My first experience with a faulty SLI bridge

[m6tzg6r]

So i was playing a game with SLI, and i noticed odd black flashes randomly occurring on screen. I just kind of ignored it and kept playing as it was only visual and nothing more. But of course i was intrigued/worried.

Then after that gaming session i came back into the same game and the black flashes were worse now, and i was only on the main menu, and now the game has crashed and i had to hit ctrl+alt+dlt to quit the game.

I ran Valley Benchmark and whilst doing that my screen was all green colored, and i thought one or both of my GPU's might be damaged.

So i disabled SLI, tested with one card, and all was working normal. Then i tested the second card on its own after i swapped out the first card and it too was working fine. So i was happy my cards were ok. But with both running together in SLI, my system now restarted itself when i tried to run Valley.

So i gave things a rest and tried to run Valley in SLI later that night. Things were now working ok, so i decided to wiggle my SLI bridge where it connects to the first GPU, and as i did that the image on my screen would flicker, so i then knew that my SLI bridge must be faulty. Hence when using SLI, and sending data between the two cards through a faulty bridge, problems were occurring.

Thats when i found a brand new spare bridge in my spare parts box, connected it, tested SLI, no issues, i even wiggled the bridge whilst running Valley, but now there was no screen flickering, and everything was running smooth.

So in all the years i have used SLI, i have not had a bridge become faulty, or worn out. But hey now i can say i have. I wonder if it just got worn out somehow, i mean they are kinda flimsy, just a simple ribbon cable with a connector on either end. But i also wonder if because the bridge is next to where hot air is vented out of my video cards, if that hot air blowing on the bridge caused it to become worn out in some capacity?

Either way this was an interesting lesson. And luckily i bought one of the fancy Nvidia SLI Bridges about a week ago to use in my system, so that should be here in the next day or so, so i hope that a solid bridge will be more durable compared to the regular ribbon style of bridges ive been using previously.

 

[qubit]

Well, all connectors and solder joints can wear out eventually with things like heat cycling and frictional wear and tear as things are plugged and unplugged. I'd hazard that this connector was simply marginal from the start, so over time it went over the limit. You might even find that it works fine with different cards, for a while at least.

Regardless, you're right to throw it away and use another one.

I wonder what happens if the bridge is removed while the system is rendering 3D... might not be a good idea as it might just cause damage to the cards as the electrical connection is broken.

 

[manofthem]

@m6tzg6r: interesting read and thanks for sharing. In my years of dual GPUs with AMD cards, I've never had a bridge go bad. I have seen posts and threads and read about faulty bridges but never experiences it myself.

But good thread, it'll serve as a nice reference to others experiencing like issues.

 

[OneMoar]

don't wiggle connectors with the machine on thats a good way to kill hardware ffs

 

[m6tzg6r]

yeah i know that its not a smart move. but in the situation i was in, moving the connector was necessary for me to prove that my bridge was faulty. with the new bridge connected, i wiggled the connector again, but this time there were no issues, proving the bridge was faulty, not because i was moving it, but because the bridge itself was faulty.

 

[SK-1]

I once had a crossfire bridge go RIP on me. It was a little maddening. First symptom was stuttering (more than normal) and then a refusal to even enter the crossfire mode. It was a process of elimination.

 

[qubit]

don't wiggle connectors with the machine on thats a good way to kill hardware ffs

yeah i know that its not a smart move. but in the situation i was in, moving the connector was necessary for me to prove that my bridge was faulty. with the new bridge connected, i wiggled the connector again, but this time there were no issues, proving the bridge was faulty, not because i was moving it, but because the bridge itself was faulty.

A gentle wiggle is perfectly fine when troubleshooting. You didn't do anything wrong @m6tzg6r.

 

[commando55555]

get A solid one the flex ones are crap had 2 die.

 

[DinaAngel]

get A solid one the flex ones are crap had 2 die.

same

 

[m6tzg6r]

TA DA!