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Problem with 9800GT in SLI mode

M

manoleo

New Member
Joined
Jun 27, 2010
Messages
11 (0.00/day)
System Specs
Processor AMD Athlon II x3 435 2.9GHz
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4
Memory 2x1GB DDR2 800Mhz Kingston
Video Card(s) Sparkle & Palit 9800GT
Storage WD 500GB Caviar Black
Display(s) DELL M992 19"
Power Supply no name 600W
Hello everyone,

I accidently happen to own two 9800GT graphics cards and an SLI capable motherboard. The problem is that there is no performance increase when SLI mode is enabled. The exact models of the components I mentioned are the following:

Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4

VGA 1 - Sparkle 9800GT

VGA 2 - Palit 9800GT

I'm using WinXP SP3 and the latest Nvidia drivers(257.21), the graphics cards are both recognized, and I'm able to check the "enable SLI" box in nvidia control panel. The problem is that the performance in games and 3dmark06 is just the same as if I was using just one of the cards. I successfully updated the motherboard BIOS but the SLI performance is still the same. I tried to flash the BIOS of one of the cards with the BIOS of the other one using nvflash 5.57 but i get the following message:

WARNING: Frimware image board ID (904E) does not match adapter board ID (902D).

ERROR: Board ID mismatch.

Any ideas how to solve the problem?

Thanks in advance and please excuse me if my English writing is not clear enough.
 
use GPUZ to see if both GPUs are being used?

enable the visual graph side bar in nvidia control panal?
 
manoleo said:
Hello everyone,

I accidently happen to own two 9800GT graphics cards and an SLI capable motherboard. The problem is that there is no performance increase when SLI mode is enabled. The exact models of the components I mentioned are the following:

Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4

VGA 1 - Sparkle 9800GT

VGA 2 - Palit 9800GT

I'm using WinXP SP3 and the latest Nvidia drivers(257.21), the graphics cards are both recognized, and I'm able to check the "enable SLI" box in nvidia control panel. The problem is that the performance in games and 3dmark06 is just the same as if I was using just one of the cards. I successfully updated the motherboard BIOS but the SLI performance is still the same. I tried to flash the BIOS of one of the cards with the BIOS of the other one using nvflash 5.57 but i get the following message:

WARNING: Frimware image board ID (904E) does not match adapter board ID (902D).

ERROR: Board ID mismatch.

Any ideas how to solve the problem?

Thanks in advance and please excuse me if my English writing is not clear enough.
Click to expand...


basically the green editions will NOT work in SLI with a normal card, they cause LOTS of issues and crash a lot. try and exchange the green edition for a nornal 6 pin one
 
Welcome to TPU!

Bo$$ said:
basically the green editions will NOT work in SLI with a normal card, they cause LOTS of issues and crash a lot. try and exchange the green edition for a nornal 6 pin one
Click to expand...

Bo$$, do you have any links to more info about this? I know of several cases where green and non-green 9800GTs were run in SLI with no problem and have always heard that any 9800GTs can be used together in SLI. But would be good to see some cases where this was not true for future reference.
 
TIGR said:
Welcome to TPU!



Bo$$, do you have any links to more info about this? I know of several cases where green and non-green 9800GTs were run in SLI with no problem and have always heard that any 9800GTs can be used together in SLI. But would be good to see some cases where this was not true for future reference.
Click to expand...

No but i did have personal experience with this issue hence why i have two green editions now

and this info was given to me by the XFX engineers i spoke to, it has something to with the chipsets SOMETIMES they conflict and dont work.

I had crashes, Artifacts, White screens, Black screens, Blue screens, power warnings, driver crashes, stuttering at 1FPS, the works man everything went nuts
 
When I get home tomorrow I will see if both GPUs are used. I'm not home for the weekend. I tried to enable the visual graph side bar but I couldn't find that option in the nvidia control panel. Where exactly it's supposed to be?

It would be very bad if what Bo$$ says is true. I've never experienced any kind of crashes and s**t though but I've used the Palit Green card for only about 2 months. I can see there's a place on the Palit PCB where the 6pin connector should be. I can easily power it up by doing some soldering but do you think this would help?
 
manoleo said:
When I get home tomorrow I will see if both GPUs are used. I'm not home for the weekend. I tried to enable the visual graph side bar but I couldn't find that option in the nvidia control panel. Where exactly it's supposed to be?

It would be very bad if what Bo$$ says is true. I've never experienced any kind of crashes and s**t though but I've used the Palit Green card for only about 2 months. I can see there's a place on the Palit PCB where the 6pin connector should be. I can easily power it up by doing some soldering but do you think this would help?
Click to expand...


go onto the top row and click 3D settings and then SLI visual indicator.

also 3DMARK 06 is CPU bound and will not show any improvement because you have quite a slow CPU, could you tell us which games you are trying to play?

no dont do any soldering!, the actual board is slightly different and you WILL void your warranty, see if you can trade with anyone.

BTW My problems were crazy took 6 months to work out what was wrong as they varied i got different problems but it was mainly 1 FPS stuttering as there was some incompatability :ohwell:

anyway good luck and post back soon :rockout:
 
I'm trying to play Crysis Warhead, NFS Most Wanted, Splinter Cell Conviction, Mirror's Edge.....

I can't void my warranty since I don't have one anymore. They gave me the Palit 9800GT as a replacement for an Asus 8600GT TOP(I killed 3 of these). But still I guess soldering is not the best option.

I guess I'll have to buy a new CPU even if I still can't run the SLI with it. It seems that the 5000+ is slow enough even for one 9800GT, so I'm in need of a new CPU anyway.

What CPU would you guys suggest for my motherboard?
 
yep its due to one being the "green" edition. trash that card they are garbage
 
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Brisbane 2.9GHz 2 x 512KB L...

u kinda locked ur self in a AM2 only CPU... my board is AM2+ so i can get AM3 if i wanted, but the 5600+ is the best solution for u, hope this helps, unless u choose to update ur Mobo then i would suggest a decent AM3 / AM2+ mobo but dont forget AM2 = ddr2 ram AM3 = ddr3 hope ths helps.
 
The list with supported CPUs for my mobo. I'm a little concerned about the red text at the bottom though.
 
Odds are is that there's CPU bottlenecking at your chosen resolution -OR- your driver installation is broken. I myself have noticed this at one point in time with G92 GTS SLI until I had reinstalled drivers and switched the cards on the slots.

See if you can find someone with a higher res LCD/CRT then run a Crysis benchmark at hi res with SLI enabled/disabled.

EDIT:

Even at a lower res you should see some improvement though. Have you overclocked the 5k+?
 
I haven't overclocked the CPU. I've tried reinstalling the drivers and switching the cards many times. I'll try the Crysis test with higher res. Too bad I don't have friends with 9800GTs and I can't borrow one for testing. Is SLI possible with 9800GT and 8800GT since they use the same GPU?
 
no they wont work
 
manoleo said:
I haven't overclocked the CPU. I've tried reinstalling the drivers and switching the cards many times. I'll try the Crysis test with higher res. Too bad I don't have friends with 9800GTs and I can't borrow one for testing. Is SLI possible with 9800GT and 8800GT since they use the same GPU?
Click to expand...

After a bios mod on the 8800GT, yes it is possible. Try overclocking the CPU a tad, it may help out some.
 
joeyck said:
His motherboard under his specs does not support AM3. Its a AM2 mobo.
Click to expand...

It does support AM3 CPUs. Look at the CPU support list I posted above.

Thanks for the suggestions, joeyck. I think I'll try the X3 Athlon some time soon.

As for the 8800GT the bios mod is not an option since the card I had in mind is not mine unfortunately.

So I think it's safe to assume that the problem is either in the "green" 9800GT or the slow 5000+(or both). I guess I'll start with buying a faster CPU since I need one anyway. I'll try the little tests and benchmarks some of you suggested too.
 
joeyck said:
His motherboard under his specs does not support AM3. Its a AM2 mobo.
Click to expand...
Put it this way, his mobo does not support AM3, yes.
But AM3 CPUs do support AM2(+) sockets and DDR2. :p
 
Zubasa said:
Put it this way, his mobo does not support AM3, yes.
But AM3 CPUs do support AM2(+) sockets and DDR2. :p
Click to expand...

No, only select AM2 boards with an BIOS update support AM3, OEM boards and others from smaller companies are stuck at AM2+ or not even.
 
Timonthy said:
No, only select AM2 boards with an BIOS update support AM3, OEM boards and others from smaller companies are stuck at AM2+ or not even.
Click to expand...
That have to do with the Bios support, but what he said is that AM3 simply don't support AM2(+) boards which is wrong.

All that it means is that if they don't give such a rather easy update, the company you brought from just sucks.

Edit:
I really don't see this as a concern as you really shouldn't buy mobos from crappy manufacturers anyways.
Gigabyte is a good company as far as I know and your board had a bios update for AM3 CPUs.
 
Last edited:
Zubasa said:
That have to do with the Bios support, but what he said is that AM3 simply don't support AM2(+) boards which is wrong.

All that it means is that if they don't give such a rather easy update, the company you brought from just sucks.

Edit:
I really don't see this as a concern as you really shouldn't buy mobos from crappy manufacturers anyways.
Gigabyte is a good company as far as I know and your board had a bios update for AM3 CPUs.
Click to expand...
Yes, but how you're saying that all AM2 boards support AM3 isnt correct either.

There are plenty of ASUS AM2 OEM boards don't support AM3, and select older MSI and ECS boards dont have AM3 support either.

So lets just check the CPU support list and stop making assumptions and broad statements.
 
I can assure you that Green edition cards can run with normal cards without issue. However, the normal card should downclock to match the Green Edition's speeds. Use GPU-z to make sure both cards are lowering to the Green Edition clock speeds(550Mhz Core/1375Mhz Shader). However, this problem would lead to crashes and artifacs, not a lack of performance.
 
Last edited:
Timonthy said:
Yes, but how you're saying that all AM2 boards support AM3 isnt correct either.

There are plenty of ASUS AM2 OEM boards don't support AM3, and select older MSI and ECS boards dont have AM3 support either.

So lets just check the CPU support list and stop making assumptions and broad statements.
Click to expand...
I can't believe we are still arguing on this matter. :shadedshu
OEM builds are never meant to be upgraded (they even put warranty void sickers for fools), and yes Asus do often suck in the low-end.

Zubasa said:
But AM3 CPUs do support AM2(+) sockets and DDR2. :p
Click to expand...
Where did you see that I said all AM2 boards support AM3 proc?
All I said was AM3 CPUs support (or are backward compatible with) the AM2(+) socket and thus AM2(+) platform.
 
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