Cannot get SLI working on 980's

[Excalabur50]

So peeps tried just about everything old driver, beta driver swapped the bridge position swapped bridges, there is nothing to enable or disable in the bios running the latest bios, swapped card position can ONLY use PCIE 1 and 3 two is blocked by first card
My M/B is an MSI Z97 Gaming 9 the cards are MSI GTX980 Gaming editions and an AX850 PSU
This is all I get in the control panel

Anyone got any ideas cause I don't no do Nvidia

 

[YouWhat]

First up, is there any bios updates for that board?

Have you previously had any dual card system using that motherboard?

Have you tried resetting the bios?

Do you have a spare hard drive lying around you can install a temp copy of Windows on to test that it works with a clean copy of windows?

Have you removed all previous drivers from system and cleaned them out properly?

I see you said you have tried a different SLi connector, did you try using a different SLi finger on the cards?

Have you loaded up the latest motherboard / chipset drivers (not just gone with default Windows 1s)?

Is there some software that was installed with the cards that could be causing this?

Ideally you will need to strip down to the essentials on the board, and if possible, a clean install of windows so that you can test everything from scratch.

Have you any overclocks on CPU? if so reset bios and test again.

Have you tested your RAM?

These are just a few things off the top of my head you will need to look at and answer to look to solving this issue.

Good luck and hope some of this helps solve your problem.

 

[Excalabur50]

First up, is there any bios updates for that board?

Have you previously had any dual card system using that motherboard?

Have you tried resetting the bios?

Do you have a spare hard drive lying around you can install a temp copy of Windows on to test that it works with a clean copy of windows?

Have you removed all previous drivers from system and cleaned them out properly?

I see you said you have tried a different SLi connector, did you try using a different SLi finger on the cards?

Have you loaded up the latest motherboard / chipset drivers (not just gone with default Windows 1s)?

Is there some software that was installed with the cards that could be causing this?

Ideally you will need to strip down to the essentials on the board, and if possible, a clean install of windows so that you can test everything from scratch.

Have you any overclocks on CPU? if so reset bios and test again.

Have you tested your RAM?

These are just a few things off the top of my head you will need to look at and answer to look to solving this issue.

Good luck and hope some of this helps solve your problem.

Everything is brand new with new windows installed and tried different fingers as well tried different bios and drivers no go and it seems like it may be a board issue my mate has a Gaming 9 and he is running a pair of PNY 970's and his wont work either

 

[YouWhat]

It sounding like the 980's are in need of a manufacturer vBIOS update then.

 

[Warchild]

Everything is brand new with new windows installed and tried different fingers as well tried different bios and drivers no go and it seems like it may be a board issue my mate has a Gaming 9 and he is running a pair of PNY 970's and his wont work either

Friend of mine has Gaming 9 and also 970s and has no issues with sli at all. I think its a bios update required.

As I said before. I always had issues with SLI disappearing when installing new drivers. However you should try a driver removal tool and then re install them. Are there any onboard switches like the EVGA Z97 that allows you to switch off a PCIE slot?

EVGA Classy board allows you to disable one board or the other via small switch on the motherboard itself to troubleshoot issues such as SLI. Maybe your Gaming 9 AC board has this also?

 

[Excalabur50]

Friend of mine has Gaming 9 and also 970s and has no issues with sli at all. I think its a bios update required.

As I said before. I always had issues with SLI disappearing when installing new drivers. However you should try a driver removal tool and then re install them. Are there any onboard switches like the EVGA Z97 that allows you to switch off a PCIE slot?

EVGA Classy board allows you to disable one board or the other via small switch on the motherboard itself to troubleshoot issues such as SLI. Maybe your Gaming 9 AC board has this also?

Have updated bios and used DDU tried 344.75- 344.80 and it doesn't have switches to allow turning off gpu lanes now here is the strange bit if my mate uses slot one and two they work if its slot one and three it wont work but my cards only fit in one and three

 

[Warchild]

Any chance you can test your cards on his mobo or vice versa? unless you already tried that and I missed it.

 

[Kushiro]

Not sure whether or not you have tried to replicate this problem on your mpower but perhaps try and see what happens? unless of course your old rig is already gone.

 

[Warchild]

I'm beginning to think either the SLI bridge is borked/the drivers are borked or the bridge connectors on one card are.

Its clear the PC recognises both cards as you can see them in the physx config on the SLI window above.

phyx> Geforce GTX 980 (2)

 

[Kushiro]

While I would like to blame it on the drivers too, it would seem that it is fine.

I tried my tri-sli gtx 980s Reference models and they were fine, tried 2 Gigabyte G1 gaming 980's, Asus Strix 980 etc all fine.

Though they didnt do my 680m SLI any favours in regards to performance, getting spikes and random fps drops.


I originally though it was the sli bridge too, however OP said that they tried a different one already.

 

[SPS]

my mate uses slot one and two they work if its slot one and three it wont work but my cards only fit in one and three

Surely you have answered the question here? Does this board not support SLI in 1 and 3?

I know the board itself only supports 2-way SLI but 3-way crossfire.

 

[MrKambo]

Surely you have answered the question here? Does this board not support SLI in 1 and 3?

I know the board itself only supports 2-way SLI but 3-way crossfire.

if slot 3 is 4X then it wont, or am i wrong?

 

[Warchild]

quoted from MSI page

"OPTIMIZED FOR MULTIPLE GRAPHICS CARDS
Get up to 3 PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, with optimal placement for better fitting and airflow. That way, you can enjoy the best graphics at the highest framerate jumping off from your screen when running a NVIDIA® SLI™ or AMD CrossFire™ gaming setup."

 

[MrKambo]

it also says

Gen3 (16, 0, 0), (8, 8, 0), (8, 4, 4)

So if you plug a card in the bottom slot you automatically get 4X which nVidia say wont work with SLI

I might be wrong, but im sure im not!

 

[Warchild]

Why can you not fit the GPU in slot 2?

if you purchased a gaming board from MSI and also the gaming series GPU, then surely MSI had SLI in mind when they designed the cooler. From the looks of the card its a 2 slot space so it should fit in slot 2 but with no space in between the cards.

 

[Kaapstad]

Do you have any other connectors you could use like Displayport ?

Have you rebooted after installation ?

Are you using 344.75 or better ?

If your mobo allows it turn off the second card and install drivers first then turn on second card and enable SLI, failing that remove the second card if it can not be turned off and then refit after driver install. For a long time I had to do this with my GTX 690s.

What happens when you put the monitor lead in the other card ?

 

[Kushiro]

Read OP?

So peeps tried just about everything old driver, beta driver swapped the bridge position swapped bridges, there is nothing to enable or disable in the bios running the latest bios, swapped card position can ONLY use PCIE 1 and 3 two is blocked by first card
My M/B is an MSI Z97 Gaming 9 the cards are MSI GTX980 Gaming editions and an AX850 PSU
This is all I get in the control panel

Anyone got any ideas cause I don't no do Nvidia

Display ports are what Nvidia is actually having problems with, HDMI has been fine.

OP if you want I could perhaps arrange for 2 gtx 980s, along with an sli bridge to be sent over to you to assist you in diagnosis, however I would have to ask you to handle them with care and pay for the freight costs associated with sending them to you and for their return. I wont ask you to give me a deposit or anything, as they are spares and frankly I want to trust you.

 

[Kaapstad]

Read OP?



Display ports are what Nvidia is actually having problems with, HDMI has been fine.

Sat here using a PC with

4 way SLI 980s

@2160p

Using Displayport @60htz

With no problems at all.

The reason I asked the OP if he could try DisplayPort is it uses a different connector on the cards and also has higher bandwidth as well.

NV cards can sometimes be a real pain with SLI depending on which output you are using.

 

[Excalabur50]

Can't use display port yet as my monitor is still missing in the post, my mates system is using display port and he has the exact same issue he repairs companies servers for a living and he can't get anything to work either has been passed on to MSI they are looking into it and the suspect is a bios issue

 

[Mysterae]

How about connecting your monitor to the second 980? Have you tried it without the SLI bridge? It won't work, but it should give you an error message saying it's missing. Also, does that motherboard have onboard video and is it disabled? Lucid Virtu MVP won't work with SLI and can cause issues.

What CPU are you running? Was there not something about the number of lanes a particular CPU would allow?