# running 2 gtx280s not working out...



## Easy Rhino (Jan 16, 2010)

alright i have my 280s installed in sli and gaming just fine. however there is a lot of conflicting info on how to properly setup 2 gpu2 folding clients using windows 7. last night i was working with sneekypeet who got my first client up and running with the systray. however it was only doing 4500ppd which is about 1500ppd less than the 9800gtx+ does. 

so i decided to try the console client i was using before. i deleted all of the folders and ran a fresh version. i used the -gpu 0 flag and the first client started up fine but was quiet slow using the big wu and the advanced ones. i installed a second folding client for the second gpu and put -gpu 1 on the target and it says that the gpu is not supported 

any help?

edit: looks like i can atleast get the systray client up to 8300ppd at stock speeds. now i am guessing the only way to run two clients is with the console...


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## Athlon2K15 (Jan 16, 2010)

take them out of SLI its much easier,then you can just go by the standard directions for setting up two gpu2 clients,using the dongle method


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## crazyeyesreaper (Jan 16, 2010)

yea they cant be in sli just disable it via the control panel if that dosent work contact BuckNasty he used Team viewer to set up both my 5850s and iwas using crossfire and dual monitors so hes the one to look to said my setup was much less painful then he anticipated 

easiest way i can say this is do the following


disable SLI via control panel

hook up a monitor to the 2nd card or a dummy dongle 

use the -gpu 0 and -gpu 1 flags

both using the console version that should do it


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## Easy Rhino (Jan 16, 2010)

disabled SLI and it still says the GPU is not supported with the -gpu 1 flag for the second card. do i have to reboot after making the change to sli?

i thought the dummy dongle was no longer necessary...


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## oily_17 (Jan 16, 2010)

Easy Rhino said:


> edit: looks like i can atleast get the systray client up to 8300ppd at stock speeds. now i am guessing the only way to run two clients is with the console...



You can run 2x sytem tray clients as well, but as has been said take them out of sli first.

EDIT: Yes reboot and just extend the desktop to the second card.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Jan 16, 2010)

thanks oily i forgot that part


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## Easy Rhino (Jan 16, 2010)

oily_17 said:


> You can run 2x sytem tray clients as well, but as has been said take them out of sli first.
> 
> EDIT: Yes reboot and just extend the desktop to the second card.



so every time i want to game i have to enable sli and reboot the machine?


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## oily_17 (Jan 16, 2010)

Well I dont game on my folding rigs, but I think so.

Not sure if you can work round it on W7, will take a look for more info.

EDIT: Seems with the newest drivers that you can fold with SLI enabled.


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## kid41212003 (Jan 16, 2010)

Are you using the 195.xx driver by any chances? They're buggy like hell.


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## Easy Rhino (Jan 16, 2010)

kid41212003 said:


> Are you using the 195.xx driver by any chances? They're buggy like hell.



yes i am, but that probably isnt preventing me from running the second card. at least i dont thin k so.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Jan 16, 2010)

no its not preventing it if you still have issues ask the BUCK he knows the answer at least as far as i was concerned i just trace the steps he did and my 5850s fold everytime


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## BUCK NASTY (Jan 16, 2010)

AFAIK, you still need the dummy plug/monitor *or *you have to hack the registry. Rhino, do you have a monitor hooked up to the 2nd card and have the desktop extended? Try re-installing drivers after you have the monitor plugged in.


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## Easy Rhino (Jan 16, 2010)

BUCK NASTY said:


> AFAIK, you still need the dummy plug/monitor *or *you have to hack the registry. Rhino, do you have a monitor hooked up to the 2nd card and have the desktop extended? Try re-installing drivers after you have the monitor plugged in.



id rather hack the registry than go through the hassle of hooking up my seoncd monitor everytime i want to go from gaming to folding. with a hacked reg can i keep sli enabled?


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## newtekie1 (Jan 16, 2010)

I don't know about the dongle/monitor needing to be connected anymore.

When I set it up with my 9600GT in my main rig, I just had to extend the monitor to the second card using the Windows 7 control panel(not nvidia's), and I was able to fold on it.


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## Easy Rhino (Jan 16, 2010)

newtekie1 said:


> I don't know about the dongle/monitor needing to be connected anymore.
> 
> When I set it up with my 9600GT in my main rig, I just had to extend the monitor to the second card using the Windows 7 control panel(not nvidia's), and I was able to fold on it.



but did you have a second monitor?


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## newtekie1 (Jan 16, 2010)

Easy Rhino said:


> but did you have a second monitor?



No...well yes, but both monitors are connected to the GTX285, there isn't anything connected to the 9600GT.  Windows actually gives me the option to extend my desktop onto 3 different monitors even though I only have 2 connected.


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## Easy Rhino (Jan 16, 2010)

well this sucks cause i game on my machine. i guess i will only fold with just the 1 gtx280 so that i dont have to dick around with turning off sli mode and rebooting and what not and putting on a second monitor or using a dummy dongle nonsense. let's hope that once gpu3 client comes out it will be easy to run as many clients as you want.


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## BUCK NASTY (Jan 16, 2010)

I can send you a free dummy plug if you would like.


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## Easy Rhino (Jan 16, 2010)

buck, i saw the how-to guide and it looks pretty simple. but even using the dummy dongle you still have to disable sli and reboot, right?


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## crazyeyesreaper (Jan 16, 2010)

just try disabling and re enabling sli and see if the games show it working because my ati cards i can drop in and out of crossfire on the fly no issue not sure on nvidia hardware but it should be the same...


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## erocker (Jan 16, 2010)

Easy Rhino said:


> well this sucks cause i game on my machine. i guess i will only fold with just the 1 gtx280 so that i dont have to dick around with turning off sli mode and rebooting and what not and putting on a second monitor or using a dummy dongle nonsense. let's hope that once gpu3 client comes out it will be easy to run as many clients as you want.



I have a solution I would love and you wouldn't so much.  What you need sir is a dedicated gaming rig!


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## newtekie1 (Jan 16, 2010)

I haven't run SLi since I sold my 9600GSO's a few months ago, but I'm pretty sure you don't have to reboot to enable and disable SLi, at least you didn't back then, can't see them changing that in newer driver.


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## Easy Rhino (Jan 16, 2010)

ok guys, i have to head down to radioshack anyway to pick up some speaker wire so while i am there i will pick up some of these resistors and give it a shot. if i dont have to reboot that would be ipc


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## bogmali (Jan 16, 2010)

Guys-SLI and folding 2 GPUs is possible and you do not have to disable it each time you want to game. You would still need to put the dummy plug on the 2nd GPU with Win7 because contrary to what the other sites put out, it is still buggy. Here is mine just to show that it works:


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## Easy Rhino (Jan 16, 2010)

so bog, with sli enabled you simply plug in the dummy dongle and extend the desktop to it. then execute the second folding client with the -gpu 1 and it works? no disabling sli, no reboot?


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## BUCK NASTY (Jan 16, 2010)

bogmali said:


> Guys-SLI and folding 2 GPUs is possible and you do not have to disable it each time you want to game. You would still need to put the dummy plug on the 2nd GPU with Win7 because contrary to what the other sites put out, it is still buggy. Here is mine just to show that it works:
> 
> http://img.techpowerup.org/100116/SLI.jpg



Shit Bogi, how may 1366/1156 rigs do you have?


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## Easy Rhino (Jan 16, 2010)

hey buck, judging by the color band on your dongle, you are using 2,000,000 ohm resistors +- 5% tolerance, right?   red/black/green/gold? that is really high aint it? dont we just need 100 or 200 ohm resistors?


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## bogmali (Jan 16, 2010)

Easy Rhino said:


> so bog, with sli enabled you simply plug in the dummy dongle and extend the desktop to it. then execute the second folding client with the -gpu 1 and it works? no disabling sli, no reboot?



Leave it connected and leave SLI enabled. You simply need to kill your folding clients (obviously) when you start gaming. With WIN7 (my experience) no need to reboot but just do it anyway so to be sure.



BUCK NASTY said:


> Shit Bogi, how may 1366/1156 rigs do you have?



Just 2 1156 Buck, this rig happens to be my son's and it does not fold nor crunch due to the wifey scolding me, had to fire it up to get screeenies . I also have an i860 which is my main rig ATM. 4 i7 920's; 3 folding bigadv WU while the other crunches


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## BUCK NASTY (Jan 16, 2010)

Easy Rhino said:


> hey buck, judging by the color band on your dongle, you are using 2,000,000 ohm resistors +- 5% tolerance, right?   red/black/green/gold? that is really high aint it? dont we just need 100 or 200 ohm resistors?


I grabbed that pic off the web. This is what i'm using.


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## Easy Rhino (Jan 16, 2010)

guys, im working with solaris on this. i dont need a dongle, just the proper switches when using the "Windows XP/2003/Vista GPU System tray client (installer msi) 6.23"

so FYI , simply adding -gpu 0 and -gpu 1 to the shortcuts and adding the proper target to the two app folder doesnt work. more on this later!


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## mstenholm (Jan 16, 2010)

Let us hope that it works. You were dropping back a bit in production. Remember first to a million gets to choice chairs in the new lounge.


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## Easy Rhino (Jan 16, 2010)

mstenholm said:


> Let us hope that it works. You were dropping back a bit in production. Remember first to a million gets to choice chairs in the new lounge.


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## Easy Rhino (Jan 17, 2010)

guys thanks for sticking with me. solaris helped me work it out. i currently have both gtx280s folding independently with the -gpu 0 -forcegpu nvidia_g80 and -gpu 1 -forcegpu nvidia_g80 flags. sli is enabled so i dont have to worry about disabling it or adding a dongle or anything.


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## oily_17 (Jan 17, 2010)

Easy Rhino said:


> guys thanks for sticking with me. solaris helped me work it out. i currently have both gtx280s folding independently with the -gpu 0 -forcegpu nvidia_g80 and -gpu 1 -forcegpu nvidia_g80 flags. sli is enabled so i dont have to worry about disabling it or adding a dongle or anything.



Is this just for running with them in SLI, that you need the extra flag ?

I have two system tray clients running with just the -gpu 0 -advmethods flags, but not using SLI.


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## Easy Rhino (Jan 17, 2010)

oily_17 said:


> Is this just for running with them in SLI, that you need the extra flag ?
> 
> I have two system tray clients running with just the -gpu 0 -advmethods flags, but not using SLI.



yea i believe if you want to keep sli enabled for gaming and what not you need those flags because i tried it with just -gpu 0 and -gpu 1 and when i launched the second client it said the card was not supported. although i didnt try it with sli disabled. so i guess i cant answer your question with authority.


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## oily_17 (Jan 17, 2010)

No probs, I have one rig with two 260's in it and will give SLI a try on it tomorrow.

See if I can get it to work with those flags.


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## sneekypeet (Jan 17, 2010)

mine currently runs with the same flags in SLI, only issue I ran into was the 195 drivers are more fail then the 191's. 195's seem to crash a lot where the 191 dont do in anywhere near as much.


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## oily_17 (Jan 17, 2010)

Yeah reading about it seems that SLI is still flaky and especially with the new drivers.

Will have to download the 191's and try them, thanks Sneeky


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## Easy Rhino (Jan 17, 2010)

sweet so now im pulling 25k ppd if i fold full time (which that wont happen) and im adding a 9800gtx+ so that is another 5k so in total 30k ppd.  i would expect on avg tho about 19k ppd.


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## oily_17 (Jan 17, 2010)

Yeah the 260/280 cards put out some nice numbers, really good PPD for the money.


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