SLI suddenly missing?

[rjk]

not really sure whats going on here.

480 SLI
Z68X UD5
2600k [taken back to stock for the purpose of troubleshooting]

heres the facts.

1. turn on pc.
2. driver crash.
3. restart pc.
4. driver crash.
5. both cards detected in device manager
6. uninstall 275.33
7. reinstall 275.33
8. pc boots after hanging on windows splash screen for ages
9. both cards detected in device manager still
10. uninstall 275.33
11. install 275.50 [beta]
12. pc boots after hanging on windows splash screen for ages
13. still no sli option
14. both cards detected in device manager still
15. reinstall 275.50 [beta]
16. still no sli option.
17. remove both cards and reseat them
18. still the same.
19. try new sli bridge
20. still the same.

im out of ideas now. borked card?

 

[rjk]

right, been away this weekend but now i have to start the serious troubleshooting here to get this fixed.

Not that easy for the op to do this as his two GPU cards are watercooled....

indeed - that is the main issue here. the cards are linked by a pair of solid plastic tubes which means that the pair of cards are rigid.

Install your OS onto another HDD/SSD and don't install anything else onto it except the bare minimum of drivers required for your graphics card to work. IIRC you have two SSD's?

Finally, did the problems just start randomly or did you make any driver changes. Try checking windows update aswell.

correct, my plan of action tonight is to plonk windows on an old hdd and see if i get it working on a fresh install. hoping its just a software bug and a fresh install sorts it.

First thing to try - take a look at your restore points - see if you can go back to a point before the problem.

Check for any BIOS updates for your Mobo..

I have restore points turned off.
basically I have an image of windows 7 set up how i like it and just clone from that rather than doing full reinstalls.
no more recent bios than what I have but I may stick a beta on there if there's one available at tweaktown at the moment.

will try to keep this updated now I'm back at the pc.
Battlefield Alpha is calling and I'm stuck troubleshooting

 

[rjk]

updated bios to F8
no change...

removed my sound card from the bottom slot.
sli is functional again...

suppose it may just be the sound card. which is nice and easy to RMA as it hasn't got a chunk of copper attached to it.

 

[rjk]

sound card back in and working.
everything is up to speed and exactly how it should be.

I hate computers

 

[rjk]

See, this is why you should have got a nickel block

the nickel would flake off though!!!

Can't have been easy removing the sound card either, unless the picture is misleading it doesn't look like there's much space.
It is one of the downsides to having watercooling isn't it, not being able to remove/replace/swap components as easily
Although I'm surprised someone with a setup as nice as rjkoneill doesn't have some super slick way of effortlessly draining the loop.
Glad it wasn't one of the cards though as it might be tricky/expensive sourcing another reference 480 these days.

And we laugh at 'technical' support centres that suggesting turning it off and on again. This was a little more complicated but vaguely the same sort of thing!

Glad it seems to be up and running though.

the sound card does require the gpus to be removed as the fittings from the lower cards obstructs it.
its strange. I spend a lot of time on the phone to customers dealing with stuff like this.
cant believe that reseating everything has sorted it.
its fairly easy to drain the loop anyway, I do it all the time so its sort of routine.

rjkoneill, you said you drain your loop quite often, can i ask how?

yes, i have a drain port on the bottom of the loop.
its not in there at the moment so i have to tip the res over. not the best but it works.

 

[rjk]

back to square one again.

same thing is happening.

turn on pc - it takes ages to get past windows splash screen and then eventually gets into windows without any drivers installed.

reinstalling the drivers helps and it holds.

as soon as you enable SLI and restart, then the drivers dont work again.

its as if the drivers wont attach themselves to the cards.
I have a nasty feeling something is wrong with one of my 480s.

anyone got any ideas?

everything in my pc is on the latest drivers

 

[rjk]

all the board has been checked. its been fine all afternoon. playing shift 2 with an 850mhz core speed on both cards without issue.

if I restart, there is a 50/50 chance it will need a driver reinstall and windows will take ages to boot

 

[rjk]

problem identified finally

Andrew Moore has the same setup as me

2600k
z68x ud5
480 SLI
Xonar PCIe card

he gets the same problem.
turns out it is an issue with the mothebroard. emailling gigabyte now.

 

[rjk]

they are aware of the problem and I have some support on the way

it seems to relate to the following.
motherboards with two high bandwidth graphics cards and a pcie sound card that is outputting to 2560X1600

so a very specific issue.
in the meantime I am looking at different boards as I cant do anything at the moment unless I take my sound card out

 

[rjk]

Did they give you any idea of the eta for support?

they are sending an engineer from TW next week as a routine support visit so I will demonstrate it then.

Each to their own though I would have thought removing your sound card would be the better decision for now, at least you can game, and I'd imagine the audio chip on your mobo is one of thee best available anyway?

I am removing the soundcard for the time being as rubbish sound is better than constant driver reinstallations. but realtek sound is in no way good enough.