Asus Crosshair II formula - 2x 9800GX2 wont boot

[AlmightyJu]

Hi all, my first post!

I'm hoping someone can help me since I'm at a loss, I just bought an asus crosshair ii mobo and 2 9800gx2 (just wanted to say i have quad sli ) but it wont boot with both cards in!

I'f i just use one gx2 it boots fine and works a treat but the second i put the 2nd card in it hangs on "pci init" on the LCD screen thing. Both cards work seperatly!

What i have noticed is that when i have one card in when it loads the light goes blue, before then its green, both cards will go blue if their on their own but if i have them both in only the one will, so its as if the second (lower) card refuses to boot.

Has anyone got any suggestions?

My Rig:

Asus Crosshair II Formula,
AMD Phenom 9850 Black Edition
8GB OCZ 1066MHz Platinum
EVGA 9800GX2 SC SUPERCLOCKED Edition x2
Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W PSU


P.S is it normal that you have to plug the monitor into the bottom slot on a gx2?


Sorry for the longish post but I'm at a loss

Thanks All
Julian

[AlmightyJu]

Well I've made some progress, now it boots and gets a picture but still won’t initialise the second card! does anyone have any ideas why it hangs just after it initialises the first card but doesn’t initialise the second?

it just gets stuck on the boot screen and all it says is sli memory detected/enabled and that’s it


Someone has to have an idea

[UrEnvy]

I am not very sure, but as far as I know the board supports 3-Way SLI and not Quad-SLI.
The GX2 is itself in an SLI config.
So using 2 would probably require a Quad SLI board.

[ShyguyXPC]

Originally Posted by UrEnvy

I am not very sure, but as far as I know the board supports 3-Way SLI and not Quad-SLI.
The GX2 is itself in an SLI config.
So using 2 would probably require a Quad SLI board.

I Don't think your grasping the whole SLI thing... all a 3 way SLI board is, is 3 PCI-Express Physical 16x slots, be it 8x 8x 8x, or 16x 16x 16x, or some other combination... a Quad SLI board would be 4 slots, etc...

you should be able to run 2x 9800GX2's in a triple SLI slot board no problems. as far as I know the only Quad SLI setup's I've seen consist of 2x 9800GX2's or the old 7950GX2's...


Asus Crosshair II Formula Review & Overclocking - Page 1 - Introduction

3 x PCIe 2.0 x16 support NVIDIA SLI Tech @ dual x16 or 3-way@x8, x8, x 8

so for the 2x 9800GX2's they'd be using the Dual slot SLI, 16x 16x config.