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980 Quad SLI - I throw in the towel on this one

Besty

Besty

Besty

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
4,537
After nigh on 8 hours of trying every potential combination, updates and tweaks. I just can't get Quad SLI working stable on x79 and the Rampage IV Extreme, I am wondering if it is a Motherboard BIOS problem.

Tri-SLI works pretty much flawlessly from what I have used so far although, there does appear to be an intermittent undervolt/underclock bug in the drivers on the primary card which then pulls down the rest. I am confident this is an easy fix.

It seems a shame to return the card back to OCUK, I could use it for dedicated Physx but that seems a bit overkill to me :D
 
Kaapstad should be here shortly with his 2p, although he doesn't have 980s, he has 4 of everything else under the sun. :)

He's used that board extensively with all kinds of 4way setups so he must have some insight for you.
 
As Andy says make sure you have both power connectors by the CPU plugged in and also the extra 6 pin connector for the GPUs on the motherboard.

It could also be a bios problem, I used a 3970X with 4 x 290Xs a year ago and could not get it to run on a RIV BE, LtMatt now uses that CPU with a more modern bios than I had and he can run 4 cards on it now. It may be a case of matching the right bios to the right CPU depending on whether you are using IB-E or SB-E, whyscotty knows more about which is the best bios to use.

Also have a look around the 3dmark results on their site as there should be people who have run the same setup as you and this could give you some clues.

I would also try with different drivers if there are any available that are suitable for your cards as with 4 GPUs things can get overlooked when a new set comes out.
 
Couple of questions for you Besty (can offer any advice I'm afraid).

What are your temps like?
I've just set up 3 in SLI on my R IV E and the temps on the main card get silly during Heaven4. The second card isn't too bad and the 3rd is fine. The second has the best ASIC value and runs at less volts, which may help.

But I have to have the fan on about 100% to keep the top card under the 79ºC throttle limit.

Also, are you running the cards in PCI-e 2.0 or 3.0 mode?
I can't get mine to work in 3.0 despite being set to Gen 3 in BIOS and running the Nvidia tweak.
Do you thin kthe problems could be PCI-e 3.0 related? If you're using SB-E maybe it's an issue with the CPU? Could trying in 2.0 work?
 
Just spotted something odd on your one of your 4 card results on the 3dmark website, it is reporting that you are only using 3 memory modules, if you RAM is not working properly that could explain your low physics score.
 
GoogalyMoogaly said:
Couple of questions for you Besty (can offer any advice I'm afraid).

What are your temps like?
I've just set up 3 in SLI on my R IV E and the temps on the main card get silly during Heaven4. The second card isn't too bad and the 3rd is fine. The second has the best ASIC value and runs at less volts, which may help.

But I have to have the fan on about 100% to keep the top card under the 79ºC throttle limit.

Also, are you running the cards in PCI-e 2.0 or 3.0 mode?
I can't get mine to work in 3.0 despite being set to Gen 3 in BIOS and running the Nvidia tweak.
Do you thin kthe problems could be PCI-e 3.0 related? If you're using SB-E maybe it's an issue with the CPU? Could trying in 2.0 work?
Click to expand...

I have forced PCI 2.0 in the BIOS just avoid any clashes. From what I saw the driver will force PCI 2.0 anyway.

In terms of heat, yep the fans need to be spooled up to keep the heat in check.

I just ran a 1 hour session of BF4 with the Power Limit at 120%, GPU +100 and RAM +200 and fan at 70%, they crashed eventually so yeah, I either need to run stock or run the fan at 100%. My blocks next week so this won't be a problem for me personally.
 
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Kaapstad said:
Just spotted something odd on your one of your 4 card results on the 3dmark website, it is reporting that you are only using 3 memory modules, if you RAM is not working properly that could explain your low physics score.
Click to expand...

I run with high BLCK and RAM at up to 2200 so I bench with 3 sticks. I will plug the fourth one in tomorrow to verify if there is a problem at stock with running 4.
 
Besty said:
From what I have read, an Ivy-E chip in the same X79 board with BIOS update will enable PCI 3.0.
Click to expand...

Are you sure the PCI-E 3.0 hack does not work, I use a 3930k with 4 Titans and have no problems getting them to run PCI-E 3.0.

You may want to ask LtMatt what bios he is using as the ones that are best for IB-E are crap for SB-E
 
I can't get the hack to work with my 980s either.
Do the 980s have different drivers? Maybe something's changed?

I've checked the Registry too and from what I can tell the required value is set to 4 (which I think it what it's supposed to be).
 
whyscotty said:
Hack worked for me

Sli 980's - RIVE - 4206 Bios
Click to expand...

Hmmm, don't see why 3 would work differently to 2. I'm on a much older BIOS though. Can't remember exactly but think it's like 1202 or something, not newer than 1404.

EDIT:
Is there any way you could test what difference 8x PCI-e 3.0 makes over 8x PCI-e 2.0? (Would it be the same as 16x PCI-e 1.0 vs. 16x PCI-e 2.0?)

andybird123 said:
I could never get the exe to work, always had to do the hack manually
Click to expand...

What is the manual way? I tried looking it up but could only find references to the nvidia tool.
 
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Kaapstad said:
Just spotted something odd on your one of your 4 card results on the 3dmark website, it is reporting that you are only using 3 memory modules, if you RAM is not working properly that could explain your low physics score.
Click to expand...

I have now stress tested with 4 dimms populated with a Memtestx86 via usb just to be sure and this checked out ok all the way up to 2200 DDR, which is excellent.

Its possible that slot 1 PCI lanes are damaged or BIOS needs to be updated by Asus, I am going to do a post on ROG to ask if anyone has tried 980 quads.
 
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