How To: Enable SLI on pre-i7/i5 hardware

[phanbuey]

OK heres some screens of scaling, windows 7 64bit - 190.62 drivers

single GPU
http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk110/soundood/1gpus.jpg


2 GPU's SLI
http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk110/soundood/2gpus.jpg

scaling seems to be very good, granted this is only 2 8500GT's, but this is a great result as far as i am concerned, what do you guys think?

great scaling... that is only a few pts off 100% scaling.

 

[anatolymik]

it's good

 

[soundood]

great scaling... that is only a few pts off 100% scaling.

it's good

i was very surprised myself, i really didnt expect that kind of scaling with two cards, its fantastic

now a quik update, i tried to instal the 190.89 drivers, and got a BSOD during instal....so maybe in the future this will be ironed out, has anyone got the 190.89 drivers to work?

 

[anatolymik]

i was very surprised myself, i really didnt expect that kind of scaling with two cards, its fantastic

now a quik update, i tried to instal the 190.89 drivers, and got a BSOD during instal....so maybe in the future this will be ironed out, has anyone got the 190.89 drivers to work?

uninstall drivers and install again. also you may try HALMod v0.7

 

[soundood]

ok quik round up with some numbers, i wont supply screens, as it is not for bragging or HWbot or anything, although if anyone wants the screens, i will supply them, ok the ones we seen first,

Aquamark
single GPU 8500GT 59,731
SLI 2 GPU 8500GT 89,318

3dMark03
single GPU 8500GT 7967
SLI 2 GPU 8500GT 11,275

3dMark06
single GPU 8500GT 2357
SLI 2 GPU 8500GT 4500

across the board i am impressed, just need to get another watercooled GTX260, and finish this rig of for gaming, mmmmm Crysis in SLI on this mobo.

 

[yeba]

halmod 0.71 + ASUS cert + unmodded drivers = nvidia driver installation crashes and reboots, upon reboot BSOD

I will test again from a clean reinstall of win 7 x64.

Ok. will do. I dont mind doing more tests now since I know a method of getting my SLI enabled. The only thing I like with the modded driver + SLI cert is I get the memory information on cpu-z.

U planning on fixing halmod so we still have the memory information on cpu-z? Also do I need to enable ACPI 2.0 in my bios? Right now my ACPI v2.0 is disabled(default setting) in my bios with SLI enabled using modded drivers.

Thanks again.

 

[cxghjcqr]

in winxp did you use halmod? send me your dsdt

Yes,in the same config ,I can make MODSLI enable in winxp,but cannot in win7 64bit .
there is my DSDT for winxp in the attachment .Please help me check it.thank you very much!
Yes,yes in winxp I use the halmod that downloaded from http://translate.google.com/transla...?content.29&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com

and there is a picture for successful MODSLI in XP

 

[cxghjcqr]

In the attachment is for *.DSL in win7 after using slistringinstall .but with HALMOD 0.71 or v0.7 can't enable SLI,and unmoddrivers I tried 190.62 and 190.89

 

[anatolymik]

In the attachment is for *.DSL in win7 after using slistringinstall .but with HALMOD 0.71 or v0.7 can't enable SLI,and unmoddrivers I tried 190.62 and 190.89

try load this table by using "asl /loadtable DSDT_GBTUACPI.dat"

http://depositfiles.com/files/a3a163wkq

and for future, use ASUS cert in SliStringInstaller if you want use HALMod

 

[anatolymik]

halmod 0.71 + ASUS cert + unmodded drivers = nvidia driver installation crashes and reboots, upon reboot BSOD

I will test again from a clean reinstall of win 7 x64.

try install halmod v0.7

 

[aGeoM]

yes. i loadtable, reboot, and at microsoft screen, as the windows 7 lights start to spin in BSOD's

Hi you got an ASUS M4A79-T, yes?

Ok, I had the same problem as you have about BSOD after DSDT patch and restart with my CrosshairIII.

Now, ASUS published a new BIOS for my board, and I flashed and tested SLI mod with it, all went well, appart from little no gos:

SLIstringinstall didn't sucessfuly patch DSDT (SLI already incerted error, on a defaut DSDT table (unmodded). Needed to manualy hexedit it. System booted fine, no BSODs.

Installing unmodded drivers with halmod 0.71, it's not an "normal" operation, but I could install any driver.

I runned some benchs, here is a couple for future reference:


3DMark06:

3DMark Vantage Performance:

You should check for BIOS updade and try again, it worked for me.

 

[anatolymik]

Hi you got an ASUS M4A79-T, yes?

Ok, I had the same problem as you have about BSOD after DSDT patch and restart with my CrosshairIII.

Now, ASUS published a new BIOS for my board, and I flashed and tested SLI mod with it, all went well, appart from little no gos:

SLIstringinstall didn't sucessfuly patch DSDT (SLI already incerted error, on a defaut DSDT table (unmodded). Needed to manualy hexedit it. System booted fine, no BSODs.

Installing unmodded drivers with halmod 0.71, it's not an "normal" operation, but I could install any driver.

I runned some benchs, here is a couple for future reference:


3DMark06:

http://img.techpowerup.org/090926/3...I FORMULA [1003] ASUS 9800GTU@SLI - 20801.jpg

3DMark Vantage Performance:

http://img.techpowerup.org/090926/3...I FORMULA [1003] ASUS 9800GTU@SLI - 15719.jpg

You should check for BIOS updade and try again, it worked for me.

ACPI 2.0 you should have enabled in bios. today i will do a new one version of HALMod and maybe SliStringInstaller.

 

[aGeoM]

ok all good, i need to run some 3dmark to see how the scaling is, heres a screen,

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk110/soundood/Untitled-3.jpg

anatolymik, i cannot express how much this means to me, i hvae been an AMD boy, and Nvidia boy for years, when AMD bought ATI it broke my heart, that doesnt matter anymore, becasue i now have the choice of SLI, and dont need to comprimise on my choices.

i owe you a very big beer

thank you again, i will post back some scaling info and also stay with the thread to see if i can help out anywhere

Congrats to both.

 

[aGeoM]

ACPI 2.0 you should have enabled in bios. today i will do a new one version of HALMod and maybe SliStringInstaller.

Thanks a lot.

I always had ACPI2.0 enabled, with it enabled you also got an XSDT table on ASUS boards. Could be for some other reason, I don't know. With the latest BIOS had no problem on booting, with modded DSDT, but I can always disable ACPI2.0 and see what happens lol.

 

[yeba]

Did more testing, here are the results:

Windows 7 x64
Asus P5E WS Pro

with RAID enabled:
halmod 0.71 + ASUS cert = nvidia installation crash, rebooted with BSOD
halmod 0.7 + Asus cert , then reboot = BSOD, did not even had the chance to install driver
ASUS cert + modded drivers = SLI enabled

with RAID disabled:
Halmod v.071 + Asus SLI Cert + unmodded drivers = BSOD
Halmod v.070 + Asus SLI Cert + unmodded drivers = SLI enabled

So it looks like the hal mod is messing up my RAID and causing BSOD.

try install halmod v0.7

 

[Nick [D]vB]

Hi all, well done guys You lot seem to be having more luck than me today!

I just got my 8800GTs (only £30 each band new!) but have a pretty big problem, my crappy BIOSTAR 790GX board will not detect two nvidia cards,

only one.

I tried all the bios settings I can think of, others have had the same problem so the board probably needs a bios mod to fix it, maybe someone at rebels haven can help with that?

I ran the string installer anyway but it failed for some reason, the temp folder files are attached if they can it help?

This was on a very old xp installation so will try again later with a clean install, but first I must get both cards detected…


I also tried on that mutant A8N-E board I was talking about before, I had already converted the chipset using the mod from here:

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/AMD/120
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=3876

and flashed it with an A8N-SLI Premium BIOS (edited DMI etc) but even after all this SLI never worked on this board. So, first I ran the string installer and selected ASUS and this time it said it was successful! (files attached) I rebooted and installed the modded driver but still no SLI

So I uninstalled and cleaned the modded drivers and tried the hal mod instead, am I correct that Halmod 0.7 is only for win7 (?) and I'm using xp so I did it manually, I just copied over the hal.dll from xdevs page to sys32 and rebooted, then installed unmodded 190.62 and rebooted... but still no SLI

CPUZ reports x58 but everest still sees normal Nforce4 (and all mem timings etc still work) I also tried changing the SLI bios options, aperture to auto, enabling dual video mode (this just drops PCIE-1 from x16 to x8, does not effect the PCIE-2 speed because the port mapping is wrong)

Like the first time this was also done on a very old xp installation so I am going to try again using clean win7, but first I need some sleep!

Well it was not so easy after all, but I'm sure we can work it out in the end, thanks for any ideas you can give me,

 

[anatolymik]

http://www.xdevs.com/sli/HALMod v0.8 alpha.ZIP

new HALMod!

 

[anatolymik]

Hi all, well done guys You lot seem to be having more luck than me today!

I just got my 8800GTs (only £30 each band new!) but have a pretty big problem, my crappy BIOSTAR 790GX board will not detect two nvidia cards,

only one.

I tried all the bios settings I can think of, others have had the same problem so the board probably needs a bios mod to fix it, maybe someone at rebels haven can help with that?

I ran the string installer anyway but it failed for some reason, the temp folder files are attached if they can it help?

This was on a very old xp installation so will try again later with a clean install, but first I must get both cards detected…


I also tried on that mutant A8N-E board I was talking about before, I had already converted the chipset using the mod from here:

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/AMD/120
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=3876

and flashed it with an A8N-SLI Premium BIOS (edited DMI etc) but even after all this SLI never worked on this board. So, first I ran the string installer and selected ASUS and this time it said it was successful! (files attached) I rebooted and installed the modded driver but still no SLI

So I uninstalled and cleaned the modded drivers and tried the hal mod instead, am I correct that Halmod 0.7 is only for win7 (?) and I'm using xp so I did it manually, I just copied over the hal.dll from xdevs page to sys32 and rebooted, then installed unmodded 190.62 and rebooted... but still no SLI

CPUZ reports x58 but everest still sees normal Nforce4 (and all mem timings etc still work) I also tried changing the SLI bios options, aperture to auto, enabling dual video mode (this just drops PCIE-1 from x16 to x8, does not effect the PCIE-2 speed because the port mapping is wrong)

Like the first time this was also done on a very old xp installation so I am going to try again using clean win7, but first I need some sleep!

Well it was not so easy after all, but I'm sure we can work it out in the end, thanks for any ideas you can give me,

do you have winxp x32 now? i modded HALMod only for win7 x64. i know why you have sli not working on your nForce 4 board. Now you cann't get sli working in winxp. only win7 for now.
as for your 790GX board, send me .dat file. you can get it by using "iasl -g" from cmd

 

[cxghjcqr]

try load this table by using "asl /loadtable DSDT_GBTUACPI.dat"

http://depositfiles.com/files/a3a163wkq

and for future, use ASUS cert in SliStringInstaller if you want use HALMod

thank you ,my friend.

but my mainboard is from Gigabyte. would there be any wrong if I used ASUS cert in SliStringInstaller ?

 

[anatolymik]

thank you ,my friend.

but my mainboard is form Gigabyte. would there be any wrong if I used ASUS cert in SliStringInstaller ?

you should use ASUS cert

 

[Nick [D]vB]

Thanks for replying so fast, I'm still on xp32 at the moment, I just thought I would try a quick test with the xp32 hal mod from the xdevs guide, does that not work anymore?

Modified file HAL.DLL for Windows XP 32 bit:
http://www.xdevs.com/sli/hal.dll - 130 KB
copy the folder /% windows% / system32, retaining the orignal.

I am going to clear some drives later today and dual-boot win7-64 on both machines, I have attached the dats from my 790GX board, are the files from the temp0.zip I attached before no use? The dats were created under xp32 does that matter?

Also I can set ACPI v1/2/3 in my BIOS, which is best for you? I will try win7+halmod 0.8 on the NF4 board later today, but I will not be able to test the Biostar 790GX until I can get a BIOS fix that detects both cards...

thanks again, keep up the good work mate!

 

[cxghjcqr]

you should use ASUS cert

OK,let me try it.

 

[anatolymik]

Thanks for replying so fast, I'm still on xp32 at the moment, I just thought I would try a quick test with the xp32 hal mod from the xdevs guide, does that not work anymore?

I am going to clear some drives later today and dual-boot win7-64 on both machines, I have attached the dats from my 790GX board, are the files from the temp0.zip I attached before no use? The dats were created under xp32 does that matter?

Also I can set ACPI v1/2/3 in my BIOS, which is best for you? I will try win7+halmod 0.8 on the NF4 board later today, but I will not be able to test the Biostar 790GX until I can get a BIOS fix that detects both cards...

thanks again, keep up the good work mate!

http://depositfiles.com/files/bwkcgy9mu

try this for 790GX Board by using "asl /loadtable DSDT_78DEA113.dat"
for winxp it works only for intel chipsets and asus board for now. once i'll have finished it for win7 x64 i'll do it for winxp.
as for acpi version. use starting from version 2.

thanks for your patient and testing.

 

[Nick [D]vB]

thanks, I will test the 790GX board as soon as I can get both cards detected, but until then I can only test the NF4 board.

I would be interested to know why my nforce4 SLI mod does not work (in very basic terms!), after the hardmod Everest detected the chipset as NF4-SLI (not NF4-Ultra). Even after the BIOS was flashed from A8N-E to A8N-SLI cpu-z still detected the board as an A8N-E, this is why I edited the DMI table. I also though that the PCIE speeds both have to be x8 for it to work?

I am sure there are many other more complex things involved, I read that nvidia added a lot of extra counter-measures for the NF4 after the hack was found. They are probably doing the same thing to the GT300 as we speak, I'm sure they will keep you busy!

 

[cxghjcqr]

anatolymik:
I'm very glad to tell you .I have maken MODSLI enable by using ASUS cert
thanks for your help.thank you very much!