GeForce Go 7950 GTX SLI Owners (Alienware, DELL, Clevo etc.)

[Guyver1]

Grey, I think you need to realise that this workaround just doesnt work consistently, this guy obviously knows what he's doing, he knows how to install/uninstall drivers. He obviously has got SLI working on older drivers therefore he can install drivers correctly.

This workaround just isnt consistent because its not actually supposed to work, the fact that it can for some people shows sloppy coding/security measures by nvidia, its not an intended installation method.

[Guest Darren Gordon]

Hi there Guyver and Grey, you may of seen my past posts if you have you know my new lap top delivered nov 5 does not need to do any method to get to install you just simply install the drivers as you would any other driver and it works first time, as with norm driver you reboot once then you click allow sli and it works perfect no further reboot or only clicking once and canceling the next which makes me think that maybe the newer drivers from alien ware simply allow you to update the drivers. Going to install XP tonight as i want direct x 9 and xp not vista, will let ya know how it goes.

[Grey728]

Okay, So I guess by your account the m9750s SLi running Vista have no issue with installing Drivers. The workaround I stated works for XP Pro x32.

The problem lies now on the Nforce4 AMD m9700 types with either XP or Vista. "ATI->Nvidia SLi" please follow the other forum: http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index....showtopic=16143 as it more closely resembles your system. When they have a solution I hope it helps you.

[Guest Darren Gordon]

Installed XP last night (removing vista) and after finally getting the damm raid drivers to slip stream installed the latest drivers 169.04 i think, getting quick boots now and bench marks of 8505 / 3978 / 3915 / 1909 so tonnes better than Vista! Cheers grey your method worked perfect for me (i didn?t actually try normal install but assume it wouldn?t work like it did for for me under vista).

Not sure what you mean please follow the other forum i have an m9750, dual 7950 gtx. I have no problems what so ever as the drivers installed with both Vista and now XP so im happy! Just posting here so you have some more results as i can see both you and guyver spent a lot of time sorting this out.

I think the age of the machine maybe important as both you and me seem to have bought the machines recently (Nov 5) and can do the updates (im still on the same bios as i had for vista by the way, which alien ware confirm is identical to the XP one, even though it leaves 4 objects unrecognised in device manage after install lol) so i would guess at the motherboard drivers being different from those whom cant install. I would suggest to all updating to the latest alienware drivers off the site before installing.

Anyway thanks once more.

[Grey728]

Sorry, Actually, that was for another user. but I accidentally quoted you =P

[Guest Darren Gordon]

Ignore about the bios being the same, first 2 people i asked at alienware said it was, then when i phones up asking about the 3 missing objects (in device manager) the third one said i would need to change to the XP version of the bios! CHanged over objects gone so there definatly are different versions, anyway it didnt seem to make any difference benchmark score 8580 i think.

Thanks once again guys,

[Guest vwcalbug]

Okay, Windows XP (had to go from vista bios to xp bios, woops)

Alienware 9750

2gig processor

dual 9750GTX

4 gig ram

I did the forceware 169.40 trick, it worked fine, I see the SLI option, etc. The first time I ran 3Dmark 06 I got around 8037, which before with the 94.23 i was getting around 7900. So it looked like to be an improvement...

But now, it seems to be getting really bad scores , like 6000's when I started messing the the Alternate frame rendering VS split frame rendering. Playing call of duty 4, looks worse....

I don't know what happened, I might have chosen the wrong options in the control panel??

Any ideas? The method worked, just don't know if I have the right settings to maximize it?

-Justin

[Guyver1]

choosing a SLI mode in the nvidia control panel is only relevant to games/applications that dont have a SLI profile in the nvapps.xml file.

3DMark06 DOES have a profile and so whatever you set in control panel will be ignored when you run 3dMark.

I'm wondering if the drivers are somehow disabling the SLI code at a later stage even tho intitially you do get the option to enable it.

I honestly have no idea

[Guest vwcalbug]

All the games I play have a profile on this control panel, with the 169.04 driver. When you modify a specific file, does it still get over run by the application itself??

So what should I be setting things at?? I did the "visualize sli" thing or whatever, and the bars were moving. I went into the 3dmark06 and selected the same options I had set for "global" and tried both AFR and SFR....just seems to be performing worse

-Justin

[Guest Clinton]

Hi, Guyer and Grey, i don't know squat about laptops but id really love to pick your brains cause it sounds like this is a serious prob. Which laptop would you recommend ? I wanted to get alienware's 9750, totally maxed out as i can afford it but now im thinking i should nt. I want to be able to play all the new releases on it and be able to update it etc. At the minute i have a Macbookpro which works great, but want one for playing games now.

Thx guys.

[Guest Clinton]

Ive been searching this site forum thing or whatever it is and i clicked on a link and it shows the new area 51 m17x. WOW looks incredible. Hope it works properly. i know it s only looks but WOW. You make some nice tunes Guyer good luck with that. I use pro tools and STYLUS RMX, want to use ATMOSPHERE and TRILOGY to but not compatable with my Macbookpro yet. You should check out stylus if you hav nt already. great for drums and sh..

Quick question. Can i use mbox with protools on this new AREA 51 m17mx and play games on it to.

thx

CLINTON

[Guyver1]

Hi, Guyer and Grey, i don't know squat about laptops but id really love to pick your brains cause it sounds like this is a serious prob. Which laptop would you recommend ? I wanted to get alienware's 9750, totally maxed out as i can afford it but now im thinking i should nt. I want to be able to play all the new releases on it and be able to update it etc. At the minute i have a Macbookpro which works great, but want one for playing games now.

Thx guys.

If you want a dedicated gaming machine then my personal opinion as a compeitive/harcore PC gamer of 10 years is simple...

buy a desktop machine, avoid a laptop at all costs. If you want something portable then go for a shuttle, but dont go for a laptop if you want cutting edge performance to play games such as Crysis on high details at the native resolution of the monitor your using.

[Grey728]

I agree with Guyver on this and I wouldn't recommend buying a gaming laptop as it's largely hype and false promises. Seeing the number of people with Sli laptops not being able to tap into the full potential of their systems and largely being ignored by the companies that sold them the system leaves me feeling pissed as a consumer.

If you need to be mobile, go with a shuttle and a nice LCD. if you don't need to be mobile, you can get an awsome desktop rig for about a thousand dollars less than what you would be paying for a gaming laptop. It's just not worth it.

[Guest Jackpot Girl]

Got my m9750 yesterday. I can confirm that this new method for installing both video cards works

[shawns1982]

i have a hypersonic AX9, i used the alienware drivers to update my old 84.63's and it worked pretty good i got about 100 point increase in 3DMark 06 and all my games seem to run a touch better. the only time i ran into problems with games is when i used the modded .inf file and a 160 series driver, i got choppy gameplay in all my games.

[cesone]

I have the Area 51 m9750

T7600 2.33

2x Geforce go 7950 gtx running in SLI

windows xp pro sp2

I did the trick with the 169.09 drivers.... And the score i'm getting on 3dmark06 is around 8780....... Is that a good score ?... or am i suppossed to be getting higher scores ?

Another question i have is about upgrading the video card.... I saw somewhere that the geforce go 8800 is coming out soon for notebooks... Can the m9750 upgrade to the 8800...

I know the 8700 is an option now.... But i rather wait for the 8800 to come out..... And does the 8700 perform better than the 7950?

Thanks guys....

In sli what settings are the best to use... Thanks again

[Grey728]

That's the right score to get when running 3dmark06 in sli. No SLi will get you about 5600.

Regarding the upgrade from 7950 to 8800m for an m9750. There's still no word yet on if this is possible. Rumor has it that it will be an option in 1-2 months.

8700m isn't worth it unless MUST have dx10 performance just to say you can run dx10. The performance in dx10 is terrible and the benefits are minimimal at this point in time. Stick with the 7950s.

Edited December 11, 2007 by Grey728

[cesone]

Thanks Grey for the respond...

Well I hope we have the option to upgrade to the 8800.... If not I would feel like i wasted my money.. I just got the m9750 in october..

[Guest Guest]

new official ALIENWARE beta XP 7950gtx SLI driver

http://aliendl.alienware.com/mobile/m9750/...167.46_BETA.zip

[Pantharian]

This should also work with the 7900gtx SLI'd cards too right?

[Guest vwcalbug]

Yes, it works on my 7950gtx SLI cards...marginal gains (but i don't play crysis, etc) mostly call of duty

[Guest Guest - Adam]

I came to the same conclusion as the very helpful Guyver1: buying a laptop for gaming was a big mistake, regardless of the fact that it was a very high spec. Rock machine. No updates to graphics drivers was a big shock. The machine was nigh on useless within a year. I now have a shiny silver expensive doorstop. Recently built myself a stunning "desktop" for the same price, including a perfect 24" Dell 1920x120 2408WP monitor... (Very easy to build your own PC if you go slowly...) Cheers all.

Official Alienware drivers:

I hope this thread has helped answer a few questions and I will continue to update this thread with driver updates if they appear :)

[Pantharian]

You may want to try v176.09 from Clevo - no need for any modded inf. N.B. Use the link provided by M_P_E on that page as the 'download' at the top of the page doesn't work.

I installed them a couple of weeks ago and they work fine with Crysis and World in Conflict (the only games I have played so far with these drivers).

The only issue installing these is that after installing the second card the screen goes black. But don't panic - just wait a few minutes and hit enter. You should hear the Windows logging off sound and the machine will reboot. After reboot you will need to enable SLI using the Nvidia Control panel.

Good luck!

[Guest minime]

I came to the same conclusion as the very helpful Guyver1: buying a laptop for gaming was a big mistake, regardless of the fact that it was a very high spec. Rock machine. No updates to graphics drivers was a big shock. The machine was nigh on useless within a year. I now have a shiny silver expensive doorstop.

came to the same conclusion:

alienware is a no trustwothy company, only good for stealing your money, but no support or after sales support. not giving you drivers and the only noticable effort their so called support does, is to find excuses why their products didnt match the specifications given at purchase and why their not giving you drivers to run the machine properly.

better think twice before you give you hard saved money to a bunch of b***lars.

[Bronnster]

i have a hypersonic AX9, i used the alienware drivers to update my old 84.63's and it worked pretty good i got about 100 point increase in 3DMark 06 and all my games seem to run a touch better. the only time i ran into problems with games is when i used the modded .inf file and a 160 series driver, i got choppy gameplay in all my games.

Are you able to to use the SLI option though? Is there an SLI enabling option available on the options/settings panel you used? If so, would you mind linking which specific Driver and .inf you used. I have the same laptop as you do with Go 7800 GTX-SLI. Thx in advance.