SLI issues with 970's info below

[csanityy]

Those are antistatic bags, they don't keep out times effect

yea but the motherboard is not ancient nor was my bridge i brought over, maybe little over a year. on both rigs that came with bridges

 

[jboydgolfer]

yea but the motherboard is not ancient nor was my bridge i brought over, maybe little over a year. on both rigs that came with bridges

ive been buying asrock boards since they have been in business. I own that exact board you have , its SLI bridge didnt work BNIB. believe what you will, but it happnes, i had to find another i had lying around...i dont know why it didnt work, but theyre cheap, & if its important for you to get SLI working, its a cheap remedy.

You could also try the Asrock software suite i linked earlier, it will tell you what you need updated, if anything.

 

[londiste]

If people would look at the screenshots, the nVidia driver IS saying the system is ready for SLI. That means the different cards don't matter, the motherboard is fine, if either was an issue it would say the system can't use SLI. The nVidia control panel is saying to use SLI, connect a bridge. The problem is for some reason, the nVidia driver doesn't think there is an SLI bridge connected.

Have you tried building SLI? My GTX970s were showing exactly the same about SLI in Nvidia control panel. When drivers were hacked, voila, SLI magically started working. Worth a shot. Different cards not working for SLI is very common.

None of the screenshots really say system is ready for SLI. It just recommends connecting with SLI cable. And if drivers dislike something, they will not detect SLI.

 

[newtekie1]

Have you tried building SLI? My GTX970s were showing exactly the same about SLI in Nvidia control panel. When drivers were hacked, voila, SLI magically started working. Worth a shot. Different cards not working for SLI is very common.

None of the screenshots really say system is ready for SLI. It just recommends connecting with SLI cable. And if drivers dislike something, they will not detect SLI.

It will not give that message unless everything else is ready for SLI except the SLI bridge. If something else was preventing SLI, that message would not be there. Infact, none of the SLI options would be there, instead that screen would just look like this:

And by the way, this is on a Z97 Extreme4, but not a proper SLI setup.

If there is another issue with the SLI that the driver thinks is the problem, it will either tell you or just not have the SLI options available at all. Trust me, I've run SLI every single generation since the 7800GTX. If the driver is saying "connect the SLI connector to enable SLI" then the problem is the SLI Connector(bridge) is not being detected for whatever reason.

 

[jboydgolfer]

Has anyone confirmed OP is ising a double wide sli bridge, or single wide sli bridge? iirc, isnt a double wide required?

Wait double is for 3 or more

 

[newconroer]

An alternative method would be to try a modified driver/patch such as the SLI for different cards
It may eventually turn up some information /provide visibility on what is happening.

 

[newtekie1]

Has anyone confirmed OP is ising a double wide sli bridge, or single wide sli bridge? iirc, isnt a double wide required?

Wait double is for 3 or more

To clarify, there are a few different SLI bridge options.

Single-Wide Bridge - The Orgininal SLI Bridge it uses one SLI Connector per card.
Triple-SLI Bridge- This is the twice as wide, but is still actually functionally a single wide link between all the cards. It just has to be twice as wide so it can connect between all three cards. So it still uses one SLI connector per card.
LED-Bridge - This is a single wide connector still, but running at a slightly faster clock speed to allow more bandwidth between the cards. It still uses one sli connector per card.
HB-Bridge - This is a double wide bridge that also runs at a higher clock speed. Not only does it increase the clock speed, but it also uses two fingers per card for communication.
Two Single-Wide Bridges - This is a homemade solution that some people have used. It uses two of the original single-wide SLI bridges connecting two cards together. It still runs at the lower clock speed, but uses two SLI connectors per card. Most report that this works almost just as well as the HB bridge.

However, for a two cards SLI, a single wide bridge will work for SLI, even with the GTX10 series. So as long as you have a bridge connected, and the bridge is functional, SLI will work no matter what type of bridge you use.

 

[csanityy]

okay so looking at it and ive done a lot sense i went over and i did most if not all and still have issues, i still think that 2 bridges (1 from the manufacturer of his board and mine didnt work is a little odd), i came to the conclusion that even if i did get it to work would the performance even matter, i wanted to get it to work and give my buddy a little extra while gaming but its not working. i just dont have access to my friends pc every day i probably go every month which i appreciate the posts and options gonna save every comment and try again. i want to give up but the final question is, is gtx 970 sli even worth it? would it give remotely more frames where sli is enabled in games? also ill youtube it but not familiar with hacking drivers dont think its needed. lastly, does the 2 cards even thou same series but different brand really make a issue? (attached are the 2 bridges i used)

sorry for the delayed responses been busy, messed up my leg etc

ive been buying asrock boards since they have been in business. I own that exact board you have , its SLI bridge didnt work BNIB. believe what you will, but it happnes, i had to find another i had lying around...i dont know why it didnt work, but theyre cheap, & if its important for you to get SLI working, its a cheap remedy.

You could also try the Asrock software suite i linked earlier, it will tell you what you need updated, if anything.

also to your comment but you can confirm that sli does in fact work on that board. just needs a new bought bridge? and with buying a new bridge should i just spend the 40 dollars for a sturdy nivida one or just a new firm bridge for like 10 bucks worK? or does it matter new to sli if i didnt say that before xD.... i personally just buy the newest top of the line cards when i can so i dont have to sli

 

[newtekie1]

i came to the conclusion that even if i did get it to work would the performance even matter

The sad part, and the reason I stopped using SLI, is that SLI just doesn't scale as well with modern games as it used to. There are a lot of games that just straight up don't get any performance improvement from SLI at all.

also to your comment but you can confirm that sli does in fact work on that board. just needs a new bought bridge? and with buying a new bridge should i just spend the 40 dollars for a sturdy nivida one or just a new firm bridge for like 10 bucks worK? or does it matter new to sli if i didnt say that before xD.... i personally just buy the newest top of the line cards when i can so i dont have to sli

I have a Z97 Extreme4 and can confirm that SLI works on it. I actually SLI'd two GTX970's on that motherboard.

I prefer the solid bridges. The inexpensive ones work fine in my experience.

 

[Upgrayedd]

About buying a bridge, there are 3 different bridge speeds. The standard bridge (400MHz), the LED bridge (540MHz) and the HB bridge (650MHz). The LED bridge was introduced with Maxwell iirc and the cards were made to accept the higher speed of the newer bridge. The HB bridge is compatible with Maxwell I'm just not sure if Maxwell is still running at 540MHz and not 650MHz. I believe its still 540MHz but the HB bridge using both fingers is supposed to alleviate some stutter.

 

[newtekie1]

About buying a bridge, there are 3 different bridge speeds. The standard bridge (400MHz), the LED bridge (540MHz) and the HB bridge (650MHz). The LED bridge was introduced with Maxwell iirc and the cards were made to accept the higher speed of the newer bridge. The HB bridge is compatible with Maxwell I'm just not sure if Maxwell is still running at 540MHz and not 650MHz. I believe its still 540MHz but the HB bridge using both fingers is supposed to alleviate some stutter.

All the bridges are interchangeable, at least to get SLI working. If you put a HB bridge on an older card it will still work, the bridge will just run at the lower clock speed. The same with putting an older original bridge on on newer cards(up to pascal ovbiously). You can run GTX1080Ti's in SLI using the old school single wide bridge.

 

[Upgrayedd]

All the bridges are interchangeable, at least to get SLI working. If you put a HB bridge on an older card it will still work, the bridge will just run at the lower clock speed. The same with putting an older original bridge on on newer cards(up to pascal ovbiously). You can run GTX1080Ti's in SLI using the old school single wide bridge.

Maxwell* cause of (540MHz SLI fingers)

 

[advanced3]

Bridge is bad or one of the bridge contacts on the GPU side is dirty. Take the cards out and rub the SLI contacts clean with alcohol.