Black screen sometimes

[NecroFlex]

So i had an unused GTX 260 which is working and was looking around and found someone selling his old i7-920 and a mobo along with ram and another GTX 260, got all of that for 100€ (cheap as hell), the guy sadly didn't know how to ship trough mail and he just threw the components in and no filler, so the GTX 260 got it's I/O bent along with a break on the case, tho didn't think of it much, fixed it and moved on, put all of it together (not my GPU in it) and started it up, had issues with the board but fixed them, so i came to this issue, the card works up to a point, it's random, i have the driver installed (couldn't install it with his card, so installed it with mine) it's working but whenever i try to open something or install or anything like that it gives me a black screen, same as when you leave your PC alone long enough. It's fixed when i restart but gives a black screen again after i do anything on the PC, it does that or it's fine.

 

Is the card dead? I mean the symptoms are somewhat of a dead card (friend had somewhat same issue).

 

Thoughts? I already opened it and cleaned it, HWmonitor (when i can get it to open w/o the black screen issue) shows the card at 40-45°C mostly.

 

EDIT: the PC still works, i can use the keyboard to navigate trough it (a min ago i clicked start, then right arrow and then enter and the PC shut down, as in i could click ''shut down'' in the start menu)

[NecroFlex]

Ok i think i found the issue, since the guy didn't put in any filler, the card took all the stress from the shipping and the I/O plate bent and broke off the first screw on the card, guessing both DVI ports got ripped and the signal isn't going trough properly, the lowest one is basically dead, the higher one works-ish, got trough Heaven benchmark w/o black screens.

 

Can the card still be used in SLI and i use my working card as my main and set the monitor there, will it have any issues or will it work since the DVI ports on the broken one aren't used?

[Coaxialgamer]

Ok i think i found the issue, since the guy didn't put in any filler, the card took all the stress from the shipping and the I/O plate bent and broke off the first screw on the card, guessing both DVI ports got ripped and the signal isn't going trough properly, the lowest one is basically dead, the higher one works-ish, got trough Heaven benchmark w/o black screens.

Can the card still be used in SLI and i use my working card as my main and set the monitor there, will it have any issues or will it work since the DVI ports on the broken one aren't used?

You cant sli two different cards. And sli 260's is a bad idea, mainly because of how old those cards are.

[NecroFlex]

You cant sli two different cards. And sli 260's is a bad idea, mainly because of how old those cards are.

What? since when are 2 GTX 260's different cards?

 

Also, i know they are old as hell, but they still work w/o issues (much).

 

So, can they still be SLI'ed even tho one of them is having the issue above?

[PrimeSonic]

Well, if you're using the display connection of the non-broken card, I see no reason why SLI shouldn't work in this scenario.

Have that one in the top PCIe slot.

 

Just be ready for the added power draw and heat output.

That may, over time, finally kill one of those two cards. That's how I lost one of my GTX 560s, particularly the one with the reference cooler. The ASUS DirectCU cooler one survived long enough to see itself end up in storage along with the X58 mobo and i7-960 CPU.

 

As for the rig you seem to be trying to put together, just make sure you give it an SSD for OS and applications and it should perform well enough for how old it is.

[NecroFlex]

Well, if you're using the display connection of the non-broken card, I see no reason why SLI shouldn't work in this scenario.

Have that one in the top PCIe slot.

 

Just be ready for the added power draw and heat output.

That may, over time, finally kill one of those two cards. That's how I lost one of my GTX 560s, particularly the one with the reference cooler. The ASUS DirectCU cooler one survived long enough to see itself end up in storage along with the X58 mobo and i7-960 CPU.

 

As for the rig you seem to be trying to put together, just make sure you give it an SSD for OS and applications and it should perform well enough for how old it is.

so i have a new issue, the SLI works, it shows it in Heaven, but only the first card is working, am i missing something? (first time SLIing)

[Coaxialgamer]

What? since when are 2 GTX 260's different cards?

 

Also, i know they are old as hell, but they still work w/o issues (much).

 

So, can they still be SLI'ed even tho one of them is having the issue above?

i never meant to say they were.

Just that i didn't know what your original card was.

 

But i still think sli 260 is a bad idea even compared to a 950.

[PrimeSonic]

so i have a new issue, the SLI works, it shows it in Heaven, but only the first card is working, am i missing something? (first time SLIing)

You might need to enable it through the Nvidia Control panel.

 

Image taken from https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/873303/sli/sli-not-splitting-load/post/4658137/#4658137

 

But i still think sli 260 is a bad idea even compared to a 950.

I kinda have to agree with this. But what's done is done and you might as well see what you can get out of the parts you have.

[NecroFlex]

I don't have the SLI option, only the PhysX, yet the control panel and device manager show both of them.

 

Could it be cause they are different brands? As in one is MSI, otherone is Gigabyte. (MSI being the 100% working one)

[PrimeSonic]

I don't have the SLI option, only the PhysX, yet the control panel and device manager show both of them.

 

Could it be cause they are different brands? As in one is MSI, otherone is Gigabyte. (MSI being the 100% working one)

Different brands of Nvidia cards will work in SLI.

I had ASUS and EVGA paired for a time.

 

Do you have the SLI bridge? That's the ribbon style cable that directly connects the GPUs together, bypassing the PCIe bus.

 

If that's done, then try updating the drivers.

http://www.geforce.com/drivers

[NecroFlex]

updated drivers and i connected the SLI bridge (the first of both card's SLI connectors), tho i did notice that they have different amount of cuda cores if that's the issue?

It could be that something more is broken on that card than just the DVI's.

Or i'm too big of a noob for this (i used an SLI bridge from a Asus Rampage IV Formula since it was the only one i had at hand)

[NecroFlex]

Nvm, found the issue, seems that Foxconn is really bad at making manuals...The manual says i can have both SLI and Crossfire, yet on their site it says only Crossfire....so yeah, found my issue -.-

Oh well, can use the 260's for another mobo then, SLI is a bi**h to have, why does Nvidia make lives difficult