8800 GTX SLI

[baldric]

Evening all,

I have aquired a second 8800GTX card for my new, but now stable, system. Does anyone know of an idiot's-guide to setting-up 2 cards in SLI?, as even the manufacturers/suppliers seem to be short on info.

Thanks.

 

[Gonzo0]

i take it you have an Sli mobo?? if so check the mobo manual it should tell u in there. Its a fairly simple process

 

[baldric]

It's a P5N32-E SLI, and yes I've checked the Manual, and the Asus site. No joy though.......

 

[LoadsaMoney]

Follow this guide here , Number 5 (installing the cards and the bridge), and Number 8 (drivers and activation of SLi) will be the ones you need, just ignore the start of Number 8 about the motherboard drivers (as you'll already have those on), gfx drivers and activation of the SLi is the next bit.

 

[willhub]

Just place both cards in, install the drivers, then there should be special options for SLi, You dont need the SLi Bridge, but it can give extra performance.

Sli Bridge is a little adaptor that connects both cards together, on the side of each card there will be slot, this is were the SLi Bridge goes.

 

[Gonzo0]

did u get a connector in the asus box that has 2 slots at each end and has asus or sli on top of it?? if so heres what you do. Put the card in the other pci-ex slot, then put the Sli bridge connector onto the connectors of each 8800, load your pc up and when you load onto desktop you should get a pop up saying Sli is disabled (or something along those lines) go into the nVidia control panel and click on the Sli tab and then click on "Enable sli". You now have Sli

 

[ih8modem]

also check bios

My older SLi board has an option to disable in the BIOS. Make sure you check yours to see that it's enabled.

 

[baldric]

Enabled all SLI options in BIOS. Connected the card, including the SLI bridge which came with the Mobo. When I try to boot the PC, it either boots with a partial desktop with no mouse movement available, or won't boot at all......

 

[baldric]

Thanks for everyone's help. LoadsaMoney, I followed the guide from the link u sent - thanks, but one question.....On these GPU's there are 2 sets of Golden connectors. Any idea which one on each/which combination should be connected with the SLI bridge?

 

[LoadsaMoney]

I dont think it matters as the 2nd connector is there for adding a 3rd card that can be used for physics when they get around to doing it.

EDIT: Actually if you have 2x bridges then you can use them both, but heres some pics of the watercooled GTX connected with just the one SLi bridge (2nd pic is the best), and they have the bridge on the inner connectors.