Wierd 480 problem/rant and plea for help if possibe.

[Kidfinger]

I have never seen this before and Ive been running SLI rigs for the last four generations of cards with multiple upgrades per generation.

I was playing Dragon Age in 2D surround. I had Precision Tune set to 100% fan speed and no OC on the cards whatsoever. Im running Tri-SLI so these lil space heaters need plenty of air and as little oc as possible to stay within a good range on stock air. Anyway, I was playing for about an hour, then loaded a new section of the tower in the first part of the game. When this new section loaded, the floor was missing all textures. It was just completely black.

I happen to glance all the way to my right and see the temps in the corner reaching 90c so I go on and save the game and exit to see if I need to clean my filters on my TF02 case. They didnt have much but I cleaned them anyway. When I rebooted, my PC got the POST beep, but then instead of the flash screen, Im greeted with one monitor blinking on and off while the other two are just dead...

I reset the CMOS and kick her back up and Im still getting the same thing. I started to get a little aggravated cause I had to deal with issues just like this all day at work already so I just shut the power back off, unplug the box and let two days pass before I look at it again.

Two days later I come home from work and jump right on it. First I reseated all the cards, my RAM and my CPU. Then I Plug in the box, flip on the power switch on the PSU then boot up. Low and behold I get the POST beep and the following flash screen. The rig finally boots to Win7 and Im greeted with one monitor active and two still black. Now here is the weird part.

The active monitor had four small desktops on it. It was like the cards were telling the monitor to display the same desktop but four times. They were two by two. Also, the picture was very distorted. Im not sure if it was due to low rez or what but it looked like total shit. Im still able to work with it so I get into display properties and set up the other two desktops, then get into Nvidia control panel and activate all desktops. It took forever but the other two did finally come on. However they now all had the same desktop copied on them and the far right monitor still had the four small desktop copies on it.

I then went and unchecked SLI in NCP and that fixed the four desktop on one monitor thing I had going on. I can enable tri SLI and only have one monitor and it runs perfect, but when I try and enable surround, I get the all three active screens with the one on the far right having quad desktops. I have tried wiping the drivers and reinstalling. Even re-downloading the driver in case my copy was corrupt but nothing seems to work.

Looks like I may be in for my first RMA on a card in years....Now I just have to figure out if its one of the cards and which one, or if its my board...

Anyone ever encountered anything like this and if so, how did you fix the issue if it wasnt hardware related?

Anyway, Ill be first. Cool story bro!

 

[IRSmurf]

Anyone ever encountered anything like this and if so, how did you fix the issue if it wasnt hardware related?

Anyway, Ill be first. Cool story bro!

Ouch. Determining the failing card (if it's a card!) can be an excruciating process.

I have experienced this before and it was with SLI GTX 285's. Sometimes, it took me three or four tries, sometimes more, to boot the computer. Occasionally, it would blue screen at the Windows boot. I could game for hours in most games, but sometimes BFBC2 would shut my whole computer down.

I thought I had a bum 285, but switching one card out at a time, I couldn't reproduce the error.

As it turns out, my power supply simply couldn't handle SLI. My Zalman 750W continuous has plenty of power, but these dumb bastards put one six pin and one eight pin. I was using a molex adapter to power one of the plugs on each card, and I believe the molex cables weren't providing sufficient amperage.

Are you certain this is not a power issue? Try using just two cards and see if you can duplicate the error. Make sure you're powering both cards off of the proper cables, without adapters.

 

[heatlesssun]

Wonderful rig! Sorry bro, yeah it sucks. I'd take each card and test individualy and then test them in pairs.

 

[PAo_ReVoLT]

try to get a spare hdd and reinstall the OS, might be something conflig in the OS

 

[Kidfinger]

Ouch. Determining the failing card (if it's a card!) can be an excruciating process.

I have experienced this before and it was with SLI GTX 285's. Sometimes, it took me three or four tries, sometimes more, to boot the computer. Occasionally, it would blue screen at the Windows boot. I could game for hours in most games, but sometimes BFBC2 would shut my whole computer down.

I thought I had a bum 285, but switching one card out at a time, I couldn't reproduce the error.

As it turns out, my power supply simply couldn't handle SLI. My Zalman 750W continuous has plenty of power, but these dumb bastards put one six pin and one eight pin. I was using a molex adapter to power one of the plugs on each card, and I believe the molex cables weren't providing sufficient amperage.

Are you certain this is not a power issue? Try using just two cards and see if you can duplicate the error. Make sure you're powering both cards off of the proper cables, without adapters.

I dont think it is. My PSU is about 2 years old but its still a beast. Its in the sig.

Wonderful rig! Sorry bro, yeah it sucks. I'd take each card and test individualy and then test them in pairs.

Thanks

Yeah, just finished. Now more weird. I almost think its the board now. I can take all three of the cards and input them in every possible configuration as two cards, and can not duplicate the error. Only with all three installed.

try to get a spare hdd and reinstall the OS, might be something conflig in the OS

I really HATE OS installs lol! I had an XP install over two and a half years once

 

[heatlesssun]

Yeah, just finished. Now more weird. I almost think its the board now. I can take all three of the cards and input them in every possible configuration as two cards, and can not duplicate the error. Only with all three installed.

Okay so the cards are good it would seem. So you either have a power issue, need a motherbaord BIOS update or tweak, or the motherboard has a problem with the third slot. I think that's where you at which is better than the cards. If everything has been working and just stopped I would RMA the motherboard unless you have done a BIOS update or tweek.

 

[Kidfinger]

I haven't updated the BIOS yet. I checked and Im up to date. I do suppose I could go on and DL another copy just to make sure mines not corrupt like I did with the cards....I almost hope its the board. Would give me a reason to upgrade

 

[Night_Hawk-19]

Could be air flow problem. I have 3 3000 rpm fans where video cards are. Yes, its loud but cool temps. Any way to add more cooling? It gets hot as you add more video cards. Best bet is to try one video card at a time see temps. Also see if there is bios update for your motherboard. Make sure power supply is working as well (check video psu connections for right voltage).

 

[IRSmurf]

Motherboard problems are a real pain to troubleshoot. If you can only reproduce the error with all three cards, but not with two... I'm thinking it's the power supply.

You really have two options and they're both painful: Swap the PSU or swap the mobo. Process of elimination.

Since both of those troubleshooting steps take time, I'd call your MOBO manufacturer's tech support ASAP. They'll at least be able to perform a little troubleshooting to ensure it's not a software or BIOS issue.

Good luck!