8800GTX SLI black screen? Power issue?

Vanqu1sh · 02:46 PM

I just purchased another 8800GTX to run SLI. Installed the card yesterday and did some benchmarking before and after with my favorite games, just to see what kind of improvement I get by going to two cards. Everything showed pretty nice gains, and everything worked perfectly.

Last night before bed I fired up Company of Heroes to play a skirmish to test out in game performance. Everything was smooth as butter, until about 5 minutes into the game when my monitor went to standby and lost video signal. Only way to get the pc to respond was restart it with the button on the case. When I lost video signal, I could still hear sound that was playing fine, the first time this happened I could hear the Germans move in and attack.

I tried the game again with fan speed o 100% for both cards, after about 5 minutes in I get the same thing. Screen goes black and have to reboot. So then I started the game back up and ran in DX9 mode... same thing after about 5 minutes of play. Next I tried selecting each different SLI profiles, same thing. Screen always goes black and have to reboot.

Temperatures on both cards seem fine all through playing until it goes black. Next I removed the new card and played COH, game ran fine. Then I switched cards to the new one, game ran fine. Put both back in and the game goes black after about 5 minutes.

I've also reverted all clocks back to stock on both CPU and Video cards and set all fans at 100%. Same thing.

Re-installed drivers and get the same thing as well. Did not have time to test other games as of yet, will be doing that when I get home from work today.

So my first reaction is its my power supply causing this. Heres what I'm using: PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750 watt Quad http://www.pcpower.com/power-supply/...uad-black.html

And here is all the current hardware I'm powering:

E8400 @ stock
2 x 8800GTX @ stock
4GB Ram
eVGA 680i Rev A1
1 x Linksys wireless N network card.
3 x 150GB Raptors
2 x 500GB Cavairs

Any ideas? Is the power supply enough to handle that?

EvilMunkey · 02:53 PM

I assume you are using Vista x64. Same thing happened to me when I took out my Ultra and replaced it with 2 GTS's. Everything worked fine then about 4 hours later crash in the middle of games black sreen with sound still running. I searched for ever trying to figure out what was wrong till finally I just reformatted install everything from scratch and now its fine. Trust me I did everything from System Restore to reinstalling drivers uninstalling updates nothing worked but to reformat. If you do start over be sure to take out 2 gigs of ram and install the hotfix before you put the other 2 back in.

P.S. I was overclocking my system when all this stuff happened. Only thing I could think off was that the OS got screwed up some how.

Vanqu1sh · 01-26-2008, 02:56 PM

Yes, Vista x64. I really hope thats not what I need to do. Really don't want to have to re-install. Anyone else?

EvilMunkey · 01-26-2008, 04:59 PM

Im sorry man I went through it all and so did a friend of mine he just called me. His computer was working great untill he installed his second 8800GT then now it locks up black screen with sound. Vista home Premium X64 From what I have found thats all yu can do.

Vanqu1sh · 01-26-2008, 05:32 PM

Well unless anyone else has any other ideas, I guess I'll be removing 2GB and then re-installing Vista. So many weird quirks with it (don't use 4GB to install till you get the patch, then make sure you both graphic cards installed otherwise you will black screen.)

Anyone else out there have a similar experience? And how did you fix it? I hate to think the only fix is a re-install, but I'm sort of out of options at the moment.

fhertlein · 01-26-2008, 05:49 PM

I'm trying to remember if I had to do a clean install of the OS or if I just uninstalled all chipset/video drivers.

I would uninstall the chipset/video drivers; shutdown the PC; remove one card and restart the system; install the chipset/video drivers, reboot and then shutdown; install second card and sli bridge; reboot.

Some motherboards have the additional power connector for folks running two cards, in order to provide additional power to the card.

I know I had the issue, but I can not remember if I had to do a clean install, since it has been a long time that I have been running SLI.

Vanqu1sh · 01:37 PM

Well after getting home from work yesterday I tried countless things to try and resolve my issue.

First thing I did was uninstall my chipset/video drivers and reinstalled all of them. Using the same video driver, version: 169.25WHQL. Got the same issue after reinstall, about 5 minutes into CoH I got a black screen and hard to restart.

So then I tried Crysis to see if was just an issue with SLI and CoH; nope, same thing after about 30 seconds of play. Same black screen, just happened more quickly.

So then I went and downloaded the 169.28 Beta drivers for Vista x64. Installed them and guess what, everything works perfectly fine. No black screen or anything so I'm like omgwtfbbq!!!??? Un-installed them and tried the WHQL again, same black screen.

So apparently the 169.28 Beta's work fine, played CoH for about 2 hours last night without a single issue. Crysis runs fine too; all with SLI enabled.

Maddog007 · 01-27-2008, 01:55 PM

I really hate you.

I've had my sli setup going for three weeks without one hitch. I read this thread and within a few hours presto!!! Cod4 black screens and I hear the sound still going.

Didn't happen again though. I don't think a rebuild is the answer btw...

Vanqu1sh · 01-27-2008, 03:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maddog007

I really hate you.

I've had my sli setup going for three weeks without one hitch. I read this thread and within a few hours presto!!! Cod4 black screens and I hear the sound still going.

Didn't happen again though. I don't think a rebuild is the answer btw...

ROFL Well if it happens again just try the drivers, seems to have taken care of my issue.