Sli bridge not detected, GPU shows in device manager

[Deyadissa]

I am running into an issue where I have an Msi z97-g45 motherboard, that I just installed because my last ones as defective and couldn't recgonize my sli and ran into post loops.


Now everything works, except when I boot into windows it states my SLI isn't running at maximum performance because I don't have a bridge connected.

I've tried reversing the connection, using two different cables, and both ports one he cards... Same error message.

I've comoletely removed nvidia with the sweeper, installed it back and it made no difference.

I am using a nvidia GeForce 970gtx (best buy OEM) and an evga superclocked gtx970 edition, from what I was told since they are the same card they should be compatible... Should I return one of them and get it exchanged?

Why can't I enable SLI?

 

[Hazinator]

Yo actually need an SLI bridge.

 

[doubletake]

He clearly stated that he has a bridge ("I've tried reversing the connection, using two different cables, and both ports one he cards...").

OP: Do you have anything else connected that might taking up PCI-e bandwidth such as a sound card/PCI-e SSD/some other expansion card? If you have too many PCI-e devices installed, you can end up taking away lanes from the two main x16 slots (x8 mode if both are used). If those slots don't have enough lanes to run the GPUs in PCI-3 3.0 x8 mode, then you can't enable SLI.

If you don't have additional devices installed and the above doesn't apply to you, then you might want to check the bios settings for the PCI-e settings, and also try switching the slots that the cards are installed in. In the worst case scenario, you might have a faulty motherboard.

 

[Deyadissa]

Hello everyone, just to let you know I resolved this issue myself. I returned the evga and got another best buy edition nvidia card (because they didn't have evga anymore) and that resolved my issue.


Apparently there can be issues with mixing brands in SLI. Don't make the same mistake I did and waste hours of troubleshooting and just get the same brand.

 

[doubletake]

Don't make the same mistake I did and waste hours of troubleshooting and just get the same brand.

I can understand that you're frustrated that your setup didn't work properly right off the bat, but you shouldn't make suggestions like this just because things didn't go well for you. There's a chance your second card was simply faulty and needed replacing, because there's no other way the cards would be incompatible. I've mixed cards from vendors several times (nvidia & msi, evga & msi, msi & galaxy, evga & pny, evga & asus, asus+asus+evga, and several other configs), and there's never been incompatibility issues in mixing different vendor's offerings of the same core, even when one model or the other was an overclocked variant with higher default clockspeeds/voltage/power limit/etc.

 

[Deyadissa]

I thought it was the cards as well, so I actually had both of them exchanged at best buy. Exact same result, the problem did not fix until I changed them both to the same brand.

I swapped out a lot of parts.... Power supply, motherboard, video cards... All because it was supposed to work when it didn't.

Other people have had the same issue before with the 970s in particular at least to some forums I found online

 

[tryingtosli]

Don't make the same mistake I did and waste hours of troubleshooting and just get the same brand.

I can understand that you're frustrated that your setup didn't work properly right off the bat, but you shouldn't make suggestions like this just because things didn't go well for you. There's a chance your second card was simply faulty and needed replacing, because there's no other way the cards would be incompatible. I've mixed cards from vendors several times (nvidia & msi, evga & msi, msi & galaxy, evga & pny, evga & asus, asus+asus+evga, and several other configs), and there's never been incompatibility issues in mixing different vendor's offerings of the same core, even when one model or the other was an overclocked variant with higher default clockspeeds/voltage/power limit/etc.

Visit:

http://www.evga.com/support/faq/afmmain.aspx?faqid=59534

to see that there is actually an issue mixing different kinds of GTX 970 cards.