Arrgghhh!

[Supervexi]

Hi,

The Background

I recently finished this build. I had a little bit of issue getting SLI to kick in initially, but that was due to my monterboard not supporting it until I modded it. Then, I did a basic overclock to 2400 of my CPU, based off of what I had seen others had, and the experience of my friend who was helping me.

Well, I've been to DFI Street reading up on OC'ing and decided that it was time to do it right and test out each component one at a time. So, I defaulted my BIOS except that I turned the SLI Broadcast Aperature (I think that is what it was called) back to auto from the default disabled, and turned off the DFI splash screen.

Well then, I went out of BIOS and when the Windows loading screen finished, my screen went black, and my monitor signaled no input. Naturally I thought I crashed my rig from the BIOS. After mucking about a bit I remembered that my 7900gt manuals said that I should have my output connected to the lower card in SLI mode. Well, ever since my modding the chipset (to make my Ultra-D an SLI) and having one card in, then two, I have had my DVI-D cord outputting from the top one. So I thought maybe that was it and connected it as I should have from the begining.

Viola! There was windows, waiting for me to just see it. Great!

The Problem

So I go to fiddle with BIOS some more, and what do you know, my screen is dead, reading no input. Hmm. I wait around a bit, and then, sure enough, windows pops up after the loading screen should have been there.

I have reset several times and tried all four of my DVD outputs and both of my S-Video outputs, but I can't get anything before windows is loaded. I tried disabling SLI mode in my nVIDIA utility with the same result.

So, (sorry for the long-windishness, just wanted to be thorough) I am stymied. Any ideas? I'd appreciate it. Thanks

 

[Geomagick]

I don't think you have a hardware problem here but a setting in the BIOS is causing this problem. I am not familiar with DFI bios setup but would hazard a guess that it is looking not for a PCIe card but a PCI one. Windows however does not have the same worries and just uses whatever is available. It may be that the modded bios has a bug in it that is preventing the card displaying correctly until windows.

It might be worth trying a different modded bios, or certainly to start with taking one of the cards out to see if the defect persists without an SLI setup.

Barring all of these I would personally use an SLI board if I wanted to run SLI.

 

[Supervexi]

Thanks for the input. Going one card ought to be my next step.

As for the board, well, I got suckered. Dual GFX card support, says DFI. Normal mode/SLI mode jumpers, says DFI. Somewhere in my ignorance (This was the first component I bought, of the first computer I ever built) I missed out on the somewhat prevelant knowledge that the Ultra series boards aren't really for SLI. Live and learn

 

[Supervexi]

Well,

going to single card fixed the issue with the caveat that I was single card. Looking in the BIOS I thought that I found the issue with Int Display First (PCI, PCIEx) which was selected to PCI. So I switched it, then threw the old video card back in - no go. I guess I'll keep messing around with the BIOS until I find out what it is.

 

[TheRyuu]

You should see something even if you have two video cards in it, the Ultra just can't operate in SLI mode though.

Can't you do some sort of mod though for it to make it into an SLI board?

 

[Supervexi]

There sure is, and I did it. First thing when I got old compy going for the first time.
I really have an SLI-D now. It was just an Ultra when I bought it. I've been running stable for like two weeks now in SLI already. I think that this is an entirely unrelated issue. I just flipped something wrong in the BIOS when I defaulted it, I'm pretty sure of it. Just have to find out what.

 

[TheRyuu]

Also, make sure the jumpers are in the right position (if it even uses jumpers).

 

[Supervexi]

Good point.
Let me double check. Yep, they are slotted right. Ah well, keep the input coming

 

[SpeedZealot369]

Isn't it great to spend a load of cash on video cards and then this happens? one of the reasons pc's piss me off sometimes...

I'm thinking it's your dfi motherboard. Try using a different motherboard and I think that will solve your problem.

 

[Supervexi]

Update:

I think that I discovered the setting. It was Support for dual 6600 vga cards (enable, disable). And it had been disabled. Everything works once again now that I enabled it, however, my output is coming, once again, from the top card. I thought that it was supposed to come from the bottom one?