4870x2 issue

[TotalLamer]

Just got my new rig together... running what's in the sig. In any case, one of the first thing I tried to do was run Vantage, only to find that running it causes the screen to flicker gray. Later I installed WoW and tried to run it, same thing. I disabled Crossfire, so I'd only be running 1 4870x2... still did it. The only way to get rid of the screen flickering is to disable Catalyst A.I. which of course makes the card run on only 1 core. Any suggestions?

 

[dflynchimp]

go to "my computer", right click and select "properties", go to "device manager" and see if one of your 4870X2's (should be two of them under display adaptors) has an error of some sort (there'd be a yellow triangle with an ! mark). right click and select properties on the 4870X2 that has that (assuming there's a problem) and see the error code for it.

You're running 8GB of RAM with...Vista? if so you might be subjected to the Code 43 error that I also went through. God be with you if it's Code 43 because that's an hour of your life that you'll be spending uninstalling drivers, running driver sweeper in safe mode to clear out old ATI files, then reinstalling the 8.11 drivers (the only one I found that doesn't get the Code 43).

But maybe your problem is different than mine. It'd be helpful to know what OS you're running and which video drivers you're using.

Edit: just realized you're running 2X 4870X2 (4 cores). Not owning another 4870X2 or an X-fire mobo, I guess we're probably not in the same boat.

 

[TotalLamer]

Oh, sorry... yes, running Vista 64. And actually my RAM is only at 4GB right now... I use a TRUE Black, and on my mobo it ends up being mounted horizontally and thus covers the first RAM slot... which is a problem because my Corsair Dominators are way too tall. Should be getting my short G.Skills in a few days, at which point I'll return the Corsair stuff. And no, there's no yellow error triangles in device manager.

 

[dflynchimp]

Catalyst 9.2 I assume? Well lucky you for not getting the Code 43 bug. The flickering is definitely the AFR acting up, so either one of your 4870X2's isn't working, or one of the 4 GPU's isn't working. On the hardware side, is the crossfire bridge securely attached? Update motherboard drivers if possible.

 

[TotalLamer]

What's the AFR?

 

[dflynchimp]

Alternate Frame Rendering, meaning for 10 consecutive frames in two way Xfire, GPU 1 renders frames, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and GPU 2 renders 2, 4, 6, 8, 10. That splits the load between the two GPUs. For 4 GPUS GPU 1 gets 1, 5, 9, GPU 2 gets 2, 6, 10, GPU 3 gets 3, 7, 11, GPU 4 (4, 8, 12)

When one of the GPUs (or more than one with 4-fire) isn't rending its frame, the system still alots a time slot for that frame, which is then left blank. So if you're seeing a blank image on every fourth frame then you would get the flickering effect.