Enableing sli

Anti

Alright chaps.

Just got my old rig up and running again. Installed the new 91.36 drivers. But when windows starts i get a baloon saying that sli is in single card config, even thouhg both cards are plugged in. I have been into the the nvidia control panel and under the sli tab there is nowt apart from some writing and a click here to find out more.

Am i missing something ?

Here are some screenshots of whats going on

Anti

The monitor is plugged into the top card ( just below the hsf )

The jumpers on the dfi board are set to sli mode.

I cant see a option in the bios to enable sli.

This day is starting to piss me off

I have swapped both cards around and same result. Each card also work fine by its self. The sli bridge does work aswell.

conzy

There is an option in the DFI bios to enable SLI support for Dual 6600gts:p

Couldnt be any easier...

Anti

ANy idea where ? as i cant find the fecker, spent ages looking

L31mr0d

I dont know about DFI boards but on the ASUS SLI boards there is a little piece of PCB that you have to switch around to enable SLI also there is another power connector on the mobo which is needed to run SLI

Anti

Yeah its very similar on the DFI. its a set of three jumpers, but they have already been moved to the correct posisition

Anti

only things i can see that are anyway to do with sli are the first inti display pci/pciex ( set at pciex ) and ldt lane bus. which is now set to 8 8 instead of 16 16. as im sure it cant run both cards at 16x.


anything im missing conzymaher ?

conzy

Its in Genie Bios settings

You can kinda make it out in this picture:

Anti

Thanks a mill, will give this a try now.

awhir

lol

Anti

Right just had a look and there is nothing i can change. My bios looks different to yours too ( slightly )

Here is a pic.



*edit*

Sorry for sideways pic.

And yes, i have used all 4 versions of the bios, and still that option has never been there.

mac_leinn

If never setup SLI but I have the manual for my XFX 7900GT in front of me and it says, in the section for setting up sli, "The monitor should always connect the second board, like below". So maybe try plugging the monitor into the second card?

Dont know whether this is just an XFX thing though...

Anti

ill give that a go. never had to do it before, but its worth a shot.

Thanks

conzy

Anti, thats not my bios its just some random lanparty bios pic i found on google, Try using the latest Bios..

Now that I think of it, maybe you are supposed to leave the SLI jumpers in the default position as the 6600gts dont need the bridge

Try putting the jumpers back to default, and install both 6600gts and see if the option is available then

Anti

Okay cheers. will give it a go tomorrow

Anti

Nope does nothing at all. Have emailed dfi now. Might have to rma this ****er

conzy

anti wrote:

Nope does nothing at all. Have emailed dfi now. Might have to rma this ****er

I doubt its a problem with the board...

Have you tried the latest bios? have you tried googling 6600gt SLI setups?
Have you tries without the SLI link connecting the to cards?

Anti

yep i have the latest bios. I have also tried all the bios's i can find from dfi's webite. I have tried googling it. i have tried the links on nvidias page. I have tried it with and without the sli bridge. I have tried it with the jumpers on the motherboard to dingle and dual vga. but to no avail. Still waiting on a reply from dfi. Last time i emailed them it took them over two weeks to reply !

Cuddlesworth

Are you assuming that your board is capable of Sli because it has 2 full sized pci-ex*16 slots, or because the boards specs have Sli plastered all over them.

Anti

Both. The manual states sli. it has the sli jumper, came with the sli bridge HAs two full x16 slots, but in sli they become x8 slots.

It worked with 6800gts just 2 weeks ago, but since then a full format has been done

Cuddlesworth

Ok, just making sure.

From the screen-shot it seems that the board is only picking up the second card and not the first which is odd.

Anti

Yeah i know, They both work by their own, and the pc picks up no conflicts when both are plugged in, and swapped around. Im getting 9843 in 3dmark03 which seems alot higher then what other people get with the same system and overclocked( mine is at stock speeds untill i get this sli issue worked out )

Cuddlesworth

What bios are you using exactly? The enable dual 6600gts seems to be in my sli-dr with the 7-2 bios.

Anti

The newest one i installed using winflash is the one at the top of the page http://us.dfi.com.tw/Support/Download/bios_download_us.jsp?PRODUCT_ID=3469&CATEGORY_TYPE=LP&STATUS_FLAG=A&SITE=US

Anti

Have just rolled back to a lightly older version, and i now have the options of SLI Broadcast apature ( auto/disable ) which is in the pnp/pci sub menu of the bios. and in the genie cmos i have a option to run memtestx86. On updating ot the newer version again these options are gone. This is becomming a ****ing joke. with 6800gts is was literally plug and play. With the bios with the only thing about sli i have plugged monitor into all 4 dvi connector, but only works with the primary card, have booted with and without the sli bridge. with the jumpers in single and dual vga.....


Why is there no simple option like " enable sli " ( yes/no )

Would that be to much to ask ?

Cuddlesworth

Odder and Odder, you might have more luck for a answer on the Dfi street forums, if they are still going.

Just thinking, but dont you need to enable sli in nvidias drivers as well?(Dont hit me, it was years since I set mine up and dont have it here to check)

Anti

Yeah you do. But for some reason im getting a popup saying that multi gpu sli has been disabled when booting into windows. And in the nvidia driver settings under the sli tab there are no options. I have gone back and tried various drivers from 81.xx even tweakrus's modified drivers. and registery hacks. I think ill just rma the board at this point.

conzy

Here is what mine looks like usng the latest Bios on a NF4 Ultra Sli-d:



My card is in the slot closest to the CPU.

P.s Do you have all 4 power sources connected to your board? Because you probably need them all for SLIing to cards that dont have auxilary power connectors...

Anti

Yeah everything is as it should be. to be on the safe side im gonna get a new psu tomorrow, i know 580w should be more then enough but. just incase.

And thanks for all your help with this guys. im sure its as frustrating for you as it is for me

po0k

Have you tried installing one card first, and then installing the second?
What firmware revisions are on each card?
I know this used to apply to the initial SLI requirements, and that nVidia has finally dropped the pretense and loosened the draconian restrictions, but it may help.

Spend time reading through dfi-street, as I am confident you're not the first person to see this issue. You'll find a better selection of BIOSes to choose from too.

Anti

ill find this info tomorrow. You may just be right about the firmware. as this was the case in my initial sli setup. as i had 2 revisions of the same card and had to have the firmware flashed., But i though nvidias new drivers got around this problem.

Ill give dfi street a go too. Havent tried it yet, but its worth a shot.

Thanks

Lust4Life

Anti! I thought we told you to go to bed!
For shame!

I love a guy who knows his way around a computer.



Lusty

po0k

"Philipshead screwdriver"

Is there anything sexier?

Cuddlesworth

Lust4Life wrote:

Anti! I thought we told you to go to bed!
For shame!

I love a guy who knows his way around a computer.



Lusty

Shooo, shooooo, back to the cuckoo's nest with you! The is a local forum and we only want locals here.

Anti

i whoeheartedly agree,

astrofool

You have installed the mobo drivers from the nVidia site? (just checking:))

Anti

tried this one http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_nf4_win2k_6.86.html

still no luck

Both card also have the same firmware.

gline

i had issues with my 6600gt sli setup, what i had to do was use driver cleaner and remove all traces of nvidia drivers, then reinstall latest ones

id say everything u have setup there is fine, its probably a driver problem

Cuddlesworth

gline wrote:

i had issues with my 6600gt sli setup, what i had to do was use driver cleaner and remove all traces of nvidia drivers, then reinstall latest ones

id say everything u have setup there is fine, its probably a driver problem

but in his bios it shows up as No card in slot 1? Instead of two pci-ex 8 lanes. Which is definatly somewhat odd.

gline

krazy_8s wrote:

but in his bios it shows up as No card in slot 1? Instead of two pci-ex 8 lanes. Which is definatly somewhat odd.

no he said he set it to 8-8 in the bios himself
8x each pci-e slot

the dfi bios doesnt show if a card is in a pci-e slot or not

Cuddlesworth

It does, it says what slot is using what amount of lanes. Look at his pik at the previous page. It says NC Nc *8 *1. It should say *8 *1 *8 *1. On a single card setup the appropriate slot says *16. Hence the "that is odd bit".

gline

krazy_8s wrote:

It does, it says what slot is using what amount of lanes. Look at his pik at the previous page. It says NC Nc *8 *1. It should say *8 *1 *8 *1. On a single card setup the appropriate slot says *16. Hence the "that is odd bit".

ah ok, ages since ive seen a dfi bios

i didnt look at the pics
lol

Anti

Okay i think i have this sorted now.

As i originally purchased the board from pcworld ( when i was working there ) and it being on sale and me getting my staff discount, I decided to take the board back to pcworld in swansea ( yes i know its a different country ) But since i worked there i know i can bring my product back to any pcworld shop in the uk and ireland and other stored ownded by dixons group. I managed to find the receipt this morning while checking my documents and such. So i thought i mayaswell bring it back and see what they say. Sure enough the tech department tried it once with 2 7800gtx's from another pc there and no sli. So i got a full refund.

This left me in a sticky prediciment. As they had no other sli boards for amd cpus there. But they did have a nf4 ultra-D Which was not sli enabled but it has 2 full x16 lanes.

This interested me greatly, as syxpak told me to head over to the dfi-street forums and ask there as it would be the best bet. So after joining up i decided to do a search if someone had similar problems. but alas no, i was on my own. But what the search did show up was how to mod the untra-D to sli, just by joining two contacts on the chipset I coul also enable sata II aswell by joining another two contacts.

Not bad eh. new motherboard and 50quid in my pocket. for basicially the same motherboard with 4 sata ports instead of 8.

Now I have perofrmed a similar mod to this in the past with a amd 1800+ using pencil lead to join the pins, and using artic 5 to fill 2 contacts to unlock the multiplyer on my juihb ( i think it was )

I have never done this on a motherboard before, so has anyone got any advice for me ? and is pencil okay ? from what i know all you have to do is rub the pencil between the two contacts. Is there anything else i can use , that would be lying around the house ?

Cuddlesworth

Yeah, they removed the ability to mod the ultra-d boards in the 3rd or 4th revision last year.

po0k

I think that mod has been disabled either in newer revs of the chipset packaging, or via drivers.

Verify what rev board you have.
I reckon the board was fine, but you needed to play around with BIOS versions for a bit. Course, I've never bothered with SLI myself.

The DFI boards have a steep learning curve.

Anti

ill give it a go anyway, if it dont work ill just swap or sell my two 6600gts.

Is there anything else i can use other then a pencil ?

Cuddlesworth

Nothing that is not too messy. You any good at soldering?

mac_leinn

Sorry for going OT...

I actually get the same pop up bubble everytime I start windows. Im not even trying to set up sli or anything, I only have one 7900gt running.

The pop up only started after I uninstalled the drivers that came with the card (84.something or other) and installed the latest ones (91.36).

gline wrote:

i had issues with my 6600gt sli setup, what i had to do was use driver cleaner and remove all traces of nvidia drivers, then reinstall latest ones

id say everything u have setup there is fine, its probably a driver problem

I'll give that Driver Cleaner a go this evening and uninstall/reinstall drivers. It'll be interesting to see if it gets rid off the pop up.

Thanks for the info.

Cuddlesworth

mac_leinn wrote:

Sorry for going OT...

I actually get the same pop up bubble everytime I start windows. Im not even trying to set up sli or anything, I only have one 7900gt running.

The pop up only started after I uninstalled the drivers that came with the card (84.something or other) and installed the latest ones (91.36).



I'll give that Driver Cleaner a go this evening and uninstall/reinstall drivers. It'll be interesting to see if it gets rid off the pop up.

Thanks for the info.

It wont get rid of the pop-up, there is a fix for it but I dont have it handy,

mac_leinn

krazy_8s wrote:

It wont get rid of the pop-up, there is a fix for it but I dont have it handy,

Is this it?: Link

Edit: Third post down.

Hope my mobo isnt fracked like the op...

Anti

right im off to give this mod a try. Wish me luck