Major SLI Woes

[BeefcakeVA]

Was having an issue with Windows periodically "losing" my second video card and thus disabling SLI. I'm afraid it might be related to the following issue and am not sure exactly how to solve this. I've looked quite a bit and cannot find anyone else with the same issue.

When I run World of Warcraft the screen periodically goes blank when starting up (as there is no splash screen with that game until the login screen). I cannot alt-tab out and am forced to reboot the computer entirely. When I run the game again after rebooting it works great. I can then exit the game and try and run it again and, bam, freezes at the black screen. The same happens periodically with Empire Earth II... very odd. If I don't run in SLI mode I have no problems whatsoever with these games. Running Forceware 77.72, A8N-SLI Deluxe, AMD 3500+, 1 GB Corsair XMS, and flashed both of my BFG 6800GTs to the 36.10 bios (the latest per BFG tech support). I've also uninstalled the drivers entirely, run driver cleaner and reinstalled. No solution there.

Anyone have any ideas what the hell is happening here? Between these issues and the dead fan on my Northbridge chipset (and no response from Asus on anything) I'm getting a bit fed up with this board.

 

[Keysplayr]

Do you think both cards are getting adequate power?

 

[addinator]

i would also ask if they are both getting enough power. though, i have had that issue once happen to me with my SLI system. though, i haven't had any problems since. i think the biggest issue would be to check what options you have selected in coolbits, and what profiles you are using. also, check to make sure you are running profiles for those specific games. and a stupid question, is anything wrong with the link between the cards? maybe its loose? also, have you checked the temps on the cards? because if one is running too hot, and the other isn't, concievably you could just be overheating the card, and it will slowdown. and if one is running slower than the other, someties SLI doesn't appreciate it.
one more question.. what resolutions are you running the games at. have you tried to tone down the settings on your cards, see if it fares any better. i doubt its an issue, but for curiousitys sake, it might help.
(i just noticed there is not a profile for EEII, but there is one for WoW, but i'm sure you know that)

 

[Cuular]

I would vote insufficient power to the cards. I setup a new SLI system, and if I have more than 2 hard drives connected to the PSU, SLI starts to flake, with random lockups, and total system reboots.

And I'm using an nvidia certified SLI power supply. The motherboard I'm using, the DFI LANPARTY UT NF4 SLI-D has 2 extra power connectors on the motherboard, that have a standard HD molex and a Floppy Disk connector. And if either of those is sharing a power line with 2 HDD's on it, then SLI starts to flake.

With that power supply it's a problem. They dedicated to many of the power cables out of the PSU to SATA connectors, there are only 2 with standard molex connectors. And I had 3 scsi drives, 2 PATA drives and 2 CD drives in the system. Now I have 2 PATA drives and 2 CD drives. Works great. the scsi's went back to the server case, waiting on a new motherboard for that.

The OP didn't speciify what PSU he's running. I suppose he could be running a good one, and the problem lies elsewhere, but his symptoms are close to what I had before removing power hungry hard drives from the case.

 

[Autocrosser]

I just replaced my old LCD (Sony) monitor with a Dell 2005FPW and it is doing the same thing described above. Did not happen before I replaced the monitor.

Note, I have not tried to disable SLI to see if that is the issue. Will try tonight, but it would be a strange coincidence.

Very Odd. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Jim