M18X R1 GTX580M SLI only using GPU2 fan

Hi everyone,

I have a M18X R1 with dual GTX 580 cards in it. Games never really played well on it. Today I finally (bought it in 2011) made some time to find out why it was behaving so bad. If I run a game, it plays pretty well, GPU's both run at 620 MHz. Then after a few minutes, the game starts lagging and both GPU's are tuned down to 74 (!) MHz (one of the GPU's reached 90 C). After unscrewing the backplate I found out that the most left fan was totally clean and apparently never used. Also in HWiNFO64 there's no fan listed for the first GPU. Any idea if and how I have to enable the fan? Or any other tips?

 

Welcome to NBR,

It is looks like GPU1 fan is faulty, have you tried running gpu fan manually using HWINFO64? You can try Dell diagnostics at start up by pressing F12.

 

Also double check it is plugged in properly.

 

Thanks for the tips so far.

HWINFO64 manual fan is not possible as the fan is nowhere listed. Dell Diagnostics (cool, I didn't know it existed) turned out to say the system was ok (also; only one fan listed)


The connector seems to be properly in place:


NVidia Inspector also shows only one fan:


I ordered a new fan, let's hope it will be recognized.
To be continued...

 

Ahh i can see one fan takin rest from quite long time eh. It is highly possible that fan is faulty. I hope fan replacement will solve your system problem.

 

Received my new fan today. It's still not recognized in NVIDIA Inspector, but I think it's spinning. However, after playing a game the GPU's seem to clock back to 74 MHz instead of 620MHz after a few minutes. My laptop is about an inch from the table to improve airflow, but it seems one GPU is overheating.

Could anyone with a m18x r1 check if both fans should be listed in NVIDIA Inspector?

 

MXM modules do not control GPU fans. Neither fan should be listed in NVIDIA Inspector. If one is, that is totally an error. Laptop fans are chassis fans that are controlled by the EC based on thermal data the EC receives from the GPUs. HWINFO64 shows two fan controls for the M18xR1 and M18xR2. You can use two temperature sensors (CPU and one GPU sensor) to manually set up fan speeds, but you cannot control the fans individually. If you force fan 1 to full speed, all 3 fans will (should) go full speed in unison. If you shut off 1 fan all 3 should simultaneously shut off. This will happen regardless of which slider you choose. The third slider is grayed out and non-functional. This is normal for the M18xR1 and M18xR2.

I would recommend manually forcing the fans full blast (does not matter which slider you choose). Check all three fans for function. If all 3 are going full speed, your GPU that is overheating probably needs a repaste. If the one GPU that is overheating needs new paste and/or thermal pads, might as well do both GPUs and the CPU at the same time unless you recently repasted them.

On the M18xR2 I have only one fan speed sensor reading in the table. By default, it appears under Dell EC. Enabling EC Support in HWiNFO64 is known to cause a variety of issues, including audio artifacts and high DPC latency, hanging during shutdown and some other glitches. Disable EC support in HWiNFO64 and everything should be fine. IN FACT, having that enabled may be causing your fan malfunction problem. I recommend disabling EC sensor support (Dell EC and Compal EC) in HWiNFO64 to avoid all of these problems. You don't need a sensor to tell you if the fans are running since you can see, hear and feel it. I just enabled it for this screen shot, and as you can see there is only one fan speed sensor. For the screen shot, I forced the fans (all 3) to full speed. (On the Alienware 18 all three have sensors and can be controlled individually with the right settings.)

 

Thanks a lot for the reply Mr. Fox.

HWiNFO64 only shows one (working) slider for fan 1 & 2, but slider changes and/or pressing buttons doesn't seem to have any effect. I then realized that when upgrading the BIOS all fans blow at full speed. So that's what I did. Open BIOS upgrade A05, fans blow full speed, cancel the upgrade and start the game. It's more of a workaround than a fix, but at least I could play my game for at least 3 hours. After that I checked temps and one GPU was at 34 C and the other one was at 95 C.

 

You have to press System Auto, move the slider, the press Set Manual... in that order.

 

If a repaste/clean does not fit it then the heatsink itself may need replacing as a heatpipe may have gone bad.