SLI with different cards

[P!nkpanther]

I know those are old cards, but doesn't explain the performance loss, there should be at least a little improvement even without the bridge, or I'm wrong?

In some applications yes, in others no.
Which app/game/benchmark are you talking about?
Try a benchmark well known for good SLI scaling, like Unigine Heaven.

 

[Coler]

In some applications yes, in others no.
Which app/game/benchmark are you talking about?
Try a benchmark well known for good SLI scaling, like Unigine Heaven.

I tried a few games that I had on hand,
Rainbow Six Siege = quite big performance loss
Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice (custom inspector profile) = enourmos performance loss
Dungeon Siege 3 = slight performance loss
but only with Sniper Elite 3 = slight performance improvement

i'll test some more asap, including Unigine Heaven to see raw performance.

So dear P!nkpanther , do you think is it normal or should be better? Thanks

I just googled (sli worse single card) and seems I'm not alone even with official SLI, D:

 

[topmysteries5]

I tried a few games that I had on hand,
Rainbow Six Siege = quite big performance loss
Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice (custom inspector profile) = enourmos performance loss
Dungeon Siege 3 = slight performance loss
but only with Sniper Elite 3 = slight performance improvement

i'll test some more asap, including Unigine Heaven to see raw performance.

So dear P!nkpanther , do you think is it normal or should be better? Thanks

I just googled (sli worse single card) and seems I'm not alone even with official SLI, D:

In battlefield 1 maxed out at 1080p, FPS jumped from 55FPS avg to 95 to 100 FPS avg with dual 1050ti

 

[Coler]

In battlefield 1 maxed out at 1080p, FPS jumped from 55FPS avg to 95 to 100 FPS avg with dual 1050ti

I saw it! good job!
Wanted to try BF3 that I know may be more SLI optimized but wasn't starting for some reason, maybe better I do a clean Windows installation.

Unigine seems scaling good, unfortunately I can't play on it

 

[P!nkpanther]

Unigine seems scaling good, unfortunately I can't play on it

Which means that there's neither a problem with your SLI setup nor with Windows.
It's simply as good as it gets without an SLI bridge, a PCIe 2.0/x4 bus and generally the bad support of SLI in games.

One thing to make sure is not to connect monitors on both cards, since that increases the load on the bus. They should be all connected to the main card.

 

[Coler]

Which means that there's neither a problem with your SLI setup nor with Windows.
It's simply as good as it gets without an SLI bridge, a PCIe 2.0/x4 bus and generally the bad support of SLI in games.

One thing to make sure is not to connect monitors on both cards, since that increases the load on the bus. They should be all connected to the main card.

yep, only 1 monitor on x16 card, also disabled audio on x4 one.
At this point the reason should be zero optimization in games... damn.
Thanks P!nkpanther

 

[topmysteries5]

I saw it! good job!
Wanted to try BF3 that I know may be more SLI optimized but wasn't starting for some reason, maybe better I do a clean Windows installation.

Unigine seems scaling good, unfortunately I can't play on it

Spoiler: Screens

View attachment 119655


View attachment 119656

You're loosing too much FPS and scaling because of your PCIe and Ram bandwidth. Also it is getting bottlenecked due to lower single thread performance of your cpu.
BTW i3 4330 has 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes, which means you can use both GPUs at PCIe 3.0x8 each on Z97 motherboard. Also single ch ddr3 1333mhz rams can bottleneck performance in these benchmarks.
For comparison you see below screenshots from my rig. Both gpus are running at PCIe 3.0x16. Ram is 2133mhz quad ch.

Here is some benchmark results comparing Official and Xtreme-G modded drivers

 

[Coler]

I've seen your bench, I can understand a scaling of about 62% instead of your 80% in Unigine, but not such performance loss in games...
Also this is the lowprofile and budget pc I'm testing on, wich I don't think it worths at all new mb and ram, so maybe I'm going to use that little card for something else...
I repeat that running the same game on each gpu at once they both run almost better than a single game with sli, If it's only the syncing of the frames that need a thousand core cpu and 4x times the pciex bandwidth, due to the poor optimization (since unigine is doing well) I think I can forget this arranged SLI, It was just because couldn't replace the card with any other one due the case size, so I tried the luck!

 

[seanzhang72]

Hi All, nice to see this long time thread still updating I was trying all different procedures in this thread for two days, but unfortunately, SLI still not showing in NVidia control panel, any suggestions will be appreciated! should I try old patcher and driver version?
My setup:
Intel s2600cp2j server MB with Dual E5-2665, I knew this MB limit the PCIe speed to 2.0x8 due to the E5 V1 CPU limits, not sure if it causes this, Intel not officially says the MB can support SLI, I'd guess not for a server MB.
two GTX 780 (3GB)s, 1 EVGA (revision B1), 1 ASUS (revision A1), set on slot 3 and slot 5 blue PCIe (electronically PCIe x8), 2 way NVidia SLI bridge.
GPU-Z and NVidia control panel show the two cards both installed and running on PCIe 2.0x8, they are working individually no problem, both drivers (the latest 419.67) pointed to correct HEX modified and DifferntSLIAuto signed nvlddmkm.sys, windows 10 shows in test mode. two monitors connected to slot 3 (CPU1) card (1DVI, 1HDMI).

 

[topmysteries5]

Hi All, nice to see this long time thread still updating I was trying all different procedures in this thread for two days, but unfortunately, SLI still not showing in NVidia control panel, any suggestions will be appreciated! should I try old patcher and driver version?
My setup:
Intel s2600cp2j server MB with Dual E5-2665, I knew this MB limit the PCIe speed to 2.0x8 due to the E5 V1 CPU limits, not sure if it causes this, Intel not officially says the MB can support SLI, I'd guess not for a server MB.
two GTX 780 (3GB)s, 1 EVGA (revision B1), 1 ASUS (revision A1), set on slot 3 and slot 5 blue PCIe (electronically PCIe x8), 2 way NVidia SLI bridge.
GPU-Z and NVidia control panel show the two cards both installed and running on PCIe 2.0x8, they are working individually no problem, both drivers (the latest 419.67) pointed to correct HEX modified and DifferntSLIAuto signed nvlddmkm.sys, windows 10 shows in test mode. two monitors connected to slot 3 (CPU1) card (1DVI, 1HDMI).

Your xeon E5 2665 has support for 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes. Your motherboard also supports PCIe 3.0.
When SLI is not showing in control panel, then you must check the location of loaded nvlddmkm.sys from device manager.
If you want to restart whole process easily, then follow this:-

(1) Use DDU.
(2) Open certmgr.msc from Run. Delete DifferentSLIAuto certificates (there will be two certificates).
(3) Install driver 419.35 on windows 10 only
(4) Don't use DifferentSLIAuto.exe to sign nvlddmkm, instead edit install.cmd according to location of installed driver in your "System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_4aa19ae********\"
(5) Copy nvlddmkm.sys to folder of install.cmd.
(6) Now hex edit nvlddmkm.sys according to driver 419.35
(7) Reboot into safe mode with networking and run install.cmd as administrator. Reboot normally after succeeding. (Test signing must be enabled)



Inside install.cmd:-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@Echo off
title DifferentSLI Sign and Install
echo ********************************************************************
echo ********************************************************************
echo Please fix the installation path
echo manually before running this script
echo ********************************************************************
echo ********************************************************************
pause

setlocal EnableExtensions
cd /d "%~dp0"

set _nvlddmkm=nvlddmkm
if exist "nvlddmkm2.sys" then set _nvlddmkm=nvlddmkm2

if not exist "tools\" goto wtfrudoin

call "%SystemRoot%\System32\certutil.exe" -store root DifferentSLIAuto
if %errorlevel% equ 0 goto certexists

call "tools\makecert.exe" -r -pe -ss "DifferentSLIAuto" -n "CN=DifferentSLIAuto" "%SystemRoot%\DifferentSLIAuto.cer"
call "tools\CertMgr.exe" /add "%SystemRoot%\DifferentSLIAuto.cer" /s /r localMachine root

:certexists

call "tools\ChecksumFix.exe" "%_nvlddmkm%.sys"
call "tools\signtool.exe" sign /v /s DifferentSLIAuto /n DifferentSLIAuto /t http://timestamp.verisign.com/scripts/timstamp.dll "%_nvlddmkm%.sys"
call "%SystemRoot%\System32\takeown.exe" /f "%SystemRoot%\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_4aa19ae78d94d8a3\%_nvlddmkm%.sys" /a
call "%SystemRoot%\System32\icacls.exe" "%SystemRoot%\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_4aa19ae78d94d8a3\%_nvlddmkm%.sys" /grant "%USERNAME%":f
call "%SystemRoot%\System32\bcdedit.exe" /set TESTSIGNING ON

if exist "%SystemRoot%\Sysnative\" goto x32mode

copy "%_nvlddmkm%.sys" "%SystemRoot%\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_4aa19ae78d94d8a3\%_nvlddmkm%.sys" /y
goto filecopied

:x32mode
copy "%_nvlddmkm%.sys" "%SystemRoot%\Sysnative\drivers\%_nvlddmkm%.sys" /y

:filecopied
color 0a
echo Reboot now for changes to take effect
goto end

:wtfrudoin
color 0c
echo Please extract everything from the package including the contents of the tools folder.
goto end

:notadmin
color 0e
echo Please run this as administrator!

:end
pause > nul

 

[seanzhang72]

Your xeon E5 2665 has support for 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes. Your motherboard also supports PCIe 3.0.
When SLI is not showing in control panel, then you must check the location of loaded nvlddmkm.sys from device manager.
If you want to restart whole process easily, then follow this:-

(1) Use DDU.
(2) Open certmgr.msc from Run. Delete DifferentSLIAuto certificates (there will be two certificates).
(3) Install driver 419.35 on windows 10 only
(4) Don't use DifferentSLIAuto.exe to sign nvlddmkm, instead edit install.cmd according to location of installed driver in your "System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_4aa19ae********\"
(5) Copy nvlddmkm.sys to folder of install.cmd.
(6) Now hex edit nvlddmkm.sys according to driver 419.35
(7) Reboot into safe mode with networking and run install.cmd as administrator. Reboot normally after succeeding. (Test signing must be enabled)



Inside install.cmd:-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@Echo off
title DifferentSLI Sign and Install
echo ********************************************************************
echo ********************************************************************
echo Please fix the installation path
echo manually before running this script
echo ********************************************************************
echo ********************************************************************
pause

setlocal EnableExtensions
cd /d "%~dp0"

set _nvlddmkm=nvlddmkm
if exist "nvlddmkm2.sys" then set _nvlddmkm=nvlddmkm2

if not exist "tools\" goto wtfrudoin

call "%SystemRoot%\System32\certutil.exe" -store root DifferentSLIAuto
if %errorlevel% equ 0 goto certexists

call "tools\makecert.exe" -r -pe -ss "DifferentSLIAuto" -n "CN=DifferentSLIAuto" "%SystemRoot%\DifferentSLIAuto.cer"
call "tools\CertMgr.exe" /add "%SystemRoot%\DifferentSLIAuto.cer" /s /r localMachine root

:certexists

call "tools\ChecksumFix.exe" "%_nvlddmkm%.sys"
call "tools\signtool.exe" sign /v /s DifferentSLIAuto /n DifferentSLIAuto /t http://timestamp.verisign.com/scripts/timstamp.dll "%_nvlddmkm%.sys"
call "%SystemRoot%\System32\takeown.exe" /f "%SystemRoot%\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_4aa19ae78d94d8a3\%_nvlddmkm%.sys" /a
call "%SystemRoot%\System32\icacls.exe" "%SystemRoot%\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_4aa19ae78d94d8a3\%_nvlddmkm%.sys" /grant "%USERNAME%":f
call "%SystemRoot%\System32\bcdedit.exe" /set TESTSIGNING ON

if exist "%SystemRoot%\Sysnative\" goto x32mode

copy "%_nvlddmkm%.sys" "%SystemRoot%\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_4aa19ae78d94d8a3\%_nvlddmkm%.sys" /y
goto filecopied

:x32mode
copy "%_nvlddmkm%.sys" "%SystemRoot%\Sysnative\drivers\%_nvlddmkm%.sys" /y

:filecopied
color 0a
echo Reboot now for changes to take effect
goto end

:wtfrudoin
color 0c
echo Please extract everything from the package including the contents of the tools folder.
goto end

:notadmin
color 0e
echo Please run this as administrator!

:end
pause > nul

thanks a lot topmysteries5 for your detailed steps, I did check both cards' drivers pointed to correct location because I noticed the nvlddmkm.sys in device manager doesn't have cert icon even it's signed by DifferentSLIAuto, the DifferentSLIAuto root certificate installed looks good in certificate management. but anyway, I will try 419.35 again and feedback here soon, hope I am lucky ;-)

Your xeon E5 2665 has support for 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes. Your motherboard also supports PCIe 3.0.
When SLI is not showing in control panel, then you must check the location of loaded nvlddmkm.sys from device manager.
If you want to restart whole process easily, then follow this:-

(1) Use DDU.
(2) Open certmgr.msc from Run. Delete DifferentSLIAuto certificates (there will be two certificates).
(3) Install driver 419.35 on windows 10 only
(4) Don't use DifferentSLIAuto.exe to sign nvlddmkm, instead edit install.cmd according to location of installed driver in your "System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_4aa19ae********\"
(5) Copy nvlddmkm.sys to folder of install.cmd.
(6) Now hex edit nvlddmkm.sys according to driver 419.35
(7) Reboot into safe mode with networking and run install.cmd as administrator. Reboot normally after succeeding. (Test signing must be enabled)



Inside install.cmd:-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@Echo off
title DifferentSLI Sign and Install
echo ********************************************************************
echo ********************************************************************
echo Please fix the installation path
echo manually before running this script
echo ********************************************************************
echo ********************************************************************
pause

setlocal EnableExtensions
cd /d "%~dp0"

set _nvlddmkm=nvlddmkm
if exist "nvlddmkm2.sys" then set _nvlddmkm=nvlddmkm2

if not exist "tools\" goto wtfrudoin

call "%SystemRoot%\System32\certutil.exe" -store root DifferentSLIAuto
if %errorlevel% equ 0 goto certexists

call "tools\makecert.exe" -r -pe -ss "DifferentSLIAuto" -n "CN=DifferentSLIAuto" "%SystemRoot%\DifferentSLIAuto.cer"
call "tools\CertMgr.exe" /add "%SystemRoot%\DifferentSLIAuto.cer" /s /r localMachine root

:certexists

call "tools\ChecksumFix.exe" "%_nvlddmkm%.sys"
call "tools\signtool.exe" sign /v /s DifferentSLIAuto /n DifferentSLIAuto /t http://timestamp.verisign.com/scripts/timstamp.dll "%_nvlddmkm%.sys"
call "%SystemRoot%\System32\takeown.exe" /f "%SystemRoot%\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_4aa19ae78d94d8a3\%_nvlddmkm%.sys" /a
call "%SystemRoot%\System32\icacls.exe" "%SystemRoot%\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_4aa19ae78d94d8a3\%_nvlddmkm%.sys" /grant "%USERNAME%":f
call "%SystemRoot%\System32\bcdedit.exe" /set TESTSIGNING ON

if exist "%SystemRoot%\Sysnative\" goto x32mode

copy "%_nvlddmkm%.sys" "%SystemRoot%\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_4aa19ae78d94d8a3\%_nvlddmkm%.sys" /y
goto filecopied

:x32mode
copy "%_nvlddmkm%.sys" "%SystemRoot%\Sysnative\drivers\%_nvlddmkm%.sys" /y

:filecopied
color 0a
echo Reboot now for changes to take effect
goto end

:wtfrudoin
color 0c
echo Please extract everything from the package including the contents of the tools folder.
goto end

:notadmin
color 0e
echo Please run this as administrator!

:end
pause > nul

I followed all steps to try 419.35, still not lucky, SLI not show in GeForce Control Panel.
I also tried the old 1.7.1 patcher with 388.71, patching successful, install.cmd replaced the correct nvlddmkm.sys file, signed looks good but still no SLI show up :-(
could be my two GTX 780s have different revision, there are not identical? Also, I double checked Intel force all PCIe slots to run at 2.0 due to V1 Xeon E5, could driver think my MB doesn't have enough bandwidth? thanks for all advices.

 

[Coler]

thanks a lot topmysteries5 for your detailed steps, I did check both cards' drivers pointed to correct location because I noticed the nvlddmkm.sys in device manager doesn't have cert icon even it's signed by DifferentSLIAuto, the DifferentSLIAuto root certificate installed looks good in certificate management. but anyway, I will try 419.35 again and feedback here soon, hope I am lucky ;-)


I followed all steps to try 419.35, still not lucky, SLI not show in GeForce Control Panel.
I also tried the old 1.7.1 patcher with 388.71, patching successful, install.cmd replaced the correct nvlddmkm.sys file, signed looks good but still no SLI show up :-(
could be my two GTX 780s have different revision, there are not identical? Also, I double checked Intel force all PCIe slots to run at 2.0 due to V1 Xeon E5, could driver think my MB doesn't have enough bandwidth? thanks for all advices.
View attachment 119681

Your system is good, with this patch it enables in almost every circumstance.
Check once again that the nvlddmkm.sys in system32/drivers matches the size of the modded one and not original, in case reboot in safe mode and replace it manually, also check that you are in test mode.

 

[P!nkpanther]

I noticed the nvlddmkm.sys in device manager doesn't have cert icon even it's signed by DifferentSLIAuto

This is how it's supposed to look.

I also tried the old 1.7.1 patcher with 388.71, patching successful, install.cmd replaced the correct nvlddmkm.sys file, signed looks good but still no SLI show up :-(
could be my two GTX 780s have different revision, there are not identical? Also, I double checked Intel force all PCIe slots to run at 2.0 due to V1 Xeon E5, could driver think my MB doesn't have enough bandwidth? thanks for all advices.

With the old patcher there is no check about different cards. The SLI button would show up even if you SLIed a 770 with a 560, but would then crash to black screen. Also the check about bandwidth is bypassed in the old patch. I suspect it may not in the new patch or not under all circumstances.
BTW, that check is only superficial. The driver only checks the metadata in the mobo; it does not really test the actual bandwidth.

 

[Coler]

I can confirm patch working on latest drivers and win10, on the crappy setup I posted above., thanks Heavenwood for the offsets!
So seanzhang72 you should be ok with your hardware.

 

[seanzhang72]

This is how it's supposed to look.

With the old patcher there is no check about different cards. The SLI button would show up even if you SLIed a 770 with a 560, but would then crash to black screen. Also the check about bandwidth is bypassed in the old patch. I suspect it may not in the new patch or not under all circumstances.
BTW, that check is only superficial. The driver only checks the metadata in the mobo; it does not really test the actual bandwidth.

thanks for explaining how it works, so sounds something weird, try to figure it out, might be helpful for other people has similar issue. Could the driver check some BIOS settings, e.g. PCI, power saving, server settings, etc. or based on my knowledge, windows should load GPU driver during reboot, if my patch is correct, it shouldn't happen but if it's possible windows actually loaded a cached version from somewhere? sounds idiot but my computer behavior like that , I did DDU and search nvlddmkm.sys on my system C:\Windows, there is only one file is under "C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_****", I also checked the file is same as the one patched in my DifferentSLIAuto folder, same timestamp, size, signature.

Your system is good, with this patch it enables in almost every circumstance.
Check once again that the nvlddmkm.sys in system32/drivers matches the size of the modded one and not original, in case reboot in safe mode and replace it manually, also check that you are in test mode.

thank you, I will double check and replace it manually, B.T.W. my system is windows 10 pro 64 bit, it is under "C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_****", the system is in test mode for sure.

 

[Coler]

it is under "C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_****", the system is in test mode for sure.

you're right!

btw just for info, I tried my crappy SLI config on windows 10 just trying to see if there could be some benefits with the help of the iGPU, using that new option about setting the preferred GPU per application, but unfortunately seems SLI is not supported with this feature, causing games to crash. With single card wasn't losing that much using the iGPU display, so it may be useful for EGPU on laptop, but not for this.

in conclusion: better not do a SLI (and also CF) with second gpu over chipset without a Bridge!

 

[seanzhang72]

Well, thanks a lot for everybody's help. I will keep watching this thread for a month to see if anybody has a similar dual Xeon CPU server MB can work with SLI, if not lucky, it is end up to sell either one card.

 

[evolucian911]

Well, thanks a lot for everybody's help. I will keep watching this thread for a month to see if anybody has a similar dual Xeon CPU server MB can work with SLI, if not lucky, it is end up to sell either one card.

I have the exact same system and many other dual cpu systems and a threadripper.

First let me ask. Which 2 slots are your Cards in?

 

[seanzhang72]

I have the exact same system and many other dual cpu systems and a threadripper.

First let me ask. Which 2 slots are your Cards in?

it's on slot 3 and 5 (2 blue slots), my setup is in #3,159, thank you.

 

[evolucian911]

On my s2600cp2j I have used both Crossfire and SLI but there are 2 ways to make it work properly since one of the GPU slots goes to the second CPU and SLI/CFX will not work with both cards in the blue slots. Unless..... You use a "Powered" pcie x16 extender in the Upper blue slot for one card. The bottom slot is fine. In my experience, even if the card comes up in the upper slot MultiGPU does not work. To my surprise though I mounted one GPU vertically one day with a powered extender and it worked. Took extender out and back to old symptoms.

Second method: You need to very carefully cut of the piece of plastic blocking the end of the short 8X slots. Using the black slots allow you to SLI without issue.

I have attached an old picture with 2 Radeon cards on the blocked slots. Will send updated photo with vertically mounted 980Ti and Second one in bottom blue slot, when i get back home from business trip.

Im going to link to my thread about this issue on servethehome. Some info may not apply to you because at the time this was to get crossfire to work. But best method is cutting out the plastic blocking the 8x slots and using the cards in there. I used a soldering iron but only because i did not have a Box cutter on hand. I was very careful not to touch any pins. Touching the pin may bend it out of place. You have to unsolder or remove the motherboard speaker though. No more motherboard beeps

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/s2600cp2j-and-full-size-graphic-cards.11020/

 

[seanzhang72]

Wow, that's interesting thing, eventually, I found correct person here so how do you connect the second card with powered Pcie X16 cable? I assume I have to mount one card vertically to use that cable? right now all my 6 slots being used, 4 slots for these two gtx 780 cards, 1 for a pcie audio card, 1 for pcie to usb3.0 extension card.
B.T.W. where you found the powered cable, could you please send me a link? also, I don't think I can cut other slots because of GTX 780's size is pretty long, other slots will be blocked by SATA cable or memory slots, thanks for help.

 

[evolucian911]

Good point about free slots. For audio i use Fiio USB Dac with Headphone amp and also the GPU audio using an HDMI adaptor (for my speakers because im too lazy to keep switching cables) which has a 3.5mm output port. Also use a usb 3.1 card in slot 6 (black 16X slot at the top of board)

You will need right angled Sata cables as well if you cut the black 8x slots because a card may obstruct the sata ports.

Edit: Forgot to mention I have the latest bios and set Memory mapped I/O above 4gb ENABLED on my system.


Sata cables:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5x-18-SATA...256546&hash=item1e9639b8d6:g:I3kAAOSwKwhcUdSZ

pcie16 to pcie16 powered:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/PCIE-PCI-E...458006?hash=item3f3bdfbbd6:g:ydYAAMXQuTNTMw2d

 

[seanzhang72]

Good point about free slots. For audio i use Fiio USB Dac with Headphone amp and also the GPU audio using an HDMI adaptor (for my speakers because im too lazy to keep switching cables) which has a 3.5mm output port. Also use a usb 3.1 card in slot 6 (black 16X slot at the top of board)

You will need right angled Sata cables as well if you cut the black 8x slots because a card may obstruct the sata ports.

Edit: Forgot to mention I have the latest bios and set Memory mapped I/O above 4gb ENABLED on my system.


Sata cables:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5x-18-SATA...256546&hash=item1e9639b8d6:g:I3kAAOSwKwhcUdSZ

pcie16 to pcie16 powered:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/PCIE-PCI-E...458006?hash=item3f3bdfbbd6:g:ydYAAMXQuTNTMw2d

couldn't say any more, thank you so much! hope I could make it work soon

 

[evolucian911]

couldn't say any more, thank you so much! hope I could make it work soon

Unblocking the 8x slots will be overall the best solution. The one drawback is the cards will be closer together so make sure you have good airflow in your case.

 

[seanzhang72]

Unblocking the 8x slots will be overall the best solution. The one drawback is the cards will be closer together so make sure you have good airflow in your case.

Got it, thanks. I am not sure top slot (slot 5) not working because of BIOS set to legacy graphic card to cpu1 by default, if I set to cpu2, than slot 5 will work and slot 3 won't work? then I just need to cut one 8x slot 2 to move the bottom card to slot 2, does it sound a good solution?

Got it, thanks. I am not sure top slot (slot 5) not working because of BIOS set to legacy graphic card to cpu1 by default, if I set to cpu2, than slot 5 will work and slot 3 won't work? then I just need to cut one 8x slot 2 to move the bottom card to slot 2, does it sound a good solution?

I am afraid that I couldn't even do unblocking slot 2 because there is a circle part just right beside the slot so looks powered cable is the only option, can I use a pcie 8x to 16x riser on slot 2? please let me know what you think, thanks a lot.