790i ultra sli issue

[harry]

Hi, to all the readers, I'm new here, and after a long time of working SGI's back to PC's

I have built a system around XFX products, but running into an error after an initial start up and running ok, installing Vista, with an error on rundll for the XFX control panell, this could be due to not update drivers and software, but have had no time to address these issues yet.
Performed several reboots, and power off situations, but after getting totally down for one night refused to reboot:
Power comes up, graphic cards get power, one short beep (indicating hardware ok) fans start, some activity to fd and CD several codes flash by in the meanwhile, and holds on FF. After going mental, and searching the net, finding a lot of useless forums, blating with infanities directed to several manufacturers, but no substantial information, and doing several tests, I landed here.

The System:

XFX 790i ultra sli
Intel 9770 duo extreme
2 XFX 9800 GX2
Gigabyte 800GT powersupply
OCZ PC3-16000 sli 2x1Gbyte memory
3 Seagate baracuda 500Gb in Raid5
Philips DVD +-R
Vista 32 home premium.

To go short I read several possible issues I could have, and went through the following steps:

Checked all the Mobo connections, and reinserted them.
Reset Bios

Blaming the MoBo and ordered a new one planning to ship the original back for repair or replacement. Same result, so Mobo ok or both dead on arrival.

Changed to minimum equipment, 1 of the OCZ and standard VGA card, no HD. Same result, so both 9800gx2 should be ok.

Could be power issue, tried another standard PSU but same result sooo,

leaves me with the memory. As said I've read the issues, and found on the memorylistings topic that my memory is't on the list. Seems a bit strange to me because I bought the items as being dedicated Nvidia sli items.
Also a bit strange that at first everything ran fine. I didn't change any settings to the Bios, execept for HD and so, so why suddenly refuse to run, also the short startup beep indicates all hardware is ok so also the mem. When I take all out one long beep, so even the beepsystem should be ok.

Things I come up with now, after reading other topics, is the possible low voltage protection on the rams. Since the MoBo as far as I can search is standard on 1.5 Volts, and the OCZ run 1.8 volts.
Could it really be something stupid like this?? I initial thoughts were that the epp profile or sli (don't know what it does exactly) should adjust the MoBo for that.

So my option is to buy some 1.5v ddr3 memory to try this option, so I can manually change the momory voltage to 1.8v. But before I burn some cash is this worth trying, or should I buy memory which is listed. This makes quite some difference in the amount I need to burn.

I would be pleased to read your thoughts and experience on this one. :help:

[XFX Tech]

With only one stick of memory in the EPP profile shouldn't load. It should default to 1.5v 1333. I recommend always setting your memory timings and voltages manually. What color is the light from your cards? If you are getting a red light than the card is alerting you of a power issue. Please make sure that both power cables are seated in the card snugly for each card. If you are getting a green light than your power is fine. In that case try each of the DVI ports on the cards as your motherboard may have selected a different port than the one you were expecting.The primary display should be indicated by a blue light on the card. It would probably be a good idea to try each card individually in the system to make sure that one isn't halting the system. Is it possible to test another power supply? 800W is very low for two 98GX2s. It is possible they could have damaged the 12V rail of the power supply from too much drain.

[harry]

Thanks, but since I tested it with a standard no power required vga card which didn't help, I didn't look for the problem in the graphics card.

My analyzing seemed to work in the end, I bought a cheap 1.5v ddr3 ram. This finally made it possible for me to access the bios and change the voltage settings manually.

This is also the point where your advice of always setting the voltages manualy don't add up, and for this reason only: If you buy the nice goodies, and for the memory you want something which comes towards the 1600 FSB settings, you will always have memory banks which run on 1.8 volts. The standard bios settings of 1.5volt cause the Mobo to halt, and with this you have no possibility to change the bios manually.

I believe it should be an addition to your manual which comes with the Mobo. It would have saved my quite some time. On the other hand I quite improved my knowledge due to this flaw in documentation.

Also one thing I found by accident, and didn't read in any manual concerns the 9800GX2, were I read in another thread that the blue led indicates the active gfx output port.


Power supply is sufficient since I don't overclock for now, and total consumption doesn't pass beyond 600 watts. The nice thing about the Odyn is it's monitoring function through usb and overvoltage/ amperage protection, so I don't worry too much about it for now.
*EDIT* forgot, but the PSU has also two seperate rails for two pci attachments. *EDIT*

But thanks anyway, I know it will be tight for overclocking.