Gtx 460 sli screen tearing

[impaledmango]

So i have 2 gtx 460s palit sonic editions. The temps are fine, I can run kombustor and never get about 80c, but in some games I just get really bad screen tearing. Sometimes it goes away in some games and other times it just makes the game completely unplayable. So far no source games have the issue, bad company 2 has it in the menu and heroes of newerth it is really bad, making the whole game unplayable. I'm trying to find an hdmi cable and see if its the dvi cable is causing troubles. Also I read here http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=175218 someone was having issues with an msi sli bridge with his gtx 460s. My friend gave me his MSI gd65 sli bridge so maybe that is the problem.

Any help on what to do would be great,

Thanks in advance.

 

[wolfram23]

Screen tearing is due to your framerate being much higher than your monitor's refresh rate. Try enabling Vsync.

 

[impaledmango]

I've tried that, but it still tears in all the same games.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Have you tried [strike]turning[/strike] forcing v-sync on?

 

[impaledmango]

still bad :/ Also the tearing is like flashing and jittering imaging, I'll try switching the card position and playing around with them.

 

[wolfram23]

Hmm well if Vsync is really on there shouldn't be an opportunity for screen tearing.
You can possibly try enabling triple buffering as well.

 

[impaledmango]

Each card works fine individually when I disable sli. Triple buffering + Vsync force enabled doesn't do anything. I'm gonna try to do sli without the bridge, if it the tearing goes away I'm going to assume it is the bridge causing the problems.

 

[impaledmango]

Yea so I removed the sli bridge and there is no tearing with sli enabled. All my symptoms seem to match the link above so I'll probably pick up another sli bridge, unless there's something I'm forgetting to to do in the bios or something?

 

[impaledmango]

So just an update. I bought a new sli bridge from evga and I still had the issue. I know for a fact it has something to do with the sli bridge, drivers, or the bus where you plug in the bridge. Eventually one of the cards just wouldnt appear on any programs as functional (I.E. afterburner, nvidia control panel, gpu z) so I just said to hell to it and I'm mailing it in for an rma refund tomorrow on newegg.

I'm not going to get another pair of gtx 460s, I'm pretty turned off from multi cards now.

 

[Tamz_msc]

removing SLI bridge on a GTX 460 SLI setup will decrease performance.Put it back on and update the drivers.

 

[wolfram23]

Maybe this new article will help you in some way:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-crossfire-nvidia-sli-multi-gpu,2678.html

 

[impaledmango]

removing SLI bridge on a GTX 460 SLI setup will decrease performance.Put it back on and update the drivers.

The gtx 460 only has one set of drivers since it came out like 2 weeks ago. And I've tried it without the bridge and it has worked fine, well anyways now one of the cards isn't being reported any more on Nvidia drivers or afterburner etc even though both the cards have their fans spinning in the system. And If it isn't the SLi bridge causing the problem then it either has to be one of the graphic cards or the motherboard? I doubt it is the motherboard since each card worked fine in SLi without the bridge and each card could run individual.

Now I'm at the point where I can't run SLi and one of the cards isn't even working, so I just put back my old 4890 and took the cards out. I don't have another system to test it in so I'm just going to send it back to Newegg and get a refund.

Gonna stick to single cards from now on.

 

[greywithana]

I'm actually going through this exact problem now with the same cards. Palit gtx460 sonic (1gb not platinum). Only now, neither card even is recognized during post. At a loss as to what I should do next. This is my first desktop build in 6 years so I don't have another pcix card laying around to test the pci lanes. I'm using the asus rampage iii extreme. It shows via q LEDs that there is an issue with VGA during post. I've tried both cards in three different slots each, same result. Looks like an rma to newegg is in my future....

 

[bystander]

You might want to download and post a pic of GPU-Z for both cards.

 

[greywithana]

Not possible unless the cards start magically working again. I was originally getting great framerates in Metro 2033 and Just Cause 2 in 2d and very playable framerates in 3d with settings generally maxed out except where 3d vision suggests alternatives. Then in 3d, I'd start to get really bad artifacting from one of the cards (was only in the left eye). I'd turn 3d off, and the artifacting remained. I then turned off the pci lane for the 2nd card and everything returned to normal running through the single top card (sli boot removed as well). Once that was working, I turned the pci lane back on and put the sli boot back on and everything ran fine. I played through a couple levels of Metro 2033 on max settings with no issue and was getting over 200 fps in instances in WoW. Then a friend came over, and I turned 3d back on to show him, and it all went to pot. Metro 2033 just wouldn't do 3d this time. It looked like one of the cards had basically nearly given up on it. Just Cause 2 was rendering both views fine, but about 5 minutes in; windows (win7x64) crashed with what I assume was yet another video hardware error as I've been getting those in 3d with these cards on and off for the past week. Trying to reboot, I got nothing from either video card. The fans spin up, but the q led's on the mb indicate video hardware errors during post. No video output whatsoever. The system will boot, but I'll have to turn on text2speech and the screen ready to navigate the login panel to shut the system back down safely.

In short, I'd post shots of GPU-Z, but it's not possible unless I go out and buy yet another graphics card. My only spares are all agp (yes, it's been that long). So unless they start working again today like they have before, I assume I'll just have to RMA unless there are any suggestions. If they do start working, I'll get a screen shot posted for more information.

In case it might help (or for the curious)
Rampage III Extreme
2 x Palit GTX 460 1Gb Sonic (not platinum) in SLi installed in slots 1 and 3 (x16, x16)
i7 930
12Gb G.Skill 1600 at 9 9 9 24
Antec CP-1000 PSU
Antec p193 with both optional front 120mm fans installed
Windows 7 pro x64 loaded on Crucial 128Gb c300
1Tb WD Caviar Black

 

[bystander]

To greywithana, it is generally considered poor form to hijack someone elses thread for help. I'd recommend making your own thread and leave this one for impaledmango. You have different problems and you posting like we are directing help to you, and it gets real confusing.

 

[Minus_i7]

I'm actually going through this exact problem now with the same cards. Palit gtx460 sonic (1gb not platinum). Only now, neither card even is recognized during post. At a loss as to what I should do next. This is my first desktop build in 6 years so I don't have another pcix card laying around to test the pci lanes. I'm using the asus rampage iii extreme. It shows via q LEDs that there is an issue with VGA during post. I've tried both cards in three different slots each, same result. Looks like an rma to newegg is in my future....

So you have that exact problem, only it's a different problem. Interesting...

 

[greywithana]

I mean no disrespect, but from his post it IS the same problem. While he describes tearing, it sounds more like artifacting as vsync doesn't fix it. He also had a card fail completely. Also, they are the exact same cards from the same manufacturer. While I can understand that it could get confusing helping two people at once, when the issue is identical, I'd rather have a single thread about it than duplicates. It is generally bad form on any forum to ask a question that has already been asked. So which would you rather, jumping into a thread that describes exactly the problem you are having or duplicating that thread and making people repeat themselves? Generally I would reprimanded for creating dupe. But, if that is the preferred behavior here though, I will gladly and respectfully defer.

 

[wolfram23]

IMO contact Palit about it and see what they say. I heard they had released a new BIOS for their cards to fix some heating issue or something. Otherwise, RMA sounds like the way to go.

 

[impaledmango]

Well I RMA'd the cards and got a refund. I found that one of the cards screwed up and maybe switching the dvi cable from card to card, or switching the lane their in to maybe help?

 

[Eromyrc]

I had this exact same problem, well my cards were from gigabyte, but if I had SLI enabled in fullscreen games would flicker and tear. Tried tons of stuff, what finally worked for me was downloading the latest beta driver from guru3d.
http://downloads.guru3d.com/Videocards---NVIDIA-GeForce--Vista-%7C-7_c32.html
Try it and let me know if it works for you too!

 

[haist82]

HAve any one found the cure for this I got the same issue.

 

[gamey75]

So i have 2 gtx 460s palit sonic editions. The temps are fine, I can run kombustor and never get about 80c, but in some games I just get really bad screen tearing. Sometimes it goes away in some games and other times it just makes the game completely unplayable. So far no source games have the issue, bad company 2 has it in the menu and heroes of newerth it is really bad, making the whole game unplayable. I'm trying to find an hdmi cable and see if its the dvi cable is causing troubles. Also I read here http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=175218 someone was having issues with an msi sli bridge with his gtx 460s. My friend gave me his MSI gd65 sli bridge so maybe that is the problem.

Any help on what to do would be great,

Thanks in advance.

Use V-synch on games if the game has that option, i get tearing with 6950 unless v-synch on.

 

[Wolftrap101]

Very similar issue here, I found that the refresh rate for my desktop was different to the game I way playing. I was also playing the game in fullscreen windowed not fullscreen. As soon as I matched the refresh rates with vsync turned on the tearing went away.

 

[semtexdrew]

i have to say...... MSI bridges are TERRIBLE!! i had the same problem with my 460 slis, thought it was because they were different brands. The issue lay with the crappy msi bridge i got with my cyclone, swapped it for the bridge that came with my sabertooth and hey presto....

no more flickering.

that bridge caused me no end of annoyance, games with white screens especially