[FIX] Clevo P370SM3 & SAGER NP9380-S 120Hz/3D SLI Flickering/Scanlines

[stealthmaster]

UPDATE

Just got an update from XoticPC support:

So something is supposedly in the works...

@stealthmaster - I just say flash your vbios and then flash back to factory before sending in for warranty work if the something goes bad during warranty period.

Any update on this? I'm still debating going through XoticPC for their 3 yr warranty (possibly w/ accidental LCD damage), or spending another $150 for a full insurance policy... two 780's in SLI are not cheap to replace.

[BudMarLeY]

sorry ive been gone lately, work is kicking my ass. Ill try and come back to the forums shortly. Hope everything is working well for everyone.

[Akhaz]

I'm running on the R331 drivers right now, is the custom vbios compatible with it? If not, how far back do I have to go?

Oh, and what program are you using to show the GPU Temperature and Framerate during gameplay?

[sdixit]

Hey Bud can you please share us with you temperature with this new vbios ... furmark maximum, idle and if you use any cooler or not?

[Akhaz]

Flashed my vBios and now I don't get any messages of nvlddmkm.dll not responding and recovering anymore. I don't even get any more flickering when using 120Hz on games. Why the heck aren't any of the Sellers or Nvidia making their own versions of this fix, or even selling their notebooks with said fix already implemented? You'd think that would make sense.

[ajnindlo]

Could be only a few see the problem, or everybody is using the modified vbios. They may not think it is a big deal. I know some resellers sent the units back unfixed, saying it was fixed. So maybe it wasn't escalated to Sager/Clevo. Maybe they are working on it. Who knows...

[BudMarLeY]

With gaming, the max I saw was 85 c and furmark fr the benchmark was 93 c

At idle I look at 25c to 35 c

No cooler, just sitting on a table top. I have it slightly tilted in the back to add to the ergonomics of the keyboard and to add elevation for the notebook to breathe.

Honestly I have not seen a increase in temps from the stock vbios and the oc'ed one.

I can tell you that my bitcoin mining from the stock to the oc has increased by +/- 7%

[sdixit]

With gaming, the max I saw was 85 c and furmark fr the benchmark was 93 c

At idle I look at 25c to 35 c

No cooler, just sitting on a table top. I have it slightly tilted in the back to add to the ergonomics of the keyboard and to add elevation for the notebook to breathe.

Honestly I have not seen a increase in temps from the stock vbios and the oc'ed one.

I can tell you that my bitcoin mining from the stock to the oc has increased by +/- 7%

Thanks so much man. So seems like you temps are same as mine. I was bit alarmed when I saw those Furmark temperatures, If I keep the fan on turbo then my temps do drop and are around 89-90c for first gpu and 84-85 c for second one.

FYI I did created my profiles with a slightly undervolted and core clock set at 812 MHz and then with fans my furmark temperatures dropped to 87c and 82 c (1st and 2nd gpu). Thought of sharing that information. I am planning to use that most of the times as many of the games are not demanding and will only use the default or overclocked when required.

[ihateregistering]

Add me to the list of people the fix worked for.

I have been dealing with this issue since july, rma'ed twice, took all kinds of camera footage of the issue etc.

Games that would have the issue 99.99999% of the time, no longer have any issues. I have tried and tried to get a game to do it, and i cant. I would call this the definitive fix.

I'd genuinely like to give the middle finger to the OEM, sand a big warm hug to svl7. *buttslap*

[dicanio007]

Im playing lol 120hz with 780m sli and I get some flickering, but it is different than the videos you are showing. It feels like the screen turns of for less than a second, like a flash... will the vbios work with this problem too?

[sdixit]

Im playing lol 120hz with 780m sli and I get some flickering, but it is different than the videos you are showing. It feels like the screen turns of for less than a second, like a flash... will the vbios work with this problem too?

I believe it will fix your issue. I used to see this issue with new nvidia drivers where many times the screen will not flicker but used to go blank for short durations ... like half a second or so with many times the screen locking up also. After flashing with this vbios both the flickering and this issue were gone. You can always save the old vbios just in case if this does not fix your issue and rollback when desired.

I am really thankful for svl7 for the solution otherwise 120HZ gameplay in sli was almost impossible for such a price of this laptop.

[Jiffy]

Never really had scanlines/flickering, but I gave my P3750SM this vBios flash anyway (780m sli) and it seems to increase performance in BF4 (with cores unparked). I do get some microstutter in blade and soul but otherwise its great. Thank you to the developers.

[retiredat21]

does this problem occur to every owner of the 120hz 780m sli display? even those made by builders like mythlogic?

[BudMarLeY]

if the notebook is a clevo, then yes, it doesnt matter what name brand is on it

[John566]

I'm really loving the Sager NP9380 and this issue would be a deal breaker without this fix. Clevo and Sager owe you guys some gratitude. If it works for me I will definitely send my thanks through paypal. I have the newest 332.21 drivers so I hope they work well with the vbios. Here goes nothing

[BudMarLeY]

clevo and sager are tracking there is a issue, but they seem to ignore the fix. you have to do the vbios update yourself to fix it. Im just glad that there is a fix and we dont have to live though a computer with faulty shit on it.

[retiredat21]

im actually scared of flashing the vbios.. i dont have any experience in doing this.. is it easy?

[VSS]

currently there are any problems with 780M SLI 120 Hz 3D kit ?

[sdixit]

im actually scared of flashing the vbios.. i dont have any experience in doing this.. is it easy?

If you follow the instruction provided by Bud it is really easy. Dont forget to backup your vbios though.

[retiredat21]

ok I decided ill go for the flash later or tomorrow.. i just need to gather more confidence and courage.. wish me luck ;(

[P370SM3]

Hello,

New member here and this is where I'm at :

P370sm3 my new notebook and the problems so far

I just sent this to ITC :

This is where I'm at at the moment.

I tried the new nvidia drivers but that did not fix the problem.

I then uninstalled all nvidia drivers and rebooted, then I installed the drivers off the system drivers disc.

After setting SLI to on (max 3d performance) I started playing Fallout NV and monitored all the GPU speeds, temps, and usage and it was ok for about 10-15 mins the GPU clocks were dynamically changing from around 500 to 600 MHz. Then I noticed at first a black half screen flash and checking the clock speeds noticed them now at around 700 MHz then the screen started exhibiting the issue with scan lines and flickering so I shut down the game. The temps were hovering around the 47-55 C mark so I know it's not that.

I almost always have a second install of an OS made as a cloned image after updating when I first install an OS and as it goes I have a second copy of the OS I'm running on a separate HDD with nothing installed on it so I just restored the image and installed the drivers but the problem still persists.

It would seem that the problem is due to not enough power being supplied to the cards when feeding a display at 120Hz, a link bridge issue between SLI bridging firmware or a low level software driver hook incorrectly configured in the driver. I am only guessing from the information I have gleaned online from Tech inferno and Note book review : http://forum.techinferno.com/clevo/4980-%5Bfix%5D-clevo-p370sm3-sager-np9380-s-120hz-3d-sli-flickering-scanlines.html and *Official Sager NP9380, NP9390 / Clevo P370SM, P370SM3, P375SM Owner's Lounge** and http://forum.techinferno.com/clevo/4951-sager-np9380-s-120hz-sli-issues-fluttering-scanlines-flickering.html.

I'm thinking I might try a flash of the vBios to both cards or would you recommend just one card to match them up? I'm quite comfortable flashing bios (basic input output systems) and have usb dos boot keys already setup for motherboard bios flashes and the occasional vBios flash for my own graphics cards. I have flashed many system motherboards in the past but never a laptop with separate cards in an SLI system.

If your comfortable with it (I am) I would like to try a flash update to the firmware of the card/cards. Your instructions and any vbios images you can supply would be much appreciated.

If not I can return the system for your appraisal but would like to avoid it if at all possible.

Yours kindly,

What do you think I should do? Should I try a simple flash of the card/s or should I just return it and insist they fix it?

[P370SM3]

I just got word back from ITC. Joe was comfortable for me to try the flash.

I just flashed the older bios with the newer one to make them the same from the 80.04.92.00.09 to the 80.04.DB.00.05. The

With the drivers that came with my system on disc the problem was still there. I updated the drivers to 332.21 and now the clocks stay at 771 for most of the time and the temps go a little higher however the problem is still there but nowhere near as obvious now. Games are now playable with the annoying occasional flicker or group of scan lines. They don't stay as long now either.

If I get my posts up past the five mark I'll humbly request @svl7 and @johnksss for the use of their modded bios image.

In the mean time I'm going to (when I get time) try more games and settings in SLI mode @ 120Hz refresh rate.

I just can not believe that a $3.6K notebook is crap @ 120Hz with SLI.

Is it nvidia hardware or is it the manufacturer that f'd the system build up?

How hard is it to do some real research and testing on any system let alone my system?

my latest to ITC :

I successfully updated the firmware of the .92.09 Card to the .DB.05 Bios.

The problem still persists with the drivers from the drivers disc so I tried the 322.21 drivers and they seemed to minimize the problem but its still there.

I'm going to do some more testing ill update you next week some time.

@Prema is your modded vbios for SLI 780m systems overclocking in any way or is it just modifying the voltage and OC limits?

Reason I ask is cause I'm in Australia and the summer here is like a fry pan on heat. So I don't want to OC the cores or mem until winter.

[Guest]

The svl7 vBIOS reduces the throttle while maintaining stock clocks. So the system will run faster even without overclocking.

[P370SM3]

Sweet thanks Prema & svI7,

Does svI7's vBios alter voltages? From reading the forums I gather the stock vBios do not supply enough juice while outputting a 120Hz signal?

It would seem that the problem is due to not enough power being supplied to the cards when feeding a display at 120Hz, a link bridge issue between SLI bridging firmware or a low level software driver hook incorrectly configured in the driver. I am only guessing from the information I have gleaned online from Tech inferno and Note book review.

I still haven't had an answer to my question (Is it nvidia hardware or is it the manufacturer that f'd the system build up?)

I may try the modded vbios firmware but at the moment I'm tight on time.

P370sm3 my new notebook and the problems so far

My system vendor would only want me to RMA it again. As I have already done this once and it took ages I'm reluctant to again.

Will post back when I have completed some tests. I can always mod the vbios my self if need be.

@ Prema my KBC/EC version is 1.03.01 on my P370SM3, would you update the firmware with the P370SM3_32_31_Stock from the third post : http://forum.techinferno.com/clevo/3119-%5Bbios-mods%5D-prema-mod-latest-stock-bios.html

[Guest]

The flickering has nothing to do with voltage, it's simply NVIDA's throttle mechanism failing badly to perform in sync while in SLI mode.

Sure you can use the P370SM3 stock BIOS or Mod BIOS from that thread.