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Alienware Area 51 R2 and GTX Titan X Sli
I went for it and bought two titan x's for sli....but had problems and got 6 beeps.
However - on further examination - It seems one of them is defective (tried in the top slot on its own and got 6 beeps). The other is fine in single use.
BUT. I'm reading reports of Titan X sli not working with a dell motherboard (not sure if its an r2) - from the EVGA forum:
"If you're not even getting the MB BIOS screen then this is definitely a hardware compatibility issue, likely between MB system BIOS and the Titan BIOS. I discussed this with our development team and we're actually investigating a similar issue reported on a Dell MB. The Dell MB would beep 6 times repeatedly when two Titan X cards are installed, no video at all. Works fine with single Titan X or with GTX780 SLI. This could be the MB not capable of supporting GPU with such large memory size, but we won't know until we can hook up a debugger to verify."
Anyone else tried? comment? ive got the i7 5820.
lbowiejr
9 Posts
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May 31st, 2015 08:00
My board does have the yellow writing. The board number is E203413 CE0606 N1996 MS-7862 Ver 1.0. On the sticker right above the power supply the number the revision is listed as A00. I’ve been trying to get my hands on a 60mm EVGA SLI Bridge but they are constantly sold out so I am using a regular flexible SLI cable.
Thanks for the post Cass-ole, that’s a lot of good information and thanks for taking the time to put it together for us. It’s a great place for us to start trying to find out what is going on with the boards and cards.
Virtua4
69 Posts
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May 31st, 2015 15:00
Virtua4
69 Posts
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June 6th, 2015 11:00
Ive reached that place no one wants to reach.....
Dell have been very good in responding, easing the issue to L3 and tried titanx sli for compatability. The first time they tried, they got the 6 beeps and nothing...just like me, but each card worked individually. Then they replaced the cards and.......it worked.....they tried triple sli and it worked also.
So they conclude that for some reason some Titan x cards work individually but not in sli. They go further to say that Titan x sli and triple sli is compatible with the Area 51 r2.
Reference to sli bridges they state that any bridge can be used - does not need to be their nvidia bridge.
So I have now reached out to evga who I got my cards from.
The bit I know is coming is that I am sure evga will tell me they tried these cards in sli below shipping to me. One of mine had to be RMA'd twice, so they then exchanged both cards. I don't know for sure so let's see....either evga/nvidia can talk to each other or evga will take my cards back...I hope this can be resolved soon.
Game7a1
727 Posts
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June 6th, 2015 12:00
Wait, so in short, dual way SLI doesn't work but three-way SLI works?
Just want to make sure. Because now I'm confused by all of this.
Virtua4
69 Posts
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June 6th, 2015 13:00
My two Titan x cards work individually but don't work in sli.
Virtua4
69 Posts
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June 6th, 2015 13:00
No.
Titan x works with the Area 51 r2 in 2x Sli and 3x sli.
But, even if you have two working cards - it does not mean they will work in sli on the Area 51.
Dells 1st test - 2 working cards - didn't work in sli
Dells 2nd test - 2 different cards - worked in sli.
Dells 3rd test - 3 cards - worked in sli.
All cards were reference.
Dell confirm any sli bridge should work ok.
Game7a1
727 Posts
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June 6th, 2015 15:00
So then, it's all a "maybe" then with SLI.
Virtua4
69 Posts
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June 7th, 2015 02:00
Well I'd call it more 'potluck' at this point.
3 card replacements and not working for me.
The 2 cards I have work, but not in SLI
Cass-Ole
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July 2nd, 2015 06:00
I see there are half a dozen subscribers to this thread & that some of you may not have seen the latest TX-SLI post over on Arena. A member's spoken to Aware Tech-Support after multiple Titans launched on Aware.com 5 days ago, where he was informed:
'Alienware has revised their motherboard power components in order for it to power both dual titan x's in sli. So, bad news for the ones who already have the system, due to the older motherboard, running dual or triple Titan X's will not work unless you purchase a new motherboard'.
I'm giving you fellas the head's up, that this might mean a bios upd8 may not be in the works anymore. Do what u can to get to the bottom of the meaning behind that guy's post, since it doesn't look good on your end of all this from what I've read.
Virtua4
69 Posts
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July 3rd, 2015 14:00
Cass-Ole
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July 17th, 2015 20:00
@Virtua: it's been 2weeks since your post, what happened with your in-bound Ti's?
My update. GSchneider, MateoFeo, Yoda, Keen8n & I all have unanswered questions lingering over on AlienArena; there's no such thing as a moderator who wants to respond to anyone w/information that makes sense over whether the R2 motherboard was revised or not like TechSupport said it was, whether 980Ti's were confirmed tested / confirmed work up in that joint, how they got all of their 2/3 Titan configs to work finally w/out a BIOS update, or if a BIOS upd8 is in the works 4months after TX debuted. Their lips are sealed tighter than a frog's *** under water, purposely over on Arena I suspect.
Virtua, I know you read this old April post on geforce.com already:
"So during this all I was relaying the issue I was having with the Titan X's to AsRock. Within a matter of a day they had a new beta motherboard bios for multi-GPU Titan X compatibility, which I just flashed the motherboard with and now I'm able to boot into Windows with both GPU's installed. Both are detected by the device manager and GPU-Z, so this totally was a bios issue. Super happy with how quickly they resolved this, so I guess for those having this specific issue they need to contact the manufacturer of their motherboard and see if they can't get hooked up with a new bios".
Alienware? Are u listeng? If u won't listen to us, will u listen to the 6beeps? Are u gonna fix R2-D2 from beeping finally or are u gonna re-write history & blame it all on bad Titans now ???
Since 5 members of Arena can't get a simple answer to a simple qwestion between business hours of Monday-Friday, I thought I'd ask you Virtua for a simple upd8 here on a Friday night. Any news?
edit @ Virtua's new post below
Now see? How hard was that? Notice that for all of your diligence only half of the concerns have answers that make sense. Unanswered: does every Titan X pair that doesn't work or didn't work reduce to a bad pair? Or a BIOS upd8 that never happened? I notice that you demanded EVGA send you a pair that were pre-tested 'guaranteed' to SLI together & they still acted bunk out-of-box. In that April GeForce post above, the guy took his non-working pair - placed them right in an x58 board without issue - which confirmed they worked & which placed the blame on his mthrbrd / BIOS. Our latest & perhaps last Moderator input placed the blame sqwarely on the mthrbrd, where in 'theory' SLI works but in practice the BIOS wasn't 'collaborating'; statements like that leave the waters muddy & shift our concentration back on the basic qwestion:
how did they finally get 2/3 TX configs to work? In all that time TX wasn't offered in working pairs or sets of three, were they sifting through 5000 brand new cards looking for winners & losers, & finally built up a working inventory after 12weeks of 2000 cards? Their macro-version of 'hit & miss'?
Note MateoFeo's recap from 2 long months ago, Arena, Dual TitanX heads up!:
Now that nVidia's allowed them to build-up & buy-up a 100% working inventory - however that was accomplished over the prior 3month period without a BIOS fix (cherry-picking cards no doubt) - now that they're finally in a position to say: 'all of our cards SLI, sorry if yours don't; if you want working cards then buy from us' ... I see no counter-force left at work to compel a BIOS update. The fact there's no official response after 4months time regarding SLI-issues & how to correct them says a lot. Unless their attitude is: buy 5 cards / hope 2 work ... like we did ...
They're the ones holding all the answers, 4months spent testing. What's the official verdict after 4 months? A card-issue or a mthrbrd-issue? Is it a mixture of both?
I read on NoteBook Review from a moderator that Alienware's nVidia's single-largest-buyer of mobile laptop grfx; that gives them privileges. I find it absurd the notion they weren't testing SLI on day one in lock-step with nVidia back in late-March & knew there was a problem with the board from day one & not a problem with the cards, not when nVidia would've been sending pretested working SLI. Those cards are rated as 4-way SLI-ready.
The narrative appears to be playing-out exactly like the Aliens want it to. Blame the card. Whatever.
May the Force be with you V4
Virtua4
69 Posts
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July 18th, 2015 01:00
Ok, so I'm still waiting for my cards grr. I bought them from scans UK who have taken the Titan x's back....They are waiting for evga to credit them before sending the 980tis. It's all rather frustrating although having chased so much, everyone gets that this is a little crazy.....it's been almost a month!
In the meantime I've been in contact with dell.
This week the L3 engineers confirm that 980 ti Sli works out of the box.
They also said that there is no new mobo. The machine they used was their test rig taken from 1st production.
Hopefully I'll get cards to test next week!
Alessandro-GTI
2 Posts
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July 31st, 2015 01:00
Hy to everyone!
I have been reading regarding this SLI issue with itan X / may also the 980TI in many forum like evga, geforce, alienware community etc.
Myself I own an Alienware Area 51 R2 with the new A02 BIOS update, i7 5820K, 32GB Ripjaws 2400mhz (2666mhz) DDR4, 2x SSDs, 2x HDDs, and with stock GTX 980.
I upgraded to GTX980 SLI and all worked fine out of the box. Since I wanted to upgrade to a third 980, but with the 5820 cpu ist not possible, i sold both 980s and got 2 980TI from EVGA :D
Yesterday I installed the first 980TI and all works GREAT! I can confirm that with one card I get same performance like 980SLI. My rig works with a Samsung 28" 4K 60hz Screen.
Today I will get the second 980TI and will try if it works! Hopefully it works!
I use a normal flexible Asus SLI bridge which i got like 3 years ago with a motherboard.
By the way, if you have the 5820K, you have in the first PCI Slot 8x lanes, in the second PCI Slot 16x lanes and in the third and last one 4x lanes.
That means you are able to only SLI, no 3-Way SLI since SLI needs at least 8x lanes!!
There are no performance diffrence between the 8x or 16x lanes slots, i tested single cards on it exactly same.
Alessandro-GTI
2 Posts
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July 31st, 2015 08:00
Good news for all you Area 51 R2 folks!
980TI SLI working out of the box with my 850 Watt PSU.
I hardly recommend this setup to play 4k, even with normal 980sli you wont get all maxed out at 4k Resolution with Witcher 3, Dying light, etc. :D For BF4 also one card was enough to play maxed out on 4k.
I have one EVGA witch ACX coolers and another one but Superclocked. All works well \m/
Here some pics and enjoy!
Virtua4
69 Posts
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August 6th, 2015 07:00
Thats balmy if its true.