Dual nVidia 8800 GTS Issues
TheNobleDuke
a second nVidia 8800 GTS so that my box could handle another screen. I
installed it and booted back up into Vista but immediately started
having issues with the resolution of the main screen, so I decided to
uninstall the nVidia drivers and then reinstall them. I removed them
and rebooted, but now instead of showing me the login prompt, all
three screens remain blank. I see the BIOS splashscreen, the BIOS
loader, the little Vista progress bar, but after that nothing. Since
I'm running in safe mode on the main screen, which is hooked into the
new card, I don't THINK its hardware, but I honestly have no idea, so
anything would be useful.
Not sure if it helps, but here are my specs:
P5N-E SLI Motherboard
2 Gb RAM
Intel Duo 2.13GHz
4xSATA HDDs
Thanks for your assistance.
Augustus
"TheNobleDuke" <haddon...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:be87c3f2-5a2a-4222...@e17g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
Were these two 8800GTS cards connected in SLI mode?
Robert Miles
"TheNobleDuke" <haddon...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:be87c3f2-5a2a-4222...@e17g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
Two newsgroups that look like places you might want to repeat your question:
microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices
microsoft.public.windows.vista.music_pictures_video
TheNobleDuke
> "TheNobleDuke" <haddonfis...@gmail.com> wrote in message
I disabled SLI mode because I know that you can only run a single
monitor using it, but installing or removing the bridge does not
change the problem. I kept SLI mode software disabled.
Even if I was running in SLI mode, wouldn't it still run one of the
monitors? Right now I plugged monitors into three of the four ports
via DVI and they all are permanently blank except the main screen
during POST and when I boot to safe mode.
Augustus
>I disabled SLI mode because I know that you can only run a single
>monitor using it, but installing or removing the bridge does not
>change the problem. I kept SLI mode software disabled.
Correct
>Even if I was running in SLI mode, wouldn't it still run one of the
>monitors? Right now I plugged monitors into three of the four ports
>via DVI and they all are permanently blank except the main screen
>during POST and when I boot to safe mode.
Correct.
I would do a system restore to the date prior to the second card install at
this point. A driver rollback will likely not work right now. If this still
results in a blank screen when Vista launches into it's GUI then post back.
TheNobleDuke
I've never used the system restore feature in Vista but I'll give it a
shot tonight. Alternatively, would a repair install do it? I'm not
terribly fond of them but if it saves me from a wipe then it can't be
all bad.
Augustus
>I've never used the system restore feature in Vista but I'll give it a
>shot tonight. Alternatively, would a repair install do it? I'm not
>terribly fond of them but if it saves me from a wipe then it can't be
>all bad.
A repair install to cure this problem would work, but it's overkill at this
point. System restore should do the trick...in getting GUI function back.
Kind of goes without saying that you pull the second card before you do this
and then add it after the restore and allow Vista to discover it and install
the driver.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/using-windows-vista-system-restore/
TheNobleDuke
I booted to safe mode and checked my system restore, and saw a restore
point from prior to all of this nonsense. However, before I rolled
back, I wanted to try Driver Sweep, an application a buddy of mine
recommended, to wipe out all of my video card drivers. I yanked one of
the cards, booted to safe mode, and wiped out all of the drivers. I
rebooted and it actually came up, which made me think I was all right.
I shut down the PC, installed the second card, and immediately had the
same problem I had before.
I'm going to do the system restore, but now I'm starting to wonder if
this isn't a deeper issue. Like, a power issue. The fans on the cards
are spinning so I know they're at least getting power, but I've got an
Antec TruePower Trio 550w PSU for:
2x1Gb DDR2
2x8800 GTS
1xDVD-RW
4x7200 RPM SATA HDDs
1xIntel Core Duo 2.14
Which didn't seem like a lot before, but the more I think about it
sounds like more and more of a problem. I'm not too hot with gauging
gpower, but the PSU calculators I found online either said I was safe
by 100w or under by 200w, so I'm even more confused.
Finally, during my reading about this issue, I came across mention of
an 'EZ Plug' on ASUS boards which provides extra power when using two
video cards. Its not referenced in my manual nor can I find any molex
jack on my motherboard, but does anyone know if there is some sort of
additional power needed to run dual GPU's on an P5N-E SLI motherboard
besides the power ports on each card?
TheNobleDuke
One more thing: when the PC is booted to windows with no displays, I
can remote into it via RDC and it appears to run fine. I guess if it
were a power issue, it might not run ok, but on the other hand with no
GPU's it probably has plenty of power for everything else.
Augustus
>can remote into it via RDC and it appears to run fine. I guess if it
>were a power issue, it might not run ok, but on the other hand with no
>GPU's it probably has plenty of power for everything else.
Running mstsc from another XP Pro box or Vista Business or Ultimate box
bypasses the GUI subsystem on the client box.....
Phil Weldon
I booted to safe mode and checked my system restore, and saw a restore
> point from prior to all of this nonsense. However, before I rolled
> back, I wanted to try Driver Sweep, an application a buddy of mine
> recommended, to wipe out all of my video card drivers. I yanked one of
> the cards, booted to safe mode, and wiped out all of the drivers. I
> rebooted and it actually came up, which made me think I was all right.
> I shut down the PC, installed the second card, and immediately had the
> same problem I had before.
Simple test to try if power may be a problem; try unplugging all of your
drives other than the boot drive, then power up and boot. I think you
should have enough power with a good 550 Watt supply, but this test will
show if an extra 30 watts or so helps (more if the drives are spinning up.)
Phil Weldon
"TheNobleDuke" <haddon...@gmail.com> wrote in message
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TheNobleDuke
OS drive. Reinstalled Vista and it appeared to install and load
Windows without an issue. Installed the latest nVidia drivers,
rebooted, and promptly had the problem again. What's more, now when I
reboot, I recieve a "BootMGR is Missing" error which Windows Vista
Repair doesn't seem to think exists. I'm going to format again and
then install earlier drivers and see if maybe that fixes the problem.
I may also try prayer, and possibly an exorcism.
All of this in my mind points to a problem with the latest nVidia
drivers; I'll let you know what happens in the end(?).
TheNobleDuke
released for the 8800 series card and nothing works. Out of curiosity,
I yanked the second card but it doesn't even work in single card mode,
which is frustrating. The only thing I can think of that would cause
all of these problems would be, in my mind, the power supply, so I'm
going to order one with more muscle and see what happens.
Ed Medlin
Make sure you test both cards. The PSU could be the problem, but I would
lean more towards the MB.
Ed
TheNobleDuke
that the PC fails to recognize the DVI ports the first time around.
Plugged in a VGA cable to the primary monitor and it worked like a
charm. After that I enabled the DVI second and third monitors and they
work fine now as well. I'm hesitant to hook up the primary via DVI
right now because I don't want anything else to go wrong, but I know
at some point soon I'll do it to see what happens.
I'd like to thank Mike for coming up with this; I would have never
even thought to try this.
Haddon
Beemer
Pleased to see that you got this fixed. I was about to reply offering the
advice that perhaps your OS was trying to boot from the wrong hard drive.
I'm running 5 hard drives and this caused me to scrathc my head when I also
was getting black screens with my 8800GT.
However apart from this your solution is most interesting as I still
occasionally get the black screen even although my bios is selecting the
boot drive. I have two monitors. One is LCD and DVI input the other is
CRT and RGB using an adaptor to the dvi cable.
regards,
Beemer