Motherboard MSI 890FXA-GD70 wont boot with 5 GPU's

[JeroenV1990]

Hi there,

I have a MSI 890FXA-GD70 with 4 GPU's; works perfectly.
If i connect a 5th GPU, it will 'hang' on the BIOS screen.

Any solutions for this?

Thanks!

[abracadabra]

#1 - What GPUs
#2 - What PSU?
#3 - Are you using powered pci-e extenderr cables?

[mike678]

I was having a similar problem as you. I own the same board with 5 5850's. It's not exactly the same as your issue but I had trouble reliably using 5 cards. Each card and component worked individually just not all together. I went into the bios and went to advanced and there should be a option that has 64 as your choice boost it to 96 and that might help you. I don't remember the name of the option but from what I remember is 64/16=4 16 being x16. This fixed my problem and it might fix yours.

If you cant find this option I guess I can reboot my machine to look for it but I prefer not to.

[Big Time Coin]

have not tried, but from other threads know you can search these terms:

Short A1 B17
Powered Pcie extender
linux

[Elder III]

Are you using XP?  I have not been able to get more than 4 GPUs to work with XP on that (or any other) mobo no matter what drivers I use.  It should work with Windows 7 or Linux though.

[mike678]

I looked up what I was talking about earlier. Its called the pci latency timer. You need more then 64 if you want more then 4 cards on that board.

[max in montreal]

I too have been having problems with 4 cards/7 gpu in total. Other than heat issues all cards run using linuxcoin, but only some run in windows, i will change the latency timer...brb...

So info found:

PCI latency timers are a mechanism for PCI bus-mastering devices to share the PCI bus fairly. "Fair" in this case means that devices won't use such a large portion of the available PCI bus bandwidth that other devices aren't able to get needed work done.

How this works is that each PCI device that can operate in bus-master mode is required to implement a timer, called the Latency Timer, that limits the time that device can hold the PCI bus. The timer starts when the device gains bus ownership, and counts down at the rate of the PCI clock. When the counter reaches zero, the device is required to release the bus. If no other devices are waiting for bus ownership, it may simply grab the bus again and transfer more data

[max in montreal]

then there was this, but not much help...still does not work.

[JeroenV1990]

I looked up what I was talking about earlier. Its called the pci latency timer. You need more then 64 if you want more then 4 cards on that board.

Yup this helped!  

OS is Windows 7, i use all 5830's.
Last question; After setting up 92 pci latency timer the machine booted perfectly.
Unfortunate, the 6th GPU gives 200 Mhash/s, all other GPU's give 260 Mhash/s, any idea's? Replaced it with a other 5830, works now.

Thanks all!

[abracadabra]

#1 - What GPUs
#2 - What PSU?
#3 - Are you using powered pci-e extender cables?

Can you answer these questions?

[JeroenV1990]

#1 - What GPUs
#2 - What PSU?
#3 - Are you using powered pci-e extender cables?

Can you answer these questions?

Excuse me:
#1 - What GPUs 5830's
#2 - What PSU? OCZ 1250W
#3 - Are you using powered pci-e extender cables? I am using extenders but no powered.

[abracadabra]

You cannot run 5 gpus without at least one of them being powered.
4 will work.  5 will overload the power that can be provided by the pcie bus.

[mike678]

You cannot run 5 gpus without at least one of them being powered.
4 will work.  5 will overload the power that can be provided by the pcie bus.

That isn't true. I'm running 5 cards with out powered extenders right now and have been for awhile.

[cicada]

You cannot run 5 gpus without at least one of them being powered.
4 will work.  5 will overload the power that can be provided by the pcie bus.

That isn't true. I'm running 5 cards with out powered extenders right now and have been for awhile.

Mike's right, there isn't any limitation on the number of PCIe devices outside of the number of PCIe slots you've got.

The danger is in overloading the power rails and traces.  The motherboard will often let you pull a lot more power via the PCIe slots than the 24pin ATX connector can handle, and you end up melting your 12V wires.

So, you can run more than 4 devices without powered PCIe extenders, it's just not a good idea after 4 cards.  This is especially important in relation to the dual-GPU cards, they generally suck a lot more power from the PCIe slots than single GPU cards, up to the 75W available limit if the manufacturer has any care for specs.

[David_Benz]

You cannot run 5 gpus without at least one of them being powered.
4 will work.  5 will overload the power that can be provided by the pcie bus.

That isn't true. I'm running 5 cards with out powered extenders right now and have been for awhile.

This guy got owned.

[jjiimm_64]

You cannot run 5 gpus without at least one of them being powered.
4 will work.  5 will overload the power that can be provided by the pcie bus.

That isn't true. I'm running 5 cards with out powered extenders right now and have been for awhile.

This guy got owned.

I can confirm.  you do NOT need powered extenders. 

I have many of these boards running 5.  I have 4 of these rigs running 6 cards.

[QuantumFoam]

I also have this motherboard running 4x5870 and 1x5970 on a corsair ax1200 with no powered extenders, runs fine. ATX wires are running cool. Pulls about 1050w at the wall.

[likuidxd]

You cannot run 5 gpus without at least one of them being powered.
4 will work.  5 will overload the power that can be provided by the pcie bus.

<<< 8 GPUs not one powered extender

[jjiimm_64]

You cannot run 5 gpus without at least one of them being powered.
4 will work.  5 will overload the power that can be provided by the pcie bus.

<<< 8 GPUs not one powered extender

i think he meant cards...

[likuidxd]

You cannot run 5 gpus without at least one of them being powered.
4 will work.  5 will overload the power that can be provided by the pcie bus.

<<< 8 GPUs not one powered extender

i think he meant cards...

...me too