tony96533

Ever since I added a second 9800 GX2 and enabled SLI I have had nother but problems.

Specs in case it helps:
Vista Ultimate 64-bit
q6600 @ 3.0Ghz
4gb DDR3 RAM 1333
nforce 790i Ultra SLI
Two 9800 GX2's (In Quad-SLI)
1000W PSU
150GB 10kRPM Raptor HD

Also when I talk about the skipping, I mean the game starts to skip around and slow down for about 3 seconds.

The problem:
I seem to get a major drop in performance ever since I enabled SLI. In Counter-Strike: Source with everything on the highest. It runs with like 60-80 fps (Vertical Sync Disabled) but it skips about every 6 seconds and the FPS drops to about 20 when I am turning. When I only had one 9800 gx2 I had a lot more FPS, no skipping, and no drop while turning. It's seems like my FPS was twice as good with only one card in my computer. (This also happens with every other SDK style games like, TF2, Half-Life 2: DM. Portal seems to rarely do it though.) Crysis also runs at 30-40 FPS with all on Very High(AA Disabled and VS disabled). I know that's good but, it also insanely does the skipping every 6 seconds. When I had only one card I only got like 15-25 FPS, but it didn't skip a lot. Oblivion also skips and it says I am running above 100fps, but it doesn't seem like it, seems more like 20fps. Oblivion seems to only skip every 30 seconds though. (Does the same inside a dungeon or out in the main world) So anyway, it basically seems like I am getting a 25%+ drop in performance on most games. My games load levels faster than they did with only one card though.

The only games so far that don't seem to skip around is BioShock and TrackMania Nations Forever(I never tried TrackMania with only one card).

I've tried reinstalling drivers, reinstalling games, wiping my whole system and reinstalling Vista. It all still has random FPS drops and skipping. Would anyone know of what is happening or why I seem to have a drop in performance instead of a gain? Thanks.

Others problems ever since adding another 9800 GX2 and enabling SLI:
No longer in control of GPU fan. (For example I try to set the fan speed to 70% it automatically sets itself back to 45%.)
Increase in temperature by 5c (May not be a problem, I also kind of expected this to happen.)
Idle temps are 73C load is 85C (Before with one card, it was only about 60c idle and 80c load, this could just be from basically adding another heat source.)