And yes, I do realize it is spelled conundrum.

Try the following:
- check manual for power connection (overeheating could by feeding to much power over a single 4 pin power connector, newer mobos have a 4 and 8 pin connector next regular atx connector).
- Check the mobo on the back for bad/ damaged lines.
- get the heatsink off and apply new thermal paste (proper thermal paste can make 5 degrees difference), is the fan powerful enough (high enough CFM)
- how is the air flow in your case (positive, neutral or negative static pressure? Ie how many intake compared to outake fans).
Consider aftermarket cooling (zalman usually offers great packages against decent prices)
Also I suggest considering water cooling.
Before you say anything, I have been reading too much over clocking articles lately for my own computer 🤣
- I suspect your PSU is the culprit and maybe wrong power distribution to your mobo , check your VRM temperatures, better yet if possible send me a CPUZ and GPUZ result file and I can analyse it for you (my recent adventure with my new setup got me back up to date 😀 )

Edit:
You need serious cooling for this setup.
Cpu: 95 W Thermal Design Power
7950 gx2: 110 W EACH Thermal Design Power
Minimal power requirement for a single 7950 is 400W. I advice getting at least 800-1000W for quad.
Also notify your girlfriend to disable the heating. 🤣

While Richo is right on most other fronts, 550w is NOWHERE near enough for a 4-way SLI. Even still, higher wattage PSU is always safer. You'd probably be looking at 900-1000w reasonably.

There is a reason why NOBODY used quad SLI unless their pockets were the size of their computer case. It need a lot of power, kicks out a metric shit ton of heat, and NEVER means 4x the power.

And go right ahead and replace all the thermal compound on all the motherboard components. I suggest Arctic Silver 5 either using the pea method, or the apply and wipe off method (Which has actually worked in my family for years upon years, and it's worked well.) that means you apply it to the CPU, and taking a paper towel you just very simply wipe it across the CPU and get it in there. Don't remove all of it, but just have it so it fills in all the dips and cracks in the die/heatspreader. Do the same for the CPU/NB cooler.

And if something isn't getting enough airflow, put a good fan onto it. Not a small one, put a proper 80-140mm fan somewhere directly blowing on it.

EDIT: Totally forgot to add something. I mean to say while Richo is right on almost everything, you don't need watercooling unless you're going to OC a modern CPU. A regular heat pipe style air cooler will work just fine for the average system.

Thanks for the replies! I think I will just forget about going quad for now and just think of it as a dream that could have been. I'm considering getting an 8800 GTS and calling it a day since it is more powerful than the Quad they say. I will follow all of these suggestions and get back to you guys, thanks again.

Ampera wrote:

While Richo is right on most other fronts, 550w is NOWHERE near enough for a 4-way SLI. Even still, higher wattage PSU is always safer. You'd probably be looking at 900-1000w reasonably.

There is a reason why NOBODY used quad SLI unless their pockets were the size of their computer case. It need a lot of power, kicks out a metric shit ton of heat, and NEVER means 4x the power.

For a old system like that it's for shits and giggles (same with going oldie V2 sli rather then v3). The only edfe the quad sli ensures is max fps possible for that time, a 8800 won't beat that.
Besides if you disable the heater during winter it might save you alot of gas on heating 🤣

And go right ahead and replace all the thermal compound on all the motherboard components. I suggest Arctic Silver 5 either using the pea method, or the apply and wipe off method (Which has actually worked in my family for years upon years, and it's worked well.) that means you apply it to the CPU, and taking a paper towel you just very simply wipe it across the CPU and get it in there. Don't remove all of it, but just have it so it fills in all the dips and cracks in the die/heatspreader. Do the same for the CPU/NB cooler.

I prefer a line of coke method for maximum spread over all corners. Artic silver is what I use currently, great stuff. My 5930 runs at 25°c idle and under °40 during torture(water cooled) (4,4 GHZ oc it runs under 50°c, with 4x 120 mm and 2x 140mm), VRM stays surprisingly cool around 60°c.

Also water cooling is still a option , cheapest 775 set just in for €50 new (designed for 140 TDP, thus ensures a 30 degrees cp at max load I reckon), this saves alot in cooling inside the case.
My advice don't give up so soon, there is plenty of people who can help you here and like to see this project happen.

Ampera wrote:

While Richo is right on most other fronts, 550w is NOWHERE near enough for a 4-way SLI. Even still, higher wattage PSU is always safer. You'd probably be looking at 900-1000w reasonably.

Did you ever had a quad SLI with 7950GX2?

sprcorreia wrote:

Ampera wrote:

While Richo is right on most other fronts, 550w is NOWHERE near enough for a 4-way SLI. Even still, higher wattage PSU is always safer. You'd probably be looking at 900-1000w reasonably.

Did you ever had a quad SLI with 7950GX2?

No, no I haven't, but I have enough computing experience to know that any 4x SLI capable card isn't going to take a few watts of power.

And Richo said the TDP was 110W.

Ampera wrote:

sprcorreia wrote:

Ampera wrote:

While Richo is right on most other fronts, 550w is NOWHERE near enough for a 4-way SLI. Even still, higher wattage PSU is always safer. You'd probably be looking at 900-1000w reasonably.

Did you ever had a quad SLI with 7950GX2?

No, no I haven't, but I have enough computing experience to know that any 4x SLI capable card isn't going to take a few watts of power.

And Richo said the TDP was 110W.

Clearly not enough experience...

To OP, I ran a 7950GX2 quad system, M2N32-SLI Deluxe with a Phenom X4 cpu (more power) with a 600W PSU. Never had a problem.

Make sure RAM is stable and IMC in North Bridge is cooled (demount NB cooler and check paste underneath, I'm positive it's hard rock mess since NV chipsets for LGA 775 are REALLY hot).

Use memtest86+ from pendrive to check RAM.
Also, seeing S.M.A.R.T. status from HDD may be helpful...

Also be aware if the MB is around 10 years old, it might be time to check the capacitors. Bad caps can cause all sorts of problems that are damned near impossible to narrow down: hard drives resetting, RAM sticks working then not working, certain expansion cards won't POST, CPU randomly locks up (Windows XP freezes), things like that.

Definitely want to reseat the heatsink on the Northbridge chip with brand-new thermal compound (TIM = Thermal Interface Material). I just today got my Abit KX7-333 motherboard back from being re-capped and it's made a world of difference for that 15-year-old MB. I'm waiting on a new copper-base CPU cooler tomorrow before I power the thing back on.

Richo said the TDP of the card was 110W. If that's the case then you need 440W total with four cards. That warrants more than even a 600W CPU because you're leaving around 160W for the rest of your system, unless Richo was incorrect. If that is the case, maybe you can inform us properly of the TDP of those cards?

Also, instead of insulting my intelligence, maybe you can just explain your experiences? I'm just trying to help, and no, most people on VOGONS have never used 4 way SLI with 2007 cards. This doesn't mean I can't apply some of my general computing knowledge to the issue. If the OP wanted to limit themselves to first hand experience, I suggest the Linus Tech Tips forum as they have more people that have that setup, because you will probably find few people here.

Yeah, the only SLI I ever ran was 2x GTX 480. Man, that was a beast of a system...until one of the two cards began to die. Damned EVGA and their stupid designed-to-fail-after-2-years cards...

sprcorreia wrote:

Clearly not enough experience...

To OP, I ran a 7950GX2 quad system, M2N32-SLI Deluxe with a Phenom X4 cpu (more power) with a 600W PSU. Never had a problem.

you made me curious sprorreia, I looked up the TDP for cooling reference however considering atleast 30% of energy used is converted into heat (30% is positively speaking btw, I reckon that goes up to an easy 40-50 if not more btw). Could explain how a Quad SLI would be able to run on your setup while a single card system is adviced to have atleast 400W of power (yes I do realise other components use power aswell, although this was calculated pre emptively by Nvidia).
Me I have never used Quad SLI before for the simple reason: WHY? I aint spending €5000,- while a €700 card will do just fine aswell. Most I did was run 7800 GTX SLI because I go the card VERY cheap of a friend who upgraded to a 8800.

ampera wrote:

Richo said the TDP of the card was 110W. If that's the case then you need 440W per card. That warrants more than even a 600W CPU because you're leaving around 160W for the rest of your system, unless Richo was incorrect. If that is the case, maybe you can inform us properly of the TDP of those cards?

I reckon this is while being tortured for again cooling reference, but its also an indication to how much power the card would use.
OH and I am never wrong 🤣
CLICKY

FFXIhealer wrote:

Yeah, the only SLI I ever ran was 2x GTX 480. Man, that was a beast of a system...until one of the two cards began to die. Damned EVGA and their stupid designed-to-fail-after-2-years cards...

likely cooling problems, EVGA does OC the cards with poor cooling from my experience against high prices (The reason I stay away from those stock OEM OC cards)

Richo wrote:

likely cooling problems, EVGA does OC the cards with poor cooling from my experience against high prices (The reason I stay away from those stock OEM OC cards)

I got an identical card from Galaxy, a GTX 480 reference with a blower. And I never did get the overclocked versions. It's just that my first EVGA 480 went dead as the primary card in my SLI setup by crashing Windows and throwing artifacts over time. Mainly it was the crashing Windows thing that pissed me off. So I removed it and elevated the Galaxy card up to the primary PCI-Express slot. I called EVGA and even though I was out of warranty, they replaced the card with a refurbished unit out of their warehouse. So I ran SLI like that for another year before...AGAIN, the EVGA card began to not work properly. Had to remove it again.

But I'm still rocking the Galaxy card just fine in my older system. I wonder if it's a capacitor problem or if I can bake the EVGA card to get it working properly again. I mean, nobody sells 480s anymore. Besides, I'm keeping my eye out for another MSI 980ti blower to come down in price so I can SLI my current setup.

Ampera wrote:

Richo said the TDP of the card was 110W. If that's the case then you need 440W total with four cards. That warrants more than even a 600W CPU because you're leaving around 160W for the rest of your system, unless Richo was incorrect. If that is the case, maybe you can inform us properly of the TDP of those cards?

You can't use 4x 7950 GX2's for Quad SLI (not enough SLI fingers). Maximum ammount is two (but since GX2's have two GPU's per card, we get Quad SLI with two cards).

Ampera wrote:

Richo said the TDP of the card was 110W. If that's the case then you need 440W total with four cards.

7950GX2 already is an SLI card (2 chips, 2 x VRAM), so for quad you need two cards.

So instead of talking of what you clearly don't know maybe you could go read some stuff to at least be more informed when trying to pass good advices to others based on your "experience".

Richo wrote:

OH and I am never wrong 🤣

Except this time? Clearly you don't know what a 7950GX2 is...

And is clear that the OP is talking about 2 cards, it is right there in the first post. The x2 part? That's right, two cards.

sprcorreia wrote:

7950GX2 already is an SLI card (2 chips, 2 x VRAM), so for quad you need two cards. […]
Show full quote

Ampera wrote:

Richo said the TDP of the card was 110W. If that's the case then you need 440W total with four cards.

7950GX2 already is an SLI card (2 chips, 2 x VRAM), so for quad you need two cards.

So instead of talking of what you clearly don't know maybe you could go read some stuff to at least be more informed when trying to pass good advices to others based on your "experience".

Richo wrote:

OH and I am never wrong 🤣

Except this time? Clearly you don't know what a 7950GX2 is..

And is clear that the OP is talking about 2 cards, it is right there in the first post. The x2 part? That's right, two cards.

Tone it down abit will ya, we are all here to learn and help eshoulder. No one has all the knowledge and I jumped in on the cooling part of the build from OP(as believe is an important part of his problem). As I mentioned in my earlier posts and by OP it is likely his system is overheating and his vrm plays a part in it or something g that's overheating ether due cooling or poor distribution (bad caps maybe). Furthermore I replied with TDP for reference as 310 TDP is alot of heat without proper cooling.
So if you please contribute as am I am also interested in this topic, until now the only thing you achieved is bashing other members for no valid reason.

Next time when editing quotes from others, please post the full quote for the right context. It's annoying how you use the quote wrong.

Richo wrote:

Tone it down abit will ya, we are all here to learn and help eshoulder. No has all the knowledge and I jumped in on merely on the cooling part of the build from OP(as believe is an important part of his problem). So if you please contribute as am I am also interested in this topic, until now the only thing you achieved is bashing other members for no valid reason

Richo wrote:

7950 gx2: 110 W EACH Thermal Design Power
Minimal power requirement for a single 7950 is 400W. I advice getting at least 800-1000W for quad.

So... You don't know have a clue to what kind of card he has and still you gave the OP some advice to go and buy a 800-1000W PSU?

OK...

Here's a little update, I attempted to follow all the aforementioned advice. I just put in an order for some thermal paste for everything.

Here is the teardown I just did:

You can see how I had attached that fan, pretty sketchy.

Here is one of the GX2s

The thermal paste was definitely not in great condition, it just kind of fell of there for the most part.

I'm not sure what this is on the Mosfets, not thermal paste, just some kind of rubber.

These have definitely gotten very hot, it's hard to tell in the pictures but the aluminum heatsinks actually have some burn damage on them. I'm wondering if there is damage beyond repair.

Here is the back of the motherboard, it looks good there is no visible damage. I used my analog multimeter to check some of the caps, most are giving good readings but I have a cluster of them giving bad readings. Let me know what you guys think, should I continue with this board.

I'm bidding on a 2007 750w PSU right now. Hopefully I can grab that. The Quad-SLI dream of the 2000s lives on!