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SLI option not showing up. I thought Nvidia drivers 'just worked'
- Thread starter Marvin
- Start date
Skulltrail is based on a workstation chipset with dual Xeon CPU's and SLI so I cant see how CPU naming could be such a major problem.
If you had an IO issue running with the Xeon in that board it would have been quite obvious you had a problem from day one IMO.
Last edited:
Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
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- 33,188
DM while you do post some good stuff at times(apart from the essays) you just cant help yourself slating NV can you?
How are those AMD shares btw?
Its ATI justification syndrome, do not get angry. Give them love and they may eventually get through it
Each of you mentioned AMD, and how people like one better than another once each, number of times I mentioned AMD or ATI........... zero.
Several people in this thread(the usual suspects) are reaching to find any reason its not an Nvidia driver fault, I linked to Nvidia's forums where a lot of people are having the same problems.
There are people with 260gtx's, 480's, 7800gt's and 8800gtx's in sli that aren't working because of a missing control panel option, the vast majority of them are using standard cpu's and standard chipsets, Intel and I notice 750 and 780 sli boards.
SO I linked to some relevant threads and had a little fun against the "nvidia never ever have driver problems" guys at the same time.
However, again you'll notice EVERY SINGLE TIME drivers come up in these threads I will NEVER say AMD have better drivers, nor Nvidia, just that both have issues and just because a few people haven't had issues with Nvidia and have with AMD, theres another person for each of them that never had issues with AMD and only had trouble with Nvidia.
This is the problem, I don't argue one side, I argue the logical, sensible middle ground, and my views don't sway from one extreme to another over the space of a day.
AMD drivers have issues, I freely admit that, Nvidia drivers have issues aswell, several people in this thread largely refuse to ever admit that.
Thats where your argument fails, one group of people insists one side is perfect the other side is only issues and come into a thread and ignore obvious evidence its a fairly widespread problem and trys to point away from Nvidia drivers, and another guy comes in and says, both have problems, here are a few threads with idea's on how to fix your problem.
Then a few more guys come in and have a go at.......... the wrong guy.
Because the programmer may have assumed xeon support on workstation boards but not on desktop... I'm not saying it is the issue here - but nVidia have used somewhat dodgy routines in the past to lock SLI support down to specific hardware, including CPU detection, so its not impossible.
Soldato
- Joined
- 16 Jun 2010
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- 3,445
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- Manchester
Why does every thread end up getting turned into a " nvidia is better " or " ati is better " slanging match.
I think the op is more bothered about his issue at hand.
I think the op is more bothered about his issue at hand.
Yes its usually the case that detection is done by chipset and GPU device ID pairs... but nVidia have used some odd routines in the past to try and stop people hacking support in, including comparisions against other hardware IDs so its not impossible its the issue here.
Yeah now i have re read it, it could come across that way. It was just meant to keep things light.
Woah, arguments! Remember the first line of my OP.
Drunkenmaster makes a very valid point - there are many who also have this problem (worryingly for me...) and no solution appears to have arisen on Nvidia's forums.
What I'll do is probably sell the Gene, then purchase an ASRock P55 Deluxe, which is not only SLI compatible, but also Xeon X3450 compatible. Or an Asus P7P55 WS, which is again, SLI and X3450 compatible. Rule that out for starters.
I'll also try the 9800GTs to rule out a GPU issue.
I have now tried older drivers without the SLI bridge and with, but still nothing.
Drunkenmaster makes a very valid point - there are many who also have this problem (worryingly for me...) and no solution appears to have arisen on Nvidia's forums.
What I'll do is probably sell the Gene, then purchase an ASRock P55 Deluxe, which is not only SLI compatible, but also Xeon X3450 compatible. Or an Asus P7P55 WS, which is again, SLI and X3450 compatible. Rule that out for starters.
I'll also try the 9800GTs to rule out a GPU issue.
I have now tried older drivers without the SLI bridge and with, but still nothing.
Its very, very, unlikely the use of a Xeon CPU ( a Core i chip in every way, known to run perfectly on this board ) is causing a compatibility issue that's only shows when SLI is enabled. I'm sure if you swapped the CPU you would find you have the same problem.
With the amount of evidence that suggests this is a problem specific SLI that seems to be well reported and wide spread across many different system configurations, I think it safe to say you have run into a bug with SLI set-ups.
The only thing worth considering is if its worth holding on to the cards with the *hope* the problem will get fixed at some point. Considering you will likely end up running a pre 190.** driver for well god knows how long I would be tempted to shift both cards and pick up the fastest single card you can.
With the amount of evidence that suggests this is a problem specific SLI that seems to be well reported and wide spread across many different system configurations, I think it safe to say you have run into a bug with SLI set-ups.
The only thing worth considering is if its worth holding on to the cards with the *hope* the problem will get fixed at some point. Considering you will likely end up running a pre 190.** driver for well god knows how long I would be tempted to shift both cards and pick up the fastest single card you can.
Try reinstalling the nvidia drivers again. I cant recall if i did that after I removed realtek, but for me the realtek LAN drivers were the issue.
do a google - realtek & sli option
Soldato
- Joined
- 16 Jan 2003
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- 10,860
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- Nottingham
According to this Nvidia checks the chipset device ID and special keys embedded in the BIOS, I'm not sure why CPU would matter.
http://hothardware.com/News/NVIDIA-To-Support-SLI-On-Intel-X58-Chipset/
Had a look on Google, it does appear to be a problem. However, it seems that many who get it simply get BSODs when they enable SLI. There are a few who have the same issues as me though.
I uninstalled the driver using device manager. Then restarted, went into BIOS and disabled the NIC. Went back into Windows, installed 258.96 again, and restarted. Still no SLI option.
The only things it can be now (within reason) are:
-The two GPUs are somehow incompatible with each other (testing on Tuesday)
-The motherboard just won't support SLI due to some fault
-Nvidia's drivers checks the CPU support list - new Xeon-supporting motherboard required
-Nvidia's drivers suck.
Any of the above. Knowing my luck, I'm betting a combination of all 4.
+2, sick of people jumping on the accusation band wagon just for the sake of it, without actually bothering to take in the content of a post. Exactly the same thing with Raven and others. Raven posts and people jump on him, regardless of the message content
Thanks for taking the time to look into the topic further DM