660ti SLI Problems. Please help! :)

[matrodriguez]

I just put in another EVGA GTX 660ti, and for some reason every once in a while I get this weird flicker on my main monitor. It doesn't happen with any of my other monitors.

The monitor I'm using is an Asus with the ability to display at 144hz refresh rate. I was noticing excessive screen flickering at 144, so I dropped it down.

Now I'm at 120hz refresh and the screen flickering has about 99% stopped, however every once in a while the screen flicker will occur. This flickering ONLY happens on my main monitor, the other monitors are at 60hz, and are standard res monitors.

My question is....

What's going on!?

I'm not new to building computers, however I am brand new to SLI. I normally favor a single card solution over an SLI or Crossfire solution for builds because of weird problems like these.

I updated to the newest drivers, used a different SLI bridge, and still I get this flicker at 144hz, and not so often at 120hz.

I am very skeptical that anyone else has experienced this problem, and I'm skeptical that anyone else can help me. If you do come up with an answer though, I'll mail you some chocolate cookies.

Thanks

Overall, I'm happy with SLI. I benchmarked a game at max settings and I got 420 FPS constant. I'm happy.

*EDIT*

My flickering happens while in windows. Whenever I click, or move a window, it'll flicker a bit

 

[hackerballs]

you must mean 420 with a smile..............nothing is rated at a constant FPS of 420, lol.............but should be great with 2 of those

a 144 MHz monitor is not expected to have and flicker @ 2ms refresh rate...........not sure what you mean by " the other monitors are at 60hz, and are standard res monitors" ........are you not aware that the 144mhz is also standard res @ 1080p?

I would try maybe an older driver or use the disk driver shipped with the 660's
I would also reseat both cards and cables and Monitor cable's and reset

 

[matrodriguez]

The other two monitors are 1600:900 60hz monitors.

I'm fairly certain I've seated each card correctly. I double and triple checked I had enough pressure and heard the click for each card.

I had someone on another forum tell me that it was because I had different refresh rates in SLI, but that makes no sense. I had these three monitors connected to one card not too long ago, and didn't have a single issue for about 4 or 5 months.

It's hard to explain what it does. It's kind of a software flicker. White lines or something. I've been trying to come up with a good way to describe it, but have failed.

 

[moonbogg]

I think I have heard of this problem before, but the monitors were running in mirrored mode where they display the same image, but you may be having a similar issue. The video driver cannot display different refresh rates on different monitors. It defaults to the lowest refresh rate, so your asus is forced to 60hz, which may be causing the issues you are having. Just for fun, disconnect the other monitors and only use your asus. Check the driver settings and make sure they are set to 144hz, as your asus should be. See if the issue persists with only the asus connected.

 

[matrodriguez]

I think I have heard of this problem before, but the monitors were running in mirrored mode where they display the same image, but you may be having a similar issue. The video driver cannot display different refresh rates on different monitors. It defaults to the lowest refresh rate, so your asus is forced to 60hz, which may be causing the issues you are having. Just for fun, disconnect the other monitors and only use your asus. Check the driver settings and make sure they are set to 144hz, as your asus should be. See if the issue persists with only the asus connected.

I actually just removed the second card altogether and I'm going to return it. I am not happy with the minor micro stuttering I'm getting while streaming in 720p. Although the supposed gain is substantial, I have actually decided single card options are always going to be the way to go.

With one graphics card, I'm able to stream to twitch with absolutely no problems visually whatsoever. In SLI I have issues.

Reasons like these are why I've steered clear from Crossfire, and SLI. I'll save my 249, and get a 780 or something!

 

[moonbogg]

What are the results with a single card? Issues solved?

 

[Carfax83]

I had that problem before, and it was a bad SLI bridge. If you have a second SLI bridge on hand, I would test it and see if the problem is fixed.

 

[matrodriguez]

I had that problem before, and it was a bad SLI bridge. If you have a second SLI bridge on hand, I would test it and see if the problem is fixed.

I have two SLI bridges, and the problem persisted with both SLI bridges. It was a little weird.

I am now back to one single 660ti, and I have now realized that it is going to be better for me to save my money, and get a 780, than to SLI 660s.

The 7 series card are quite new, which means the 780 will be the cream of the crop for a long while..

I will stick to single GPU solutions from now on . With one single card, I have zero issues