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Multiple CrossfireX Issues

K

kzaske

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 12, 2010
Messages
211
For months I have been fighting an issue that I had assumed to be a driver issue. It all started when I upgraded my processor from a Phenom II x4 965 to a Phenom II x6 1090T and upgraded video driver from 10.3 to version 10.5. The issues are numberious;
1) one of them is that the HUD for my favorite game (or any game) would disappear in Windowed mode if I moved the mouse over an icon. Here is a video of it happening to someone else: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6FQIrNRXlU
2) I would also have my cursor disappear on me in the middle of any game.
3) Lastly the screen would break-up into memory segments each being half of the previous segment (screen shots would look normal), I am unable to attach the photo to this post.

After months of research I found two possible causes.
1) the 4800 series of video cards had a memory controller bug that can cause a lack of bandwidth resulting in the two video cards de-syncing. Lots of info about this on HardOCP if you want to hunt it up.
2) So time ago the multi-core driver from AMD had an issue that would cause a memory de-sync under some circumstances. As I have the latest (and corrected) multi-core driver installed I don't think that is the cause of the issue. That leaves the Bandwidth issues of using one crossfire bridge.
So, with all the evidance stuck away I open a ticket with XFX support asking for a second crossfire bridge. Today I got a response from them stating that using a second crossfire bridge will cause issues! I tried hard not to laugh too hard. So Mark (the XFX support agent) wants me to send him the pictures (at 5MB each that is going to be fun) and monitor logs from GPU-Z (great tool). A greatly reduced small segment of a photo is attached to this post (I hope).

Anyway, A friend of mine has several spare Crossfire bridges, a little horse trading he has a new game to play and I have several crossfire bridges. I installed a second crossfire bridge. The difference was noticable, a slight (less than 5%) increase in frame rates but the game played slightly smoother. I managed to get about four hours into the game before the image broke up (issue #3 above) again. F@H GPU was not running, the temps were in the mid 60s c. I had to restart the computer using the reset button, when GPUZ came back up the GPU temps had gone up by ten degrees C from when I was gaming, the memory was at 69.5c. F@H GPU had not loaded yet so I paused it once it was up.

Any ideas? I am fresh out other than asking for an RMA and I don't really think the cards are bad as they both work perfectly when not in crossfire.
 
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I have been playing GW on multiple different setup, including 4870X2, 4870CF, 5870CF, 5970.. none of them have that issue u mention...
 
For those in the know, I am aware of Gigabytes infamious 8GB RAM error. I have had the latest BIOs installed for some time, it was needed for the 1090T to work. Anyway, I have tried 2, 4, 6, 8GB configurations; no change.
 
That HUD thing looks like an aero problem like either Windows or the driver doesn't know what window to focus on.

Have you tried completely wiping the drivers through uninstall and then deleting the rest through device manager and doing a reinstall?

Btw does this do it when you don't have F@H running in the background?
 
mastrdrver said:
That HUD thing looks like an aero problem like either Windows or the driver doesn't know what window to focus on.

Have you tried completely wiping the drivers through uninstall and then deleting the rest through device manager and doing a reinstall?

Btw does this do it when you don't have F@H running in the background?
Click to expand...

I am using WindowsXP x64, there is no Aero. Yes, it does it when F@H is not running, it does it when F@H is running, it seems to do it anytime it wants to. This all started with the blinking (as shown in the video), I have that fixed now. It's the breakdown of the display that is so frustrating. To see a pic of what the monitor shows visit: http://newtechhorizon.com/nthforum/index.php?/topic/798-crossfirex-issues-still/

Edit: If the link it against the rules, the only reason it is here is to show what the monitor shows. Please feel free to delete it if you must.
 
kzaske said:
For months I have been fighting an issue that I had assumed to be a driver issue. It all started when I upgraded my processor from a Phenom II x4 965 to a Phenom II x6 1090T and upgraded video driver from 10.3 to version 10.5. The issues are numberious;
1) one of them is that the HUD for my favorite game (or any game) would disappear in Windowed mode if I moved the mouse over an icon. Here is a video of it happening to someone else: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6FQIrNRXlU
2) I would also have my cursor disappear on me in the middle of any game.
3) Lastly the screen would break-up into memory segments each being half of the previous segment (screen shots would look normal), I am unable to attach the photo to this post.

After months of research I found two possible causes.
1) the 4800 series of video cards had a memory controller bug that can cause a lack of bandwidth resulting in the two video cards de-syncing. Lots of info about this on HardOCP if you want to hunt it up.
2) So time ago the multi-core driver from AMD had an issue that would cause a memory de-sync under some circumstances. As I have the latest (and corrected) multi-core driver installed I don't think that is the cause of the issue. That leaves the Bandwidth issues of using one crossfire bridge.
So, with all the evidance stuck away I open a ticket with XFX support asking for a second crossfire bridge. Today I got a response from them stating that using a second crossfire bridge will cause issues! I tried hard not to laugh too hard. So Mark (the XFX support agent) wants me to send him the pictures (at 5MB each that is going to be fun) and monitor logs from GPU-Z (great tool). A greatly reduced small segment of a photo is attached to this post (I hope).

Anyway, A friend of mine has several spare Crossfire bridges, a little horse trading he has a new game to play and I have several crossfire bridges. I installed a second crossfire bridge. The difference was noticable, a slight (less than 5%) increase in frame rates but the game played slightly smoother. I managed to get about four hours into the game before the image broke up (issue #3 above) again. F@H GPU was not running, the temps were in the mid 60s c. I had to restart the computer using the reset button, when GPUZ came back up the GPU temps had gone up by ten degrees C from when I was gaming, the memory was at 69.5c. F@H GPU had not loaded yet so I paused it once it was up.

Any ideas? I am fresh out other than asking for an RMA and I don't really think the cards are bad as they both work perfectly when not in crossfire.
Click to expand...


Have you tried using the newest 10.9 drivers from AMD's website? Is this a new CF setup?

FYI, CrossFire does not work in Windowed mode, you will only get support for Fullscreen applications.
 
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chanchan said:
Have you tried using the newest 10.9 drivers from AMD's website? Is this a new CF setup?

FYI, CrossFire does not work in Windowed mode, you will only get support for Fullscreen applications.
Click to expand...

I have tried every driver version from 9.12 through 10.9, with varing results. As for Windowed mode, you are correct. Crossfire only works when a graphical application is in full screen mode. The reason for the Windowed mode error is that it is just one of the several errors I have experenced.

A few nights ago, I uninstalled and installed 10.4 again. The windowed mode error is back, but so far the memory issues have not appeared (yet).

I can not begin to express how disappointed I am in ATI's drivers. The hardware is excellent, but the software leaves so much to be desired. At least I know why almost every test of crossfire I find on the web uses an Intel CPU and chipset.
 
kzaske said:
I am using WindowsXP x64, there is no Aero. Yes, it does it when F@H is not running, it does it when F@H is running, it seems to do it anytime it wants to. This all started with the blinking (as shown in the video), I have that fixed now. It's the breakdown of the display that is so frustrating. To see a pic of what the monitor shows visit: http://newtechhorizon.com/nthforum/index.php?/topic/798-crossfirex-issues-still/

Edit: If the link it against the rules, the only reason it is here is to show what the monitor shows. Please feel free to delete it if you must.
Click to expand...

Do you still have your old 965? Since you did drivers and cpu at the same time you need to isolate which one is the one that caused it. I'm guessing you have already been through all the drivers so this really could be a problem of cpu support on the board you have.

It seems that no AMD board has not had problems when it has come to supporting the X6 cpus. Some better than others and only with time has it got better.

Also when was the last time you updated your DirectX drivers? Could be something as simple as that.
 
The system works 100% properly when using just one card, right? If so, it could be a power issue with both cards installed. A lot of motherboards have weak power phasing for X6, so taxing the PSU even more could cause more trouble.

What kind of PSU and motherboard are you using?
 
mastrdrver said:
Do you still have your old 965? Since you did drivers and cpu at the same time you need to isolate which one is the one that caused it. I'm guessing you have already been through all the drivers so this really could be a problem of cpu support on the board you have.

It seems that no AMD board has not had problems when it has come to supporting the X6 cpus. Some better than others and only with time has it got better.

Also when was the last time you updated your DirectX drivers? Could be something as simple as that.
Click to expand...

The old 965 is in my Wife's computer now with her MSI board, working like a champ. But the issues I have been having date back to the when I was using it. There wree just as sever as they were back then.

@TheGuyOnTheCouch - My mobo & PSU are listed in my sig. As I said before, it did work perfectly for several months. The issues reappeared after updating the video drivers.

The memory issues occured again, along with the missing mouse... My Windows 7 disks arrived today, I am hoping downgrading to it will get rid of the issues.
 
To close this thread, I thought I would let everyone know that upgrading to Win7 worked until I let windows update to 10.9. Once that update was done I could not boot into windows due to a Blue Screen.
It was as I thought, a software issue thanks to ATI and craptastic professional (sic) programing skills. Makes me wish I knew how to write drivers.

Ken /|\
 
You might have an issue with the hardware that only becomes apparent when the drivers are loaded because the hardware isn't being accessed in the same way without the drivers installed.

Crossfire X, etc.
 
mastrdrver said:
Have you tried any of the modded drivers out there?
Click to expand...

Can you recommend a modded driver that actually fixed the issues?

TheGuyOnTheCouch said:
You might have an issue with the hardware that only becomes apparent when the drivers are loaded because the hardware isn't being accessed in the same way without the drivers installed.

Crossfire X, etc.
Click to expand...

It could be. I have had one crash since I installed Win7. I was playing Guild Wars and had Folding@Home running at the same time. As the max load Guild Wars has ever put on the cards was around 30% I did not expect a problem. For some reason, the cards crashed at about 70c, the fans were never over 50%. As I look at it now, the GPU load is 92%, the fan is at about 58-60% and the temp is 66c on the primary card, ambiant is 21c. This card is seems to be running about 5-10c hotter the other card when at full load. I think I need to flip the cards again to verify that.
 
Last edited:
kzaske said:
Can you recommend a modded driver that actually fixed the issues?



It could be. I have had one crash since I installed Win7. I was playing Guild Wars and had Folding@Home running at the same time. As the max load Guild Wars has ever put on the cards was around 30% I did not expect a problem. For some reason, the cards crashed at about 70c, the fans were never over 50%. As I look at it now, the GPU load is 92%, the fan is at about 58-60% and the temp is 66c on the primary card, ambiant is 21c. This card is seems to be running about 5-10c hotter the other card when at full load. I think I need to flip the cards again to verify that.
Click to expand...

The card on top runs hotter, right?
 
In my case it's actually the card on the bottom that runs hotter. The card on the top has it's entire backside exposed to air, etc while the card on the bottom is somewhat limited for space on both sides of the card.
 
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