How To: Enable SLI on pre-i7/i5 hardware

[ken2cky]

I got pci-e 2.0 board but like I wrote before, there's a bug with fermi cards regarding unstable pci-e mode so it switches randomly from 1.0 to 2.0 on every restart.
I also wrote before that I do not have SLI bridge.

Regarding my GPU score, it's in the range of stock GTX 470 SLI scores on AMD platform. You can google it easily to find similar results.

Here's the GTX 470 SLI on a nforce 780a with a P II 940@3.4GHz
[url]http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/6418/vantagei.th.jpg[/URL]

Your system is highly overclocked, CPU@4.3GHz, video cards too, so it's not strange to see that high score of yours. Also, till now Vantage has been optimized many times to run well with a GT200 SLI systems.

All right then.
The SLI bridge gave me 2000 GPU points. Hope you'll fix that Pci-e thing.

 

[r3b00t3r]

Anyone tested on 257.21 WHQL??

Yes. BFBC2 runs smooth and fine, with nice GPU usage - both cards run between 88% and 98%. I had no problems also in CoD:MW2.

 

[justincole]

i didn't have any luck with my m4a78-e mother board running vista ultimate 64bit and two GeForce 9800GTX OC, got it to say it loaded successfully in 'run' but when i re-booted and picked 'sli enabled' it gave the the 'ntoskrnl.exe failed to load because the required file is missing/corrupt'

any solutions? i didn't try a clean install yet, but i suppose that is an option

 

[johnspack]

It sounds like for some reason halsli.dll did not get installed, but the proper ntoskrnp.exe did. If you have a dual boot system, or can get to your files using the xp boot in Hiren's boot cd, or Ultimate Boot cd for windows, or something... try copying halsli.dll from the patch folder to system32. You may even want to copy ntoskrnp.exe and osloader.exe as well. All 3 files should be in system32 folder. Halsli.dll and ntoskrnp.exe should both have dates of 6/1/2010. This is one of the reasons I always have at least 2 windows installs.....

 

[ken2cky]

It sounds like for some reason halsli.dll did not get installed, but the proper ntoskrnp.exe did. If you have a dual boot system, or can get to your files using the xp boot in Hiren's boot cd, or Ultimate Boot cd for windows, or something... try copying halsli.dll from the patch folder to system32. You may even want to copy ntoskrnp.exe and osloader.exe as well. All 3 files should be in system32 folder. Halsli.dll and ntoskrnp.exe should both have dates of 6/1/2010. This is one of the reasons I always have at least 2 windows installs.....

So we can install SLIPatch manually by simply move those 3 files to system32?
EDIT: I'm actually on 257.21 with SLIPatch 0.8. Seems to work perfectly.

 

[johnspack]

Yes, if your boot loader already has the slienabled entry added to the boot menu, it has to know to use osload and to call halsli.dll. Sounds like his already has the entry right, just missing at least one file. If you right click on InstallSLI.cmd and select edit, you'll see how that is all accomplished.

 

[justincole]

It sounds like for some reason halsli.dll did not get installed, but the proper ntoskrnp.exe did. If you have a dual boot system, or can get to your files using the xp boot in Hiren's boot cd, or Ultimate Boot cd for windows, or something... try copying halsli.dll from the patch folder to system32. You may even want to copy ntoskrnp.exe and osloader.exe as well. All 3 files should be in system32 folder. Halsli.dll and ntoskrnp.exe should both have dates of 6/1/2010. This is one of the reasons I always have at least 2 windows installs.....

hmm i never saw the halsli.dll, would this have been in the downloaded folder or generated when i went to patch?

 

[ken2cky]

hmm i never saw the halsli.dll, would this have been in the downloaded folder or generated when i went to patch?

It's in the downloaded folder. Present in SLIPatch 0.7 and 0.8 for Win7 64Bits.

 

[justincole]

ahh ya im prob missing that one haha ill give that a try, thanks!

 

[ken2cky]

ahh ya im prob missing that one haha ill give that a try, thanks!

Use only the latast SLIPatch 0.8.

 

[erixx]

the thread title must be wrong, i have used SLI on "pre i5/i7" mobos for ages... After seeing it every day as a sticky post I finally decided to write, but not read this thread, so pardon if I piss outside the pot, ok

 

[justincole]

Use only the latast SLIPatch 0.8.

still no luck i donno what the problem is but i keep gettin that ntoskrnl.exe error...any other suggestions from anyone?

 

[ken2cky]

the thread title must be wrong, i have used SLI on "pre i5/i7" mobos for ages... After seeing it every day as a sticky post I finally decided to write, but not read this thread, so pardon if I piss outside the pot, ok

Have u been using motherboards with Nvidia chipset?

still no luck i donno what the problem is but i keep gettin that ntoskrnl.exe error...any other suggestions from anyone?

Did you try what johnspack requested? Moving manually the 3 files?
What happen when you double click "InstallSLI.cmd" ??

 

[johnspack]

If the correct ntoskrnp.exe and halsli.dll are there now, all that's left is the osloader.exe file. Do you have all 3 files in system32 justincole? (Assuming this is Vista, osloadw7.exe for Win7).

 

[Mussels]

the thread title must be wrong, i have used SLI on "pre i5/i7" mobos for ages... After seeing it every day as a sticky post I finally decided to write, but not read this thread, so pardon if I piss outside the pot, ok

before x58, you NEEDED an SLI certified (read: nvidia chipset) board for SLI... and not all of the nvidia ones worked in SLI either (case in point: DFI Nforce 4 ultra)

this mod is to allow ALL pre x58 boards to run SLI, so the thread title makes sense.

 

[erixx]

Ah, ok, sorry. Indeed I have had Nvidia chipsets for the last years/mobos, so that makes sense if the rest of the world did not

Cheers to the thread then

 

[Wile E]

before x58, you NEEDED an SLI certified (read: nvidia chipset) board for SLI... and not all of the nvidia ones worked in SLI either (case in point: DFI Nforce 4 ultra)

this mod is to allow ALL pre x58 boards to run SLI, so the thread title makes sense.

But a simple hardmod did fix that 90% of the time.

 

[justincole]

Did you try what johnspack requested? Moving manually the 3 files?
What happen when you double click "InstallSLI.cmd" ??

still no luck, im gonna try a clean install on a different drive and see if that brings me any luck

 

[justincole]

still nothin after a clean install, do i need to use the 'sting' installer thing? or do i stay away from that?

 

[johnspack]

I must admit, I'm stumped by this. It apparently is working on Amd chipsets, including the 790gx ect. Did you try disabling UAC justincole? I automatically disable UAC under Win7 before I start installing things. It just sounds like the patch is being blocked or something. Try turning off UAC if you haven't already.

 

[justincole]

yeah, got it off

when i run the installer in run, it says 'the system cannot find the file specified, im running it off my desktop, is there a better place i should run it from?

 

[bacan]

yeah, got it off

when i run the installer in run, it says 'the system cannot find the file specified, im running it off my desktop, is there a better place i should run it from?

I think you need to recheck these 3 possibilities:

- you didn't unpack SLIMod archive correctly or it's corrupted
- you're installing wrong version of SLIMod for your operating system
- your firewall or virus/malware monitor is preventing mod to install

Go to the SLIMod page again and check if you downloaded the correct version for your OS.
http://xdevs.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.30

 

[justincole]

ya good idea, this is drivin me nuts! haha if anyone has any suggestions or anything that you think would work shoot em on me

 

[justincole]

alright, so this is terrible, i don't know what im doin wrong *sad panda*

but here are my steps, maybe someone can catch a mistake

1. download the vista 64bit folder from that site
2. extract the files from the folder
3. put osloader, installSLI, halsli, ntoskrnp files in C:\Windows\System32\drivers
4. run cmd and then instalSLI
5. shows everything is good in the cmd now, but still get that stupid error ntoskrnl.exe

what am i doin wrong??!

 

[bacan]

alright, so this is terrible, i don't know what im doin wrong *sad panda*

but here are my steps, maybe someone can catch a mistake

1. download the vista 64bit folder from that site
2. extract the files from the folder
3. put osloader, installSLI, halsli, ntoskrnp files in C:\Windows\System32\drivers
4. run cmd and then instalSLI
5. shows everything is good in the cmd now, but still get that stupid error ntoskrnl.exe

what am i doin wrong??!

I think I got it, Panda.

There are 2 different ways/methods of getting SLI on nonSLI boards and you mixed it:

1.SLI String installer v.2.0 + modded Forceware
2.SLI Patch 0.8b + regular Forceware

If you downloaded SLI Patch 0.8b you are going method 2 so you can install it only by clicking on InstallSLI.cmd from SLIPatch 0.8 Win7 x64 beta.zip
Do not copy manually anything from that archive cause "the manually copying way" is the first method you didn't choose.

Like the authors said, it's easier with a SLI Patch than the SLI String because you don't need to use modded Forceware and the process is totally automated.

1.Install the latest Forceware
2. Disable UAC
2.Unpack on your desktop SLIPatch 0.8 Win7 x64 beta.zip
3.Click on InstallSLI.cmd
4.Restart and choose SLI enabled OS
5.It should work now