I recently bought an EPOX 2themax EP-9NPA+SLI Socket 939 board. I have stuck an FX-57 (as it reports, even though it's labled as an FX-55, mislabel? CPUID reports FX-57 and it runs at FX-57 speeds) into it, along with a 1GB stick of DDR400 into the first slot. Now, it boots into Windows XP off my 4 RAID 0 drives (unreliable, but it wasn't built to hold important data, and backups will be taken) and installs the drivers and everything for the first card, but completely ignores the second one as if it wasn't plugged in. Yes I have the SLI bridge connected right. Yes both cards work, I can swap them out for the first slot just fine.
Now, this board was from a blip in history where in order to use both PCI-E slots you had to switch a little jumper card around to change the slots from one 16x and one off, to dual 8x. If you look at the Newegg listing here:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813123246 you can see this card between the two PCI-E slots. My thought is that it may not be seating right. I've tried to seat it in multiple positions, but that little plastic hook is a bit loose and doesn't tend to hold it very well.
I can't get the second PCI-E slot to function. I've tried different cards, using only that slot, and even holding the jumper card in with my hands. Nothing works. It's possible the PCI-E connector is dead, but I am wondering if there is anything obvious I am doing wrong. The cards I am using are nVidia GeForce GTX 7800 GTX 512 editions. They are both identical, both powered, and both seated firmly into the PCI-E connector.
I'm trying to think if I should try to find a way to seat that jumper card in better. Maybe some sort of putty, rubber band, or something. That hook keeps it in, but it's loose. Even trying to wedge it so that it appears to be in doesn't help anything, and I haven't gotten anything close to a response out of it.
Help is appreciated. Yes my power supply is powerful enough, it's a brand new 650W Corsair supply.