9600 GSO and 7300 GS together

Emil Alexe · 06 Nov 2009

Hello there !

I am trying to use 3 monitors on my PC. I already had two, and just bought a cheap 7300GS from someone and took a display from one of my friends. I already had Windows 7 installed for like 2 or 3 months, with drivers, software and games, all the stuff working ok, including a web and mysql server.

Then I just turned the computer off, plugged in the 7300GS on the secondary PCI-E graphics slot, booted up my sistem, installed an extra nVidia driver, for 7 series and it was all OK for 2 days,after which the bluescreens started to show up.

It would work just fine, then after restart gave blank-screen on windows logon + BSOD immediately after, and after BSOD's auto-restart, it would let me choose from startup repair and normal startup, where normal had the same BSOD problem. I was forced to run startup repair, after 5 million years of intensive windows-like scanning

, it was saying it can't find anything wrong, but it worked again after restart.

Then I could enter Windows quite normally, on 3 monitors again, but after another shutdown the same thing happened all over again and again.

Sooo, in my wisdom, I decided to download the latest available Win7 version (mine was still beta). And I reinstalled Windows 7, but still have problems.

Each graphic card runs perfectly smooth and flawless on its own, no matter which one it is or on which PCI-E port it stands.

I tried this:

1. Start Windows with both cards, let Win 7 download it's own drivers. Restart => BSOD.

2. Start Windows, let it download drivers, then removing them from device manager. Then installed 2 nVidia drivers, one for each graphic card. Restart => BSOD.

3. Same as 2 with only one driver that supports both 7 and 9 series graphic processors (and I tested many versions of these drivers, newer or older, beta or non-beta). Restart => BSOD.

4. Set from GPEDIT.msc so that windows does not auto-install drivers, and installed only the nVidia ones, same problem.

So NOTHING WORKS ! BIOS is set at default factory settings, for being sure there is no problem because of this. All frequencies and voltages are default, no overclocking.

Also to be mentioned that on Windows XP 32-bit it works perfectly fine with solution No. 3 (same driver for both cards). Absolutely no problem !

Is there anything I can do to make it work under Win 7 ? Or do I need another 9 series card ?

thefabe · 06 Nov 2009

Although I have no real solution for your I admire your tenacity. Personaly I would just buy (if your concidering buying another card) one of the ATI 5XXX series cards that support 3 monitors on 1 card. Like this one with DX11,GDDR5,Eyefinity 2 dvi out and 1 HDMI Newegg.com - XFX HD-577A-ZNFC Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

ultraplanet · 06 Nov 2009

Maybe a power supply problem?? Try unplugging one of your hard drives for a few minutes to test. Just an idea.

thefabe · 06 Nov 2009

Also check out this thread dual card trouble... 8800gt & 5200fx If anyone can get your cards to work together it's torrentg. Fabe

Emil Alexe · 06 Nov 2009

ultraplanet said:

Maybe a power supply problem?? Try unplugging one of your hard drives for a few minutes to test. Just an idea.

I said that it is running PERFECTLY in Windows XP !!!

So there is definitely no hardware problem. Just a matter of drivers. I think. And compatibility with the OS.

I would actually consider sticking to Win XP till 7 gets more stable, but I got to tell ya, DirectX10 and mostly the user interface in Win7 are addictive as hell :P Especially when you do PHP/MySQL and you work with a lot of windows, files and folders, Win 7's interface and features are wonderful !

stormy13 · 06 Nov 2009

I said that it is running PERFECTLY in Windows XP !!!

That would be because both cards were using identical drivers. You'll probably find the problem you are running into is that the 9600 can use the WDDM 1.1 driver, while the 7300 is using the WDDM 1.0 version. The problem is that despite the differences between the 1.1 and 1.0, the cards are still trying to use the same driver which aren't really the same (there will be some of the driver files that are the same and some different). Nvidia used to include that info on the download page,

Installs WDDM v1.1 for GeForce 8, 9, and 200-series DirectX 10 GPUs.
Installs WDDM v1.0 for GeForce 6 and 7-series DirectX 9 GPUs.

but for whatever reason have removed it.

Be willing to bet that if you could get your hands on a cheap 8400GS or something (even a completely different make of card, ATI), the BSOD's would go away.

thefabe · 06 Nov 2009

Couldn't have been a more polite suggestion, Try and go a little easier on the guy no need to shout. Thanks

Emil Alexe · 06 Nov 2009

Not a shout, just pointing out so that it is clear for everyone.

torrentg · 07 Nov 2009

Upload the .inf you're using to install and attach to a post. I'll look and see if I could get them both to run WDDM 1.1.

Should be able to at least attempt with a few edits. I'll attach to a post. You can replace and then try to update the old card through device manager method.

Emil Alexe · 07 Nov 2009

Don't worry anymore, I gave up. Just gonna buy a series 9 in a few weeks. Not worth the effort. And I will have a somewhat new card, not an old series.