Considering that the X79 chipset is not very old even by PC standards, I haven't seen much in the way of incompatibility doing 4-way SLI with the 980s as of recently but frankly, I would contact Asus to see if there are any known issues with this configuration. I can confirm that the latest drivers have no problem with 3 or 4-way SLI but full support from the motherboard manufacturer is a different story.

I put back in my EVGA GTX 690 Graphics Cards with Hydro Copper Water Blocks and set to Quad SLI.
It Work Great,  Fire Strike Score 15488  &  3DMark 11 20794 Scores.
 
Dose anyone run the GTX 970 or 980 on the X79 Dark Motherboard?

What issues specifically? Board not POSTing? 

Interesting. Read thru the entire post. Did you keep the X79 Dark on order?

So this is what I will be going with on the X79 Dark Motherboard for the 4 GTX 980 HC Graphics Cards:
 
         Intel i7-4960X Extreme Edition LGA 2011 Processors BX80633I74960X
 
   
        Kingston Technology HyperX Beast 32GB Kit 2400MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL11 DIMM XMP Desktop Memory HX324C11T3K4/32
 
         Crucial MX100 256GB SATA 2.5" 7mm (with 9.5mm adapter) Internal Solid State Drive CT256MX100SSD1
 
I will take this and drop getting a X99 Motherboard and the GTX 980 Classified Hydro Coppers when they are released.
I will miss have 8 Cores thought.
 
I really want the 8 Cores. 
BIG Change. I got all but the X79 Dark Motherboard Cancelled
         EVGA X99 Classified Intel Socket LGA 2011-3 with DDR4 2666Mhz Motherboard 151-HE-E999-KR
 
         Intel Core i7-5960X Haswell-E 8-Core 3.0GHz LGA 2011-v3 140W Desktop Processor BX80648I75960X
 

Going to give EVGA some more of my money, let's hope that I will be able to run 4-Way SLI without having to do any RMA on the Video Cards. But then this is why I am staying for one more round. Watch Out Folding and Crunching Teams.

iamSneaky
Odd, my RIVF runs my 780 Classifieds just fine?

They are 780 not 980 cards, my Rampage IV Formula X79 runs two 690 cards in Quad SLI just fine.
I even have 3 GTX 690 Cards running fine as well as 4 Single GPU and never once had an issue.
Before that I had 3 GTX 680 Classified Cards installed, also with no issues. 
 
I cannot believe that I have 4 Bad GTX 980 HC Cards.
 
I have tried every combo of only two cards and I could not get any to run usable SLI.
My whole reason I replaced the 690 Cards was I wanted true 4-Way SLI.
Have to wait until I get a new rig built to find out.
 
This is what 4-Way SLI looked like:

 
And this is 2-Way and 3-Way SLI

 

Current Errors: Fire Strike
Unexpected error running tests. Workload Single init returned error message: File: device_resources.cpp Line: 313 Function: class eva::com_ptr<struct ID3D11Buffer> __cdecl eva::d3d11::device_resources::create_buffer(const struct D3D11_BUFFER_DESC &,const struct D3D11_SUBRESOURCE_DATA *) const
Expression: hr: DX11 call failed [-2005270523].
Hardware device removed. DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED: ID3D11Device::CreateBuffer:
 
EVGA OC Scanner X v3 (64-bit) Fails
BSOD Code: 0117
 
Best way to RMA all 4 Cards at the same time?

Sent in a support ticket for an RMA, I hope I can send in all 4 cards at once.
This is not common, odd that also the newer cards are coming out with 1 6-Pin and 1 8-Pin PCIe for Power.
The HC has only 2 6-Pin unlike the Classified Model.

This would drive me crazy, from everything you have tried, pretty sure it points to the 980's being the issue.
RMA those suckers.

Gotta love all the issues the 900 series have. 

bcavnaugh
Current Errors: Fire Strike
Unexpected error running tests. Workload Single init returned error message: File: device_resources.cpp Line: 313 Function: class eva::com_ptr<struct ID3D11Buffer> __cdecl eva::d3d11::device_resources::create_buffer(const struct D3D11_BUFFER_DESC &,const struct D3D11_SUBRESOURCE_DATA *) const
Expression: hr: DX11 call failed [-2005270523].
Hardware device removed. DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED: ID3D11Device::CreateBuffer:
 
EVGA OC Scanner X v3 (64-bit) Fails
BSOD Code: 0117
 
Best way to RMA all 4 Cards at the same time?

That's crazy. How the heck could all 4 cards be bad?!!!? Especially that all four would end up in YOUR rig too?!?!? The chances must be astronomical. If that's the case go buy as many lottery tickets as you can BC cause your about to win BIG. The only card I would suspect is the one that didn't have the covers, if I had to suspect any of them, but I don't think its the cards. Did you try running stock config in bios but manually setting voltages on the important params and hiking the vcore a notch at a time? That means ram too. Its gotta be something with the mobo, like your thinking, because you test and fix one thing, and you get a new error, fix, test new error etc..... very suspicious.

Sajin
I think it's the cards myself.
 
BSOD 0x117 causes:

#1 Corrupted graphics driver.
#2 Defective video card.
#3 Insufficient power to video card or defective PSU.
 
DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED causes:
 
#1 Unstable video card.
#2 Corrupted precisoin/afterburner.
#3 Corrupted graphics driver.
 
What happens when you downclock all the cards?
 

Here is an update:
If I plug in the 3rd card from the top I can still enable 4-Way SLI and it runs fine for all the NEW 3DMarks Benchmarks. Fire Strike 27527
But under 3DMarks 11 same issue as image in #19 BUT WOW! P35144 A Record for Me.
If I plug in the cable to Card #2 or #4 I get 3-Way Only
 
Still waiting for support ticket process.

Sajin
Are you talking about plugging in your monitor?

Yes
 
3. X99GTX980Crunch...  bcavnaugh +11 35,144 27,527
And this is without Overclocking the GPU.
Never been on more than one of the http://www.modsrigs.com/topRating.aspx page before and now I have 3 Spots.

I know if it were me I'd ..................................NUKE the whole thing!!!!!
 
So your saying you have it figured out?