Crossfire problems, a $400 nightmare

[TSCrv]

ok, im not new to computers, but to crossfire i am, and im having one heck of a time getting a msi x1900xt and a msi x1900 crossfire edition to mate. well, when i first installed the cards, there was no way to get video on any of the ports, eventually after digging around on the net for a while i gathered that i had to uninstall the existing x1900xt's drivers, which i did, and i can get video, sometimes. every 2nd or 3rd restart i get no video once windows loads. unplugging the dvi-vga converter from the dongle fixes this, about 80% of the time.

then theres enabling crossfire, after 2 hours of trying to get video in general, i finnally get into CCC and im at the enable crossfire screen... ok click it and boom, it enables, but no video... so i eventually figure out that i have to hotkey around and was able to hit the Yes button with no video whatsoever. sometimes i would get lucky and my video would come up then i could hit ok. sometimes it wouldnt... so many restarts at this point.

now i get it to actually boot in crossfire mode, but i cant open CCC or i lose sync untill i unplug the monitor and plug it back in. crossfire disables itself if i do that, WTF.. so after some trial and error i find out that crissfire is enabled (i hope) so i loaded up 3dmark to compare with my single x1900xt's scores. now the fun part

proxycon worked fine, looked faster to me. but the next test, the stupid one with the wisps, i got heavy artifacting. you could see the test was running fine and fast, but there was an overlay of the test compressed horizontally by about 500% and heavy artifacting, enough to not recognize the picture.... then the first cpu test, ran fine. when it loaded the 2nd cpu test, 3dmark crashed.... wtf.

im really considering returning this crossfire card and bite the restocking fee because crossfire on my system is so f88ked up that any time i change modes, enable a 3d app, or even do something take a leak and make pizza it has screwed up (slight exaggeration)

my system: asus p5w dh deluxe 1201 bios
2gb muskin redline
x6800 C2D, clocked at 3.30 (but for settnig up crossfire i went back to stock, so clocking isnt an issue, ALL bios is at default cept boot order)

also i cant get any hotkeys for profiles to work, i managed to save a crossfire enabled profile but it seems that hotkeys just dont work... oh, and also i would get heavy artifacting in the CCC when changing modes....

and just to tihnk, i vowed never to use ati again since many ati cards would crash in searing gorge in WoW, guess i shouda listened to myself.

HELP!!!! i have to be doing something wrong, should i return, work another 12 hours on it (which ive prolly worked about 8 on it allready) or go on a rampage and bash this thing over some guys head that works at ati???

 

[Elfear]

Hmmm. I have none of the of the issues you've described. It's either the motherboard or some driver issue (probably the latter). First thing I'd do is uninstall all ATI apps you have including ATI Tray Tools, ATI Tool, and any ATI drivers. Next reboot and go into safe mode and use Driver Cleaner Pro to clean any remaining ATI debris that might be hanging around. Now boot back into Windows normally and install the Cat 6.8 drivers with CCC. Reboot and than enable Crossfire. At this point check and make sure everything is working ok. If everything is running smooth than you can install the other ATI apps you might want to use.

That's probably very simplified for you but it's usually the little easy things that hang us up. There's a possiblity that your Crossfire card is messed up but I highly doubt it.

 

[Zap]

Try running the cards one at a time. The only person I know locally who tried to go Crossfire had all kinds of problems. He finally determined that one card was faulty by running them one at a time.

 

[TSCrv]

since you have dual 1900xt's elfear what is the performance gain from 1 card to 2, assuming stock speeds.

 

[CreepieDeCrapper]

Originally posted by: Zap
Try running the cards one at a time. The only person I know locally who tried to go Crossfire had all kinds of problems. He finally determined that one card was faulty by running them one at a time.

I don't think you can test the CF edition card by itself. To my understanding, it has to be run in tandem with a regular x1900xt/x. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: CreepieDeCrapper

Originally posted by: Zap
Try running the cards one at a time. The only person I know locally who tried to go Crossfire had all kinds of problems. He finally determined that one card was faulty by running them one at a time.

I don't think you can test the CF edition card by itself. To my understanding, it has to be run in tandem with a regular x1900xt/x. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

A crossfire edition card can be run by itself as well as a regular version.

 

[TSCrv]

i just ran both cards on their own just fine....

crossfire edition card scored 6290 alone with the other card out of the computer. and the crossfire enabled card, regular 1900xt scored 6291, with the enabled card out of the computer... just one point higher.

it seems to me that both cards work, the edition card does have some horizontal lines that jet across (like an old tv when color first came out, like when you turned it off you would see a line across the center)... but this would be colored, not solid, just not normal in my book...

and i will be enabling crossfire withen 10 mins, if it doesnt work ima load up TS and vent and hope i can find some1 to walk me through it step by step, assuming they have the same setup in front of them...

 

[TSCrv]

ok, im still just as pissed as i was before, but at least i can define some problems....

3dmark score in crossfire (see below) was 9588, compared to 6291... so crossfire works, but not quite

well, there are 6 tests, the first 3, i had NO SYNC WHATSOEVER, i couldnt see anything, it was if i unplugged the cable and my monitor LED went from green to orange, but i didnt and i have been sitting right here eating oatmeal feeling my blood pressure rise.

the 4th test, 2nd cpu test, ran fine. slow as normal, and couldnt see anytihng wrong with it... thats 1/4 so far.

the 5th test, ran fast, but around the 30-50 secs into it on the counter, it began really heavy artifacting... but it wasnt artifacts i saw... every other frame was 1 second behind,.... if you had a timeline, it SHOULD look like this, (im writing down frame numbers to make it simple)

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 <------ odd numbers are the slave card, and even is the master card in this diagram.... this is how it SHOULD be, all numbers in order.

this is what i saw:
20 13 22 15 24 17 26 19 28 21 30 23 32 <---- notice how frame 20 is being rendered, then it goes back in time and renders something about 3/4 of a second later (according to timer)... this SHOULD NOT HAPPEN

basically the 2 cards were out of sync with each other, and they didnt get out of sync untill towards the end of the tests, like around the 1 minute mark. guess the patch cable isnt doing its job, or is it the pcie bus that does that? doubleU Tee eF mate ^^

the above happened on both test 5 and 6, same with below

towards the end when i was watching 2 movies, being 1 second apart, (talking about giving some1 a seizure), one corner of the screen looked as if it was ripping, not horizontally or vertically, but diagonally. like i lopped the top left corner of the screen diagonally, moved it out 2 MMs out so it was a white gap.... another WTF. if my screenshots would show anything but white id post them....

oh, and on top of that i had NO SYNC when the tests were done, so i had to unplug the cable untill windows detected dissconnected hardware, reconnected it, and repeat about 3 times before i could get sync again. frusterating....

does it sound liek a bad card? next im going to go play some games on the master card to see if it artifacts, and if i can try again on crossfire ill do that... *shakes fist in air at ATI*... i knew i shouda stayed with amd and get sli, and saved a hella lot of money

 

[LittleNemoNES]

You're using 2 monitors? Crossfire nor SLI support more than 1. I don't know why you would have problems. I had none from the start.

 

[Elfear]

Originally posted by: TSCrv
since you have dual 1900xt's elfear what is the performance gain from 1 card to 2, assuming stock speeds.

It really depends on the application. I never got to run 3DMark05 with one card and my Allendale nor have I ever run that benchmark at stock speed. Your scores for 3DMark06 sound about right although I'd think you should pass 10,000 in Crossfire mode.

Have you tried the suggestions I put in my first post?? Also, are you running your Crossfire dongle from the mastercard to the DVI port on the left side of your slave card (viewed from the rear of the computer)? Is your mastercard in the PCI-E slot nearest your cpu? I suspect it wouldn't work at all with the mastercard in the bottom slot but I'm just throwing ideas out here.

 

[TSCrv]

i have tried every avalable configuration and bios setting, no dice... but i think the card is bad...

2 monitors? no, but i do plan on picking up a matrox TripleHead2Go in the future...


reason: i FINNALLY EFFING GOT A GAME TO PLAY... but problem is i could only see half of the screen.... it was a checkerboard, if the whites were the mastercard and the blacks were the slave, then i could see the game perfectly on the white squares and all i saw was snow on the black ones.... (just like you would see snow on a tv, just a lot higher res and smaller pieces, and isnt black, had colors) that leaves me to believe that either the dongle sucks, or one of the cards is bad.... im thinking the latter,...

also get this, i start the game and i lose sync... so i am forced to alt tab to windows, fine there... it takes me at LEAST 5 alt tabs to get sync while in 3d... once i do its about a 60% chance i get the checkerboard, and the other 40 is normal playing graphics, like it should be... but one time it only rendered a portion of the screen (like panning the desktop, stupidest idea ever)

im tihnkin about rmaing this sucker.... boy do i want to run it over as many times as i can before i run out of gas...

i shoulda listened to myself when i vowed never to use ati again...

thanks for the imput guys... now, do i tell newegg i dont want it? or its faulty? (i dont want a replacement, i want my money back) *grumbles at restocking fees*

 

[TSCrv]

oh and one time the whole screen was nothing but snow.... talking about video corruption....

 

[Sentry2]

So far I'm not liking crossfire either. Conroe rocks though. It's not as f'd up for me but I'm still having some issues. I guess it's a good thing one x1900 is still fast as sh!t.

 

[TSCrv]

yup, the one i allready got the rabate for works fine, so im rmaing the other one

 

[Elfear]

Sorry to hear you're having so many problems with Crossfire. Have you uninstalled all ATI apps and used DCP yet? Do you have .Net installed (1.1 and than 2.0)? If you can answer the questions we asked in the above posts than we can better help you to fix the problem. I hate to RMA anything unless I've done my best to eliminate all other variables. It's not fair to a manufacturer to shake your fist at them until your dead certain it's a design flaw and not user error or a component not operating correctly.

 

[CreepieDeCrapper]

Originally posted by: munky
I don't think you can test the CF edition card by itself. To my understanding, it has to be run in tandem with a regular x1900xt/x. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

A crossfire edition card can be run by itself as well as a regular version.[/quote]
Thanks for the correction.

TSCrv, I'm starting to suspect it may be a configuration issue with a CF setup and your mobo. Try some Googling to see if others are having problems with your board. Or try seeking out some folks who have close to your same setup. I imagine there are at least half a dozen or so on this board alone who are using that board with a CF setup (that's just a random guess ).

 

[nitromullet]

It sounds to me like some portion of the setup that is specific to CF only is borked, possibly the cable or maybe the composting chip itself on the CF card is messed up. I would exchange the CF card for a replacement, and take it from there.

 

[TSCrv]

Originally posted by: Elfear
Sorry to hear you're having so many problems with Crossfire. Have you uninstalled all ATI apps and used DCP yet? Do you have .Net installed (1.1 and than 2.0)? If you can answer the questions we asked in the above posts than we can better help you to fix the problem. I hate to RMA anything unless I've done my best to eliminate all other variables. It's not fair to a manufacturer to shake your fist at them until your dead certain it's a design flaw and not user error or a component not operating correctly.

i have answered all questions, just not in quote: reply format....

and i answer yes to all above,,, i am a server and phone system support tech, this calls for me doing things very precise and to the book, if there is something that says do a b and c... i do a b and c, not jsut a and b, or b a c, etc...

if only i had a camera to show what i was talking about with the artifacting... ive talked to some ppl that have the same mobo and same cards, (cept makers) that are not as technically inclined as me and theirs work jsut fine, no bios settings, no nothing, but it just works for them....

im out of ideas and callin it quits after 2 hours a day for a week.... yes i have had problems that have lasted about a month (stupid recipt printers and cash drawers)... but with something is actually mine im motivated to fix it to the best of my ability, but my god this is insane...

 

[Sentry2]

I would just rma the card.

 

[Elfear]

Originally posted by: TSCrv

Originally posted by: Elfear
Sorry to hear you're having so many problems with Crossfire. Have you uninstalled all ATI apps and used DCP yet? Do you have .Net installed (1.1 and than 2.0)? If you can answer the questions we asked in the above posts than we can better help you to fix the problem. I hate to RMA anything unless I've done my best to eliminate all other variables. It's not fair to a manufacturer to shake your fist at them until your dead certain it's a design flaw and not user error or a component not operating correctly.

i have answered all questions, just not in quote: reply format....

and i answer yes to all above,,, i am a server and phone system support tech, this calls for me doing things very precise and to the book, if there is something that says do a b and c... i do a b and c, not jsut a and b, or b a c, etc...

if only i had a camera to show what i was talking about with the artifacting... ive talked to some ppl that have the same mobo and same cards, (cept makers) that are not as technically inclined as me and theirs work jsut fine, no bios settings, no nothing, but it just works for them....

im out of ideas and callin it quits after 2 hours a day for a week.... yes i have had problems that have lasted about a month (stupid recipt printers and cash drawers)... but with something is actually mine im motivated to fix it to the best of my ability, but my god this is insane...

Gotcha. I wasn't saying you didn't know what you were doing I just couldn't tell from your replies if you had tried the suggestions given.

At this point I'll throw in with everyone else and say an RMA is in order. You have a motherboard that is popular so I'm sure if there were Crossfire issues with it we'd have heard about it. Do you have the newest bios revision for it or one that is known to work well?

 

[BFG10K]

Does it work if you set CCC to single-card mode?

What about if you use the Super AA modes?

 

[dunno99]

It seems like either one of the cards (probably the slave) or the compositing engine (on the Master) might be fubared. I'd place my money on the latter though, since the slave ran fine and the compositing engine is just a simple image signal merger. Furthermore, the lines on your Master card seems to indicate that the Master card is somehow messed up.

(sorry for the repetition if you already found the problem...I didn't read all the posts)