Crysis Crashing 8800GT SLi

[Sephirangel]

Ive recently purchased another 8800GT to run SLi. The temps were through the roof, which led to a few automatic shutdowns, but with a desk fan and an open case, ive been getting awesome FPS rates on Crysis on max settings. However, after a few minutes, the game freezes/crashes and on some occasions i get the blue screen of death.
I have fully up to date forceware and drivers so I dont think its software related, but to be honest I havent a clue!
Anyone got any ideas?

My system specs are:

Asus P5N-E SLi Mobo
Quad Core 2.4Ghz CPU (Q6600)
4GB Corsair PC6400 RAM
1x Gainward 8800GT 512mb
1x PNY 8800GT 512mb
700W PSU

 

[Sephirangel]

By the way, ive just used GPU-Z and it shows different bus interfaces for both my cards. The first is running under PCI-E 2.0 x16 @ x8 and the second ive just put in is under PCI-E x16 @ x8. Would this make a difference?
They also have different BIOS's. The first is: 62.92.16.00.05 and the new card is 62.92.3A.00.52.

 

[jitpublisher]

You might check your BIOS settings and make sure everything is set correctly for running 2 cards. You board's 2 cards must share 1 PCIe 16 lane. Meaning 1 card runs at 16x, 2 cards in SLI should be running at 8x each.

 

[Sephirangel]

Ive looked at the BIOS and the "Broadcast SLI Aperture" was set to "Off". Should it be set to auto? And if so, with it Off, would it be giving me the problems ive been having?
Thanks for the help jitpublisher

 

[pauldh]

+1 ^

My MSI 650i mobo, GPU-Z reports both as PCI-E 2.0 x16 @ 8X. (using latest version of GPU-Z anyway) I assume you did switch the mobos selector card for dual card or you wouldn't even get this far.

I would try gaming with only the new card installed for a bit. Torture it through Crysis and make sure the issue goes away. If both cards work perfectly alone, then you are ready to figure out the SLI issue.

Sounds like a heat issue, but may not be. Have you manually bumped up the fan speed on the two 8800GT's from default variable settings? What GPU temps are reported? My top card runs a few degrees hotter. You could swap the position of the two cards if one seems better able to handle the heat.

What 700W PSU do you have? Are you overclocking anything?

 

[pauldh]

Ive looked at the BIOS and the "Broadcast SLI Aperture" was set to "Off". Should it be set to auto? And if so, with it Off, would it be giving me the problems ive been having?
Thanks for the help jitpublisher

Yeah, I would set that to Auto and not disabled if those are the two options.

 

[jitpublisher]

Yeah, what pauldh said. I would set to Auto as well. Good advice, running each seperate for a while to make sure you don't have a faulty card.
Swapping them may improve things, or make things worse, or do nothing at all but it's worth a try.

 

[Sephirangel]

I cant remember the make of the PSU but off the top of my head i think its an AC.
When i first had the card, i was getting the system shutting down by itself through a game due to heat. Ive now taken the side of the case off and am using a desk fan to cool it but now its just freezing in game! Sometimes it freezes on the game menu (in the case of crysis)
I will do what you said pauldh and will report back. Setting the Broadcast SLI Aperture to Auto has not helped.
Also I am not overclocking anything. The top card also has a zalman VF900 and thats reading idle temps of about 35-40C, with the bottom having stock cooler and reading 60C idle. But the fact they crash on the menu screens kinda rules out heat issues!

 

[Sephirangel]

Hmm right then, i have turned SLI off from the nVidia control panel, while leaving the motherboard setting on, and ran Crysis on Very High Settings.....FPS was pretty damn good, with no crashes or freezes. So, it looks like the nVidia SLI setting may be conflicting with the motherboard SLI setting? To be honest im very confused!

 

[pauldh]

If SLI is off, only your top card (the old one ) is being used for gaming. It works fine. Again, try only using the new PNY, as it may be a bad card. You need to confirm that the new card works perfectly fine on its own or there is no use working on getting both in SLI to work. If either crashes in games, SLI will crash too.

 

[Sephirangel]

Im going to test that first thing tomorrow morning. Im just a bit confused as i turned off SLI yet the frame rates i was getting from Crysis on Very High settings would indicate that SLI was on! and yet no crashes?

 

[pauldh]

No crashes are because the card hooked up to the monitor (top card), is fine. Either the bottom card is not fine, or you are having issues with SLI do to drivers, the power supply,etc.

On the Performance side, it's probably a combination of a few things. Are you using the GPU or CPU bench? Are you using actual gameplay? What level of the game? What resolution? Any FSAA?

An example for you, I would see little SLI scaling at 1280x1024 resolution and no FSAA in the GPU benchmark. SLI would appear to be doing very littel. But, at 1280x1024 with 4XAA actually playing a level like paradise Lost, that hammers the GPU, SLI would show huge gains. I also see gains with SLI 8800GT when overclocking the Q6600 to 3.0GHz or beyond vs stock 2.4GHz.

 

[Sephirangel]

Im currently 3/4's of the way through Contact. The thing is, if my top card was the only card working, no way would i be able to even get past 10fps! Now, with the nVidia control panel SLI setting turned off and the motherboard SLI setting turned on, im getting roughly 30-40fps on all settings Very High. No AA though. And at 1440x900 res. AND im not having the crashing issues like before!
I have the latest beta drivers so maybe there is a compatibility issue with the new drivers and my mobo or something? but that wouldnt explain why im getting SLI with the setting turned off :S
Im using the retail game with the v1.1 patch on Crysis.

 

[VoodooDan]

Sephirangel –

This is VoodooDan from HP. I read your question and I just wanted to share a few thoughts that might help you out with your crashing and freezing. If you have the MB set to enable SLI, yet you have the Nvidia SLI turned off, you are not using SLI in the game. One good way to tell is in the Nvidia control panel with the set SLI configuration highlighted (where you set SLI on and off) go to the menu and select "3D settings" and check on the "Show SLI Visual Indicators.

With this on you will get a handy SLI meter on the left side of your screen in game. That will let you know if you are using SLI or not. By the way, I also agree you should test each card independently.

Let me know if you’ve got any other questions – happy to help

Cheers,
VoodooDan

 

[Sephirangel]

Thanks VoodooDan, I am currently very busy with things my end but when i get chance tomorrow or thursday i will test them both seperatly. I tried turning SLI on on the nVidia control panel then went into crysis with the SLI visual meter shown and it seemed fine, lots of flickering but the bar was pretty big and green. then the game crashed at the menu.
I will let you know of my testing!

 

[VoodooDan]

Happy to help where I can. I agree, testing each card independently will help you figure out what’s wrong. I think there might be a bad card, but let me know how it goes.