GTX 260 SLI Crash

[sam791104]

Hey,
I built this tower months ago and I found the graphic cards are not stable. I'm running NVidia Geforce GTX 260 (core 216) under SLI. At first, I used Windows 7 and I found lots of BSoD problems on nvidia driver, so I switched back to Win Vista, which doesn't really help. Then I tried to find out my GPU temperature, which are around 45~75 degrees Celsius, and I believe its a pretty fair temperature (around 75 degrees when playing Crysis).

I found that disabling SLI and PhysX would solve the problem, yet that makes no point to me because I've already bought the two cards.

I'm thinking if there's some sort of optimized BIOS or driver settings so that I can avoid this problem.



System: Windows Vista 64bit
PSU: Corsair 850Watt
Graphics: EVGA - nvidia GTX 260/216 SLI (no overclocking, runs between 45C~75C)
CPU: Intel i7 920 @ 2.66G + CoolerMaster V8 (runs between 35C~50C)
RAM: Patriot Vipers-1600Mhz 6GB
MoBo: ASUS P6T X58

Please let me know if there's any information that I forget to write on here...

p.s. I've never overclocked anything (the graphic cards were bought under never-overclocked condition)


Thank you very much!

 

[OvrClkr]

Did you enable SLI?

Did you use the bridge?

Does the Nvidia Control Panel recognize both cards?

Are you 100% sure that your hard drive does not have leftover old drivers?

 

[sam791104]

Yes I did enabled SLI, I did use the SLI bridge came with the ASUS mobo, yes the Nvidia Control Panel correctly listed two GTX260 cards, and yes I'm sure because the harddisk was empty before I installed Win 7; and when downgrading to Vista, I formatted the entire partition C and installed a brand new copy of Vista...

BTW, does this have to do with IRQ? When I was checking the control panel, I found the IRQ of both devices are the only elements that differed (one with 24 and another one with 30).

Thanks you very much!

 

[AimlessSerenity]

Hey,
I built this tower months ago and I found the graphic cards are not stable. I'm running NVidia Geforce GTX 260 (core 216) under SLI. At first, I used Windows 7 and I found lots of BSoD problems on nvidia driver, so I switched back to Win Vista, which doesn't really help. Then I tried to find out my GPU temperature, which are around 45~75 degrees Celsius, and I believe its a pretty fair temperature (around 75 degrees when playing Crysis).

I found that disabling SLI and PhysX would solve the problem, yet that makes no point to me because I've already bought the two cards.

Hi Dude,

Curiously enough I have had the same problem with my pair of 260 gtx nivida cards. I built a new system with an i5 chip and the Asus Xtreme motherboard and decided to keep the cost down by using my old cards which were still perfectly good. My system worked fine under Windows 7 64bit for a couple of months then it blue screened twice on me. Both times I had to use my recovery disk to restore an earlier version, but I found after the restore that the sli option in the nivida control panel wasn't there. I checked the hardware and both cards were working fine and the bridge was in place. A few days later the sli option reappeared and where I enabled it the system crashed again .

Now I've left the bridge in place accross the two cards and just leave on the phisX (not the sli), because the second card handles the phisX side if sli isn't turned on, not perfect but it works and it still takes some of the processing away from the first card. I am assuming it is a driver problem that is inherent to the 260's and Windows 7 because it is a driver failure, maybe Nvidia will fix it at a latter time. I am now awaiting the release of Nvidias dx11 cards to replace my 260's, but it is a real pisser to have an sli system that I can't use .

Sorry I don't have a fix but I thought you'd like to know that someone else out there has the same problem .

AimlessSerenity

 

[OvrClkr]

Hey,
I built this tower months ago and I found the graphic cards are not stable. I'm running NVidia Geforce GTX 260 (core 216) under SLI. At first, I used Windows 7 and I found lots of BSoD problems on nvidia driver, so I switched back to Win Vista, which doesn't really help. Then I tried to find out my GPU temperature, which are around 45~75 degrees Celsius, and I believe its a pretty fair temperature (around 75 degrees when playing Crysis).

I found that disabling SLI and PhysX would solve the problem, yet that makes no point to me because I've already bought the two cards.

Hi Dude,

Curiously enough I have had the same problem with my pair of 260 gtx nivida cards. I built a new system with an i5 chip and the Asus Xtreme motherboard and decided to keep the cost down by using my old cards which were still perfectly good. My system worked fine under Windows 7 64bit for a couple of months then it blue screened twice on me. Both times I had to use my recovery disk to restore an earlier version, but I found after the restore that the sli option in the nivida control panel wasn't there. I checked the hardware and both cards were working fine and the bridge was in place. A few days later the sli option reappeared and where I enabled it the system crashed again .

Now I've left the bridge in place accross the two cards and just leave on the phisX (not the sli), because the second card handles the phisX side if sli isn't turned on, not perfect but it works and it still takes some of the processing away from the first card. I am assuming it is a driver problem that is inherent to the 260's and Windows 7 because it is a driver failure, maybe Nvidia will fix it at a latter time. I am now awaiting the release of Nvidias dx11 cards to replace my 260's, but it is a real pisser to have an sli system that I can't use .

Sorry I don't have a fix but I thought you'd like to know that someone else out there has the same problem .

AimlessSerenity

Why did you have to use the restore disk? I know more than 5 users here on Toms that have dual 260's on Win 7 32 and 64 bit w/o any issues whatsoever. Your issue sounds more like a driver conflict rather than a Win 7 issue. Did you run driver sweeper prior to installing the 2 GPU's? I bet you have a leftover driver file that is causing the BSOD.

 

[Mousemonkey]

You could try the latest drivers as the release notes mention that several bugs have been fixed and perhaps this is one of them. 196.75 is the version that has just been released.

 

[AimlessSerenity]

Why did you have to use the restore disk? I know more than 5 users here on Toms that have dual 260's on Win 7 32 and 64 bit w/o any issues whatsoever. Your issue sounds more like a driver conflict rather than a Win 7 issue. Did you run driver sweeper prior to installing the 2 GPU's? I bet you have a leftover driver file that is causing the BSOD.

Hi Ovrclkr

The reason I had to use the restore disk was because my system would not boot into windows at all and running the repair option after post just raised "Unable to repair the current system) or something like that. As the restore point is created to get over problems like the one I had it just made sense to use it.

I have to admit I didn't use a driver sweeper as I've over installed many Nvidia drivers in the past with no problems. It seems like this time something may have screwed up the system. I see a new driver is out so I'll update my old one but this time remove it first

Thanks

AimlessSerenity (Why look for peace when you're never gonna find it!)

 

[OvrClkr]

Hi Ovrclkr

The reason I had to use the restore disk was because my system would not boot into windows at all and running the repair option after post just raised "Unable to repair the current system) or something like that. As the restore point is created to get over problems like the one I had it just made sense to use it.

I have to admit I didn't use a driver sweeper as I've over installed many Nvidia drivers in the past with no problems. It seems like this time something may have screwed up the system. I see a new driver is out so I'll update my old one but this time remove it first

Thanks

AimlessSerenity (Why look for peace when you're never gonna find it!)

Yea, just make sure that once its time to update the driver or GPU you make sure that there are no leftover (old) display files "drivers" on your hard drive. This way if you do get a BSOD you know it has nothing to do with the driver installation. Also if you do experience any issues with a new driver (after you have swept the drive) then normally this means that you need to uninstall the new driver and rollback to the previous one

 

[mikejustis]

Did you find a fix to your problem. I talked to EVGA and they said it might be my memory but I passed memtest ok. I am at the point where I took the 2nd 260 out.

 

[delluser1]

Did you find a fix to your problem. I talked to EVGA and they said it might be my memory but I passed memtest ok. I am at the point where I took the 2nd 260 out.

I tried yesterday to get SLI GTX 260 working ( X58 , Win7 Ultimate 64 bit ) ended up removing the second card as well.
After that someone on another forum told me he had to go back to driver version 186.18 to make it work on his ( similar ) setup, haven't tried it though.

 

[AimlessSerenity]

mikejustis wrote :


Did you find a fix to your problem. I talked to EVGA and they said it might be my memory but I passed memtest ok. I am at the point where I took the 2nd 260 out.

Hi Mate,

No I have never found a fix. I used a driver sweeper before installing the lastest drivers but still have the same problem. The option to start SLI has reappeared on my system but if I do then I know the system will crash again at the next boot I even flashed the Bios with the lastest from Asus with no luck. I think it might just be a system glitch with my hardware configuration which was over looked by my motherboard manufacturer Asus. When you think of how many different types of hardware there are and the potential setup configurations it difficult to get it right some times.Tough but in twenty years of building custom rigs this is the first time I've a problem like this which I couldn't find a fix for I know there are probably people out there saying "Well mine is all right" but do you have the same i5 chip, ram, harddrives, network router, sata or ide, windows build etc etc. All these things make a difference believe me.

I suggest you leave your second card in and bridged but don't enable sli. At least it will act as a physX card then. Not much good but better than it gathering dust on a shelf

If I ever find a fix I'll drop you a post.

AimlessSerenity (Happiness is something that happens to others)

 

[RADIO_ACTIVE]

Did you find a fix to your problem. I talked to EVGA and they said it might be my memory but I passed memtest ok. I am at the point where I took the 2nd 260 out.

I had some issues with SLI 480s on a EVGA x58 3-SLI with the newest drivers and found a fix that may work for the 260s. Try rolling back the Realtek LAN drivers (I know weird but it worked). There was an update with those drivers (through windows update) recently that messed with the Nvidia drivers or something. I found it on the EVGA forums and it amazingly worked for me. Anything is worth a try...