Gigabyte Z68-UD7-B3 wont run sli x16/x16

[willmoser]

I have the gigabyte z68-ud7-b3 motherboard which supports x16/x16 sli but i cant seem to get it to run that. I have 2 GTX 580's which are both installed into the correct slots (PCIEX16_1, PCIEX16_2).
Nvidia control panel says: "For optimal 3D performance, plug the GeForce GTX 580 (1) into a high performance PCIe slot."
and the system information in the control panel lists the Bus as PCI Express x8 Gen2 for both of the cards.
When i disable sli mode i still get the same result. I am currently running MB bios F7d. I have tried reseating the cards and doing a clean reinstall of the drivers. I also tried calling gigabyte to see if they could help but i spoke to an idiot asian woman who concluded that the only way to fix it was to flash a newer bios on both my cards.
Any Ideas?

 

[orangegator]

Are you sure you have the cards in the right slots? It looks like they should be in the first and 3rd slots. Do you have anything plugged into the other two slots? They should be left empty.

 

[willmoser]

Are you sure you have the cards in the right slots? It looks like they should be in the first and 3rd slots. Do you have anything plugged into the other two slots? They should be left empty.

yea its in the first and third and all the others are empty

 

[orangegator]

Hmmm. It looks like bios F7d is a beta bios. That could be causing the problem. Try flashing back to F6.

 

[eightdrunkengods]

I don't see an SLI bridge. 😛

 

[willmoser]

I don't see an SLI bridge. 😛

its there on the left kind of tough to see but its there

 

[eightdrunkengods]

Ohhh, there it is. I was wondering what kind of person can hook up a watercooling system but forgets the SLI bridge.

I guess roll back your BIOS as orangegator suggested.

I have had a motherboard manual be wrong about slots before. It was an ASUS board and the RAM slots were labeled wrong in the manual. So there is a remote possibility that your manual is wrong. If nothing else works, do this: Install only one GPU in a PCIe slot. Boot and check your system info to figure out whether that slot is 16x or 8x. Repeat, moving the GPU to a different PCI slot each time until you have manually confirmed which slots are 16x.

 

[willmoser]

Hmmm. It looks like bios F7d is a beta bios. That could be causing the problem. Try flashing back to F6.

Oh for sure ill try that when I get off work. I flashed the beta bios because I was having trouble with getting my ram to work at 2133 but it didn't help anyway it ended up needing to be in the second and fourth slots for some reason opposite of what the manuel says hhaha.

 

[fea5t]

So, how much did that system cost you total, and what kind of drives did you put in it? Also, what brand of after-market gpu's and what kind of cooling system is that?

 

[willmoser]

Hmmm. It looks like bios F7d is a beta bios. That could be causing the problem. Try flashing back to F6.

I flashed back to F6 but nothing changed nvidia control panel still tells me to plug the 580 into a high performance PCIe slot.

 

[willmoser]

So, how much did that system cost you total, and what kind of drives did you put in it? Also, what brand of after-market gpu's and what kind of cooling system is that?

i stopped counting hahaa i have a few finance accounts that i need to start paying off. I have the ocz vertex 3 which i will soon be adding a second for raid. They are EVGA GTX 580's which i installed the EK water blocks on along with the EK backplates. im using the coolgate dual 120mm ultimate heat exchanger radiator, swiftek mcp35x pump, ek bay reservoir, and danger den cpu block.

 

[willmoser]

Wow just figured it out i was looking through other forums of people with the same issues and in one of them someone suggested to disable the USB 3.0 Turbo Mode because it uses some of the pipelines and after doing that everything was fixed!!! wooooo

 

[eightdrunkengods]

Did you try the cards individually and see if both of your slots work at 16x?

 

[orangegator]

Wow just figured it out i was looking through other forums of people with the same issues and in one of them someone suggested to disable the USB 3.0 Turbo Mode because it uses some of the pipelines and after doing that everything was fixed!!! wooooo

Interesting. Glad you got it working. Did you have it set to enabled or auto before? It looks like this problem is unique to Gigabyte's implementation of usb 3.0+. Here's a good article on it. http://www.overclockers.com/usb-30-testing-gigabyte-ud3r-ud6/

 

[jaquith]

Have you tried GPU-Z -> http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/ {BUS Interface/each GPU}?

[strike]IMO - nVidia driver issue, try either 275.33 or and older driver. The first P67 + NF200's had a similar problem, but the primary problems were BSOD. I do know this configuration was tested and no one mentioned getting x8/x8 -> http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=2056&pageID=10551[/strike]

edit: I missed the USB 3.0 issue, good to know but bizarre?!

Glad to hear you've got x16/x16

 

[myfurcoat]

Wow just figured it out i was looking through other forums of people with the same issues and in one of them someone suggested to disable the USB 3.0 Turbo Mode because it uses some of the pipelines and after doing that everything was fixed!!! wooooo

I cut this from Gigabytes overview of Board.... Information is always there if you look.....

Note: Turbo USB 3.0 utilizes 8 PCIe VGA lanes, so it is only possible to enable it with a single graphics card running at PCIe x8 on Z68 chipset motherboards, or while using Intel® HD Graphics from the CPU (i.e. no VGA card) on Z68 chipset motherboards. It is an option for high bandwidth users.

cheers... myfurcoat