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SLI-DR Expert with SLI causes Game Crashes


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Whenever I play any games (Day of Defeat: Source, Counter-Strike:Source, Half-Life 2, Black & White 2, F.E.A.R., Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach to name a few), my computer will crash. Usually, my monitor will lose the signal from the video cards and the sound will start looping and then I have to restart manually. Sometimes I can go for hours without a problem, and other times it will crash up to 3 times in 10 minutes. This appears to be completely random as far as I can tell. I have run multiple tests to check stability including:

 

Memtest86 v1.65 (onboard the motherboard) 12 hours with no errors and seperately 40 passes of Test #5, no errors.

 

SuperPi 32M

 

Dual Prime95 (one for each core at 825MB of memory each) for 12+ hours, no errors.

 

In addition, my CPU temperature never climbs above 42C, chipset temperature never climbs above 45C, and GPU temperature never climbs above 60C (in either). I am using Windows XP Home with SP2 and this is a new install, only put this computer together about a month ago. Only things installed are drivers, test software (Prime95, SuperPi, Everest, 3DMark06, etc.), AVG Free, and a few games. I do have the AMD Dual Core patch installed though not the Microsoft Hotfix (it killed my Windows install, BSOD on bootup everytime, had to revert back to a Restore Point).

 

My computer seems to be completely stable at this overclock except for games, but I have put my settings back to stock (200HTT, 1.35vcore, 1/1 RAM Divider) and still had the crash in games. I have tried the 81.95, 81.98 and 82.12 Forceware drivers and had the crash happen with each (the 82.12 are beta drivers). I have tried closing all running processes (except explorer and task manager of course) and still experienced the crash. Voltages from my PSU appear to be stable from every source that reports on voltage, and because of my stability in non-3D environments, I do not believe it to be a PSU problem. I have uninstalled all Creative software/drivers and installed the most up-to-date Xi-Fi driver from the Soundblaster website but it did not help.

 

The only thing I can think of is this is some sort of problem with the Expert board while using two video cards in SLI.

 

This is not the first thread on this subject, the original can be found here: http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41433

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In addition, 10 other people have reported having this problem. Between all of us we have tested multiple PSU's and driver versions, including the 6.70 and 6.53 nForce4 chipset drivers, no help from either. The specs for everyone with this problem are:

 

DFI Lan Party UT SLI-DR Expert

Opteron 170

2GB(2x1gb) Patriot 2-3-2-5 @2.6v

2 x Evga 7800GTX in SLI

Memorex MRN-500x 16 dual layer DVD+/-RW

SilverStone Strider 600w model no. ST60F

Seagate ST380013AS (74gig) SATA

 

DFI Lanparty NF4 SLI DR Expert Bios 12/7,AMD 64 4400x2,SLI 2x 512mb Leadtek 7800 GTX Vivo Extreme Edition,2 x 1GB Corsair twinX 4000pt XMS Platinum DDR500 CL3 T1,Creative X-FI,2 Western Digital 200gig SATA II in Raid 0, 21in IBM Trinatron,Altek Lansing FX6021,XP Pro SP2,CM Stacker 830,SLI OCZ 520 watt powerstream,Razer Copperhead,Zboard

 

DFI LanpartyUT N4 SLI-DR Expert (BIOS 12/07/2005), Opteron 144 @ 2.7 (9 x 300), 2 x GSkill PC4000 @ 245Mhz, 2 x XFX 7800GT @ 490 / 1.11, 74GB Raptor, Creative FPS Fatal1ty, Thermaltake PurePower TWV 500W PSU, NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter, Thermaltake VA8000BWA Armour Super Tower, Thermaltake Bigwater Colling Kit

 

DFI Lanpary UT nF4 Expert (BIOS 12/07/2005)

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester @250 1.42V

2X PQI Turbo 2GB PC-3200 @228 MHZ

XFX 6600GT-SLI 500/1000

WD 160GB - PATA - IDE0

LG DVD+/-RW - IDE1

Antec TP II - 550W

 

DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR Expert Bios 12/07

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400 @ 2500Mhz 10x250

OCZ PC4000 GOLD XTC

2x XFX 7800GTX Extreme Edition (490/1300) in SLI (Arctic Cooling NV5 rev.3)

EnerMax 600W PSU SLI Approved

Creative Fatal1ty X-FI FPS Edition

Fatal1ty Zalman CPU Cooler

2x SATA2 WD 160GB HDs

 

DFI SLI-DR w/X2 4800+ (Expert sold after RMA)

2 XFX 7800gtx's SLI

2x1gig G-Skill pc3200 23251T

1 WD 320gig sata2/2x160gig Hitachi sata2 in Raid0

X-FI Fatality FPS w/Z-5500's

PC P&C 1KW

 

DFI LanParty UT nF4 SLI-DR Expert (BIOS 12/07/05)

Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego (E4) @ 2.8Ghz

PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 510 SLI

1GB OCZ Platinum PC3200 (OCZ4001024ELDCPER2-K) TCCD (orange slots) @2-2-2-8

2x Evga 7800 GTs (n516) in SLI

Thermalright XP-90 w/Vantec Stealth 92mm fan

Soundblaster Audigy 1

1x WD 250GB 16MB buffer SATA II

Lian-Li PC-7B w/side window & 120mm front & exhaust fans

 

DFI Lanparty UT nF4 Ultra-DR Expert

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+

2x Corsair TWINX Platinum 1GB PC-4000

2x eVGA 7800 GTX 256MB PCI-E x16

SoundBlaster X-FI xTreme Music Card

2x 300 GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10 7200 RPM

Pioneer 16x Black DVD+/-RW DVR-101 - IDE

LiteOn 52x32x52 Black CDRW

NEC Generic Floppy Drive (Black)

Antec TruePower 550w EPS12V

CoolerMaster WaveMaster Silver Case

Logitech 5500 5.1 Speaker Set

Windows XP Pro SP2

Microsoft Media Pro Keyboard & Logitech G5 Mouse (USB)

 

DFI LanParty SLI-DR Expert

Athlon 4800 X2

2gb Corsair CS2 at (auto) 3-3-3-8

2 x 7800 GTX in SLI

OCZ Modstream 520w

2 x 250gb Hitachi T7k250 SATA 2

 

DFI LanPartyUT nF4 SLI-DR Expert {12/07 BIOS} / AMD FX-57 (2940@[email protected]) [Asus X-Mars HS+Fan] / CorsairXMS TWINX1024-3200C2(4x512MB@DDR490; 3-3-3-7; 2.81v) / 2xeVGA 7800GTX KOs - SLi (515c/1405m)[Arctic Cooling NV5Rev3 Coolers] / Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty / ATi Theater550 TV+FMTuner / 2xWDRaptor 36gb, 1xHitachi 230gb, 3xMaxtor 320gb / HP dvd740i DVD, LG DVD-ROM / Aspire PFC-680W/EPS12v /

Windows MCE '05 - SP2 | Homebrew Fan Blowers / Lian-Li V1000B+

 

 

 

To sum this all up, the only things we apparently have in common is the SLI-DR Expert motherboard and two video cards in SLI. We are using different PSU's, different CPU's (Dual core and single core), different brands of RAM in various settings (2x1GB and 2x512MB, varied timings), different GPU core video cards and different manufacturers, different size and brand harddrives (some in RAID, some not), different soundcards (some use Soundblaster Audigy, many use Soundblaster Xi-FI, and a few use onboard sound), some are using XP Home and some are using XP Pro, some use air cooling, some have watercooling, some are overclocked and some are at stock settings. No software or hardware changes any of us have made has helped with the crashes, with the exception of replacing the SLI-DR Expert motherboard with a different SLI motherboard.

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So Muppet => U want to say, that the "buggy" BIOS which is (as DFI says) the CPU Killer BIOS is SLi Stable BIOS :D That's a little bit funny .

But Who knows - maybe they f....d up sthing in 12/07 => some people say that they have extra 10*C gap between real CPU temp and MoBo sensor temp with 12/07 BIOS.

 

If what U're saying is true, that would mean the 12/07 is completely bad BIOS - maybe except CPU Burn, which I really doubt to be resolved in 12/07.

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I am having the same problems myself. With 1 VC..either an Ati x1900xtx or a 7800GTX I was fine, overclocked alot was stable in all tests....put in SLI and all of a sudden...random freezes and laggy behavior. I have also lost my SLI on a couple random reboots using PCMARK06. One problem was trying the newer NVforce drivers..have gone back to the older ones which eliminated some lag. Have tried all the video drivers...still getting flaky behavior. Really seems like SLI changed the whole picture. I keep lowering all my overclocks and still get flakiness..

Doc

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