Alienware Area 51 R2 and GTX Titan X Sli

Check out this article it might help you troubleshooting the system.

Let us know if it helps you.

I have the same problem however, I've confirmed that both of my cards work. It's possible that you may have a bad card however, I think you'd be in the same boat if it worked. I've seen a few posts from people with the 51 R2 reporting the same issue. I would like to see some feedback from dell about this. Stuff like if they are aware of the problem and what they intend to do to fix it. If it's even possible for them to fix it..ect..ect. I'd hate to send the card back just to have them fix it a week later. 

Thanks for sharing.  I've rma'd my card with EVGA...should get a new one sometime next week.  So there is a problem still then.  Hopefully dell will wade in ....perhaps it's just a bios thing.  Which processor do you have - when I was going through anything I could think of I wondered if it was to do with my i7 5820, noting it only supports 24 lanes on pcie.  I don't know enough to know if it could be a problem / bottleneck / no problem.  

I originally had the 5820K but I changed it to a 5930K for a little more wiggle room for overclocking. I decided to upgrade the  RAM in my system and while I was researching to make sure what the memory I was getting was compatible with the processor I did see the information about the GPU threads. I looked into it and it seems that it would only really effect you negatively if you decided to run 3 or more cards. At the time I was running 2 980’s in SLI and it was running just fine. I probably would have keep them until the Ti’s came out but I couldn’t resist the Titans. So, I think you’ll be fine on that front, but I’m not an expert.

I’ve decided to verify that I don’t have a bad card for a third time, just in case I missed something. After that I plan on making some calls to both Nvidia and Dell and with a little luck maybe find some answers. I’ll share what I find out. 

Cheers mate, thanks.  I couldn't resist the titan x's either :).   Interested how you go - I'll also share my experience when I get the replacement card next week.

You aren't alone in this issue. Hopefully, with your new cards, it will be remedied. However, I would like to make it clear it isn't all rosey in here. I purchased a fully decked out AREA-51 R2 (Almost wrote ALX since I also had one of those.) It has the i7-5960X / 32gb RAM / 512-4TB / Tri-SLI 980GTX (and here lies the problem)

First off, this is not a rant but a plea and a testimony.

This is my third, yes third machine. First wouldn't boot at all, Second (Replacement) Booted fine but to my dismay got terrible lag spikes, frame drops, crashes *black screen not blue and auto-restored with SLI disabled* They did not replace it again but gave refund (After a month and a two weeks of hassle)

Now on to the third was denied the former price as promised which is fine to be honest, but, same issue as second. SLI is a no go. Can work well then suddenly dips like donuts in a coffee shop. This isn't the only problem. It also crashes when rendering or adding certain effects with Premiere.

Customer Service results: First Call - Disconnected / Second Call - Heard my problem and laughed disconnected / Third Call - Spoke to a very helpful chap that installed a wide array of monitoring software and spent a good hour and a half. Determined that my SSD has a bad cluster and ordered a replacement SSD.

This, of course, won't fix the problem but a broken drive does need replacing.

Issues? Yes Plenty far too many it is a 6000+ Machine No excuses. If it is sold with Tri-SLI 980GTX They should work. Not interested in overclocking or any of that elitist wonderment. I don't care for benchmarks. I care for a fully functioning machine that lives up to it's advertisement and price. Nothing more.

Can anyone here help? Chris-DELL the masterful forum Guru that has Helped me before? Probably not. I have lost faith. I have no clue what is wrong nor should I being I am buying it retail from Dell with 3 year Warranty/Accident for that purpose. If I knew enough to build and repair one I wouldn't buy retail.

So really I would like it to work well. Sad a consistent customer should have to waste 6k+ dollars, endless time, immeasurable stress, and have to beg for help. Let alone seek a forum.

This is my last attempt at a solution really. I haven't the foggiest what could cause it but if it has occurred on multiple machines and multiple customers it is definitely not a fluke nor Isolated.

Hey Virtua,

I’ve been doing some back and forth with Nvidia, I sent them my system specs and all that jazz. The person I’ve been talking to is going to “talk to the guys on the back end” If I get any good info I’ll pass it along. You should probably open a ticket with them as well if you haven’t already. It may help add some fuel to the fire so to speak.

Still It’d be nice to hear something from dell on the matter. I thought their tech guys keep up on this stuff. 

Nice one - will do the same.  Hopefully this will prompt Dell and Nvidia to work on it.

So, it turns out that I do have a defective card. Even though both of seemed to work fine on there own, one of them would cause my system to crash when I tried to run EVGA Precision X 16 or GPU-Z. The other one would not. I passed that info on to Nvidia and they seem to agree. Anyway, I’m waiting to hear back from them about doing a RMA. So, once you get your replacement card you should be good to go! Let me know if it does work for you and good luck with it mate.

Thanks for the heads up - well it seems like a good sign, albeit the hassle.  But better that, than the unknown.  I saw on the Nvidia forum that someone else had a Titan X doa - they just had a single card setup.  Let you know how I go - though I think its going to be a week or so before I get the new card.  

Fingers crossed! 

I'm having more or less the same exact issue everyone in this thread is experiencing, but with a different motherboard and manufacturer. Any updates on what exactly the problem is? I probably have to RMA a card too, but I'm thinking that it's more likely that some manufacturer's bios just aren't compatible with multi-Titan X configurations or something, being that from what I've gathered from others and through my own experience is that an individual card in any PCI-E slot on the board works just fine, and it's that when both (or more) are installed neither are detected by the motherboard and thus no display.

I just want to be done with this, practically built a new PC figuring it was the mobo hardware (PCIE slots) that was the issue, I'd hate to RMA a card when it's just some type of bios problem.

I’m still waiting on a replacement card myself. Nvidia claims to have a supply problem and I should be getting it early next week. Before you RMA you cards you might try seeing if they work with GPU-Z or Precision X 16. That is how I found out that one of my cards definitely wasn’t working the way it should. The faulty card caused my system to crash while the other one didn’t.

I was contacted by a moderator over at alienware arena recently, they are investigating it so maybe we will get some solid information soon.

My RMA is also .....still awaiting new stock - EVGA are hoping to send out soon!  Interesting that they've reached out to you. ....still hoping it was just my card.