SLI restarts computer unexpectedly

[Eyechewer]

Hello.

First let me say that I'm not a very technical person so please use layman terms.
I bought a new pc few days ago. Its specs are: i7 6700 intel processor, 2x 16 GB RAM, motherboard Asus SABERTOOTH Z170 MARK 1, PSU Corsair 850W 80+ Platinum HX850i. Case is corsair 500r carbide.

I have 2 GPUs, both are gtx 1080 asus turbo. OS is windows 10.

I played wow today with SLI disabled and had no issues for many hours.
But when I tried with SLI, i nearly immediately upon logging into the game crashed and the computer restart.
this also happened with the game rise of the tomb raider, but I could play for about an hour before it restart unexpectedly.

Driver Booster says I have up to date drivers. Speccy monitored my GPU temps to be around 70 celsius.

Why is this happening and how can I fix this?

[Mythbredor]

Is that 70C in games or out of games? WoW isn't optimized whatsoever for SLI, another good question is can you ever get any use out of 2 1080s? Playing wow even at 4k you'll see little to no performance gain.

For tomb raider not sure, what SLI bridge are you using?

[Eyechewer]

70 in games.
In WoW yeah you would be correct, but in rise of the tomb raider i saw massive gain from enabling sli. and it seemed to work very well for about an hour until it unexpectedly restart.

[Mythbredor]

70 in games.
In WoW yeah you would be correct, but in rise of the tomb raider i saw massive gain from enabling sli. and it seemed to work very well for about an hour until it unexpectedly restart.

Do you have a "High Bandwidth Sli Bridge" or one of the normal ones? Not sure if that would causing crashing but worth a shot. Another thing to check is make sure the second card is firmly seated into the pci-e socket and the power cables are firmly seated. Do you get any errors with the crash (check event viewer).

[Eyechewer]

I get kernel-power event id 41 "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."

[Mythbredor]

I get kernel-power event id 41 "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."

Were there any errors before that?

[Eyechewer]

None that I can see.

[Mythbredor]

None that I can see.

What SLI bridge do you have? A high bandwidth sli bridge or a normal sli bridge? if you can't tell take a picture of it and upload it here.

[Eyechewer]

Its a normal one that came with the motherboard.

I think I know whats going on though. On a hunch, I disconnected everything that draws power from my PSU apart from my mouse and keyboard (razer naga and razer deathstalker chroma. both glowing with colors and stuff), and i disabled their glowing colors, and set my case fans to minimum speed.

Started wow now and played for about 10 minutes no problem. didnt restart. before that it would restart me very early on.

Could it be my PSU just doesnt supply enough power to everything? 10 minutes isnt exactly a whole lot of testing time, i'll try more tomorrow and post results, but this seems encouraging.

FYI while playing before making these adjustments, i had my xbox one controller connected to the pc, as well as razer kraken headphones, razer naga mouse and razer deathstalker keyboard all connected and with glowing colors, as well as case fans to max. Maybe my PSU just cant deliver enough power to all those AND both GPUs. When I played wow earlier using no sli (just 1 card) i had no issue at all.

[Mythbredor]

Its a normal one that came with the motherboard.

I think I know whats going on though. On a hunch, I disconnected everything that draws power from my PSU apart from my mouse and keyboard (razer naga and razer deathstalker chroma. both glowing with colors and stuff), and i disabled their glowing colors, and set my case fans to minimum speed.

Started wow now and played for about 10 minutes no problem. didnt restart. before that it would restart me very early on.

Could it be my PSU just doesnt supply enough power to everything? 10 minutes isnt exactly a whole lot of testing time, i'll try more tomorrow and post results, but this seems encouraging.

FYI while playing before making these adjustments, i had my xbox one controller connected to the pc, as well as razer kraken headphones, razer naga mouse and razer deathstalker keyboard all connected and with glowing colors, as well as case fans to max. Maybe my PSU just cant deliver enough power to all those AND both GPUs. When I played wow earlier using no sli (just 1 card) i had no issue at all.

I highly doubt it's a power issue. I threw together a test system on pcpartpicker to see it's estimated TDP. only at 610W.

[Eyechewer]

Nope. You're right. just went around in suramar for a bit - got restarted. What's going on?

[Mythbredor]

Nope. You're right. just went around in suramar for a bit - got restarted. What's going on?

Not a high bandwidth sli bridge probably, that's my best guess right now. That's my suggestion pick a high bandwidth sli bridge up from like amazon or something or if you have a local store that sells one and you want it super fast. That maybe should fix it?

:Updated: Try what denpepe said first, honestly not too sure.

[Denpepe]

There is a reason why we usually advise people to stick with 1 GPU, it's to avoid all possible issues that come with SLI like you are experiencing now. While there is a minuscule possibility the crashes are related to the SLI bridge, I'm thinking more in the lines of a corrupted driver or if there is an issue with an overclock.

If the CPU is overclocked try stock settings, for the drivers manually download the latest one from the Nvidia website, uninstall your current ones with DDU and install the one you downloaded after DDU has finished.

[Eyechewer]

Nothing is overclocked. I'll try fixing the drivers

[lolwutshield]

See if you can cause it to crash only using a cpu stress test just to isolate the graphics cards as the issue also what are your temps at on the cpu?. is the fan on the psu spinning during load? I would also try swapping the cards in in single config to see if either crashes using a stress test. Also try putting the single cards in the second pcie slot you were using for crossfire? I know it is unlikely to be a cpu issue but you should be as thorough as possible because you may find out something else is the issue.

[Mythbredor]

See if you can cause it to crash only using a cpu stress test just to isolate the graphics cards as the issue also what are your temps at on the cpu?. is the fan on the psu spinning during load? I would also try swapping the cards in in single config to see if either crashes using a stress test. Also try putting the single cards in the second pcie slot you were using for crossfire? I know it is unlikely to be a cpu issue but you should be as thorough as possible because you may find out something else is the issue.

He already isolated the GPU, it doesn't happen while not running SLI.

[Gorgodeus]

Its a normal one that came with the motherboard.

I think I know whats going on though. On a hunch, I disconnected everything that draws power from my PSU apart from my mouse and keyboard (razer naga and razer deathstalker chroma. both glowing with colors and stuff), and i disabled their glowing colors, and set my case fans to minimum speed.

Started wow now and played for about 10 minutes no problem. didnt restart. before that it would restart me very early on.

Could it be my PSU just doesnt supply enough power to everything? 10 minutes isnt exactly a whole lot of testing time, i'll try more tomorrow and post results, but this seems encouraging.

FYI while playing before making these adjustments, i had my xbox one controller connected to the pc, as well as razer kraken headphones, razer naga mouse and razer deathstalker keyboard all connected and with glowing colors, as well as case fans to max. Maybe my PSU just cant deliver enough power to all those AND both GPUs. When I played wow earlier using no sli (just 1 card) i had no issue at all.

2x1080 will only draw about 490 watts max. The rest of your system should not be eating up the rest. Sounds like a faulty PSU.

[lolwutshield]

He already isolated the GPU, it doesn't happen while not running SLI.

yes but since sli can make your processor load higher if he has framerates uncapped. I am also assuming hes running 4k AND highest possbile settings in wow. 4k with SSAA+CMA will hammer a single 1080 and sli will have a decent benefit here. I still think it is worth a quick look into just to make sure cpu temps are good and are not an issue. My vote though is going to be bad psu. I personally have not seen/heard of sli shutting off a pc just because of driver problems, usually more of a heat/power kind of thing. I can be wrong.

[Eyechewer]

Ok so update on the situation -

I have reinstalled the drivers and the error still occurs. But I now have also connected my ups (this one http://www.advice.co.il/en/new-at-ad...-system-detail) to the pc.

Sure enough, when i play with sli, the ups is beeping continuously. According to the manual that means the UPS is overloaded. And when I exit WoW, everything is fine again.

guess this means that I just need to buy a more powerful psu?

[potis]

Ok so update on the situation -

I have reinstalled the drivers and the error still occurs. But I now have also connected my ups (this one http://www.advice.co.il/en/new-at-ad...-system-detail) to the pc.

Sure enough, when i play with sli, the ups is beeping continuously. According to the manual that means the UPS is overloaded. And when I exit WoW, everything is fine again.

guess this means that I just need to buy a more powerful psu?

Its not about power, it was obvious it was PSU from the start.

PC does not turn off from errors, it turns off from Power and Heat warning precautions.

Something is wrong with your PSU, thats all, now what is wrong, its not for us to discover but Corsair.