My SLI nightmare :(

[bradmax57]

For those of you who dont know one of my 6800gt's died, well when I say died the fan stopped working tried another and it still didnt work, my RMA was granted and I returned the card. Today I got my replacement unpacked it all excited and to my amazement the pcb was black comapred to the other being green, both are 6800gt's by Inno 3d, so guess what I put it in boot it recgonises the card, says my system is sli capable but says my cards have to be identical!!!! god knows what to do now, request that I can send the green one back and hope I get a black one??

My initial thought was to flash either of the cards with the other bios, thoughts on this?

[danrok]

That sounds annoying, to put it mildly.

Anything helpful on Inno's site?

[bradmax57]

Originally Posted by danrok

That sounds annoying, to put it mildly.

Anything helpful on Inno's site?

Not looked yet Dan, I can probably return the card I got today under 14 day cooling off period but then that means Im stuck with only 1 6800gt LOL, although a good reason to save up for one of those dual core 6800 ultras

[GrahamGarside]

If you explain to them how you bought them as a pair for sli purposes and that the one they sent you isn't compatable then it seems to me that they should also swap the other card, especially if they were made as a single purchase.

[bradmax57]

Originally Posted by GrahamGarside

If you explain to them how you bought them as a pair for sli purposes and that the one they sent you isn't compatable then it seems to me that they should also swap the other card, especially if they were made as a single purchase.

unfortunately they were made as 2 seperate purchases all be it about 7 hours apart, they were however shipped together

[danrok]

This raises some interesting questions over consumer laws and the like. I mean if one of your cards fails say 10 months down the line and the retailer cannot get a matching card where does that leave you? I would doubt that current consumer laws would help. I mean so long as they replace it with something very similar they're probably within their rights.

[bradmax57]

Very good point dan, although the place I bought it from gets loads of business from us and I mean loads that they probably would not question a RMA of a few hundred quid, not that will help Joe Bloggs of course

[cadaveca]

You need to have the same bios on both cards, Bradmax. Sorry to hear about your diffuculties.

One thing you must check is that the ASIC id's of both cards are identical. They probably aren't and hence your difficulty. Verify that both bioses have the same memory settingsm etcm and you should be ok, however there are about 4 different 6800GT processors, so they must be the same as well. IT may be that you have one card with a bridge chip and one without...in which case SLI will be hard to get to work.