2x 8600 gt issue

[Frippy]

Hi, a good mate of mine is running XP with 2x 8600 GT's (not overclocked) on an Asus A8N SLI SE. He has a 500W PSU and when either card is on it's own all is fine, add the second and there are artifacts, Colin Mcrae Dirt gives flashing corruption errors.

Any thoughts anyone?

Thanks.

 

[ACESHIGH]

Well, if either card on its own runs ok, the cards are fine.
I dont do SLI but if both PCIE lanes work then its not the mobo.
Could be PSU if its a generic 500w, what are the rails like?
Also, whats the specs of his rig?

 

[Sareth]

What are the temperatures like isnide the case ? and are they passive or actively cooled cards ?

I had serious problems with a pair of passively cooled 6600GTs where the two cards created a deadspace pocket of air between them which then heated up which then affected the cpu cooling which then overheated the psu, you could see the top gpu temp shoot up, then the cpu then the top of the case got hot.

I cut a hole in the side and put in a 120mm exhaust fan and all was well. This was on an A8N SLI with a 480w PSU.

 

[MeatLoaf]

Hmm, a decent 500w PSU should be fine for a pair of 8600GT's. I ran a pair on my corsair 520w no problems.

Are they 2 identical cards? It may be that if you are running one factory overclocked and one standard clocked one then the standard clocked one will auto overclock to the match the overclocked one if you have the overclocked one in the top slot.

Have you tried either card on its own in the lower slot?

Have you connected the sli bridge, and plugged a molex into the mobo for SLI, also remember to flip the selector card in between the PCI-E slots

 

[silversurfer]

8600gt is a really low power card isnt it. I read it does not use a pcie 6 pin , so it cant draw much at all

 

[pegasus1]

8600gt is a really low power card isnt it. I read it does not use a pcie 6 pin , so it cant draw much at all

It draws its power from the pcie slot

 

[cooljimy84]

have u tryed a diffrent SLI link cable ???

Maybe that one got damaged ??

Also drivers, are the lastest and greatest ??

 

[555BUK]

Some mobos have an additional PCI-E power socket for when running 2 cards in SLI. Check if this mobo requires the extra feed when running SLI.

 

[Frippy]

Thanks for the replies. It works fine with 3DMark2003 and Colin Mcrae 5, it just seems that the issue is with Colin Mcrae Dirt...