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Vista SLI no option in nVidia Control Panel help!

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26 Jan 2005
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221
Location
Dorset
Hi
I have been running 2 x 6800GT's in SLI on Widows XP for some time.

Now I have installed Windows Vista and the latest nVidia drivers for my cards but the nVidia Control Panel doesn't appear to enable me to turn on SLI (the option is not there).

Please can anybody advise as to what is happening here?

Many thanks :)
 
I was aware until recently that vista didnt support SLI, but apparently the latest drivers do. Maybe not the ones on the nvidia site, but some beta ones from guru3d or something
 
had this before when I had 2 7800 GTX's, try taking one card out, booting into windows. the shutdown and put the other card in. see what happens. then try keeping one card in the 2nd slot and booting into windows, then shutdown and put the other card in slot 1.

I take you have the SLI bridge connecting the 2 cards up ?
 
Hi again Olly.

I have determined the issue here.

The latest nVidia Vista 32bit drivers do not support 6800GT's in SLI.

It's not as if 6800GT's are dinosaurs is it? :D

I don't suppose anybody knows the latest drivers which DO support 6800GT's in SLI on Vista 32bit?
 
I have not that long been through the SLI works with a couple of old 6600GT cards and I wanted to play with SLI - nothign serious,y I just fancied a laugh.

Anyway, I can happily state, that XP, XP64, Vista32 and 64 all support SLI just fine.

Make sure that both your Motherboard and your GFX Drivers are the absolutel latest and the option will come up.

If its any help, I used :-

nFORCE =
v6.86 - XP ( 32 + 64 )
v15.01 - Vista ( 32 + 64 )

ForceWare =
v162.22 ( XP + Vista )
v163.71 ( XP64 )

OK?

There are newer but I have not been bothered to update as its on a PC I hardly use anyway.
 
WHAT?

So, they support the 6600GT but not the 6800GT?

I find that rather odd and... Well... Ridiculous to be honest???

Listen... For what its worth, I was going to re-try Vista on the A8N-SLI again in a few days, but I will install it now if you want? - I have stuff to do in the LAN Room anyway, so, give me an hour and I will get back to you?

I myself have 6600GT CArds ... Gigabyte ones to be exact, but I have a mate who has a pair of 6800 cards that I can nab... I dont think they are GT but that wont make any difference will it.

If you want, I can happily go over, grab them and play about for a bit.

I fancy a laugh.
 
Thanks guys for your help.

Well I spent all weekend trying to get some good drivers going for my 6800GT's but all I could find to enable SLI were 158 drivers which were so old they were buggy.

It is ridiculous that later release drivers drop the 6800GT SLI support.

FatRakoon I also have the A8N-SLI (Deluxe) and if you do fancy a bit of playing around I would be very interested in how you get on.

NVIDIA_x64's 169.04 drivers look very interesting but I am always worried that beta drivers might crash my machine when I am in the middle of doing something important for business. How likely is that to happen?
Also do we know for certain that the 169.04's will permit 6800GT's in SLI?
Are there any release notes stating this?

Thanks again guys. It would be good to keep this thread going with any feedback posted :)
 
Ok mate... Just got done 2 seconds ago...

Ok, the cards I have are GIGABYTE 6600GT 128MB Jobs.

My mates cards are both LEADTEK 6800GT - I thought thet they were not, but they are.

Now, great news is that the drivers I told you to use... DO SUPPORT THE 6800 - I dont know why you thought they did not, but bear with me here...

A while back, I too was unable to install SLI on my systems... At the time, yes, I used the A8N-SLI and again, this is the system I used just now.

This is what I did...

Backed up my stuff ( Only have Windows on C: so ist a few seconds )

I installed Vista32 onto it...

I have not activated it cos Im not sure how well it will go ( It installs perfectly fine, but Im not sure how other things are with me more than the PC )

Ok, I installed the Chipset drivers ( v 6.86 as I said ) to

C:\Windows\nVIDIA-nForce

after a restart, I installed the ForceWare drivers ( v162.22 ) to

C:\Windows\nVIDIA-ForceWare

After another restart, Right click on the screen, and in the context menu, I selected "nvidia control panel" and then selected SLI CONFIGURATION and then ENABLE SLI.

I then closed the control panel, and added my 2 FoldingAtHome folders to C:\Program Files and set them up, and restarted the PC.

When it came back up, about 5 or 6 seconds later ( didnt time it ) a small dialog box showed up in the bottom right corner telling me that SLI is enabled and that if I have 2 screens, one of them will go blank! )

So, there we are, the 6600GT cards are fine in SLI

Now, lets check the 6800GT cards...

Bingo, the very same thing.

Although I had a small bit of buggering about, because I have gone from 6600 to 6800 but after a restart, the same thing happened, the SLI was enabled and everythign is peachy.

Now... In the BIOS on the A8N-SLI, there is those 2 options for SLI... Cant remember the exact thing they say, but mine are enabled anyway... Make sure thats checked out and also the SLI Card thingy in the Mobo, between the PCI-E slots... Although in all honesty, when I was unable to get SLI sorted on mine, I swapped that card around and even took it out and it made no difference at all???

Also if oyu fancy a laugh, I had so much trouble before, trying to get SLI to work, that I actualyl went out and bought another A8N-SLI, this one a Premium and I was so imp[atient waiting for that to come, that I also bought yet another SLI Board just because they guaranteed next day delivery ( And I got it next day too to be fair ) and they both failed to get the buggers to SLI.

In the end it was all simply down to drivers it seems???

Seriously my friend... Download the drivers I have told you about ( 6.86 and 162.22 ) and install the chipset then the GFX Drivers and it WILL WORK

OK?
 
Vwgolfman yes SLI will work with these drivers very well:)

The reason it has not worked for you on those other drivers is not because they have stopped supporting 6800 GTs in SLI it is just because they had a problem with vista and just that driver. The new driver (169.04) will work

Also running beta drivers will not make normal stuff you do on the PC crash the only thing that may crash would be a game but I have not had a problem with anything and I am running 2 x 6800 GS at the mo and they are working great:)
 
FatRakoon that's very kind of you to go to all of that effort and make your findings available for me and others here.

I think you meant 15.01 for the chipset drivers for Vista and not 6.86 which you have typed? The 6.86's are for Windows XP.

The reason I didn't think the 162.22's worked is because I am sure I tried them! I then looked in the release notes afterwards LOL and they said that they don't support 6800GT's in SLI either. Did you see the release notes that I linked to in my last post?
When I have drivers installed which do not support SLI then in the nVidia control panel there is not option to enable SLI (it simply does not show that option).

I know options are correct in my BIOS and on the Motherboard as I have been running these cards for a long time now in SLI mode in Windows XP.
Besides I have checked them.

I am still left wondering whether you had the SLI option because you had already selected SLI mode when you had the 6600GT's in.

If you still have the machine in the same state, I would be interested to know if the SLI option is still available with the 6800GT's and the LATEST release drivers (163.69).

Oh I forgot I was going to ask what FoldingAtHome is?

As for the Motherboards I can't believe you have so much money and desperation to get your SLI going that you purchased 3 Motherboards :D

I actually found out on Friday that the company for which I work is going into liquidation and that tomorrow is going to be my last day of employment :(

I am entitled to a little redundancy pay so if I can find a job soon enough I hope to be able to treat myself to a new Motherboard, RAM, CPU and graphics card with some of the redundancy. I shall purchase a single modern card so as not to have to bother with SLI ;)

@NVIDIA_x64....
Thank you for your info too :)
If the 162.22's suggested by FatRakoon DO give me 6800GT SLI then is it worth installing the 169.04's?
I understand it will not crash my machine under normal use (great) but would you happen to know whether I'd get better performance with the new beta's?

@both of you.....
My machine is...
A8N-SLI Deluxe
AMD Athlon 4200+ X2 Dual Core
1Gb Fast Corsair RAM
2 X 6800GT's in SLI

When I had Vista on my machine (I have gone back to Windows XP for the time being due to the SLI issue) I found that when I had Dreamscene running, the video was a little stuttery. Also when Dreamscene was running when I dragged a folder/window it was not as "quick" as it is without Dreamscene running. It was a bit "laggy".
I know my machine is a little dated but surely this would not be expected with the hardware which I do have?

Many thanks for your time and answers :)
 
Last edited:
FatRakoon that's very kind of you to go to all of that effort and make your findings available for me and others here.

No no...

As I said, I wanted to retry vista in that PC anyway, I have simply moved its date from the weekend, to tonight, thats all... I was doing it anyway.

I think you meant 15.01 for the chipset drivers for Vista and not 6.86 which you have typed? The 6.86's are for Windows XP.

Yeah, my bad... Trying to type everything down for you too quickly, I just made a silly mistake, but at least you noticed it eh?

I am still left wondering whether you had the SLI option because you had already selected SLI mode when you had the 6600GT's in.

Yes, but SLI mode did not come up when I first put the 6800's in and then once Vista saw the new cards and reinstalled the drivers for the 6800s instead of the 660's, SLI came up.

If you still have the machine in the same state, I would be interested to know if the SLI option is still available with the 6800GT's and the LATEST release drivers (163.69).

Yes, I have the cards for the night.

I will install the latest shortly then ok? - I need to Download them., plus I have to spend time with the wife cos my mum has the scrotes for the night, so I will let you know shortly ok.

Oh I forgot I was going to ask what FoldingAtHome is?

All you need to know is here ...

http://folding.stanford.edu/

Putting it into a very short line would be "that it uses the power of peoples PCs to try to find the cure for diseases"

Its a lot to it that that, but thats pretty much summing it up in a nutshell.

As for the Motherboards I can't believe you have so much money and desperation to get your SLI going that you purchased 3 Motherboards

LOL

Its not that simple...

I just fancied it for a laugh originally, and I had a few issues, but I eventually got it going.
Now, this was with XP32
Then, I upped to XP64 and I was unable to sort it properly, and a mate suggested, that I should up the Firmware on both, and sure enough they were different, but I kind of killed one of them, so, for a while, the card was dumped in a box.

Doing a sort out, I found it, and I thought sod it... I am going to ask Gigabyte about it.. The help I had from them was absolutely amazing... I told them the facts and I didnt lie, I said I had 2 and that I tried flashing but the flash didnt seem to go right, and that nothing I could do, would fix it??? - They sent me a number of different flasher programs and different flashes and the 4th try, it worked. I then realised that although both cards are now fully working, I also flashed the good card to this Hybrid Firmware, so that I knew that both would be 100% spot on.

Now, this has gone on for several months of course from when I first mesed the flash up, to when Gigabyte helped me fix it, and it gave me sucha massive boost at the time and I was buzzing like hell to get this card resurrected like I did.

Anyway, I set about throwing it onto a PC again, and so, I set about it again, but this time, I could not do it on any of my Versions of Windows, and then, I htought that maybe I have knackered the Board up?

What we had here then, is that the Board I got from the MM and it had ben a great board, but since its second hand, its served its duty, so perhaps its time. I liked it and decided to get the same, and I saw the Premium... No I didnt, I mean the Deluxe model..Bear with me, I have just been messing with Vista Premuim and I got that word in my head all the time? - But I was so impatient that I decided to buy another one cos *** supplier could deliver the next day, and the new one was only £35 so I thought stuff it...

Its not like I have loads of money floating around or anything, but just to throw a little show-off into it, I have extended my house and built a LAN room purely to have all my PCs in, and my slowest running PC at this time is a Newcastle 3000 and thats running at 2.5 At this time.

I actually found out on Friday that the company for which I work is going into liquidation and that tomorrow is going to be my last day of employment

Listen mate... The whole of the UK is in the same boat. We need to stop importing cheap and nasty stuff, and start making the stuff in the UK again, because the UK is going to suffer seriously in the end because there is no jobs, and too many people.

I am entitled to a little redundancy pay so if I can find a job soon enough I hope to be able to treat myself to a new Motherboard, RAM, CPU and graphics card with some of the redundancy. I shall purchase a single modern card so as not to have to bother with SLI

Good news out of bad.

A friend of mine has just lost his job... The factory he works in has closed down and he is getting 7K redundancy.
Now, 5 years ago, when the admins came in, they said that if he lost his job, he would get about 25K.
He managed to keep his job and the factory was saved, but what has happened this time round, is that the management that came in have been robbing the factory blind and they have closed it down and now he only has the minimum govt payout which is only 7 grand! - hell man! 30 odd years of loyalty down the drain eh?


@both of you.....
My machine is...
A8N-SLI Deluxe
AMD Athlon 4200+ X2 Dual Core
1Gb Fast Corsair RAM
2 X 6800GT's in SLI

I was about to say the specs on my A8N are very similar, but then I realised that is bloody obvious, so I wont say a word... LOL

---

Ok listen... I will re-do the drivers and get back to you ok?

anything else in particular you fancy me trying out?
 
WOW What a post LOL and a really interesting read.

It made me laugh when you said "bear with me" :D
One hell of a description re: Motherboards and Graphic Card BIOS flashing!
It was great that Gigabyte gave you so much help.

Unfortunately I have only been working for the company for 5 years and as it is going into liquidation I may be entitled to less than I would under normal redundancy. Like your mate it will be coming from the Government so no doubt I shall have to wait some time before I see 'owt.

I don't have a wife like you but I do have a girlfriend (with whom I live) so I am going to have to use any money I am entitled to shrewdly. Unfortunately new computer parts don't come too high on the priority list :(

I had better let you spend some time with your wife (!) but if you have time I would like to know if you have any idea why Dreamscene is stuttering a little bit (no too badly but surely it shouldn't with my set up?).
Also I'd be interested to know whether the SLI option disappears from the nVidia control panel as soon as you install the latest release drivers (163.69).

Cheers and beers Rakmeister
Oh PS I'm sure you're not interested but on my homepage (see profile) you can see my nice cards (well they were in their time :D )
 
I just realised that your name is VolksWagon Golf Man???

I thought it was WOLFMAN with a V... As in Vee haf vays off making you talk!

Ah well.

Ok...

Uninstalled the 162.22 Drivers.
Cleaned them
Went into the DIR and wiped the files off manually

Installed the 163.69 Drivers and again, they are fine. SLI is enabled just spanky

DreamScene

Never run it... What is it? where is it? Answers on a postcard to ....

RakMeister???

LOL

Your Homepage? - Sure, lets have a laugh...

www . fatrakoon . co . uk

For mine... Not been updated for a long time now so I ned to get off my bum and do it, but I have been saying that for over a year now!

Anyway, should have something there still???

Later dude.
 
Niec case mate.

Clean too!

Erm, I will take a few pics of my A8N-SLI in a short while and I will update them to my site ( yeah, I know... I know ) and... Well... I will post you a link to the page.

FFS now I got to dig out my login details for FTPing the stuff and then I to install some FTP App, then I got to... Half 12?

Ok, should have somehting there in arf-an-awer

Oh, hang on... I already have the basic page up...

http://fatrakoon.co.uk/pc-asus-sli.htm

I just need to do some pics for you...

Later mate.
 
Well I am astounded that you still have the SLI option with the latest release drivers (163.69).

Copy and pasted from the release notes...

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Ch a p t e r 2 : R e l e a s e 1 6 3 D r i v e r I s s u e s V e r s i o n 1 6 3 . 6 9 H i g h l i g h t s
Limitations in This Release
The following are features that are not currently supported or have limited support in
this driver release:
• NVIDIA Quad SLI Technology
• NVIDIA SLI Antialiasing
• NVIDIA SLI Mode for GeForce 6800 Ultra and GeForce 6800 GT
--------------------------------------------------------------------

It says "not currently supported or LIMITED". Maybe Leadtek 6800GT's have limited support but just enough to enable SLI!

My 6800GT's are XFX's and I definitely get no SLI option with those drivers.

How strange.

Looking forward to seeing some computer pics.

For now I had better get some shut-eye :o zzzzzz
 
Odd????

Very Odd indeed??

Sorry mate, but Im just confused???

I will have a tinker before Andy has his cards back, but the thing is, I got SLI on a pair of 6800GTs so either they are lying, or Im lying, or my PC is lying?

Ill do a couple of benches ok?... One card and two, and see what differences we have, and I will quickly throw another screen onto card 2 and see that we do indeed have a dual display ( Although this wont help with our SLI answers, it will verify that we are running the both cards so to speak )

Dont know what else I can suggest mate???

Perhaps its the going from the 66 that might have done something, but I have done everythign I can to kill of the 162.22 Drivers first before I put on the 163.69 ones?? - I have said the right numbers there havent I?

I will double-check that I have indeed installed the 163.69 Drivers.

Update later.

PS I have found some pics... Chucked them on there so have a look before I take them down ok? they were on the camera already, so I just used those.

The PC is half in bits in the pics cos I have just taken the PCI IDE card out and used a couple of SATA Adapters instead... I will do the same with the Maxtor shortly because my other SATA Adapters dont like Maxtors, but the ones in there now are brilliant.

Anyway,Im waffling.
 
I like the pics of your machine ;)

I wonder if you've done any benchies?

I would be well interested to see the results.

I am considering getting Vista back on this machine either this evening or tomorrow but I just want to get straight which graphics drivers to use before I do :D
 
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