4870x2 + 4870 CrossfireX

[Ducman69]

I have a 850 watt Corsair PSU and a 4870x2 and 4870 configured in crossfirex.

In both 3DMark06 and 3DMark Vantage, part of the screen moves/flickers left and right rapidly. In 3DMark06, it is very blatantly the right-most third of the screen, I assume the 4870's portion. In games I get weird colors and artifacts on screen until I ctrl+tab out and then go back in, or close and relaunch the game.

1) I am not overclocking, and all three GPUs are set to the same clocks. I did a restore to default, and then a uninstallation of CCC and removal of all three cards from device manager (including drivers) and reinstalled the latest CCC (9.11 Windows 7 64bit IIRC).

2) I removed the special HDMI adapter dongle and DVI cable, and plugged in another DVI to HDMI cable.

Still the same problem.

For the life of me I can't figure this out. HELP PLEEZ!

 

[sirmonkey1985]

does the problem happen with only 1 of the cards installed? id say try running them seporately.. run once with the 4870x2.. then run the same benchmark with the 4870.. see if either of them have a problem.. even try running them in different slots.. so test the 4870x2 in the first and second slot.. and same with the 4870..i doubt its a power issue unless your running an overclocked i7 x58 rig.. is it running in x16/x8? x8/x8? or x16/x4 configuration?

 

[Ducman69]

Sorry for the late reply, just got back in.

The 4870x2 by itself works just fine, and it works just fine if I uncheck crossfirex.

I haven't tested the 4870 by itself, and it'd be a bit of a hassle to get that 4870x2 out of the chassis due to wire ties and crap in the way. Doh!

IIRC, both slots of the gigabyte board are supposed to be x16. I have the 4870x2 in the top slot and the 4870 in the bottom slot. I tried two different crossfire cables and orientation doesn't appear to matter.

I guess you're right and I'll need to find a way to get that 4870x2 out of the chassis... hmmm.

 

[Ducman69]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

Alright, well I shuffled my harddrives around to make room and totally redid the wiring... ugh.

1) The 4870x2 by itself works fine.
2) The 4870 by itself works fine
3) Swapped the cards around so that the 4870x2 is now in the bottom slot.
4) Uninstalled CCC, rebooted, ran the latest Driver Sweeper, rebooted, installed the latest CCC, rebooted and it automatically asked to enable crossfireX which I did.

Haven't changed any settings yet and....

Left 2/3rds of the screen is perfect, right 3rd of the screen shifts left and right rapidly horizontally.

I must have raped baby seals or something in a previous life to deserve this punishment.

 

[Ducman69]

OH MAH GAWD!

To preface, I removed my sound card, esata PCIe card, unplugged all harddrives and optical drives save for OS, swapped PCIe power plugs around, all to no avail and put it back. Huge waste of time.

I finally got around to playing with settings, and decided to max out EVERYTHING in CCC, and voila, it works, THE JITTER IS GONE!

Played with the settings and WTF is with this:
If AA is set to force BOX x16, PROBLEM SOLVED!

If AA is anything else, BOX x8 or edge detect or whatever, the problem persists. What the hell does this mean?!?

Edit: Its probably just because AA is usually disabled, and I'm forcing it now to max, but my 3DMark06 score is now way down to 15376, making me think that perhaps crossfirex is broken with this setting, hence the "fix". *facepalm*

Double-edit: Crap, I think the 4870x2 isn't doing anything at all now. If I have GPU-Z running in the background and Dragon Age in the foreground, in CCC and in GPU-Z, the current clock for the 4870x2 is still low and not showing activity and the temps are low. If I restore back to factory defaults, I get my horizontal shaking, except in stuff like Dragon Age its the whole screen not just a third of the screen... *shoots self*

 

[GotNoRice]

What do you have Catalyst AI set to?

 

[Ducman69]

What do you have Catalyst AI set to?

Both standard and advanced, I didn't try disabled, but AFAIK the 4870x2 won't work w/ it off.

Edit: Oh, and I noticed that my "fix" of setting AA to x16 box doesn't actually work either. In several games I end up with two mouse cursors. One regular, and one semi-transparent that distances itself more from the "real" mouse the further to the right you move it.... WTF LOL!

Double-edit: Went into the BIOS and disabled overclocking, set PCIE back to "auto" (it was 100), and voltage back to "auto". Same problem. The only other thing I can think of is to perhaps see if there is a different firmware I can run for my video cards.

Perhaps not all 4870s can be crossfired.

These are the cards:
XFX Radeon HD 4870 Video Card - 1024MB GDDR5, PCI Express 2.0 x16, CrossFireX Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV
http://www.circuitcity.com/applicat...m_mmc=Email-_-WebletMain-_-CCLET14SHIP-_-ship

VisionTek 900250 Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB 512-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129114&cm_re=4870x2-_-14-129-114-_-Product

Q9550 CPU + a GIGABYTE GA-X48-DS5

Triple edit:Well, I sent a ticket to XFX:
"A portion or entirety of the screen shakes left and right horizontally rapidly when CrossfireX is enabled.

Cards:
XFX HD-487A-ZWFC 4870 1GB + VisionTek 900250 4870x2 2GB

Hardware Troubleshooting:
1) Both cards work installed alone in either PCIex16 slot.
2) Both cards work installed together w/ CrossfireX disabled.
3) Swapped power connectors on PSU.
4) Swapped crossfire cable w/ another and tried both orientations.
5) Removed all non-vital PCI cards and all but one harddrive.
6) Removed ATI HDMI dongle, and replaced cable with a DVI->HDMI to HDTV.

Software Troubleshooting:
1) Uninstalled CCC, rebooted, ran Driver Sweeper, Rebooted, ran CCleaner, installed latest CCC from ATI site, rebooted, automatically prompted to enable crossfireX on login. Issue persists.
2) Reset CCC universally to factory defaults.
3) Tried w/ catalyst AI set to standard, and advanced.
4) Enabled ATI overdrive to verify all three GPUs are listed as 750 core / 900 memory.
5) Flashed Gigabyte motherboard BIOS, reset to recommended settings, tried PCIe timing to both "auto" and 100.
6) Formatted harddrive, installed Windows 7 64bit, installed latest CCC, in 3DMark06 the right third of the screen shakes left and right still, in other games like Dragon Age the entire screen shakes left and right.
7) Cursed loudly, checked XFX website for a card firmware update (there is none listed) and FAQ, and then opened a ticket with low expectations."

 

[Ducman69]

Oh well, I give up. XFX and AMD are ignoring me and VisionTek gives me a support gem like this:

"If both cards work individually it is either a problem with the motherboard compatibility or drivers.

Visiontek Support"

Lesson learned is if you want to do crossfirex, at the very least ensure that both cards are from the SAME manufacturer.

Do not mix and match.

 

[GotNoRice]

Lesson learned is if you want to do crossfirex, at the very least ensure that both cards are from the SAME manufacturer.

Do not mix and match.

I don't see how you derive that from all of this. Most cards are going be a carbon copy of the reference card with maybe a different heat-sink if anything, so regardless of brand they are all going to be nearly identical.

In your case there is much more going on than just different brands, you're trying to Crossfire an X2 card with a single card. All sorts of things are going on in that configuration. Assuming your board is an an 8x/8x configuration (if not that's another set of issues) then you are still in a situation where two GPU's are sharing one 8x lane and the 3rd has it's own to itself.

Did you ever try to update the Bios on the X2?

 

[Ducman69]

I don't see how you derive that from all of this.

Just from my experience here and in google searches I found I was definitely not alone in having crossfirex problems between different manf. boards.

Did you ever try to update the Bios on the X2?

I asked Visiontek and AMD support about it specifically, but it was ignored.

Unfortunately, I'm a bit noobish, and with something as serious (in my head at least) as a firmware update, I want to ensure I'm doing it right.

I got lucky and found a fix though. CCC 8.11 works without a problem!

GPU-Z shows 3 cards enabled in crossfire, the crossfirex logo shows up at the top right, and my scores in 3DMark06 are:
4870 solo = 15.6K
4870x2 solo = 19.7K
4870x2 + 4870 crossfirex = 20.2K (likely not higher just due to low resolution of free version of 3dmark06)

Woot!

Now I have to decide if I want to mess with success and keep CCC 8.11 and leave it alone or install the latest driver (but not latest CCC) or just try to find a slightly newer CCC short of 9.11 (9.12 beta also fails).

 

[GotNoRice]

You might try running 3dmark Vantage, it should be less CPU dependent and might even scale better as well. It would also give you something to compare with since 5870's, etc are commonly benched with Vantage.

 

[Ducman69]

Thanks boss, just ran it in crossfirex (although Vantage thinks its just a single 4870x2 oddly):

I'm just going to have to experiment with newer drivers though, as I'm sure that using stuff this old can't help, although it does at least not shake all over the place hehe!