I have a rig that's probably in the 6000 dollars bracket.
I bought an eVGA GTX 980, and to compliment it, I bought an MSi GTX 980 Gaming card as well. The cards are probably not clocked equally. I think the latter is clocked a bit higher.
After I installed the card, booting was impossible. Even from the Win 7 DVD.
It sticks on the splash screen and nothing happens. I have a feeling this is a BIOS issue, 'cause it kicks off again once I remove and reset the CMOS battery. Normally SLI-ing two cards even with different clocks would be easy. I think my BIOS is too old, despite it being one of the top MBs in the Z87 series from ASUS.
If anyone has something on this, it'd be much appreciated.
How do I get this to work?
A few things first.
Boot with one card only, the old one. Does it boot? Perfect. Get a BIOS upgrade for your motherboard.
Asus site with Z87 motherboards (https://www.asus.com/ca-en/Motherboards/Intel_Platform_Products/)
To flash your BIOS, put the file on a USB stick, boot into BIOS, go for the last menu in advanced settings, you'll see an option, EZflash, I think it's called, or something like that. Do it, reboot, readjust your BIOS settings or simply load 'optimized defaults'.
Now, let's try the the other card. Does it work alone? Yes? Perfect.
Do SLI cards still require a connector? In the past they used to, today I do not know. It's a little piece of plastic that sits on top of your two cards, linking them. Sometimes, it can look like a mall ribbon. It comes with the motherboard, IIRC.
It doesn't matter if the cards have different clocks, they will auto-adjust to the slowest one. Unless you overclock your slowest card with MSI After Burner.
Ah, naturally, if one of the cards doesn't boot as standalone, it is likely defective.
Also, did you try to plug the monitors in both cards? You might have picked the wrong one, inadvertently.
Quote from: viper37 on April 28, 2015, 10:33:58 AM
Also, did you try to plug the monitors in both cards? You might have picked the wrong one, inadvertently.
Or even plugged into the integrated video; even I've slipped up, had a forgetful moment, and done that.
Hmm. Given the thread title, I was hoping Norgy had invented a sexbot.
I think I have done just about what I can.
I got both cards to work.
Both are recognised.
I even got Windows to boot with both installed. But when I SLI them, Windows apparently hates me.
I upgraded BIOS. I think I am stuck with one card.
More Power.
I have 1200 watts of Corsair AX 1200i.
Quote from: Norgy on April 30, 2015, 05:48:40 PM
I think I have done just about what I can.
I got both cards to work.
Both are recognised.
I even got Windows to boot with both installed. But when I SLI them, Windows apparently hates me.
I upgraded BIOS. I think I am stuck with one card.
I don't think it's the BIOS, since computers support SLI/Crossfire since, well, since it came out 10 years ago? :)
Given the recent hardware, it should support it, so long as the board as two PCI-E x16 lanes (wich it has, otherwise you couldn't plug the card in :) ).
But it never hurts to upgrade a BIOS.
Quote from: Norgy on April 26, 2015, 09:10:59 PM
I have a rig that's probably in the 6000 dollars bracket.
I bought an eVGA GTX 980, and to compliment it, I bought an MSi GTX 980 Gaming card as well. The cards are probably not clocked equally. I think the latter is clocked a bit higher.
After I installed the card, booting was impossible. Even from the Win 7 DVD.
It sticks on the splash screen and nothing happens. I have a feeling this is a BIOS issue, 'cause it kicks off again once I remove and reset the CMOS battery. Normally SLI-ing two cards even with different clocks would be easy. I think my BIOS is too old, despite it being one of the top MBs in the Z87 series from ASUS.
If anyone has something on this, it'd be much appreciated.
How do I get this to work?
Which Z87 motherboard do you have? Based on what you've said, it's sounding to me like a BIOS configuration issue where one or both cards are trying to take exclusive control of video, but as many differences as there are in mobo BIOS configurations, I couldn't even guarantee what settings you have available without knowing which variant of the mobo you have. Is it the Z87-A, Z87-PRO, Z87-Deluxe, or is it something else?
Either my video has died or my whole computer has died. Either way it is: angrifying.
The Z87 Deluxe Dual. It was supposed to be the bees knees when I bought it.
Which PCI Express slots are you using? Apparently the 3.0 slots support SLI and Crossfire, but the 2.0 slots only support Crossfire...
Supposedly, all the three PCI-E slots were 3.0, but it could be that once again I have missed some driver updates from Asus or Intel chipset updates.
I'll check again. Thanks for the tip, mate!
:hug:
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on May 01, 2015, 12:02:53 PM
Either my video has died or my whole computer has died. Either way it is: angrifying.
if the computer turns on, all the fans are spinning, the power supply too, then it's the video card.
Getting in on the fuck video cards deal. My video card driver keeps crashing, screen turns off for s few seconds, come back up but with various graphic elements looking wrong. I updated the driver but that only helped to recover from the black screen faster.
After installing the latest Intel chipset drivers, flashing BIOS and updating to the latest version, a repair install of Win7 and following every piece of advice about dual card installation, it works. SLI works. GTA V looks pretty good with two GTX 980s and 4k. :cool:
The temps are pretty scary, though.
Did you try removing the driver altogether, turn off the computer and re-boot, Liep?
Sometimes that fixes the issue. Windows finds a driver, and then you can re-install again later. It may sound like a card on the verge of not working at all, though.
You have too much disposable income.
Quote from: Norgy on May 05, 2015, 01:47:52 PM
Did you try removing the driver altogether, turn off the computer and re-boot, Liep?
Sometimes that fixes the issue. Windows finds a driver, and then you can re-install again later. It may sound like a card on the verge of not working at all, though.
I think that might have worked, installed the beta driver afterwards. Now I have input lag though. Meh, it's been 3 years it's time to get a new computer!
Turns out one of the monitors was toast. I had unplugged that one and tried a different one and got the black screen, no connect message on it. Not sure how that happened. But the computer is fine, just my 30 inch monitor that I'll never be able to replace is dead.