[SOLVED] Not being able to activate SLI on MSI MPOWER GAMING TITANIUM Z170A

[Noloki]

Recently, I have bought a second GTX 1080 for my motherboard(MSI MPOWER GAMING TITANIUM Z170A). My motherboard does support SLI, but my GTX 1080 is too tall, so it covers two PCI-E slots, so I am only able to place my second GTX 1080 in the lowest(PCI-E x4) slot. When I boot my windows up SLI does not show up in the NVIDIA control panel.
I have an SLI bridge installed.
They both show up in the system


Can the problem be that my other GPU is in the 4x slot and is it possible to change that?

My specs:
GTX 1080(x2)
i7 7700K
64 GB RAM
M2 ssd
HDD
MSI MPOWER GAMING TITANIUM Z170A

 

[Phaaze88]

Can the problem be that my other GPU is in the 4x slot and is it possible to change that?

Yes to the 1st part, no to the 2nd.
In your current config, gpu 1 is running in X16 mode and gpu 2 in x4. That's no good. They both need to be in x8 mode.
The bottom slot is physically incapable of running at x8 mode.
Refer to pages 30 and 32 of the mobo manual.

 

[Noloki]

Yes to the 1st part, no to the 2nd.
In your current config, gpu 1 is running in X16 mode and gpu 2 in x4. That's no good. They both need to be in x8 mode.
The bottom slot is physically incapable of running at x8 mode.
Refer to pages 30 and 32 of the mobo manual.

So, Do I need another motherboard with 4 PCI-E slots?

 

[Phaaze88]

So, Do I need another motherboard with 4 PCI-E slots?

No, a motherboard with PCIE slot spacing for 3 slot cards.

 

[Noloki]

Oh! I get it now. Thank You very much, I am going to buy MSI Z270 SLI PLUS , it seems to support two 3-slot GPUs.

 

[Phaaze88]

Yes, it does.

I was about to post a few examples, but you got it.