Hey guys, was just wondering if anyone can answer this question for me, I have dual 980s and three monitors, but currently only use one monitor for gaming and the other two monitors as extra desktop real estate.
Back when I had my titans I couldn't enable SLI and drive all three monitors at once, as they would only display on one screen. The only solution was to use a spare 580 to drive the two other screens.
My question is, now that I have 980s, each with multiple display outputs, do I still need an extra card to drive the two other monitors if I only enable SLI for the center screen for gaming?
Hope any of you guys could help me answer this question
I think I might be able to help you.
A few month ago, when I first upgraded to 3D vision surround, I ran into the same problem as you - when I turned on surround spanning, SLI gets disabled. Its a well known problem and that the majority with triple monitor and SLI experience.
You should probably first double check that SLI is working properly on a single display. Then:
1) Update to the latest drivers (I assume you already did)
2) Reset the setting in nvidia control panel, under configure SLI surround and physx, to disable SLI. We want to start fresh.
3) try turning on the Span Displays with surround directly from here
i) Go through with the setup (display arrangement, bezel correction and all that).
ii) Close all other programs and apply the change.
iii) Open Furmark and Nvidia control panel, and Check if SLI is enabled. Sometimes Nvidia Control Panel is bugged and displays the SLI as disable even though its enabled and working properly.
iv) You can benchmark to make sure.
4) If the above doesnt work, try:
i) First turn on Maximise 3D performance (which enables SLI)
ii) Close all programs and apply. Make sure SLI turned on
iii) Turn on Span displays with surround from there and repeat step 3).
5) If it doesnt work, try repeating steps 3 and 4 a few times. As I said, surround and SLI is bugged. So it might not work the first time.
Btw I am running 2 way SLI, if you are using 3 way, things might be different. Also, I have 2 of my monitors connected to the top card using DVI, and the 3rd monitor to the DVI port on 2nd GPU. Physx is set on the 2nd card.
Thats how I got my 680 SLI and 980 SLI working with SLI on surround.
Look up the problem on google, many people have this problem, and some does a better job than me in providing a fix. Geforce Forum (under surround section) is also a wonderful place.