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6870 Crossfire- Driver Horrorshow!

dont worry CustomModAddict I got cfx working fine. It's hit and miss in some games and takes some tweaking but works really well for the most part. I might consolidate to a 6970 if it benches well enough and then go to another 6970 when they fall in price in like a year or so after launch
 
I disagree, ATI's drivers don't suck because they stop supporting older products, they suck because their engineers simply cannot write good drivers. This has been true forever.

I think once you get your 6870's going acceptably you won't be disappointed in the IQ or performance. The problem is getting the games you play to run on a level you are comfortable with. That often takes a lot of time and headaches. Verify that the 2nd one is DOA (looks like you are already there or almost there) then run the single card for a while whilst you work on the RMA. You'll learn a lot about what to do when you get your 2nd card back and are ready to attempt crossfire again.

You can do it! MLAA is absolutely the shit and you will be happy when you get your setup working.

My "good" card is still here. Its not crashed yet, pleeeeease lord dont let me RMA every single part of this machine.

Glad im a box horder, most folks throw them away asap after a build. Why?

I have never had issues like this in my life, and my first build was a 386 when hardware problems would usually mean a house fire. You never had driver imbalance and patience because if the mouse drivers were off the whole system wouldn't boot.

I miss the 3DFx days, I still do. Back then, everything just WORKED.
 
dont worry CustomModAddict I got cfx working fine. It's hit and miss in some games and takes some tweaking but works really well for the most part. I might consolidate to a 6970 if it benches well enough and then go to another 6970 when they fall in price in like a year or so after launch

I just want the two cards in my machine to allow a Google search. Lots of them, for a whole two hours. lol
 
My "good" card is still here. Its not crashed yet, pleeeeease lord dont let me RMA every single part of this machine.

Glad im a box horder, most folks throw them away asap after a build. Why?

I have never had issues like this in my life, and my first build was a 386 when hardware problems would usually mean a house fire. You never had driver imbalance and patience because if the mouse drivers were off the whole system wouldn't boot.

I miss the 3DFx days, I still do. Back then, everything just WORKED.

If you miss the 3DFX days you made a gigantic mistake buying ATI. As one enthusiast who fondly remembers 3DFX to another.
 
If you miss the 3DFX days you made a gigantic mistake buying ATI. As one enthusiast who fondly remembers 3DFX to another.

What choice did I have? For my budget I couldn't do 480s and I was lured away from 470s for the bang per buck.

But you are quite right, should have stuck with what I knew. Like running cooler and quieter ever mattered, like ever. My games and music are so loud, why would I care?

nVidia FTW!
 
It's not cool and quiet that ATI offers, it's image quality and MLAA. Give it some time, you might be surprised how much of a difference MLAA makes in games. It really is quite massive.
 
My ONE and only RMA was an Nvidia card. I also had driver issues playing WoW with the card, nothing is perfect.
 
DOA graphics card, first for me.

I once received a Matrox Millenium that had a crack through the board and a small hole. Stamped on or something, still worked. Never crashed somehow.

Infact, my first GeForce 4 Ti 4800 arrived with a fan missing but for kicks I stuck it in an old rig. It worked, it ran, never crashed. No fan cooling and worked. lol Absolute manufacture fail, but it WORKED.

Jesus, what have I got myself into. Might aswell drop all this shit down the stairs and insurance claim. Atleast I have been able to type this and do other stuff without a fail yet. Progress.
 
What choice did I have? For my budget I couldn't do 480s and I was lured away from 470s for the bang per buck.

But you are quite right, should have stuck with what I knew. Like running cooler and quieter ever mattered, like ever. My games and music are so loud, why would I care?

nVidia FTW!

So, because you've gotten one bad card ATI is suddenly terrible? For the first two pages of this thread you were bashing ATI drivers until you found out that "opppss, it's a bad card!"

Get a replacement card then report your driver experience.
 
Maybe its just me, but I've had just as much trouble with Nvidia drivers as I have with AMD drivers. Drivers are always a little troublesome. Remember- theres huge numbers of people out there who have no problems with either one- its just the people with problems that post. I agree that AMD probably has a few more driver problems than Nvidia, but they have gotten significantly better than they were back in the day. This is why I make my decisions based on hardware, not software in general. MLAA + eyefinity (whenever I can afford to get the displays ;-P) efficiency, etc. made the choice easy for me. When I originally purchased my 6850, I was not planning on a second one, so I wanted eyefinity on a single card, I just happened to sell enough of my old junk to afford 2 :)
 
so op um have you determined if one of your cards is borked? if so, rma it, one of my cards was borked and after RMA it worked just fine. The 10.10 drivers aren't bad really either. Quit bad mouthing the cards or if they suck so bad send them to me.
 
So, because you've gotten one bad card ATI is suddenly terrible? For the first two pages of this thread you were bashing ATI drivers until you found out that "opppss, it's a bad card!"

Get a replacement card then report your driver experience.

I have forgiven the shimmering, shadow flaps, poorer AF because what do I know. Who cares about that stuff.

Sorry, but these cards are crap. I go by my instinct, and they are not good. Convince yourself otherwise however you like.

I used ATI cards regular, had fun with my Radeon 9800 and until I had to replace it with the Ti 4800 that owned it for not much more cash.

lol.... But WHEN the crossfire did work, for the short time it did, I was very very happy.
 
Maybe its just me, but I've had just as much trouble with Nvidia drivers as I have with AMD drivers. Drivers are always a little troublesome. Remember- theres huge numbers of people out there who have no problems with either one- its just the people with problems that post. I agree that AMD probably has a few more driver problems than Nvidia, but they have gotten significantly better than they were back in the day. This is why I make my decisions based on hardware, not software in general. MLAA + eyefinity (whenever I can afford to get the displays ;-P) efficiency, etc. made the choice easy for me. When I originally purchased my 6850, I was not planning on a second one, so I wanted eyefinity on a single card, I just happened to sell enough of my old junk to afford 2 :)

Oh no, I agree. Infact nVidia nearly single handedly destroyed Windows Vista for awhile at the start. Most BSODs were down to their drivers. Just back then nobody gave a crap about ATI because they sucked pretty badly. I'd go asfar to say that nVidia drivers took down Vista completely.
 
You fail to bring up the AF point in your original post, and you have failed to say which game(s) you noticed the inferior AF quality on. Burden of proof is on you.

I know of one game, that trackmania racing game that had the AF problem. Otherwise all of your currently listed problems can be attributed to a DOA card.
 
You fail to bring up the AF point in your original post, and you have failed to say which game(s) you noticed the inferior AF quality on. Burden of proof is on you.

I know of one game, that trackmania racing game that had the AF problem. Otherwise all of your currently listed problems can be attributed to a DOA card.

Damn you!! That comment is why I escaped the illness to begin with. I will just have to go and buy a 480 GTX too, to go on about it.

Best way to describe it, the Radeons have a plasticy feel & textures feel less set... nVidia textures feel sharper. For years they had the shimmering issues but resolved them and kept the clarity. I have been playing around with recent rigs. What sold me on the 6xxx series crossfire was lame benchmarks, my own undoing.
 
if you google any of these terms:
atikmdag
atikmpag
amdkmdap
you will see a LOT of problems with ATI drivers

some help may be here:
http://www.atikmdag.com/
http://creativedaze.net/?p=24
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/windo...driver-atikmdag-stopped-responding-error.html
http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=104677

good luck fixing the issues. a friend of mine has constant crashes like this, and I haven't been able to fix the problems for him despite months of trying
he currently can't play games without regular BSODs with ati driver crash :(
 
Still no crash. Holy shit, this is amazing. I may get to play Black Ops with my single shittier than the older 5870 card on its own, afterall.
 
if you google any of these terms:
atikmdag
atikmpag
amdkmdap
you will see a LOT of problems with ATI drivers

some help may be here:
http://www.atikmdag.com/
http://creativedaze.net/?p=24
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/windo...driver-atikmdag-stopped-responding-error.html
http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=104677

good luck fixing the issues. a friend of mine has constant crashes like this, and I haven't been able to fix the problems for him despite months of trying
he currently can't play games without regular BSODs with ati driver crash :(

When I joke about Google searching, that is all im looking for, those terms. And tbh, if this current sitting is anything to go by, the card is done for.

My other card would have crashed or hard locked by now. Unless its a low level EDID or chip verification issue, your friend's card is toast. This current 6870 in here has been ok for hours now just doing regular duty without games. The other failed under an hour with those very same crashes.

I just find it hard to grasp that a card, with the very next serial no. literally would surive the same drivers and setup longer than a faulty one if drivers were the real issue here. These two cards are 1 digit off serial numbers.
 
if you google any of these terms:
atikmdag
atikmpag
amdkmdap
you will see a LOT of problems with ATI drivers
http://www.google.com/search?q=nvidia+driver+error+dl


I have forgiven the shimmering, shadow flaps, poorer AF because what do I know. Who cares about that stuff.

Sorry, but these cards are crap. I go by my instinct, and they are not good. Convince yourself otherwise however you like.

I used ATI cards regular, had fun with my Radeon 9800 and until I had to replace it with the Ti 4800 that owned it for not much more cash.
What choice did I have? For my budget I couldn't do 480s and I was lured away from 470s for the bang per buck.

But you are quite right, should have stuck with what I knew. Like running cooler and quieter ever mattered, like ever. My games and music are so loud, why would I care?

nVidia FTW!
Hmm...
Registered on the eve of an ATI launch
Started a thread about your terrible ATI experience that nobody else seems to be having
Started another thread about more terrible ATI experiences right after Nvidia has a big PR show
Pounding the "ATI quality and drivers are bad" drum the night the NDA on the 580 lifts
Ignore or minimize any Nvidia issues
I'll stop short of directly you of being a puppet shill account, but you're not really doing anything that would point to any other conclusion.

"Nvidia FTW!"
 
http://www.google.com/search?q=nvidia+driver+error+dl




Hmm...
Registered on the eve of an ATI launch
Started a thread about your terrible ATI experience that nobody else seems to be having
Started another thread about more terrible ATI experiences right after Nvidia has a big PR show
Pounding the "ATI quality and drivers are bad" drum the night the NDA on the 580 lifts
Ignore or minimize any Nvidia issues
I'll stop short of directly you of being a puppet shill account, but you're not really doing anything that would point to any other conclusion.

"Nvidia FTW!"

LMAO That is amazing, awesome infact. You built a conspiracy out of this. I am absolutely happy from your comments.

The 580 will be a horrendous piece of junk, wait and see. You will get 480 plus 10 with a few watts less with a fancier reference looking cooler. Marketing will need to be used to force it into the minds of current 4xx owners. Total con.

I wish I was a paid nVidia shill tbh, I could go on about crap like SLI and PhysX ...or Cuuuda and get a reward. I get a fucking headache, RMA and shit drivers. Nice.
 
Yeah, this response was more or less what I expected. But some things need to be said.

Hardly... you're making wild accusations with no basis in reality in all likeliness. I for one had hell with my SINGLE 5870, let alone crossfire...
 
This guy is trolling. - I can't prove it though.

I'm not.

It's probably just a dud card, but when your buying a setup for Crossfire purposes it is one horrendous headache. Also, when your troubleshooting these issues, don't help that the other BSOD .sys references are coughed up everywhere.

The extent of the hard locks in Win 7 that I was getting you would have thought the motherboard had been kicked or the ram was stuffed, or the CPU fried.

A right out BSOD and a definate hard lock which don't even give a BSOD a chance to generate are pretty different i'd say.

Formats, checking the SSD is ok, memtest, LinX, Intel Burn Test.... PSU issues? Should I buy a multimeter?

I am just amazed at the extent my faulty 6870 has pressed my boundaries, with graphical corruption and weird lines you get a grasp, hell if temps were off you could grasp it.

Having Crossfire has made it harder and taken twice aslong, but still... its pretty extreme. Im even tempted to do a charge back on my credit card if they refuse a refund on the dud card just to avoid a potential experience like this again now everything seems ok.
 
if you google any of these terms:
atikmdag
atikmpag
amdkmdap
you will see a LOT of problems with ATI drivers

some help may be here:
http://www.atikmdag.com/
http://creativedaze.net/?p=24
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/windo...driver-atikmdag-stopped-responding-error.html
http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=104677

good luck fixing the issues. a friend of mine has constant crashes like this, and I haven't been able to fix the problems for him despite months of trying
he currently can't play games without regular BSODs with ati driver crash :(

Sound slike your buddy's card is faulty- seriously. I've been playing with AMD/ATI cards for the last 2 years now, and the only time I had those types of crashes and atikmdag stuff was because I had a bad PCIe slot. I've even been playing with crossfire.
 
Hardly... you're making wild accusations with no basis in reality
Guess it's just sheer coincidence that the firsts 50 posts of a brand new user who registered during an ATI launch are all about how we should avoid ATI and Nvidia would have been a better choice. Maybe my mind is going...
 
I'm not.

It's probably just a dud card, but when your buying a setup for Crossfire purposes it is one horrendous headache. Also, when your troubleshooting these issues, don't help that the other BSOD .sys references are coughed up everywhere.

The extent of the hard locks in Win 7 that I was getting you would have thought the motherboard had been kicked or the ram was stuffed, or the CPU fried.

A right out BSOD and a definate hard lock which don't even give a BSOD a chance to generate are pretty different i'd say.

Formats, checking the SSD is ok, memtest, LinX, Intel Burn Test.... PSU issues? Should I buy a multimeter?

I am just amazed at the extent my faulty 6870 has pressed my boundaries, with graphical corruption and weird lines you get a grasp, hell if temps were off you could grasp it.

Having Crossfire has made it harder and taken twice aslong, but still... its pretty extreme. Im even tempted to do a charge back on my credit card if they refuse a refund on the dud card just to avoid a potential experience like this again now everything seems ok.

If you'd had a similarly dead Nvidia card, you could have had all the same problems. Not just and AMD failure ;-)
 
Guess it's just sheer coincidence that the firsts 50 posts of a brand new user who registered during an ATI launch are all about how we should avoid ATI and Nvidia would have been a better choice. Maybe my mind is going...

Who has spurned and ignored every single reply of common sense and continued blindly posting haterade like he was being paid to do so... I'm not accusing him of being a fraud either.... but seriously. Read his post history. It's all there. :rolleyes:

Im out.
 
Guess it's just sheer coincidence that the firsts 50 posts of a brand new user who registered during an ATI launch are all about how we should avoid ATI and Nvidia would have been a better choice. Maybe my mind is going...

I said in all likeliness, nice job taking it out of context.
 
You conspiracy wack jobs need a beating, you are an epitone of fail. You have no grasp of the stress this rig has caused me. One of my intentions of the build was to document and get back into the grasp of it all, as insanely I considered renewing my MS qualifications and doing it all again. I was building systems when little Chinese dudes never hooked up OEMs for peanuts and it was a skilled trade.

Have you not read? I have beat down on nVidia equally, many times. They single handedly destroyed Vista from the off through bad driver support.

If these reference cards, Sapphire, XFX or whoever are made at the same place just rebadged perhaps it might be a GOOD thing to question the build quality rather than politics or semantics of our toys? Pathetic, but money is not in this climate when you have kids on the way to feed.
 
Never before, ever. Could a graphics card failure possible be... ram, cpu, motherboard or even PSU failure judging by user experience, down to the response from driver error. That is a new one on me. It's never been easy, not meant to be but this takes the absolute piss.
 
Adding to that, when I took that card out it felt quite hot to be fair. Considering it had been doing nothing but searching for .sys amd driver errors in Google. Maybe nVidia should shill me, I could take cuts from AMD too on the side and reverse shill so idiots on here could grease their pecker and feel better about having stripey cake looking cards sat in their rigs to go with their lovely red water cooling pipes.
 
All of this to avoid ADHD infected retarded kids on Xbox Live, think I should just do heroin and rape midgets.
 
You know- just as a heads up- there is an edit button there so that you don't have to post 4 times in a row ;-)
 
You know- just as a heads up- there is an edit button there so that you don't have to post 4 times in a row ;-)

That is true. lol I was just overwhelmed at having the ability to create a post without a full system lockdown. Forums are very system intensive now. Just constantly expecting amdkickmofolmaofailyoufailfuckroflcopter.sys to BSOD on me because I was psychically meant to know that looking at your ATI Catalyst icon in the taskbar before midnight without scratching your nuts could potentially cause a crash.
 
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