Yup, checked the cables and they seem fine. Swapped all 4 of them (modular PSU) several times and no problems. The motherboard's BIOS was flashed to the latest version from the manufacturer's website very shortly after I had it installed. I have experimented with 5 different NVIDIA drivers, so I don't feel like that's it. I feel even more confident of this after a complete wipe and can see that even without anything other than the stock Windows 7 VGA drivers, the device manager is still showing one card as not functioning.

Would a short on the motherboard cause this to happen? It seems like everything was running just fine until last night when the display driver stopped working. I have seen maybe 2-3 times now when I pressed the power button to start up, and the system seemed to hesitate. The fans turned over, but the system seemed to shut down and then try again. I honestly thought that I didn't press the button all the way in, but I may be second guessing myself.

12/8/2011 7:04:26 PM

^that's a built-in self-protection by Gigabyte I believe, I get that occassionally when I overclock and the motherboard is rebooting itself and resetting settings so it can POST automatically in case of critical failure.

Any clues in the Event Log? It usually logs critical events.

[Edited on December 8, 2011 at 11:13 PM. Reason : .]

12/8/2011 11:12:00 PM

Yeah, I know you aren't going to want to hear this, but do you have another good mobo that you can swap? Unfortunately, I think it's your motherboard, and its the one piece of hardware that is a bitch to swap...

The behavior you are describing just points to the mobo. If you have already done what Prospero suggested, I don't think software will solve your problem. You could also ask a friend to install your MSI cards in SLI to rule that out.

[Edited on December 9, 2011 at 8:19 AM. Reason : -]

12/9/2011 8:17:09 AM

I agree with what you are saying. I am becoming increasingly convinced that it's the motherboard. At this point, I don't even know if it's worth the further hassle to attempt to RMA this to Gigabyte while I wait for a replacement. I think I may just go buy another Asus board at CompUSA and then RMA the Gigabyte board in the hopes that I can just sell the replacement they send me. I am way beyond aggravated at this point.

I also contemplated trying to put the graphics cards on another board and verifying that they are OK to run in SLI, but the only other board I have is an old Asus P5N-D. It does have 2 PCI-e 2.0 slots, though... I gave the last computer I built (Core 2 Quad, Asus P5N-D, 4gb RAM, 9800GTX) from a couple of years back to my wife. Maybe I'll just have to tell her that I need to experiment on it briefly before I do anything drastic.

I had also wondered if the start-stop-restart action I was seeing could be due to overclocking issues, but I never even got around to trying it... The graphics cards are factory overclocked, though, but that wouldn't cause the whole motherboard to do this, would it?

12/9/2011 8:51:42 AM

The behavior you are seeing is atypical, and until you test those cards in SLI on a modern board that is not a Gigabyte make, you cannot unequivocally say it's the MSI cards or the Gigabyte Mobo. However, my money is on the mobo, simply based on your descriptions and other peoples experiences with Gigabyte mobos and MSI cards. MSI cards in SLI on ASUS mobos are proven to be perfectly operational and overclock-able, in my experience and in others that have posted previously. Again, before you buy something, prove the MSI cards work in SLI on a different mobo.

[Edited on December 9, 2011 at 10:08 AM. Reason : -]

12/9/2011 10:07:43 AM

*sigh*

I'm sitting here with a brand new Asus P8Z68-V motherboard which I carefully transplanted into my case this afternoon. After the Gigabyte motherboard was swapped, one graphics card was installed, and the SSD was wiped again for a fresh Windows install, the first thing I did was install the latest non-beta NVIDIA driver. I then shut down, installed the second card with the SLI bridge, and crossed my fingers. No dice. Same problem in the device manager - this device cannot start. This was strange to me since it was coming up as a standard VGA device. I attempted to have it install the NVIDIA driver again, and it seemed like it was going to work until after the reboot. Both cards are being shown as GTX560Ti's, both are showing the correct driver, but only one of them is getting any memory resources (this device cannot start). What's weird is that I can't tell which one it is. I feel like I've seen that sometimes the card on the top of the resource tree fails, and then sometimes the card on the bottom fails. As before, both cards work fine individually.

At this point, I'm starting to consider just taking the machine to Intrex and having them figure out what's wrong with it. This has truly become ridiculous.

12/9/2011 9:10:10 PM

are you giving both cards in SLI enough power?

12/9/2011 9:34:11 PM

its most likely a software/driver/firmware issue. I'm having the same issue on my sli. It was rock solid for 2 weeks and then it goes out last week. I had the new beta drivers and it worked for two day's this week, then I decided to change some driver settings and it stopped working. Tried to change it back and still doesn't work.

12/9/2011 9:49:58 PM

grab a $cheap 2gb 6950 and be happy no headache, no need for 2 cards, more vram, more playing, less fuckin with stuff

12/10/2011 10:16:42 AM

I just put in an order for the following:

Antec Lanboy air Red Black / Red Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Modular Case

Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz

CORSAIR Gaming Series GS600 600W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC High Performance Power Supply

GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

and I am getting a Gigabyte 6850 1 GB, Blu Ray Player/DVD Burner, a 1 or 1.5 TB HDD and 8 GB of RAM for Christmas.

I plan on install Mac OS X on it as well alongside Windows 7.

My current desktop was built in July of 2006 and it's starting to have some issues. I think it is time for a new one. I plan on overclocking the CPU and probably the video card as well, which is why I went with this case.

12/10/2011 6:58:21 PM

^^^^ OK, that's a legitimate question. I don't honestly remember how much power they are getting. Aside from reinstalling Afterburner, how would I best check this?

I did take it to Intrex last night, and the tech was as perplexed as I was. He was VERY thorough, including swapping out another power supply, testing both cards in both slots, trying a few NVIDIA drivers, and several other diagnostics. Ultimately, he couldn't determine what was causing this problem and said that I had pretty much tried everything which he would have. He still feels like it's the motherboard, but I had explained to him that I also swapped out the board for an Asus P8Z68-V and had the exact same problem. He finally advised me to contact MSI and see if I could have them RMA both cards.

So the more I have thought about this, the more I'm wondering if this is indeed some kind of voltage problem. If the problem follows the cards from one motherboard to another, are the voltage draw settings for each card kept on the card or kept on the motherboard? If the draw settings are kept on the card, that would explain why the problem is following the cards when they're on another board. I did VERY slightly increase the voltage to the cards through Afterburner when they very first did the "NVIDIA display driver has stopped working" error weeks ago. I read that many people are having this problem and that giving the cards just a little more voltage stabilized everything. After upping that and then flashing the firmware on both cards, they worked just fine until 4 days ago when the same error occurred. This is potentially a Catch-22 problem whereby NOT increasing the voltage causes the cards to constantly fail out (which they did repeatedly before giving them more voltage and flashing the firmware), but increasing the voltage causes one of the cards to not be able to start. Maybe this is a voltage balance issue...?

12/11/2011 1:36:44 PM

OK, a few more bits of info that hopefully someone may see a pattern in.

In case there was any doubt, I have marked both cards 1 & 2 to clearly differentiate between the two. Thought I'd try to boot only so far as the BIOS to see what I get. Card 1 only in the 16x slot, 8x slot, and 4x slot works fine (boots normally and monitor will display BIOS). Exact same can be said for card 2. However, when adding more than one card, only the card in the 16x slot will display a monitor signal. Moving the monitor cable to the card in the 8x slot results in no monitor signal. Either card 1 or 2 displays this behavior in either position. Both cards are receiving power, and both fans on both cards are spinning.

The motherboard's BIOS has been set to failsafe defaults.

I don't understand how this behavior could have followed the cards to another motherboard...

12/11/2011 6:26:02 PM

you ever try your actual sli bridge?

12/11/2011 6:43:07 PM

Yes, I did. The problem occurs with another SLI bridge, and also occurs even without the bridge connected to the cards. Thought I might be able to set up dual monitors, but no luck.

12/11/2011 7:37:39 PM

To be honest I think that there's a problem with one of the MSI's SLI bridge connections. It's the only explanation I can come up with and would explain why both work fine individually, and why there's no difference when SLI bridge cable is swapped out, and why there's no difference in any of the PCIx16 slots.

12/12/2011 12:27:14 AM

I think I have finally found the answer.

http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=154221.50

It's a bugged BIOS for the graphics cards.

Now how the hell am I going to solve this problem? Flash them back to stock? Once I do that, I'll probably be right back in the same boat of random screenlocks and intermittent "display driver has stopped working" messages. Yeah, MSI is the king of my blacklist.

12/12/2011 11:30:48 AM

RMA the MSI cards and contact the manufacturer on this one. I have owned several MSI cards, both ATI and NVIDIA and have not had any problems. When you swapped the mobo and the problem followed, I was wondering if you weren't installing them correctly on both boards. After that, it's the cards themselves.

[Edited on December 12, 2011 at 11:36 AM. Reason : -]

12/12/2011 11:31:11 AM

Hey guys, if this is in the wrong thread I apologize feel free to move/delete.

So long story short I need to buy my niece a new computer and mainly she needs it for internet, office, and games. She only plays two main games now, Sims 3 and WoW. I know just enough about computers to get myself in trouble so I'm referring to you guys. I know that for gaming a dedicated graphics card is recommended and they usually aren't cheap. So is it possible to get a desktop for under $500 that can cover these requirements?

Thanks in advance.

12/12/2011 12:44:24 PM

wow is ancient in terms of tech requirements. I'd get a dell/hp/acer quad core special from newegg/staples/woot/whatever pops up on slickdeals and throw in a 5670 or gts250 and she'll be fine depending on the resolutions she wants to play at. in wow, system memory is the most important thing since its engine keeps textures there instead of in vram.

12/12/2011 4:46:06 PM

Quote :

"wow is ancient in terms of tech requirements. I'd get a dell/hp/acer quad core special from newegg/staples/woot/whatever pops up on slickdeals and throw in a 5670 or gts250 and she'll be fine depending on the resolutions she wants to play at. in wow, system memory is the most important thing since its engine keeps textures there instead of in vram."

Actually yes and no. I don't play wow (thank god) but my friend who is a pretty heavier raider says you need quite a beefy CPU to handle larger raids on higher resolutions. She's got an i5 at 4.0ghz and just gets by on larger raids. GPU doesn't matter much at all.

12/12/2011 4:51:14 PM

I have a desktop that suits my needs just fine, except it sounds like a jet engine and would like something quieter. It is an AMD X2 with a GeForce 8500 GT. I can't remember the cooler I used for the CPU, but it wasn't stock. I built this thing a while ago and I built it with any slickdeal I could find so everything is cheap. I assume this is certainly part of the problem.

I don't want to spend an arm and a leg (or I would just buy an iMac), but I wouldn't mind spending some extra money to have something quiet. It doesn't have to be silent, but just something that isn't so noticeable when I leave it on.

What would some advice to be on building a new computer that is quiet? I might would even be open to suggestion of things to make my current system quieter. I certainly would be fine with something faster, but it does meet my needs currently.

Thanks for the help.

12/13/2011 11:02:22 AM

if what you have suits your needs, I'd get a stock cooler. the stock amd coolers are very quiet, assuming you have a 939 x2. I have one you can have for $bojangles

^^ I did the 40 man raids, 100+ man city raids, and high spell effect current 25 mans on max everything at 1920x1200 with my gts250 and athlon x4 925 (2.8ghz). having enough ram to keep all the textures in memory was the key, which was only 4gb. your friend must use a ton of mods to the stock ui that are poorly written.

[Edited on December 13, 2011 at 12:10 PM. Reason : .]

12/13/2011 12:06:35 PM

Audible noise really depends on the case that you have and the level of cooling your parts require. Most of the time, the biggest noise factor is the gpu. Since the 8500gt's are pretty lack luster and no knowledge about the rest of your computer parts, I will say most of your noise is going to be your case fans.

While the cpu cooler will generate some noise, you won't really hear it as easily as other fans in your system since its nested in the case itself. Shit, a number of aftermarket coolers (minus the crazy ones with like 2+ fans) are actually quieter and runs cooler than stock.

If you are happy with your desktop speed BSTE02, I'd say look at a case swap. get something that has builtin noise reduction panels. Antec makes some decent cases around the $120 spot that fits this.

12/13/2011 12:32:27 PM

I have never done a lot of digging into the issue and just assumed it was the CPU fan. After playing around with the fans, it appears that the front case fan was the loudest and the thing that gave it the jet engine sound. I was already wanting to get a new case anyway because this one was cheap plastic and has a door broken on it. I can actually hear the hard drive grind now.

Jbaz, I found this on newegg, but I don't see it mentions the panels you mention. Have a particular case in mind?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129024

12/13/2011 1:14:57 PM

Yeah, its a good quiet case. honestly, if the front case fan is the source of the problems, just fix it with a quality $5-10 120mm fan that's way quieter. Cooler Master makes a really good one that does 86 cfm @ 30db, but its $15. most fans push/pull half that amount.

12/13/2011 3:06:58 PM

^pretty much what JBaz said, if you don't need it, don't waste $120 on a case for a $120 computer.

a new case is only going to do so much, you gotta kill the noise at where it's coming from. if it's the cpu cooler, replace it with a large heatsink and ball-bearing or fluid-dynamic bearing (FDB) fan, if it's the GPU, you can either control it via software or replace the VGA heatsink/fan if it's a case fan just replace it.

for AMD X2, 8500GT and case fans.... each fan costs like $5-10 and HSF for cpu & gpu are $15-$20 tops.

[Edited on December 13, 2011 at 3:18 PM. Reason : .]

12/13/2011 3:18:31 PM

Yeah you could probably get a better computer for $250.

12/13/2011 3:20:40 PM

also, the best bang for buck cpu cooler is the cooler master 212 plus, since the evo came out, they are $25 msrp on newegg and amazon. I got it for $15 on black friday. It's much quieter and cools way better than a stock cooler.

12/13/2011 3:43:45 PM

If you want a decent case with a bit better price, I picked up an Antec 300 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042) for my build a year ago and I've been really happy with it. It breathes really well and comes with a 140mm top and 120mm rear fan, all for $60+$2 shipping from newegg, and the included fans have 3 settings (H/M/L) that can help control volume pretty well. If the given fans aren't enough cooling power for whatever you're running, or too loud on high settings, it's got room for two 120mm intake fans in the front, which the case supplies a filter for, and a side port which I've just covered with a filter (used dryer sheet ftw) and my temps are pretty solid all around.

12/13/2011 3:44:33 PM

Sorry to keep derailing the thread. I fixed my SLI problem. The cause was bugged firmware for the graphics cards. I have rolled back to stock firmware, and the problem went away. No telling how long this will last, or what will happen once I try to get BF3 going again...

12/13/2011 5:06:03 PM

how did you get the msi updater to work? I can't get the damn thing to do anything with the firmware.

12/13/2011 5:20:11 PM

I didn't. That thing is such a complete POS that I instead used NVFLASH. Chalk up another reason why MSI sucks.

12/13/2011 8:59:42 PM

Did you contact the manufacturer?

12/14/2011 1:41:26 PM

On an impulse buy I purchased a 6970 today to replace my 5870. I was trying to decide between the 6970 and the 580. I don't plan on overclocking so I figured the 6970 was the better bang for the buck. I am hoping the release of the 7000 series card will come in January and drop the prices some more and I can pick up a second 6970.

12/14/2011 9:54:23 PM

so, funny story: in the lab (read: office) today i asked one of the more senior students, totally facetiously, how to get a faster computer (computers are purchased for individual research projects, so there are vastly disparately equipped students, and my project hasn't purchased any computers yet, so i have a leftover core 2 duo w/ 4 gigs of ram, but a decent graphics card), and he's like "well i have some cases, motherboards, ram and amd phenom x4s still in the box downstairs if you have a hard drive". apparently he bought them w/ some fellowship money, that had to be spent on computers, to make a beowulf cluster that he never fully assembled. he gave me 8 gigs of ram to go w/ the phenom x4, so he effectively doubled my computer, it was awesome. i know what you're thinking, that's not all that sweet, but i only use it as a terminal and browser... so it's pretty sweet. so i'll be putting that together once i'm done w/ my lone final tomorrow.

12/15/2011 12:08:28 AM

^^ Any chance you're looking to get that 5870 off your hands? I've got a 5750, and I could always use doubling my graphics performance

12/15/2011 12:49:47 AM

i'll go $20 on the 57xx, $50 on the 58xx

12/15/2011 8:26:36 AM

Shoot me a pm with an offer. I had planned on putting it in my mom's computer but I have an old 7800gt should be ok for her.

12/15/2011 9:10:08 AM

Got the 6970 in the computer and running. Able to run BF3 on ultra settings now with frame rates between 40 and 50. Does this sound right? I let the catalyst control center program update the drivers from my 5870 to the 6970. Is there a better way to update drivers?

12/16/2011 3:50:55 PM

Yes, that's about right for a 6970.

12/16/2011 4:18:23 PM

in general you want to uninstall, reboot, let windows prompt and install again but since you're using the same drivers you should be ok. also, turn your AA from 16x to 4x and you'll gain 10-15fps depending on resolution.

12/16/2011 4:24:44 PM

Wow, took the AA down to 4x and fps are now staying between 55 and 60. Thanks for the help!

12/17/2011 8:25:32 AM

mmmm triple 570 SLI goodness... I feel the burn already

12/20/2011 10:05:46 AM

^ That must be fun, I have 2x 3GB 580 SLI and it slays everything.

12/20/2011 2:45:09 PM

Jeez that's a shame. Only 1.25GBs with tri-sli 570's.

12/20/2011 2:58:00 PM

yeah, but I haven't seen a vram dump yet so I donno... I kinda wished I went for the 1k watt psu version so I can do a little OC on the CPU since in some games, it'll be a bottleneck, but I'm playing at 100+ frames in ever game thus far. Really could use that nice 27" HP ZR monitor right about now. Heh

http://benchmarkextreme.com/Articles/GTX%20570/P1.html

[Edited on December 20, 2011 at 4:45 PM. Reason : ]

12/20/2011 4:43:44 PM

Yeah, it's kinda silly to pay for 60+ sustained FPS with tri sli and not be able to enjoy it on a 3d ready monitor.

12/21/2011 6:31:32 AM

I just put the 3rd card to work as the dedicated 96x CSAA card... my god... every game now looks picture perfect, smooth blended with no razor sharp edges.

Since I did this, even in BF3 and turned off all of the ingame AA pre/post filters. I now don't even hit above 1000MB of use. No frame drops or anything in ultra anymore.

[Edited on December 21, 2011 at 9:23 AM. Reason : ]

12/21/2011 9:23:01 AM

I just quick scanned some of the latest posts. A year or so ago my 8800GT stopped working (Windows operating in VGA mode) and gave a code 43. It turns out the card died, about a month or two after that behavior started I got the tell-tale lines that even showed on the BIOS screen.

After a lot of message board searching it appears that one of nVidia's drivers made some update that caused a lot of the older 8800s to burn out their onboard memory. Ended up having to buy a new card.

12/21/2011 9:43:37 AM

you do realize the 8800 line is over 5 years old now... close to 6.

12/21/2011 10:59:17 AM