Motherboard Change!

[DJ Tucker]

ok i want to see what motherboards i can get not more than £100 really as that my budget. i want to get one that has a spaced out graphics card slots. well SLI for my 9800gt's.

mine are very close and cause yet again my graphics cards to overheat in which causes my pc to turn off or games to crash, also i cant run stability tests on graphics cards due it turning my pc off .

i dont want everyone to give just links to motherboards that are close to £100, if possible could everyone please give links to all motherboards ranging from £0-£100.

thx guys!!

[Major_A]

This has nothing to do with your post...

You might want to try a new "brand" power supply. If are having instability and issues while gaming it leads me to believe that questionable PSU is handling the load.

[Skippman]

I also question whether the GPU's are overheating or not. What temp are they at under full load?

[DJ Tucker]

under full load 95c and ok that not overheating but it keeps turning my pc off and my gpu cut-off temp is at 100 so not sure y this is.

[jakegub]

If you have money to throw at it, This board has 3x PCI-E so you can get as much spacing as you want assuming you have a large enough bridge.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813188043

I don't actually know how much the L100 is, but $159 is a reasonable price.

eVGA has a similar board, the -RX version versus the -TR (I don't know the difference) as a B-stock product.

www.evga.com/products/bstock.asp

[DJ Tucker]

well seeing as it in america it will cost a lot to get that over here in england so thats a no i'm afraid but thx for helping m8.

[XstollieX]

What type of temps do you achieve if you run 1 card? Have you tried bumping the fan speeds via riva tuner?

[Major_A]

As far as I know, and I might be wrong here... SLi bridges are constant. Meaning, one brand doesn't have the slots further away than a different brand. This is difficult since the board manufacturers usually give a hard plastic/rigid SLi bridge.

So in summation, you will be in the same boat you are now with your current board. Get a nice Scythe S-Flex fan and "rig" it to blow in the GPU cores. See if that helps with your situation. I remember a long time ago Zalman made a case adapter for just this purpose. Or if you are even cheaper than that pull of the side of the case and direct a box fan to blow into the case. If this does fix the stability issues then it is a heat issue. If not I'd look elsewhere.

Even though your cards are getting hot as long as they aren't artifacting I think they should be fine. Like I said earlier I still have a sneaking suspicion it's your PSU.

[XstollieX]

On my 780i board I have three pcie slots. For a two card setup the go in slots 1 and 3 leaving plenty of room to breath

[DJ Tucker]

well i have tried it with my side case off and blowing cool are from external fan in and what you know it works fine. and i also got 3 pci-e slots, SLI in 1 and 3 but i have about 4mm gap between the cards. the one on the bottom at 100% load is 75c and the top one 90c. at which point my pc turns off. also on back of my PSU 12v both are 22a. but currently whilst idle 7.25a.

[Major_A]

Get RivaTuner and up the GPU fans. See if this helps at all.

[Skippman]

well i have tried it with my side case off and blowing cool are from external fan in and what you know it works fine. and i also got 3 pci-e slots, SLI in 1 and 3 but i have about 4mm gap between the cards. the one on the bottom at 100% load is 75c and the top one 90c. at which point my pc turns off. also on back of my PSU 12v both are 22a. but currently whilst idle 7.25a.

May be time to consider liquid cooling for your rig. It'll grow with you as you change components and going to that will solve more temp problems than simply swapping out a motherboard will.

[DJ Tucker]

well believe it or not i took side of case off and cooled it with my household room fan. temps on graphics cards dropped 7c in which i did some stability tests on my graphics cards and still my pc turned off even though my cards were 7c cooler. (not a temp probs i figured). after turning my pc back on i cant run any of the tests at all as it will turn my pc off with in 10 seconds and my cards are back at idle temps of 48c. so maybe yeah i think it is my PSU.

what do you guys think?

[Skippman]

well believe it or not i took side of case off and cooled it with my household room fan. temps on graphics cards dropped 7c in which i did some stability tests on my graphics cards and still my pc turned off even though my cards were 7c cooler. (not a temp probs i figured). after turning my pc back on i cant run any of the tests at all as it will turn my pc off with in 10 seconds and my cards are back at idle temps of 48c. so maybe yeah i think it is my PSU.

what do you guys think?

Sounds like it. Sounds like your 12V rail isn't sufficent to power both cards. Have you tried it with just a single card?

[DJ Tucker]

yeah and that works fine. but what confuses me is that this PSU is SLI certified. but it cant run SLI to high without cutting.

[Skippman]

yeah and that works fine. but what confuses me is that this PSU is SLI certified. but it cant run SLI to high without cutting.

Possible defective PSU? Maybe a bad 12V rail. I'd contact the manufacturer if it's under warrenty and explain the issue.

[DJ Tucker]

yeah i did that yesterday and again was told to bring it in for service but when i told them last time of my problem they never found it. in fact they said it was a faulty graphics card but still got same issue and they said they will have a look again. another 3 weeks without a pc.