2way SLI not working properly

[SoulThief]

Hello, I just recently built a computer meant for gaming and yesterday I noticed that all the work for my video cards are being put on just one. I have two of these : EVGA GeForce GTX 660 : and my motherboard is : ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z: (both can be found on Newegg) I can not figure out how to split the work load on both cards. I have the SLI cable hooked up on them as well. In the NVIDIA control panel it says that the SLI is enabled but when I do a test run on the performance of the cards all the work is being done one only one of them. This is causing them to overheat and making my system reboot. Any help would be great, I am not very familiar with SLI, it is brand new to me. Sorry cant post any URLs because I am a new member.

[Daemonxel]

Hey guys I am trying to find the solution for him as well. Soul is a good friend of mine (helped him build his rig) and for the life of me I can't find the reason is not sharing the load.

[Buffy]

My understanding of SLI/Crossfire is that it only works on one monitor and if you are running the game in full screen. Do you meet both of those criteria?

For instance, if browsing the web on one screen and watching hulu on the other, all the load will switch to one card. This is working as intended.

[SoulThief]

I am only using one monitor, when I try to play Guild Wars 2 my system would randomly reboot. I believe this is happening because my vid cards are overheating or at least one is in this case. When I run EVGA precision X to test my cards it recognizes both cards but it is putting all the work on just one card. Due to this, that one card is running at 110% power and up to 50-55 degrees Celsius. But, I cant figure out how to split the work between both cards.

[Asilius]

I think the new card needs a driver install

[Judah R]

yeah, start with the basics.... you put new card in..... control panel, device manager should look like this....



also..... do clean driver install.... start from there

[SoulThief]

I have the latest driver for my cards. I just do not know what to do now. I took out the vid cards and put them back in, disconnected and reconnected the SLI bridge, updated my bios with the latest version and I also did the ASUS EZ flash. After all that it still does not work. I downloaded Unigine Heaven and my system reboots after one second of it running when SLI is enabled.

[Judah R]

what is the wattage on your power supply..... did you plug power cord in card from power supply. Not trying to ask dumb questions but you do the most obvious stuff first......



it ain't got no gas in it

[SoulThief]

My power supply is 1000W, yes of course I plugged both cards in lol. MY EVGA precision X recognizes both cards and so obviously so does my system. But for some reason all the work is being done on one card and causing it to crash which in turn is causing my system to reboot.

[Judah R]

check control panel / device manager.... evga precision might not be the best way to think PC is recognizing both cards.... also... what is the EXACT motherboard used.... do both cards work separately ... try to figure out if its hardware or software issue.... can you use single card in any PCI x 16 slot and PC boots/works fine.... maybe you have a bad PCI x 16..... or card... more info or things you have tried will help BG with possible solutions

[SoulThief]

Yes the device manager shows both cards. I posted the motherboard I am using up top in the original post sorry I can not put any URLs in because I need like 10 posts or something. And I can get readings of the vid card core temps and what not so both cards are working and both slots have to be working or else I wouldn't be able to read anything, right? Both cards work by itself. I should add that last night I disabled SLI and ran on one vid card to play GW2 and unfortunately I could not run up to high graphic settings for it would overheat the card and reboot my system. I had to go all the way down to low graphic settings for it to not reboot. Which makes no sense to me because the vid cards should be able to handle GW2 on high graphic settings.

[Judah R]

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/CROSSHAIR_V_FORMULAZ/ this board?



Do you have anything else in ANY of the PCI slots besides the 2 GPU's, like sound cards, wireless cards, etc... ?

Which slots do you have the cards in..... can you run one card in slot 1... with nothing else attached to the board.....boot and run fine? yes? then place 2nd card in slot 1 and boot and run fine? yes? repeat with slot 2, then slot 3. Do both single cards work fine in any of the first 3 RED PCI x 16 slots? boot/run.

Also.... how hot is your GPU getting? over 95~100 C ? enough to cause it to shutdown? that is really no reason 1 card should overheat and shutoff unless the case fans or something is setup very wrong.

I had an AMD motherboard that was an Nvidia SLI board, with a NF200 chip in it.... it needed its own driver to get sli to work, download from motherboard DVD or website, so my question also is... is your device manager in control panel free and clear of any "!" indicating that you are missing a driver?

[Boyiee]

Have you tried swapping the cards to see if the one is faulty?

[Day]

single 660 can run GW2 max settings np just fyi, I think you have something else going on, one of the cards faulty or some other hardware issue causing the system to reboot.

are you monitoring temps on CPU and GPU? I saw you mention 50-55, that's far from red zone on gpu.

i would test both cards by themselves. monitor your cpu and gpu temps. and then go from there.

[SoulThief]

Ok, I just tested both cards by itself in both slots everything works perfectly fine. I ran heaven benchmark both cards were running at 50 fps no problem on ultra settings by itself. So now I am wondering if the SLI bridge is faulty. Judah that is my motherboard and my vid cards are set in Slot 1 and Slot 3 because according to the manual that is recommended for 2 way SLI.

[Day]

I am suspecting something like Judah said below; probably a driver issue if both cards are working fine on their own in both slots.

I had an AMD motherboard that was an Nvidia SLI board, with a NF200 chip in it.... it needed its own driver to get sli to work, download from motherboard DVD or website, so my question also is... is your device manager in control panel free and clear of any "!" indicating that you are missing a driver?

[Judah R]

Ok, seems like ,

GPU's : Good
Motherboard : Good

Sli Bridge : suspect , try another SLI bridge, buy one if necessary
Software: suspect , Id try to check Chipset driver http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/CRO...pport_Download

[Buffy]

Ok, I just tested both cards by itself in both slots everything works perfectly fine. I ran heaven benchmark both cards were running at 50 fps no problem on ultra settings by itself. So now I am wondering if the SLI bridge is faulty. Judah that is my motherboard and my vid cards are set in Slot 1 and Slot 3 because according to the manual that is recommended for 2 way SLI.

I recently experienced an issue where one of my power supply outputs was bad. In other words, both cards worked when used with connector B, but both cards failed using connector A. I would recommend trying this step in case you haven't already tried both.

But your SLI bridge would be suspect #1 for me at this point.

Also, have you tried both slot 1 and 3 separately? I mean since you know both cards work, have you tried both slots?

[SoulThief]

I did test slot 1 and 3 separately and both work fine, but I do not recall testing both connectors so I will try that next chance I get. I do have the latest chipset driver. I plan on calling ASUS tech support to see if they can send me a 2 way SLI bridge since if it was the bridge then it came faulty, but if they will not send one then yes I plan on buying one.

[Asilius]

umm Ive noticed gw2 runs my gpu hotter then normal probley has somthing to do with bad optimization so I just turn up the gpu fan. gw2 is very cpu demanding. Also try driver version 314.22 apparently 320.18 has issues.