Probs with 8800 GTX In Sli

[badvock]

Hi All

Looking for some pointers, have just purchased 2 xfx 8800GTX's (after selling a kidney) and have come across a strange problem.

In single card mode i get a 3dMark 05 score of 15000+ (which blows my 2 7800GTX's in sli out of the water) However when i put the cards in SLI mode i get just 9000+

I have tried the 96 and 97 revision drivers to no avail and have tried 2 sli bridges to see if that was the issue but neither of these resolved the issue. I am of the opinion that the crad in the second slot is faulty and am just about to swap them round to see if I can confirm this. Thought I would post here first to see if anyone knew of any "Issues" or had come across a similar problem.

Any advice greatly appreciated

[Noni]

20" Viewsonic? Man, thats serious bottlenecking, only one card is working to use that display !

I would either-

Return one card or get a 30" Dell.

I garuntee you, one 8800GTX is enough for a 20" Viewsonic.

Return one card mate.

In regards of your problem 3D Mark is nothing, you buy a card for gaming, not for 3dmark scores. Is your FPS increased?

Thanks!

[badvock]

I would either-

Return one card or get a 30" Dell.

In regards of your problem 3D Mark is nothing, you buy a card for gaming, not for 3dmark scores. Is your FPS increased?

Thanks!

a 30" Dell is next on my wishlist As for 3dmark it may not be a game but is a very good indicator of performance increases in a hardware change. As it stands it looks like the secondary card Is faulty as it returns a 3dmark score of a paltry 5297 when on its own

[dave87]

That would have been my suggestion, trying each card on its own. As you said it sounds like its faulty, let us know how you get on

Dave

[badvock]

Well having done a physical examination of the cards I notice one significant difference. Just to the lower right of the power connectors is a small square component (not a sparkie so I am unsure what it is) On the faulty card this component looks a little sub standard when compared to its working partner card which has a nicely fitted and soldered and above all different type of component. i am wondering to myself if theis is the famous "faulty resistor" I suppose it is always possible that one or 2 of these cards slipped through the net.

[Clunk]

does the suspected faulty card give a low score no matter what pci-e slot you use it in? sounds like the second pci-e slot is running at 4x or whatever.

[badvock]

nope clunk, bios settings all look ok, and the board uses a switch card to go between single and sli mode. Strangely tho, i have now tried what i thought was the Ok card in both slots and that reports the same 3d mark score....grrrrrr

[Clunk]

no bios updates available for the board then? i doubt that the cards are duff, i suspect the problem is with your motherboard, or even psu, what psu are you using?

maybe 3dmark05 doesnt support the new technology?

[badvock]

NO Bios updates for the board and the PSU is a Tagan 900W (practically brand new)

Previously I got around 14000+ on 05 with my 2 watercooled oc'd 7800 GTXs and in a previous bench with both cards in place but not in SLI i got 15000+ with just one of the 8800's. Now with the cards swapped over and in sli i get 9257 which just aint cricket. I have swapped the cards back and will bench again in SLI and see what happens.

[badvock]

OK stumped now. Neither card seems to be working to spec, after much swapping of cards, lots, sli bridges, drivers and so on and so on, both cards return scores of just 5000+ in single mode and 9000+ in SLi mode.

Cooling isnt the issue and the board is up to date re drivers and bios so if anyone has ANY ideas please feel free to pas them on.

[notsobig]

Do you see load balancing green bar when you enable SLI?

[neonplanet40]

its the screen tbh. Thats the only thing i can think off. it is bottle necking these 2 cards to a low resolution.

Try running a fear demo and see what u get with 1 and what youg et with 2. Turn everything up full.

write down fps and let us know.

[trojan698]

A screen cant bottleneck a system, its an external device, a peripheral. 3dmark is calculated by achieved framerates and the monitor wont restrict this. Infact he's probably using the standard version so running the benchmark at 1024x768.

Anyway, what motherboard are you using? Got 2 16x PCIe lanes I hope?

Edit, just noticed its an MSI K8N Diamond, so you do

[htid]

Do we smell another G70 cock up here? I really hope these cards aren't all gonna be duff too!

[CrazyMonkey]

20" for 2 in SLI is just stupid, even one of them would be stretching it...
Have you got 2 16x PCI-E lanes?

[ExceededGoku]

lol more money than sense tbh, but it does sound like an overheating problem to me. Thermal throttling must be taking place and AFAIK all faulty resistor cards have been cleared from the channel...