GX2 7950 not working on Gigabyte 965P DS3 Mobo

[Kanoe]

With Scans great deal last week of the XFX GX2 7950 OEM with 750Watt PSU it was just what i was looking for to complete my new Conroe system.

Problem is i can't get the graphics to work and was wondering if anyone might have some suggestions.

Mobo is Gigabyte 965P DS3 with bios revision F3 on it, Conroe E6300 and 2Gig DDR2 PC6400.

Windows has installed fine and device manager lists 2 vga cards but i can't get the nvidia drivers to install. It just says that the computer doesnt have any supported hardware for the driver im trying to use. I have tried several 91.xx drivers but with no success.

Short of looking for another mobo as there might be compatability issues with this one does anyone know of any tips or tricks to get these cards to work?
If you have same Gfx card please post what mobo you are using and a rough guide of how you installed it.

Thanks,

Kanoe

[spazman]

I have that same card and motherboard with no issues at all, you did plug in both PCI-E power cords

[charleski]

Windows has installed fine and device manager lists 2 vga cards but i can't get the nvidia drivers to install. It just says that the computer doesnt have any supported hardware for the driver im trying to use. I have tried several 91.xx drivers but with no success.

Easy-peasy. The card you have is (as I've pointed out many times, though Scan refuse to change their product listing) a 7900GX2, which works the same as a 7950. All you need to do is add a couple of lines to nv_disp.inf. I use the tweaked 91.37 drivers from TweaksRUs, but the nv_disp.inf needs a slight modification to add support, I could email you the .inf if you PM me with where to send it. Alternatively, you can use the beta driver from here.

[spazman]

I didnt do this and have had no problems?!?

[charleski]

Which drivers did you use? Some of them already have the correct definitions for the 7900GX2, but some don't. Since the 91.31 WHQL drivers and the 91.37 beta from nVidia contain the correct lines it looks as if nVidia will keep them listed in future releases.

[Kanoe]

Fixed: Thanks for the help guys it was a weird driver version thing. I had previously downloaded the 91.31 WHQL driver from nVidia for my previous gfx card with the filename 91.31 forceware 2k/xp international whql @ 60.8Meg but when i downloaded the 91.31 off the site last night it came down with a file name of 91.31 2kxpmce2005 international whql @ 60.8Meg.

The first one didnt work with the card and the second one did.

Thanks for the help.

Charleski, didnt know there was a 7900GX2 tbh, whats the difference of that to the 7950GX2?

[Steve B]

its bigger and needs 2 sli bridges if u want to run quad sli. thats it i think!

[kasavien]

as far as i know the 7900GX2 is 2 processors on one board, whereas the 7950GX2 is 2 boards with one PCI-X interface in SLI if that makes sense

[charleski]

They're really the same thing, just with a redesign of the board.
Tom's Hardware posted a good comparison.

[Kanoe]

Cheers for that, interesting that Scan are still maintaining that this board is a 7950GX2 5 mins ago when i spoke to them but there are some big differences not to mention the fact that the 7900GX2 doesnt have the HDCP for HD-DVD and Blu-ray which is a major omission especially when the specification from nVidia is for any board calling itself a 7950GX2 MUST have DCHP on it.

Thanks for all the help.

Kanoe

[spazman]

Scans refusal to change it is pretty stupid, but its still a great card and for what i paid for it a steal. I used the 91.31 drivers didnt want to risk Beta drivers, got burned in the past with beta ATi drivers.

[charleski]

Having spent the last couple of years with a 3.06 Northwood and an ATI 9800Pro, I'm having a lot of fun with the new machine . Since the 7900GX2 is full x16 SLI and apparently the 7950 is only x8 it's probably slightly better than the normal 7950 cards, but not by a great deal.

[ExceededGoku]

Scans refusal to change it is pretty stupid, but its still a great card and for what i paid for it a steal. I used the 91.31 drivers didnt want to risk Beta drivers, got burned in the past with beta ATi drivers.

Scan is the official distributor of nvidia... so I think they know what it is tbh . It is branded as a 7900GX2 but in the drivers and even nvidia themselves call it the 7950GX2... this could just be a mistake.

[charleski]

in the drivers and even nvidia themselves call it the 7950GX2...

No, the original 87.25 drivers that Scan tested it on and had in their product description at first ONLY support the 7900GX2. When I pointed that out, they switched the link to the 91.37 beta drivers, which install it as a '7900/7950'.

The fact is that it's a 7900GX2, which is borne out by the PCI ID number that it reports when queried. The 7950GX2 reports a different PCI ID. I suspect that there's a worry that more ignorant consumers will confuse the 7900GX2 with the 7900GTX or something like that. That's unfortunate, but it's not a good enough reason to promote this sort of misunderstanding.