AW18 980m SLI second fan solution ?

Because of my MSI 1070 that throttles and I couldn’t find a solution, I decided to down/upgrade to 980m SLI.
And of course my AW has the issue with the second fan not spinning. With HWInfo64 I can control all the Fans.
But exist now a fix for this problem?

 

Buy properly supported cards next time. Clevo and Dell cards do not have problems in the M18x regarding fan behavior

 

Which cards do you mean?

 

Which 980m did you buy? Clevo, Dell, MSI?

Flashing Dell vBIOS should fix the issue I believe

 

Clevo cards. They work fine in PEG. But I have no external Programmer

 

Do not need programmer, only nvflash

 

Are you sure? I thought Maxwell and Pascal need to be flashed via a programmer? Because of bricking the card.
Last time I flashed a Zotac 1070 and after that the card is broken.

Here are my Cards:

 

this is a pascal problem, not a Maxwell problem

 

Ah cool. So I can flash whatever I want? Except Gsync

 

Ah beautiful 980m SLI, never got to try it though on M18xR2.

Flash this to the card on the right: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/182494/182494

Left card already has this vBIOS. I'm hoping "second fan not spinning" refers to the card on the left because that's the card with a different vBIOS than the Dell one.

 

So let me get this straight. I have to flash the VBios from the right card to the left card?

 

If it makes it easier, just flash the vBIOS I posted to both cards.

 

Now I flashed your linked VBios. Every Dell non Gsync and every Alienware non Gsync VBios.
No change, the fan also stays still.

 

Have you tried swapping the fans, to rule out that everything is OK with the fan?

 

With hwinfo64 the fan is spinning

 

The curious thing is, I bought this AW18 2 years ago from TheDantee with a broken Mainboard and no GPU‘s. And it was sold Original from Dell with 980M SLI.

 

EC could also be faulty, Alienware 18 is such a poor platform to work with its not even worth messing with. I would dump that machine and get a M18x R2 if you want something Alienware, or some newer clevo machine.

 

I only want to get it working to sell it.

 

One hack-ish way to make it work is to split the pwm signal wire from the working fan and connect it to the non working fan, but keep the other 3 wires connected in the header, that would make both fans work at the same RPM, but still be powered independently and still report RPM to the system as well.

 

Yes I know. But that’s to hackish.
Anyone tried A14 Bios with 980M sli?

 

Aw18 works perfect without any modding with the 980m sli as the laptop already shipped with it .. so any bios as a11 or a12 or a13 or a14 will work with you but you have to use the vbios from Dell...
My laptop comes with gtx 980m SLI and it was working perfect till my main card blown from the heat 3 days ago .. I was very lazy to paste it that's why the main card is dead now .. the problem that I haven't backed up the main vga vbios so i just removed the main one and used the secondary card and it recognized without any problem but i had to ddu the driver first to let the windows recognize it as the main card ..
The problem was that the fan isn't working so i rememberd that I don't have any backup bios so i just flashed it with the above bios and it worked perfect as it's made for the main card but I backed the slave vbios in case if I needed it again .. so if you need i can upload the secondary bios for you

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Yes, I would try your VBios. Please upload it

 

Here is bios from my gtx 980m slave card View attachment GTX980M_Alienware18_GM204_slave.rom.zip

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Thanks
Which VBios version is it?

 

It's for nvidia gtx 980m 8gb slave card ...
Bios version : 84.04.85.00.0D

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Is it a special bios? Can‘t find that on techpowerup

 

I also recommend being on the latest or second latest BIOS for 980M SLI as it was officially supported.

 

It's the perfect bios for 980m sli for the slave card .. this is the bios that the came with the card with alienware 18 that shipped with 980m so no problems at all with fans or any thing... all other bios on the tech techpower are for the main card not the slave so that you will get problems with the fan

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So to make it clear .. the fact that both cards should have the same bios isn't correct .. my Alienware 18 already shipped from factory with gtx 980m sli ... the main card have bios version 84.04.35.00.05 while the slave card have bios 84.04.85.00.0D ... so this is the perfect bios to get both fans working ... note that I learned it because when I replaced the 2 cards when the main died, my main card doesn't get fan working because it has bios of the slave ...
Here is pic from my main card showing ticket on it with the bios and also pic from the bios of the slave card

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Great. Thanks
I will try it on Monday

 

Waiting for your test.. I'm sure it will work out if box for you

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Update:

I flashed your VBios. After that both fans seems to work. But system hangs also after new Win10 installation, or system is ultra slow. And when I change the slave gpu to the main MXM slot and leave the MXM 2 slot free, the card gives me in windows a white, a blue or a Blackscreen after 10sec~.
The main card doesn’t do that.
And it doesn’t matter which VBios the slave GPU has.

???

 

Please read my comment again

The slave bios won't work if you put the slave card in the mxm 1 slot and fam won't work .

So to make it easy for you..

1-the master card should have thr bios of the main card which I gave you its number 84.04.35.00.05 and it's listed as msi if you tried to download it and I can't upload it to you as may main card died .. edit found link for dell https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/178533/178533

2- the slave card should have the bios that I uploaded 84.04.85.00.0D and it should be in the mxm2 slot only

Also note that if you used only one card in the mxm1 slot .. it should have theater card bios not the slave to work and also you will need to ddu the driver and instal it again.. you will need this again if you added the second slave card
....



So the master bios will only be able to use thre fan in the mxm1 slot
And the slave bios will only be able to use the fan in the mxm2 slot
And you can't mix them and any changes in the system like booting with only one gpu will need you to ddu the driver to get the card working properly

That's why most of the people that upgraded their system to 980sli doesn't have fully working system because they use the same bios in both cards and no one was providing the slave bios ...

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Found link for the master card bios from dell

https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/178533/178533

Bios version 84.04.35.00.05 ... note that it should be only used on the card in the mxm1 slot

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Ok I will try again

 

It seems to be that the slave GPU with the SlaveBios died during flash with the 0D Bios.

 

How did it die flashing the BIOS?

 

Yes, only during flash with nvflash. But I will try the Slave card in another laptop.

 

But how?
Not detected anymore?

Flash it again with an hardware programmer, might just be a corrupt flash.

 

How does this happen ?
Haven't you already flashed it before ?

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Make sure that your sli cable is working fine

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But the problem with blue, white or Blackscreen stays also with Slave GPU in Master MXM slot. Only one GPU and it doesn’t matter which VBios.

 

I really can't understand your problem ..

The master bios should be used only with the vga in the mxm 1 and the slave bios should be used with the vga in the mxm 2..

The bios is extracted from my system and you can see it in the pic and you said that you successfully flashed it and card was working

So how it died after that ? And why you were flashing it again ...

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I flashed both with your 2 VBIOS. Master with 05, and Slave with 0D. From this moment the system freezes. Then I removed both cards and tested both cards in master MXM slot. I flashed the Slave card with a VBIos for the master Card. And it also did blue, white ... Screen. The master card which I didn‘t flashed with 0D VBios works great, the Slave not.

 

What's your bios version ? Use any bios after A11

Also about the vbios that I mentioned .. have you downloaded it from the link i posted above ?

I'm using the 05 bios now and flashed it to the card that was having the 0D version and it works perfect in the mxm 1 slot ..
Also try to ddu the driver and make sure that you use the bios from the link in my comment as it's made for dell and I'm sure it's working as I just flashed it to my card again and works perfect

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Also you are saying that both are doing blue white screen then again you said that the card works perfect..

It seems that you have faulty gpu

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No, I only said the it could be that the slave card now is faulty. Master works fine. But before I flashed your VBios from the links both cards worked fine. So I think during the flash something goes wrong. It also could be that the Slave card was a little bit faulty and now it comes to the light.
I will later test it in an MSI GT70

And my systemBios is A12 unlocked.
Or do I have to install Win10 in UEFI?

 

You should use uefi system with windows 10 also to get it working properly and try to flash it again with the slave bios and add 6 to skip the id mismatch

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Ok, I try it in Uefi. And with -6 I flash it always.

 

No luck with uefi and another flash.
But Strange thing. I flashed an MSI VBios and installed the Slave card in GT70. The card is working fine in there.