Weird SLI issue

[Druid]

Ok, so I got a second gtx 285, and, at first, I installed it with a tri-SLI bridge. I went into the Nvidia control panel and enabled SLI, and it worked.

Imageshack - slisettings.png

But, when playing bad company 2, my computer would eventually freeze up, and I'd have to restart. And I'm not sure whether it happened after the first, second, or third time (I think third because all of a sudden I got a little slowdown) and it crashed. When I turned the comp back on, I noticed fans going a lot harder, and SLI was no longer available.

Imageshack - slisettings2.png

I took out the tri-SLI bridge and just put in the regular 2-way bridge, and it started working again. Then, today, after I quit playing call of duty, my wireless internet cut out. I restarted, and once again, SLI was no longer there, and my computer started acting like it didn't even have a wireless card as there was no wireless option to enable/disable in the "change adapter settings/network connections" tab of the network and sharing center. Also the fan was going hard again.

Any ideas? And on a side note, in the first image, I have physX set to recommended which appears to be using my second 285, should I set that to cpu for max performance? Is that making my second card dedicated physX? That's not what I want, but, it's not the problem right now because my system isn't even picking up SLI.

 

[Slaymate]

Whenever I have SLI problems it's usually because one of the cards isn't fully seated, but it sounds like your wireless card may be sharing an IRQ with one of the pci-e slots. Can you move the wireless card to a different slot? Or temporarily remove it and see if the problem remains.

As far as I know the PhysX selection means it will use the selected card for PhysX when a game supports it but SLI is still enabled. I just leave the setting on Auto.

 

[Druid]

I took it out, and when the computer started up, the windows screen had black bars on the sides, top and bottom. This always happens to the bios. It started when my 24" 1920x1200 monitor broke and I switched to a 23.6" 1920x1080 monitor. Anyway, I noticed it installed gtx 295 drivers, which is odd but sort of makes sense. Then I tried to play bad company 2, and the computer black screened after I failed to connect to a server. I turned it back on, the fan was roaring once again, and I had the second image again. No SLI, even without the wireless card in there.

 

[Slaymate]

Have you tried running Driversweeper or Driver Cleaner in Safe Mode?

 

[Druid]

Just tried driversweeper. It didn't work.

 

[Slaymate]

Have you tried testing the cards one at a time? There maybe a problem with the new card.

 

[Druid]

Yep, it's a dud.

System won't even power up with it anymore. Doesn't matter whether the other one is in there or not. Here's to hoping eVGA isn't going to charge me return shipping and **** me off.