SLI Trouble Please Help

Wayywayyh · May 21, 2014

Hello, so about a month ago, I bought a second graphics card and a new motherboard. I now have 2 gtx 660s. One of them is the evga 660 sc sig2 and the other is just the standard with a single blower fan. The new motherboard is gigabyte's GA-990FXA-UD3 rev4. My old motherboard was the asus a97 r2.0. The problem is whenever I attempt to start a game, it might run, but it will usually flash red or black then go to a black screen. Then I am required to do a hard restart to get out of that black screen. I was reading a few things online and a few people where saying it was either a faulty graphics card or a faulty SLI bridge. Any opinions or helpful advice would be appreciated.

Full Specs:

FX 8350

GA-990FXA-UD3

16gb ballistix sport 1600mhz

Corsair HX 850

2 Evga GTX 660

1tb WD Black

1tb WD blue

Corsair h80i

a DVD/CD multi drive

LG Blue ray drive

a card 3.0 card reader

and a butt ton of blue 120mm fans

Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

terry4536 · May 21, 2014

There are several possibilities. It could be a faulty graphics card as you say. It could be an inadequate power supply. I coud be a driver issue. It could be a RAM problem.

The first thing I would try is to re-seat the memory sticks and graphics cards and also cleaning the contacts and blowing out all of the slots.

You can test the graphics cards by removing the cards one at a time and testing the system.

You can monitor the voltages on the power supply, and even switch out the PSU to test it.

The driver issue is usually cured with uninstalling the drivers (using a utility like driver sweeper) and then reinstalling the latest driver.

But given that you were experiencing video errors prior to the problem, it is probably one of the GPU cards at fault.

Wayywayyh · May 24, 2014

https://teksyndicate.com/forum/gpu/sli-trouble-please-help/178593#comment-1687158

terry4536 · May 24, 2014

I read the posts that you linked. It sounds to me that the power supply is becoming the more than likely cause. You said that each individual GPU tested OK, but combined they still crash. That points to an inadequate power supply for two cards.

Wayywayyh · May 25, 2014

I don't understand why not though. It is 850 watt gold rated, and most power supply calculators said i only needed like 600-700 watts for this setup.

terry4536 · May 25, 2014

Just because a power supply is supposed to have 850 watts doesn't mean that it does. How old is the power supply? Have you monitored the power supply voltages?

You said yourself that it powers both individually. That means the drivers are OK. That also means the graphics cards are OK. That means the memory is OK. That means the motherboard is OK. That is all of the common issues that result in "No Video Output" other than an inadequate power supply.

The only other possible avenue is something just inherent to SLI. Foe example if the graphics cards were incompatible with each other in SLI. But as far as I know, two GTX 660's meet the SLI criteria.

Wayywayyh · May 26, 2014

I got the power supply in august of 2013.
Here is a link to the specific one. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139011
Do you know any easy way to monitor the power?

Mousemonkey · May 26, 2014

IIRC the HX range from Corsair have (or at least had) a five year warranty so a replacement shouldn't be an issue. I would be suprised if it was the PSU though as I'm running SLi'd 660Ti's on a seven or eight year old HX620.

Wayywayyh · May 26, 2014

oops, i didnt mean to pick that as my solution, i just meant to reply to it.
not to sure how to unpick it as my solution...

Wayywayyh · May 26, 2014

Presler :

Everything is set to stock clock speed and drivers and bios are all up to date

Y0GI · May 26, 2014

oops, i didnt mean to pick that as my solution, i just meant to reply to it.
not to sure how to unpick it as my solution.

Done.

Be sure to re-select a best answer when you find one.

Yogi

Wayywayyh · May 26, 2014

Y0GI :

thank you

Wayywayyh · May 26, 2014

So today I restored my computer to may 20th, and updated the drivers to the new ones that just came out. it is running more stable now but still crashes after a while

Wayywayyh · May 26, 2014

also i have noticed that when trying to game or do a benchmark, card number 1 gets up to 70C for a few minutes then crashes

terry4536 · May 26, 2014

If you don't have a monitoring utility that came with motherboard, you can use this one. Your power supply 3.3V, 5V, & 12V measurements should be very close to those values. The industry limits are plus or minus 5% of the actual voltage. So, for the 12V it should be between 11.4 and 12.6 V. But in practical terms it should be within a tenth of a volt or so.

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

Wayywayyh · May 26, 2014

terry4536 :

I had to use my friends flickr to upload these

Here are screenshots under several different load varients

No load

NoLoad

Load Running Prime95

Prime95

Load Running Uningine Valley on Extreme Preset

Valley

Load running Uningine Valley On Extreme Preset and Prime95

Both

Are these normal?

terry4536 · May 26, 2014

Sorry, flickr will not allow me to zoom in. I can't really read them. Can you post the results zoomed in on the voltages?

Wayywayyh · May 27, 2014

terry4536 :

Not sure if i made it better

Valley

Valley

Prime95

Prime and Valley

Wayywayyh · May 30, 2014

just restored my computer. only drivers, utilities and a couple games on it and still crashes during gameplay

Mousemonkey · May 30, 2014

Wayywayyh :

My top card sits at about +80c most of time when folding so yours should be handle the heat.

terry4536 · May 30, 2014

If the temperature only gets to 70 degrees C, That shouldn't cause throttling on anything. So I doubt that temperature is the Culprit.

The only way to rule out the power supply is to switch it out with a working power supply with plenty of power. The next step up is a 1000 watt power supply. It is probably more watts than you need, but it will cross that possibility off the list.

If you have any unused fan ports (or dieing fans?), I would advise installing more fans.

Mousemonkey · May 30, 2014

terry4536 :

1000w for a pair of 660's? Really? :heink:

terry4536 · May 30, 2014

As I said just to rule out the power supply problem.

terry4536 · May 30, 2014

I should have given these checklists to you already. I think you have tried most of these, but maybe not.

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-1893016/post-system-boot-video-output-troubleshooting-checklist.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2041564/troubleshoot-boot-display-issue.html

terry4536 · May 30, 2014

Or, you can take the power supply in to a PC shop, and have them test it. But there is a good chance that they will just went to sell you another power supply.

SLI Trouble Please Help

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