7950GX2 Only working on 1 GPU problem. Help Appreciated

BeelzebubUK · 6 Sep 2006 at 17:54

Thanks for the reassurance

fornowagain · 6 Sep 2006 at 18:35

BeelzebubUK said:
Thanks for the reassurance

I don't think there's anything to worry about, there's isn't loads of reports of em dying. Look over on the nzone forums were all the noobs go. Lots of questions on quads, how to use the drivers and cooling (there's a surprise,,,not). From reading loads of forums the eVGA looked the best for quality and overclock. Gainward/XFX/BFG looked ok as well.

Mines been sat running Oblivion all day. So I think its safe enough to sell on the XTX. Just want to get the inner core temps down a touch.

fornowagain · 6 Sep 2006 at 19:32

Time for the ghetto mods.

Put this centrifugal fan at the back, came with my P5W, fits exactly. Temps went down 4C, I want a bit more. Where would be the best place to put it (no funny remarks please

). If it goes at the top the temps go up, pushes air back on the heatsink. Best thing for a centrifugal is to get air to the centre, any ideas? Sticking a big axial over it just seems so...ok easy, but a bit lacking in finess.

The Asgard · 6 Sep 2006 at 21:26

I would probably look into a way of extending the bridge/sli link. Its a pity Nvidia didn't give you 2 different size bridges with some more spaces.

BeelzebubUK · 6 Sep 2006 at 23:29

Got mine built tonight but going to leave the setting up until tomorrow.

I've also got the P5W and saw that fan - looks like its a perfect fit

BTW - I got the EVGA superclocked version so I'll try to report back on temperatures tomorrow if I've got everything setup. Got it all sitting in an Antec P180 so hopefully will be running fairly cool because I'm loving the silence

.

The Asgard · 7 Sep 2006 at 01:38

BeelzebubUK said:
BTW - I got the EVGA superclocked version so I'll try to report back on temperatures tomorrow if I've got everything setup. Got it all sitting in an Antec P180 so hopefully will be running fairly cool because I'm loving the silence .

Whats the default clock?
Would be interested to know the Max clock on that artifact free? My Inno3d was about 580/575

BeelzebubUK · 7 Sep 2006 at 12:15

The Asgard said:
Whats the default clock?
Would be interested to know the Max clock on that artifact free? My Inno3d was about 580/575

Default is supposed to be 550 Core 700 (1400) Mem

I'll be making sure the whole system is stable for the next week though before doing any kind of overclocking as its been years since I've built a system from scratch (had Shuttles for about 5 years) and want to make sure everything works.

fornowagain · 7 Sep 2006 at 14:49

BeelzebubUK said:
Default is supposed to be 550 Core 700 (1400) Mem

I'll be making sure the whole system is stable for the next week though before doing any kind of overclocking as its been years since I've built a system from scratch (had Shuttles for about 5 years) and want to make sure everything works.

Does it show up at 550/700?

djay · 8 Sep 2006 at 01:19

Hi, i have been following this thread with interest having just bought the eVGA 7950GX2 card from Ocuk. I had a look around for others who may be experiencing the same problems as you have Asgard and found some interesting posts on the eVGA forums.

It appears that one of the users on the messageboards was having a very similar problem and has found it was being caused by AOL. However another guy also found that he could reproduce the single gpu symptoms when various other programs were left running whilst benching or running 3d apps, namely, firefox, outlook etc :eek:

Heres a link to the thread where i saw this info, i believe you will need to be registered to view it.

eVGA

BeelzebubUK · 8 Sep 2006 at 11:13

Excellent find djay. Sounds like its something that can be fixed by EVGA or NVIDIA.

Still haven't been able to test mine yet - trying to get Windows XP installed on a RAID 0 setup - pain in the butt.

The Asgard · 8 Sep 2006 at 11:43

djay said:
Hi, i have been following this thread with interest having just bought the eVGA 7950GX2 card from Ocuk. I had a look around for others who may be experiencing the same problems as you have Asgard and found some interesting posts on the eVGA forums.

It appears that one of the users on the messageboards was having a very similar problem and has found it was being caused by AOL. However another guy also found that he could reproduce the single gpu symptoms when various other programs were left running whilst benching or running 3d apps, namely, firefox, outlook etc

Heres a link to the thread where i saw this info, i believe you will need to be registered to view it.

eVGA

Great find m8.

Its exactly what I was experiencing however I did a fresh install and have never run AOL, firefox, outlook. So why mine was experiencing the same problem is a mystery. Does sound a driver issue.

The card went back a couple of days ago and I'm now indecided what to do. The Vsynch problem does concern me and something I never checked but on occasions I do switch it on. For instance Prey. I asked fornowagain to check Vsynch and he told me that it did work. So who knows.

Sli can be a real bag of worms thats for sure!

djay · 8 Sep 2006 at 12:00

The Asgard said:
Great find m8.

Its exactly what I was experiencing however I did a fresh install and have never run AOL, firefox, outlook. So why mine was experiencing the same problem is a mystery. Does sound a driver issue.

The card went back a couple of days ago and I'm now indecided what to do. The Vsynch problem does concern me and something I never checked but on occasions I do switch it on. For instance Prey. I asked fornowagain to check Vsynch and he told me that it did work. So who knows.

Sli can be a real bag of worms thats for sure!

Im guessing though that as it appears that a few programs could cause this issue it would not be limited to just those that he mentioned.

I must say though im pretty sure Vsync works fine on mine with prey. However i can test it for you later if you would like me to?

The Asgard · 8 Sep 2006 at 12:05

djay said:
Im guessing though that as it appears that a few programs could cause this issue it would not be limited to just those that he mentioned.

I must say though im pretty sure Vsync works fine on mine with prey. However i can test it for you later if you would like me to?

If you could m8. I know on my x1900 without Vsynch I would get some major tearing.

With regard to the problem. I just find it strange that nobody else has experienced the same problem. This would suggest an hardware fault.

[Duff]Chef · 8 Sep 2006 at 13:22

now slightly worried,

First mistake I made was buy ther DQ6 gigabyte mobo which cant do dual pcie cards, now im wondering if ive made a mistake by buying the 7950, should i of gone to the ati 1950 instead... any opinions appreciated and sorry for hijacking a thread, it jt seems this is becoming the new 7950 thread..

thnx

chef

The Asgard · 8 Sep 2006 at 13:38

[Duff]Chef said:
now slightly worried,

First mistake I made was buy ther DQ6 gigabyte mobo which cant do dual pcie cards, now im wondering if ive made a mistake by buying the 7950, should i of gone to the ati 1950 instead... any opinions appreciated and sorry for hijacking a thread, it jt seems this is becoming the new 7950 thread..

thnx

chef

Well most don't have problems. If you have bought it just have a play. Run 3D mark 06, play a few games, go into the Nvidia control panel change a few settings and then run 3D mark 06. If you get consistent FPS in 06 they your OK. I got about 55FPS in proxy dropping to 25 when in bork mode. It should be pretty apparant if you have any problems.

If it works its the best card you can buy for the money.

djay · 8 Sep 2006 at 15:02

The Asgard said:
Well most don't have problems. If you have bought it just have a play. Run 3D mark 06, play a few games, go into the Nvidia control panel change a few settings and then run 3D mark 06. If you get consistent FPS in 06 they your OK. I got about 55FPS in proxy dropping to 25 when in bork mode. It should be pretty apparant if you have any problems.

If it works its the best card you can buy for the money.

Asgard when you say bork mode and dropping down to 25fps im slightly unsure what you mean. When i run 06 the return to proxycon starts at around 60odd fps, however during certain parts of it it drops to around 17fps minimum for a split second. Are you suggesting that this is also the same symptoms as you are having, or are you saying in bork mode it never gets above 25fps????

And yes ill try prey when i get home.

The Asgard · 8 Sep 2006 at 15:09

djay said:
Asgard when you say bork mode and dropping down to 25fps im slightly unsure what you mean. When i run 06 the return to proxycon starts at around 60odd fps, however during certain parts of it it drops to around 17fps minimum for a split second. Are you suggesting that this is also the same symptoms as you are having, or are you saying in bork mode it never gets above 25fps????

And yes ill try prey when i get home.

Sorry I didn't explain myself.

When Proxy first starts in the drop ship I get 55 FPS running normally. When its in Borked mode the same scene drops to 25.

You can do the same with Fear using the performance test. Again it roughly drops by 50%.

[Duff]Chef · 8 Sep 2006 at 15:37

well ive had it for 2 weeks now n no problems so far, only thing is in one of the 3dmark 06 tests it does slow down dramatically, which im unsure about although cant remember which one it is.. If it is borked as u said asgard what is the route i should take.. Ive bin playing fear fine with etc.. But im unsure...

PLus being the superclocked version its like £410 so kinda annoyed if its already gimped..

Thanks for the help..

Btw if i remember 3dmark06 scores on a conroe e6600 and superclocked evga 7950 is like 8900 and nothing is overclocked, is this normal or not very good..

thanks again..

Chef

The Asgard · 8 Sep 2006 at 15:51

[Duff]Chef said:
well ive had it for 2 weeks now n no problems so far, only thing is in one of the 3dmark 06 tests it does slow down dramatically, which im unsure about although cant remember which one it is.. If it is borked as u said asgard what is the route i should take.. Ive bin playing fear fine with etc.. But im unsure...

PLus being the superclocked version its like £410 so kinda annoyed if its already gimped..

Thanks for the help..

Btw if i remember 3dmark06 scores on a conroe e6600 and superclocked evga 7950 is like 8900 and nothing is overclocked, is this normal or not very good..

thanks again..

Chef

Thing to remember is my card was probably faulty. It would suddenly start running slow and remain in this state until a reboot. If your unsure about what your cards doing download Everest and setup to log the GPU temps to an html file. Set it to log say every minute. Leave this running and after a nights worth of playing have a look at the temps. It should be easy to see load and idle temps. When mine was borked GPU1 never increased in temps from idle even under load, may be shited a couple of degree's. Remember because of the arrangement of the card one GPU will be 5-10'c hotter than the other.

Bottom line. You have had your card for 2 weeks and you was pretty happy with it until you read this thread. I suspect its working fine. I sussed mine had a problem within a couple of hours it was that obvious.

Rojin · 8 Sep 2006 at 16:31

I've always had this problem when using SLi with just two 7800GTX's. Sometimes it will be fine for a few weeks then I'll notice lessened performance. I can occasionally get it back working just by turning SLi on and off, other times I have to re-install the gfx drivers... With one set of drivers as soon as I went into the cp to change graphic settings SLi would just stop, I had to reboot to get it working again, not the most reliable of things that's for sure. Interesting thing about the multiscreen setting in the drivers I'll have a look at that.