• 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.

Tri Sli Setup

A

an4rk1

n00b
Joined
Apr 26, 2006
Messages
16
Good evening all.

I've been struggling for a while now getting my water-cooling setup upto scratch.

I started off with my i7 930 and a single 470 GTX setup with EK blocks. I bought a couple more 470's with the intention of tri sli'ing the lot but I'm unable to connect them.

I currently have 2 hooked up using an EK serial bridge, I tried all 3 on a tri sly bridge but I have them in a cosmos s case (which has the PSU at the bottom) and they are seated in a GIGABYTE x58A-UD7 which means the third PCIe slot is too low and the third card can't fit.

What links would you guys recommend using for either parallel or serial connections between the 3 cards?

Thanks in advance guys.
 
As requested.

The first is the layout of the case. There is a triple rad out of view in the top with 6 fans in a push pull and each of the single rads have 2 fans ina push pull config (not that it's especially important).
IMG_0661.jpg


This shows the 2 cards currently installed. You can see where the PSU sits and the third slot (just about). The EK bridge is the 2 slot version, like it's triple version it sits lower than the bottom card because of the plugs and an extra bit of legnth that provides multiple points for the water exit.
IMG_0662.jpg
 
Ok, I've gone for 4 phobya single slot sli vid connectors (http://www.aquatuning.co.uk/product...ire-VID-connection-nipple-G1-4----1-Slot.html) and I've tried to get the lowest l bend possible to try and fit underneath the bottom card. If this doesnt for it'll have to be intake and out take from the top all in parallel.

Not the best but without replacing the mobo or the case or just getting rid of the third card I do t think I've got other options.

I was hoping some others may have posted with similar problems they've had and how the got around the cramped conditions.

If this doesn't work I'll probably take it as a sign and start from scratch, but I want to avoid that at all costs.
 
Move the PSU -- you can likely mount it in the front of the case with a little creative reworking of things. Got several open 5.25" bays? Take out the Dremel, get some steel brackets from Lowes or something, and make that shit fit.
 
Can you ditch the EK bridge? If yes, I would connect the cards like this, just using four pass through fittings instead of just two. You don't need it to enter the top and leave the bottom, which would allow you to run them in parallel without moving anything.

If you can't even insert the bottom-most card without interfering with the PSU, then I don't think you have a choice but to move it or get a different case.

p1010006ez.jpg
 
Last edited:
bacon11 said:
Can you ditch the EK bridge? If yes, I would connect the cards like this, just using four pass through fittings instead of just two. You don't need it to enter the top or the bottom, which would allow you to run them in series without moving anything.

If you can't even insert the bottom-most card without interfering with the PSU, then I don't think you have a choice but to move it or get a different case.

image snipped
Click to expand...
hmm, yeah that might work and still fit since you wouldn't have anything connected to the bottom of the third card.
 
I probably haven't been very clear. I am looking to get rid of the bridge but wanted some reccomendations as the space between the cards is so small. I've bought some single slot phobya vid connectors that i'm hoping will fit but because of the clearance below i'm probably going to have to connect the input and output at the top of both cards.

The way it's configured will be Res -> Pump -> Triple Rad -> CPU -> Single Rad -> 3x GPU (Serial) -> Single Rad -> Res. I realise it may not be the optimal configuration but it's the tidiest. after I finally get this sorted I can sort my cables properley.
 
If you have the single slot adapters for your GPUs, you can put all three of them in the 3 PCI-E slots that are right next to each other.
 
Run your GPUs in parallel, not series. GPUs don't need the flow a CPU block does, so it will cut down on a lot of restriction.
 
silent-circuit said:
Move the PSU -- you can likely mount it in the front of the case with a little creative reworking of things. Got several open 5.25" bays? Take out the Dremel, get some steel brackets from Lowes or something, and make that shit fit.
Click to expand...

At the moment I have 4x 3.5 HDDs and 2 SSD's. The SSD's aren't too hard to relocate to somewhere a little more discreet but 3.5's might pose a problem. I don't need a DVD drive in permanently really so I could ditch that but I'm not sure I'd want the PSU at the front. I wonder if a design similar to the new cosmos 2 would be achievable sliding the PSU out of the case slightly?

Tsumi said:
If you have the single slot adapters for your GPUs, you can put all three of them in the 3 PCI-E slots that are right next to each other.
Click to expand...

That's what I said I'd do I thought, my problem was finding the connectors that would fit between them.

bacon11 said:
Run your GPUs in parallel, not series. GPUs don't need the flow a CPU block does, so it will cut down on a lot of restriction.
Click to expand...

Temporary insanity, they're serial now within the EK block, I want to do them in parrallel, and will infact have to with the inputs and outputs being at the top.
 
Last edited:
So the problems continue... I've gotten the new setup in and leak tested successfully.

IMG_0682.jpg


Looks good, I haven't done any temp testing yet because my 3rd card seems to be defective (FFS!).

So i've spent a fair bit of time testing each card in multiple slot configurations with multiple power leads moved about, the only thing I haven't done yet is remove the block and reseat it incase it's a short. My main problem is that the zotac cards were bought second hand and now it seems the warranty might be invalid because of the water cooler (it seems that zotac's US warranty policy differs from the UK/EU policy).

So now i'm wither looking for a reference 470 fan and shroud as I don't have the originals and the person I bought it from is looking but doesn't hold much hope, or I buy another 470 and just use the block from this one or I ditch the lot and start from scratch.

God damn all this bloody hassle... oh and to top it off since doing this the reinstall of drivers etc even with cleaning them in between installs has produced an SLI driver error that crashes my machine so i'm going to have to re install windows this evening.

Any thoughts peeps?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top