No SLI option in NVIDIA Control Panel, cannot enable SLI - 990FX EXTREME-3 + 2x GTX670's

[milestm]

Hi Guys,

Have a little bit of a problem, wondering if anyone has experienced something similar or can lend a hand diagnosing the issue here. I don't seem to have the SLI option appearing the NVIDIA control panel and when I run any games or benchmarks the 2nd card just idles at 324MHz / 32c

Rig

1. Asrock Extreme-3 990FX
2. Patriot Viper 1866MHz 8GB
3. 2x GTX670 2GB FTW
4. AMD FX-8320 CPU
5. Coolermaster Thunder 700W PSU
6. Windows 7 x64
7. Nvidia Drivers 331.58

Have already tried

1. Firmware on the video cards are both 80.04.5C.00.70
2. Updated motherboard bios to latest available on the ASRock website (1.7)
3. Tried swapping the cards around in the PCI-e slots
4. Tried 3 different SLI bridges
5. Tried a clean install of the Nvidia drivers
6. Made sure all motherboard chipset drivers where installed
7. Unplugging and replugging in the 6 pin power connectors
8. Reseating both cards and the SLI bridges
9. Adding the Nvidia CoolBits reg hack (Did nothing? Or couldn't get it to work?)
10. Tried running a single display only to see if it made any difference
11. Tried both the left and right hand SLI connectors on the cards
12. Flipped the sli bridge over
13. Checked the bios for any mention of any setting that might effect the PCI-E bus at all, doesnt seem to be any.
14. Tried swapping in a third GTX670 to see if one of the original cards was the problem

Notes

Yes the cards plugged in to the correct PCI slots
Yes both cards appear in device manager / nvidia control panel
Yes the motherboard supports SLI
Yes all the power cables are plugged in
Yes I have tested both cards individually
Yes have submitted a support ticket about 24 hours and have yet to hear anything back

Have been googling around which has lead me to all the tricks above, alas none have been successful.

Posted the same thread on the evga forums (No SLI option in NVIDIA Control Panel, cannot enable SLI - 2GB GTX670 FTW | EVGA Forums) , pretty much concluded its either a motherboard fault or driver / bios fault.

Any / all help would be greatly apprenticed!

The Setup


Control panel where the SLI option doesn't show


CARD ONE


CARD TWO

[grammaton_feather]

Re: No SLI option in NVIDIA Control Panel, cannot enable SLI - 990FX EXTREME-3 + 2x GTX670's

Reminds me of SLI issue I had after I changed my motherboard. I had the SLI option not appearing and when it did appear and I enabled it.. the Nvidia drivers would crash immediately and require reinstall. Asus support didn't know what the problem was but there was some rumour on a forum that the cause was hacked/pirate windows. At the time I had been using just that and so I downloaded a legit trial windows 7 from microsoft and was amazed to find my SLI worked perfectly!

If you're using non-pirate windows then obviously your problem is caused by something else.

Have you tried a different install of windows? Always a good idea to have a second install available for testing.

[odiebugs]

Re: No SLI option in NVIDIA Control Panel, cannot enable SLI - 990FX EXTREME-3 + 2x GTX670's

Reminds me of SLI issue I had after I changed my motherboard. I had the SLI option not appearing and when it did appear and I enabled it.. the Nvidia drivers would crash immediately and require reinstall. Asus support didn't know what the problem was but there was some rumour on a forum that the cause was hacked/pirate windows. At the time I had been using just that and so I downloaded a legit trial windows 7 from microsoft and was amazed to find my SLI worked perfectly!

If you're using non-pirate windows then obviously your problem is caused by something else.

Have you tried a different install of windows? Always a good idea to have a second install available for testing.

Well, you heard wrong, windows 7 uses a SLIC injection hack, this has nothing to do with getting SLI to be seen and is not the problem. Even 8 and 8.1 have no hacks, but original RTM can be activated, and will not cause any problems.

Now if they were stupid enough to get some slimmed down version of windows and didn't check the hash, then they have a trojan, but still can't see it not allowing SLI to be seen.


Most GTX670, need two power plugs per card, looks like the poster only has one plug per card.

[grammaton_feather]

Re: No SLI option in NVIDIA Control Panel, cannot enable SLI - 990FX EXTREME-3 + 2x GTX670's

Well, you heard wrong, windows 7 uses a SLIC injection hack, this has nothing to do with getting SLI to be seen and is not the problem. Even 8 and 8.1 have no hacks, but original RTM can be activated, and will not cause any problems.

Now if they were stupid enough to get some slimmed down version of windows and didn't check the hash, then they have a trojan, but still can't see it not allowing SLI to be seen.


Most GTX670, need two power plugs per card, looks like the poster only has one plug per card.

There are a few games that won't work on a pirate windows 7. That's not speculation but fact. I should point out that when I had this SLI problem I tried multiple installs of windows. All hacked and none would work with SLI on my Asus motherboard. My previous motherboard had been EVGA and the very same SLI setup worked fine on a hacked windows. I no longer use SLI or hacked windows.

[odiebugs]

Re: No SLI option in NVIDIA Control Panel, cannot enable SLI - 990FX EXTREME-3 + 2x GTX670's

There are a few games that won't work on a pirate windows 7. That's not speculation but fact. I should point out that when I had this SLI problem I tried multiple installs of windows. All hacked and none would work with SLI on my Asus motherboard. My previous motherboard had been EVGA and the very same SLI setup worked fine on a hacked windows. I no longer use SLI or hacked windows.

Just to let you know, there is no real hack for 8, 8.1, there are way's to activate, but any version that is pre-activated has been done wrong and changed kernel and is garbage.

Before you use any windows, install a un-touched version and check the hash number, if still using win 7, apply a SLIC table, which will activate, and has absolutely nothing to do with changing the kernel and will never cause any problem
that a retail purchased version wouldn't cause on your system, you had some garbage version's that were incorrectly cracked. Which are all over, like cracked software with trojans.






Let's hope the poster attached the other power cables and the problem was fixed..

[profJim]

Re: No SLI option in NVIDIA Control Panel, cannot enable SLI - 990FX EXTREME-3 + 2x GTX670's

If all else fails, check out HyperSLI (Enabling SLI on non-sli motherboards) - techPowerUp! Forums
This works with my Gigabyte P35-DS4 motherboard that doesn't support SLI.

[milestm]

Re: No SLI option in NVIDIA Control Panel, cannot enable SLI - 990FX EXTREME-3 + 2x GTX670's

Hi Guys,

Sorry about being slow with the replies.

Have tested the cards in a friends system and they worked like a charm. Have tried Windows 8 / 7 and ubuntu on my current system and have never got it to work. Looks like a motherboard issue at the moment but can't seem to find any chipset driver updates, bios settings or driver settings anywhere that looks like they will fix it. Might have to RMA the board.

The power cables are all securely connected, 2 6pin connectors per card. Have even tried running a dedicated 2nd power supply for the 2nd card in case it wasn't getting enough power.

They are identical cards as for as the clocks, model number and on board memory go so i don't there is any issue there.

Any all tips/tricks/suggestions would be more than awesome,. thanks for everyone who has already chimed in. Will keep trying everything i possibly can!

[milestm]

Re: No SLI option in NVIDIA Control Panel, cannot enable SLI - 990FX EXTREME-3 + 2x GTX670's

If all else fails, check out HyperSLI (Enabling SLI on non-sli motherboards) - techPowerUp! Forums
This works with my Gigabyte P35-DS4 motherboard that doesn't support SLI.

Thanks! Finally got around to giving this a shot and its the only thing that manages to get SLI up and running! On a board that should dam well support it natively! Many many many thanks!

Probably something wrong with the board still as it doesn't detective SLI natively but i've had about as much as I can deal with in sorting out this issue and the work around with HyperSLI is good enough. Fingers crossed some windows update or driver hickup doesn't kill it!

[profJim]

Re: No SLI option in NVIDIA Control Panel, cannot enable SLI - 990FX EXTREME-3 + 2x GTX670's

Thanks for the feedback, glad to hear that HyperSLI is working for you.
I suggested using it as a temporary work around.

Send a private message to ASRock TSD - Emily, include a link to this thread and ask for her help.

Please post a detailed hardware list in the System Specs portion of your forum profile http://forums.tweaktown.com/profile.php?do=editprofile at the bottom of the profile page. This will speed things up and cut down on errors. Even though your first post has a partial list, it's a PITA for us to have to scroll back through the thread for the information.