Asus Crosshair AM2 Motherboard - Question on Video Cards

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  1. #1
    Reef Shark Rick P's Avatar
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    Asus Crosshair AM2 Motherboard - Question on Video Cards

    Hi,

    I have been trying to make use of a bunch old computer parts I have found over the years. I have put together a system using the Asus Crosshair AM2 motherboard as seen here http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/CRO...specifications . This board has 2 PCIe slots so that you can set up SLI using two identical GPUs. I have the system up and running with a 9600GT in the PCIe in the 1st slot. I do not have another identical card for the other PCIe slot but I would like to run 3 or 4 monitors at once. Can I plug another card in to the 2nd PCIe slot that is not the same and use it to provide support for more monitors? I am not trying to do SLI here, I know you need identical cards for that. I just want to use 3 or 4 monitors at once. I plugged an 8400GS I had lying around in to the second slot to see what would happen. The fan spins on it and the system boots but Windows 7 does not detect the second card. I know the card works because it works on it's own in the first slot. In fact I have not been able to get anything on screen when there is nothing in the first PCIe and a card plugged in to the second PCIe. Could the second PCIe slot be non-functional? I know it is all old hardware now, but I would like to make use of it somehow and I could really use a system with multiple monitors.

    I have not had a monitor actually plugged in to the second card yet, because I have been trying to get Windows to detect the second card first. That would not make a difference though would it?
    Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
    AMD Phenom II X4 955
    GIGABYTE GA-MA770-DS3 AMD Motherboard
    EVGA GeForce GTX 470 1280MB GDDR5
    Western Digital 400GB + Samsung 1 TB SATA Hard Drives
    G.SKILL 4GB DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) RAM
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  2. #2
    Great White Shark
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    Most motherboards of that era didn't enable the 2nd 16x PCIe slot by default, nor were they auto-detecting. In otherwords, you had to manually split the PCIe lanes using settings in the BIOS. The reason for this is that it will split up the PCIe lanes from 16x in the first slot to 8x 1st slot, 8x 2nd slot, and they didn't want to do that if there wasn't a good reason to. I don't think that board is old enough to need physical DIP switch or bridge changes, but I didn't check either.

    That being said, once you get the card working in that second slot at the BIOS level, Windows should be a breeze. Usually the problem with multiple video cards in a single system is competing drivers. Since you are using all nVidia, you should have no issues (as well as having a "single pane of glass" for management of both cards from the nVidia control panel.)
    Last edited by James; 09-03-2013 at 07:49 AM.

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  3. #3
    Reef Shark Rick P's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by James View Post
    Most motherboards of that era didn't enable the 2nd 16x PCIe slot by default, nor were they auto-detecting. In otherwords, you had to manually split the PCIe lanes using settings in the BIOS. The reason for this is that it will split up the PCIe lanes from 16x in the first slot to 8x 1st slot, 8x 2nd slot, and they didn't want to do that if there wasn't a good reason to. I don't think that board is old enough to need physical DIP switch or bridge changes, but I didn't check either.

    That being said, once you get the card working in that second slot at the BIOS level, Windows should be a breeze. Usually the problem with multiple video cards in a single system is competing drivers. Since you are using all nVidia, you should have no issues (as well as having a "single pane of glass" for management of both cards from the nVidia control panel.)
    I tried every setting I could find. Looked in the BIOS, read the manual looked for switches on the motherboard and I could not get the second PCIe slot working. I gave up on it in the end. I did find an older motherboard with onboard video and 1 PCIe slot. I managed to get the onboard working at the same time as the PCIe so now I have the option of up to 4 screens. It's just not as fast as the other board would have been.
    Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
    AMD Phenom II X4 955
    GIGABYTE GA-MA770-DS3 AMD Motherboard
    EVGA GeForce GTX 470 1280MB GDDR5
    Western Digital 400GB + Samsung 1 TB SATA Hard Drives
    G.SKILL 4GB DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) RAM
    Soundblaster Audigy

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