GTX560 in SLI but only one card seems to be working

[pabloottawa]

Hi guys,

wondering if someone can help. I've got 2 identical GTX560s running in SLI and as far as I can see Nvidia is telling me that it's working but when I play a game only one card is heating up in excess of 70 degrees while the other sits at 40... Is this normal for SLI?

It seems logical to think that the second card is not really doing anything. Has anyone ever had this issue?

 

[MoonPig]

GPU-z says it's working?

nVidia control panel says it's working?

FPS increased?

 

[pabloottawa]

Everything looks good but BC2 seems just a little bit choppier than before when I was just running one GTX560. Actually I ran a test using Furmark and MSI Afterburner.. Here it clearly shows that the second card is not doing anything.

Also, I have here a pic of my the cards in my case as well as the results of the bench along with some shots of what was in GPU-Z.

With the Asus P6T all three PCI-E slots are x16 so I'm thinking it should be ok. In any case I can't really put one under the other cause it just won't fit. The GTX560 TI's from Asus are just too fat.

Sorry about all the pics but I just wanted to give you guys a good idea of why I suspect SLI is not working as it should. One thing I noticed is that the Bus interface for both cards are different... Could this have anything to do with it?

 

[sneekypeet]

have you reinstalled drivers since both cards were in?

I usually set it all up and install the drivers, the control panel will tell you you have an SLI capable system and ask you to activate it. That should at least take care of drivers if you havent done this so far

 

[pabloottawa]

have you reinstalled drivers since both cards were in?

I usually set it all up and install the drivers, the control panel will tell you you have an SLI capable system and ask you to activate it. That should at least take care of drivers if you havent done this so far

Yup did all that with Driver sweeper along with registry cleaner and defrag prior to reinstalling the drivers. All was done in Safe mode

 

[ktr]

It has been a while since I've SLI'd, but when I did, there was an option to show the SLI visual indicator, which is a green bar you see in game to determine how well your SLI is performing. I don't know if its still an option, but if it is, I recommend enabling that to verify.

 

[sneekypeet]

still an option...open NVCP and look at the top bar, you will see 3D settings, left click on it and you will get an option to check mark SLI and or Physics indicators.

 

[newtekie1]

The white slot on your board is an x4 slot, you shouldn't use it for SLi, or any graphics card for that matter beyond a dedicated PhysX card.

I don't know if that would cause the problem of the second card not working or not at all or not though. I do know it will probably hurt performance.

Are you making sure to run everything in full screen?

 

[pabloottawa]

Hey guys thanks for the help.

In this wacky journey I learned a few things. and as a disclaimer I just want to say that this is the situation with MY SETUP AND HARDWARE.

1. The SLI bridge has to be oriented properly meaning when you install it there definitely is an UP and a DOWN.

2. The cards work better with MSI Afterburner installed

4. If you have a 60MHz monitor better to have Vsync enabled to keep everything smooth. The Hawx 2 Benchmark was much smoother with Vsync on than with it off.

@Newtekie1,

I know what you mean and I totally agree as this was the case with my old Crosshair Motherboard. The Promary PCI-E slot was x16 and the secondary was x8 but I remember seeing in the manual that all three slots on my board are x16. I'll post a pic of the part that clearly states it. That said I'm still wondering why the numbers keep coming up different in the Bus interface for the PCI-E slots as mentioned in the previous post (see pics).

for now it's all working and in great shape. So glad SLI works on this board cause Crossfire was a total nightmare!!!!!

 

[pabloottawa]

Newtekie1,

You were right..... the slots are different. Just found this section of the manual that explains it all (see pic)

So I guess I'm stuck.. The cards are too fat to be side by side. and there would be ZERO ventilation going through the fans so putting them in both PCI-E 2.0 x16 link slots is not an option. Now does anyone know if running a 16 link PCI-E slot with a 4 link PCI-E slot is a huge performance hit?... Because at this point since I just got the cards I have the option to go back and exchange them for this GTX580

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121429&cm_re=gtx580-_-14-121-429-_-Product

So what do y'all think I should do? Stick with SLI and use a lower performing slot with the primary or just get rid of it all and get the one GTX580.

 

[Maban]

There should be sufficient space between them with the blue slots?

 

[slyfox2151]

There should be sufficient space between them with the blue slots?

+1 there should be PLENTY of room for them to go into the x16 slots next to eachother...


you said the card hits 70c..... it has another 25c before anything bad could happen.

 

[neatfeatguy]

Newtekie1,

You were right..... the slots are different. Just found this section of the manual that explains it all (see pic)

So I guess I'm stuck.. The cards are too fat to be side by side. and there would be ZERO ventilation going through the fans so putting them in both PCI-E 2.0 x16 link slots is not an option. Now does anyone know if running a 16 link PCI-E slot with a 4 link PCI-E slot is a huge performance hit?... Because at this point since I just got the cards I have the option to go back and exchange them for this GTX580

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121429&cm_re=gtx580-_-14-121-429-_-Product

So what do y'all think I should do? Stick with SLI and use a lower performing slot with the primary or just get rid of it all and get the one GTX580.

I've got two GTX 280s in SLI, my MB has just enough space between the two 16x PCI-E slots to just fit them next to each other. With that being the case, my top GPU runs on average 4-5C hotter then the bottom when on idle.

However, since I've got two monitors connected to the top card, it runs about 15C hotter then the bottom card, so I have the fan cranked to 65% when idle for it and up to 85% when gaming - even if I was running Metro 2033 or Crysis, neither card exceeds 85C with heavy gaming. You should be plenty fine with your two cards side-by-side. Just monitor the temps and if the top card starts getting too hot, manually adjust the fan speed on it.

 

[mlee49]

Point of note, the game needs to have a SLI profile accounted for it other wise it doesn't matter how many gpu's you have in there only one will be doing work.

What game are you playing?

 

[TheOne]

Now does anyone know if running a 16 link PCI-E slot with a 4 link PCI-E slot is a huge performance hit?... Because at this point since I just got the cards I have the option to go back and exchange them for this GTX580

These reviews demonstrate the performance difference from x16 to x8 to x4.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_480_PCI-Express_Scaling/24.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_5870_PCI-Express_Scaling/25.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pcie-geforce-gtx-480-x16-x8-x4,2696.html

 

[slyfox2151]

pitty no one has done an SLI test on PCI-E bandwidth..... one in a 16x slot another in a 4x slot...... it might give exacly the same performance as one card in a 4x slot... but you never know.

 

[pabloottawa]

I guess I'm the guinea pig then... Doing it and to be honest the hit is NOT noticeable. Now, since I'm an SLI virgin then maybe I don't know any better hehe

OH AND PLEASE READ THIS!!!
Everyone is assuming that the white slot is a PCI-E x4 slot but it clearly shows in the manual that it is a PCI-E 16 slot with a x4 "link"? No clue what that means.... Or is it all BS and the slot really is just a PCI-E x4 slot?

 

[slyfox2151]

I guess I'm the guinea pig then... Doing it and to be honest the hit is NOT noticeable. Now, since I'm an SLI virgin then maybe I don't know any better hehe

OH AND PLEASE READ THIS!!!
Everyone is assuming that the white slot is a PCI-E x4 slot but it clearly shows in the manual that it is a PCI-E 16 slot with a x4 "link"? No clue what that means.... Or is it all BS and the slot really is just a PCI-E x4 slot?

usualy that means it is PHYSICALLY as large as a 16x slot... but its only ELECTRICALY a 4x slot. its only connected to the CPU/North bridge by a 4x connection.

 

[TheOne]

Everyone is assuming that the white slot is a PCI-E x4 slot but it clearly shows in the manual that it is a PCI-E 16 slot with a x4 "link"? No clue what that means.... Or is it all BS and the slot really is just a PCI-E x4 slot?

It is a x4 slot, the configuration of the board is 16/16/4, the board also does support 3-way SLI.

View attachment 41522

 

[pabloottawa]

OK now i get it.

so I did some testing and took the advice of Slyfox and this time (instead of trying to install the bottom car without removing the top card) I removed the top card and installed the bottom card first. IT WORKED! I then tried it out and got some errors... Errors I've never seen before when it was in the bottom slot.

Anyhoo I really don't want to ramble. Long Story short I've been trying to get things to work with these two top slots for the past year. First with 2 5850s and now with the GTX560s. Suffice it to say I had enough and called Asus to let them know that the second blue slot is probably not working the way it should. We setup an RMA and we'll go from there.

In the meantime the second GTX560 is in the lower white slot so the SLI setup is not performing at peak but meh, I really don't notice that much of a difference to tell you the truth. At least I'm gonna get a new board out of it