More Crossfire woes

nRollo

Banned
Jan 11, 2002
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http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODg4

Although this is a motherboard article, I feel it has a place here in video because you have to run Crossfire video cards on a Crossfire motherboard. (so it's a multi part solution, two video cards, Crossfire motherboard) Also, people considering Crossfire are probably mainly thinking about the video cards, as we usually assume a motherboard is just going to work.

Not so with Crossfire.

I took delivery of our DFI CrossFire motherboard and prepped it for testing. We almost immediately ran into problems. The first thing I noticed was that I could not save my BIOS settings, exit the BIOS, and then reboot. After attempting to save and leave the BIOS, the motherboard would freeze at a blank screen. Resetting the board would allow a reboot, but that did not always work; sometimes a hard power down was needed. The reboot issues did not stop there. Even once we got an OS installed, the motherboard still exhibited reboot issues where it would hang on POST. Sometimes it would hang at IDE detection, sometimes at Silicon Image RAID controller detection, and sometimes it would hang after setting the interrupt channels. Then again, sometimes it would reboot just fine, but most times it would not. Checking the DFI support forums, I found that I was not alone in experiencing these issues.

Defective motherboard? No-

DFI did in fact send a replacement board out of a retail stock shipment within a day. A new BETA BIOS was made public by DFI that was supposed to help our issues. It took a few days to get around to testing the motherboard, but again we saw the same exact issues we saw the first time -- more reboot and BIOS hangs.

If I had just spent $199! on one of these stinkers, I would go ballistic!

When SLI came out, people were fond of posting it's trivial issues like "doesn't work with Apple monitor", "doesn't support WS yet", "doesn't work in ancient Windows 2000".

Compare that with "Gee my whole computer won't boot".

I think it's pretty obvious ATI should not have entered this arena at this point in time- Crossfire has been a tale of woe all year, late, limited and malfunctioning at all levels.
 

malG

Senior member
Jun 2, 2005
309
0
76
The X1800XT Missfire Edition mastercards got delayed till 2006, after it was paper launced twice. Now the motherboard got issues too?

Wow, these suckers are dead in the water.
 

dug777

Lifer
Oct 13, 2004
24,778
4
0
Originally posted by: malG
The X1800XT Missfire Edition mastercards got delayed till 2006, after it was paper launced twice. Now the motherboard got issues too?

Wow, these suckers are dead in the water.

While you make a valid point, you come across as an agressive troll, tone it down mate.

It's clear ATI have ballsed up Crossfire tho, Kris passed on some extremely funny comments from ATI's tier-1 partners about their disgust with Crossfire :laugh: I gather it's been a 'problematic' road for them so far...

 

Lonyo

Lifer
Aug 10, 2002
21,938
6
81
Originally posted by: Rollo
Blah blah whine.

ATI?s Certification Program
ATI has what they call a ?Certified Motherboards? program.

ATI Certified Motherboards - Participation in this program by our partners is voluntary and serves to allow ATI to assist our Motherboard partners in refining their products and improving the end-user experience.
Look for this symbol. Motherboards listed on the pages below have been tested and are Certified to meet the highest standards of quality, usability and reliability.

Now knowing that this certification program is in place, and ATI is launching their CrossFire motherboard press campaign with DFI motherboards, one would think that DFI would damn sure be on the certification list. WRONG. Actually, not only is the DFI CrossFire motherboard not listed, but they are also not listed as a partner in the program at all. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that if you are going to put all your eggs in one basket, it would certainly be a ?certified? basket if I was running ATI.
An uncertified motherboard sucks.
And it's ATi's fault?

So where do we go from here? ATI is deeply involved as they realize that DFI is the shining star in the current CrossFire motherboard market. First off, ATI has evaluated the DFI CrossFire motherboard under their ATI Certified program. To be succinct, the DFI RDX200 CF-DR CrossFire motherboard could not pass ATI?s Certified program in its current state.


TBH, I'd say ATi are backing Crossfire quality, and creating a stable platform.
You want Crossfire? Get a certified motherboard, and a master and slave card.
That an uncertified board has issues is a problem for ATi, yes, but they never said it wouldn't have issues.
I can't remember if nVidia chipset mobos come with a certification for SLI (I don't have my box with me at the moment), but I think there's something about them working with SLI.


Sure, it's bad that the first claimed Crossfire mobo has issues, but it's good that ATi have a program in place to certify motherboards, and this issue-prone one is not certified. That suggests the system may work, eventually.


(PS, I'm not very happy with my MSI nForce 4 motherboard at the moment, the most up to date BIOS gives me very limited memory divider options, and an older BIOS won't POST at above about 230MHz HTT, so I'm going to say that nVidia sucks and their SLI mobos are poor/unstable because of my issue.)
 

Ackmed

Diamond Member
Oct 1, 2003
8,491
551
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Its a motherboard issue, not a Crossfire issue. As it happens with other cards (even NV) as well.

Im surpised it took you this long to post this. Especially since its not even about video, but about motherboards.
 

Lonyo

Lifer
Aug 10, 2002
21,938
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Originally posted by: Ackmed
Its a motherboard issue, not a Crossfire issue. As it happens with other cards (even NV) as well.

Im surpised it took you this long to post this. Especially since its not even about video, but about motherboards.

It's Rollo.
It's about something to do with ATi.
It's a negative.
And you wonder why?
 

jasonja

Golden Member
Feb 22, 2001
1,864
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No kidding! This sounds like a bad motherboard, bios or etc. ATI makes the chipset and that's it. They don't make the motherboard, DFI does.
 

nRollo

Banned
Jan 11, 2002
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Originally posted by: Ackmed
Its a motherboard issue, not a Crossfire issue. As it happens with other cards (even NV) as well.

Im surpised it took you this long to post this. Especially since its not even about video, but about motherboards.

The article did just come out yesterday? I spent the afternoon catching bass and drinking beer, and a good chunk of the night watching "Star Wars" with my son.

Can't be helping ATers all the time, unless AT wants to hire me. ;)

Anyway, it's the only one there is, there are no "ATI Certified" Crossfire boards, and if you're buying video cards with Crossfire in mind, this is a part of the equation that must be considered.

So it belongs here as much as Motherboards.
 

jasonja

Golden Member
Feb 22, 2001
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Originally posted by: Rollo
Originally posted by: Ackmed
Its a motherboard issue, not a Crossfire issue. As it happens with other cards (even NV) as well.

Im surpised it took you this long to post this. Especially since its not even about video, but about motherboards.

The article did just come out yesterday? I spent the afternoon catching bass and drinking beer, and a good chunk of the night watching "Star Wars" with my son.

Can't be helping ATers all the time, unless AT wants to hire me. ;)

Anyway, it's the only one there is, there are no "ATI Certified" Crossfire boards, and if you're buying video cards with Crossfire in mind, this is a part of the equation that must be considered.

So it belongs here as much as Motherboards.


Why don't you help out ATers by digging up some bad press for nVidia for change?
 

nRollo

Banned
Jan 11, 2002
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Originally posted by: jasonja
No kidding! This sounds like a bad motherboard, bios or etc. ATI makes the chipset and that's it. They don't make the motherboard, DFI does.

This is true, but ATI makes the slower USB, non SATAII chipset on the board.

In any case, I only posted this as a heads up to those considering Crossfire video cards.

This is the current state of Crossfire motherboards, and as such, needs to be known to video card buyers.

A person who plans on going multi GPU needs to know this.

A gamer these days HAS to consider multi- FEAR, COD2, and Quake 4 benches have shown us that.

BTW- I'm going to buy Quake 4 today.

Be on the lookout for a Quake 4/Serious Sam2/FEAR 7800GTX vs 7800GTX SLI vs 6800GT vs 6800GT SLI review soon. I plan to back up my "You need SLI" stance with hard data and user experience.

Beats "Well, I heard from some guy" don't you think? ;)
 

Lonyo

Lifer
Aug 10, 2002
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Originally posted by: Rollo
Originally posted by: jasonja
No kidding! This sounds like a bad motherboard, bios or etc. ATI makes the chipset and that's it. They don't make the motherboard, DFI does.
This is the current state of Crossfire motherboards, and as such, needs to be known to video card buyers.
A person who plans on going multi GPU needs to know this.

UNCERTIFIED Crossfire motherboards which ATi WON'T CERTIFY.
Hence they are NOT representative of what a Crossfire motherboard should be, and that has been noted by ATi, since they have NOT CERTIFIED the motherboard.
Users should be made aware of the fact that this may be the current state of Crossfire motherboards, but has nothing to do with the state of actual certified boards.
 

apoppin

Lifer
Mar 9, 2000
34,890
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alienbabeltech.com
let's look at the HARDOCP's COnclusions:

So why is DFI first to market with their CrossFire motherboard? DFI, which can be considered a very small company in the motherboard game, bucked the system and decided to use the ATI SB450 southbridge, which was not plagued with supply issues. . . .

DFI has sold less than 1000 CrossFire motherboards worldwide. I am unsure how much of a financial problem a recall might cause, but be sure they do not want to do this and will work diligently to fix the issues with a BIOS update. If DFI is not able to fix the issue with a BIOS update, a recall might be in order, but this is yet to be seen. . . .

ne thing I have come to know in the last few weeks is just how committed ATI is to their motherboard chipset in the enthusiast marketplace. They certainly want to penetrate that end of the market and are making some solid claims as to moving forward. I think now that many of the motherboard companies will be looking at them to see how they react. Will ATI be there to nurture CrossFire to market if they have to? I hope that this will not be needed, but it is good to see that ATI is being proactive with their ?Certified by ATI? program. . . .

an informed enthusiast looking to purchase a CrossFire motherboard solution would be best off starting at ATI?s own Certified pages. Sadly, there are no CrossFire motherboards on those pages yet . . .

no big deal
 

route66

Senior member
Sep 8, 2005
295
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nVidia solutions haven't been the greatest either - just a quick stroll through the Motherboard forums will give you people complaining about IDE corruption.
 

malG

Senior member
Jun 2, 2005
309
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76
Originally posted by: Lonyo

UNCERTIFIED Crossfire motherboards which ATi WON'T CERTIFY.

Is that right...how come there are no MissFire motherboards on ATI's own Certified pages yet? I wonder when consumers can make an informed choice, in 2006?
 

Greenman

Lifer
Oct 15, 1999
21,069
5,669
136
This should be moved to the correct forum. And the idea that it's somehow ATI's fault that DFI made a bad mother board is just plain silly. You do yourself a disservice by posting this sort of thing Rollo, because we all begin to assume that nothing you say is valid.
 

rbV5

Lifer
Dec 10, 2000
12,632
0
0
LOL, I had to buy an extra refurb ASUS Nforce2 motherboard to use to hot-swap bios chips because it would fubur the BIOS programing on a regular basis.

I don't recall making a single post in Video about it however.

I do continue to use both motherboards, and most of the issues with Nforce drivers have been worked out, and overall they've been pretty decent. I can see they could easily have been somebody's nitemare however.

On the other hand my MSI Xpress200 motherboard has been solid as a rock since last Spring. Far better than my NForce2 boards right out of the box, both in stability and driver support as well as feature support. In fact, the most problem free motherboard I've had.

I've also had MSI motherboards blow capacitors, FIC motherboard that doesn't support ACPI (supposed to) and on and on.

Check the motherboard section (where this belongs) and see numerous threads on Nvidia chipsets, does it mean they're bad? No, it means they are popular and popular boards with a large userbase means issues.

This thread would sink in a day in the motherboard forum, hence probable reason you posted it here instead.


 

Ackmed

Diamond Member
Oct 1, 2003
8,491
551
126
Originally posted by: Rollo
A gamer these days HAS to consider multi- FEAR, COD2, and Quake 4 benches have shown us that.

No they dont. Your needs, or anyone elses "needs" are not the same for everyone. There are plenty of people on 2 year old cards, gaming at lower res', and very happy. Most people still have AGP, and SLI/Crossire is not an option. According to you, they have to consider them? Not hardly.

Originally posted by: RolloBe on the lookout for a Quake 4/Serious Sam2/FEAR 7800GTX vs 7800GTX SLI vs 6800GT vs 6800GT SLI review soon. I plan to back up my "You need SLI" stance with hard data and user experience.

Beats "Well, I heard from some guy" don't you think? ;)

Cant wait for that "fair and balanced" post.

You think you're more than "some guy"?

Originally posted by: Rollo
Originally posted by: Ackmed
Its a motherboard issue, not a Crossfire issue. As it happens with other cards (even NV) as well.

Im surpised it took you this long to post this. Especially since its not even about video, but about motherboards.

The article did just come out yesterday? I spent the afternoon catching bass and drinking beer, and a good chunk of the night watching "Star Wars" with my son.

Can't be helping ATers all the time, unless AT wants to hire me. ;)

Anyway, it's the only one there is, there are no "ATI Certified" Crossfire boards, and if you're buying video cards with Crossfire in mind, this is a part of the equation that must be considered.

So it belongs here as much as Motherboards.


I seem to remember you posting a lot here yesterday. You're slipping on posting anti-ATi "news". Its a motherboard issue. If you were really concerned about helping people seeing the problems, then you would have posted it in the motherboard section. Why? Because this same problem can happen with most any card in there, single or not.

DFI boards are notorious for being buggy at launch, and taking a lot of time to get them to work properly. I had a heck of a time with mine, came close to giving it up. It wouldnt run my 4 sticks fo Redline ram together. And thats the whole reason I even got the board, because it was the only one out to give it enough volts. After several weeks of frusteration, I got the kinks worked out, most of which was BIOS related. DFI overclocking is second to none, but they QA needs serious help.

As I said, this problem has happend to people with one card, and even with one NV card. So if you were really concerened about helping people, you would post it where it would help the most. In the motherboard section, since the article is about a motherboard. Calling it an unstable platform is inaccurate. Its an unstable motherboard, for now at least.




 

Capt Caveman

Lifer
Jan 30, 2005
34,543
651
126
Anything new will have issues, including Nvidia stuff. Stop the trolling, it's getting tiring. A month or two down the road, there will be great performing cross-fire motherboards, master cards, etc. And yes, good things come to those that can wait. Be happy with your choices and don't flame others for their choices.

edit - Anandtech had high praises for the board and didn't have these issues w/ the motherboard - Anandtech's Review
 

TecHNooB

Diamond Member
Sep 10, 2005
7,458
1
76
Originally posted by: Lonyo
Originally posted by: Ackmed
Its a motherboard issue, not a Crossfire issue. As it happens with other cards (even NV) as well.

Im surpised it took you this long to post this. Especially since its not even about video, but about motherboards.

It's Rollo.
It's about something to do with ATi.
It's a negative.
And you wonder why?


ATI's sucking at the moment, what can I say~ I'm sure even Rollo would have some good things to say about ATI if the R580's had *drool* 32 pipes and make it to e-tailers before the G80 ^_^
 

nRollo

Banned
Jan 11, 2002
10,460
0
0
Originally posted by: Lonyo
UNCERTIFIED Crossfire motherboards which ATi WON'T CERTIFY.
Hence they are NOT representative of what a Crossfire motherboard should be, and that has been noted by ATi, since they have NOT CERTIFIED the motherboard.
Unfortunately, this is the ONLY representative of Crossfire motherboards. What they "should be" is irrelevant, this is all they ARE.
There an old saying "If "ifs" and "buts" were candies and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas". ;)


Users should be made aware of the fact that this may be the current state of Crossfire motherboards, but has nothing to do with the state of actual certified boards.
As there's no such thing as a certified board, this is all we can comment on. People are buying video cards NOW, what Crossfire boards may or may not be someday is irrelevant.

 

nRollo

Banned
Jan 11, 2002
10,460
0
0
Originally posted by: apoppin
let's look at the HARDOCP's COnclusions:

So why is DFI first to market with their CrossFire motherboard? DFI, which can be considered a very small company in the motherboard game, bucked the system and decided to use the ATI SB450 southbridge, which was not plagued with supply issues. . . .

DFI has sold less than 1000 CrossFire motherboards worldwide. I am unsure how much of a financial problem a recall might cause, but be sure they do not want to do this and will work diligently to fix the issues with a BIOS update. If DFI is not able to fix the issue with a BIOS update, a recall might be in order, but this is yet to be seen. . . .

ne thing I have come to know in the last few weeks is just how committed ATI is to their motherboard chipset in the enthusiast marketplace. They certainly want to penetrate that end of the market and are making some solid claims as to moving forward. I think now that many of the motherboard companies will be looking at them to see how they react. Will ATI be there to nurture CrossFire to market if they have to? I hope that this will not be needed, but it is good to see that ATI is being proactive with their ?Certified by ATI? program. . . .

an informed enthusiast looking to purchase a CrossFire motherboard solution would be best off starting at ATI?s own Certified pages. Sadly, there are no CrossFire motherboards on those pages yet . . .

no big deal

Fixed, the only part of the quote that matters.

I think nVidia will put out some new super SLI board someday- do you care when making your buying decisions today? ;)

 

nRollo

Banned
Jan 11, 2002
10,460
0
0
Originally posted by: jasonja
Originally posted by: Rollo

Beats "Well, I heard from some guy" don't you think? ;)



No, not really. Both sources sound equally unreliable to me.

You're ignoring the facts then. Anyone with a similar system will be able to reproduce and verify my results, and there's no substitute for user experience.

E.G. My X800XTPE ran similar average fps at Doom3 as my 6800GT, but the gaming experience was nowhere near the same, 6800GT was much smoother.
 

rbV5

Lifer
Dec 10, 2000
12,632
0
0
As there's no such thing as a certified board, this is all we can comment on. People are buying video cards NOW, what Crossfire boards may or may not be someday is irrelevant


You're wrong and in the wrong forum.
Link



 

Capt Caveman

Lifer
Jan 30, 2005
34,543
651
126
Originally posted by: Rollo
As there's no such thing as a certified board, this is all we can comment on. People are buying video cards NOW, what Crossfire boards may or may not be someday is irrelevant.
So, I can buy a x1800xt now but have no intention of buying a crossfire motherboard. Anandtech proclaims it as the best-overclocking motherboard available.

Gotta love the bias b/c we know he wouldn't post something like this if it was a Nvidia issue. Trolling is lame.