Unsolved
13 Posts
0
2539
How to use two PCI video cards ?
I've reached the maximum amount of monitors which I can run off my video card. So I want to run a second card off my system to have some more monitors.
I have a Precision T1600 and I am trying to use multiple video cards with it. One of the cards is in slot 1 (PCIe x16) ; and the other is in slot 4 (PCI x4). If I have both of them plugged in at the same time none of my monitors will come up. If I only plug in one at a time it will run fine.
What do I need to do to power multiple video cards at the same time ? Is there something I need to disable ? I looked into the BIOS and in the Misc Devices there is an 'Enable PCI Slot" checkbox that I've checked and unchecked and didn't notice a difference.
I can't find any other settings that might be relevant.
speedstep
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
47K Posts
0
February 16th, 2021 16:00
2 cards isn't supported.
If you need more screens get a card that has more video outputs.
https://www.amazon.com/VisionTek-Radeon-7750-GDDR5-MiniDP/dp/B00C7EPSVS/
VisionTek Radeon 7750 2GB GDDR5 6 4k Monitor 6 Mini DisplayPorts, AMD Eyefinity 2.0, PCI Express 3.0 Video
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/accessories/apd/a6945752
VincentLB
13 Posts
0
February 16th, 2021 17:00
Why aren't two cards supported ? Is it a matter of the power supply ?
JamesJAB1
217 Posts
0
February 16th, 2021 22:00
The more important question is how many monitors are you trying to run? Also, what video cards are you trying to use?
Your issue may have to do with power draw from running two power hungry cards.
VincentLB
13 Posts
0
February 17th, 2021 06:00
I'm trying to run 6 monitors. The two video cards are :
GTX 1650S (Super) in my PCIe x16 slot. (4 monitors)
GT 1030 in my PCI x4 slot (2 monitors)
They work when they're plugged in alone.
VincentLB
13 Posts
0
February 17th, 2021 06:00
Neither one of those "options" makes any sense and shows no benefit over what I've already got.
JamesJAB1
217 Posts
0
February 17th, 2021 06:00
The T1600 came with 2 options for the Power Supply (265W or 320W) This looks like your bottleneck.
Xeon CPU 80-95W or Core i7 65-95W depending on which one you have
GTX 1650 Super 100W at stock clock speed
GT 1030 30W at stock clock speed
Keep in mind that most consumer card manufacturers sell cards as factory overclocked, so power numbers will probably be higher.
I suggest purchasing a Quadro P600 40W, P620 40W or P1000 47W to use instead of the GTX 1650 Super.
The listed Quadro cards all have 4 Display Ports each.
Option 2 would be to install a CPU that has built in graphics and use the two motherboard ports instead of the GT 1030.
VincentLB
13 Posts
0
February 17th, 2021 07:00
It will be for both gaming and business function.
VincentLB
13 Posts
0
February 17th, 2021 07:00
The ps is a Dynex 400 watt DX-400WPS.
Even if the power supply is insufficient to maintain the necessary load, I would think that it would not be the reason the GPUs are not being engaged at all during the initial booting of the machine. I would think at least one of the GPUs would at least come up at that point, even if it's only for a couple seconds or minutes.
EVOL305
4 Posts
0
February 17th, 2021 07:00
If its for business like a trading station I wouldn't go with any card you mentioned. I would stick to Radeon Pro WX 3200 and up. Built for multiple monitors. Can you daisy chain any of your monitors using USB-C? Don't go with a gaming card for a business function. The Radeon Pro WX cards are awesome.
mazzinia_
4 Operator
4 Operator
•
1.1K Posts
0
February 17th, 2021 07:00
VincentLB has a point , summing all those wattages.
What is the psu you have installed now ? Because if it's the 265w, adding the ram / hd / fans / etc, you probably hit the limit with the 2nd gpu added.
mazzinia_
4 Operator
4 Operator
•
1.1K Posts
0
February 17th, 2021 08:00
At this point it could be just a matter of some weird incompatibility between the 2 cards ( the bioses ).
Can you borrow some low power card to try instead of the 1030 ? For your necessities even a 710 or older, would suffice, or a quadro nvs etc etc
VincentLB
13 Posts
0
February 17th, 2021 10:00
Ok - this is kinda weird....
I actually happened to have a Quadro 600 sitting in an old system so I tried using that. So I plugged it into the PCI x4 slot instead of the 1030 (with the 1650S still plugged into the PCIe x16), and the system booted up. The Quadro 600 didn't show up properly in the Device Manager. It showed as "
This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device. (Code 31)
The driver trying to start is not the same as the driver for the POSTed display adapter." - but the system was able to boot up and run off the 1650S.
I tried uninstalling the Quadro just to see if that might solve the problem but it wasn't fixing it.
The big story is that it was able to boot up. I have no idea why that was able to do that. What do you think it is ? What does that tell us ?
mazzinia_
4 Operator
4 Operator
•
1.1K Posts
0
February 17th, 2021 11:00
Perfect. so the 1030 is not liking the 1660, or viceversa.
As for the quadro, you can install ALSO the quadro drivers. This way you should end having the 1660 and the quadro 600 working.
( the drivers for quadro and normal nvidia are different , but win10 has no issues having drivers installed in parallel )
JamesJAB1
217 Posts
0
February 17th, 2021 12:00
You might have issues with the old Quadro 600 because the newest drivers are the old 377.83 version. This could create an incompatibility having an old Nvidia driver installed at the same time as a new 4xx.xx driver.
VincentLB
13 Posts
0
February 17th, 2021 14:00
Well, I downloaded what is supposed to be the latest Windows 10 drivers for Quadro 600 but it doesn't really seem like it's going to work. I assigned those new drivers and Windows has recognized it as a "Quadro 600" in Device Manager, but it's still not functioning, but a sign on it saying :
"This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device. (Code 31)
The I/O device is configured incorrectly or the configuration parameters to the driver are incorrect."
I've got a GEForce GTX 750 Ti that I had originally wanted to use as my secondary GPU instead of the 1030. But the GTX 750 literally would not fit in the remaining space in the case. That's when I tried the 1030.
I've got a new case I could possibly try it in there. That's about the only thing left to do. Should I have any reason to think that the GTX 750 might work when the 1030 didn't ?