Mixed Vendor SLI??

[Heinrich]

Anyone know a sure-fire BIOS that lets 2 different manufacturer's cards work in SLI mode? I have an XFX 6800GT & an eVGA 6800GT. I have flashed each other's BIOS, I have downloaded Gainward based on advice from other fora...each card works fine individually with any of these BIOS but when in SLI mode the LCD goes blank loading Windows, the CRT says "invalid frequency."

This is the same card - if you put them side by side you would not notice any difference except the normal variation of solder points.

 

[FragTek]

I don't think we have an SLi guru at this point... I've been looking in to it but I can't be arsed to rework my waterloop again and buy new low-profile blocks. Only thing holding me back now.

 

[PV5150]

Interesting question, as far as I know the cards need to be identical in order for SLI to work. I'll have a bit of a google and see what I can find, welcome to the forum btw

 

[FarFarAway]

Anyone know a sure-fire BIOS that lets 2 different manufacturer's cards work in SLI mode? I have an XFX 6800GT & an eVGA 6800GT. I have flashed each other's BIOS, I have downloaded Gainward based on advice from other fora...each card works fine individually with any of these BIOS but when in SLI mode the LCD goes blank loading Windows, the CRT says "invalid frequency."

This is the same card - if you put them side by side you would not notice any difference except the normal variation of solder points.

The cards HAVE to be from the same manufactorer (nvidia partner) to work in SLi. Nvidia and all their partners say that. That is all they say. So I would not risk it, but you could give it a go I spose

 

[balilu]

...each card works fine individually with any of these BIOS but when in SLI mode the LCD goes blank loading Windows, the CRT says "invalid frequency."

This is the same card - if you put them side by side you would not notice any difference except the normal variation of solder points.

what do you mean by "..goes blank loading Windows.."?? in post screen does it work?? if it works during post i guess that they are working good and the only bad thing is the driver when loading windows so i suggest reformatting.

btw this may be silly but did you make the switch between the pci express in theright way?? and the sli bridge is connected correctly?? did you try swapping vgas??

 

[JN]

AFAIK the cards have to be exactly the same, right down to Make and Model.

You *might* get it working with two different cards, but its all down to pot luck.

 

[FarFarAway]

AFAIK the cards have to be exactly the same, right down to Make and Model.

You *might* get it working with two different cards, but its all down to pot luck.

And also some companies say that cards with newer BIOS's won't work together

 

[|3ourne]

as far as i know , if u flash both cards with the SAME bios and their hardware is the same , they will work fine with each other . I personally know of two ppl which an XFX and Albatron 6600GT running SLI fine .

 

[NickS]

rele? hmm. if there different solder points then the board layout is different, isnt it?

 

[JN]

as far as i know , if u flash both cards with the SAME bios and their hardware is the same , they will work fine with each other . I personally know of two ppl which an XFX and Albatron 6600GT running SLI fine .

Im guessing things like the onboard memory would have to be the same type/speed..

 

[Heinrich]

Hi, I guess there is absolutely no way to make sure that the cards are exactly he same, but, if you look at them, they look exactly the same. What I meant by " normal variation of solder points" is if you look at a solder point, most solder points have a "unique character". If you made 10 hamburger patties of the same exact weight and size they would still each look slightly different than the other. That's what I'm referring to. The pins, points, connections, heatsink, stamps on the capacitors, memroy brand, are ALL the same.

While I have heard from other boards "yes the combo will work" I was never able to get these two cards to work. I wonder if there is a particular BIOS that will work. I wonder what else about these cards could be unique?

Yes when in SLI mode I see a picture on the screen until windows loads. The LCD goes blank. Hooking up a CRT I see "invalid scan frequency."

Yes I also did try a complete format and fresh install of everything. Now I have to call India for my activation code from Microsoft, and I get the 3rd degree from someone I can barely understand - most annoying. but I digress

 

[limqareb]

all the solder points points are 99.9% identical, the only diffrence is the ammount. are you sure you connected the cards properly, and yes they have to be sli enalbled

 

[Dav0s]

have you hooked the monitor up to the right card??

 

[Arkanoid]

Dave, you noob you cant becuase the cable goes into both gfx cards and form one cable.... so that cant be the problem.

More than lightly its the drivers of you PC, and fresh installing windows XP was prob not the best idea, because SLi wasnt out before windows XP release (or SP2).

What I would do is only plug in one card and then download the latest GFX drivers, then add the second card and turn to SLi mode, tell me if this helps.

 

[Dav0s]

bah i dont know anything about SLI but i was pretty darn sure that you plug it into the primary graphics card. Crossfire uses a joint cable.

 

[enVias]

Dave, you noob you cant becuase the cable goes into both gfx cards and form one cable.... so that cant be the problem.

It's very interesting that you have called Dave a noob, because infact the cable does only go into the primary card.

noob :0wned:

 

[FarFarAway]

It's very interesting that you have called Dave a noob, because infact the cable does only go into the primary card.

noob :0wned:

Yep Ausin and Dave are indeed correct. Sli works off of a bridge chip on the GPU itself and communicates with the other cards through the Scan Link Interface. Tihs requires only one output cable. In fact, you cannot even run more than one monitor in SLI mode, but nvidia are working on that

 

[Dav0s]

w00t i love it when im right

 

[FarFarAway]

w00t i love it when im right

Don't get used to it it doesn't happen often :smileysho

 

[Dav0s]

kemp i am always right. i am blessed with a mind full of useless information and i use it at every opportunity.

for example in the early 1900's it was legal for when to beat their wives with a stick..as long as it was no wider than the width of their thumb (maybe it should have been a rule of wrist?)