GTX 280 SLI freezing games - pink artifacts

Hey all, have had a BFG OC 280 for about a year now no problems... just bought a second one used and hooked them up to SLI. everything seemed pretty good for several days.

I can do non gaming forever with no issues.

But when I load games sometimes... right at the loading screen when nothing harsh graphically is even happening... I get pink diagonal hatched line artifacts and freezes the comp needing to reboot.

I tried disabling SLI and physx in NV control Panel and it just did it when I tried to load Dirt 2.

Sometimes it does and sometimes not.

WOuld there be any reason why it would only do it with games? Running latest Nvidia 197.45 drivers.

I have a 1000 W supply from COrsair and i7 920... no cooling issues anywhere.

Well, those arent the latest drivers (257.15 JUST came out), so try updating after a proper uninstall/reinstall (which should have been done when you installed the second GPU).

Now, that's real interesting.. I'm working on a Q9450 with two 9800GTX's in SLI. All benchmarks are fine except the Heaven benchmark, where I get PINK artifacts too... Interesting...

I dunno I'm running Vista 64 and I goto Nvidia driver download and it takes me to latest 197.45

released april 14, 2010

but your talking a beta driver... one not fully tested.

hmmm. anyone using these without issue?

Oh, yeah, it is beta.. my bad.

I had that driver (but not SLI) and it worked fine...

Try uninstalling and reinstalling the driver..

yeah maybe... I guess it won't hurt... lets see if it works.

installed the drivers fine but no difference.

In fact, get this.

no games work now at all.

I can do anything 2D... browsing, windows, but NO games load. THey freeze right away.

It looks like I had SLI for 1 week and now I have a $600 piece of garbage left over.

THis sucks.

I'm lost without games.

But at least my 2nd gtx 280 works... BFG will RMA the first card it looks like... they offer pretty good and fast support.

Is it just me?

I've had a working gtx 280 for about a year now and all of a sudden... a day or two after I get a second one for SLI my original card develops problems requiring RMA.

is this just coincidence?