2nd card in Crossfire not recognized?

[The Rev]

Hey guys... I posted this in the technical support section, but I thought I'd try posting here too. I'm totally stumped on this graphics card problem and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions.

Here's what's happening:

I just built this computer (the one in the sig), and getting Crossfire to work properly has been nothing but trouble. After installing the cards and the latest drivers (6.6) from ATi, I enabled Crossfire in the Catalyst Control Center. When I attempted to run a 3D app (3DMark05 or the pixel shader test in PCMark05), I lost the video signal. In other words, all I saw was a black screen.

Next, I went back into Catalyst and disabled Crossfire to see if I could run 3D apps using only the X1900XT Crossfire Edition card. Sure enough, 3DMark05 worked just fine and I came out with a score of about 7000, which seems reasonable for a single 1900xt.

At this point, I thought my 2nd slave 1900xt may be defective, so I took out the master card, and put the the slave into the 1st PCI-E slot where the Xfire edition card had been. Windows didn't recognize the card at first, but I reloaded the drivers and then the card worked just fine, so I ruled out the possibility that either card is, by itself, defective.

So I reinstalled both cards and reloaded the drivers from scratch, enabled Xfire in Catalyst, and still got a black screen. Frustrated, I screwed around with some 3D settings in Catalyst, moving all the sliders up as far as they could go (14X AA, e.g.). For whatever reason, this seemed to do the trick -- I could now see my 3D apps with Xfire enabled. However, to my dismay, when I ran 3DMark05 again I got a score of 6500, or 500 less than I got with Xfire disabled.

I looked at the system details in 3DMark05, and it showed that I have only 1 display device detected (the 1900XT Crossfire Edition). When I scrolled down to Card Slots under Motherboard Info, it said that Slot 2, the PCI-E x8 slot where the 2nd 1900xt should be, was "Available."

Puzzled, I went into the Windows device manager, but it showed that I did in fact have 2 display devices... so I don't know what's going on... I tried connecting the external Xfire dongle to the other DVI slot on the 2nd card, but that made no difference (I don't see how it would anyway).

ATi support guy says he thinks it may be a memory bottleneck since my Crucial memory isn't "Crossfire certified." He suggested removing a dimm and trying 3DMark again... I did... didn't work. Don't know why it would anyway -- that memory is pretty good.

I think that's it... I don't know what to do. Like I said, I'm stumped... If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them. Thanks!

-Rev

 

[LittleNemoNES]

The crossfire cable has a way to be connected. Look @ the instructions.

That said I have to say...

For the love of humanity, I hope that CPU is OCed because otherwise that is the worst combo CPU+Vid cards I have ever seen... I'm sorry but it's true.

 

[The Rev]

Well, the Crossfire cable is connected the way it says in the manual, and I've tried the only other way possible (DVI port on slave card directly beneath the Crossfire cable port on the master card)... So I think it must be something else?

As of right now, the 805 isn't OC'ed -- I just built this thing and want to get all the hardware up and running properly before I tweak bios -- but don't worry, I hope to get it up to around 3.7GHz on my Zalman 9500 cooling asap.

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Ackmed]

There is a very annoying problem with Cat 6.6's. With some monitors (seems to mostly Dells from what I have seen), 6.6's in CF, turn off the LCD when launching any 3D app. It does it to me, with a 2405FPW. Going back to 6.5 solves the issue. I have to say, this is the first "bug" I have had with Cats in a long time. That still doesnt excuse it though. There is a "workaround", use an analog cable, or adapter, its a DVI issue only.

 

[The Rev]

Interesting... Though I suppose I should mention that the display I'm currently using is a Viewsonic VG150, which has an analog connection. That also wouldn't explain why my 3DMark score drops when Xfire is enabled... But thanks for the tip -- Hopefully I won't have those problems you have with the 2405FPW when I get my 2407FPW in the mail tomorrow...

 

[Ackmed]

Here is a thread about the problem; http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33859699

I would just go back to 6.5's.

 

[The Rev]

Well, I'm out of ideas, so I guess I'll try rolling back to 6.5. Thanks for the tip! Keep your fingers crossed for me...

 

[The Rev]

Dang... Didn't work...

 

[ItsAlive]

7000 points in 3dmark05 seems kinda low for an x1900xt......I score around 8500 with the rig in my sig. What kind of score do you get with the single non-xfire card?

 

[The Rev]

Hmmm... single non-xfire card still got a score of around 7000 (6936 to be exact). Maybe the ati guy was right and there is a bottleneck somewhere in my system?

 

[Bull Dog]

its your processor, that thing is bottlenecking you so badly it isn't even funny. The reason why your Crossfire enabled scores dropped is because of the overhead related with Crossfire/SLI and the fact that you are so CPU bound. Take out 1 card, figure out how far your CPU can overclock, make sure your system is stable, then put the second card in.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

$119 CPU + $950 in Vid cards =

 

[The Rev]

Really? I thought it was pretty difficult to bottleneck GPUs with the CPU... Guess I'll go ahead and OC the proc.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Originally posted by: The Rev
Really? I thought it was pretty difficult to bottleneck GPUs with the CPU... Guess I'll go ahead and OC the proc.

When conroe comes out soon, get a e6600 and then your PC will go from a horrible mistake to an awesome PC. Save about 350 for the end of the month -- trust me, it will be worth it. Thank god for your Bad Axe mobo.

In the mean time, simply crank up the eye candy in games. Higher resolutions with more AA.

 

[The Rev]

Concerning Conroe: Well, yeah, that was the plan to begin with (thus the 304 mobo).

Here's the only thing that bothers me about this maybe not being a CPU bottleneck issue:

Why do 3DMark05 and PCMark05 both say that I only have 1 display adapter and show that my second PCIE slot, the one where my 2nd card should be, is "available" -- in other words, empty? That's the real mystery here, I think. Also, Catalyst only shows my Xfire card in the Graphics Adapter pull down menu (i.e., Graphics Adapter: {begin pull-down box} 1. Radeon X1900 CrossFire Edition [DELL 2407WFP] {end pull-down box}). Why would this be happening? As I said before, both cards are showing up in the Windows hardware device manager. So... what the heck?

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Originally posted by: The Rev
Concerning Conroe: Well, yeah, that was the plan to begin with (thus the 304 mobo).

Here's the only thing that bothers me about this maybe not being a CPU bottleneck issue:

Why do 3DMark05 and PCMark05 both say that I only have 1 display adapter and show that my second PCIE slot, the one where my 2nd card should be, is "available" -- in other words, empty? That's the real mystery here, I think. Also, Catalyst only shows my Xfire card in the Graphics Adapter pull down menu (i.e., Graphics Adapter: {begin pull-down box} 1. Radeon X1900 CrossFire Edition [DELL 2407WFP] {end pull-down box}). Why would this be happening? As I said before, both cards are showing up in the Windows hardware device manager. So... what the heck?

Did you change drivers? Re-install the drivers and see if that helps cos that happened to me once too.

 

[rbV5]

As I said before, both cards are showing up in the Windows hardware device manager. So... what the heck?

You should have 4 display adaptors showing in device manager;

*Radeon X1900 Crossfire edition
*Radeon X1900 Crossfire edition Secondary
*Radeon X1900 series
*Radeon X1900 series Secondary

Do you have the cards in the appropriate PCIe slots in the motherboard?

 

[The Rev]

Yep, that's exactly what the device manager shows. Both cards are definitely in the correct mobo slots. And yes, I've tried reinstalling drivers several times. I even tried reverting back to Catalyst 6.5. So........

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: The Rev
Yep, that's exactly what the device manager shows. Both cards are definitely in the correct mobo slots. And yes, I've tried reinstalling drivers several times. I even tried reverting back to Catalyst 6.5. So........

SuperAA should only be available with Crossfire enabled (14x). Test performance with Crossfire superAA 14x vs Crossfire noAA vs Crossfire disabed 6xAA vs Crossfire disabled noAA. You can crank up the resolution if you are CPU bound for your tests, and try some games and use fraps or Riva tuner to monitor your FPS.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Originally posted by: rbV5

Originally posted by: The Rev
Yep, that's exactly what the device manager shows. Both cards are definitely in the correct mobo slots. And yes, I've tried reinstalling drivers several times. I even tried reverting back to Catalyst 6.5. So........

SuperAA should only be available with Crossfire enabled (14x). Test performance with Crossfire superAA 14x vs Crossfire noAA vs Crossfire disabed 6xAA vs Crossfire disabled noAA. You can crank up the resolution if you are CPU bound for your tests, and try some games and use fraps or Riva tuner to monitor your FPS.

That's a great Idea.

 

[The Rev]

Great idea.

I tried FRAPS on a small section of Ultimate Spider-Man (only game currently installed on my comp) at 1920x1200 resolution.

Here's what I got:

Xfire enabled, 14X AA -- 23.044 FPS
Xfire enabled, 2X AA -- 22.956 FPS
disabled, 6X AA -- 22.882 FPS
disabled, 2X AA -- 24.138 FPS

To me, this says that my 2nd card really isn't being detected by Catalyst, but what do you guys think? What else can I do?

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Originally posted by: The Rev
Great idea.

I tried FRAPS on a small section of Ultimate Spider-Man (only game currently installed on my comp) at 1920x1200 resolution.

Here's what I got:

Xfire enabled, 14X AA -- 23.044 FPS
Xfire enabled, 2X AA -- 22.956 FPS
disabled, 6X AA -- 22.882 FPS
disabled, 2X AA -- 24.138 FPS

To me, this says that my 2nd card really isn't being detected by Catalyst, but what do you guys think? What else can I do?

Hmm something is just wrong. Uninstall the drivers and try again. But really that CPU is teh craps for crossfire.

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: The Rev
Great idea.

I tried FRAPS on a small section of Ultimate Spider-Man (only game currently installed on my comp) at 1920x1200 resolution.

Here's what I got:

Xfire enabled, 14X AA -- 23.044 FPS
Xfire enabled, 2X AA -- 22.956 FPS
disabled, 6X AA -- 22.882 FPS
disabled, 2X AA -- 24.138 FPS

To me, this says that my 2nd card really isn't being detected by Catalyst, but what do you guys think? What else can I do?

It MUST be recognized or Crossfire would not be available in CCC at all. What results did you get with 3dmark with different levels of AA forced in CCC? Perhaps install another, more mainstream game as well.

 

[The Rev]

I'll try forcing different levels of AA in 3DMark, but answer me this:

Should I only be seeing the CrossFire Edition card listed in the "Graphics Adapter" box in CCC? (You know, it's the box that's box to the right of the CCC screen under Welcome, or Digital Panel Properties, or CrossFire, or whichever Graphics Settings tab you happen to be under at the moment.)

Because right now, all I see in that box is "1. Radeon X1900 CrossFire Edition [DELL 2407WFP]". Seems like there should be a 2. listed there as well...

Also, when I go over to the Graphics Hardware tab under Information Center in CCC, all that's listed is the single Xfire card.

What's up with that?

 

[The Rev]

Update:

I reflahsed my BIOS and reinstalled my video drivers and CCC, but it seems nothing has changed.