SLI Crashing 5 Minutes Into Gaming

Hello, I have been having a real pain in the *** problem with my SLI setup. I have 2 8800 GT's in SLI right now and I currently have SLI disable from Nvidia control panel due to unstable crashing in-game when SLI is enable. Usually when I'm in-game it takes around 2-5 minutes before it crashes. Sometimes the crashes make me manually restart and then sometimes I will get lucky and I can just Alt-Tab out of it and then sometimes It will tell me the display driver stop responding or something. The temperatures run 47c idle and around 60-75c on load. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong or whats causing this issue or how it can be fixed so I decided to make a thread.

Here is my specs just in case
I am currently running the latest drivers available from nVIDIA. I have also tried previous drivers to see if this might have been a problem.

Running Windows XP SP2


750w Thermaltake Toughpower
Intel e6850 Core 2 @ stock 3ghz
Creative X-fi Xtreme Gamer
2x 512mb 8800GT EVGA
Asus P5N-E SLI Chipset - nVIDIA nForce 650i SLI
2GB Corsair XMS2 - 2GB OCZ XTC SLI - Both in Dual channel.


And here is 2 screenshots of both my video cards in GPU-Z

http://www.picsend.net/images/549554Card1.gif
http://www.picsend.net/images/291888Card2.gif

 

When did this problem start? Did this configuration ever work right?

If these are GPU temps, okay. But if this is your CPU temp, then this is probably your problem. You can verify by opening the side of the case and blasting a desk fan in there (I recommend making sure a layer of dust is not trapping heat first). Then keep an eye on your temps and see if it crashes. I start to get panicky when CPU temps hit 60°C. Was the CPU properly mounted with a layer of good TIM properly applied?

When inside your case, check for additional or larger fan options. You want good front to back air flow. I prefer a large (120mm) fan in front drawing cool air in, and at least one large fan in back (not counting any in the PSU) exhausting hot air out.

Do not overclock until this is resolved. And while that PSU should have enough horsepower, and TT is a reputable maker, it could be having problems staying within specifications while under full load.

I would make sure your cards' drivers are current too.

 

Those are my GPU Temp's and these problems have occurred since day 1.

 

Well, then the rest of what I said still applies. Is the CPU temp okay?

 

Yes, my CPU runs anywhere from 25-35c

 

Are you sure your GPU's integrated fans are working properly?

 

Yes, I check the temp's for both my gpu's with everest and use rivatuner to make the fan speed 70%

 

Did you already disable your motherboard's integrated GPU?

 

you seem to have different bios versions, this shouldn't make any difference but try swapping the cards around

 

You could also try swaping your display connector between your GPUs.

Check your bios settings, make sure your board is detecting your PCI GPUs before the integrated one.

 

My motherboard doesn't come with on-board video.

I did this like 3 days ago thinking the same thing and I'm still crashing :'(

No on-board video.

 

Ok, so far we know it is not a hardware problem. Do you get any kind of error when your game crashes? like a warning or blue screen of death? or does your comp just crashes and restart?

 

Nope no warning it just crashes. Sometimes I will get lucky and I can alt+tab out of it and sometimes I have to manually restart and then on a rare occasion I get a "display driver is not responding" or something like that and my desktop looks like it is 8 bit lol and I have to restart.

 

Have you installed your display drivers yet? It is not always necessary but you could try installing the ones that come in a CD with your display, not the ones that windows suggest.

 

Yes, the drivers on the actual CD are just flat out drivers with no application to support SLI.

 

you sure you have the latest drivers/nvidia software?

 

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_182.08_whql.html


Yes.

 

Does your display supports higher refresh rates than 60Hz? If yes, try setting your display's refresh rate to something around 70Hz - 75Hz while you play so that it can refresh graphics faster and keep up with the GPU frequency.

Does your computer crashes everytime you play a game in SLI mode or certain games only?

 

I have had it set to 75Hz for a long time now, only way I can play games smoothly and it crashes on every game.

 

Well, I'm not really sure what's the problem to be honest. But for now on we know it's not a hardware problem, it might have something to do with drivers or bios. I tried to help because I have had hardware problems in the past but seeing that you've done everything ok I'm not really sure what might be the problem. Good luck fixing your problem. I guess you should call nVidia tech support or something.

If you find the solution please tell us how you did it :cool

 

Yea I'm so cluless as well. Thanks for all your help though, I really do appreciate it.

 

It might be that one of your voltage rails is sagging under load, you need to take a look at your voltages at idle and under load. you can use a hardware monitor program for this but a multimeter is best. Try running the torture test to give it some load- http://www.majorgeeks.com/Prime95_d4363.html

Also check the voltage at the molex drive connectors as you can have more than 1 rail of the same voltage, just because you saw 12.2volts at your motherboard connector doesn't mean your going to from the other 12volt outlets.

 

Wow! I don't know what more I could add after running through all of Jerry's suggestions. So being a hardware guy, I'm back to my original suggestions mentioned earlier. If this were on my bench, I would swap in a known good PSU.

According to the eXtreme PSU Calculator Lite, you can get by with 550W - and with me not knowing everything to plug in, I put utilization and load at 100% and capacitor aging at 30%, so for testing purposes you could probably test with less, if it has the necessary connectors. That said, think your choice of a 750W was just fine - since the computer draws from the wall what the computer needs, and not what the PSU can deliver, the 750W should be able to loaf along, "cool" and hopefully, quiet (fan on low speed).

But, even the best PSUs can fail. You said,

Day 1 of what? A whole new build? Or attempting to go SLi? Did this motherboard, RAM, CPU and PSU ever work together with just one graphics card?

 

Voodoo is sneaky!

 

Sorry

 

Hey - when this happens, it just gives credence to that line of reasoning.

 

the moral of the story is copy, refresh, paste, post

lets not hijack the thread. Yes the PSU should be tested/substituted.