Radeon HD 7970 CrossfrieX Issues

Recently I upgraded to dual 7970 HD's in CrossfireX. To say that I've been unsatisfied is is an understatement. I've experienced poor performance and instability from day 1 while running in CrossfireX. Searching the forums I found several threads concerning issues with scaling and instability, but many of the fixes have been tried and just don't seem to apply to my setup. When I say unstable, I don't mean BSOD's or crashes to desktop, or anything like that. The only thing that happens is whatever game I'm in hard locks the system and I can't even get the reset switch to respond, and I get repeating audio through the speakers or headphones. This does not happen with only one card enabled.

I've tried making these things work several times on fresh installs of Windows 7 in two almost entirely different machines. Using fresh installs, this is what has happened with each driver:

Software

Windows 7 Ultimate x64 w/latest updates and patches. All drivers are the latest available at the time of this writing.

Games Tested: Mass Effect 3, Battlefield 3, Batman Arkham City
Applications Tested: Photoshop CS6

Drivers - CrossfireX Enabled

Catalyst 12.4 - Most stable driver, unfortunately CrossfireX rarely seems to work at all. In most cases it runs slower than it did with a single card. Horrible screen tearing issues also abound. Stable for around 1-3 hours at most. Photoshop crashes after two or three minutes unless I disable GPU acceleration.

Catalyst 12.6 - Stable for around 20 minutes to an hour at best. Always followed by a hard lock of the system After rebooting I get an "overclocking failed" message and I have to reconfigure my Eyefinity group and settings. This driver often forces me to unplug and plug in my active mini-DP to DVI adapters in order to get all the monitors working after a restart. It also varies as to which one gives me the issue. Photoshop crashes after two or three minutes unless I disable GPU acceleration.

Catalyst 12.7 Beta - Stable for around 10-30 minutes at best. Always followed by a hard lock of the system After rebooting I get an "overclocking failed" message and I have to reconfigure my Eyefinity group and settings. Photoshop crashes after two or three minutes unless I disable GPU acceleration.


Drivers - CrossfireX Disabled (Tried card 1 and card 2 individually)

Catalyst 12.4 - Perfectly stable. Performance isn't as good as later drivers, but no issues to report. Can run games for several hours without issue. No issues with Photoshop.

Catalyst 12.6 - Rock solid with excellent performance in all games tested. Can run games for several hours without issue. No issues with Photoshop.

Catalyst 12.7 Beta - Rock solid with excellent performance in all games tested. Can run games for several hours without issue. No issues with Photoshop.

Hardware:

Old Configuration

CPU - Intel Core i7 Extreme 980X Overclocked to 4.4GHzv (Tried stock settings too)
Cooling - Koolance Exos 2.5, Koolance CPU-370
Motherboard - ASUS Rampage III Black Edition
RAM - Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz (3 x 4GB Kit, 12GB total)
HDD - Intel X25-M 80GB Gen 2, 1x Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB
ODD - Samsung 22x DVD-R / RW
Case - Corsair Obsidian 800D
PSU - Thermaltake ToughPower 1200 watt
Audio - ASUS ThunderBolt (Xonar)
NIC 1 - Intel 82567V Integrated
NIC 2 - ASUS ThunderBolt (BigFoot Networks Killer NIC E2100)
Video Card(s) - 2x Diamond AMD Radeon HD 7970 (CrossfireX)
Display(s) - 3x Dell 3007WFP-HC 30" LCD monitors (Eyefinity)
Keyboard - Das Keyboard Professional
Mouse - Logitech G700 (Wireless)

New Configuration

CPU - Intel Core i7 3930K (Stock)
Cooling - Koolance Exos 2.5, Koolance CPU-370
Motherboard - ASUS Rampage IV Extreme
RAM - Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz (4 x 8GB, 32GB total)
HDD - Corsair Force GT 120GB x2 (RAID-0), 1x Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB
ODD - Pioneer BDR206 BD-RW 12x SATA Drive
Case - Corsair Obsidian 800D
PSU - Thermaltake ToughPower 1200 watt
Audio - Realtek ALC898 (Onboard)
NIC - Intel 82567V Integrated
Video Card(s) - 2x Diamond AMD Radeon HD 7970 (CrossfireX)
Display(s) - 3x Dell 3007WFP-HC 30" LCD monitors (Eyefinity)
Keyboard - Das Keyboard Professional
Mouse - Logitech G700 (Wireless)

Currently, nothing is overclocked.

One monitor is connected via the native dual-link DVI port on the back of the primary Radeon HD 7970. The second and third monitors are connected via active mini-DP to DVI adapters. With a single card I've got to occasionally unplug one mini-DP cable and reseat it, but that always resolves my issue. And it always happens on a cold boot or resuming from sleep mode. But this issue is just par for the course with these types of adapters and has been since the Radeon HD 5970 days.

Both cards have the same exact BIOS. (015.012.000.004.000346 according to GPU-Z)

I've tried both cards individually and both will operate with absolute stability for hours on end. I've also found out about the ULPS issue in the registry. I've tried disabling it. Without disabling that, the second card hadn't been operating at all, or hardly at all it seemed. I had hoped this would lead to a fix, but sadly it didn't. I have also tried one Crossfire bridge, two, and even another one I had laying around to just rule that out. So I've tried multiple Crossfire bridges. PCI-Express lane configuration is optimal as the slots used grant x16 lanes to each card on both systems. Link width reports as x16 Gen3.0 on the new system, and Gen2.0 on the old one.

Temperatures can of course be high, but with the fan speeds under manual control I can keep the temperatures down to around 55c or so. So I do not believe heat is the issue. I've also placed an external fan near the system with the side off just to make certain it wasn't an airflow or cooling issue given the Obsidian's relatively poor air cooling compared to some other designs. Idle temp for the primary card is 49c and 41c for the second. Load temps according to my GPU-Z log never exceed the low 60c range prior to the crash.

And of course for the crowd that blames the PSU before other things, my PSU voltages look good and according to my UPS, the system is drawing only around 600 wats at most. The UPS has an output limit of around 900 watts maximum, but only the PC is connected to it. The monitor and everything else are handled on another outlet. Volt-meter and onboard monitors also show that the PSU's voltages are all well within their normal ranges. I've also tried running the system off the wall directly (briefly) just to remove the UPS as being a limitation. I didn't think my power usage was that high anyway. The PSU is one of the few components aside from the case and optical drive carried over from the previous build to the new one. So I've considered that, but I don't have another powerful enough PSU that's not integrated into another system to try out. I'd also like to point out that both systems are rock solid and stable for everything but playing games and with one card enabled, they are both good to go on that.

What am I missing here? Performance is fine now, but the lockups are pretty damned annoying.

i was thinking psu as well since thats the most common symptom of a under powered/bad psu at least in my experiences. but if its only pulling 600w from the ups i doubt thats the problem unless for some reason one of the 12v rails is over loaded which is what i'm guessing due to the way the rails were laid out on my tough power 750w running anything more than SLI 8800GT's overloads the rails even though the system only pulls 400w from the wall.

Dan_D, thank you for posting a very detailed report on your issue.

You have pretty much done what I have done if I was in your situation. The only thing left is the crossfire bridge is defective, motherboard might have issues with crossfire and use single display only for crossfire.

I am currently using two sapphire 7970s in crossfire with Catalyst 12.7 beta with 12.7 Cap 1. I got these videocards at day one of release.

I played some Mass Effect 3 multiplayer when the Earth DLC came out and some Battlefield 3 in crossfire with no issues. I am currently in my backlog of steam summer sale games. But I haven't exhibited anything erradic or complete system lockups with 12.7 beta in crossfire at the moment. Aside from the crossfire bridge, motherboard and single display testing, I really don't know what is left that you haven't done. Sorry if this didn't help. But I can't even pinpoint what the issue could be. The only difference I can see is you're using onboard audio over a soundcard. I know there was some issue I read that people with realtek audio had issues with certain crossfire setups alongtime ago. But I don't think that applies now that you have the latest RealTek ALC898 audio.

sirmonkey1985 said:

i was thinking psu as well since thats the most common symptom of a under powered/bad psu at least in my experiences. but if its only pulling 600w from the ups i doubt thats the problem unless for some reason one of the 12v rails is over loaded which is what i'm guessing due to the way the rails were laid out on my tough power 750w running anything more than SLI 8800GT's overloads the rails even though the system only pulls 400w from the wall.

Click to expand...

SirMonkey1985 you might be on to something. I did a quick search on Thermatake USA site for Tough Power 1200WATT ( http://thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1245&ID=2043#Tab1 ) and it states the Tough Power Grand 1200WATT:

"

"

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It list two +12V1 (40A) and +12V2 (85A).

Now I that I think back in time with my first BFG 7800 GTX SLI setup I did have random lockups in games with the antec powersupply. It was higher WATT but it had lower AMPs on the 12V1 line. Someone told me to get a PCPower and Cooling powersupply and my lockups didn't happen anymore because of their "single rail" design. Now that I think about it, my Corsair CMPSU-1200AX is also single rail with 100.4A on the +12V1 line. You might be on to something SirMonkey1985.

sirmonkey1985 said:

i was thinking psu as well since thats the most common symptom of a under powered/bad psu at least in my experiences. but if its only pulling 600w from the ups i doubt thats the problem unless for some reason one of the 12v rails is over loaded which is what i'm guessing due to the way the rails were laid out on my tough power 750w running anything more than SLI 8800GT's overloads the rails even though the system only pulls 400w from the wall.

Click to expand...

The Toughpower 1200 is a totally different animal than the 750w model is. And I've run three GTX 280's, dual GTX 580's and I've even run the three way SLI 280 setup on a Skulltrail setup with this thing. Capacitor aging may be a factor here, but I doubt it's that bad. But I've pulled a hell of a lot more power out of this thing than I am now. Normally I'm not one to cry PSU. In fact I try and beat people with logic when they claim that's the problem despite the issues not manifesting as PSU problems. In my case, I'm not sure that's it either. Hard locks are certainly possible if there is a shortage on one or more rails, but absent are the random resets and cold boot issues that normally accompany such problems.

Mr Mean said:

Dan_D, thank you for posting a very detailed report on your issue.

You have pretty much done what I have done if I was in your situation. The only thing left is the crossfire bridge is defective, motherboard might have issues with crossfire and use single display only for crossfire.

I am currently using two sapphire 7970s in crossfire with Catalyst 12.7 beta with 12.7 Cap 1. I got these videocards at day one of release.

I played some Mass Effect 3 multiplayer when the Earth DLC came out and some Battlefield 3 in crossfire with no issues. I am currently in my backlog of steam summer sale games. But I haven't exhibited anything erradic or complete system lockups with 12.7 beta in crossfire at the moment. Aside from the crossfire bridge, motherboard and single display testing, I really don't know what is left that you haven't done. Sorry if this didn't help. But I can't even pinpoint what the issue could be. The only difference I can see is you're using onboard audio over a soundcard. I know there was some issue I read that people with realtek audio had issues with certain crossfire setups alongtime ago. But I don't think that applies now that you have the latest RealTek ALC898 audio.

Click to expand...

I have tried a different Crossfire bridge. In fact I've tried three different ones, and I've tried using one and two bridges at the same time. I've tried this setup on two different motherboards. That's why I posted the two specifications listings above. I upgraded almost everything hoping that this would solve my issue. That and I just wanted to upgrade. I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. Aside from the Exos, the case and the PSU, everything is new. And I had my issue on the old rig with the Thunderbolt audio which is a Xonar solution using a Crystal Media chipset, not Realtek. So I don't think Realtek audio is my problem here.

Mr Mean said:

SirMonkey1985 you might be on to something. I did a quick search on Thermatake USA site for Tough Power 1200WATT ( http://thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1245&ID=2043#Tab1 ) and it states the Tough Power Grand 1200WATT:

It list two +12V1 (40A) and +12V2 (85A).

Now I that I think back in time with my first BFG 7800 GTX SLI setup I did have random lockups in games with the antec powersupply. It was higher WATT but it had lower AMPs on the 12V1 line. Someone told me to get a PCPower and Cooling powersupply and my lockups didn't happen anymore because of their "single rail" design. Now that I think about it, my Corsair CMPSU-1200AX is also single rail with 100.4A on the +12V1 line. You might be on to something SirMonkey1985.

Click to expand...

My test bench is equipped with an older PC Power & Cooling 1Kw SR unit. I could try the cards on the test bench and see what happens. I've avoided that because that PSU doesn't have native 8-pin PCIe power on it.

You have certainly done far more troubleshooting than most people would and you've been methodical which helps tremendously. Have you checked your MB bios to make sure its current and have you tried a different bios just for the sake of ruling it out? I've seen people experience crossfire issues in the past related to the MB bios.

Dan_D said:

My test bench is equipped with an older PC Power & Cooling 1Kw SR unit. I could try the cards on the test bench and see what happens. I've avoided that because that PSU doesn't have native 8-pin PCIe power on it.

Click to expand...

Its certainly worth trying though. Do you have some 6 to 8 pin adapters? I have used those adapters with no isssues.

Dan_D said:

My test bench is equipped with an older PC Power & Cooling 1Kw SR unit. I could try the cards on the test bench and see what happens. I've avoided that because that PSU doesn't have native 8-pin PCIe power on it.

Click to expand...

It's worth a shot. Please keep us updated.

Can you try two more things for the sake of ruling them out? Try removing two sticks of memory and running 16GB. 32GB is such an uncommon configuration its worth seeing if there's some strange issue with your 32GB of memory. Secondly, can you try raising your CPU voltage a little?

Dan_D said:

The Toughpower 1200 is a totally different animal than the 750w model is. And I've run three GTX 280's, dual GTX 580's and I've even run the three way SLI 280 setup on a Skulltrail setup with this thing. Capacitor aging may be a factor here, but I doubt it's that bad. But I've pulled a hell of a lot more power out of this thing than I am now. Normally I'm not one to cry PSU. In fact I try and beat people with logic when they claim that's the problem despite the issues not manifesting as PSU problems. In my case, I'm not sure that's it either. Hard locks are certainly possible if there is a shortage on one or more rails, but absent are the random resets and cold boot issues that normally accompany such problems.



I have tried a different Crossfire bridge. In fact I've tried three different ones, and I've tried using one and two bridges at the same time. I've tried this setup on two different motherboards. That's why I posted the two specifications listings above. I upgraded almost everything hoping that this would solve my issue. That and I just wanted to upgrade. I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. Aside from the Exos, the case and the PSU, everything is new. And I had my issue on the old rig with the Thunderbolt audio which is a Xonar solution using a Crystal Media chipset, not Realtek. So I don't think Realtek audio is my problem here.

Click to expand...

yeah thats what i was figuring too since i knew you ran a lot of different setups over the years.

given that you had them running in 2 different setups with the same problems leads me to believe one of the cards might be bad and its only showing up in crossfire, maybe one of the VRM's or something. could try underclocking the cards maybe and see what happens. but other than that i'm out of ideas.

Blkout said:

You have certainly done far more troubleshooting than most people would and you've been methodical which helps tremendously. Have you checked your MB bios to make sure its current and have you tried a different bios just for the sake of ruling it out? I've seen people experience crossfire issues in the past related to the MB bios.

Click to expand...

Yes. BIOS 1404 is the most current one for the Rampage IV Extreme. Additionally, I've tried 0903 as it was still on BIOS ROM 2.

Blkout said:

Its certainly worth trying though. Do you have some 6 to 8 pin adapters? I have used those adapters with no isssues.

Click to expand...

Yes I do. I use a GTX 580 on the bench with one all the time, but I do have a couple more of them.

Blkout said:

Can you try two more things for the sake of ruling them out? Try removing two sticks of memory and running 16GB. 32GB is such an uncommon configuration its worth seeing if there's some strange issue with your 32GB of memory. Secondly, can you try raising your CPU voltage a little?

Click to expand...

I hadn't thought of that. I'm not sure what good it will do. Don't forget I did run these cards in my old machine which had 12GB of RAM. Not uncommon for an X58 system. I also overclocked my old Core i7 980X quite a bit and it's CPU voltage was higher than stock.

sirmonkey1985 said:

yeah thats what i was figuring too since i knew you ran a lot of different setups over the years.

given that you had them running in 2 different setups with the same problems leads me to believe one of the cards might be bad and its only showing up in crossfire, maybe one of the VRM's or something. could try underclocking the cards maybe and see what happens. but other than that i'm out of ideas.

Click to expand...

Given that they both work alone, I'd almost need to get a third card and try pairing it with each of these and running games for potentially hours on end to see what happens. I'm not sure how else to isolate that particular issue if that's the only way it manifests. I suppose I could try underclocking and see what happens. Also, I hadn't thought about trying with one display, which someone else mentioned. I guess I can give that a shot.

If none of my ideas got you any further then it can really only be the power supply or one of the video cards. Those are really the only two constants between both systems that you tested. If it were driver related too many other people would be having the same issue and a fresh install of Windows would have resolved it. Logic says there just cant be anything else it can be. The suggestions I provided were grasping for straws but it seems you've tried most everything else so it never hurts to rule out those issues also.

Blkout said:

If none of my ideas got you any further then it can really only be the power supply or one of the video cards. Those are really the only two constants between both systems that you tested. If it were driver related too many other people would be having the same issue and a fresh install of Windows would have resolved it. Logic says there just cant be anything else it can be. The suggestions I provided were grasping for straws but it seems you've tried most everything else so it never hurts to rule out those issues also.

Click to expand...

My issue with that idea is that power supply issues do not generally manifest in this way. And if they do, it is but one symptom. Cold boot problems and random reboots generally go along with it. Despite what people think, power supplies are rarely responsible for issues with PC's. They typically work or they don't. Granted, if I have a weak 12v rail, where say the second card is pulling more than the rail can handle, it creates the hard lock. So I suppose it is possible, but if this were the case, I'd likely have a cold boot issue when everything comes up at once. Then again my lockups occur after prolonged gaming. So it could be that the PSU can output that much power, but not for a protracted period of time.

I'm in the middle of writing an article, so I don't have time to yank these things out and test them in another box, or on the test bench. I'll have to mess with that a bit later tonight. We'll see. If I don't get this sorted out I'll be switching to NVIDIA. I just didn't want to have to shell out the cash for 4GB cards. 3GB of RAM seemed to be enough, but 2GB damn sure isn't. So the GTX 680 2GB cards are not an option.

Do you have anyone close to you with another 7970? I'd bring mine by, but I don't think you're anywhere close to Baton Rouge

Oh, and here's another stupid idea. Assuming it's just as tough on GPU's as it is on CPU's, try throwing F@H on each card and see if one caves?

Omegas said:

Do you have anyone close to you with another 7970? I'd bring mine by, but I don't think you're anywhere close to Baton Rouge

Oh, and here's another stupid idea. Assuming it's just as tough on GPU's as it is on CPU's, try throwing F@H on each card and see if one caves?

Click to expand...

I might be able to borrow a Radeon HD 7970 actually. The F@H idea is a good one though. I hadn't thought about that.

I read this and it was like deja vu. I went through this exact same nightmare a few weeks back. Never did get crossfire to work. I tried everything you listed and then some. Finally went with a single card and haven't looked back.

Good luck!

Rogue_Apprentice said:

I read this and it was like deja vu. I went through this exact same nightmare a few weeks back. Never did get crossfire to work. I tried everything you listed and then some. Finally went with a single card and haven't looked back.

Good luck!

Click to expand...

A single card doesn't give me the performance I want in games. The native resolution of these monitors is quite demanding for modern games.

Oh I agree but I was tired of fighting it. I run 3 24" Samsung's. I went from two 6970s to a single XFX Black Edition 7950 OC'd the shit out of it and I can deal for now....

I wanted to go Nvidia again but 2gb vram isn't enough and I didn't want to spring for a 4gb card.

Is there nothing in the event logs?

Have you tried swapping over the cards?

Have you tried putting the cards farther apart?

What happens when, in non-Crossfire mode, you stress both cards?

Quartz-1 said:

Is there nothing in the event logs?

Click to expand...

Error 41 kernal power message. I am not sure if this indicates a sudden power loss prior to the system hard lock, or if it is because I have to power off the machine and nothing else is written to the log because of that. This is quite honestly the only thing that has me leaning towards a PSU issue.

Quartz-1 said:

Have you tried swapping over the cards?

Click to expand...

Swapping them over to what? I've swapped the card order. I've also tested both cards individually extensively. I've also had them in more than one machine. Granted, those two configurations did have the same PSU.

Quartz-1 said:

Have you tried putting the cards farther apart?

Click to expand...

They can be put one slot further apart, but heat isn't the issue and I had this problem in two different machines. So I don't think it is a board issue or a matter of the cards being too close together. I've run the cards with the fans at 100% with the side off the case and a high output fan on the floor pushing cool air over the whole mess. My temps were about 50c at the time doing that on both cards. Again heat isn't the problem.

Quartz-1 said:

What happens when, in non-Crossfire mode, you stress both cards?

Click to expand...

Aside from the folding at home idea, I've really got no good way of doing that unless I'm missing the obvious.

Dan_D said:

Error 41 kernal power message.

Click to expand...

I presume you've look at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2028504

Swapping them over to what? I've swapped the card order

Click to expand...

That's what I meant.

They can be put one slot further apart, but heat isn't the issue

Click to expand...

I'm thinking about not heat but EMI.

Aside from the folding at home idea, I've really got no good way of doing that unless I'm missing the obvious.

Click to expand...

How about playing a video on one card while gaming on the other?

The problem is with the stuff they added to the drivers for the ghz edtion cards. It is not playing nice with none ghz cards. I was having the same issues as you until I flashed my cards with the ghz edtion bios. Since I have done this all the crossfire crashing is gone. If you check your voltages in 2d and 3d and compare them to the drivers prior to 12.6/12.7b you will see the difference.

Also what bios are you running on the Rampage IV extreme?

I am running the RIVE with bios 1101 with a 3960X.
Using 2 ref 7970 crossfire 3x1 eyefinity. 1x DVI, 2x miniDP to DP cables for side monitors.

Quartz-1 said:

I presume you've look at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2028504

Click to expand...

Bugcheck and powerbutton timestamp are both zero. According to that document, this can be PSU related, but then again it could be something else from memory, to heat, etc. Something generated a hard lock condition, and it basically points to hardware. But it isn't more specific than that.

Quartz-1 said:

I'm thinking about not heat but EMI.

Click to expand...

If they were having EMI issues that close together (as in not that close) then I doubt one slot would make a difference. I'd also be experiencing other syptoms as a result of that. I'd probably have issues with the primary card while gaming.

Quartz-1 said:

How about playing a video on one card while gaming on the other?

Click to expand...

I could try that.

defcoms said:

The problem is with the stuff they added to the drivers for the ghz edtion cards. It is not playing nice with none ghz cards. I was having the same issues as you until I flashed my cards with the ghz edtion bios. Since I have done this all the crossfire crashing is gone. If you check your voltages in 2d and 3d and compare them to the drivers prior to 12.6/12.7b you will see the difference.

Also what bios are you running on the Rampage IV extreme?

I am running the RIVE with bios 1101 with a 3960X.
Using 2 ref 7970 crossfire 3x1 eyefinity. 1x DVI, 2x miniDP to DP cables for side monitors.

Click to expand...

I've thought about flashing these with GHz Edition BIOS' but I want to get things working first. But that is something to consider. I'll check on the voltages and report back. Also, I'm running BIOS 1404 on my Rampage IV Extreme.

My money is on the motherboard being messed up. Even though it "works" that doesn't mean its not broken. I would try another X79 mobo from a different manufacturer before pointing the finger at AMD Gpus. But anyway, you know my thoughts on the matter so I'll refrain from further discussion of the issue. I'm out.

Lots of suggestions here, probably not much else anyone can do until you try them and see what happens. I'll be honest if none of the suggestions here in this thread didnt fix the issue, you would certainly have one of the most bizarre problems I've ever seen. But in all honestly you're already in that small minority already it seems. I'm looking forward to hearing the solution as this is far more interesting than run of the mill issues most people encounter.

l88bastard said:

My money is on the motherboard being messed up. Even though it "works" that doesn't mean its not broken. I would try another X79 mobo from a different manufacturer before pointing the finger at AMD Gpus. But anyway, you know my thoughts on the matter so I'll refrain from further discussion of the issue. I'm out.

Click to expand...

The only problem with that is he already tried both cards on another setup with a different motherboard and the problem still existed. Most people don't have the luxury of having two different PC's to test a problem like this but he did, and the problem was still there. Logic usually dictates that when all other components are different but the problem remains, it can only be the components that remained the same between the two systems that is causing the problem. In this case, only the PSU and video cards remained the same between both setups. The only other issue I could see is if maybe voltage setting was a bit low in the BIOS causing some instability once the second card was installed which is why I asked him to bump the CPU voltage some to rule that out too.

One last thing Dan, when you did fresh Win 7 installs, did you load the AMD 12.4's first, then then 12.6's and 12.7's or did you do it in the reverse order? The reason I ask is that many people have had issues with the 12.6's and 12.7's and if you installed those first then went back to the 12.4's afterwards, it could be some remaining driver issue frmo the 12.6's or 7's causing the 12.4's not to work as they should also. If you installed the 12.4's first and the problem was still there, then this would rule out drivers issues completely.

l88bastard said:

My money is on the motherboard being messed up. Even though it "works" that doesn't mean its not broken. I would try another X79 mobo from a different manufacturer before pointing the finger at AMD Gpus. But anyway, you know my thoughts on the matter so I'll refrain from further discussion of the issue. I'm out.

Click to expand...

That may be where your money is but there isn't a logical reason behind it other than it worked for you. I've used ASUS motherboards for many years and I've seen plenty of other people do so without issues. Even with CrossfireX and I refuse to believe that ASUS boards just don't work with Crossfire. That's bullshit. In fact I believe Kyle ran with two Radeon HD 7970's in CrossfireX on an ASUS motherboard based rig recently.

Oh look, here is the GeForce GTX 680 3-Way SLI & Radeon 7970 Tri-Fire Review which is running on an ASUS motherboard. And check that out, another review with CrossfireX working on ASUS boards.

And furthermore, I've tried two different system configurations sharing only the power supply and a drive for storage. Thats it. The Rampage III Black Edition worked just fine with dual GTX 580's in SLI and my Rampage IV Extreme based rig has the same exact problem the Rampage III Black Edition one had. I prefer logic and reason to prevail. Right now I have every reason to believe that I have a possible PSU issue, bad video card, or something else. But given I've already replaced the motherboard with one which uses a different chipset and CPU, and I got the same exact results, It's not the motherboard. Or at least, the chances of that being the case are up there with me winning the lottery.

Saying it's an issue with ASUS motherboards in general is an example of BAD diagnostics work, especially when there is plenty of evidence to refute that claim.

Blkout said:

One last thing Dan, when you did fresh Win 7 installs, did you load the AMD 12.4's first, then then 12.6's and 12.7's or did you do it in the reverse order? The reason I ask is that many people have had issues with the 12.6's and 12.7's and if you installed those first then went back to the 12.4's afterwards, it could be some remaining driver issue frmo the 12.6's or 7's causing the 12.4's not to work as they should also. If you installed the 12.4's first and the problem was still there, then this would rule out drivers issues completely.

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No sir. When I did fresh installs I tried the driver I was trying to rule out and only that driver. I didn't install anything over any existing driver. On my RE3BE rig I had the 12'4's because that's what I ran and then upgraded to later drivers and then downgraded back to 12.4. I also connected a new drive and did a fresh install on that one. And I was going to upgrade my rig anyway, so rather than screw with making the cards work on a machine I was set to replace, I went ahead and built a new one reusing very little of the old one.

Dan_D said:

No sir. When I did fresh installs I tried the driver I was trying to rule out and only that driver. I didn't install anything over any existing driver.

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Gotcha, just checking. I know the 12.4's were the most stable current drivers for most people even though crossfire wasn't scaling properly. I just wasn't sure if you were installing over other drivers even though, technically you should be able to.

Blkout said:

Gotcha, just checking. I know the 12.4's were the most stable current drivers for most people even though crossfire wasn't scaling properly. I just wasn't sure if you were installing over other drivers even though, technically you should be able to.

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Crossfire didn't work for me at all with ULPS enabled. With it disabled I experienced negative scaling in ME3. It worked fine in BF3, but I still got the hard locks. Also with CrossfireX enabled, I had Photoshop stop responding on me several times until I disabled GPU acceleration or disabled CrossfireX.

Dan, I've mentioned this before on other threads and my fix was to uninstall the HDMI sound drivers for the AMD video cards. My lockups and sound loops went away after that. Might be worth a try.


FYI,
I was running CrossfireX in the rig in my sig. Got rid of the 7970s because of crappy drivers and went to 680s.

DooKey said:

Dan, I've mentioned this before on other threads and my fix was to uninstall the HDMI sound drivers for the AMD video cards. My lockups and sound loops went away after that. Might be worth a try.


FYI,
I was running CrossfireX in the rig in my sig. Got rid of the 7970s because of crappy drivers and went to 680s.

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That is actually something I hadn't considered. I'll give that a try. And I'd have gone with GTX 680's if they had more than 2GB of VRAM on them. Plus I already had one Radeon HD 7970. And finally 4GB GTX 680's are extremely expensive so it just seemed like a no brainer to drop another 7970 in my machine. Many people were reporting good results with Catalyst 12.4 and up I believe. So I went for it. And it's been hell ever since.

Dan_D said:

That is actually something I hadn't considered. I'll give that a try. And I'd have gone with GTX 680's if they had more than 2GB of VRAM on them. Plus I already had one Radeon HD 7970. And finally 4GB GTX 680's are extremely expensive so it just seemed like a no brainer to drop another 7970 in my machine. Many people were reporting good results with Catalyst 12.4 and up I believe. So I went for it. And it's been hell ever since.

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Yeah, if I was doing surround gaming I'd jump to 4gb cards. I just decided to stay with my single 1440p Dell monitor and the normal 680s handle that just fine.

I was having issues until I went with these drivers. http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1707976

My issues were hdmi audio related, as has already been mentioned before in this thread.

there is also a modded driver out there that worked for me too. YMMV http://www.mediafire.com/?1i1dja7mez7xb3a

i had a 7970 since their launch, and heard the horror stories of crossfire. I personally installed windows 7 with 1 video card, installed drivers, then installed the card, activated crossfire and everything "just works"

Don't know if that might have any difference or not, but maybe the procedure might be able to do something.

DooKey said:

Dan, I've mentioned this before on other threads and my fix was to uninstall the HDMI sound drivers for the AMD video cards. My lockups and sound loops went away after that. Might be worth a try.


FYI,
I was running CrossfireX in the rig in my sig. Got rid of the 7970s because of crappy drivers and went to 680s.

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The thing is, that shouldn't be an issue, even if it is/was. The HDMI audio drivers aren't in use unless you're using the HDMI output and have chosen the HDMI audio from the card instead of whatever other sound you have in your PC. Granted I haven't used crossfire 7xxx series card but I did use HDMI video and audio output on my two 6870's without any lock-up issues.

Dan_D said:

If they were having EMI issues that close together (as in not that close) then I doubt one slot would make a difference.

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Don't be so sure about that. Way back in the early 90s we had EMI issues with NICs in ICL PCs which were solved by moving them up a slot (and thus further from the motherboard).

Good God, you think your out and they drag you back in.

Dan...WHERE did I say ASUS motherboards are incapable of stable crossfire, trifire or quadfire? I ran crossfire very well with my Asus P67 Sabertooth AND I TOLD YOU THAT SEVERAL TIMES ALREADY, so I don't know where the hell you are getting this fantasy.

However, I HAD THE EXACT SAME FUCKING PROBLEM WITH MY RAMPAGE III EXTREME that you are having and THAT is what I am trying to impress upon you. Yes you tried a different motherboard...and that other motherboard you tried was a RAMPAGE III...so yea...do yourself a favor and try a MSI, Gigabyte, Asrock or somebody elses motherboard besides Asus cause even if you RMA the damn thing there is no guarantee they will send a working replacement...I recently just went thru 3 RMAs of the Gene V and all three had the same memory error problem with slots A1 & a2.

Dan_D said:

That may be where your money is but there isn't a logical reason behind it other than it worked for you. I've used ASUS motherboards for many years and I've seen plenty of other people do so without issues. Even with CrossfireX and I refuse to believe that ASUS boards just don't work with Crossfire. That's bullshit. In fact I believe Kyle ran with two Radeon HD 7970's in CrossfireX on an ASUS motherboard based rig recently.

Oh look, here is the GeForce GTX 680 3-Way SLI & Radeon 7970 Tri-Fire Review which is running on an ASUS motherboard. And check that out, another review with CrossfireX working on ASUS boards.

And furthermore, I've tried two different system configurations sharing only the power supply and a drive for storage. Thats it. The Rampage III Black Edition worked just fine with dual GTX 580's in SLI and my Rampage IV Extreme based rig has the same exact problem the Rampage III Black Edition one had. I prefer logic and reason to prevail. Right now I have every reason to believe that I have a possible PSU issue, bad video card, or something else. But given I've already replaced the motherboard with one which uses a different chipset and CPU, and I got the same exact results, It's not the motherboard. Or at least, the chances of that being the case are up there with me winning the lottery.

Saying it's an issue with ASUS motherboards in general is an example of BAD diagnostics work, especially when there is plenty of evidence to refute that claim.

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