Troubleshooting SLI gtx 460's and other computer related questions.

[thatbonokid]

Hi there, I recieved a motherboard for my system the other day and its opened up a complete new window for performance in my pc. the motherboard is an MSI 970A-G46. I have 8 gb memory, an fx 6300 on a hyper 212 EVO (Yes i have a long way to go until my computer is set in stone).

And finally last I have an EVGA 768 MB GTX 460 card. When i got the motherboard, a matching graphics card fell into my lap. (the identical card).

Im both cards run perfectly fine in my computer without SLI enabled. Both cards work in any computer. For some reason when I enable SLI I get a HANG error? Im going to screen shot it and post a picture once i hook the sli back up.


I took the 2 power supply 6 pins and put one into each card, i then used an adapter to cover the other 2 6 pins on each card. Im wondering if the 650 watt PSU could cause a driver crash, or the connector that connects the cards. Im not running anything but a single HDD in my pc, so the 650 should be sufficient?

 

[Lvcoyote]

Wattage should be fine, but that's only half the story. Even more important than wattage is the +12v amps the PSU can put out. What exact model is the PSU?

 

[thatbonokid]

http://www.microcenter.com/product/395049/Bronze_80_ILG-650E_650_Watt_ATX_Power_Supply

 

[thatbonokid]

could there be a problem wrong with something that only effects the SLI? Im so confused as to why it wont load.. it starts to load games and then just errors and flickers out. then if i have it disabled it works fine.

 

[Lvcoyote]

Yes, lack of power can cause exactly what your seeing. Try hooking both PCIe leads from your PSU to the same card, and then the two from the splitter to the other card. Also the specs table you linked too still doesnt show the +12v amps on each of the two +12v rails that PSU has. I also didn't see in the specifications where it's certified for SLI use.

 

[Lvcoyote]

Sometimes the label on the side of the PSU will tell you the amperage if you can look at that.

 

[thatbonokid]

so its most likely psu related. It doesnt say sli use anywhere. it was the strongest thing i could get my hands on.

 

[Lvcoyote]

A good 650 watt PSU SLI capable would probably cost quite a bit more than the one you have there.

 

[thatbonokid]

yeah i just figured the newness of the psu and the older video cards would work for testing if itd even be worth getting a new case/psu for. ill have to test it on a different one, though this adapter seems janky.

 

[thatbonokid]

 

[awesomehandle31]

yeah, that's most likely your issue... I had an old Corsair 600 octopus psu w/o SLI certification that wouldn't even boot when the bridge was connected... It would turn on, do its power check, then power down.


600w sli ready psu's start ~60$$

 

[thatbonokid]

it works fine until i boot something up.. can i clock them down super far just to see if its a power supply issue? or just grab a psu to test it out with if i can?

 

[thatbonokid]

Okay i have a 750 watt PSU on its way to test if thats it. im also doing the adapter thing that you told me to do with my current PSU as we speak. Could someone stick around tonight to try and help me trouble shoot this?

 

[thatbonokid]

okay i opened WoW. it errored and recovered itself. i tabbed back into WoW because it was still open. Im loaded into the game but am getting 10-20 FPS. it says in nvidia settings that sli is enabled. the physx is set to gtx 460 number 2. If i remember correctly, dont i set it to CPU? is this power supply causing low FPS and driver crashing?

 

[thatbonokid]

both CPU and card 2 physx gets low low fps. it took 2 minutes for wow to boot up, flashed a little bit, but no error message.. just the low fps.

 

[awesomehandle31]

psu's normally either work or they don't, when it comes to not having enough power... @least that's how its worked for me in the past.


physx is normally set to auto I believe, which i think normally defaults to the 2nd card or cpu

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Just to cover all the bases, you did use an SLI bridge, right? I didn't see one mentioned.

 

[thatbonokid]

I think so. ill take a pic of my set up.

 

[thatbonokid]

its really unorganized because i cant fit the PSU in with this case.. Im not going to organize it and get a new case until i know that the sli is going to work.. As you can see the second card takes up my PSU space. haha

 

[thatbonokid]

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...ealattid=1437976010818584576-local1&safe=1&zw

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?u...ealattid=1437976010818584576-local0&safe=1&zw