Having problems with Dual Graphics cards on MSI 970 Gaming Motherboard

Goldobsidian

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Aug 20, 2015
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Hello. I purchased 2 identical PC's, one for myself and one for my room mate. They are built EXACTLY the same down to same components and clock speeds.

They are both
MSI 970 Gaming Motherboards
AMD FX8350 8 core Processor with aftermarket Cool master heat sink
2 MSI Radeon R9 290X Graphic cards
16 GB's of DDR3 2400 from G.skill
1 Western Digital Black Series 1T 3.5 Harddrive
And a 1200 Watt Cool master Modular ATX power supply
Windows 7

The one I put togeather for myself, I either forgot a step it didnt have issues and installed and ran both cards fine.

The one I built for my roommate however is not recognizing that there is a second graphics card installed in anyway. I have even removed the functional one, connected the display cables to the second and tried to run the Pc that way, but I get a no signal from the monitor. Thinking the graphics card might be dead even though the fans are spinning, I swapped them. That how ever did not work either.

The only thing I havent tried is taking his cards and putting them in my machine or mine in his.

I have seen NUMERIOUS posts online about how you have to enable other PCIE ports but I cannot find any options in the 970 bio's to do such a thing and dont remember doing it myself on mine.

Does any one have any advice for how I can trouble shoot whats wrong and why my roommates machine will not recognize the other card?
 

jdcranke07

Honorable
This might sound dumb, but was the power cable plugged into it? I have forgotten to plug one of my cards up before is why I ask. Also, do you have power switches on the motherboard PCI-E slots that you have to physically turn on? I do for my 4th x16 slot on my ASRock Z97 mobo, so figured I'd ask. What model is the mobo?
 

jdcranke07

Honorable


Could you repost the link? I can't get it to pull up the webpage. Looks like it's trying to pull up an embedded version.
 

Goldobsidian

Reputable
Aug 20, 2015
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4,510
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130790&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker,%20LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

I was trying to link to the PC Part Picker info page, Here is Neweggs instead.