Need some serious help here, guys.

exaisle

New member
Alright so I know this will be kind of long... but please bear with me with some of my back story so you guys know what's been going on.

First, my system specs:

Motherboard:
Asus Rampage IV Extreme

Processor:
Core i7 3930k
Cooled by a Zalman Heatsink

PSU:
Rosewill LIGHTNING 1300W Continuous Modular Power Supply

RAM:
Crucial Ballistix Elite 4 GB x 8 (32GB Total) @ 1866 MHz

Graphics: SLI Setup 2014
2x EVGA GeForce GTX 780ti K|NGP|N in SLI

Sound:
Soundblaster Fatality Professional

Case:
Thermaltake Armor+

Mouse:
Logitech g500

Monitor:
Asus VG278HE @ 144hz

Recently I upgraded my video cards from two XFX Radeon HD 6970s in crossfire to two EVGA GTX 780ti K|NGP|Ns in SLI. My system ran pretty much everything graphically cranked up in every game at 100+ FPS except Elder Scrolls Online and in rare instances on some servers Battlefield 4. I decided to end my waiting streak on waiting for the supposed GTX 790 in April and ended up getting two kingpin cards for SLI.

I got the cards April 7th and immediately noticed I was having issues so I posted a thread on EVGA's forum. You will probably gain a better understanding of reading my troubleshooting process here: http://forums.evga.com/So-the-kingpins-are-set-up-Pics-inside-and-a-question-for-you-m2146550.aspx If you go to this link pictures of my benchmarks will be there.

Long story short if you DON'T want to read the thread:

I benchmarked the cards in Unigen and Firestrike and got pretty bad (terrible, really) scores in both. I tested my FPS in games and it was also terrible. People on EVGA's forum noticed something was wrong but no one could seem to figure anything out; that was, until, I noticed that one of the LED indicators on my motherboard that shows PCI-E lane activity wasn't showing green. This meant that the second K|NGP|N card wasn't jiving with the system. I ended up chalking this up to a south bridge problem on the motherboard because #1 My system worked fine just a few hours earlier than my install of these new cards. #2, My south bridge fan wasn't spinning as it had before and #3, the cards were both auto-OCing themselves as they should and getting hot during testing. They were also both recognized as being configured in SLI from the NVidia control panel, from PrecisionX, and from the overlay on my G19s keyboard showing details about the cards speeds, loads, and temps. Updating to the latest BIOS, chipset drivers, video card drivers (I tested a bunch of different versions), LAN drivers, and even audio drivers didn't help me at all). I tested the cards in SLI with each other's power cables, swapped lanes, and ran each card individually. Same problem. I also had bad boot times (5-6 mins on average) but this had been the case since about February so that wasn't unusual.

I submitted an RMA in to Asus a few days later. MAN was that the WORST experience I have ever had with an RMA in my entire life. It took about ten phone calls (including one with a manager), 3 submissions to get approved for an advanced RMA, many emails back-and-forth to their stocking department, and filling out RMA request forms about 5 times because of something being supposedly "wrong" on my form or the 30 day wait period expiring.

Fast forward 3 1/2 months of me playing on a single K|NGP|n with crappy FPS the entire time... A few days ago I finally got my new board. Immediately I noticed that in SLI my GPUs were both lighting up green on my PCI-E switch board. Activity on the lanes is definitely a good thing. Long story short I had the same issues with the cards as I did before... only this time it seemed to be worse. Here is a snapshot of my unigen benchmark with my CPU clocked at an easily achievable 4.0 GHz:


https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-PDzvRKMBubc/U9lcaj5uWlI/AAAAAAAAA5U/wevqONOpQr8/w503-h894-no/unigen.jpg


Not only should ONE of these cards get a better score (in my opinion), it's absolutely mind-boggling that two in SLI would get this terrible of a score. Especially with a minimum FPS of TEN.

After testing with no avail in firestrike and a few games I decided it was time for a format, especially since there COULD be a possible driver conflict and my boot times were still about 5-6 minutes. Even driver sweeper could miss something when you are trying to get rid of AMD drivers and put on Nvidia ones I assumed. So I installed Windows 7 Ultimate again. Same issues but this time around I noticed that my chipset driver wouldn't install at all. I, (along with a friend from the EVGA forums named Sajin) tried to diagnose a problem. I was getting bings (!) in device manager shown here:


https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-K2QwzDMDpPo/U9nreZsx5zI/AAAAAAAAA9k/8nNiy-N5aCs/w753-h894-no/wtf9.jpg


This meant that something wasn't agreeing with me installing my chipset driver. Windows wouldn't do it by itself either. I uninstalled each one of these devices from my machine, used driver sweeper to get rid of anything related to my motherboard, rebooted, and tried to install the chipset driver again. Not only did it NOT work, it also cut out my internet. I pulled out my sound card just to see if that could possibly be the problem. It wasn't. I checked my voltages... Sajin suggested they were normal.

Yesterday I put on Windows 8 Professional to see if there was a problem with the OS I used (I was out of ideas at this point) and that didn't work either. While I didn't have any more blips in the task manager I still had issues with the chipset not installing correctly. I decided to take both Kingpin cards out. I put in my old 6970 and... voila! Instantly I had the ability to install my chipset driver. Even with the old Nvidia graphics driver installed I tested it in team fortress 2 and came up with 200 FPS (in an empty server which isn't a great test but I just wanted to see if there was any change). I thought the issue was fixed.

An EVGA tech told me to try each K|NGP|N card individually to make sure they were the problem. I did. It didn't work well with either card in either lane with either sets of power plugs. I had 25-50 FPS in TF2 on average with VERY random spikes to 200-300 for a second or two.

Now at this point you'd probably assume that my issue would be solved... and you would be wrong. Last night I submitted an RMA request for both K|NGP|N cards. When I'd asked if they'd be refurbished his answer to me was "We prefer to call them FACTORY RECERTIFIED cards". I said "oh so you mean refurbished then, right?" His response was "Uh.. yeah I guess". He said if I had submitted my request within the 30 day period I would have gotten two brand new ones no questions asked. I said "I bought these brand new for almost 2 thousand dollars. When I got them and had problems with them I saved you guys money by troubleshooting other parts of my system and taking the time to make sure (being the I.T. person I am) that I was 100% certain it was the cards. I could have just lied and told you it was and gotten what I wanted from the very beginning. So technically you're punishing me for doing the right thing". They told me to call back Monday.

Naturally, tonight, I expected to be able to remove the NVidia drivers (for now until the new cards got here) and install the AMD ones and game on a stable machine for a few weeks. Wrong. I joined the game today with people actually in the server and my FPS goes from 120 or so (when no ones on my screen) to about 18-25 when anything is on my screen. Something else is definitely wrong here and I cannot for the life of me figure out what it is.

Maybe you can! I hope so. I've been out of a stable machine without the ability to game properly since April. I start my third year of college August 25th and I need to be able to do work on my machine running stable and to game in my down time properly.

Here is my SPECCY snapshot. Tell me if you notice something odd:


http://speccy.piriform.com/results/o7XT3tONrN6UqoEbsdKitL0


Much love for anyone who tries to lend a hand. This is not a software issue to the best of my knowledge. This is something internal.
 
Can you post screenshots - photos of your bios please so we can see all the tweaks / changes / settings

I need to check a few things - also can you post a system photo too please :)
 
Can you post screenshots - photos of your bios please so we can see all the tweaks / changes / settings

I need to check a few things - also can you post a system photo too please :)

Ah... TTL. Love your videos man. Good to see you and thanks for your help. Here are 2 PC snapshots I took a minute ago along with about 10 from the BIOS. Everything in the BIOS is loaded optimized defaults.


https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-JnF2g9ZtA6k/U9_7HapfqMI/AAAAAAAAA-c/E2qjFHdr8qw/w622-h829-no/pc1.jpg[/img ]

[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-KHjzQEBXfiw/U9_7IwIOtMI/AAAAAAAAA-k/CSbvN6FVn0Q/w622-h829-no/pc2.jpg

bios1.jpg


https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-jjpmUnPm_hk/U9_7Nrf4uRI/AAAAAAAAA-0/hjvyKDZ2tS4/w622-h829-no/bios2.jpg[/img
]
[img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-IOSvjWM9KLI/U9_7OfMz-mI/AAAAAAAAA_A/D_8haWHUIz4/w622-h829-no/bios3.jpg

bios4.jpg


bios5.jpg


bios6.jpg


bios7.jpg


bios8.jpg


bios9.jpg


bios10.jpg


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Did you check the SLI bridge?


No. I didn't feel this was necessary since the kingpin cards didn't work properly either by themselves or in SLI mode. Thanks, though.
 
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can you post screenshots of GPU-Z when the gpus are under load in furmark.
If its not overheating, then maybe the traces on the pci-e tab somehow got damaged, which made the cards run with less lanes (x1?)
 
One more important thing I forgot to mention before is on the first motherboard I had my 1000W SmartUPS on the floor hooked up to my machine to protect against power surges. When on idle, my machine ran fine. 100%. When I started to benchmark on firestrike or unigen it would BEEEEEEP as if it was being overloaded. If I ended the test it would stop. I've had it disconnected from my machine ever since.
This could, after all, be a PSU issue. Even with both of those cards I'd think it wouldn't try to pull that much current on a benchmark. I'm just not sure what is going on.

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can you post screenshots of GPU-Z when the gpus are under load in furmark.
If its not overheating, then maybe the traces on the pci-e tab somehow got damaged, which made the cards run with less lanes (x1?)

Sure. Which test do you want me to run and for how long? Keep in mind I'm using a single 6970 at the moment and not the kingpins.
 
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Have you tried Intelburn Test


Nope. Last time I tried that was on my i7 920 and the system overheated and shut down. lol. This was with no OC.

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Just hooked the Kingpins back up since someone on the GeForce forums wanted me to take out the 6970 (AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!) and put them back in for testing. He wanted me to run PrecisionX (which I guess has been taken down now because guru3d said they copied rivatuner's code... great) and monitor my hardware with it. Chipset driver is reported as missing again (by Windows)
with these cards installed.

Then I tried to run Unigen. Got another error which from a quick search online told me I needed Visual C++ 2010 SP1 redist. Installed it and Unigen still doesn't run. I'll try a restart. Here is a snapshot:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-...g/iNBTuoXAJ3Y/w801-h465-no/chipsetmissing.jpg
 
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Is Windows 100% updated? Your screen shot says it needs setting up... something within Windows is conflicting with your chipset drivers the moment you connect the Kingpins, as for MSVCP100.dll (MicroSoft Visual C Plus 100), it's a generic Microsoft .dll (Dynamic Link Library) it can also be found in the .Net Frame work packages and also in most of the Windows updates.
 
Is Windows 100% updated? Your screen shot says it needs setting up... something within Windows is conflicting with your chipset drivers the moment you connect the Kingpins, as for MSVCP100.dll (MicroSoft Visual C Plus 100), it's a generic Microsoft .dll (Dynamic Link Library) it can also be found in the .Net Frame work packages and also in most of the Windows updates.

Windows is not 100% updated. I chose not to do it as updates have been a mixed bag in the past. I have no problems updating it if I get things sorted first. I had the same issue in win7 (albeit I had no updates there except SP1). I don't have much installed at all on here so the only driver I can possibly think of conflicting with my Kingpins would have to be some mobo driver from Asus. This driver would also have to be conflicting with my 6970s, too as they have the same issue.

I already downloaded the Visual C++ 2010 driver and I'm still having the same error. I just hooked the Kingpins back up tonight and my mobo chipset driver disappeared again.

Notice the blip (!) PCi Simple Communications Controller and the windows error (no chipset) in this screenshot:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-...AAAABBM/wTPh4hb3MhE/w1591-h895-no/desktop.jpg

I don't see anything out of the ordinary under installed programs. These problems are just so strange...
 
i would grab msi afterburner and hwmonitor.
set them up together to display cpu and gpu usage %
then id run msi kombustor, one of the games you have issues with or a benchmark test. i would do firestrike versus ugeine (has to be a 32 bit game/app)

it sounds like the cpu is for some reason working at a rediculously high % level so the cards cant work properly.
i really doubt that is the issue. but i would have to test it.

i wouldnt say that if your hd cards worked fine. and would have just blamed incorrect drivers for the sb which windows probably installed instead of the correct ones.
but as you said even your hd cards are now suffering thats one of the few things i can imagine.
the only other thing i could think of is the psu has bad caps. and now has some pretty horrendous ripple so the syetem isnt gettting all the power it needs.

i know that i can oc my system stable at a number of voltages. and at the lowest voltages i bench mark slower than the higer ones. so its a possibility...

drivers (i blame windows for installing wrong ones.)
make 100% sure you know exactly the drivers you need and go manually download the intsaller. uninstall the old ones and tell it to delete the files too (should have a little check box when you say uninstall)
then just reinstall them.

he dll file. you can search for on your pc copy it then paste it in the folder with the exe your trying to run.

p.s

ugine bench tests will not run in 1080p on my pc if msi after burner is running.. i have to either use alower res or close msi after burner (just incase you get the same issue)
 
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i would grab msi afterburner and hwmonitor.
set them up together to display cpu and gpu usage %
then id run msi kombustor, one of the games you have issues with or a benchmark test. i would do firestrike versus ugeine (has to be a 32 bit game/app)

I would try this if I could install my chipset. :( HWMonitor is installed but shows nothing out of the ordinary.


it sounds like the cpu is for some reason working at a rediculously high % level so the cards cant work properly.
i really doubt that is the issue. but i would have to test it.

I can't test them under stress but I'm anywhere between 3-5% load on idle.


i wouldnt say that if your hd cards worked fine. and would have just blamed incorrect drivers for the sb which windows probably installed instead of the correct ones.
but as you said even your hd cards are now suffering thats one of the few things i can imagine.
the only other thing i could think of is the psu has bad caps. and now has some pretty horrendous ripple so the syetem isnt gettting all the power it needs.

The bad caps thing might be an issue but I don't see any other signs that the PSU could possibly be failing (at least today... there's always tomorrow).

i know that i can oc my system stable at a number of voltages. and at the lowest voltages i bench mark slower than the higer ones. so its a possibility...

My system is stock right now. I've never manually OCd this processor since I got it back in 2011. It's always been an auto-OC built in. I never felt the need to OC it.

drivers (i blame windows for installing wrong ones.)
make 100% sure you know exactly the drivers you need and go manually download the intsaller. uninstall the old ones and tell it to delete the files too (should have a little check box when you say uninstall)
then just reinstall them.

This could be.. but I did manually install everything. As for the motherboard chipset driver.. it installs with the 6970.. disappears with the kingpin. There's no point in uninstalling it because it uninstalls itself. Without prompting me I'm not really sure how that's possible.


ugine bench tests will not run in 1080p on my pc if msi after burner is running.. i have to either use alower res or close msi after burner (just incase you get the same issue)

Thanks for the heads up on this one. Unfortunately I can't even open Unigen let alone try to run it, lol.
 
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If its not a problem try to hire an other PSU and check it with that. But first i would make a reinstallation of the windows with default settings in BIOS. (We can sort out with that bad bios settings as well). Then I manually istall all of the drivers and the updates for windows, then i would test it with one Kingpin then two. If theres a problem it will be show there is a hardware issue insted of softwear. Its hard to figure out what could be the problem, but it seems to be a bit complicated at this point.. I hope we can help you with this.

ps.: never give it up!
 
If its not a problem try to hire an other PSU and check it with that. But first i would make a reinstallation of the windows with default settings in BIOS. (We can sort out with that bad bios settings as well). Then I manually istall all of the drivers and the updates for windows, then i would test it with one Kingpin then two. If theres a problem it will be show there is a hardware issue insted of softwear. Its hard to figure out what could be the problem, but it seems to be a bit complicated at this point.. I hope we can help you with this.

ps.: never give it up!

I appreciate the reply. I'm not 100% against formatting don't get me wrong.. but I have done it three times with no different results each time. With default bios settings as well :confused:. I know from his reviews that Tom uses a Rampage IV Extreme like I do so I'm really curious, based on the information in this thread so far, what he thinks could be going on.

And believe me I hope you guys can too, bro. Thanks to everyone for their input.

--------------------------

Also... it seems I don't have opengl 3.2 support? lol!

edit: Tried another test... guess I don't have OpenGL 4.0 support either.


wtf.jpg


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Just ran the MSI CPU burn-in test... Doesn't seem to use a ton of CPU as I thought it would... although it got a bit warmer in here. It's also only running at 1.15GHz? lol. Someone run this and tell me I'm not crazy.

wtf.jpg
 
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First question, is the PSU to be trusted?
Secondly, if I'm not mistaken your board should have a 6-pin connector for SLI/Crossfire configs have you plugged a power cable there?
 
Have you tried the Ti's in a different rig?

Might be a good thing to do. The basis of fault finding is to eliminate as many possible caues as possible. Having another rig is alway handy to swap in/out parts to test and varify.

Tbh I don't really know much about PCI-E etc but could it be a cpu issue? For some reason its not governing the gpus or pci-e lanes properly? I know 3930k's are not PCI-E 3. maybe your nice new pci-e3 are up setting your cpu somehow.
 
First question, is the PSU to be trusted?
Secondly, if I'm not mistaken your board should have a 6-pin connector for SLI/Crossfire configs have you plugged a power cable there?


I don't have any reason thus far not to trust the PSU though I've been wrong in the past. The only thing extra required on my board for SLI/Crossfire is for when you're running quad sli or quadfire.

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Have you tried the Ti's in a different rig?

Might be a good thing to do. The basis of fault finding is to eliminate as many possible caues as possible. Having another rig is alway handy to swap in/out parts to test and varify.

Tbh I don't really know much about PCI-E etc but could it be a cpu issue? For some reason its not governing the gpus or pci-e lanes properly? I know 3930k's are not PCI-E 3. maybe your nice new pci-e3 are up setting your cpu somehow.

I understand what you mean. Unfortunately the only other machine to rip apart is my dad's which is virtually identical but I'm not going to bother ripping his machine apart. He wouldn't go for it, haha. I don't know anyone else with a rig that could handle two of my cards. My version of the 3930k isn't PCI-E3 as it's the C1 version. A C2 version came out later that supported it (still can't figure out that one).
 
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I don't have any reason thus far not to trust the PSU though I've been wrong in the past. The only thing extra required on my board for SLI/Crossfire is for when you're running quad sli or quadfire.
I'm just trying to eliminate everything from the list. Normal troubleshooting has failed.
Btw did you upgrade your bios with bios flashback feature?
 
I'm just trying to eliminate everything from the list. Normal troubleshooting has failed.
Btw did you upgrade your bios with bios flashback feature?

I understand perfectly man. My BIOS version is 3901 (latest). It came with this board when I RMAd it.

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Tiny tom is ON LINEEEEEE WOOOOTTTT

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Now it seems as if the only thing I have under Nvidia Control Panel are the stereoscopic 3d options... WTF

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My CPU utilization is all over the place in afterburner. Have to go to bed now I'm so tired it's 6:30 AM.
 
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Can you report those pictures with IMG tags please....

I actually think this is a user or software issue tbh.
 
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