I installed a super simple and cheap 3rd graphics card to my computer with the intention to have both RTX cards fully available for AI stuff and use the simple card for my displays.
The card is an NVIDIA NVS 310 and is WAS displayed in Windows system info, it just didn’t output any video.
After a while, Windows mentioned that there was new software installed for the card that required a reboot and after that, not a single one of my 8 available ports gave any output.
After removing the cheapo card again, only ONE of the 6 outputs on my 2 RTX card gave me a very low-resolution output. The NVIDIA software claimed there were no NVIDIA card installed at all, even though Windows System Info clearly stated there were.
Luckily I have a multi-boot system with 4 SSDs and one HDD and one of the SSDs has a bootable Ventoy installation on it, so I am restoring a complete SSD image I made a few days ago before I added the second RTX to hopefully get things back to life again. Luckily, all my data, including AI models, are stored on a separate data SSD, so I should be able to get up and running relatively quickly.
While I was typing this useless information, the restore has finished, so thumbs crossed and reboot…
After rebooting back in time, the NVIDIA Control Panel instantly crashed. I hope this was just a one-time thing due to restoring an image from a configuration that is different from the current and not because NVIDIA is one of this MANY companies that make great hardware with crappy software.
Anyhow… I have my both my screens active again now… BUT…
Instead of having both screens connected to one card, like I had before, I now have one screen connected to each card and I notice that screen 1 is behaving perfectly fine, while screen 2 is lagging worse than an old Windows 95 computer would! 2 100% identical displays connected to 2 100% identical GPUs…
Then I remembered that Speccy was showing one of the cards to be using a PCI Express x16 port while the other one is using a PCI Express x1 port… God damnit… Now I will have to find into on that and probably download a manual for my motherboard.
To be continued…
Wait a second… before I downloaded the necessary manual like a normal person would, I checked Speccy once more and in the PCI Data section it showed my that I have 6 slots:
- In Use, x16
- Available, x1
- In Use, x1
- Available, x16
- Available, x1
- Available, x16
What the hell is going on here? Luckily, my PC case is not only easy to open up but also has a glass panel on the side. Let’s check if I can find 6 slots and which ones are taken…
Okay, I see 6 slots, but numbers 2 and 5 are really tiny. My cards are indeed plugged in to 1 and 3, so thus far it checks out. I am really getting too old for this shit. But… underneath slot 3, where one of the GPUs is, is an available large slot, which according to the list above, should be slot 4, also an x16 one. So, let’s move that card…
Well, lo and behold, my stupid theory actually worked! I moved the second card one slot down and Speccy now reports them both to be inserted in a x16 slot and my second screen isn’t lagging anymore. Remind me NEVER to buy a computer with an Asus board again, who ever came up with this fucking stupid design? Okay, fair enough, I just know shit about this stuff, but it IS weird to have 6 slots, 4 large, 2 small and then have 3 of the large one be x16 and one x1 while both the small ones are also x1. I can’t be bothered… FUCK you Asus… and THANK YOU Speccy. I can highly recommend this need little free utility to get specifications about your system.
Windows just hijacked my computer for 40 FUCKING MINUTES, doing updates, getting ready, and rebooting 4 goddamn times!!! I am watching the 5th “Getting Windows ready” screen as I write this. I hope the monsters who designed this die in a horrible fiery car accident!
