Configure SLI option not available in Nvidia Control Panel

[Hambros]

I recently ordered a second 780ti to upgrade my now-outdated computer a bit to run a few new games. Picked it up from the post office today, it's in pristine condition. I took out my main GPU, put this one into the first PCI slot, and it worked just fine. I put my main card back in, put the new one beside it in the second PCI slot, plugged in the SLI bridge and power, etc. I boot up the computer, uninstall all Nvidia drivers, restart the PC and now both cards are unrecognized devices under Device Manager. This is what I intended. I reinstall and run Nvidia drivers so both cards are on the same driver. They are now both recognized and running properly under device manager. MSI Afterburner recognizes both of them, they're getting sufficient power, and the second card's fans are spinning properly.

The next step is to open Nvidia Control Panel and enable SLI, but the SLI option is not there? I have "Configure Surround, PhysX" but it's supposed to be "Configure SLI, Surround, PhysX".
I've searched around the internet all morning and I've read several times that people are having problems because their motherboards don't support SLI, or they have to enable it in BIOS, or the cards have mismatched VRAMs, but I checked all these things over.

Motherboard: MSI Z97-G45 (3 x16 PCI ports, supports SLI)
GPU: [Main] EVGA 780 ti classified; [New] EVGA 780 ti SC (in Nvidia control panel, both show up with 3072mb VRAM)
PSU: EVGA Supernova 750w
CPU: i7 4790k

 

[10tacle]

You need to get with EVGA on that on their support forums. I experienced the exact same issue when I had an original EVGA GTX 970 SC (blower reference) and then bought a second EVGA 970 SSC ACX 2.0+. They did not work in SLI, and when inquiring with EVGA about it, they pointed me to their link that showed what EVGA GPUs were SLI compatible and what were not.

Their excuse was that the two cards had different power phases. I was not happy about it and wound up selling my original SC and buying another matching SSC. I'm not sure if this is the case with your 7-series, but I'd look into that immediately while you still have time to return that second GPU, especially knowing they are EVGA GPUs. I experienced the same head scratching you did and found out the hard way (costing me about $60 lost between the sale of that first GPU and then buying another one).

Good luck.

 

[WildCard999]

@10tacle, yea that's the downside with EVGA is there SLI compatibility is pretty poor.

 

[10tacle]

I couldn't believe it. I'd have never heard of that issue with other AIB vendor GPUs like from MSI, ASUS, or Gigabyte having that issue. Especially across the same GPU line. The only thing I ever heard was that if you have two GPUs with different core speeds, by default in SLI the faster card would only run at the slower card's speed unless manually configuring both in Afterburner for equal speed.

 

[Hambros]

So far all I've found is that these two cards are compatible, leading me to believe it's a different issue.

 

[10tacle]

So far all I've found is that these two cards are compatible, leading me to believe it's a different issue.

Did you get that information directly from EVGA? You've got a good and powerful enough power supply issue, so that's certainly not it. But I would check it in HWiNFO64 under a load test just to make sure you are not getting a failure with it like dropping voltage in the +12v rail specifically. Other than that, if EVGA says they should work together, I am at a loss. It's certainly not a bad PCIe slot as you said both are recognized in device manager as well as Afterburner.

Another thought: when you said you removed the drivers, did you use a complete flushing utility like CCleaner or did you go through GeForce Experience or the Windows uninstall program? I would also try swapping GPUs and put the new GPU in the first slot. I'm not clear on your comment about how you moved the cards around.

 

[WildCard999]

As long as EVGA said they were compatible the next thing I'd check is the SLI bridge.

 

[Hambros]

So far all I've found is that these two cards are compatible, leading me to believe it's a different issue.

Did you get that information directly from EVGA? You've got a good and powerful enough power supply issue, so that's certainly not it. But I would check it in HWiNFO64 under a load test just to make sure you are not getting a failure with it like dropping voltage in the +12v rail specifically. Other than that, if EVGA says they should work together, I am at a loss. It's certainly not a bad PCIe slot as you said both are recognized in device manager as well as Afterburner.

Another thought: when you said you removed the drivers, did you use a complete flushing utility like CCleaner or did you go through GeForce Experience or the Windows uninstall program? I would also try swapping GPUs and put the new GPU in the first slot. I'm not clear on your comment about how you moved the cards around.

I did what you are suggesting as far as swapping what ports the GPUs are in. I didn't use CCleaner to remove all the Nvidia stuff though, I used custom installation on Geforce Experience and had it do a clean install.

 

[10tacle]

Good point Wildcard - it could also be a bad SLI bridge. I've never had one go bad on me (and I always used the ones that came with the motherboard), but I'd try another one or even buying one from EVGA. It's certainly not hardware related as both GPUs are recognized in everything but Nvidia's control panel.

In any event, I'd completely nuke GFE and the Nvidia drivers and reinstall everything from scratch. I'd even try putting the new card in the first slot by itself and load up everything all over again. Then I'd drop in the second original GPU and see what happens. My experience with EVGA SLI is that they can be testy, at best.

 

[Hambros]

Good point Wildcard - it could also be a bad SLI bridge. I've never had one go bad on me (and I always used the ones that came with the motherboard), but I'd try another one or even buying one from EVGA. It's certainly not hardware related as both GPUs are recognized in everything but Nvidia's control panel.

If I can't figure it out today that's what I'll do. This bridge was literally just taken out of it's wrapper, so I hope it wouldn't be damaged, but we'll see.

 

[WildCard999]

Just wondering, did you contact EVGA and ask them about it? It should be a fairly easy call and there ppl are really good/nice.
https://www.evga.com/about/contactus/

I'd call for you but I'm at work atm.