Windows 7 not recognizing multiple EVGA display cards

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Bolimomo

Hi Guys...

I have this strange problem that is above my head. I wonder if any of you would have some suggestions on what to try.

I have one box using MSI Big Bang XPower, CPU is Intel i7-950. The motherboard has 6 PCIe X16 slots. I have been using 4 of them, each with an EVGA 8400GS (dual monitor) display card. I have 8 monitors running on it, for a couple of years. Everything worked well for the last 2 years but now suddenly I can only run 2 monitors instead of 8.

Sequence of events:

Last week I noticed that one of the chassis fans is getting noisy. All I wanted to do was to replace the chassis fan. Should be simple, right? Found that the new fan was also noisy. I decided not to keep it. Put back the old fan. Put everything back together.

That's where the problem started.

First, the power supply wouldn't stay on. Powered on... after about 5 seconds, everything shut off. I examined the chassis, and found that the motherboard's LED displaying some kind of error codes (like "E8" or something, can't remember). Very persistent.

I took all the PCIe X16 display cards out of the motherboard. I re-seated the small CMOS battery. I wasn't sure if I need to replace it, thought I would just try re-seating it. After that, the motherboard no longer gave the LED error code. The power supply stayed on.

I proceeded with putting back only one EVGA 8400 GS card back on the motherboard and tried booting up Windows (Win 7). Windows booted up. However, it said something about the configuration was corrupt (or something to that effect). Prompted me if I want to "boot Windows normally" or "Repair". I thought something might be wrong, I chose "Repair". It appeared the Win 7 did something. After Win7 rebooted, the operating system came up... but... the OS no longer recognize the EVGA 8400 GS card. i.e. no 1920x1080 resolution. Max at 1600 x 900.

I proceeded with just re-loading the driver software that came with the 8400 GS cards. Okay... got back the 1920x1080 resolution on 2 monitors. I thought problem resolved.

Proceeded with putting back the other 3 x 8400 GS cards. Hooked up all the monitors. Well... Windows came up. But the OS only detected one of the 4 cards. I can only get 2 monitors to work.

I thought maybe some of the display cards or the PCIe X16 slots malfunctioned. I did unit-tests on all the cards - plugged in only 1 card at a time, cycled through all 4 of them. Each card worked fine individually. Each of the PCIe X16 slots also worked individually, no matter which slot I used. Windows 7 just wouldn't detect any more than 1 EVGA card.

I tried going into the computer's BIOS setting. I didn't find anything that is related to multiple PCIe slot configuration. Looks like those things are done via the plug-and-play features of Windows automatically.

I had completedly re-installed Windows 7 (thinking that the repair may have actually corrupted something). This is a brand new Windows 7. Reloaded the 8400 GS drivers. (Actually I had tried loading both the older drivers that came with the cards, as well as the latest version of drivers I can downloaded from EVGA). The symptom is still the same. Windows 7 just cannot detect the additional cards.

When I went into Windows' Device Manager, expanded "Display adapters", only 1 entry - "NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS". That's it. My other computers that have 3x 8400GS cards all listed 3 separate "NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS" entries. Tried clicked on "Scan for hardware changes". Didn't change anything. Still only 1 entry. I am sure this was part of the problem (not seeing the other cards when scanned). But I don't know how to fix it.

Any idea or suggestions?

Thanks for listening. I know this message is long. I did some googling on this types of symptoms. After browsing through 2 dozen threads, I still couldn't find any suggestions that addressed my issues. I greatly appreciate anything you throw my way.
 
Hi murrica:

I don't know what MSI designated those slots as on the motherboard. Let me just label them as slot #1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6.

I have been using slots #1, #2, #3, #4 for the past 2 years. #5 and #6 were not used. It seemed to me as if #1 is the base slot. So I use that as reference.

When I unit-tested the 2 card combination, I only did #1 and #2. I did not try #1 + #3, nor #1 + #4. I will try that in my next opportunity, may be over Thanks-Giving.

I also am thinking of buying a new battery for the CMOS to see if that makes a difference. (Do you guys think the battery, if lack of power, would affect how Windows see the hardware configurations?)
 
Quote from Bolimomo:

Hi murrica:

I don't know what MSI designated those slots as on the motherboard. Let me just label them as slot #1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6.

I have been using slots #1, #2, #3, #4 for the past 2 years. #5 and #6 were not used. It seemed to me as if #1 is the base slot. So I use that as reference.

When I unit-tested the 2 card combination, I only did #1 and #2. I did not try #1 + #3, nor #1 + #4. I will try that in my next opportunity, may be over Thanks-Giving.

I also am thinking of buying a new battery for the CMOS to see if that makes a difference. (Do you guys think the battery, if lack of power, would affect how Windows see the hardware configurations?)
More...

Sure, give 1+3, 1+4, 2+3, 2+4, etc a shot. Even 5+6 and 2+6 for fun if still no luck.

Also just curious if there is possibly some other configuration option in the cmos related to these expansion slots, but figured this would also be auto-detected (worth to check, anyway).

re: battery -- worth a shot, but I believe the MB will work similarly with or without the battery (when powered on, anyway).
 
Another goofy suggestion, likely not applicable, is to check that your driver in windows is not incorrectly set to SLI mode -- i.e. make sure Enable Multi GPU is not checked. If it were checked, only the first two video outs would be enabled.

Again, likely not applicable since it is unlikely the driver/software for your cards has such functionality, but perhaps worth checking. Just brainstorming ideas.
 
You burned out your motherboard.

Buy a new motherboard and two 4x mini-display port or HDMI video cards (8 monitors on the two PCIe x16 high wattage slots).

Very few people run as many video cards as traders do. I'd highly recommend running two cards over four. Motherboards have problems with constant dynamic power management. Do you have any Dell Precision Workstations? They specify on the motherboard both PCIe x16/8/1 but ALSO SPECIFY the watts the motherboard is designed to push to that slot. (asking about the Dell products just so you have a visual reference)

Even if you are under the wattage and max out the slots it's an issue... if you are under the wattage on some slots but over wattage on others that's bad. Either be at the wattage or below on every slot. I looked up your motherboard's specs (assuming you have the x58 chipset) and they didn't specify and the photos online weren't clear.

So really it's just a guess because your mobo and video card manufacturers don't specify these things.

On full rack-mount servers we pay very close attention to the wattage allotted to each slot - and don't mess with it - speed and power are important and screwing with anything other than least common denominator is the kiss of death. With GPU onboard the CPU these days we are going smaller, virtual and "headless" (server with no video card at all just a command prompt) to save power and motherboard slots.

Spend the coin on a pair of low power, lower resolution (you don't need a fancy gaming card) video cards and get a no-frills ATX server grade motherboard.
 
Thanks for the idea TJ. I think the chance of my motherboard burnt out is low. Again I have been running this configuration for 2 years. Nothing had changed. I only noticed that the chassis fan was getting noisy (it seemed at the time), so I shut down the box and tried replacing the fan. When I put everything back together for the first time, with a new chassis fan, everything was still good (all monitors worked). It was the second time, after I took out the new fan and put back the original fan... that's when problems popped up (and then one thing led to another)...
 
Quote from Bolimomo:

Hi murrica:

I don't know what MSI designated those slots as on the motherboard. Let me just label them as slot #1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6.

I have been using slots #1, #2, #3, #4 for the past 2 years. #5 and #6 were not used. It seemed to me as if #1 is the base slot. So I use that as reference.

When I unit-tested the 2 card combination, I only did #1 and #2. I did not try #1 + #3, nor #1 + #4. I will try that in my next opportunity, may be over Thanks-Giving.

I also am thinking of buying a new battery for the CMOS to see if that makes a difference. (Do you guys think the battery, if lack of power, would affect how Windows see the hardware configurations?)
More...

1. CMOS batteries don't seem to last as long as they formerly did. If you know the battery is 18 months old or older, good idea to test it.

2. On a few occasions, I've had squirrely problems resolved by replacing the battery.

Doesn't seem like your problem could be related to the battery (but then, it never does), but it's fairly likely yours needs replacing anyway.
 
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