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

Another success on an ASUS P5b Deluxe wifi/AP, with Gainward gtx 260 GS & BFG maxcore, not amazingly fast but I'll tweak a bit, I suspect the main problem is the 2nd slot only being x4.

Installed easy enough once I got the stupid motherboard to recognise both cards, this involved moving the cards to different slots a few times, one problem I know have is my normal PCI slots don't work.

Installed graphics drivers then rebooted, then set coolbits to limit the Gainwards memory as it has 1792MB, ran afterburner to sync speed, rebooted, ran slipatch 1.5, rebooted and sli appeared in the nvidia control panel.

I'm now considering getting a Gigabyte x48 motherboard for the two x16 slots.

Thanks for slipatch!

P.S. - Also bought an msi flexible sli bridge which I assume is working fine.
 
I have and Asus P5Q Pro and 2 MSI GTX 460's on SLI Patch 1.5 and Nvidia drivers 275.33, I have not had any issues at all, just my board drops to 8x and 8x instead of 16x, but I do not notice any slowness.
 
I'm pretty sure his pci slots work. I have a P5Q Deluxe motherboard.. almost the same.. and no pci problems. That is a very strange issue baker99, there may be problems with your motherboard. And snipe, that is normal for a P5Q board, mine also drops to 8x 8x operation.
 
baker99 said:
Another success on an ASUS P5b Deluxe wifi/AP, with Gainward gtx 260 GS & BFG maxcore, not amazingly fast but I'll tweak a bit, I suspect the main problem is the 2nd slot only being x4.

Installed easy enough once I got the stupid motherboard to recognise both cards, this involved moving the cards to different slots a few times, one problem I know have is my normal PCI slots don't work.

Installed graphics drivers then rebooted, then set coolbits to limit the Gainwards memory as it has 1792MB, ran afterburner to sync speed, rebooted, ran slipatch 1.5, rebooted and sli appeared in the nvidia control panel.

I'm now considering getting a Gigabyte x48 motherboard for the two x16 slots.

Thanks for slipatch!

P.S. - Also bought an msi flexible sli bridge which I assume is working fine.
Click to expand...

The P965 chipset has some limitations, it's pcie 1.0 and if you have the pcie x4 slot occupied the other one stays disabled to maximize the performance of the x4 slot because they share the same bandwidth.
ifo1l5.jpg


Baker99, you will probably buy a P45/X38/X48 board nowadays rather cheap, it's a good move and it should remove your bootleneck;)
 
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Thanks guys, waiting for a Gigabyte or Asus X48 to come up on ebay as you can't seem to buy them new anywhere, except at high prices. The P5B has been somewhat temperamental recently so it may well be a motherboard problem :( Definitely want the extra speed of 2 x16 lanes before Skyrim arrives ;)
 
baker99 said:
Hi snipe, do your PCI slots still work?
Click to expand...

Not too sure, I do not have anything in them, but I would assume they would work. A friend has the Deluxe version, he is going to get another MSI GTX 460 Cyclone to SLI once the price drops a bit, he has a SB card in a PCI slot so we will see then.
 
Thanks snipe, could just be the motherboard but every new bios they seem to release for the P5B deluxe seems to add problems so it may be Asus's fault.
 
Don't worry about 2x 16x lanes. It will net you about 5% increase if you have gtx285/gtx460 or above cards. That's it. Worry about 2x 16x when you're packing 580s!
 
Yeah I agree and the information is on the net. Would be interesting to see what kind of graphics card you would need to max out 8x, 16x etc on pcie v2 lanes. Not sure if even gtx 580's would max 8x out, maybe a gtx 590 or the new asus MARS cards.
 
Is there anyway to run games in fullscreen with the 280.26 drivers if i try to run in fullscreen it flickers at the top of the screen it only runs normal in window mode any help would be great
 
Getting a bit of screen tearing now, from what I have read it could be my MSI SLI bridge as they are supposedly low quality, would buying an Asus one be better?
 
A bridge is a bridge, unless yours is damaged, replacing it won't help. Screen tearing is usually solved by enabling vsync.
 
Yeah already tried vsync, pushed the sli bridge connectors a bit and the tearing stopped, obviously not a very good connection.
 
baker99 said:
Yeah already tried vsync, pushed the sli bridge connectors a bit and the tearing stopped, obviously not a very good connection.
Click to expand...

Trying a different one might be good. Could just have a bad one...
 
LOL, ya who does use x32??? I just want to test out the new drivers from nvidia and see how they work.
 
He try someone SLI with Asus P8P67 LE motherboard????
 
baker99 said:
cool, who uses x32 anymore anyway?
Click to expand...

snipe said:
LOL, ya who does use x32??? I just want to test out the new drivers from nvidia and see how they work.
Click to expand...

I do still use x32 (x86). - It's a matter of COMPATIBILITY.
Can you guarantee that Windows x64 can run 100% of the the apps that x86 can handle??

Have a nice day.
 
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