Alienware M18x SLI not working

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I got an M18x the other week which has two GTX460M cards in. The problem I'm having is that the SLI option is not showing up at all in the Nvidia control panel. I see the PhysX option but not SLI.

I tried installing the latest driver from the Nvidia site and when it rebooted, I thought I caught a message saying SLI connector not present. I never had this before or since though. Does anyone know if they do need the connector in the laptops, and how easy it is to physically check for it?
 
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Thanks for that. This is what I get:

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So there's clearly something amiss. Think I'll take the back off and have a look.
 
Right well I took the keyboard off and found the SLI link cable flapping loose on the right side graphics card. When I looked at the connector it was clear why!

2194c3l.jpg


Question now is do I tell Dell that I've had it open or not?
 
if you have broke no seals then no don't tell them, get them out or have it replaced. just semail them the disabled piccy
 
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if you have broke no seals then no don't tell them, get them out or have it replaced. just semail them the disabled piccy

I'll second that. So long as all the little clips are OK just put it back together and call them up saying SLI isn't working. I'm sure I've read a thread on notebookreview forums where someone had a similar problem.
 
I pushed the connector back on and it then came up with the SLI option, however due to the broken pins the display flashed horribly when working in SLI mode. I did manage to record a score of 751 in the Heaven benchmark which is about what I'd expected.

I need to disconnect it again now so that the engineer can "discover" the problem, when I eventually get them to send one.
 
I know! There was one on the outlet yesterday with a lower spec (4gb ram instead of 6gb and a single 320gb disk instead of 2x750gb) and it sold for £1150! I think somebody must have cocked up when they put the price of mine in.
 
Just been given a 10% refund on this laptop after finding a small dent on the lid. It's hardly noticeable really but I sent them a photo and they agreed to the partial refund :)

A guy from Alienware support rang earlier and used their remote control app to have a look at my graphics settings. He then agreed it was probably a hardware issue and is sending out an engineer with a new SLI cable.
 
I hope so! I'm waiting for a call back from the engineer this morning. He managed to break the keyboard yesterday so I will at least need that replacing. He also thinks the heatsink that came with one of the graphics cards was the wrong one so that might have to be changed too.
 
He did, but only to ask if reinstalling Windows had helped. I then had a guy from Bratislava remoted onto the laptop for about 90 minutes this evening, faffing around with drivers etc but it still doesn't work. He said at one point that if they can't fix it the only option is a refund, but naturally I would push for a replacement.
 
I decided to let Dell take this away for repair rather than have on site engineers making it even worse. Well I've just got it back from the repair centre and it still isn't fixed! The only thing they have done is replace the broken keyboard, and they haven't done anything about the SLI at all! :mad:
 
If you haven't already then make sure your case gets escalated up the chain. Ive also read that airing your customer support failure to the dell/Alienware guys on twitter can expedite results. I'd say that some form of freebie or compensation is in order.
 
Thanks, I'll have a poke around twitter and see who I can spam. I've already asked for the case to be escalated in my email rant.
 
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