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

[whitesedan]

You got that wrong

If ain't broke, fix it until it is !

I haven't tested, probably won't since it's most towards OpenGL for Fermi/GTX400 series.. but I see there are other ones willing to test

I'm hoping they "fixed" the issue since newer drivers optimized the fermi gpu's as they release them. I'm still on the look out for an i7 setup.

 

[Triton.se]

I'm hoping they "fixed" the issue since newer drivers optimized the fermi gpu's as they release them. I'm still on the look out for an i7 setup.

problem is... Hexa core is around the corner..1156 socket is attempting for two 8x pcie ports, but another socket is gonna replace it (dont think 6 core cpus will ever come to 1156 socket)

future lays in older 1366 socket..it has no two 8x pcie mobos, but two x16..and it'll take the new 6 core cpus this fall...

One other nicve feature with 1366 is 6GB ram... 4GB with 1156 or 8GB (too expensive) ..6GB and tri channel for 1366...good price too.

I really really want to know the future... two 8x pci is OK TODAY..but might be a bummer buy in 6 months... i will stay cool

I damn think 1366 and SLI mobo in 6 months is the way to go ! Hexa core and 6GB. Hopefully GTX475 SLI or what they'll be called, and finally u see diff between two 8x and two 16x...THATS A BUY !

 

[whitesedan]

From news and rumors, both current sockets (1156/1366) will be dead. The sandy bridge/patsburg will come in (not sure if intel finalized it) socket 1155 and 2011.

I'm just waiting for x58 board and an i7 930 deal to come around. If it fails, ill wait till next year and upgrade when sandy bridge or patsburg to be released. This will only happen if nvidia actually find a way to disable the hack.

 

[Ex Inferis]

ForceWare 259.31 not work

5 races in Dirt2 and freeze
back to 257.41

 

[Triton.se]

From news and rumors, both current sockets (1156/1366) will be dead. The sandy bridge/patsburg will come in (not sure if intel finalized it) socket 1155 and 2011.

I'm just waiting for x58 board and an i7 930 deal to come around. If it fails, ill wait till next year and upgrade when sandy bridge or patsburg to be released. This will only happen if nvidia actually find a way to disable the hack.

Sandy Bridge is 32nm and will only include Dual and Quads CPUs, no Hexa (6 core) in the first wave. I think there will be affordable 6 core cpus for 1366 very soon, and such rig should last many years..just coz there comes 32nm doesn't lower this rig's performance

Why go back in technology with a future 1155? the name suggest 2x 8x PCIe, tho I'm not sure..just comparing 1156 and 1366...

the enthusiasts buy 1155..and later the32nm hexa cores etc etc... "1365 and Sandy Bridge" would be the way to go in sixmonths, but intel wants more moolah.

 

[wizard23]

i dont know if that weel help some one but i weel post it my rig is :

phenomII 955@3.2
msi 790FX-GD70
1*XFX GTX295 & 1* ASUS GTX295 TOP (QUAD SLI)
4GB CRUSIAL BALISTIX TRACER 1333
windows 7 64bit ultimate

and i used the standard sli bridge (short one) from an msi-p55-GD80
and i was having problems black screens etc from the bigining the cards was to slot 1&3
from hesterday i tried the long sli bridge from the same mobo(p55-GD80) and now is stable
i played starcraft for more than 3h and nothing and i run 3dm vantage withe no problems
i dont know if tha weel help but i thing that the bridge might helped forgot to mention that i did several restarts just to see if that was a random event but the system is stable every time i run enything.

 

[Ex Inferis]

damn... the 257.41 freeze to after some time of dirt2 with max AA settings
The game freeze when I click in "quit" options... to go back do desktop...
1 or 2 small lags/freezes in game too

back to 257.21 again
OBS: the good is the 3D vision active again in games "3D ready" like Batman and others...
[]s

 

[johnspack]

Finally did a serious test with the 258s, running Singularity, game went to grey screen and locked up computer within a few minutes. Went back to 257.21, and played for a solid hour. This is under XP64, so the 258s don't seem to work under any windows version....

 

[Triton.se]

damn... the 257.41 freeze to after some time of dirt2 with max AA settings
The game freeze when I click in "quit" options... to go back do desktop...
1 or 2 small lags/freezes in game too

back to 257.21 again
OBS: the good is the 3D vision active again in games "3D ready" like Batman and others...
[]s

weird... 257.41 has worked well for me..

Anyhows, testing 259.32 from laptop2go (link from guru3d forum) ..had the first Black Screen within 4-5mins, switching DVI ports didn't give me picture back, so I quit the game (Trackmania) with ALT + F4...I immediately got pic back (desktop)..so, now on same boot, surfing OK... I'll test these till I see if I get more of the bad symptoms: bsod, ctd, bs, freeze.
I LUV Black Screens ! LOL compared to Freeze that is...

EDIT //

Today is little warmer than other days here, so gpus are warmer faster... the black screen came also quick..I'll test having fans very high for low temps..see if errors come later (or vanish completely)

 

[Triton.se]

i dont know if that weel help some one but i weel post it my rig is :

phenomII 955@3.2
msi 790FX-GD70
1*XFX GTX295 & 1* ASUS GTX295 TOP (QUAD SLI)
4GB CRUSIAL BALISTIX TRACER 1333
windows 7 64bit ultimate

and i used the standard sli bridge (short one) from an msi-p55-GD80
and i was having problems black screens etc from the bigining the cards was to slot 1&3
from hesterday i tried the long sli bridge from the same mobo(p55-GD80) and now is stable
i played starcraft for more than 3h and nothing and i run 3dm vantage withe no problems
i dont know if tha weel help but i thing that the bridge might helped forgot to mention that i did several restarts just to see if that was a random event but the system is stable every time i run enything.

we need to know
* ForceWare version
* If your motherboard is SLI certified

It's interesting with the other SLI bridge..what is printed on it ? All I know is "A2" which is printed on mine. Can you put back the old bridge and test again ?



Is such long SLI bridge soft and bendable (like ATI/AMD Crossfire bridges) ??? If not, we couldn't use it, pci-e slots are fixed, the short bridge fits exactly.

EDIT ///

OK, I guess the bridge is meant to bend, looks just like crossfire bridge

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=107994

 

[Triton.se]

15 min BSOD after I rebooted using 259.32

I had to ALT TAB back to game 3-4 times coz clocks would sometimes go 3D Low on one or both cards and eventually nvmdll crashed rig.

Tested with VSYNC forced on (for very low gpu temps, 50-55C) and anti alias forced off

 

[hugaduga]

Hello from Berlin

I am a bit confused with this whole information and my english is not so good. I am thinking about to give it a try.

My System:
WIN 7 64
ASUS P5Q-E (watercooled)
C2Q 9550@3,4Ghz (400 FSB)
GTX 260 (192) a second one would be bought
8 GB Ram

My only Game at the moment is BFBC2 (until BF3). I dont play other Games at all.

What Nvidia driver woud you recommend? Do I have to look for something else beside of installing the 0,8b and the driver?

 

[r3b00t3r]

What Nvidia driver woud you recommend? Do I have to look for something else beside of installing the 0,8b and the driver?

You must use 257.21 or previous. No, you don't need to use anything besides the latest patch for your OS and this driver. Nevertheless, if you have read the last pages of this thread, you should be aware that Nvidia is putting some real effort in ending with this hack, meaning that is possible that you may be stuck in this 257.21 drivers. It can be a problem in the near or distant future, or can be not. Think of this when buying the second GTX260.

Cheers.

 

[hugaduga]

Thanks for the reply and help.

As I play only one Game at once like BFBC2 there wont be any problem with eldering drivers. My plan is to buy a complete new PC next year for BF3 (if it is released 2011). I will will think about the SLI. If I do it, I wil post here my results.

 

[Triton.se]

ofcourse there can be problems with older drivers then 257.21 suggested...OMG, haven't you read? go back few pages so we dont have to repeat ourselves, plz

 

[Glendor]

Still going good after a weekend of Gaming and multimedia on the 257.15 driveres. No issues at all.

Progress report: Still going strong on the 257.15 drivers with zero problems. Is there any benefit to updating to the 257.21 drivers? (not that I'm going to do it, I just want to know what I might be missing out on...)


Glendor...
===================
Antec 900
MSI 890FXA-GD70 (bios 1.6)
AMD Thubian 1055t @ 3.5ghz 28c/44c
Corsair H50 lapped w/ push : shoud : radiator : pull config
2x4gb G.Skill Ripjaw DDR3 @ 1333
2x250gb Seagate Momentus XT in RAID0
2x BFG GTX 275oc SLI & PhysX enabled (nVidia 257.15 drivers)
Muskin Enhanced 550w PSU
Windows 7 64bit WPI: (7.6 / 7.6 / 7.7 / 7.7 / 5.9)
====================
Remember Children, Just say NO to big air coolers. Go H50!

 

[gameboy116]

Progress report: Still going strong on the 257.15 drivers with zero problems. Is there any benefit to updating to the 257.21 drivers? (not that I'm going to do it, I just want to know what I might be missing out on...)


Glendor...
===================
Antec 900
MSI 890FXA-GD70 (bios 1.6)
AMD Thubian 1055t @ 3.5ghz 28c/44c
Corsair H50 lapped w/ push : shoud : radiator : pull config
2x4gb G.Skill Ripjaw DDR3 @ 1333
2x250gb Seagate Momentus XT in RAID0
2x BFG GTX 275oc SLI & PhysX enabled (nVidia 257.15 drivers)
Muskin Enhanced 550w PSU
Windows 7 64bit WPI: (7.6 / 7.6 / 7.7 / 7.7 / 5.9)
====================
Remember Children, Just say NO to big air coolers. Go H50!

It always has benefit to upgrade, like some game don't even support SLI until they make a SLI profile in new driver.

That really got me worried, as mafia 2 is coming soon.............

 

[soundood]

hi guys, thought i would jump back into help (if needed)

i got my second GTX470 coming on monday, both of mine will be under water, and running on the same board i got sli running ,many months ago...how time flys

anyways, i will get them instaled monday, and get a fresh win 7 64 bit instal imag'ed, and ready to take a beating.

just let me know what configs and drivers to use, together we will crack this again

on a side note, anyone got a spare flexi SLI bridge they could send me? im in the UK and would be willing to pay whatever and postage if needed?

speak soon guys

 

[r3b00t3r]

just let me know what configs and drivers to use, together we will crack this again

SLI patch 0.8b, drivers 257.21.

Until this moment, 257.21 are the only drivers that work without problems.

 

[LoWRiDeR82]

Damn this sucks donkey balls. I have a DFI X48 T3RS and just bought a GTX460 and would like to pair it with another one. However if this is the case I'm not sure it would be a good thing buying a new gtx460. I really hope people manage to get the latest drivers to work with older pcs....damn you nvidia!

 

[r3b00t3r]

Damn this sucks donkey balls. I have a DFI X48 T3RS and just bought a GTX460 and would like to pair it with another one. However if this is the case I'm not sure it would be a good thing buying a new gtx460. I really hope people manage to get the latest drivers to work with older pcs....damn you nvidia!

Well mate... You can buy your second card, using it in SLI during the following months with 257.21 drivers, and in 2011 you can advance to P55/X58. But I would play safe, in your situation...

 

[LoWRiDeR82]

Well mate... You can buy your second card, using it in SLI during the following months with 257.21 drivers, and in 2011 you can advance to P55/X58. But I would play safe, in your situation...

Yeah what you are saying makes sense, however I dont plan to upgrade for at least the next 2 years. I have a quad xeon x3380 @ 4ghz and pretty much everything else in the rig works perfect and runs everythng maxed out at the highest settings etc. If this doesn't get solved ill sell the gtx460 and pass to cfx or to a better single gpu.

 

[r3b00t3r]

Yeah what you are saying makes sense, however I dont plan to upgrade for at least the next 2 years. I have a quad xeon x3380 @ 4ghz and pretty much everything else in the rig works perfect and runs everythng maxed out at the highest settings etc. If this doesn't get solved ill sell the gtx460 and pass to cfx or to a better single gpu.

In that case, a single 5870 would do the trick. But you're right, you have a system ready to handle whatever it appears, for the next couple of years.

Let's wait for a reply from Anatolymik...

 

[LoWRiDeR82]

Anatolymik?who's that? excuse my ignorance but didn't have time to read through 142 pages

 

[r3b00t3r]

Anatolymik?who's that? excuse my ignorance but didn't have time to read through 142 pages

One of the guys involved in the creation of the SLI patch we actually use.