Start >> Control Panel >> NVIDIA Control Panel .

In "3D Settings" select "Set SLI configuration"

Then you may only have 1 video card in your system.  SLI requires 2 video cards...

You can try a program called gpu-z found here:

GPU-Z

it is a small executable.. no install needed.. it will tell you your graphics specs, and near the bottom it will say nVidia SLI either enabled, disabled or not supported or something...

Good Luck and let us know!!

You should also check your device manager under " display adapters " to see if you have 2 of them in there...

...if you only see 1, you still may only have 1 video card or.. for some reason, your OS is not seeing the other card..

You can also check your system configuration on the dell website... if you have an account setup there, you can see your system specifications etc.... or if you still have the paper work that came with your laptop..

I went through and enabled SLI through the Nvidia Control Panel and rebooted.

WHen I go back into the Control Panel about the reboot, it says that SLI is not enabled.

Is that normal? 

Andrew,

Your symptoms are not normal. You have a problem.  You should:

- Check your Device Manager to insure Windows sees 2 cards ( under Display Adapters )

- Make sure there are no yellow marks by either adapter

- Run a program called GPU-Z ( listed in above posts ) to see if SLI is enabled

- Uninstall Drivers from Add/Remove Programs then reinstall the nVidia Video drivers

If your problem persists after this, we will look at other possibilities.

Oster,

Any new update to your problem?

Good Luck and let us know!

Andrew,

Glad you got it worked out!  I never had the same problem as you have had.  I was able to keep the Physics card installed and enabled when Ienable SLI.

But this information is helpful in case it happens to me ;)  ... I will be installing the 64bit version of Vista Business later today and if I run into this problem, I'll know how to fix it!! Thanks for keeping us up to date.  So many people never come back once their problem is resolved, so we never know what actually helped them!

I verified that Windows does see 2 Video Cards under Device Manager.

I then ran GPU-Z and it said the SLI was disabled.

I found the solution on another forum.

In order to get SLI enabled properly, I had to disable the Ageia PhysX Card first.

Went into the Nvidia Control Panel and enabled SLI and rebooted.

After the reboot, I ran GPU-Z and it says that SLI is enabled.

Yea there was a little bit of a mix up when I talked to the people at Dell. In the end I didn't get two 8700's SLI'd when my system got replaced.

Just out of curiosity... how much better (if any) is the 8700 GT compared to the 7800 GTX?

Thanks ya'll

Hi Andrew,

see it's all sorted.

I'm aslo able to switch in and out of SLI with the PhysX card enabled.