GTX 760 SLI w/ 9800 GT physx card

[Tony K]

Problem
My problem right now is when I have the 9800GT in my 3rd PCI-E slot, device manager and nVidia control panel do not recognize it, it doesn't show up, there are no errors, nothing. basically it doesn't exist. I'm not sure what to do to get the OS/MOBO to recognize the third card.

What I have tried so far
-760 in SLI works, always worked.
-9800 GT works alone, slots 1 and 3 tested. Drivers installed and everything.
-Add 760's and 9800 disappears.
-Documentation says to add primary cards to slot 1 & 2.
-Tried changing BIOS settings for PCI-E generation, didn't change anything (Gen 1-3 and Auto)

PC Specs
Gigabyte Z97 Ultra Durable Black Edition Rev 1.1
Intel i7 4790K (watercooled) Stock clocked
Corsair Vengance 16gb
Seasonic 1000W 80+Platinum
F6 BIOS (Latest)

I just looked at the box and it says "2-way SLI/3-way Crossfire" so im wondering if the board itself is designed to ONLY allow 2 nVidia cards...

 

[Eximo]

Yep. You need at least 8x for an Nvidia GPU. That config would allow a 8x\8x\4x Crossfire, but only 8x\8x SLI. That last slot doesn't provide enough bandwidth for the 9800GT to flip on.

 

[fastwing76]

at the top of my head all I can think about is that at this point 9800GT is incompatible with the gtx 760 sli, I can see a gtx series perhaps a single slot gtx 550 or 650 would work fine as a physix card.
to be honest the performance is not really worth putting such a beefy old graphic card in ur system anyway, I remember seeing performance gain with physix card installed and it was very minimum. but if you insist what u can do, is install an older stable driver and see if that works.
also worth noting that by adding the 9800 the other cards speed with drop to 4x, u have to understand u don`t have enough lanes ( like in extreme edition porcessors), so once u put the card there ur speed will be 8x 4x 4x and quoting ur motherboard webpage " When installing a x8 or above card in the PCIEX4 slot, make sure to set PCIE Slot Configuration in BIOS Setup to x4. (Refer to Chapter 2, "BIOS Setup," "Peripherals," for more information.)"
I would rather have both gtx 760 running at full banwidth than risk a possible bottleneck ( minor difference between 4x,8x) at this time, and yup I think your motherboard only supports 2 nvidia gpu I just read that right now on gigabyte webpage, to make sure send them an E-mail and mention this into your motherboard owner club in this forum or other forums.

 

[Tony K]

thanks guys.

I went and downloaded the manual since i can't find mine in the box, and yup i had to change my pciex4 slot to 4x manually to see it.
I found the latest driver for the 9800 and its the 340.52 driver (347.25 doesn't recognize 9 series) and now i can see all 3 cards, but SLI is disabled without an option to turn it on in the control panel. Is there a fix to get that back in my current state?

so i'm guessing that it is downgrading the 2nd slot to 4x or the drivers are funky and just wont allow it? the manual says it should be 8x/8x/4x but im also not familiar with how older pci-e standards translate with newer hardware and vice versa.

also i'm reading 4x is plenty enough for a 9800 to run physx.

 

[Tony K]

GPU-Z says i am infact running 8x3.0/4x1.1/4x2.0

I guess i'll need a 3.0 card to make it work then huh

 

[Damn_Rookie]

A 3.0 card won't change anything, I'm afraid.

Is your motherboard the GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK (rev. 1.1), or the GA-Z97X-UD5H-BK (rev. 1.1)? There's more than one "Gigabyte Z97 Ultra Durable Black Edition Rev 1.1" you see. That highlighted number makes a big difference to your predicament, so I just want to make sure you're looking at the correct manual.

The GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK (rev. 1.1) can operate in x8/x8/x4 mode, as the final x16 slot is wired to the chipset. The GA-Z97X-UD5H-BK (rev. 1.1) on the other hand can only operate in x8/x4/x4 mode when all three slots are filled and active, as the final x16 slot is wired to the CPU, and shares lanes with the other x16 slots.

Your GPU-Z info suggests you have the GA-Z97X-UD5H-BK (rev. 1.1), as it's operating at x8/x4/x4, which would be a problem, as Nvidia demand at least 8 lanes per card in an SLI setup, so if you do have that board, you won't be able to run your 760s in SLI while also having the 9800 in place for Physx; the 9800 will drop the second slot down to x4 mode, so you won't be able to enable SLI. If you do have that motherboard, sadly you will not be able to use your 9800 as a Physx card if you want to keep you SLI setup.

 

[Tony K]

damn yeah i have the 5, not the 3. thats pretty lame. where did you find that difference between the 3 and 5? I just borrowed another 7 series to try out something newer and it wont let me SLI again.

That's a pretty stupid thing to do, offer a board with 3 slots and you basically can't use them unless you have AMD GPUs.

So basically what I just saw on Newegg is that the UD3H has a 3rd PCI-E 2.0 slot that i suppose doesn't rely on the same bus as the UD5H which is all PCI-E 3.0 that is shared.

 

[Damn_Rookie]

Sorry to hear you've got the 5. It's a good board otherwise, but yeah, for what you're wanting to do it's sadly not much use.

The information about the differences between the boards is from the specification pages on the Gigabyte website. The GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK (rev. 1.1) is here, and the GA-Z97X-UD5H-BK (rev. 1.1) which you have is here. It lists, under "expansion slots", which other slots the third x16 slot shares bandwidth with.

You've picked up on a good indicator on Newegg (and other sites), that of the 2.0 specification PCI-E slot, when all the other slots are 3.0 spec. x16 slots wired up to the chipset, as opposed to the CPU, are limited to the 2.0 PCI-E specification (this is how it is set up on the GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK). This can be useful to look out for if you're wanting a board where the third x16 slot doesn't take lanes away from the other two x16 slots, but keep in mind that Newegg isn't always right when it comes to listing specifications, as I've seen a number of errors in their motherboard listings over the last couple of years. So it's always worth double checking the specifications on the manufacturers website to make double sure.

 

[Tony K]

Just to follow up, in case fellow googlers run across this. ALL gigabyte's current 3 slot PCIE mobos will either let you run 2 nvidia SLI in 3.0, OR run 2 sli and a physx card on a 2.0 slot, but doing so will disable all x1 slots (so if you want to use a soundcard/NIC/raid controller or what have you) so you will not be able to use those slots. For me that is not an option because the Sound Blaster Z sounds tons better than the "high end" onboard audio.

I found an open box g1 black edition for a steal on Newegg so I overnighted it and now I'm up and running on 760 SLI and a 740 physx and just ran a couple games and 3dmark...for the record both runs are identical bios settings, just added a physx card. I'll let the picture speak for itself.