SLI crashing - Signal Frequency is out of range

[Muppet]

Doesn't fix it for me. I get the screen full of coloured lines and the pc hangs.

 

The only other thing I can think of right now is that one of the 7800's shares an IRQ with my Buffalo wireless card.

That sounds like something different, i was talking about the monitor out of range crash.

[PredatorUK]

I was getting that error, but since I disabled the other monitor and set a default frequency in teh nvidia drivers, I now get a screen full of coloured lines.... I have to say this SLI is more trouble than its worth!

[verncat05]

I had the exact same issue around Christmas time with the Expert board. I tried everything to fix it. Swapping the Expert back out for the SLI-DR is the only thing that fixed it. Hopefully you can find a fix for it, other than replacing the board. I was not that lucky, though.

 

Shawn

[PredatorUK]

Ok, I've made some changes.

 

1. Memory was reporting an error during memtest so I've swapped it around and now its fine.... odd eh

 

2. Reverted back to 81.98 drivers

 

3. manually set memory timings which were on auto from 3-4-4-6 to 3-3-3-8

 

It hasn't crashed once or rebooted or anything while playing NFSMW tonight!!!

 

Dunno if I'm just having a good day or what, but this is the best its run since I built it 3 weeks ago. Just a shame I finished Q4 in the mean time and put up with all that crashing

[Z3R0-CooL]

howz everyone doing? anyone still having this issue?

[plexdude]

Just wanted to add to this thread that although I haven't attempted to troubleshoot this problem yet, I am indeed having this problem as well. After reading these responses, it does seem that the problem is very specifically related to the combination of the Expert board, an SLI setup, (whether it's with dual 7800's or even dual 6600's) and 3D gaming. Perhaps the newest BIOS (12/7/05) is the culprit??? When I can, I'll have to try and reproduce this using the initial release BIOS. Also, do you guys have that "SLI Arpeture Broadcast" feature enabled in the BIOS? I do. Maybe it's related to that.

 

I'll look further into this problem to try and narrow it down using a "1-tweak-at-a-time" systematic approach. Glad it's not just me either, but it really can't be my power supply... PC Power & Cooling is pretty much the best there is.

[blackdragon57]

I've had these exact problems with my SLI setup on my Expert board. These are the games that I've seen crash with the similiar problem: Need for Speed Most Wanted, Battlefield 2, Call of Duty 2, Battle for Middle Earth, and Jedi Academy. I've never had the games crash and the monitor lose the signal while in Windows.

I did notice something extremely strange when I reboot after this crash; nVidia gives me an error box when I arrive at Windows stating that my computer is SLI capable, but my current configuration prevents SLI from working correctly [restart now]. So, I restart again -- upon getting to Windows this time, Windows does not detect a second graphics card at all. Therefore, I reboot again. When I get to Windows for the third time, everything works just fine.

I've found more stability when I removed the default monitor / plug and play monitor a few weeks ago. I've also found slightly more stability when I underclock the video cards. However, the errors still occur occasionally in 3D games.

NOTE: The highest temperatures for my system before crash are, "CPU = 40 C, Chipset = 54 C, GPU 1 = 80 C, GPU 2 = 77 C." I've never seen the GPU's go over 80 C...ever. It seems to be some sort of ceiling. I'd definitely take a wild guess that the drivers are trying to shut down the video cards / system when one GPU reaches 81 C, even though the threshold is suppose to be much higher. In the latest driver release for ForceWare, I read that they changed the temperature threshold settings (but the threshold would still be well over 100 C).

Also, there is definitely one thing to check with these 7800 GTX's and the DFI Expert: seating. I noticed that if I screw the cards into the slot (after they are fully seated), it actually pulls on the right side of the card. I had to unscrew my second card, and again, I found slightly more stability while in games.

I will be running a stress test sometime this week with 3DMark06, and nVidia's nTune monitor to record temperatures.

[Z3R0-CooL]

has nothing to do with temperature... i have Arctic cooling on mine and temps dont go over 63 .. ever....

 

never had this problem with previous mobo.. its a mobo issue

[blackdragon57]

Now I feel like an idiot for choosing a newer DFI motherboard.

1) Memory problems when using the yellow sockets (can be adjusted, but still a pain).

2) USB problems when using USB mice and keyboard(s).

3) Massive SLI problems.

4) Known issues with Maxtor hard drives.

5) Bad chipset placement.

6) I'm sure other Expert owners can add to this.

 

I can't even start over-clocking until either nVidia or DFI fixes this SLI issue. I could take out one video card, but then that leaves me with one 7800 GTX 256MB -- not what I wanted for in this setup. I start to wonder if DFI actually does proper bug-testing before releasing this motherboard.

[Flam3h]

Just out of curiosity is there anyone who can say they dont have any of the problems stated in this thread running SLi on these games?

 

The major reason i will be building a rig on the Expert will be for gaming - so i dont want to build a problematic PC. Please tell me this is isolated?

 

Also USB problems?

 

Thnx

 

Jon

[red930]

MAXTOR has addressed their issue with the nF4 chipset through a firmware update for their drives.

 

Maybe you should RMA your board to the vendor. There are thousands of Expert boards running without problems. You might have a bad board.

 

Now I feel like an idiot for choosing a newer DFI motherboard.

1) Memory problems when using the yellow sockets (can be adjusted, but still a pain).

2) USB problems when using USB mice and keyboard(s).

3) Massive SLI problems.

4) Known issues with Maxtor hard drives.

5) Bad chipset placement.

6) I'm sure other Expert owners can add to this.

 

I can't even start over-clocking until either nVidia or DFI fixes this SLI issue. I could take out one video card, but then that leaves me with one 7800 GTX 256MB -- not what I wanted for in this setup. I start to wonder if DFI actually does proper bug-testing before releasing this motherboard.

[blackdragon57]

My USB mouse and keyboard are current switched to PS/2, and having few problems. I've recently had twice the crashing, so I switched around the video cards. My second 7800 GTX has been detected far less than before. Currently, I may have found a solution...I've had a completely stable system for several hours, even under games, after I switched the SLI bridge around (to the opposite way shown on the DFI Expert Guide's diagram). In a few days, I'll be able to tell if that was causing the problem the entire time.