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Graphics Nvidia SLI crashing. - Finally Fixed!

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by .//TuNdRa, 15 May 2012.

  1. .//TuNdRa

    .//TuNdRa Resident Bulldozer Guru

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    So after I finally got my rig back together; Another issue dropped upon me.

    I get a wonderful set of issues, Namely; If I enable SLI within Nvidia Control Panel; the screen goes black, and left long enough, restarts claiming it's blue-screened. I've already assaulted the machine with driver sweeper, and gone so far to restore from an image I made when I first installed windows 7 on the machine in the first place. Still the same issue.

    Torn down both GPUs and replaced the thermal paste with Chillfactor III, previously I was using MX4, which can be conductive in some circumstances, so I had to remove that from the equasion.

    The crash itself points to nvlddmkm.sys, which a bit of googling showed to be usually related to bugged drivers or dying hardware. Fun.

    Anyone have any ideas? I'd rather not have to scrap one or both of my cards. Or RMA them with KFA2, simply because I don't want to get caught out again. Sadly I don't have another machine to try them in.

    EDIT; so I'm testing each GPU seperately, each one is getting loaded to the full with Furmark and then left to see what the temp caps out at. So far; they seem okay on Stock volts. It might just be drivers hating on me for trying SLI on AMD. Even though it's meant to be supported.
     
    Last edited: 21 May 2012
  2. mikeyman198

    mikeyman198 Lets pretend this is hilarious.

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    It worked before didn't it? No idea why it wouldn't work now, especially since you've tested both cards and they're fine. All I can recommend is a format and reinstall of Windows.
     
  3. Blogins

    Blogins Panda have Guns

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    I've got to ask because it happened to me; you did put the SLI bridge in place?
     
  4. .//TuNdRa

    .//TuNdRa Resident Bulldozer Guru

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    Already basically formatted, SLI bridge was in place, whenever I do get it setup in SLI; I just get constant looping driver crashes, even at upped voltages. I think these two GPU's just don't want to play well in SLI anymore. Both can do astounding well on stock, but upped voltages were needed to keep them stable in SLI.

    I think I might just have to call it a day. Sadly two 550Ti's won't sell for much, even though these two aren't far off 570 performance.
     
  5. Burnout21

    Burnout21 Mmmm biscuits

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    This is the problem i've been facing with my GTX280's, the driver just falls over when SLI is enabled.

    Exactly the same file is in question aswell as the BSOD.
     
  6. mrbungle

    mrbungle Undercooked chicken giver

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    Have a play flashing the bios of the graphics cards and or motherboard?
     
  7. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    Try and older driver that worked before
     
  8. Chicken76

    Chicken76 Minimodder

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    Could it be a bad SLI bridge you're having?

    Have you tried swapping the cards? (putting the bottom one on top)
     
  9. .//TuNdRa

    .//TuNdRa Resident Bulldozer Guru

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    Tried older drivers, BIOS updated the motherboard to the latest (From the F6F beta Bios to the F6 Release bios.) Flashed the bios from my first card across to the second to get it to work in the first place (Long story.)

    Tried a Windows reinstall too. 301 drivers are stable, just the second I hit SLI; it all goes to crap. I can enable SLI with the 301 drivers, but anything that puts load on the cards then causes juddering, or locks the machine up into a driver-crash cycle, with the drivers crashing, dropping output to my screen, I get output long enough to see a broken windows desktop, then it driver crashes again. Then loops. Into Infinity.

    Admittedly; I'm curious if my motherboard is supplying enough voltage to the cards, because I have to up the core voltages to keep them stable in SLI when I can get it to work, once in a blue moon. Whereas; Singularly; I can achieve some crazy overclocks on near stock voltage without any issues.

    Also tried swapping the cards around. I only have the one SLI bridge, so I'm not 100% sure if that's the cause, it's a little creased, but that shouldn't cause a problem with a ribbon cable, should it?

    I may try enabling SLI later without the bridge in place. That way it should show if it's the bridge at fault.
     
    Last edited: 16 May 2012
  10. mrbungle

    mrbungle Undercooked chicken giver

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    I would also see if you can enable sli without the bridge.

    Shouldn't see that much of a hit I wouldn't have thought.
     
  11. noizdaemon666

    noizdaemon666 I'm Od, Therefore I Pwn

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    I think I have an SLI bridge knocking about not doing anything, I can post it to you if you want? That would eliminate the problem being the SLI bridge entirely.
     
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  12. Chicken76

    Chicken76 Minimodder

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    Are you doing overclocking on the CPU? If so, try at stock speed.

    If that doesn't work, try increasing all the voltages a little bit, especially the HT-link one. (with the CPU at stock speeds core/imc/ht-link)
     
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  13. .//TuNdRa

    .//TuNdRa Resident Bulldozer Guru

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    CPU is at stock, Turbo is disabled, Cool & Quiet is enabled though, but this thing will manage 3.4 undervolted if I'm careful with the voltages, so I'm not convinced it's the processor at fault (for once)

    HT link is inter-core & to FSB, surely that would show up from other reasons. The only other thing I can think of as an issue is that my soundcard is suddenly conflicting, consdering it's sat the leftmost PCE-E 16x socket (4x electrically.)

    I'll give upped voltages a spin later tonight. I need to see if I can't replace the TIM on the northbridge anyhow.
     
  14. Cerberus90

    Cerberus90 Car Spannerer

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    OS hard drive is in good condition with no errors?

    And the drive which contains the Page file (if your running one).

    I've seen dodgy hard drive sectors do some weird stuff.
     
  15. .//TuNdRa

    .//TuNdRa Resident Bulldozer Guru

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    Boot & page file disk is a 60GB SSD that has basically just had an entire new windows install just done. No errors during, so I doubt that's the issue.
     
  16. pete*

    pete* Something witty here.

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    Shame you're not in Manc, i'd let you test them SLI on my machine. If my board even supports
    SLI. :D
    But unlucky on this happenin'. :(
     
  17. .//TuNdRa

    .//TuNdRa Resident Bulldozer Guru

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    I know, right? I need to find a PC setup that isn't either wildly unstable, hilariously bugged, or just outright crazy.

    But then it'd be boring too!

    Anyway; I'll do some more testing tonight, then reinstall MS Office and get some coursework done, I'll report back then. Possibly update the thread with new ideas about the issue as I mull it over.
     
  18. Chicken76

    Chicken76 Minimodder

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    It's not the CPU I suspect is at fault, but the mainboard. I've read reports of voltages fluctuating a lot on Gigabyte boards.

    Do you have anyone close to you with a SLI-capable mainboard? It would be interesting to see if your cards can run in SLI on another computer. On second thought it might be worth the effort to test a different (and known to handle SLI well) PSU too.
     
  19. .//TuNdRa

    .//TuNdRa Resident Bulldozer Guru

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    That's the thing, before RMA: this was all fine. It's just suddenly now that it's gone kaput. I'll still see if I can't tweak the voltages, but the power supply had better be fine, with a single 104amp rail to work with.

    It might actually be the second PCI-E socket, I'll dump the card in there and test once more, to see if it's not a dodgy contact, as well as cleaning out the socket to see if that isn't the issue.

    I noticed that when I was running Uniengine Heaven with both cards in the machine, but SLI disabled; it locked up for a second, then Afterburner completely lost the second card, it couldn't get any readings from it at all, and was completely unrecognized upon restarting Afterburner.
     
    Last edited: 16 May 2012
  20. feathers

    feathers Minimodder

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    One big thing that can cause SLI to fail is hacked copy of windows. When I had my EVGA Cheesecake 657 it didn't matter what windows I used, SLI worked. When I upgraded to my Asus Z68, my same SLI setup would crash the Nvidia drivers every time I enabled it and I would have to reinstall the Nvidia drivers. There was a vague rumour on a forum that it was caused by pirate windows. I had tried everything to get SLI working including calls to Asus in USA and their suggestions didn't work. In the end I downloaded a legit windows 7 from MS as a 1 month trial, installed and SLI worked properly from then on.

    If both your GPU's are working and your windows is legit then I don't know what else it could be apart from crappy AMD.
     

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