Quad-SLI Problems

[MrMADRYAN]

Hi everyone!
Just today I received an upgrade for my Windows Vista machine - it is a pair of Nvidia GeForce GTX295 each of them has 2GPU's on a single board. I want to use them in Quad-SLI. But it won't work. If I install a single card - everything is fine. But when I install the second I get lots of trouble. With newest driver 342.01 driver my system BSoDs on my desktop immediately after boot. With an old driver 331.58 only 2 GPUs are shown in the device manager and two of the rest shows code 43. I have already tried different drivers, tried to swap SLI bridge an cards. When 2 cards installed fan on a first or second card becomes a jet turbine - it works on 100% power (it is different on next boot)

My motherboard is an ASUS M4A98TD EVO has two PCI-E x16 running at x16 both.
My OS is Windows Vista 6.0.6003 (fully updated, including Post-EoL)
All cards have same VBIOS and same amount of memory.
My PSU is 1200W.

Maybe somebody have any idea what I should try next...

Thanks in advance!

Edited March 20, 2021 by MrMADRYAN

[MrMADRYAN]

[SOLVED]: It was a driver problem. Now using again old but gold 197.13 driver.

If you do not want to have a headache - do not update your Nvidia driver for too long. Drivers for old GeForce 200 Series are ok only between the date of their release and up to 2012.

[Dixel]

Hi !

First off , 342.01 are not the "newest drivers" . I believe the last ones for GTX295 are 340.72

dated 08/13/2014 , 9.18.13.4072. Even if they are not , they are very stable , try them.

Second , lemme ask , why do you need all those "latest updates" ? Do you somewhat feel more

 "secure" with them ? Perhaps this is the problem . See , the driver is 7 y/o. , and the updates

are from this year ?! Nvidia did some "security" changes to the drivers (kernel) after 2014 , 

so I suggest you install clean Vista SP1 from ISO and start to test with 340.72.

Here they are :

https://drivers.softpedia.com/get/GRAPHICS-BOARD/NVIDIA/NVIDIA-GeForce-iCafe-Graphics-Driver-34072.shtml

https://drivers.softpedia.com/get/GRAPHICS-BOARD/NVIDIA/NVIDIA-GeForce-iCafe-Graphics-Driver-34072-64-bit.shtml

Edited March 21, 2021 by Dixel
added links

[MrMADRYAN]

I used to run dual GTX 280s in SLI with 197.13 driver, then I bought two GTX295s 'cuz I needed more CUDA cores and my carthography software is very old, GTX 200 Series is the last supported GPU Series that I can run. I also wanted to try the latest driver. I am not too concerned about security updates, I am concerned about stability - that's why I use ECC-memory when it is possible. I had a few BSoDs on 342.01 and some other drivers from NV's site. Then I decided to install my old 197.13 driver and it just worked.

Currently running Vista x64 Ultimate + Post-EoL updates.

Thanks for your help, much appreciated.