I had a faulty gpu replaced in my alienware today, and the tech up and left before the thing even finished booting. As a result, I only see one of my 2 nvidia geforce 285m's. Alienware tech support claims that I need the dell driver for my m17x-r2 in order for the mobo to first start picking up the gpus, which I can then update the drivers for to latest.... But the alienware support site for my laptop is down. There aren't any drivers listed for it.

I managed to find a 285m dell specific (or so it says) mirror of the driver and so I downloaded that. Now, I can see 1 card and the onboard graphics card, but not both of the good gpu's.

Is there an SLI specific driver, and can someone help me find it? Or is there something I need to do to disable the onboard card so that my other GPU can take that bus slot???

I saw a video on youtube about doing that in the bios, but my version of the bios doesn't have that option, and I updated it a week or so ago.

Any advice would be helpful. Thanks.

11/21/2011 4:21:22 PM

I doubt too many people in here have gaming laptops much less with SLI.

I know usually you just install the normal Nvidia drivers and everything else works. I can't image why it would be any different. So Alienware support is saying you need a specific Dell driver so the motherboard sees both GPUs? This is odd. If they're both physically connected to each bus you should be able to see them both in Windows.

11/21/2011 5:03:41 PM

I don't know how else to explain it. I can't think of a reason I'd be able to see one and not the other.

11/21/2011 5:09:23 PM

And you saw both before?

11/21/2011 5:28:41 PM

Perhaps the laptop uses some kind of SLI bridge like a desktop does and it was forgotten or incorrectly installed? (I know nothing about mobile SLI)

11/21/2011 6:05:05 PM

It does have an sli bridge, the tech swears he installed them correctly.

And yes, I could see both prior to the install

11/21/2011 7:23:44 PM

I've got that same machine. you should just install the driver and call it a day. Dell swears you have to use their "custom driver", which is nothing more than the stock nVidia driver with a Dell logo on it, but it sounds like you tried it. if you are feeling adventurous, get out a screwdriver and make sure everything that should be connected is connected. it would be pretty obvious if it weren't.

if you got the warranty, though, and I hope you did, I'd just call them up and tell them to get their fat asses back out to your house and fix it. I've got all of the CDs at home, so if you want, I can look through them to find any drivers you might need if you don't have your CDs

11/22/2011 2:21:08 PM

Dell support admits it's a hardware issue, they want me to send it in.

I have to go the entire long weekend with no gamage

11/22/2011 3:23:48 PM