Problems with a 9800GX2

[saaya]

It looks like a problem of all Nvidia cards. While you try to overclock the PCI-E bus clock, there is some lock, even clearing of the BIOS doesn't help. Your card doesn't post video at all, the motherboard shows 2d error (video card is not recognized) and then goes to FF. I had that problem with 9800GX2 and then tried 280GTX and 9600GT with the same result - it looks that recognition of the video card is locked somehow, and BIOS reset doesn't help. With ATI cards there is no issue.
Why overclocking of PCI-E in BIOS is not cleared with CMOS reset or even removing the battery for 24 hours - it is another question.
To get rid of situation we need to remove overclocking of the PCI-E bus manually using any ATI card/old Nvidia card or just stop using overclocking of PCI-E at all, IMO.

even removing the bios battery doesnt reset the pciE clocks? thats really odd... or maybe the videocards somehow lock their pll to the pciE clocks and this setting is saved on the vga even when you remove it from the system? hmmmm i def need to check this out... weird...

i think the issue with x48 and 9800 gx2 is not fully fixed yet, i read an article a while back but i can't find it at the moment

its a general pciE issue... ive seen this on intel and amd plattforms on asus gigiabyte and foxconn boards alike when i worked for cellshock... but that issue was a one off only, after maybe 100-500 system reboots the card might not be detected, black screen, and the board boots fine. in that case moving the card around in the pciE slots solved the problem.

i have spent the last 2 weekends trying to get my 2nd 9800 gx2 (had to rma the 1st) to work properly with countless reinstalls of winxp x86, winxp x64, vista x64 and all with the same result crysis just will not play without crashing and it happens on my 8800gt as well

did you overclock the pciE bus?
did you overclock the videocards?
you tried fresh installs so i guess drivers clutting up is not causing this?
hmmmmm

with the 9800 gx2 my mb also gives loads of different post codes, d3, 54, 61, clearing the cmos and removing the battery does not help

those are all memory errors indicating either your memory is not fully stable or the fsb is not fully stable, which would explain why crysis keeps crashing regardless of what card you use.

also what triggers the code 54 is if i need to reset my cmos for any reason then the code 54 starts, the only way to clear it is to put in an older card, restore my settings from the storage and but back in the 9800 gx2 and it will let my pc post but still not let any games work

thats weird... i always just had to shut down the board, wait 5 seconds and then turn it on again.
if i power it on again immediatly or use the reset button then itll beep and give me code 54 again. are you sure you have to put in another card to get the system to boot at all? if yes, did you overclock the pciE bus before or the VGA?

So far i thought the vga takes the pciE clock as reference and multiplies it to get its gpu clocks, but its starting to sound like overclocking the gpu actually overclocks the pciE bus and the multiplyer of the pciE clock to create the gpu clock remains the same? if thats the case then overclocking the gpu will overclock the pciE bus, which would explain those issues...
that would be incredibly stupid and weird from nvidia though... i find it hard to believe that this is whats happeing...

but just to be sure, please let me know if your overclocking the gpu at all or if its running at stock speeds.

it does not matter if the mb is running at stock or overclocked, whether it is raid or non-raid, and also regardless of what graphics driver version

hmmmm is the system fully stable at stock speeds? is the memory 100% stable?

i have tried an old ati x1600 and a nvidia 7950 gt on the blackops and crysis works perfectly in both winxp and vista without crashing

hmmm they put less load on the board/chipset and psu... hmmm the 8800gt and the 9800gx2 both dont work fine? that doesnt make any sense tho, there are loads of people running this combo and nobody had any issues so far... hmmmm
not to mention that shamino was benching 9800gx2 cards for countless hours...

so after all that, i think we need a bios fix for the blackops or a video bios fix for the 9800 gx2

well you get the same problems with the 8800gt, right?
the only thing i can think of is the PSu beeing too weak since the other cards you tried that worked fine draw less power hmmm... if thats not it then its either the board or a bios compatibility issue... which doesnt make sense tho cause others run that combo fine. so it sounds like your board somehow got damaged and cant run the 9800gx2 and 8800gt anymore? weird...

i was ready to ditch the blackops after this weekend, but i don't want to as i love this board and it is by far the best motherboard i ever had, we just need to get these issues sorted ASAP

Best Regards
Raptor1

ill try to reproduce this right away...
BO+gx2+XP+Crysis doesnt work at all for you?
or it crashes after some time?
you said at first it did work, right? for how long?
and what happened that triggered the issues?
how long until you saw issues?

[raptor1]

but just to be sure, please let me know if your overclocking the gpu at all or if its running at stock speeds.

My Last gx2 the one i rma,d was overclocked but the replacement i have now is not and never was and i never touch the pcie clock setting in the bios, it is always at 100

hmmmm is the system fully stable at stock speeds? is the memory 100% stable?

yes as per your reply to my thread about about memory testing - i have run test #5 for an hour and all is ok

i have tried a different brand of memory at stock speeds and still the same problem

my blackops is not overclocked at the moment, so if this is also happening at stock speeds then maybe my board is not stable at stock speeds

the only thing i can think of is the PSu beeing too weak since the other cards you tried that worked fine draw less power hmmm... if thats not it then its either the board or a bios compatibility issue... which doesnt make sense tho cause others run that combo fine. so it sounds like your board somehow got damaged and cant run the 9800gx2 and 8800gt anymore? weird...

i have connected a spare enermax liberty 620 just to the gx2 and nothing else and it still happens, so i don't think it's a psu problem

ill try to reproduce this right away...
BO+gx2+XP+Crysis doesnt work at all for you?
or it crashes after some time?

correct, and it happens in vista as well

you said at first it did work, right? for how long?

the games issue has only being noticed now, as up to now i was just getting my board stable, and was not doing anything major in windows

my first gx2 lasted for 2 days before the 54 post code started and it worked ok in 3dmark06 but i had not tried any games until i got my second gx2 and thats when i noticed this issue

and what happened that triggered the issues?

it all started when i got the 1st gx2

how long until you saw issues?

for the games issues it was straight away

Best Regards
Raptor1

[raptor1]

Hi! All

I have definately found the culprit

anybody want to have a guess

i will leave you all in suspense until i check one more thing

Best Regards
Raptor1

[Catz]

drivers?

[Slovnaft]

Power cable?

[Catz]

Power cable?

That'd seriously crack me up badly

[saaya]

mhhhh soundcard?

[raptor1]

here's a clue: it is a hardware component

update: the 54 beeping is gone, reinstalling windows and drivers atm, will check the games problems tonight

drivers?

No

Power cable?

No, but on the the right track

mhhhh soundcard?

No

[Slovnaft]

well I have heard of some people having problems with G92 gpus and that galaxy psu? though I mostly disregarded these accounts as it doesnt sound logical...and i'm getting one in the mail soon...

[saaya]

mhhhhh this is a tough one!
bad vga power cables/plugs?

[raptor1]

Ok and the winner is Slovnaft who was the nearest

it was the galaxy power supply which is gone back under RMA

i am pissed off with enermax as a company atm as this is the second power supply to fail on me inside a year, my liberty 620 blew up on me earlier this year, which with it's replacement under rma, ironicaly is what i am using to power my black ops with until my galaxy comes back

Raptor1

[Slovnaft]

Ok and the winner is Slovnaft who was the nearest

it was the galaxy power supply which is gone back under RMA

i am pissed off with enermax as a company atm as this is the second power supply to fail on me inside a year, my liberty 620 blew up on me earlier this year, which with it's replacement under rma, ironicaly is what i am using to power my black ops with until my galaxy comes back

Raptor1

urrrm. uh oh. I just got a used galaxy...haven't gotten the 8pin adapters yet, so I'm not using it, but...uh oh.

[saaya]

huh... so it worked but wasnt really stable cause it couldnt cope with the load?
but your not even on a quad, and a gx2 doesnt draw THAT much power?
i mean your system must be at...

100W cpu MAX
200W vga MAX
50W mobo MAX
25W hdd+mem MAX

so thats less than 400W... most likely your at around 300W... and the psu couldnt cope with that?
or maybe some cap inside the psu blew or it was already faulty when you got it?

very interesting LOL id never have guessed its the psu!!

[Slovnaft]

huh... so it worked but wasnt really stable cause it couldnt cope with the load?
but your not even on a quad, and a gx2 doesnt draw THAT much power?
i mean your system must be at...

100W cpu MAX
200W vga MAX
50W mobo MAX
25W hdd+mem MAX

so thats less than 400W... most likely your at around 300W... and the psu couldnt cope with that?
or maybe some cap inside the psu blew or it was already faulty when you got it?

very interesting LOL id never have guessed its the psu!!

Well the Galaxy came out in 06, right? So his PSU could potentially be over 2 years old, with heavy use that might be enough for some hardcore degradation?
it's a stretch though.

[saaya]

hmmm i guess... bu then again i wouldnt know what inside a psu would degrade... except for the caps if they use bad electrolyt caps...

[NaeKuh]

if any of you guys are having problems after installing a block of some sort i think i figured it out.

The SLI bridge built onto the two cards ARE NOT BACKWARDS COMPATABLE. Meaning they have 1 that needs to line up. You'll see the triangle, and 1 on the card. If you have this FLIPPED, the card will not boot.

Ran into this problem and realized it was the cable.

[PaceT]

I bought this card second hand really cheap and have had big problems getting it to work properly. I Have tried many different drivers and OS's including suse. It always hangs just before it initialises the desktop. I can only get 197.45 driver to work in XP 32 bit SP3. Even then it hangs when I try and OC the cpu (even to a modest 3GHz Q6600) and when i try and install my PCI-e TV Card.

It also shows both entries in device manager but one of them has a yellow ! I was wondering would this be because my MB doesn't support SLI or would you think there is a hardware issue with the card.

[Mescalamba]

Man, this is Foxconn forum, if you have ASUS, dont you think you are bit "off"? If you want advice, get rid of that card as fast you can.. its just one big piece of problems. I managed to RMA it due "bad design" and I was very happy.

Btw. SLI is irrelevant, as its single card (it has SLI bridge on card).

[PaceT]

Sorry man...my bad. First forum post ever! Will be more vigilant next time.

Good advice anyways. Think im gonna ditch it and go back to my old 8800 gts in sli on the p5ne. Shame tho as the card with the WB looked sooo nice.

Thanks Mesc.