Two Diamond HD3870s in Xfire with Dual Displays and Artifacting

[Gillbot]

Ok, as much as I hate to post in here (The P&N of the hardware world) , I'm tired of fighting these HD3870's and I'm looking for suggestions.

I have two Diamond HD3870s in Xfire on a Biostar i45 powering twin Westinghouse 19" LCD's. Each card alone runs 100% perfect no matter what I throw at it, but as soon as you add in the 2nd card, toss on a bridge cable, enable Xfire and load a game, there is severe artifacting on the 2nd display.

I've tried cleaning and reinstalling the drivers all the way up to the newest 8.11's. I have tried each of my two Xfire bridge cables flipped and switched every which way you can think of, reseating the coolers and swapping the cards around in the PCIe slots. No matter what, they still artifact. I'm out of ideas short of an RMA, any suggestions?

EDIT: I fixed it, I pulled them and put my 8800GTS back in. Heck with multiple GPUs.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

What are the temperatures?

 

[Gillbot]

No idea, it happens as soon as you launch the game so the GPU's are not even warm to the touch. Even if you run the game and heat them up, the artifacting doesn't get worse.

I had them both cooled with full cover EK waterblocks but I pulled them thinking the blocks were causing issues. Sadly, this didn't help at all. Now they have the stock air coolers on them to make troubleshooting easier.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Gillbot
No idea, it happens as soon as you launch the game so the GPU's are not even warm to the touch. Even if you run the game and heat them up, the artifacting doesn't get worse.

I had them both cooled with full cover EK waterblocks but I pulled them thinking the blocks were causing issues. Sadly, this didn't help at all. Now they have the stock air coolers on them to make troubleshooting easier.

RMA, sell, and buy a 1GB HD4870 if you want to stick with ATi.

 

[Gillbot]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: Gillbot
No idea, it happens as soon as you launch the game so the GPU's are not even warm to the touch. Even if you run the game and heat them up, the artifacting doesn't get worse.

I had them both cooled with full cover EK waterblocks but I pulled them thinking the blocks were causing issues. Sadly, this didn't help at all. Now they have the stock air coolers on them to make troubleshooting easier.

RMA, sell, and buy a 1GB HD4870 if you want to stick with ATi.

I'm not partial to any manufacturer, I was looking at a 9800GX2 actually. But I'd prefer not to spend anymore than I already have if I can avoid it.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Gillbot

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: Gillbot
No idea, it happens as soon as you launch the game so the GPU's are not even warm to the touch. Even if you run the game and heat them up, the artifacting doesn't get worse.

I had them both cooled with full cover EK waterblocks but I pulled them thinking the blocks were causing issues. Sadly, this didn't help at all. Now they have the stock air coolers on them to make troubleshooting easier.

RMA, sell, and buy a 1GB HD4870 if you want to stick with ATi.

I'm not partial to any manufacturer, I was looking at a 9800GX2 actually. But I'd prefer not to spend anymore than I already have if I can avoid it.

9800GX2 offers up a can o' whup ass in a single slot if you don't need more than 19X12 4XAA to be sure. I really like that card, had one back in one of my boxes a few weeks back for the heck of it, and it really cranks out the pixels.

They are about GONE though-just checked the egg, only one model left!

 

[Gillbot]

The other issue is resolution. I really don't NEED an uber card. My monitors only run a max of 1280x1024.

 

[chizow]

I haven't used ATI in some time, but is it not possible to run multiple displays with a single graphics card? Like 3D gaming on 1 panel, desktop/clone on the other?

It doesn't sound like you need a lot of graphics horsepower, so why fuss with X2 at all? I'd sell/RMA 1 card, if that's enough run with that, if not pick up a single GTX 260 or 4870 1GB and that should be more than enough for your needs (and similar in performance to 3870 CF) and will allow you to run multiple displays without the fuss of CF/SLI.

 

[Gillbot]

Crossfire was going to be for fun and to see if there were any gains, otherwise I don't really need it. Most mainstream cards now will run multimon fine. The issue is, I use multimon in Supreme Commander which can tax the GPU. How hard it does, I can't say but my 8800GTS and one HD3870 run it fine with both displays enabled. I just want to see if running crossfire will help.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: Gillbot
No idea, it happens as soon as you launch the game so the GPU's are not even warm to the touch. Even if you run the game and heat them up, the artifacting doesn't get worse.

I had them both cooled with full cover EK waterblocks but I pulled them thinking the blocks were causing issues. Sadly, this didn't help at all. Now they have the stock air coolers on them to make troubleshooting easier.

can you take a screenshot of what your artifacts look like?

 

[SolMiester]

Originally posted by: Gillbot
Crossfire was going to be for fun and to see if there were any gains, otherwise I don't really need it. Most mainstream cards now will run multimon fine. The issue is, I use multimon in Supreme Commander which can tax the GPU. How hard it does, I can't say but my 8800GTS and one HD3870 run it fine with both displays enabled. I just want to see if running crossfire will help.

Are you having any fun yet?

 

[Gillbot]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
can you take a screenshot of what your artifacts look like?

I'll try

Originally posted by: SolMiester
Are you having any fun yet?

Sure, I wouldn't be messing with it if I weren't. It's a hobby, not a mission critical system so tweaking is most of the fun.

 

[Gillbot]

I 'm guessing that either an RMA or replacement is my option?

 

[ViRGE]

Yep.