Need help getting 2 cards working

[bathrobehero]

So I have a GTX 660 and a GTX 660 Ti and I can't make them both work at the same time.
My mobo has one x16 PCI and two 1x PCI slots and a BIOS with fairly limited options and onboard graphics. I also have 2 powered risers to play with. I use windows and the 6 pin connectors on the cards are attached all the time.

I mostly tried to get the cards working while I was using the onboard graphics, but even if the primary card was in the PCI x16, I couldn't make them both work.

I tried to use only one card in the x1 slots, but it was only working if I used the second (the one below the x16) slot, the other doesn't seem to work.

What's interesting is that now one card is running fine in the PCI x16 slot while the other is on a riser in the second x1 slot and if I power the riser the fan on that card is idlling (barely making any noise) but if I unpower the riser the fan runs at 100% and never backs down. Can't see that card in device manager either way.

Any suggestions?

[1714176898]

1714176898

[captin crunch]

I would suspect the riser.
The 1st thing you want to do is get both cards to show in device manager.

I had similar problems. I used http://www.magicgrowing.com/bitcoin-mining/pci-e-powered-riser-card-60cm-24-usb-cable/ and they work excelent but I orderd to short of usb cable and so I bought a longer data cable and got the same results you are describing. once I rearanged things so I could use the provided cables all cards showed up in D. M. and worked fine.

not much help but at least something to try.

I would try starting with 1 card in riser in 16x slot and see if you can boot and get the pc to recognize the card. if not I would put money on the problem being te riser.

[bathrobehero]

Using the second PCI x1 slot with the riser, while the other card is not plugged in (using onboard as primary) worked.

Problem is that I can't get both of them to show up in the device manager.

Edit:
monitor attached to onboard, PCI x16 empty, 2nd PCI x1 with GTX 660:


I don't think I ever seen an  "PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge" entry before.

[captin crunch]

Hmm, everything from here out is a stab in the dark.

you might try adding a monitor to the card not being found or make a null adapter but I doubt thats it. And you might try temporarily disable the on-board adapter, I have read somewhere in the past that it can cause conflicts but again probably not the answer.
I don't know what the pci to pci bridge is. I don't seem to have anything like that. (windows 7)
I don't recognize the window you posted. What os? (not that it would help me as I am out of ideas)

hopefully someone with more knowledge than I will chime in and have some other ideas.

[bathrobehero]

It's windows 7, when a new hardware is being installed and you click the icon on the desktop it pops up.

I have tried:
- disabling onboard;
- booting with monitor attached (blindly due to having only one monitor, and swapping back few minutes after complete OS boot);
- detection jumper;
- adding cards one by one in all kind of orders.

[bathrobehero]

Ok, I dig out an old 9600 GT, which worked on the riser the first time along with my GTX 660 sitting in the x16 slot.
Then, I powered down, swapped the 660 Ti with the 9600 GT (which was the case minutes ago) and voila, now it works.
Weird.



Now let's see how far I can push them on a 500W PSU.