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SLI Issues with 7800GTX long



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 8th 05, 03:32 PM
Derek R.
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default SLI Issues with 7800GTX long

Hi there,

I have a Tyan K8WE system with dual opterons, and I've been running a
single 7800GTX now for about a month with no problems. Just recently I
had won another 7800GTX (same brand/model) and decided to try out SLI.
The installation was easy enough, I plugged in the other card, attached
the bridge connector on top of the cards and booted into Windows.

The card was detected, I rebooted, it said that an SLI configuration was
detected and asked me if I wanted to enable, which I did.

This is where things started going wrong. First I ran dxdiag, just to
test out very basic Direct3d (to make sure nothing was wrong), and that
worked fine, so I moved on to running some of the opengl Nvidia demos,
and again no issues here. Then I ran 3dmark2005, and this was running
fine through the first test (the first game, with the shooting), when it
got to the 2nd game, it loaded, then just sat there at a blank screen
for a few mins, eventually exiting with some Direct3d error. So I
closed 3dmark, and tried running another direct3d game (HalfLife2), and
it wouldn't even run, so I tried dxdiag again, and it exits the 3d tests
with errors saying it could not create a display.

At this point I'm starting to think that there might be something wrong
with the new card, so I try running one of the nvidia demos (opengl) and
they work perfectly fine, so I decide to reboot so that hopefully that
might fix the issue.

After rebooting back into windows, something weird starts happening, the
display goes blank every 3-4secs and my mouse stops working
intermitently, looking at the task manager I can see the CPU is under
full use right before the screen goes blank. I left this for about 5
mins thinking the driver was setting stuff up but it kept going on, so I
decided to reboot again. This time after rebooting, after the windows
XP booting screen, the screen just went blank and I saw nothing, and it
never recovered, and successive reboots after this didn't fix the issue.
I eventually booted in VGA mode, and after rebooting this seems to
have disabled SLI and I'm able to use the comp as before with no issues.

I've tried using both cards singularly and there doesn't appear to be a
problem with either card, so my question is, is this simply a driver
issue, or are there things with SLI that are still flaky, or is there
something else here that I'm missing?

For reference, here's my setup:

Tyan K8WE
2x AMD Opteron 252
2x 1GB Corsair ECC DDR 400
2x EVGA 7800 GTX
600 watt Enermax PSU
Windows XP SP2
Nvidia driver v81.85

A quick check of the 'System Information' in windows shows that both of
the 7800GTX cards are sharing the same IRQ.

Thanks for your time,

Derek R.
  #2  
Old November 8th 05, 04:23 PM
Zandig
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default SLI Issues with 7800GTX long


"Derek R." wrote in message
news:4G2cf.447236$tl2.402624@pd7tw3no...

A quick check of the 'System Information' in windows shows that both of
the 7800GTX cards are sharing the same IRQ.


Not good. Each card should have their own IRQ.
You may want to sort that first and see if the problem vanishes.


  #3  
Old November 8th 05, 05:56 PM
Derek R.
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default SLI Issues with 7800GTX long

Zandig wrote:
"Derek R." wrote in message
news:4G2cf.447236$tl2.402624@pd7tw3no...


A quick check of the 'System Information' in windows shows that both of
the 7800GTX cards are sharing the same IRQ.



Not good. Each card should have their own IRQ.
You may want to sort that first and see if the problem vanishes.



You wouldn't per chance happen to know how to force different IRQs with
ACPI would you?

It doesn't appear as if my BIOS allows me to specify specific IRQs for
slots, and through some searching it appears as if this is the case for
ACPI systems.



Derek R.
  #4  
Old November 8th 05, 08:50 PM
farmuse
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default SLI Issues with 7800GTX long

based on the Tyan web site, this motherboard may not be SLi
compliant, you may want to contact Tyan to double check.


Derek R. wrote:
Zandig wrote:

"Derek R." wrote in message
news:4G2cf.447236$tl2.402624@pd7tw3no...


A quick check of the 'System Information' in windows shows that both
of the 7800GTX cards are sharing the same IRQ.




Not good. Each card should have their own IRQ.
You may want to sort that first and see if the problem vanishes.



You wouldn't per chance happen to know how to force different IRQs with
ACPI would you?

It doesn't appear as if my BIOS allows me to specify specific IRQs for
slots, and through some searching it appears as if this is the case for
ACPI systems.



Derek R.

  #5  
Old November 8th 05, 08:55 PM
Derek R.
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default SLI Issues with 7800GTX long

Sorry, I should have mentioned that it's a Thunder K8WE, not a Tiger K8WE.

According to http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8we.html this
should support SLI (although the evga cards I have are not on the
'certified' list).


Derek R.

farmuse wrote:
based on the Tyan web site, this motherboard may not be SLi
compliant, you may want to contact Tyan to double check.


Derek R. wrote:

Zandig wrote:

"Derek R." wrote in message
news:4G2cf.447236$tl2.402624@pd7tw3no...


A quick check of the 'System Information' in windows shows that both
of the 7800GTX cards are sharing the same IRQ.




Not good. Each card should have their own IRQ.
You may want to sort that first and see if the problem vanishes.



You wouldn't per chance happen to know how to force different IRQs
with ACPI would you?

It doesn't appear as if my BIOS allows me to specify specific IRQs for
slots, and through some searching it appears as if this is the case
for ACPI systems.



Derek R.

  #6  
Old November 8th 05, 09:27 PM
farmuse
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default SLI Issues with 7800GTX long

Derek R. wrote:

Sorry, I should have mentioned that it's a Thunder K8WE, not a Tiger K8WE.

According to http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8we.html this
should support SLI (although the evga cards I have are not on the
'certified' list).


Derek R.

farmuse wrote:

based on the Tyan web site, this motherboard may not be SLi
compliant, you may want to contact Tyan to double check.


Derek R. wrote:

Zandig wrote:

"Derek R." wrote in message
news:4G2cf.447236$tl2.402624@pd7tw3no...


A quick check of the 'System Information' in windows shows that
both of the 7800GTX cards are sharing the same IRQ.





Not good. Each card should have their own IRQ.
You may want to sort that first and see if the problem vanishes.



You wouldn't per chance happen to know how to force different IRQs
with ACPI would you?

It doesn't appear as if my BIOS allows me to specify specific IRQs
for slots, and through some searching it appears as if this is the
case for ACPI systems.



Derek R.

I would be tempted to install one card, upgrade the BIOS, and do a
clean install with newest motherboard chipset drivers and maybe even use
the driver from the video card cd rather than the newest from nVidia,
sometimes they goof with new stuff, and you want something that is known
to work with SLi. But I would do the clean install so windows can sort
the IRQ etc properly. Then chipset driver, then video driver, then DX9.
Make sure your BIOS is set up right, nothing crazy. Check the manual
carefully for hints about BIOS settings. Check some forums for tips
also, like hardocp and pcper. Someone may know exactly what you are
going through. If Tyan says SLi then it should work.
  #7  
Old November 9th 05, 12:21 AM
First of One
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default SLI Issues with 7800GTX long

"Derek R." wrote in message
news:4G2cf.447236$tl2.402624@pd7tw3no...
I have a Tyan K8WE system with dual opterons, and I've been running a
single 7800GTX now for about a month with no problems. Just recently I
had won another 7800GTX (same brand/model) and decided to try out SLI.
The installation was easy enough, I plugged in the other card, attached
the bridge connector on top of the cards and booted into Windows.
The card was detected, I rebooted, it said that an SLI configuration was
detected and asked me if I wanted to enable, which I did.


Have you tried uninstalling the nVidia drivers and reinstalling? Some
systems are flaky and require drivers to be installed in the presence of
both cards.

I'm assuming you also have the latest AMD 8131 northbridge chipset drivers?
They can be downloaded he ftp://ftp.tyan.com/chipset_AMD/8131_PCI-X/

BTW, the 81.85 drivers were created especially for improved SLI
compatibility, so it is unlikely to be at fault.

A quick check of the 'System Information' in windows shows that both of
the 7800GTX cards are sharing the same IRQ.


IRQ sharing shouldn't be a problem at all, especially with modern PCIe
cards.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."



  #8  
Old November 9th 05, 04:10 AM
Derek R.
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default SLI Issues with 7800GTX long

First of One wrote:
"Derek R." wrote in message
news:4G2cf.447236$tl2.402624@pd7tw3no...

I have a Tyan K8WE system with dual opterons, and I've been running a
single 7800GTX now for about a month with no problems. Just recently I
had won another 7800GTX (same brand/model) and decided to try out SLI.
The installation was easy enough, I plugged in the other card, attached
the bridge connector on top of the cards and booted into Windows.
The card was detected, I rebooted, it said that an SLI configuration was
detected and asked me if I wanted to enable, which I did.



Have you tried uninstalling the nVidia drivers and reinstalling? Some
systems are flaky and require drivers to be installed in the presence of
both cards.

I'm assuming you also have the latest AMD 8131 northbridge chipset drivers?
They can be downloaded he ftp://ftp.tyan.com/chipset_AMD/8131_PCI-X/

BTW, the 81.85 drivers were created especially for improved SLI
compatibility, so it is unlikely to be at fault.


A quick check of the 'System Information' in windows shows that both of
the 7800GTX cards are sharing the same IRQ.



IRQ sharing shouldn't be a problem at all, especially with modern PCIe
cards.


I've tried re-installing the display driver (various versions as well)
about a dozen times to no avail.

I've updated those AMD 8131 drivers, but they don't seem to be helping.
One thing I've noticed when installing the cards (fresh drivers), is
that the first card installs fine, but the second one always has the
error "This device cannot start", and won't work until the system is
rebooted. Not exactly sure what this is about, but perhaps it's a clue
as to what the issue might be, I'm not sure.

As for the sharing the IRQ, I can't see how them sharing could be a good
thing, in fact there's also a SATA controller, and a NIC using the same
IRQ. There's at least 4 IRQs free so there's really no reason why these
devices *need* to be sharing them, unfortunately for me in an ACPI
system these IRQs cannot be changed manually.

I've e-mailed Tyan to see if they have any information on the issue,
hopefully they might have seen this issue before and would be able to
direct me towards a fix.

Thanks for the tips though, a few more things crossed off the list for
possibilities.


Derek R.
  #9  
Old November 9th 05, 04:37 AM
Derek R.
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default SLI Issues with 7800GTX long

farmuse wrote:
Derek R. wrote:

Sorry, I should have mentioned that it's a Thunder K8WE, not a Tiger
K8WE.

According to http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8we.html this
should support SLI (although the evga cards I have are not on the
'certified' list).


Derek R.

farmuse wrote:

based on the Tyan web site, this motherboard may not be SLi
compliant, you may want to contact Tyan to double check.


Derek R. wrote:

Zandig wrote:

"Derek R." wrote in message
news:4G2cf.447236$tl2.402624@pd7tw3no...


A quick check of the 'System Information' in windows shows that
both of the 7800GTX cards are sharing the same IRQ.






Not good. Each card should have their own IRQ.
You may want to sort that first and see if the problem vanishes.



You wouldn't per chance happen to know how to force different IRQs
with ACPI would you?

It doesn't appear as if my BIOS allows me to specify specific IRQs
for slots, and through some searching it appears as if this is the
case for ACPI systems.



Derek R.


I would be tempted to install one card, upgrade the BIOS, and do a
clean install with newest motherboard chipset drivers and maybe even use
the driver from the video card cd rather than the newest from nVidia,
sometimes they goof with new stuff, and you want something that is known
to work with SLi. But I would do the clean install so windows can sort
the IRQ etc properly. Then chipset driver, then video driver, then DX9.
Make sure your BIOS is set up right, nothing crazy. Check the manual
carefully for hints about BIOS settings. Check some forums for tips
also, like hardocp and pcper. Someone may know exactly what you are
going through. If Tyan says SLi then it should work.



Well I've contacted Tyan, so maybe they'll have an idea or two, if not I
might just have to go with the Windows re-installation route.


Derek R.
  #10  
Old November 10th 05, 01:32 AM
Scotter
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default SLI Issues with 7800GTX long

Hey Derek -

This is off-topic.
I see you have the motherboard I'm about to buy.
Is there anything you can tell me about that motherboard that will help?
Any advice? Are you happy with it?
Where did you buy it? How long ago? Price? Happy with that vendor?
Which Opterons are you running on it?
--
Scotter


"Derek R." wrote in message
news:4G2cf.447236$tl2.402624@pd7tw3no...
Hi there,

I have a Tyan K8WE system with dual opterons, and I've been running a
single 7800GTX now for about a month with no problems. Just recently I
had won another 7800GTX (same brand/model) and decided to try out SLI.
The installation was easy enough, I plugged in the other card, attached
the bridge connector on top of the cards and booted into Windows.

The card was detected, I rebooted, it said that an SLI configuration was
detected and asked me if I wanted to enable, which I did.

This is where things started going wrong. First I ran dxdiag, just to
test out very basic Direct3d (to make sure nothing was wrong), and that
worked fine, so I moved on to running some of the opengl Nvidia demos, and
again no issues here. Then I ran 3dmark2005, and this was running fine
through the first test (the first game, with the shooting), when it got to
the 2nd game, it loaded, then just sat there at a blank screen for a few
mins, eventually exiting with some Direct3d error. So I closed 3dmark,
and tried running another direct3d game (HalfLife2), and it wouldn't even
run, so I tried dxdiag again, and it exits the 3d tests with errors saying
it could not create a display.

At this point I'm starting to think that there might be something wrong
with the new card, so I try running one of the nvidia demos (opengl) and
they work perfectly fine, so I decide to reboot so that hopefully that
might fix the issue.

After rebooting back into windows, something weird starts happening, the
display goes blank every 3-4secs and my mouse stops working intermitently,
looking at the task manager I can see the CPU is under full use right
before the screen goes blank. I left this for about 5 mins thinking the
driver was setting stuff up but it kept going on, so I decided to reboot
again. This time after rebooting, after the windows XP booting screen,
the screen just went blank and I saw nothing, and it never recovered, and
successive reboots after this didn't fix the issue. I eventually booted in
VGA mode, and after rebooting this seems to have disabled SLI and I'm able
to use the comp as before with no issues.

I've tried using both cards singularly and there doesn't appear to be a
problem with either card, so my question is, is this simply a driver
issue, or are there things with SLI that are still flaky, or is there
something else here that I'm missing?

For reference, here's my setup:

Tyan K8WE
2x AMD Opteron 252
2x 1GB Corsair ECC DDR 400
2x EVGA 7800 GTX
600 watt Enermax PSU
Windows XP SP2
Nvidia driver v81.85

A quick check of the 'System Information' in windows shows that both of
the 7800GTX cards are sharing the same IRQ.

Thanks for your time,

Derek R.



 




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