Is your P5N-D working right?

[Bandino]

I just put a new box together, but I don't think it's working right, at least not to it's full potential. I have an Asus P5N-D motherboard, Q9300 cpu, 2 gig strip of ddr2 800 memory, two 9600GT 512mb video cards, a 650w PSU, and some other things. My issues are these; In bios it shows which chip I have, but says CPU speed is only 2.0, not the 2.5 it should be. I did install the lastest bios, 502, but it didn't help much. Whether I have the SLI hooked up or not, there isn't a performance difference. I took one card out, I've had both cards in not hooked up, and both cards in hooked up and the results are all the exact same. The lastest Nvidia software/driver says SLI is enabled, but that doesn't change any performance issues. In general the computer just doesn't seem to run nearly as fast as it should. I upgraded from a P4 2.8 1 gig mem. 4-5 year old board, but the performance isn't very different. I'd like to know if anyone else has the same board with 9600GT cards SLIed and has it noticably working.? If so, at boot up in dos, will it show 1 gig of video memory or just one card's 512? My dos screen only shows one card's info where I'm guessing if SLI was correctly done it would show both. I could be wrong there tho. Any advice or ideas would be great. Thanks.

 

[baddad]

You see just one cards memory. Is there a bench mark that you are using to tell the difference?

 

[Bandino]

I'm using a few benchmarks actually. A couple games, 3Dmark06 and some other thing. A follow up question. If SLI is working correctly would games recognize it? In World in Conflict where it says display adapters, should it not show 2? I only have 1, and it's not selectable. Also, with Trackmania nations, it shows video memory around 500, should it not be 1 gig? I'm also running XP pro, since I don't think I mentioned that.

 

[baddad]

The software has to be setup to use SLI and will only see one cards memory. If your using an WHQL driver and have run 3dmark06 in the results it should say "Linked display adapters Yes" Then you know it's working.

 

[Bandino]

So I've got the software setup to use SLI, and best I can tell the Nvidia 175.16 is a whql driver, but 3dmark06 shows linked display adapters false....hmm. I turned on 'show sli indicators' and two games showed a positive result, but still with low fps rates. I also changed my bios multiplier to 7.5 so now my cpu is running at the 2.5mhz it should be.

 

[baddad]

When you went into the NVIDIA control panel did it show two cards plugged in and says its enabled, if it does then it's in SLI. What resolution are you running in? I don't know why it's not showing linked in 3dmark06, the only time I've seen that is when I run it in Vista.