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2 x GTX 460s freezing in games

kPATm

kPATm

kPATm

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Joined
7 Apr 2009
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Greenock, Scotland
Hello. So I just got another GTX 460 as I wanted to go SLI. After setting everything up I ran 3dMark 2011 and I scored about 70% higher than I did with a single card. Fair enough I thought. Now I tried running a couple of games ( BF3/Crysis 3) and both games lock up my PC after about a minute causing me to do a hard reset.

My specs are

750w Corsair PSU
6gb DDR2
EVGA 680i

MSI GTX460 Hawk
Gigabyte GTX 460

Both 1gb models

I also have the latest Nvidia drivers installed. As far as I can tell the cards dont seem to be getting to hot as the games only run for less than a minute? Thanks
 
Tried using some different drivers, or maybe check the clock speeds of each card to see if they are matched (might make a difference, and could alter them to match them).
 
With SLI, temps will be higher and stress on the cards will be more intense.

I can run my cards with far higher clocks on their own but have to drop the clocks a bit for SLI.

Check your temps is the first thing to do though. If poor case cooling, heat could soon put pay to gaming.
 
Havnt tried different drivers yet. Temps seem OK. How do I change the clock speeds of each card individually? I have read that maybe applying a bit more Voltage works but in MSI afterburner there is

Core Voltage
Memory Voltage
Aux Voltage

Which one/ones do I increase?

Whats a good way to test the GPU's?
 
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Core voltage. Add a little though so for example if it was 1.168V make it 1.170V

Too much and your cards will get very hot very quick.
 
Well I just loaded up BF3 again, I had Speed fan opened on my other monitor. It crashed as usual and the temps never went above 45c?

Can I add more voltage to each card individually?

Here are the readings of both cards in GPUz

Capture1_zpsa4934fbf.png


Capture-5_zps777347ae.png


The readings on the left of both pics are from my Gigabyte and the right is my MSI Hawk
 
With MSI Afterburner, you can link both cards to do the same.

Under settings, tick the box to 'synchronise settings for similar graphics processors'

This will set the same voltages on each card.
 
I thought in sli the faster card would automatically downclock to the speed of the lower one? Psu should be fine, i ran sli gtx 460's in a much more power hungry i7 930 with a 750w antec psu. Heat though was a problem, as both were non reference gigabyte wind force cards.
 
Just tried playing Crysis 3 Beta and I was monitoring the GPU's in MSI afterburner.

The 1st GPU's usage was peaking at 100% BUT the 2nd GPU was barely reaching 20%?
 
The 460's are still great cards and I would look at your CPU usage. I have a feeling the reason they are not at higher usage is because of CPU bottlenecking.

Check task manager/performance whilst the game is running and see what your CPU is hitting.

Crysis 3 is heavily CPU dependant.
 
gregster said:
The 460's are still great cards and I would look at your CPU usage. I have a feeling the reason they are not at higher usage is because of CPU bottlenecking.

Check task manager/performance whilst the game is running and see what your CPU is hitting.

Crysis 3 is heavily CPU dependant.
Click to expand...
Id be inclined to agree with this. A dual core would bottlekneck two of theese cards. Adding a quad core might make a little difference. However, the 680i is a terrible board for clocking quads. 3ghz max on a 65nm q6600, and they dont accept 45nm quads.
 
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