MSI P6N SLI v2 blank screen

[spazloy]

Hi, Ive justbaught on eBay the MSI P6n SLI V2 mobo and i got it unwrapped it carefully as you do, took out my Abit P35 Pro and wacked this new board in (i want SLI so this was the best option with my budget (as the Abit board only supports Crossfire (and at a appalling x4 speed) so ive installed it all and ive put all the wires in following the instructions and it boots up perfectly, making all the normal sounds.

Now heres the problem... i have only 1 G card atm (lending the other out to someone) so i put it in NoN SLI mode, and i jsut get a blank screen. ive tryed other cards, allways a blank screen, and the cards all work in other pcs.

The cards i am trying to put into it are duel Geforce 8800 GT Fatal1es (1gb DDR2) and i have also tryed it with an ATI Radeon X 1860 (or something) but to no avail.

I have flashed the CMOS and tested to see if it was my RAM (Corsair Duel channel 4gb DDR2 800mhz (2x 2gb)

nothing happened...

so am i going to have to get my money back or is there something i havent done???

 

[Guest]

Perform a Roll of the Barrel. Said action shall indeed resolve thine problems

 

[Marine-RX179]

Whether you can get the motherboard working or not, I would suggest you return the board and get the refund, as it is poorer in performance (especially in the overclocking area) despite it offer SLI. I myself been using this board for my PC for around 2 years now(like you I bought it for its SLI function and at a low price). I am regret buying this boards after I became knowledgable on how to overclock. This board, I can only overclock my Q6600 cpu from 2.4GHz to stable at 3.0Ghz (decent board can overclock Q6600 up to 3.6Ghz). The Abit P35 Pro you got is also a poor overclocker, however its out of the box/stock performance is considerably better than the MSI P6N SLI v2. So if you are switching to MSI P6N SLI v2, you will be downgrading your motherboard for the sake of SLI.

Here's two reviews which you might find useful:
http://www.custompc.co.uk/labs/137967/msi-p6n-sli-v2.html
http://www.custompc.co.uk/labs/137970/abit-ip35-pro.html

Also considering you want to run SLI, I assume you want to use it for gaming? However, according to the Lab tests by Custom PC, SLI's speed boost only around 3-11% faster in games for most Nvidia cards of the GeForce 8 and 9 generation (in some games it run even slower in SLI than a single card), with the exception of 9600GT which achieved a speed boost of around 50% (P.S. However, things might have change for SLI performance since the Lab tests with the release of new drivers etc). Most people crossfire HD4850 and HD4870 nowadays because it offer great performance close to the 4850X2 and 4870x2 single cards- but at a much lower cost.

In my opinion, it's not worth the extra electricity for just 3-11% faster and make your computer hotter as well. Many gamers has wake up realise it's better and more value to upgrade the graphic card to new middle to high-end price range single card every 2~3 years than SLI or Crossfire older cards (since you would never know when they will be discontinued and you might have have difficulty finding a matching graphic card).

Here's a few options for you:
a) Keep things as it is and refund the P6N SLI V2...try to hold on and wait for the Direct X11 cards and Windows 7 official release
b) if you really can't wait, spend more and get a proper SLI motherboard which the PCI-Express lanes do not slow down when in SLI mode. However, I heard that all P45 boards would have both PCI-Express lanes dropped from 16x down to 8x by default when in SLI/Crossfire mode. Also, SLI boards are with Nvidia chipsets, and they are much harder to overclock Intel CPUs comparing to motherboards with Intel chipsets.
c) Spend more and get a single graphic card that is much better than your current one.