Graphics Nvidia SLI - more than 2 monitors anyway to do it?

Hiya...

I just recently bought 2 x 580 msi twin frozr's and I've put them in my motherboard and installation went all fine.

Anyway I plugged my 3 monitors back in and at first they all worked fine. Then I went to the nvidia control pannel and noticed SLI was disabled. So I tried to enable it... and found that you cannot enable it with 3 monitors... I took 1 monitor out and bingo works fine.

Surley nvidia cannot be limiting you to 2 monitors when you're paying close to £750 for 2 cards?

To be honest now I just wish I bought a AMD 6990 and I know I wouldn't have this problem...

is there anything that I can do?

I'm thinking of having to buy a 3rd graphics card a PCI one not a PCI express.
Just to power the 3rd monitor...

 

Doesn't the triple display thing for gaming need SLI enabled?

 

It should work fine. How are you connecting your monitors? Two in the top and one in the bottom?

Edit: Also, what motherboard do you have?

 

Well thats the point, it only enables me to turn sli on with 2 monitors plugged in. So I'm tihnking nvidia must have a limmit of gaming accross 2 monitors... so was thinking my 3rd could just be powered by a **** old normal PCI card in one of my 1x slots.

And just use it for browser etc. Would that work?

 

http://www.msi.com/product/mb/P55-GD65.html is my mobo

 

Should work fine. How have you got the monitors setup? Two monitors on the top card and one in the bottom one?

Edit: getting a third crap card to power the third monitor would work fine, but it would impede airflow to the bottom card. But hopefully bit tech can resolve your issue properly

 

Yeah had 2 monitors on top card and 1 on bottom just didn't want to work =/ couldn't enable SLI. I mean i don't even want to play games accross the 3.. tbh

I have 2 x 20inch monitors on the side and then a 30" in the middle.

dell 2007fp and then dell u3007fp i think its called.

 

Not sure, but that could be why. I know 3 screen gaming needs identical resolution screens, maybe this has something to do with it?

 

I don't want 3 screen gaming though.

I jsut want games on my 30" and I just want the 2 side panels to work... at current just 1 side pannel works and it kinda looks like I've wasted my money tbh...=/

I just tried to install a PCI card I found a 6200 old pny one... but I installed it in the 1x bay and it was so close to my 580 it infact was touching it and it blocked 1 of the fans for air flow...

I didn't want to turn it on incase it short circuited the graphics card since it literally was touching it. Will this happen or am I safe to just plug it in and even though they are touching?

 

I had almost the same setup. Basically when gaming you need to disable one of the monitors and run SLI, then when you want all three monitors, you need to disable SLI and enable all three monitors again. It's such a PITA, and AMD are much better for multi-monitor support. That's one of the reasons I went from 2x GTX560 2GB cards to 2x 6950 2GB cards.

 

Ta for the qualification Marvin-HHGTTG. Another thing added to the respository of stuff I've learned

@op Not a waste of money, just a bit more hassle than you were expecting.

 

AMD:1 NVIDIA:0

 

Good point with the multi resolutions. If you were to get a 3rd card just for desktop use, plug both the non gaming monitors into it, that way the SLI cards won't have to juggle rendering a desktop whilst gaming, which could introduce latency issues and microstuttering due to unbalanced load.

 

Yeah well that sounds very frustrating to do. Infat I just did it now to test and it resets all your window posistions everytime you do it. So not only do I have to **** about with enabling and disable sli... I have to mess around with window positions also...

Bit of a joke tbh...

But could you answer my question about PCI card touching my main because that would solve all of my problems.

It's just im very worried about leaving a pci card touching my brand new 580 incase it short circuits it or sends electricity through out.. I dont know really, can this happen or am I being crazy?

 

What parts are touching? is the top of the 580 all plastic?

 

the whole back of the pci card touches the metal plate that holds the fans on the msi twin frozr.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/01/27/msi-geforce-gtx-560-ti-1gb-review/1

Thats the 560 but its the same fans afaik.

 

Get some electrical tape and pop it on the back of the lower card job done

 

I am rubbish at playing most games *(i do try though) on one monitor ..I would be three times worse if I added two more ..
Glad I havent got this issue

 

So the fans would knock against the soldering?

 

I'd be terrified of the fan getting hit However, I would still be worried about air flow to the lower 580. I have the same board and I think anything in the last PCI slot would seriously impede said airflow. Wouldn't make for a happy 580 I don't think lol