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

[JrRacinFan]

Try this out.

 

[agentdax5]

Try this out.

Did you take the 8800GT Original bios and just change the device to 9800GT? Cause I tried that before and it never worked.

 

[JrRacinFan]

OK then it's going to take a modded driver for it to work as well as HALmod.

 

[agentdax5]

when I do that it still shows as an 8800GT btw

 

[Nick [D]vB]

The problem might be two sets of clocks (Extra / 2D clocks showing in Nibitor)

Try this Gainward bios on the 8800GT, it works ok on my weird ECS 8800GT & an ASUS 8800GTS-512

But only try it if you are ok to blind-flash the card if it doesn't work?

 

[Nick [D]vB]

Also, AFAIK bios does not care about memory size, so try other 512MB bios on the 8800GT.

 

[JrRacinFan]

when I do that it still shows as an 8800GT btw

In other words, mod the 8800GT on a driver level to become a 9800GT or vice versa for your XFX.

EDIT:

It can be done ....


.... Just don't ask me how.

Where's Solaris when you need him?!

 

[soundood]

hi guys,

well i have been following the thread, and i am myself about to try this out again, this time we have a Abit AX78 and 2 x 8500GT's, all set up and on the bench.

just waiting on 2 x 1 gig Ballistix, and an AMD 5000+ X2, should be here any minute

i will get back to you all, when i get a Win 7 instal done, and imaged

 

[agentdax5]

The problem might be two sets of clocks (Extra / 2D clocks showing in Nibitor)

Try this Gainward bios on the 8800GT, it works ok on my weird ECS 8800GT & an ASUS 8800GTS-512

But only try it if you are ok to blind-flash the card if it doesn't work?

Ok, I'll give this a try soon.



Side note, all the bluescreens I've been having currently, I saved the Windows event viewer log of them all and all the dump files for them if anyone wants to look at them.

 

[cxghjcqr]

th is my single card's score

 

[soundood]

hi guys,

well i have been following the thread, and i am myself about to try this out again, this time we have a Abit AX78 and 2 x 8500GT's, all set up and on the bench.

just waiting on 2 x 1 gig Ballistix, and an AMD 5000+ X2, should be here any minute

i will get back to you all, when i get a Win 7 instal done, and imaged

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk110/soundood/PICT0197-1.jpg

i can confirm SLI with this set up, using SLI string instaler v1.81 and HAL mod v0.81

just running some benches now, and will run some later, as the kids are coming back from school, time to get bench away...EEEEK

speak later

 

[TheWolf]

i can confirm SLI with this set up, using SLI string instaler v1.81 and HAL mod v0.81

just running some benches now, and will run some later, as the kids are coming back from school, time to get bench away...EEEEK

speak later

Hiya sdood, WTG! Post up some snapshots.

 

[Nick [D]vB]

Nice work! Remember to crank the rez right up for the 3Dmark06 benchies!

 

[soundood]

Hiya sdood, WTG! Post up some snapshots.

i got some screens for testing quik, but i will get some proper screens later when kids get to bed,

Nice work! Remember to crank the rez right up for the 3Dmark06 benchies!

i will try a couple tonight with high res, for me i usualy go with the default settings, as long as the benches are the same then i dont mind

im sort of disapointed.... it was too easy lol, i had to wait on the X2 chip and ram, and had it all on the bench expecting some hassle and trying to figure it out, but the halmod and slistring instaler worked a charm.

my mobo even has the AMD 770/SB600 info after halmod.

may i add this is with the 190.62 driver from Nvidia website, i will try out the newest 191 drivers later

as said i will post back tonight

EDIT: looks like Xdevs and techpowerup ave made the The Overclocker magazine,

download the full copy here: http://www.theoverclocker.com/

 

[soundood]

Test Results Abit AX78 770/SB600, 2 x 8500GT's, 2 x 1 gig Crucial PC6400, AMD 4400+ x2

Bench Pic (sry its dark)

Single GPU Results

3Dmark06

Crysis 1440 x 1050 Low Settings

Crysis 1440 x 1050 Medium Settings

SLI Results

3Dmark06

Crysis 1440 x 1050 Low Settings

Crysis 1440 x 1050 Medium Settings

Overall i am very happy with the scaling here, and with the latest HALmod and SLI string instaler this was a breeze, worked first time

thanks once again to anatolymik and the guys,

if there is anything i can test out or do let me know, i have this all on the bench with a fresh Win 7 image created, so can test and test again, with 10 min intervals

 

[Nick [D]vB]

Maybe try G'ing that CPU up a bit, you should be able to get to ~3GHz @1.5v, and those 8500's should OC a bit to...

 

[JrRacinFan]

Maybe try G'ing that CPU up a bit, you should be able to get to ~3GHz @1.5v, and those 8500's should OC a bit to...

I second this, you should be able to get around 6k out of that setup.

 

[soundood]

Maybe try G'ing that CPU up a bit, you should be able to get to ~3GHz @1.5v, and those 8500's should OC a bit to...

yeah i would agree with you on the the CPU, maybe 2.8 gig would be better at 1.4, but those 8500GT's overclock like a demon, if i remember correctly i had them at 660 clock/700mhz mem on water.

im going to go and have a play now, see how high i can go in AMD Overdrive

 

[Nick [D]vB]

My old Toledo X2 used to get 2.8GHz @1.47, but I could never get the bugger to 3GHz.

I've never used an 8500GT, are they DDR2 or DDR3?

I got my old 8600GT to 1GHz but only after a mad heatsink & voltmod:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=527871

But that killed it pretty quickly!

 

[soundood]

My old Toledo X2 used to get 2.8GHz @1.47, but I could never get the bugger to 3GHz.

I've never used an 8500GT, are they DDR2 or DDR3?

I got my old 8600GT to 1GHz but only after a mad heatsink & voltmod:

http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/2026/donebp2.jpg

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=527871

But that killed it pretty quickly!

yeah the 8500GT is DDR2, so it limits the OC a bit , for the record i have just instaled the 191.07 drivers over the old ones, and no problem, just running 3dmark06 now to see if there is any gain, i will post back results

EDIT: ok heres the screens with latest driver from nvidia,

 

[TheWolf]

I did a test run of 3DMark-06 with the X48 DQ6 2x2gb G-Skill Q9650 @4Ghz
2x 260GTX @ stock clocks. Was a little disapointed from my test with the IX38QuadGT,
But then again it was overclocked a little more on the CPU & OC Video cards with its run.

SLI disabled single card.

SLI enabled 2x260GTX @ stock clocks.

 

[soundood]

I did a test run of 3DMark-06 with the X48 DQ6 2x2gb G-Skill Q9650 @4Ghz
2x 260GTX @ stock clocks. Was a little disapointed from my test with the IX38QuadGT,
But then again it was overclocked a little more on the CPU & OC Video cards with its run.

SLI disabled single card.
http://www.myalbumbank.com/albums/userpics/10568/X48-DQ6-SLI-disabled.gif

SLI enabled 2x260GTX @ stock clocks.
http://www.myalbumbank.com/albums/userpics/10568/X48-DQ6-SLI-enabled.gif

that seems very low wolf, just over 300 point gain? im not familiar with intel boards, but is there not some kind of PCIe link setting in the bios, to accelerate the speed between GPU's?

 

[TheWolf]

that seems very low wolf, just over 300 point gain? im not familiar with intel boards, but is there not some kind of PCIe link setting in the bios, to accelerate the speed between GPU's?

Look a little closer, its about 3000 gain.

 

[Ghostleader]

Running 9800GTX in SLI on a Maximus II Formula

Hi guys, I gave that SLI hack a shot on my MIIF

Hardware used, Maximus II Formula / E8600 / 2x2 OCZ Reaper ver3 PC-8500 / XFX 9800GTX Black Edition

E8600 @ 450 4,05, 2x2 OCZ Reaper PC-8500 @ 1080 555 15 tRD 8 strong

Here´s how I did it.

1 - Install Win7 RC x64.
2 - Install System and 191.07 Win7 x64 (WHQL) drivers.
3 - Disable UAC.
4 - Restart.
5 - Run SLI String Installer v1.81 as Admin select ASUS certificate.
6 - Run HAL Mod 0.9a as Admin
7 - Copy moded nvlddmkm.sys (rev2) Win7 x64 to C:\windows\system32\drivers\
8 - Sign the nvlddmkm.sys with the Driver Signature Enforcement Overrider, select "Sign a System File", type in C:\windows\system32\drivers\nvlddmkm.sys

Reboot, and we have a SLI capable system

Enable SLI

Some benchmark comparision between single card and SLI

Single

SLI

Single

SLI

Single

SLI

Single

SLI

Single

SLI

Single

SLI

That was it, pretty good scaling for a couple of old 9800GTX I most say.

Thanks once again for those who made this possible.

 

[TiN]

Ghostleader

You DO NOT need to make steps 8 and 9. Why to mess both mod methods together?