• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Graphics card problem in sli...help please

V

v3teran

n00b
Joined
Jan 18, 2009
Messages
17
Hi people...i have a slight problem.. ihave 2 bfg 280 gtx running in sli...the cards seem fine but when i just checked in everest this is what is says


PCI Express Controller
PCI-E 2.0 x4 port #0 Empty
PCI-E 2.0 x16 port #0 In Use @ x16 (BFG GeForce GTX 280 Video Adapter)
PCI-E 2.0 x16 port #0 In Use @ x8 (BFG GeForce GTX 280 Video Adapter)

why is one of my cards running in x8?I thought that they wer supposed to both run in x16...

i am using the driver 180.22...does anybody know how to fix

thankyou
 
not all of the pci-e 16 slots on your board run at 16x speed. check your manual to find out which slots you need to populate for 16/16 sli.
 
with the new x58 boards, you only get two 16x slots, that both run 16x at the same time if you purchase a board with the nf200 chip. both of your slots run 16x individually, but when both are populated, this is what you will see. you won't notice much difference.
 
i checked my manual and i am doing everything correctly...i dont know what else to do
 
Hi mate can you tell me what u mean please....i have rampage 2..both cards are in the blue slots..i have the latest bios...is there something wrong with my motherboard or is this normal...i even went into chipset/northbridge in the bios and changed that but its still the same..what is the nf200 chip..is that the i7?
 
nf200 chip is nvidia's addition to the intel x58 chipset. it allows all three pci-e slots to run at 16 x speeds. only select x58 boards have the nf200 chip. according to the specifications of the rampage 2 extreme board from the asus website, the graphic pci-e slots operate at 16/8/8 top to bottom or dual at 16x. the specs don't specify which 2 pci-e slots provide the full 16x bandwidth. maybe you already have the cards populated in the right slots and everest is displaying the wrong info. try gpuz.
 
i tried gpuz and its the same... do i need to apply more volts or somethingto make it 16* 16
 
the last time i ran asymmetric sli it was with 8800gtx's and an msi 750 sli board that had the slots at 16/8. at 19x12 and 4x transparency super sampled aa i notice a bit of stuttering but it wasn't significant. how these newer, faster cards will perform in 16/8, i don't know.
 
do you think my board is faulty?it runs great i have no issues with it apart from this
 
from tweaktown:

"Time to look at the expansion layout that ASUS has managed to slip into the frey. First off, we look at the PCI Express slots. In total we have three PCI Express x16 slots and two PCI Express x1 slots. Out of the PCI-E x16 slots, we have one blue slot and two black. The blue slot runs at a full 16 lanes when only a single graphics card is inserted onto the board in this slot. If you plan to go Crossfire on this board, a second graphics card needs to be inserted into the upper black slot; this will then trigger the digital switch to split the 16 lanes from the Northbridge down to 8 lanes for the blue and 8 lanes for the black slots. The last PCI Express x16 slot is a universal slot that runs x4 max speed and is created using the PCI-E lanes from the ICH10R Southbridge. If you plan to use an extra graphics card in here, you can’t use any of the PCI-E x1 lanes as their bandwidth is routed to the last slot to make it functional. If you do use the other PCI-E x1 slots, the last x16 slot will only work in x1 mode."

short answer, your board is running correctly. generally speaking, x58 without an nf200 will run two cards with one at 16x and the other at 8x.
 
you might want to contact asus directly. i've noticed that some of the cheaper gigabyte x58 boards do some funny things with how much bandwidth each pci-e 16 slot receives with dual video cards. the rampage is one of the more expensive x58 boards. having two cards running in asymmetric sli on a premium board is just not cool. for the record, my biostar tpower x58 boards runs dual cards at 16/16.
 
.
i think i have found the problem mate....i took out both cards and tried them in each slot on there own one at a time....the one card always gives a reading of x8 in any of the 2 slots wether in sli or not in sli...i guess its the card then...i have only had my card for 2 months..what is my next step from here?i bought my card from OCUK...but the problem is they dont have anymore in stock due to a clearance sale to get in the new 285 ,295 gtx...i dont think they will be getting anymore...is it best to just send my card to BFG as it does have a 10 year warranty.....
How do i send back to bfg,i have never done it before
thanks so much for your kind help..i do appreciate it
 
contact bfg's rma dept in the uk. you'll probably have to create a user account and open a service ticket. i mostly buy my nvidia cards from evga and they require you to register your part before they consent to support. i don't know how bfg does it. good luck.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top