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Brad... Please forgive the length of this post...but due to so many technical problems involved in the explanation... I just had to fill in all the details:
I'm not into on-line internet FPS gaming and for the most part, my job as Dad and Hubby in the house (among fixing and maintaining anything that moves on wheels) is to keep all of the many computers in our house up and running for four people, one of whom is away at Vet School in Missouri right now). My son has a specific interest in the gaming side of computing and is very touchy about having whatever gives him the leading edge while on-line. So when I build something for him... I always try to use the best and most reliable components in combination that I can grab either from eBay, Amazon on-line or from the local CompUSA and occasionally BestBuy stores...and always for the least amount of Moolah that I can spare..
But during my latest foray into a complete gaming system upgrade, I stumbled over something that I did not anticipate happening that wound up costing me a bundle in the end to fix because of my ignorance of the problems involved. I feel the need to share this experience for those who might use their time and cash this weekend to follow on with this idea and hopefully save them the same grief..
Basically this all started when the subject of his wanting dual GPUs to handle the above-the-mobo graphics processing, so I had my eyes peeled for a mobo that had either Crossfire or SLI capability. Lo and Behold... I found a refurbishment XFX 780i nForce 3-Way SLI listed for only $99.00 on Amazon (it turned out to have never been opened and was brand spanking new!) and that eventually lead to my hunt for a matched graphics card to his own XFX Nvidia 9800 GT that he was already using and that came as a BFG 9800 GT 1TB card for around the same sale price at CompUSA within the last week. While at CompUSA, I saw their nVidia CoolerMaster Gaming Case on Sale, so I picked one up. I thought “So far... So Good!” and I might as well go Whole Hog while the getting was good.
When I had all the parts gathered, I simply copped the Intel Core 2 Duo (45nm) PenRyn from his old board, the two 2-Gig sticks of Corsair 800 MHZ Gaming SLI -Ready he was using, the 1000W PSU, his Seagate 1TB HD and of course your basic SATA DVD Burner/Player out of the old machine. The only thing left to consider in the upgrade equation was the operating system. I poked around and figured out that with the advent of Direct X Version 10-11 working only in Windows 7 and with the advent of that OS as being that latest from Microsoft that, unlike their MS-Vista FUBAR, would NOT have more Bugs in it than a Bait Shop. The Bench Techs advised on getting an OEM Windows 7 Professional flavor because it would let the Core 2 Duo procs breath easier at 64 bits... while still being able to run the legacy 32 bit apps as well along with some other "goodies". So I sprung a leak in my wallet and picked up one while standing there.
Okay... You pretty much know the rest... How all the HW went together nice and sweet in a case that is graveyard quiet and roomier than a Rich Man's Marble Crypt. The WIN7 OS booted up and loaded or downloaded all of the necessary LATEST system component drivers... and THAT is where the problems began. I should say right now that there was a significant design difference between my son's XFX GT-9800 GT (takes power from the PSU via a dedicated PCIE 6 Pin Connector) versus the BFG 9800 GT that is of a more EPA friendly design and gets powered from the mobo chassis. In orders of operation... I installed the newest BFG card 1TB first and because the SLI Bridge Connector was a hard and inflexible version vs. the usual flexible copper and plastic cabling variety, it forced me to put the XFX 9800 GT card into the third PCIE 16X slot instead of right next door in the second PCIE 16X slot. After an initial re-boot and some shenanigans of trying to use the nVidia Systems Monitor to recognize and set up the card... I got Bupkus...Nada...Nunca...Niet... Nothing. Period. I spent the next day and half trying every possible combination imaginable of HW and SW and BIOS tweaks to no avail.
Finally I stumbled across tons of threads on the theme of “NVIDIA'S LATEST DRIVERS ... GRAPHICS CARD KILLER” and I started to worry. Sure enough... nVidia let out the 19X.75...something, something driver that causes the on board cooling heat sink fans of the graphics GPUs units to TURN OFF! They tried to put out a newsletter about, “...pulling the 19X.75... drivers off of their site, but judging by the volume of unhappy nVidia SLI upgraders... the damage was already rampant... I am just one of its latest victims!
Meanwhile... the bloggers were intermittently blaming either nVidia or Micro$oft or both while lamenting the loss of their cards and what to do about it. So I too must join this sad brigade of those who, in their ignorance of the “power saving protocols” being foisted on all of us "electricity wasters" , used at least one nVidia card that loses its silently cooling fan on boot up if the card is powered up via the PCIE six pin connector instead of the newer versions that take their power from the main board.
Now I think there might a solution to this problem on legacy cards... and that is to just mount an external cooling fan that is powered via a standard MOLEX 12V power source, neither metered nor monitored by any on-board HW from nVidia and or their Effed Up Drivers...that maintains a constant “high” enough velocity to keep the GPU cool at all times... regardless of the duty cycle demands being place upon it. I hope this unfortunately epic long post serves to warn those interested in taking the Red Pill of SLI upgrades instead of The Blue One. If you insist on keeping things with the HW sin the stock factory settings and attempt any driver upgrades in Windows 7, please investigate your options to manually install the earlier, functioning drivers from nVidia (19X.21.......) before installing the PCIE cable powered cards. I hope this long read saves you the time and trouble of finding this all out the hard way. I am interested in other ideas on how to stop this from occurring any more. Thanks in advance for your help.
I'm not into on-line internet FPS gaming and for the most part, my job as Dad and Hubby in the house (among fixing and maintaining anything that moves on wheels) is to keep all of the many computers in our house up and running for four people, one of whom is away at Vet School in Missouri right now). My son has a specific interest in the gaming side of computing and is very touchy about having whatever gives him the leading edge while on-line. So when I build something for him... I always try to use the best and most reliable components in combination that I can grab either from eBay, Amazon on-line or from the local CompUSA and occasionally BestBuy stores...and always for the least amount of Moolah that I can spare..
But during my latest foray into a complete gaming system upgrade, I stumbled over something that I did not anticipate happening that wound up costing me a bundle in the end to fix because of my ignorance of the problems involved. I feel the need to share this experience for those who might use their time and cash this weekend to follow on with this idea and hopefully save them the same grief..
Basically this all started when the subject of his wanting dual GPUs to handle the above-the-mobo graphics processing, so I had my eyes peeled for a mobo that had either Crossfire or SLI capability. Lo and Behold... I found a refurbishment XFX 780i nForce 3-Way SLI listed for only $99.00 on Amazon (it turned out to have never been opened and was brand spanking new!) and that eventually lead to my hunt for a matched graphics card to his own XFX Nvidia 9800 GT that he was already using and that came as a BFG 9800 GT 1TB card for around the same sale price at CompUSA within the last week. While at CompUSA, I saw their nVidia CoolerMaster Gaming Case on Sale, so I picked one up. I thought “So far... So Good!” and I might as well go Whole Hog while the getting was good.
When I had all the parts gathered, I simply copped the Intel Core 2 Duo (45nm) PenRyn from his old board, the two 2-Gig sticks of Corsair 800 MHZ Gaming SLI -Ready he was using, the 1000W PSU, his Seagate 1TB HD and of course your basic SATA DVD Burner/Player out of the old machine. The only thing left to consider in the upgrade equation was the operating system. I poked around and figured out that with the advent of Direct X Version 10-11 working only in Windows 7 and with the advent of that OS as being that latest from Microsoft that, unlike their MS-Vista FUBAR, would NOT have more Bugs in it than a Bait Shop. The Bench Techs advised on getting an OEM Windows 7 Professional flavor because it would let the Core 2 Duo procs breath easier at 64 bits... while still being able to run the legacy 32 bit apps as well along with some other "goodies". So I sprung a leak in my wallet and picked up one while standing there.
Okay... You pretty much know the rest... How all the HW went together nice and sweet in a case that is graveyard quiet and roomier than a Rich Man's Marble Crypt. The WIN7 OS booted up and loaded or downloaded all of the necessary LATEST system component drivers... and THAT is where the problems began. I should say right now that there was a significant design difference between my son's XFX GT-9800 GT (takes power from the PSU via a dedicated PCIE 6 Pin Connector) versus the BFG 9800 GT that is of a more EPA friendly design and gets powered from the mobo chassis. In orders of operation... I installed the newest BFG card 1TB first and because the SLI Bridge Connector was a hard and inflexible version vs. the usual flexible copper and plastic cabling variety, it forced me to put the XFX 9800 GT card into the third PCIE 16X slot instead of right next door in the second PCIE 16X slot. After an initial re-boot and some shenanigans of trying to use the nVidia Systems Monitor to recognize and set up the card... I got Bupkus...Nada...Nunca...Niet... Nothing. Period. I spent the next day and half trying every possible combination imaginable of HW and SW and BIOS tweaks to no avail.
Finally I stumbled across tons of threads on the theme of “NVIDIA'S LATEST DRIVERS ... GRAPHICS CARD KILLER” and I started to worry. Sure enough... nVidia let out the 19X.75...something, something driver that causes the on board cooling heat sink fans of the graphics GPUs units to TURN OFF! They tried to put out a newsletter about, “...pulling the 19X.75... drivers off of their site, but judging by the volume of unhappy nVidia SLI upgraders... the damage was already rampant... I am just one of its latest victims!
Meanwhile... the bloggers were intermittently blaming either nVidia or Micro$oft or both while lamenting the loss of their cards and what to do about it. So I too must join this sad brigade of those who, in their ignorance of the “power saving protocols” being foisted on all of us "electricity wasters" , used at least one nVidia card that loses its silently cooling fan on boot up if the card is powered up via the PCIE six pin connector instead of the newer versions that take their power from the main board.
Now I think there might a solution to this problem on legacy cards... and that is to just mount an external cooling fan that is powered via a standard MOLEX 12V power source, neither metered nor monitored by any on-board HW from nVidia and or their Effed Up Drivers...that maintains a constant “high” enough velocity to keep the GPU cool at all times... regardless of the duty cycle demands being place upon it. I hope this unfortunately epic long post serves to warn those interested in taking the Red Pill of SLI upgrades instead of The Blue One. If you insist on keeping things with the HW sin the stock factory settings and attempt any driver upgrades in Windows 7, please investigate your options to manually install the earlier, functioning drivers from nVidia (19X.21.......) before installing the PCIE cable powered cards. I hope this long read saves you the time and trouble of finding this all out the hard way. I am interested in other ideas on how to stop this from occurring any more. Thanks in advance for your help.
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