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Do I have an SLI problem..? or just FAIL!

irtuk

irtuk

irtuk

Associate
Joined
26 Sep 2008
Posts
151
Hey all.

I picked up a cheap 480GTX on ebay a while back with a view to fitting it into my rig as a second card for SLI now that the 480GTX is a bit long in the tooth, and also for fun and experimenting with SLI.

Well I got round to this last night and I am getting my learning in spades. I currently have an issue with enabling SLI that seems to have cropped up for a few people from what I can gather, but I have not gotten it straight yet.

So the original card is an OcUK Value GeForce GTX 480 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card. GPU-Z says …. well I don't currently know because every time I try to start it up the Nvidia kernel driver crashes

The ebay card was described as Water Cooled GTX 480 block EK ASUS GeForce 1.5GB 1536 mb

The SLI bridge is from amazon and labelled Nvidia, my Mobo is a crosshair formula V with BIOS version 1403x64, CPU is an AMD FX8350

I have two monitors, a 30" U3011 and a 24" dell both of which are plugged into the original card.

The cards are seated in slot "1" from the top down, thats from the CPU downwards and slot "3" because of the configuration of the cooling pipes between them, slot 2 is just a little too close.

When I booted up after a clean ( and I mean CLEAN ) install of the latest Nvidia drivers, 335.23 as I write this, I get a little popup saying SLI capable system and I go to enable SLI.

On the way I check device manager and both cards are listed and both cards are 'happy' for want of a better word, no warning triangles, disabled devices etc.

When I click "Maximise 3D performance" the Nvidia control panel starts applying the change, and then hangs, I have left it for ten minutes or so, its dead and requires a restart. On restarting the graphics drivers are all borked, one card is disabled, nvidia control won't start and I am basically back at the beginning.

Any thoughts here? As I write this I have unplugged the second monitor and I am going to roll the Nvidia driver back to the last one I have available which looks like 327.23

-Ed
 
These damn drivers do not like being d*cked around with …. sheesh. I have stripped everything back and I am putting the latest driver back on so I can check with GPUz what the BIOS versions are on the cards. I am assuming this is the right thing to do but I don't have long left tonight if I am gonna be on the 7am train up to London...
 
As above, I would always check a new piece of hardware by itself first (or as little in the system as needed to make it work)
 
Well, GPUz won't start at all, but system information from NVIDIA control panel shows two 480GTX cards with identical details, 700MHZ graphics clock, 1401 processor, BIOS version 7.00.21.00.02 on a PCIExpress x16 gen2 Bus. Device ID and part numbers both match.

I am going to try enabling SLI again with only one monitor and then get some sleep.

-Ed
 
mmm this time it moaned about a couple of programs, logitech game control and windows reader for some reason. I killed the offending processes, Looks like it's crashed again and I am off to bed.
 
Guest2 said:
As above, I would always check a new piece of hardware by itself first (or as little in the system as needed to make it work)
Click to expand...

You need to do this.

Pull the working card out (your original card) and test the eBay card in your system on its own in the same PCI-e slot as your original card.

If it works and your system is stable with the eBay card then it could point to a different issue with your motherboard, PSU or other unexplained phenomena.
 
irtuk said:
mmm this time it moaned about a couple of programs, logitech game control and windows reader for some reason. I killed the offending processes, Looks like it's crashed again and I am off to bed.
Click to expand...

Anything using the GPU while toggling SLI needs to be stopped, which for me is typically the logitech app and firefox. As above though I would try testing the new card by itself, just plug the hdmi/dvi cable into that with SLI disabled and see if all is well.
 
Yeah the second card is in the cooling loop. The loop looks fine as well. I will test the eBay card tonight. Dunno if the tubing will allow it in the card one slot though.
 
Eurofighter said:
You are watercooling the 2nd card right?
Click to expand...

This is the main thing that has been overlooked. I have never looked into watercooling myself but my guess is that the card you bought has a water block on it which you need to connect to a pump or some sort of water system which will cool the water.

Without this card will just boil itself when it goes into 3d mode (or in your case give an error and turn off so its not damaged)

480s are also know as power beasts and having 2 of them will require a half decent PSU. What do you have?

I think an 800 watt PSU will be minimum requirement for 2 x GTX 480s
 
Yeah the second card is watercooled and the loop is fine, all flowing nicely, I will take a look at temps later on when I get back home today, and tomorrow is "work" from home Friday so, plenty opportunities to test.

The PSU is a corsair HX850 so it should be ok, although the machine is clocked slightly so I could do with getting everything back down to stock speeds, as well as testing just the "new" GPU.
 
Guest2 said:
This is the main thing that has been overlooked. I have never looked into watercooling myself but my guess is that the card you bought has a water block on it which you need to connect to a pump or some sort of water system which will cool the water.

Without this card will just boil itself when it goes into 3d mode (or in your case give an error and turn off so its not damaged)
Click to expand...
Good point. Didn't consider that because didn't think anyone would be foolish enough to use a waterblocked graphic card without watercooling (no offense to you if that's what you've done OP). And if OP's done that, it makes me wonder what PSU he's using as well for powering this power-hungry beast of a PC.
 
No offence taken :) I have done things maybe not quite that daft but, maybe not far off :)

Anyway, worth mentioning because I have not as yet I don't think, I am running Windows 8.1 64 bit
 
Cool. Year ago (when i was about 16) I bought a PSU and it wouldnt turn on, I changed the volgate switch to 110 and plugged it in then powered it on. Bang + smoke + small fire

Luckily it was only ~£20 - probably needed blowing up
 
When I was 16 .... EISA was introduced with a 32-bit bus, the 386 was King, Steve Jobs unveiled the NeXT having left Apple, PC's had 1 or 2 MB RAM and HDD's were maybe 50MB, Windows was version 2 and the "device driver" was a relatively new concept.....
 
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