Why does sli front load

[Sajuck]

Hello,

I'm wondering why sli mode frontloads all of the work on 1 card with the 2nd one barely picking up the slack? Why it doesn't distribute the load equally between the two graphics cards?

I have 2 Nvidia 570's in sli but when I load MSI Afterburner it shows that 2nd card did 0-10% of the work only, while the first handles 90% of the work and heats up to 90 degrees forcing me to run fans some extra hard... any advise would help!

 

[jyjjy]

It sounds like you are playing a game that does not support SLI.

 

[unksol]

or you don't have the bridge connected.... in any case your SLI is def not working

 

[monsta]

Check in the Nvidia control panel if you have SLI enabled.

 

[Sajuck]

I play a variety, and it seems the same thing happening in any, some games that either crashed or freezed due to overheat because of the aforementioned problem are like World of Tanks, Anno 2070, Battlefield 3, Vindictus among others (hard core gamer).

Secondly I know it is not the game because the same thing happens when I run MSI Kombustor benchmark. My performance actually increases when I turn the sli off in the benchmark test. Which kinda frustrates me cause why the hell did I buy the second card if it only hinders my video card performance.

So I'm wondering what might be the cause?

 

[jyjjy]

Does the second card function properly on its own?

 

[Sajuck]

Check in the Nvidia control panel if you have SLI enabled.

The panel shows that sli is enabled. Guess I'll open up the tower later and check. It has to be connected since the second card is working (though only at 10%) but maybe u hit on something and it is not connected properly.

 

[PCgamer81]

Try removing one of the bridges, and if you only have one bridge connected, try adding the other.

Keep in mind that not all applications support SLi/Crossfire.

Also, you might try designating the other GPU as the master GPU, or possibly even try another PCIe slot.

There are so many possibilities and variables involved that there is no way for any of us to know for sure and you are going to just have to try different things until you figure it out.

In the mean time, I would suggest you try running other games and see if you get the same results. It could just be that the game you are running does not support dual card configurations, or it could possibly be due to a bug or bad coding for that particular game.

About the only thing that I can say for sure is that what you are describing is certainly not normal. And I wouldn't advise you to play any game that yields such results. Temperatures that high will severely reduce the life of your GPU, as will running the fan at 80% and above.

 

[unksol]

what your motherboard? have you checked the slots bandwidth? (in case the pcie slot is stuck at x1 for some reason)

 

[Sajuck]

Does the second card function properly on its own?

I'm actually not sure how to check that. If I turn the sli off all the load just goes to the first one and I don;t see any option of how to re-designate the second one as the primary.

 

[Sajuck]

what your motherboard? have you checked the slots bandwidth? (in case the pcie slot is stuck at x1 for some reason)

I have Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3... and no, how do I check it and what does it indicate? Not that PC savy.

 

[Sajuck]

Try removing one of the bridges, and if you only have one bridge connected, try adding the other.

Keep in mind that not all applications support SLi/Crossfire.

Also, you might try designating the other GPU as the master GPU, or possibly even try another PCIe slot.

There are so many possibilities and variables involved that there is no way for any of us to know for sure and you are going to just have to try different things until you figure it out.

In the mean time, I would suggest you try running other games and see if you get the same results. It could just be that the game you are running does not support dual card configurations, or it could possibly be due to a bug or bad coding for that particular game.

About the only thing that I can say for sure is that what you are describing is certainly not normal. And I wouldn't advise you to play any game that yields such results. Temperatures that high will severely reduce the life of your GPU, as will running the fan at 80% and above.

Thx... at least I now know with conviction that something's wrong with all your replies. Guess will try out the things you guys suggested and if it won't work will have to contact Maingear, after all have one year warranty on this sucker

 

[mouse24]

Thx... at least I now know with conviction that something's wrong with all your replies. Guess will try out the things you guys suggested and if it won't work will have to contact Maingear, after all have one year warranty on this sucker

whats wrong with our replies, JK (had to read it a few times, brain dies on me sometimes)

and are you playing games in windowed or full screen, if its windowed try fullscreen.

 

[Sajuck]

whats wrong with our replies, JK (had to read it a few times, brain dies on me sometimes)

and are you playing games in windowed or full screen, if its windowed try fullscreen.

Bad choice of wording I guess

 

[87ninefiveone]

For SLI to work you have to have the following items;

1. A motherboard that supports it.
2. Two video cards.
3. An SLI bridge.
4. SLI turned on in the nvidia control panel.
5. A game that supports SLI. No all of them do. Starcraft II comes to mind. When I first got SLI it ran twice as fast with one card than it did with SLI. This changed when they finally patched the game to support it quite a while after launch.

A quick web search shows that Vindictus does not support SLI. Battlefield 3 definitely uses SLI, not sure about the other couple of games.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Try removing one of the bridges, and if you only have one bridge connected, try adding the other.

Keep in mind that not all applications support SLi/Crossfire.

Also, you might try designating the other GPU as the master GPU, or possibly even try another PCIe slot.

There are so many possibilities and variables involved that there is no way for any of us to know for sure and you are going to just have to try different things until you figure it out.

In the mean time, I would suggest you try running other games and see if you get the same results. It could just be that the game you are running does not support dual card configurations, or it could possibly be due to a bug or bad coding for that particular game.

About the only thing that I can say for sure is that what you are describing is certainly not normal. And I wouldn't advise you to play any game that yields such results. Temperatures that high will severely reduce the life of your GPU, as will running the fan at 80% and above.

There is no way to designate the other GPU as the master GPU and with dual SLi you can only use the pre defined PCIe slots.

@OP, have you tried turning on the SLi indicators so that you can see if the game you're playing is actually using SLi?

 

[bystander]

There is no way to designate the other GPU as the master GPU and with dual SLi you can only use the pre defined PCIe slots.

@OP, have you tried turning on the SLi indicators so that you can see if the game you're playing is actually using SLi?

Actually, you can indirectly. A lot of motherboards allow you to designate which PCIe slot is the primary slot, which makes the card in the slot the master GPU.

I'm waiting to hear about whether he's looking at the usage while in windowed mode or not.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Actually, you can indirectly. A lot of motherboards allow you to designate which PCIe slot is the primary slot, allowing you to select which is the master GPU.

I'm waiting to hear about whether he's looking at the usage while in windowed mode or not.

No motherboard I've ever used or seen has had that capability, in the manual it has always stated quite clearly which slots are the only ones that can be used for dual SLi and which is the primary and which is the secondary.

 

[bystander]

No motherboard I've ever used or seen has had that capability, in the manual it has always stated quite clearly which slots are the only ones that can be used for dual SLi and which is the primary and which is the secondary.

Well, my motherboard does, so did my last one. I've seen a few others post here that they found it in their bios as well. It might even be in there and you just didn't know. For mine, I can select the "init PCIe" slot, which make it the primary if it's filled.

My motherboard is the "Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R". I don't know what percent of motherboards have this ability, but there are quite a few out there at least.

 

[Mousemonkey]

I don't recall that option having anything to do which card becomes the primary card in SLi but then I haven't played about with it, so does that switch the primary card when SLi is enabled or do the drivers override it?

 

[bystander]

I don't recall that option having anything to do which card becomes the primary card in SLi but then I haven't played about with it, so does that switch the primary card when SLi is enabled or do the drivers override it?

I've never really tested it with SLI, as you can always plug your monitor in to either card and I spaced my cards out with 2 extra slots a part for good air flow. However, my initial configuration with this motherboard was with Crossfire and I had the cards in the first 2 PCIe x16 slots for maximum performance and no space between the cards. Crossfire forces you to plug your monitors into the primary card only. This obviously made the primary card hot. While looking through the bios, I saw that setting and changed it to the 2nd PCIe slot and this forced me to unplug my monitors and hook them up to the 2nd card, and while looking in MSI afterburner, I noticed the high idle clocks changed from the top card to the 2nd one.

This clearly showed that the primary slot changed.

 

[Mousemonkey]

I've never really tested it with SLI, as you can always plug your monitor in to either card and I spaced my cards out with 2 extra slots a part for good air flow. However, my initial configuration with this motherboard was with Crossfire and I had the cards in the first 2 PCIe x16 slots for maximum performance and no space between the cards. Crossfire forces you to plug your monitors into the primary card only. This obviously made the primary card hot. While looking through the bios, I saw that setting and changed it to the 2nd PCIe slot and this forced me to unplug my monitors and hook them up to the 2nd card, and while looking in MSI afterburner, I noticed the high idle clocks changed from the top card to the 2nd one.

This clearly showed that the primary slot changed.

The only thing it seems to do on SLi boards is cause the boot up time to take longer as it looks for cards in the PCI slots rather than the PCIe slot and a couple of years ago there was an Nvidia driver that caused the primary slot to go blank on boot up and not show the BIOS screen because it was being outputted on the secondary card (I know this because I plugged the monitor into the secondary card to find out and I did mention it in a post at the time), this clearly shows that the driver can override that setting.

 

[Sajuck]

Actually, you can indirectly. A lot of motherboards allow you to designate which PCIe slot is the primary slot, which makes the card in the slot the master GPU.

I'm waiting to hear about whether he's looking at the usage while in windowed mode or not.

No I don't. If I understand what you mean.