960 SLI issues

[Anstronoxity]

So I recently bought another 960 for SLI. I got home after purchasing and installed the card, plugged in the SLI and power. I turned on my PC and navigated to the nvidia control panel. However the is no SLI option seen in the control panel. I checked the next day by removing one card, testing it in gta v and did the same with the other card. 

 

So far I've seemed to narrow it down to either a faulty sli bridge, lack of power to lower card, or some software issue or maybe a issue with the 8x slot (I haven't tested it yet)

 

Both cards appear in device manager and gpu-z. However the new card shows up as 'Video Controller (VGA COMPATIBLE)'

 

Here is the entire parts list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/RYfWMp

[GoZone]

I think it's a bad bridge.

[HrutkayMods]

test the new card without the old card, if it works, then try both again and see if VGA COMPATIBLE disappears. because currently that's your main problem. also You may have to force install the drivers in device manager. but I'd say the bridge is fine

 

Edit: oh I reread your post, just try to force install the drivers and if that doesn't work you could possibly be out of PCIE lanes or something like that? oh yeah see if you can test the 8x slot with both cards separately

[Anstronoxity]

6 minutes ago, HrutkayMods said:

test the new card without the old card, if it works, then try both again and see if VGA COMPATIBLE disappears. because currently that's your main problem. also You may have to force install the drivers in device manager. but I'd say the bridge is fine

 

Edit: oh I reread your post, just try to force install the drivers and if that doesn't work you could possibly be out of PCIE lanes or something like that?

Ok when I get home I'll try to update the drivers. The max number of pcie lanes I can have is 16. All I have plugged in is the two 960s 

[Anstronoxity]

12 minutes ago, HrutkayMods said:

test the new card without the old card, if it works, then try both again and see if VGA COMPATIBLE disappears. because currently that's your main problem. also You may have to force install the drivers in device manager. but I'd say the bridge is fine

 

Edit: oh I reread your post, just try to force install the drivers and if that doesn't work you could possibly be out of PCIE lanes or something like that?

Actually, you might be right. I have one card plugged into a 16x slot.. And the other in 8x.. 

 

Wait. I might need to research the amount of pcie lanes supported as I'm not quite sure. 

Edited April 13, 2016 by Anstronoxity

[Anstronoxity]

6 hours ago, HrutkayMods said:

test the new card without the old card, if it works, then try both again and see if VGA COMPATIBLE disappears. because currently that's your main problem. also You may have to force install the drivers in device manager. but I'd say the bridge is fine

 

Edit: oh I reread your post, just try to force install the drivers and if that doesn't work you could possibly be out of PCIE lanes or something like that? oh yeah see if you can test the 8x slot with both cards separately

Okay so I got home, removed the old card and only ran the computer with the new card. The name is now GeForce 960 instead of Video Controller (VGA COMPATIBLE). 

[Anstronoxity]

Heres some more info, first image is of the new card. Second image is of the older-new card. The names on the cards have now switched, because I switched the placing of the cards. 

[HrutkayMods]

you should have enough lanes unless you have other 3.0 slots with cards in them. have both plugged in and see what device manager says, GPUZ says your 16X slot is running at 1.1 speeds instead of 3.0, that can be normal if not under load, but check Nvidia Control panel/ system information (bottom left link) and see if thew bus speed says gen 3. Also if you cant get the card to identify correctly in the 8x slot, it might have a problem on the board, but I think forcing the drivers should do it. I had the same issue with my 2 4GB 960s when I was reinstalling drivers, one just wouldn't work until I force updated the driver

[Anstronoxity]

2 minutes ago, HrutkayMods said:

you should have enough lanes unless you have other 3.0 slots with cards in them. have both plugged in and see what device manager says, GPUZ says your 16X slot is running at 1.1 speeds instead of 3.0, that can be normal if not under load, but check Nvidia Control panel/ system information (bottom left link) and see if thew bus speed says gen 3. Also if you cant get the card to identify correctly in the 8x slot, it might have a problem on the board, but I think forcing the drivers should do it. I had the same issue with my 2 4GB 960s when I was reinstalling drivers, one just wouldn't work until I force updated the driver

It does say Gen 3 

[Anstronoxity]

9 minutes ago, HrutkayMods said:

you should have enough lanes unless you have other 3.0 slots with cards in them. have both plugged in and see what device manager says, GPUZ says your 16X slot is running at 1.1 speeds instead of 3.0, that can be normal if not under load, but check Nvidia Control panel/ system information (bottom left link) and see if thew bus speed says gen 3. Also if you cant get the card to identify correctly in the 8x slot, it might have a problem on the board, but I think forcing the drivers should do it. I had the same issue with my 2 4GB 960s when I was reinstalling drivers, one just wouldn't work until I force updated the driver

Could you maybe explain how I could go about forcing the drivers for the card in the 8x slot? 

[HrutkayMods]

open device manager, click on display adapters, right click on the offending card, click update driver software... when the window pops up, click browse my computer, then let me pick from a list, here you'll either have a list of 960 drivers or you might not. If so highlight the latest and click next. if not click "have disk" then browse, you should have a nividia folder on C:, open it, go to drivers and pick an INF file. then click ok and ok. if either gives you a warning about driver incompatibility, click install anyway then after it's installed restart you PC and then hopefully the card will work properly and if you want you can update the drivers with the Nvidia installer, and it should see both cards. good luck

[Anstronoxity]

9 minutes ago, HrutkayMods said:

open device manager, click on display adapters, right click on the offending card, click update driver software... when the window pops up, click browse my computer, then let me pick from a list, here you'll either have a list of 960 drivers or you might not. If so highlight the latest and click next. if not click "have disk" then browse, you should have a nividia folder on C:, open it, go to drivers and pick an INF file. then click ok and ok. if either gives you a warning about driver incompatibility, click install anyway then after it's installed restart you PC and then hopefully the card will work properly and if you want you can update the drivers with the Nvidia installer, and it should see both cards. good luck

Nope. Didn't work, as I already knew once you told me how to do it i realized i've already tried to do it. I tried again and got the same problem window.

[Anstronoxity]

34 minutes ago, HrutkayMods said:

open device manager, click on display adapters, right click on the offending card, click update driver software... when the window pops up, click browse my computer, then let me pick from a list, here you'll either have a list of 960 drivers or you might not. If so highlight the latest and click next. if not click "have disk" then browse, you should have a nividia folder on C:, open it, go to drivers and pick an INF file. then click ok and ok. if either gives you a warning about driver incompatibility, click install anyway then after it's installed restart you PC and then hopefully the card will work properly and if you want you can update the drivers with the Nvidia installer, and it should see both cards. good luck

I got it. So what i did was, I downloaded the latest version of the GeForce Game Ready driver, and had it reinstall. After that it reinstalled GeForce Experience and I noticed it said Two Gtx 960s so i quickly went to nvidia control panel and there it was, the sli option. Thanks for your help btw. This issue is resolved. 

[HrutkayMods]

glad to hear it is fixed, ive been on 361 since 364 came out, 364 caused driver crashes, hopefully they fix it soon. i'm happy you figured it out.

[Anstronoxity]

1 hour ago, HrutkayMods said:

glad to hear it is fixed, ive been on 361 since 364 came out, 364 caused driver crashes, hopefully they fix it soon. i'm happy you figured it out.

Thanks, and thanks for the help.