Very slow GeForce 8800 GTX SLI Cards

[cptpicard]

Hi guys,

I have recently built myself a new machine. I have X2 BFG GeForce 8800 GTX cards running in my rig. All seems ok until I try and play games or run the Froggy and Cascades demo. Running froggy is just soooo slow, if I could see the fps, it'd probably be on 20 or worse. I have the latest Nvidia drivers, infact because of this problem, I've downloaded the latest beta drivers to see whether this would fix the problem - it hasn't!!

About ten minutes ago, when I tried running Froggy my whole computer crashed and went to the blue screen saying something about nvlddmkm memory problems.

Can anyone advise me please, as I've just spent out a lot of money on my new rig only to find it not working properly. My spec is below.

Thanks guys
Cpt.

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q660
4Gb PC2-8500 1066MHz SLI-Ready Edition Dual Channel DDR2
X2 Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500Gb SATAII 32MB Cache.
X2 BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC2 768MB GDDR3.
EVGA nForce 680i SLI 775 A1
Enermax Infiniti 720W EIN720AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU
Windows Vista 64-Bit
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro 7.1 Sound Card
Creative GigaWorks 7.2 S750
CoolerMaster Stacker 832
Dell Ultrasharp 3007WFP-HC 30" Widescreen LCD Monitor

 

[stemnin]

Are you serious? What are those DOS games?

-enough sarcasm-

I'm guessing there's a problem with Vista. Try running in compatibility mode, right click..blahblah google

 

[cptpicard]

I'm confussed. I right clicked on Froggy shortcut and choose the compatibility tab. there's nothing in there for Vista?

 

[Hatman]

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1297

Run 3dmark06 and tell us your score.


Another use for 3dmark, telling us if a rig is working as it should be.

You have done basic things like adding the SLI Bridge and switching on multi GPU mode, right?

 

[stemnin]

Run in XP mode. Maybe those games don't like SLi, i'm not sure, I can't find any info on either of those titles.

 

[cptpicard]

lol, froggy and cascades are not games. They are the DX10 demos.

Hatman, thx, I'm downloading it now and will get come back here with results. Regarding the basics. Yes, I have installed the bridge across both card. I was confussed about this though, because my BFG card seems to have two slots on each card for this. I have also turned on multi gpu mode.

 

[stemnin]

lol, sounded like Frogger and some other puzzle game knockoffs, thought they were some crappy freeware.

 

[Hatman]

I'm confussed. I right clicked on Froggy shortcut and choose the compatibility tab. there's nothing in there for Vista?

The compatibility mode is for backwards compatability only. Not enabling it is compatability for vista


Generally, I found it to be 100% useless and it never, ever worked.

 

[cptpicard]

Hi, something is seriously wrong. In some of the tests I was getting 0 -1 fps... that can't be right!!

My overall score was 6006.

I have also flashed my bios, installed chipsets to latest version. Still I'm having really slow fps.

Cpt.

 

[Hatman]

6006 is extremely low, you should be looking at 13k+ at a minimum.

Dw about the 0 -1 ones, they are benching your CPU it only ever gets 1 - 3 in most of them unless you got a really OC'd quad.


Im guessing you are using 2560x1600 on that monitor right, just to check you did run 3dmark at stock settings right? Thats like 1280x1024.

Ok, just thought of something.


http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/winvista_x64_163.75_uk.html
Install those beta drivers for a start.

Then install these updates to your Vista.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x64_163.69.html
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936710
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938194
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938979

I know there were some problems in 64bit vista. If these do not work, disable your SLI and bench on 3dmark06 with just one card, and see what score you get.

 

[cptpicard]

Ok I'm downloading the bits you have said. I have already taken out the other gpu card, so at the moment I only have one in there and it's making no differece, which suggests to me it's a software issue, unless both my cards are malfunctioning which I doubt! I'll keep you updated.

 

[ivanski]

Have you tried each card on its own to see if they are both good.
Take one card out and run 3dmark06 and repeat the steps with the other card.
If they both give you good scores,then mabey the power supply is'nt cutting it.

 

[Hatman]

It doesn't sound like a hardware problem, yet. Im pretty sure his PSU is up to it though, its more then enough for the power draw of 2x 8800gtx's.

 

[drkevorkian]

Whoah this is disturbing. I'm just about to order a rig almost identical to yours. There shouldn't be any compatibility issues with the hardware itself should there?

 

[cptpicard]

So what do you advise? I'm clutching straws!! I'm thinking about reinstalling WinVista 64-Bit and starting all over again!

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Did you try flipflopping the cards? What if the card you left in was the bad one?

 

[Heyyou27]

lol, froggy and cascades are not games. They are the DX10 demos.

Hatman, thx, I'm downloading it now and will get come back here with results. Regarding the basics. Yes, I have installed the bridge across both card. I was confussed about this though, because my BFG card seems to have two slots on each card for this. I have also turned on multi gpu mode.

Cascades is Direct X10, Froggy is not.

 

[No1sFanboy]

So what do you advise? I'm clutching straws!! I'm thinking about reinstalling WinVista 64-Bit and starting all over again!

First things are the basics. Are your memory and CPU performing properly. Orthos would be good for testing the CPU and memory or memtest for memory. If the problem still turns out to be isolated to graphics then drop to one card and try each card on it's own. A quicker way to check the graphics than running 3dmark would be ATItool. Click on show 3dview and from my experience 1 gtx should be running at around 1000fps. As you try different things this is a test you can do in 5 seconds rather burning through 10 minutes waiting for 3dmark to complete a run.

If your cpu, memory and one card work properly then you can focus in on you're sli setup or psu as a possible problem.

I'm just throwing out some ideas here that take less time than a reinstall.

 

[Hatman]

Im guessing the hotfixes didnt work then.

 

[cptpicard]

Ok here's an update. I had a spare SATA hard drive so I installed WindowsXP 32-Bit on it. I must say, the Nvidia drivers are much better! Anyway, after installing the latest nvidia drivers and restarting, the system prompted me to enable sli - it detected that ok, BUT.... I now have a warning message come up saying the following!

"To protect your hardware from potential damage or causing a potential system lockup, the graphics processor has lowered its performance to a level that allows continued safe operations". Does this mean there's something wrong with my PSU? Or maybe I have the wrong wire going into the graphics card. This PSU I have is very confusing!!

Cpt.

 

[bornking]

Yeah it is a driver issue. Also try flipping the two cards. My experience with SLI is such that my two 8800gts's were overheating (110 degrees!) until I switched them around and my full tower with 6 fans is not the issue.

Switch the cards, download another set of drivers from 3dguru, and try again.

Also try some benchmarks (Doom3 and Unreal3 and Oblivion) in WXP Pro 32 just to make sure it is not VISTA. Remember Vista does NOT officially support SLI yet.

 

[realibrad]

I think its hardware, more specifically the psu. it sounds like the cards arent getting enough power, so they have slowed them selfs down so as not to use as much power. make sure everything is getting all the power it needs. try and take out one card, and giving the other card all of the power it needs. also make sure to check every wire for breaks. it would make sense for a reply if the cards were trying to draw too much power.

 

[cptpicard]

Hi guys, this may sound silly but the problem was the card wasn't getting enough power due to it having to power slots (Never seen this before) and I only had one power cable going into one slot. However, I don't have enough cables to put four power cables into the gpu's. so how can this psu be sli complaint? Infact I don't think many gpu's have four power slots so the BFG series must be different to most others...

 

[grunchlk]

Ok here's an update.
"To protect your hardware from potential damage or causing a potential system lockup, the graphics processor has lowered its performance to a level that allows continued safe operations". Does this mean there's something wrong with my PSU? Or maybe I have the wrong wire going into the graphics card. This PSU I have is very confusing!!
Cpt.

Don't know about the 8800, but this is the same message you get when forgetting to connect gfx card power connector on 6600 or 6800 cards.
Didn't the 8800's NEED the two power lines?

 

[cptpicard]

Thanks, but I did say that in my message above... But for some strange reason my psu didn't come with FOUR 6-pin PCI Express cables. So I got to go out and buy another one