[Update from Asus & Intel] Asus P9X79 PRO + XFX 7970 xfire

[nanaki333]

Anybody running a P9X79 PRO (or other variant) with crossfired 7970 cards? After troubleshooting for awhile, it was determined that whenever I had both 7970s installed, my computer would hard lock. Both while gaming or just in windows. It was completely random. Both cards work on my wife's s1155, and both work as single cards in my P9X79 PRO, but not together.

There has been no BIOS update since December for this board. I contacted Asus twice and have not heard back in over a week now. Going to send a couple more this week I guess, and try calling *again*. I'm not hopeful for a response.

Am I alone with this problem?


office update from asus

Just asked HQ, they told me some CPUs can't handle two cards in Gen 3 mode. Intel know about this and won't chage out the CPUs. Apparently the C2s are better than the C1 steppings but Intel have now removed official Gen 3 support from their product pages. If that is the issue, what you can do is set PCIe to Gen 2 mode in UEFI just to debug and see if the lock ups persist. If they do then the issue lies elsewhere, if they do, then the CPU is not capable of Gen 3 on two slots at the same time. Some CPUs are better than others in this regard and it is luck of the draw.

 

[BrightCandle]

I have an outstanding technical support query with AMD on this as I too am having hard locks with 7970's on an Asus X79 Pro. So far we haven't found a solution.

 

[DigitalWolf]

I have an Asus P9X79 Pro and I've been running 2 Sapphire 7970's in crossfire for quite a while. I haven't had any issues with hardlocks etc

 

[DooKey]

No problems here. You can see what I'm running in my sig.

 

[bankster55]

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=358813
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...d=1&model=P9X79+DELUXE&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

I would be curious to know from the guys with issues
>How much RAM installed
>What RAM speed currently
>In task manager/perf how much free RAM during game use and how much pagefile
>Anything unusual while gaming in perf tab resource monitor sections?
>What PSU
>What type connectors on ea card in use
>Is O/S on SSD? What size SSD
>How many entries in sound controllers in dev man
>In cntrl panel, power/plan/advanced/PCIe is link power on or off

 

[nanaki333]

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=358813
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...d=1&model=P9X79+DELUXE&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

I would be curious to know from the guys with issues
>How much RAM installed
>What RAM speed currently
>In task manager/perf how much free RAM during game use and how much pagefile
>Anything unusual while gaming in perf tab resource monitor sections?
>What PSU
>What type connectors on ea card in use
>Is O/S on SSD? What size SSD
>How many entries in sound controllers in dev man
>In cntrl panel, power/plan/advanced/PCIe is link power on or off

oh man. i went through tons of ram. i had 32GB of kingston hyper-x, then took it down to 16GB and had the same issues. i put all the ram back in and let memtest86+ run for like 16 hours and no errors were found. i also pushed the memory compatibility button on the board next to the DIMMS. i also tried both 16GB & 32GB of some G.SKILL RIPJAWS, also ran memtest86+ with no errors. i've tried all variations of drivers with no luck. i have even tried my old antec 900watt PSU i still have and had the same issue. the moment i tried both cards by themselves, i did not have a problem.


DigitalWolf; what slots are you running your cards in? what BIOS version are you running? the latest from 12/22?


BrightCandle; are you running XFX 7970s and having the same hardlock issues?

 

[MisterVito]

I too am having the same problem with my computer hard locking. It seems to only happen when I am gaming.

Specs:
Asus P9X79 Pro
Intel Core i7-3930K @ 3.2GHz
16 GB DDR3
EVGA GeForce 560 2GB

This is the 2nd video card I installed and was having the same problem. The other card was a nVidia 8800 GTX. I have alot of free RAM when I play and I have no idea how to check the speed of my RAM. I even ran Prime95 on my computer thinking it was the processor and it ran the program for about 2 hours with 0 problems. I am quite frustrated with this issue because I am not that computer savvy.

 

[dajeepster]

I'm running trifire with mine... i get a random reboots every other day. my problems started when i did ssd caching with a hybrid drive as my main drive. i think my problem has more to do with immature drivers.

 

[bankster55]

My guess is under certain conditions, certain systems, certain loads it chokes the PCIe bus, and I think it relates also to the PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 3.0 (new) driver/oprom immaturity issues, even if 3.0 isnt in play. And obviously the cards own firmwatre counts.

I have been watching this issue right from the start and have only seen 3 solutions mentioned by individual posters:

Uninstalling all audio controllers in dev man but Realtek and running R2.67
Changing PSU to 1000W Kingston Platinum\Seasonic Platinum 1000W (tho NE comments have some DOA's)\Seasonic GOLD X 1250 (PSU's are critical with multi 7970)
Running 2 PSU in a big case - heh (3 AMD cards)
Another guy bought Display Port Cables on flea bay and they were out of spec

Building a PC getting to be like rocket science - heh

 

[nanaki333]

Building a PC getting to be like rocket science - heh

don't you mean rocket surgery?

 

[DigitalWolf]

DigitalWolf; what slots are you running your cards in? what BIOS version are you running? the latest from 12/22?

If you go from the motherboard manual I guess its slots 1 and 5. Where 1 is the top slot rated for (single at x16) and 5 is (dual at 16x/16x mode).


For BIOS I have the 0906 from 12/23/2011 (or 12/22 whatever).


Now someone else in this thread mentioned something ... and I know its a problem but maybe you dealt with this already.


When I installed my 2nd Sapphire card I started to have an odd issue. Which in my situation was an extremely long shut down time. When I finally found the solution... it was a poster from here but on another board. (Adam.. sorry I forget the rest of the name but he was running three 7970's at the time).


When I installed the 2nd card the AMD audio for HDMI would show two of those. In device manager it shows up like (amd hd audio device or close to that). It would cause a conflict and that is why for me it took forever to do a shut down. If you are not using HDMI for audio.. I would suggest that you disable both of those if you haven't already... it may cure your hard lock issue. I believe you likely only have to disable one of them but when I run crossfire I disable both as I don't use them. You will never have this issue with a single card .. only with more than one. (I believe its only the second device that causes the problem)


Beyond that I don't really know. I run a Corsair-AX850 for a power supply and for memory I use a Gskill Sniper series kit (4x4Gb). I don't have anything overclocked because its my work and game machine.

The only other possible issue I can think of is heat... I've never had an issue with cpu temps but in the Asus monitor it would show my system temp as kind of high. At first i was using an H80 Corsair kit. Eventually I ended up going to an Air setup simply because the X79 board needs airflow over it.

However, the only "real" problem I've ever had.. was related to the audio device after I installed the second card.

*edited for grammar and hopefully some clarity*

 

[AdamK47]

When I installed my 2nd Sapphire card I started to have an odd issue. Which in my situation was an extremely long shut down time. When I finally found the solution... it was a poster from here but on another board. (Adam.. sorry I forget the rest of the name but he was running three 7970's at the time).

Yeah, that's me. Disabling the ultra low power state (ULPS) fixes the issue with long shutdown times. It also enables overclocking with MSI Afterburner on Crossfired cards.

I haven't had lockup problems with three 9790s on an Asus P9X79 Deluxe. Played Mass Effect 2 for hours over this weekend and last without any problems. Also played a bit of Battlefield 3, Deus Ex HR, and Just Cause 2. Using the 8.96 drivers that were "leaked" at the end of February.

The one thing I had to do was solder on my own PCI-E auxilary power connector to the P9X79 Deluxe in order to prevent another AX1200 power supply from frying, but that's another problem altogether.

 

[Eymar]

I also had lockup issue in games when using Hdmi audio (single and in xfire) on 2 separate motherboards (x58's). Lockups went away for the most part going to onboard sound. NFS Shift 2 would still lockup if I use vsync (I'm running eyefinity (1 dual-dvi, 2 displayport with active adaptors to DVI)) which may also be a factor. Upgrading the openAL driver seems to have resolve the issue, but havent played enough to say conclusively.

AdamK47,
Mind posting more about the AX1200 issue? Going to upgrade to P9X79 Pro w/ AX1200 this week and you have gotten me a little worried

 

[AdamK47]

This happened when running the three 7970s at full load on the P9X79 Deluxe before performing the PCI-E voltage mod:

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=749507&mpage=1&print=true

Performed the mod and got a new AX1200. Haven't had a problem since.

 

[DooKey]

This happened when running the three 7970s at full load on the P9X79 Deluxe before performing the PCI-E voltage mod:

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=749507&mpage=1&print=true

Performed the mod and got a new AX1200. Haven't had a problem since.

That's the reason I picked the P9X79 WS. The WS has the auxilary plug to ensure you don't overload the 24pin adapter with multi gpu setups.

 

[bankster55]

yeah, you guys just reinforcing all the stuff I mentioned
http://roadczar.com/th10/?p=326 (2 PSU)
http://roadczar.com/th10/?p=388 (DP connector)
If your Dev Man looks like this you will have a prob

 

[Eymar]

That's the reason I picked the P9X79 WS. The WS has the auxilary plug to ensure you don't overload the 24pin adapter with multi gpu setups.

I would have too if I knew about it, but havent open the Pro yet so probably going to return and get WS. Thanks for the info AdamK47, probably saved me from some unpleasant events.

 

[dajeepster]

This happened when running the three 7970s at full load on the P9X79 Deluxe before performing the PCI-E voltage mod:

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=749507&mpage=1&print=true

Performed the mod and got a new AX1200. Haven't had a problem since.

holy shtz.. .. now i'm a little worried

 

[nanaki333]

i started looking on newegg for another board that would maybe work with 8 DIMM slots.... every board that has a more than a few reviews, are not very favorable. looks like everyone has issues.

i looked at the P79 boards, and even the WS is having this problem. people are getting the video driver crashing, which i used to get with older AMD drivers. after updating though, i get the complete hard lock.

 

[dajeepster]

holy shtz.. .. now i'm a little worried

I just read more deeply into that article.. it seems that the problems are with the psu with multiple 12V rails... and that the problem hasn't been noticed on psu with a single 12V rail... yet

 

[DigitalWolf]

I just read more deeply into that article.. it seems that the problems are with the psu with multiple 12V rails... and that the problem hasn't been noticed on psu with a single 12V rail... yet

I'm pretty sure that Adam's AX1200 is a single 12v rail design. I first read about that in a X79 thread he was posting in here.. where he had pictures of the connector melt down.

 

[dajeepster]

I'm pretty sure that Adam's AX1200 is a single 12v rail design. I first read about that in a X79 thread he was posting in here.. where he had pictures of the connector melt down.

right.. but if one of the PCI-e connectors weren't properly seated in the "high end" gpu, then the card would draw extra power through the ATX 20+4 connector which thereby causing his problem that they mention in the article.. so that is a very likely a cause that might cause his AX1200 meltdown....

so in retrospect, it doesn't matter that you are running a single rail or multiple rails. But definately make sure all your power connectors are properly seated.... i know how sometimes those PCI-e connects can be a pain. I always verify that at least the clip is locked... but i'm going to go back through all my machines and double check.. to be on the safe side.

 

[BrightCandle]

My back and forth with AMD on the issue hasn't proved very useful yet. They aren't yet even looking into it.

 

[nanaki333]

My back and forth with AMD on the issue hasn't proved very useful yet. They aren't yet even looking into it.

i don't know if it's AMD or the intel chipset. if you look at reviews for all the asus boards, everyone has the driver crash issue that i used to have before this. now it just straight up crashes with more than 1 card. all x79 boards on newegg have pretty terrible reviews, so i'm going to say it's an intel issue. i have no idea though, since nobody will contact me back (THANKS ASUS! KEEP UP THE GREAT SUPPORT!)

 

[DigitalWolf]

i don't know if it's AMD or the intel chipset. if you look at reviews for all the asus boards, everyone has the driver crash issue that i used to have before this. now it just straight up crashes with more than 1 card. all x79 boards on newegg have pretty terrible reviews, so i'm going to say it's an intel issue. i have no idea though, since nobody will contact me back (THANKS ASUS! KEEP UP THE GREAT SUPPORT!)

The few actual reviews I've read on the P9X79 Pro board were pretty positive. If you go by "user rankings" like on Newegg then the boards score pretty low. I just read the 4 pages of reviews for this board... there were complaints about DOA, raid issues, using 8 dimm issues or not being able to install windows for some reason. I didn't see any comments at all related to video crashes.


In this thread you have people with the board that have a hardlock issue. At the same time you have people with the same board and similar hardware that don't have the issue and never have had it.


Outside of living near someone who has a working board... who can toss your board in their system and see if xfire works .. with your board and their hardware. Its rather difficult to isolate the issue.

I mean if I put your board in my case with all my stuff... and everything works fine then we know its something else. If it hardlocks with my cards and other hardware.. then we know for some reason our boards are different. Revision issue maybe... QC issue.. but we'd at least know its the board.


At this point there isn't anything conclusive that the issue is the board and not something else. You need to have two systems... where one has the issue and one doesn't... so you can swap things around until you find the cause.. for sure.


I'm not going to make excuses for Asus... because when you contact them they should reply.


However, it just comes across to me in this post that you are saying 100% this board has issues. Even tho you know there are people here using it with multiple 7970's that don't have this issue.


To be clear.. I'm really just talking about the trouble shooting process. To isolate and identify the issue beyond speculation. I'm not trying to be insulting or anything like that.