i put both cards back in but switched them around just to make sure and its the same i get weird lines and outta sync image only in SLI works perfectly with Sli disabled so i guess the cable is at fault ?

Yes i did purchase both left/right 100w Heatsinks when buying the cards along with IC Diamond thermal paste

 

@Mr. Fox so do you think i should order a new Sli cable ?

 

Based on your testing, that's probably the most logical thing to do now. They are inexpensive if you order them directly from Dell Spare Parts. If you find one on eBay, expect a used one to be a huge rip-off at 10 to 15 times more than what Dell charges for a brand new one.

 

Do you have a link to their spare parts site? I've never been able to find it.

 

The web site is not reliable for ordering and the pricing listed on the web site is much higher than when you call them. In the US, the phone number for Dell Spare Parts 1-800-357-3355

Dell Spare Parts Catalog

 

Okay will do hopefully i can enjoy my system without further complications after the cable is changed i will report back after i manage to find one

Thank you very much to everyone that helped especially @Mr. Fox Thank you Sir.

 

THIS is what this community is all about. I love it here!

 

@Mr. Fox
I have another question what is the load and idle temps of the 880m's i notice my master card goes up to 92 degrees when on full load is that normal ? also my master card has temp 5-10 degrees higher than the slave card is that to be expected or should i repaste ?

Also have noticed that my SLI flickering problem goes away when i use windowed/borderless windowed mode in games but the system takes a performance hit of some kind i am starting to think its got something to do with windows 10 and the nvidia drivers rather than the sli cable being bad .

 

I don't have 880M cards. They do tend to run hotter than most, but 92°C is way too hot. Your flickering is most likely a bad SLI bridge cable, and the fact that it goes away in window or borderless window mode is further confirmation it is the likely culprit. Get a new SLI bridge before you repaste and install it while everything is apart and that should take care of things. If the heat sink radiators are clogged with dust and lint, that could be causing the problem. Cleaning them out may stop the overheating without a repaste, but needing to replace the SLI bridge cable, might as well do it all at once.

 

Not normal. They should really be around 80c in 99% of workloads.

 

Well to be honest i use my laptop at work and our AC is broken so its quite hot here but i will repaste with IC Diamond again when i receive the SLI cable

 

I have a friend that has a m18 r2 who is willing to let me use his sli cable to let me check if it solves my problem so my question is that will it be compatible with AW18 ?


Sent from my iPhone 6+ using Tapatalk

 

@Goldenhawk - Yes, you can try it. It may not be long enough to reach both video cards, but if it will reach both connectors it will work fine for testing. In other words, they are wired exactly the same, but the M18xR2 SLI bridge is slightly shorter.

 

@Mr. Fox i have managed to get another sli cable but my problem persists its the same weird lines in on screen in Sli mode. They vanish on borderless/windowed mode.

I honestly have no idea what to do next


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