GTX 980 SLI haunted hardware

[hmminteresting]

So I've just gotten a second 980 in order to run SLI my current 980 is a gigabyte G1 gaming the second one is an MSI 4G one (though this shouldn't mean any issues) both have the same amount of RAM and everything. this is also my firsdt time trying SLI. I haven't got a HB SLI bridge as they're different PCBs and it wouldn't fit so atm I have a single flexible SLI bridge. (running windows 8.1 64bit, 16gb RAM, i7 4790k, 850W PSU) latest drivers for everything too

 

Now the issue I'm having is very strange ANY game that I try and run in fullscreen crashes and I mean ANY game. I have 3 monitors all plugged into my first GPU and they all go black I cant close the game by spamming alt+f4, can't open control panel or alt+tab. no bluescreen no nothing. All I can do is restart the PC and try again. The weird thing is when I somehow manage to get the games into windowed borderless or windowed mode they all work perfectly with no issues at all.

 

So theres a few things that I think might be causing the issue though I have no idea how to go about testing and troubleshooting:

• First my main monitor runs at 144hz, second at 75hz and third at 60hz (though I dont play games on the second and third monitor (third monitor is just an hd TV and 2nd an old dell office monitor). Is the different refresh rates causing the issue?
• Second I only have 1 flexible SLI bridge I'll order another sometime next week but is this whats causing the issue?!
• Third my 2 GPUs have different stock speeds as theyre different manufacturers do I need to under/overclock any specific GPU?
• Forth I have a total of 6 storage devices ranging from 2 SSDs in raid 0 to an SSHD and a remaining mixture of HDDs and SSDs no I'm pretty sure my 850W PSU can handle it? maybe it cant

 

I'd appreciate some advice on going about trying to find the issue I'll try unplugging the other monitors etc when I get the other SLI bridge but how else can i investigate how to solve the issue

[Theguywhobea]

Yeah sounds like a ghost to me.

[hmminteresting]

Just now, Theguywhobea said:

Yeah sounds like a ghost to me.

IKR?! so weird no explanation and it never happened with a single GPU. Can't find any relevant threads on any forumn 

[Ashleyyyy]

i know nothing about SLI, bit Linus mentioned in the 8K video that you need to plug displays into specific ports.. 

[hmminteresting]

2 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

i know nothing about SLI, bit Linus mentioned in the 8K video that you need to plug displays into specific ports.. 

well thats the thing when i connect a monitor to the second GPU I can no longer enable SLI

 

I'll try plugging my displays into other ports though thanks

[Ashleyyyy]

2 minutes ago, hmminteresting said:

well thats the thing when i connect a monitor to the second GPU I can no longer enable SLI

 

I'll try plugging my displays into other ports though thanks

i just rewatched the video, and what he said was about Nvidia surround, not SLI... but you could still try i guess. 

[hmminteresting]

4 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

i just rewatched the video, and what he said was about Nvidia surround, not SLI... but you could still try i guess. 

I was thinking that haha but who knows maybe ittl help

[Mick Naughty]

I assume you already tried with only one monitor, fresh install of drivers?

What ever gpu program you run will lock both cards to which ever is slowest. Have you ran a benchmark yet? As in something from unigine?

[hmminteresting]

44 minutes ago, Mick Naughty said:

I assume you already tried with only one monitor, fresh install of drivers?

What ever gpu program you run will lock both cards to which ever is slowest. Have you ran a benchmark yet? As in something from unigine?

I have yes and I tried to run both 3dmark and unigine in fullscreen neither worked but both worked on windowed or borderless

[Mick Naughty]

These aren’t common issues what so ever. Either a simple software issue being over looked or hardware compatibility. 

 

You tried the recently added card by itself in the system and ran benchmarks?

[Colty]

Try hooking up the second and third displays into your onboard graphics. 

[hmminteresting]

13 hours ago, Mick Naughty said:

These aren’t common issues what so ever. Either a simple software issue being over looked or hardware compatibility. 

 

You tried the recently added card by itself in the system and ran benchmarks?

Yep the second card seems to be fine when I first got it i tested the temps and performance on its own, it was a bit worse than the G1 but nothing abnormal. I dont think its software as I recently created the RAID 0 so its pretty much a fresh windows install bar a few games and NZXT CAM

 

12 hours ago, Colty said:

Try hooking up the second and third displays into your onboard graphics. 

the second and third monitors are HDMI and DVI my mobo only has an HDMI and DP port so its kind of not possible  I'll try it with the HDMI though

[Frankenburger]

Can we get a GPUZ or Nvidia Inspector screen shot of each card?

 

A few things you can try in the mean time.

 

• Do a clean driver install
• Swap the position of the cards
• Try switching the position of the SLI bridge
• Unplug all but one monitor

[ViolentBoo]

Try a different sli bridge? Re-seat it? I know this will sound weird, but unscrew (don't uninstall) the top most card and apply the bridge and see if it works, then scew it back to place.

[hmminteresting]

On 21/01/2018 at 2:56 PM, Frankenburger said:

Can we get a GPUZ or Nvidia Inspector screen shot of each card?

 

A few things you can try in the mean time.

 

• Do a clean driver install
• Swap the position of the cards
• Try switching the position of the SLI bridge
• Unplug all but one monitor

 

On 21/01/2018 at 5:57 PM, ViolentBoo said:

Try a different sli bridge? Re-seat it? I know this will sound weird, but unscrew (don't uninstall) the top most card and apply the bridge and see if it works, then scew it back to place.

 

 

Okay so I fixed the issue it was apparently the fact that I only had 1 SLI bridge connected. I'm not sure why or how.

 

• I disconnected all but my main monitor, still no change 
• I swapped the GPUs, no change
• I connected everything to the second GPU and ran it alone, it worked perfectly

After performing all of these steps anything launched in fullscreen still crashed in SLI, so today my second bridge finally arrived and it worked perfectly i ran every benchmark in 3Dmark with flawless results and ran uniengine as well all in fullscreen and it works! 

 

Now I'm sure that thats not meant to happen but at this point I'm just happy I can launch games even though I'll probably run them in borderless anyways 

 

[Frankenburger]

2 minutes ago, hmminteresting said:

 

 

 

Okay so I fixed the issue it was apparently the fact that I only had 1 SLI bridge connected. I'm not sure why or how.

 

• I disconnected all but my main monitor, still no change 
• I swapped the GPUs, no change
• I connected everything to the second GPU and ran it alone, it worked perfectly

After performing all of these steps anything launched in fullscreen still crashed in SLI, so today my second bridge finally arrived and it worked perfectly i ran every benchmark in 3Dmark with flawless results and ran uniengine as well all in fullscreen and it works! 

 

Now I'm sure that thats not meant to happen but at this point I'm just happy I can launch games even though I'll probably run them in borderless anyways 

 

Definitely strange, but I'm glad to hear you got it worked out!

[Mick Naughty]

Sounds like the first bridge was bad. Only used a single bridge on my pair of 980’s.