Computer Won't Boot With 2 Graphics Cards

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skulkingghost

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Jun 4, 2006
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OK heres the deal, I currently have a BFG GTX 260 (core 192) in my system. I wanted to beef up performance a bit so I picked up a second GTX 260 today at microcenter (A PNY XLR8 core 216.)

Everything I have read says they should work fine together for sli. However upon hooking up the card, and attaching the sli cable I can not get into windows, the closest I can get is the starting windows screen of windows 7.

IF I let it sit for an hour it will take me eventually to an all black screen where I can move the cursor around, but nothing more.

Things I have tried:
Reseating and swapping PCI-E positions.
Reformat (cant even reformat with both cards in the system, I am going to take one out and try now)
Removing Nvidia drivers with driver cleaner and reinstalling
Checked the rails to make sure they were providing clean power to the system and they worked (all are perfect)


Rig Name: Skulks i7-920
CPU: Quad Intel I7-920 2670MHz
Motherboard: Asus P6T
Memory: 12000 MB of Crucial PC1600 DDR3
Video Card: BFG GTX 260 Nvidia Geforce
Hard Drive: OCZ Velocity SSD 120.0 GB
Additional Hard Drives: 4x 1TB WD Green
1x 320gb Seagate Barracude
1x 500gb WD
Monitor: 28" Hannspree HF289H
Additional Monitors: 20" Asus 2203W
DVD R/W: LG 52x DVD+-R/W
Storage Interface: SATA
Sound Card: Auzentech X-FI Prelude
Powersupply:Corsair 750w
Speakers: Logitech Z-5500
Internet Connection: Verizon Fios Cable @ 25/12mbs
Operating System: Windows 7 64bit

Each card works fine individually, and does not work even with the sli bridge unattached. The two cards are these:

PNY XLR8 Core 216
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133270
BFG Core 192
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143139

The PSU is this: (sorry posted wrong one before)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...7139006&cm_re=750w_psu-_-17-139-006-_-Product
 
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Have you tried booting the computer with only the new video card? Considering it is a PNY, there is a strong possibility the new card could be defective.
 
another strong possibility is that you have a dead SLI bridge. It's happened to me before.
 
It should still boot without an sli bridge. Unless there is a problem with the SLI bridge that is causing an error. But you can actually run SLI without a bridge.
 
i would run them without the bridge installed first see what happens.. now if both cards are 100% identical and are based off the reference design and not modified in any way by the manufacture you may have to flash the pny bios to the BFG.. that should be a last resort option though since it could possibly bridge the PNY card..

but most likely there is something on the XLR8 card that pny changed which is causing it to conflict so like naieve said try running only the pny card..
 
was the PSU tested with everything connected, or not? you've got quite a bit of stuff on there, and there are some pretty godawful TT PSUs out there

as far as "PNY means death", I've never had an issue with PNY boards, so unless it just came defective (which is equally common among all brands), the conflict is likely the result of something else
how about BIOS settings?
 
skulkingghost said:
Each card works fine individually, and does not work even with the sli bridge unattached. The two cards are these:

PNY XLR8 Core 216
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133270
BFG Core 192
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143139

The PSU is this: (sorry posted wrong one before)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...7139006&cm_re=750w_psu-_-17-139-006-_-Product
Click to expand...

oh, perhaps something doesn't like that you have a Core 192 and Core 216 paired up? (don't quote me on this, could be wrong, just guessing, I know SLI won't do like GTX 280 + GTX 260 though)

that PSU should have no issues though
 
Even if the cards were two totally different models, the rig should still boot up I think. Because you can use 2 cards to run more monitors. Since both cards work alone, we have ruled out the cards.

Only thing I can think of would be the power supply, though I would ask around the forum or another forum for someone more knowledgeable than myself before you go buying a new one.

Pretty sure it would not have any effect, but looking at your mobo on newegg I see it has 2 pcie x16 slots and an x4. You are putting the cards in the blue slots right?
 
Both cards are in the blue slots. I tried running the second video card on a second psu and it did not work either.

I also flashed the PNY with the BFG bios to see if that would work and it was a no-go too.

So, now I am returning the PNY tomorrow, either going to try a different card, or just wait and buy a new FERMI.
 
Each card works separately, but they do not work when both are installed at the same time on the mobo, even with the sli cable removed? And you don't think the psu is the issue.. Could this sort of thing be related to the mobo or it's BIOS? I dunno.

Anyway, after you removed the nvidia driver, did you install both cards (w/o SLI cable) and attempt to boot up allowing Windows to choose a default driver? ... maybe with a monitor connected to each card at first...
 
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\Bios is p6t latest

Computer is freshly reformatted and I tried running it with both and i couldnt even get into the windows 7 desktop (before install of latest nvidia drivers)

Problem isnt no video, the problem is it gets to the "Starting windows" screen, the icon is pulsing like its loading, hell even the led HDD and cpu activity lights are flashing like its loading, but even if i leave it for an hour all it has gotten to is a black screen before the desktop itself loads I can move and see the cursor just fine (even the blue busy arrow works normal) but everything behind it is black
 
why not sell the BFG and buy another PNY C216? it'd be faster and compatible with the existing card
 
obobski said:
why not sell the BFG and buy another PNY C216? it'd be faster and compatible with the existing card
Click to expand...

Well if I did it that way its like paying almost $400 for a new graphics card minus the $130 I could maybe sell the old one for. It seems it may be more economical to wait for a single card fermi for a month. The system screams now I really only picked it up to improve my bad company 2 performance, every other game especially mass effect 2 runs like a dream.
 
1. Can you boot into safe mode with both cards in?
2. Have you tried booting with only one card in the system, but having that card in the SECOND pcie slot? You need to make sure both of your slots are ok.
3. Check around and see if there are any reported problems with your bios. I remember updating mine (also P6t) a while back to one that had just been released and then a bunch of people started complaining on the forums about problems it introduced.
 
I could be wrong...but I don't think it's possible to SLI the 192sp and the 216sp versions of the GTX260. I have that same BFG 192sp GTX in my backup machine. I love it. Great card and fast too.
 
JCDenton said:
1. Can you boot into safe mode with both cards in?
2. Have you tried booting with only one card in the system, but having that card in the SECOND pcie slot? You need to make sure both of your slots are ok.
3. Check around and see if there are any reported problems with your bios. I remember updating mine (also P6t) a while back to one that had just been released and then a bunch of people started complaining on the forums about problems it introduced.
Click to expand...


You definitely can, atleast according to club SLI.

1. No I cannot
2. Yes, it works fine.
3. Checking around now.
 
this thread is going in circles, people, if you want to help, read the thread and look at the advice already given ++ what OP has already tried or stated, or else we're just gonna overlap and run this poor guy in a circle

lets hear what you find on your P6T regarding SLI, otherwise I'd either just return the PNY as you planned, or sell the 192sp (as the PNY will be faster by itself) and wait as well (or get a board that isn't borked)
 
Did this ever get resolved? I have a different setup but the exact same symptoms and endless searching has not turned up any sensible answers.
 
Are you using 2x4pin => 6pin adaptors for your cards?

If you are, check that you are actually distributing the load as evenly as possible, and specially don't grab two of the same 4 pin lines to one 6pin.
 
No splitters, I have two 6-pin leads directly off the 750w Corsair power supply to my primary XFX GTX285. The secondary video card is only to drive a 3rd monitor and is a XFX GT240 with no power connections. Each card works fine individually.

The setup was working perfectly until I did a BIOS update to my MSI Eclipse SLI board for an unrelated issue. I tried reverting back to the previous version but strangely enough that didn't fix anything. I've attempted a clean install of Windows 7 but it's take just as long to boot off the CD as it does for my existing Windows 7 installation to boot, which never really reaches a usable point. It never bluescreens or shows an error of any kind, just runs extremely slow like the PCIe bus is bottlenecked.

I'm convinced this is a hardware/firmware issue of some kind, not OS related. I'm about to send my mainboard back to MSI.
 
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