Crosshair 2 Formula HANGS AT BOOT with NEW GTX 680!!!

[RSwipeCA]

Hi Everyone, I wonder if you can help.

I have a system here that is giving me issues. For the past couple of years it has been running BFG 8800GTX's in TRI SLI faultlessly! Yesterday I got a new EVGA GTX 680. When I try to instal the 680 the system will not boot. I have a 1000W Antec PSU that has had no trouble with three 8800's and as far as I can see the 680 is powered correctly. The system will hang at the ROG splash screen, and 'PASSWORD' is displayed on the LCD poster. I have never set any password for this system. Any ideas guys??

The card works perfectly in my other system??

3.5ghz Phenom 2
8gb ram

[Chino]

Welcome to our ROG forums, RSwipeCA.

What version BIOS are you running?

[Chino]

Welcome to our ROG forums, RSwipeCA.

What version BIOS are you running?

[RSwipeCA]

Hi Chino,

The latest 2702. Its been in working perfectly with the 8800's. I just discovered that the 680 will work in the middle PCIe slot. Not in the top or bottom blue slots. According to the manual, the middle slot with a single card installed will max out at 8x not the full 16x. Am i reading that correct? Kinda doesnt make sense to only be able to run this card at half its potential? A single GTX 8800 will run in any slot btw.

If i install the 680 in either of the Blue slots, it locks at the ROG logo and I cannot enter bios etc. Hard reset needed.

[Chino]

Maybe that board is just not capable of running the GTX 680 at x16. It's pretty amazing how a 5 year old motherboard can run such a high end card like the GTX 680 to be honest. But studies have shown that the difference between running a GPU at x8 and x16 is so small that it's negligible. So you're not really losing any performance there. Enjoy your new toy. 😉

[RSwipeCA]

Oh ok, I really didnt think that if a board has x16 slots, it wouldn't be able to run a 16x card. That's a new one on me, thanks. I'll keep digging.

Although, you would think that if the card works in my other system in a blue 16x slot that has the Asus M3A78 Mobo it would work in the Crosshair 2 no? The M3A78 is no where near the board that the Crosshair is. Something doesn't make sense here. The boards are the same age, and yet the cheaper board runs the latest and greatest correctly??? Both boards are AM2. 1606 Bios on the M3A78.


Hmmmm. Irritating.

[Chino]

You have to take into consideration that half a decade separates that motherboard from that card. There are bound to be incompatibility problems.

As a side note, have you tried clearing the CMOS with the GTX 680 installed? 😛

[skellattarr]

did you disable sli before you put the card in maybe that could be it plus update drivers. maybe there mite be a setting in bios if i remember that board has onboard video chip

[RSwipeCA]

So I have been running this GTX 680 in the middle PCIe slot on the Crosshair 2 formula for a couple of months now and its faultless - and is also bloody amazing!

Anyway, I was able to grab another identical GTX 680 and am attempting to run SLI. But am running into the same issue. As soon as I plug a single 680 into any slot other than the middle PCIe slot on the board - it has three - the system locks at the first post screen. I spoke with ASUS and they mentioned that they have seen this before and advised me to update the nForce drivers etc.

I didn't get anywhere after updating all my drivers. Bios, Chipset and latest Nvidia drivers. Essentially it looks like the ROG Crosshair 2 Formula will not run a 680 in any slot other than the middle white slot on the board. It is not capable of running SLI because that would mean inserting a card into a slot other than the middle one, which renders the system inoperable. This sucks, cos the system works awesome with THREE GTX 8800 OC2's installed. Its a great MOBO, and I hate having to pull a perfectly good setup, spend a whole bunch of money to update the board etc, when I have a feeling the answer is there somewhere. As stated above, I have a secondary system running here where the 680 works perfect in the primary PCIe slot, and its motherboard is a much lower spec one than the Crosshair 2.

Bottom line. It doesn't make sense that the Crosshair 2 Formula wont run the 680 in the primary PCIe slot. That's two different cards, that both work in the middle slot and/or another system. The cards are great, power is more than capable. Whats going on? Any more ideas? Or am I looking at having to drop hundreds of dollars to get another ASUS board that will run the way I want to?

[Myk_SilentShado]

Try booting into Safe Mode, uninstalling your drivers and while you're at it. Run a driver sweeper program too. Then when done, shut down, insert your 2nd card and try to boot again, this *may* or may not help...here's hoping it does 🙂