Hi,Well, I installed the new 1250 watt power supply. I started up the system and ran FSX. No sooner did FSX start to run and the system shut itself down. Now the monitors are black and I get nothing.I went back to my GTX285 and I still get nothing, looks like these boards fried my PCIE slots.The boards go back to J&R tomorrow, I'll have to look into replacing the Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard as well, purchased from Newegg on 4/13/2009. I hope it didn't fry my processor.Looks like I won't be flying for a few weeks. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Hi,Well, I installed the new 1250 watt power supply. I started up the system and ran FSX. No sooner did FSX start to run and the system shut itself down. Now the monitors are black and I get nothing.I went back to my GTX285 and I still get nothing, looks like these boards fried my PCIE slots.The boards go back to J&R tomorrow, I'll have to look into replacing the Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard as well, purchased from Newegg on 4/13/2009. I hope it didn't fry my processor.Looks like I won't be flying for a few weeks. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

I hope your luck improves Mike, let me ask you this though, before installing your new boards did you reset your BIOS? As a general rule for me before installing any new hardware into my system get rid of any OCing and reset my bios back to its factory defaults. Ya never know.

Bummer Mike!jja

Hi,Well, I installed the new 1250 watt power supply. I started up the system and ran FSX. No sooner did FSX start to run and the system shut itself down. Now the monitors are black and I get nothing.I went back to my GTX285 and I still get nothing, looks like these boards fried my PCIE slots.The boards go back to J&R tomorrow, I'll have to look into replacing the Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard as well, purchased from Newegg on 4/13/2009. I hope it didn't fry my processor.Looks like I won't be flying for a few weeks. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Mike - Did you try putting the OLD psu back in? This could be a bad PSU - perhaps your mobo is not fried. I'd give it a shot before ripping things apart.Actually I'd take everything out except the old psu and the mobo (without memory) and see if the fans spin and the mobo led comes on - then go from there - replace memory and repeat - then video, etc.Vic

Mike,I agree with Vic....you have nothing to lose. Troubleshoot until you find the culprit...will save you a system re-install (if new and different m/B) is used. Been there many many times and always amazed at the stupid little things that can happen.

Mike,Did you try the single card approach that I suggested?I'm sorry to hear that you're having problems, but please patient, everything's going to be alright.Hang in there.

Hi Everyone,Well, looks like it burnt out my processor. I've replace the Asus P6T Deluxe V2 with an Asus P6X58D Premium motherboard. I also replaced the two EVGA 480 boards with two Asus 480 video boards. Same problem, black screens. I also tried one board at a time, it does not work. I will be pitching a ###### to EVGA first thing Monday morning.In the meantime I just ordered a new processor from Newegg, the I7 980X. It should be here Monday.

Hi Everyone,Well, looks like it burnt out my processor. I've replace the Asus P6T Deluxe V2 with an Asus P6X58D Premium motherboard. I also replaced the two EVGA 480 boards with two Asus 480 video boards. Same problem, black screens. I also tried one board at a time, it does not work. I will be pitching a ###### to EVGA first thing Monday morning.In the meantime I just ordered a new processor from Newegg, the I7 980X. It should be here Monday.

HelloExpensive few days Mike , I feel your pain

Mike; My guess is that you smoked the memory controller on your 975. Two high-bandwidth cards like the 480 are going to slam the memory controller because of the load of back-forth syncing of the VRAM/frame buffers in SLI. The memory controller is located on part of the i7 chip that is unmonitored by a thermal sensor, so if it overheats there's nothing there for self-protection. The automatic throttling and shutdown features of the i7 chip are linked to temp sensors on the CPU cores and package case only. I'd be very cautious about doing this again with a different mobo and CPU. Perhaps switching to water cooling might help, as properly done it can keep the CPU more than 20 deg C cooler than the best air solutions. I know a couple guys that had 480 SLI rigs using the factory overclocked cards from eVGA, and they had to drop the clocks back down to stock speeds in SLI, as well as bumping up the IOH voltage to stabilize the memory bus with their CPU overclocked. They're both running water cooling on the CPU and GPUs, BTW. Also remember that the 480 boards are all made at the same nVidia factory, with custom packaging for different vendors, so an ASUS versus eVGA versus Gainward etc is a red herring...they're all made in the same place by the same machines (which is why an MSI utility works on an ASUS board and eVGA Precision works on an MSI etc).RegardsBob ScottColonel, USAF (ret)ATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VColorado Springs, CO

Bob et al,Is there any benefit whatsoever by using SLI configuration in FSX?

Bob et al,Is there any benefit whatsoever by using SLI configuration in FSX?

In terms of performance, no, as FSX isn't coded to make use of multiple GPUs. However with a very fast CPU it can be used to drive large resolution 3+ monitor configs without some of the limitations of an external interface like a TH2G.Driver support for SLI w/r/t FSX is pretty flaky. I tried FSX with a 295GTX (single-board integrated dual-GPU SLI) and had to send it back.RegardsBob ScottColonel, USAF (ret)ATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VColorado Springs, CO

My guess is that you smoked the memory controller on your 975. Two high-bandwidth cards like the 480 are going to slam the memory controller because of the load of back-forth syncing of the VRAM/frame buffers in SLI. The memory controller is located on part of the i7 chip that is unmonitored by a thermal sensor, so if it overheats there's nothing there for self-protection. The automatic throttling and shutdown features of the i7 chip are linked to temp sensors on the CPU cores and package case only.

Bob - just to clarify in my mind - would dropping the clock on the 980X affect this situation with the memory controller or might this have happened anyway at stock speeds?Thanx,Vic

Bob - just to clarify in my mind - would dropping the clock on the 980X affect this situation with the memory controller or might this have happened anyway at stock speeds?Thanx,Vic

It's not strictly a clock issue--it's the memory bandwidth and duty cycle (load). The memory bandwidth is a function of the base clock speed times the memory multiplier (memory clock), QPI multiplier, and the timing settings. Higher base clock, higher mem mult, higher QPI mult, and lower timing settings all equate to higher memory bandwidth and more work/heat in the on-chip memory controller. Mike is/was using 2000 MHz RAM at CAS 7, and presumably the higher QPI multiplier available only in EE version CPUs, which is very aggressive, and usually requires higher voltages for stability when the CPU is also overclocked. Now add to that a significantly higher duty cycle on the memory bus from the massive I/O load of two extremely high bandwidth video cards driving three monitors at very high resolution, and air cooling on an overclocked chip that's cranking out lots of heat in the cores as well, and it makes me think the thermally unmonitored/unprotected memory controller may have been driven to thermal failure. We know from his description that the problems and eventual failure occurred under heavy GPU load...it all seems to fit (but it's still just my theory).So reducing the memory bandwidth, whether that be by reducing the RAM/QPI multiplier(s) and/or the base clock, and/or by widening timings, would reduce the heat produced there, and reducing any voltages associated with memory (i.e. IOH, ICH/IOH) would help significantly.Were it me, I'd start with a very aggressive CPU cooling solution (water with a high-end CPU block and at least a 360mm x 120mm radiator), maybe including an additional external thermal sensor, and I'd reconsider how hard I pushed the memory bandwidth limits. I don't think the risk of cooking a $1000 CPU is worth pushing memory bandwidth to extremes...added memory bandwidth produces relatively modest performance increases at CPU speeds below 4.5GHz. And remember that Intel's design spec for the EE chips is only for 1333 MHz RAM.CheersBob ScottColonel, USAF (ret)ATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VColorado Springs, CO

awesome piece of information Bob. Thanks a lot. I also overclocked my former AMD setup (my first OC experience) trying to max out memory speed, I know that I'm not stressing my IMC that much with a single card, but with my new I5 I'll relax memory OC as much as I can.two questions please:1.- would reducing QPI freq, and memory speed & latencies help get a better CPU overclock?2.- how slow do you think memory can be before it affects performance in FSX? I know it might be hard to tell. I'll be testing that myself .PS: Mike, hope you overcome the difficulties soon and you are back simming ASAP

Bob et al,Is there any benefit whatsoever by using SLI configuration in FSX?

Definitely would have to be multiple screens.jja