PC Will Not Detect Second Graphics Card

[bothamliam]

Heya,

Looking for a bit of help with this one as it's leaving me completely stumped - going to post my build to start off with so that people can see what I'm working with.

Build: 
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant 
CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£73.98 @ Amazon UK) 
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£23.86 @ CCL Computers) 
Motherboard: MSI 970 GAMING ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£69.56 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£62.39 @ Aria PC) 
Storage: A-Data S510 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£83.43 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 270 2GB TWIN FROZR Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) (£114.99 @ Ebuyer) 
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 270 2GB TWIN FROZR Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) (£114.99 @ Ebuyer) 
Case: NZXT H440 (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case (£87.98 @ Novatech) 
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 750W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£59.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Total: £731.15 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-30 22:00 GMT+0000

 

O/S: Windows 7 x64

Had this thing running for months but only on a single GPU - recently purchased a second R9 270. I have tested the card on it's own, so I know that both GPUs are working 100%, but I cannot for the life of me get my PC to detect it in the second PCI 2 x16 slot. I have tried purging all drivers and fresh installing, I've tried legacy drivers, I've tried it with and without the crossfirex bridge, I've tried each card in each slot, I've tried it with my overclocking settings and without - both cards are powering up, fans are spinning on both at all times...

But no matter WHAT I seem to do, my PC WILL. NOT. DETECT. THE SECOND. CARD.

Does anyone have ANY suggestions? Do I have a faulty mobo? I've tried seating and reseating the second card multiple times thinking there may have been a connection error etc, but I've been left completely at a loss.

This isn't my first build, isn't even my first crossfirex build so I'd like to think I'm not missing something stupidly obvious, but if I am please point it out to me as I really don't fancy RMAing my mobo that's given me no problems whatsoever up until this point  

[LemonSpice]

can your mobo sli

Does it have x-fire support

[bothamliam]

It is Crossfire capable, yes.

[Guest Kloaked]

Go into device manager and see if it's showing up.

[bothamliam]

It isn't - PC can't seem to detect it at all.

 

Not showing up on GPUZ or CPUZ either.

[still_ill]

Is the card fully seated with the PSU cable securely connected?

[bothamliam]

Yup, it's seated securely and screwed in, tried the setup with both cards in each slot - I see no bent pins in the PCI slots, power is going to both cards ( fans are spinning up on both ), cables are secure and I've tried multiple crossfire bridges.

 

It always detects the primary card but it just can't find the second slot...

 

EDIT: May pop in a Linux live-usb and see if it's perhaps just the O/S ( though I have now installed and reinstalled Win 8.1/7 multiple times hoping it would make some kind of difference to no luck )

[glewin7]

Your issue in all likeliness lies in your bios. You may have to go into your bios and configure your PCI-e lanes so that both cards will be recongnised. Also, before you do that it will probably be worth your time to flash your bios to the most recent version.

[bothamliam]

BIOS is on most recent version, updated it while waiting on the card to arrive - annoyingly this is my first time using an MSI board though, and I cannot for the life of me find any options to configure the PCI-e lanes.

 

Do you have any experience in the area and could perhaps point me in the right direction?

 

Posting from laptop at the moment so can work on the PC on-the-fly.

[glewin7]

Also, go into your catalyst control panel and enable it in the software, I know that you have to turn SLI on with nvidia cards in the control panel. Also make sure you have the latest drivers from AMD

[bothamliam]

Unfortunately the option isn't even available in AMD CCC for the simple fact that it doesn't recognise the second card so doesn't have anything to enable crossfire WITH.

 

Even in CCC there is only the primary adapter listed, the second card just isn't there.

 

I'll grab the latest beta drivers and see if that gives me any luck.

[bothamliam]

Screeny so you can see what I'm dealing with at the mo:

 

http://puu.sh/cwUMz/f53202cfd4.jpg

[glewin7]

Also, it may seem logical to throw the second card in the clot right below your top slot but you might want to check your motherboard manual on what the recommended crossfire configuration is.

[bothamliam]

There are only 2 possible slots for the cards to be inserted

 

But the board is certified for crossfire so for all-intents-and-purposes, it should be working. 

 

It just isn't.

 

Manufacturer page for the mobo: http://uk.msi.com/product/mb/970_GAMING.html#hero-overview

[glewin7]

Have you tried running a single card in the lower slot to see if it will function on its own? It's possible that you have a bunk slot. Also, it's possible that the latest bios may not function properly, it has happened before. You may need to roll back to a previous bios. Are there any revision versions of the motherboard that you're using? Because the bios that you have could be for the revision version of your board, not for yours. Sometimes manufactureres just pack all of the drivers and such into one page because theyre still the same model number just seperate revisions.

[Orblivion]

Try running the system on each card individually.  At least confirm that each works properly on its own.

[bothamliam]

Each card works fine on it's own in the first expansion slot - but neither work in the second with just the one card installed.

Looks like the slot is buggered, joy

 

I'll try flashing the bios with an earlier version and see if that works but from the looks of it, that slot just ain't working. I'll try it with some different outputs ( DVI, HDMI, Display port ) and if none of them work, looks like I'll be RMAing the mobo.

 

Thanks for the help so far peeps, appreciate it.

[glewin7]

He's allready tried that my friend, check his first post. Yea man I would say that from the sounds of things you're having a bios issue, for whatever reason on boot your motherboard isn't recognizing the second card. Make sure your windows is up to date, and I would also double check to see if you have any chipset drivers you need to update. Go through that motherboard page and download and install all the latest drivers. If you are completely up to date with all your drivers and microsoft then I would say that you are having a bios issue.

[glewin7]

yea man no problem, best of luck with your endeavors. It blows but it's part of being a pc owner, once things get running that puppy will fly my friend.

[Orblivion]

He's allready tried that my friend, check his first post. Yea man I would say that from the sounds of things you're having a bios issue, for whatever reason on boot your motherboard isn't recognizing the second card. Make sure your windows is up to date, and I would also double check to see if you have any chipset drivers you need to update. Go through that motherboard page and download and install all the latest drivers. If you are completely up to date with all your drivers and microsoft then I would say that you are having a bios issue.

 

I took it to mean that he had just switched them around, still running both.  Either way, it seems I was wrong anyways

[bothamliam]

Looks like it's my mobo, tried reflashing the BIOS to no avail, still won't detect anything in the second PCI-e slot regardless of crossfire bridge or device.

 

Even the board explorer within the BIOS is showing the slot as being empty

[bothamliam]

On the bright side, looks like the mobo is still under warranty, I've requested a direct replacement but it probs wont arrive 'til after the weekend.

 

At least I have a reason to redo my cable management now as I'm gonna have to dismantle the whole bloody system hehe.

 

Thanks again for the help peeps, once I get it working I'll share the love

[GamerDude]

Sounds like the 2nd PCIe x16 slot is buggered alright. I have an Asus Crosshair IV Formula (890FX chipset, my 3rd rig), and just a few days ago I'd gotten a pair of Gigabyte HD7950 WF3 (for ~260USD to 270USD), popped them into my mobo (had uninstalled Cat driver before powering off and removing my Sapphire HD7970). Upon boot up, I installed Cat14.9,2 Beta, and upon restart, Cat automatically enabled CF mode and I have both cards running in CF mode. It should be this simple, hence my belief that your 2nd slot may be faulty.