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

[KainXS]

well, would it help if people dumped the dsdt from their boards so you could look at them

 

[Fitseries3]

if i get a amd 790fx board and i want to run SLI with 2x gtx295s on it can you guys help me get it runnin?

 

[Solaris17]

if i get a amd 790fx board and i want to run SLI with 2x gtx295s on it can you guys help me get it runnin?

were the only place that can

 

[Fitseries3]

were?

you mean we're?

i tried reading the Chinese stuff on xfastest forums but you cant understand them at all.

i know Chinese and Japanese but they talk so much slang its impossible to understand it all.

 

[KainXS]

I have seen worst in english

alot worst

 

[sveetsnelda]

I figured out how to modify the driver and still allow it to boot (avoiding the checksum). Getting closer...

 

[Vic-Viper]

I bought a CG5290 BP007 ASUS computer from Best Buy. It has a Rampage II GENE motherboard installed so I was happy with my purchase since the Rampage II GENE supports SLi. Well, they tweaked it so SLi is not supported in the desktop model and the BIOS for the motherboard will not work in the desktop version. I force fed the BIOS from the SLi supported GENE into the desktop version and to my amazement, SLi worked! B-U-T after a day or two, my network would stop working with a "Could not start Error 10" code. This was BIOS level since the BIOS settings had trouble talking to the network as well. Reverting the BIOS back fixed the issue, but at the cost of SLi. I am DESPERATlY trying to find a way to insert the SLi portion of the Rampage II GENE BIOS into the desktop version of the board.

 

[sveetsnelda]

Vic-Viper,

Since you already have an X58 chipset, it should be as easy as inserting the SLIC string into the windows ACPI table (while using the BIOS that was meant for the board). If you look at lAin's tutorial post on page 10, it should give you a general idea of how to do this.

 

[Fitseries3]

can you add support for 8 way sli with 4 gtx295s so when i get my new board i can fire up some monster scores?

 

[Vic-Viper]

Using windows 7 I get the following error:

Could not find DSDT in registry at HARDWARE\ACPI\DSDT
Could not read DSDT from registry
Could not obtain DSDT
Could not get ACPI tables, AE_NO_ACPI_TABLES

 

[sveetsnelda]

Are you sure you're running the command prompt as an administrator? Even if you have UAC disabled, you'll need to right click the command prompt shortcut and run it as an admin. I've already done this on a Windows 7 64-bit box, and it worked.

Also, is ACPI enabled in your BIOS? Verify that the registry key "HKLM\HARDWARE\ACPI\DSDT" exists and there is data in it.

 

[Vic-Viper]

OOps, my bad. Looking for the code in the ASL file so I can inject it. If I flashed my board with the SLi supported BIOS, could I just do a diff and compare? Anyway I can make this perm on board instead of thru the OS?

 

[Vic-Viper]

Having trouble figuring out where to insert the code since the value to search for is not in my DSDT ASL

 

[Solaris17]

can you add support for 8 way sli with 4 gtx295s so when i get my new board i can fire up some monster scores?

thats a driver limitation. and possibly hardware as they dont make a bridge that can cross communicate. with that many cards you can run SLI through the pci-e slots with no bridge but at the coast of bus saturation..it provides some overhead and will degrade performance slightely.

 

[sveetsnelda]

Having trouble figuring out where to insert the code since the value to search for is not in my DSDT ASL

If you want to post your ASL, I'll show you where to insert the SLIC code.

 

[Vic-Viper]

If you want to post your ASL, I'll show you where to insert the SLIC code.

Now worries! I extracted the nVidia Cert from the SLi supported motherboard and injected it into the DSDT of my computer (ASUS CG5290 BP007) I then recompiled the BIOS and flashed it using the windows ASUS Update utility. It didn't complain and BAM! SLi.

Pic of nVidia Control Panel

You can find the file here: http://any3d.com/RampageSLi.ROM
Its not a reliable link so spread it around as needed.

Thanks for getting me on the right path. Between this thread and one on hacking for OSX86, I was set.

 

[Deleted member 3]

were?

you mean we're?

Trying to teach Solaris English... futile attempt.

 

[Solaris17]

Now worries! I extracted the nVidia Cert from the SLi supported motherboard and injected it into the DSDT of my computer (ASUS CG5290 BP007) I then recompiled the BIOS and flashed it using the windows ASUS Update utility. It didn't complain and BAM! SLi.

Pic of nVidia Control Panel

You can find the file here: http://any3d.com/RampageSLi.ROM
Its not a reliable link so spread it around as needed.

Thanks for getting me on the right path. Between this thread and one on hacking for OSX86, I was set.

can you tell me the system you have and the mobo version of the OEM board? links would be very helpfull

 

[EGOvoruhk]

Pic of nVidia Control Panel

Damn, I saw this and got all excited, but then I realized you had an x58 board

 

[e.v.o]

Hi Guys, i'm also back on the SLI front... time for some new testing and hacking

Since you came up with some really good new info i think we can handle this!

An interesting question to me is: If the changed serials belong to the chipset where is the code that verifys it?
If i were nVIDIA i would lookup the vendor ID and device ID of the chipset and check against the generated serial.

 

[Solaris17]

Hi Guys, i'm also back on the SLI front... time for some new testing and hacking

Since you came up with some really good new info i think we can handle this!

An interesting question to me is: If the changed serials belong to the chipset where is the code that verifys it?
If i were nVIDIA i would lookup the vendor ID and device ID of the chipset and check against the generated serial.

have you checked the drivers for their HW access codes? perhaps its handled on their side.

 

[TiN]

BTW, found great tool for engineering

Hosted it here:

http://www.xdevs.com/kb/RwV1.3.zip - 1.2MB

This utility access almost all the computer hardware, including PCI (PCI Express), PCI Index/Data, Memory, Memory Index/Data, I/O Space, I/O Index/Data, Super I/O, Clock Generator, DIMM SPD, SMBus Device, CPU MSR Registers, ATA/ATAPI Identify Data, ACPI Tables Dump (include AML decode), Embedded Controller, USB Information, SMBIOS Structures, PCI Option ROMs, MP Configuration Table and Remote Access. And also a Command Window is provided to access hardware manually.

 

[JrRacinFan]

Hey guys,

Figure might as well ask this: Do you think a driver mod can be done to this 750i for Tri SL? Just curious

@sveet

Great work so far!!! Keep it comin'. dropped you a thanks for everything you have done thus far.

 

[Tynecider]

Hi all,
You may want to look at some of the DSDT editing info from http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/, There are tools and guides on editing BIOS/DSDT to accept hardware on Hackintosh PC's, I'm sure it can be helpfull in your venture. Register and search about, some really progressive work going on there.
I have a Maximus 2 Formula and would be intereted in in helping out
Good luck, and well done.

 

[EGOvoruhk]

Figure might as well ask this: Do you think a driver mod can be done to this 750i for Tri SL? Just curious

How would that work. Don't 750i boards only have 2 PCIe x16 slots?