strange 280 gtx behavior

[d3fct]

hi all, just recently i got a water block for one of my 280, so i removed one from sli and am currently running 1 card on water. I tried puttin the other 280 back in to use for a dedicated physics card untill i get my other water block. And thats where I ran into a problem, now keep in mind i had these 2 cards in this mobo, asus p5q running sli for about 2 weeks previous without one problem.

Now whenever i put both in at the same time it will freeze at the windows screen where the lil blue bar moves as windows loads. So, I did what anyone would do, I individually tested each card, then individually tested each pci slot. Everything checks out by itself, but together i get nothing. i have green lights on both cards, and like I mentioned they were running sli for a while with no problems.

I also set everything to failsafe defualts in the bios, tried clearing cmos, tried with sli bridge on and off.I dont understand how they worked flawlessly a few days ago, but now wont even get into windows.

nothing has been changed driver wise, im thinking of reinstalling the nvidia drivers.


system specs as follows:
corsair 750 psu
asus p5q deluxe mobo
8 gigs of g.skill pi
9650
2x280 gtx

[Wrigleyvillain]

Yeah thats wierd, for sure. Driver reinstall next definitely.

[d3fct]

yeah, i guess ill try that, here goes nothing.

[phanbuey]

the is seriously weird

i would say drivers

[d3fct]

didnt fix or change anything, i don t understand why it suddenly doesnt work.

[gaximodo]

damaged SLI fingers? or have you overclocked your wc'ed 280? and when put both cards together the other card just can't handle the clock?

[d3fct]

everything is at stock speeds and i still get a lockup. gpu's and cpu. just tried a system restore to the first windows boot after install, (the os is ony a few weeks old). still nothing

[gaximodo]

then most likely the SLI fingers or bridge is damaged I think....

[d3fct]

it does it without the bridge hooked up also.

[timta2]

Is it possible one of the cards is bad?

[d3fct]

did you read my first post? both cards work just fine individually , as do the pci slots they use.

[timta2]

Yes, I know you said that it appears that both cards seem to work individually. I have seen some wierd stuff in my time when it comes to troubleshooting and I don't leave anything out of the realm of possibility. It's possible that they work fine individually when something is marginal but together the problem occurs. If you have already restored the drivers and the OS, it's probably hardware related, no?

[qamulek]

As a last resort take off the water block completley and put the stock cooler back on, and try to get the system working again with both cards installed. If you can do that then try hook up the water block into the water loop, but don't actually put the waterblock on the card; see if the system still works with the water block in the loop. If it still works finally put the block onto the card and try boot up the comp. The idea is to get back to a known good configuration to eliminate the variables; in this case does the system even work using the stock heatsink after this screw ball behavior?

My off the wall guess is that torque from the water block is screwing up the motherboard in a very odd way(I've had a mobo that was sensitive to torque, and any torque would cause FSB holes or cause the gpu's to get stuck at boot up frequencies). Just guess... Hope you figure it out.

[d3fct]

thats alot of work im currently backing up my files and am going to do a clean install and try to get it working without any programs installed, im wondering now if my install of fallout 3 the otherday messed something up. I had to install windows live and a .net service pack to run the game. i'm going to install sp3 version as the one im on now is older sp2.

[Wrigleyvillain]

Damn, good luck man. Stuff like this sucks. And of course this is right after you were all stoked at the performance under water the other day.

[d3fct]

lol, yeah and last weak i had one of my hard drives fail on a raid 0 configuration, shit just keeps getting better.

[BababooeyHTJ]

Originally Posted by d3fct

hi all, just recently i got a water block for one of my 280, so i removed one from sli and am currently running 1 card on water. I tried puttin the other 280 back in to use for a dedicated physics card untill i get my other water block. And thats where I ran into a problem, now keep in mind i had these 2 cards in this mobo, asus p5q running sli for about 2 weeks previous without one problem.

Now whenever i put both in at the same time it will freeze at the windows screen where the lil blue bar moves as windows loads. So, I did what anyone would do, I individually tested each card, then individually tested each pci slot. Everything checks out by itself, but together i get nothing. i have green lights on both cards, and like I mentioned they were running sli for a while with no problems.

I also set everything to failsafe defualts in the bios, tried clearing cmos, tried with sli bridge on and off.I dont understand how they worked flawlessly a few days ago, but now wont even get into windows.

nothing has been changed driver wise, im thinking of reinstalling the nvidia drivers.


system specs as follows:
corsair 750 psu
asus p5q deluxe mobo
8 gigs of g.skill pi
9650
2x280 gtx

Let me guess it pauses for about a minute and the hdd led stops blinking and the loading bar keeps moving then all of a sudden windows boots up. The same thing happens to me with the deluxe. Apparently it's pretty common. There was a recent bios update that addresses this problem apparently but I never tried it since my rig is dead stable and this doesn't bother me too much. Apparently it's caused by certain DVD drives.

There was also a problem where the board wouldn't boot up at all when pausing at the Windows loading bar with all C0 quads running bios' between 0803 and 1406 (I think). These P5Q boards have some odd quirks.

Try playing around with your pci-e frequency and/or vSB and if that doesn't work uninstall your Marvell Sata Drivers and reinstall Intel IMSM, and if all else fails try a bios update. If you need to flash back afterwards I can tell you how. You might also want to try and swap the gtx280s if you haven't already.

[d3fct]

no it would just freeze before the windows logo could fully appear with the loading bar. I have the newest modded p5q bios, from this forum. I fixed the problem by reinstalling the os. i have installed a fresh copy of xp pro with sp3, and im in windows right now with both cards in.I have a feeling it was that .net service pack update that windows live for games made me install.

[Wrigleyvillain]

Cool. Glad you fixed it. Hey what water block by the way?

[d3fct]

danger den tieton, hope i spelled that right. and thanks, im glad i fixed it too was getting ready to kick the tower across the room.

[d3fct]

just wanted to say ty to all who suggested idea's in my time of peril, i have reinstalled xp and it's back to working just fine, admin you can lock or delete this thread if needed, thanks again guys.