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

[anatolymik]

PC Booted in SLi Enabled (which is weird cos I have done this before and it did not work) with 1 card, SLi was not available

PC booted in SLi Enabled with 2 cards, SLi is still not available

So now that I have successfully booted, the SLi is still not available?

However there is no SLi String installed as you asked me not to do that

Shall I do it now?

what did you do?

ntoskrnp.exe and hal.dll you overwrite
what about winload.exe?

 

[anatolymik]

"which is weird cos I have done this before and it did not work"

what you have done before?

 

[dbphelps]

ok, here is one thing to consider, Win7 has a nasty cyclic "repair boot" issue that it requires over 3 sometimes 5 reboots to finally *fix* the issue with a hal.dll problem (even something as simple as a permissions issue).

I originally manually "undid" the original HAL mod and SLI String installation and got caught in that cycle myself. It seems as if windows 7 uses some sort of flag to determine if a boot got past the previous point or not and if not it automatically reboots into the repair cycle. HUGE PITA to say the least.

I did eventually get the damn thing back up, with the proper hal.dll and everything working 'plain vanilla' again, but it took over 2 hours to get there.

Once there, I just did the two lastest hack (sli string install and slipatch) and it all went off without a hitch.

MikeTyson, if you are stuck in the "repair cycle" you have to let it finish and get a clean boot before you do anything else. And once that is done it usually means it ended up going back and undoing anything you just did so you really need to start over.

anatolymik's scripts work great, and he has tried over and over to help you out. Again, this is not rocket science and if you can't get it working, maybe you should pass on this. You are taking anatolymik away from working on other issues here (including AMD support that some of us need). Wait until he gets past the "alpha" stage and then give it a try.

First and foremost, if you want to give yourself the best chances of this, run it under xp32 with a admin account, not a user account. You should have zero permissions issues and it should go off without a hitch from the get-go. If not, maybe your setup has something that the rest of us don't, like a custom patched hal.dll or something specific to your setup. Heck, are you sure your using the release installs of everything, not betas or trials?

If you are not using a retail set of discs, ie, if you are using downloaded copies of the OSes, sourced somewhere other than Microsoft, please stop bothering people as you cannot verify that you have *pure* versions of the OSes themselves. Hacks like this only work if everyone is using a known good OS.

Again, fact of the matter is, you should have ZERO problem installing this. It really is as simple as it gets.

 

[TiN]

Totally dumb problems are here. I'm sure problems are not with mods.

MikeTyson, test you memory, test your GPU's , test motherboard and power supply.

I've checked and tested every SLI patch except XP 64bit and Vista versions, and all worked FLAWLESS even without reboots, after SLIString install, and driver reinstall.

Tried drivers 190.62, 185.85, 181,20, 191, 195 and every case works perfect with ASUS SLIC string.

It's really a pain to follow anatolymik tries to help non existant problem

Nor anatolymik, nor sveetsnelda, nor I write anything about SLI mod if we wasn't 99.999% sure that it working good. That's why we don't released 195.xx mod earlier, to iron out bugs before release.

 

[Akula74]

Bla...
One of my 8800GTX's has lost it...
After all that screwing around i'm only running on one now?
Oh well, SLI only gave me 20% more so i read in some magazines...
Guys i want to thank you all for your effort.
Za na Ukrainzav.....

 

[TiN]

Akula74

8800ПЕЧ often have issues now, GPU solder balls got screwed from PCB, so no contacts > no workings. This can be fixed by reflow with slow heating card up to 220°C for 10-20sec and slow cooling (not faster than 3°C per sec).

Effort from SLI is from minus to +100% , it heavily dependent on application and modes (resolution/AA/AF), and also on CPU power.

 

[Akula74]

TiN,
Could you please explain to me in detail what exactly do you mean by that?
Like exactly what would i have to do to fix this problem?
Thanks

 

[TiN]

http://people.overclockers.ru/Dushman/record7

 

[Akula74]

http://people.overclockers.ru/Dushman/record7

Spasibo,
I'll give this a go, sounds a bit crazy but it's either that or the rubbish bit....
Thanks

Lastly TiN,
Can you give us the link of the lastest patch?
Spasibo brattan...

 

[KhaZ]

Can confirm working with:
Gigabyte EP45-Extreme
2x 8800GTX
Current drivers from Nvidia site.

Thnaks for the excellent work guys

Hi Mark,

I have an Asus Commando and also 2x 8800GTX, can you tell me in detail what you did to achieve it? I'm a bit confused as there are continiously improvements and different methods. Kinda lost it reading 20+ pages..

Or anyone else know what the perfect method is?

 

[MikeTyson]

Totally dumb problems are here. I'm sure problems are not with mods.

MikeTyson, test you memory, test your GPU's , test motherboard and power supply.

I've checked and tested every SLI patch except XP 64bit and Vista versions, and all worked FLAWLESS even without reboots, after SLIString install, and driver reinstall.

Tried drivers 190.62, 185.85, 181,20, 191, 195 and every case works perfect with ASUS SLIC string.

It's really a pain to follow anatolymik tries to help non existant problem

Nor anatolymik, nor sveetsnelda, nor I write anything about SLI mod if we wasn't 99.999% sure that it working good. That's why we don't released 195.xx mod earlier, to iron out bugs before release.

How can you tell me it's my problem :S

The SLi was enabled and worked fine with the modded 191 drivers, so obviously my hardware is capable of doing so...

I've gone back to XP again, clean install, SLi String Installer, different hard drive just to make bloody sure, and guess what?

Doesn't boot into SLiEnabled x32... just restarts

Here is the screen I get when I use InstallSli.cmd for the first time on a clean install:

I'm no expert, but surely there are more than 2 files to be copied?

And if not, how can 2 tiny files be the cause of a complete fail to boot :/

 

[dbphelps]

MikeTyson, again are you installing on a fresh installation of XP 32 Service Pack 3?

Also, what installation medium are you using? An original Microsoft install disc?

 

[MikeTyson]

MikeTyson, again are you installing on a fresh installation of XP 32 Service Pack 3?

Also, what installation medium are you using? An original Microsoft install disc?

Yes it's Windows XP Professional SP3 completely fresh formatted

I lost my original XP disc so I have this one made, but this is the same disc I used to install Windows XP SP3 before and used the mdoded drivers with which SLi was working... so I don't think the disc is an issue

My windows is legal and activated

And it's not an operating system issue, because I had this exact same problem on Windows 7 as well...

 

[anatolymik]

Yes it's Windows XP Professional SP3 completely fresh formatted

I lost my original XP disc so I have this one made, but this is the same disc I used to install Windows XP SP3 before and used the mdoded drivers with which SLi was working... so I don't think the disc is an issue

My windows is legal and activated

And it's not an operating system issue, because I had this exact same problem on Windows 7 as well...

ok. do next:

take ntoskrnp.exe
raname it to ntoskrnl.exe

take halsli.dll
raname it to hal.dll

copy these files to windows\system32

reboot and use normal windows booting. without slienabled

get ready to reinstall system if something goes wrong

 

[MikeTyson]

ok. do next:

take ntoskrnp.exe
raname it to ntoskrnl.exe

take halsli.dll
raname it to hal.dll

copy these files to windows\system32

reboot and use normal windows booting. without slienabled

get ready to reinstall system if something goes wrong

Okay, I've done this and booted into normal windows

 

[anatolymik]

Okay, I've done this and booted into normal windows

try sli

 

[MikeTyson]

try sli

Doesn't work

 

[anatolymik]

Doesn't work

http://img.techpowerup.org/100106/rgrrr.png

did you apply SliStringInstaller?

 

[MikeTyson]

did you apply SliStringInstaller?

Yep

 

[anatolymik]

Yep

http://img.techpowerup.org/100106/gergeg.png

which driver do you use

 

[MikeTyson]

which driver do you use

The latest 195

 

[anatolymik]

The latest 195

try 191

 

[MikeTyson]

190.62:

Just like I said, there is nothing wrong with my system...

I don't know what it is, but it may be a bug from your side

 

[anatolymik]

190.62:

http://img.techpowerup.org/100106/19.png

Just like I said, there is nothing wrong with my system...

I don't know what it is, but it may be a bug from your side

i'm going crazy
let me think

 

[MikeTyson]

i'm going crazy
let me think

I will run some games, and then try the 195 drivers and see if SLi will work