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x1900 Crossfire- strange display issue

C

Chaos_Being

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 26, 2005
Messages
173
I just installed an Asus CF master card into my main gaming rig last night to go along with my existing x1900xt. The problem I am having is that I see faint horizontal bars of lighter and darker tone that flicker or roll up and down my screen. They almost look like the sort of interference/scanlines you'd see on a TV with a bad antenna connection. They do not appear when the screen is displaying a static image, but once I refresh a website or play a game, I can see them (especially if the screen is displaying a light-colored picture.) Let me go ahead and list what I have done so it can be easily read.

-First I tried the new master card by itself, and it works fine. No flicker, artifacting, or anything else odd, and it passed 3dMark06 and ran an hour loop of the demo without issues.

-I installed the slave card back in and tested crossfire. The system enabled crossfire without crashing, and I ran 3dmark06 again (the score increased from 5643 to 8918, so it is definitely working.) I also let it run the demo loop in 1920x1200, 4x AA 8x AF to stress the two cards a bit, and they ran fine. However, this is when I noticed the flickery bars. I initially had my pc connected to an old 17" monitor, which I didn't seem to notice any problems on, however I could definitely see this problem on my 24" CRT (FW900.)


Then, I started troubleshooting.

1) I reseated the crossfire dongle's connections on my VGA cable, the VGA-DVI adapter I am using, and on the master and slave card. I also tried a different VGA-DVI adapter. No change.

2) I tried disabling crossfire, and the flicker remained. However, when I removed the dongle entirely and plugged my monitor directly into the master card's DVI port (with the slave card still installed,) it did not flicker.

3) I re-connected the dongle, and did a full uninstall of my ATI drivers as well as PowerStrip. Rebooted into safe mode, ran driver cleaner, rebooted again, and installed the 6.12 beta cats. I did not notice a flicker in safe mode, but once I got back into windows, the flicker returned.

4) I tried lowering my resolution and refresh rates- the flicker remained.

5) I tried a different monitor, my wife's Westinghouse 22" LCD, thinking it was just my crt. I connected it through VGA and the VGA-DVI adapter, as I do not have a DVI cable laying around. The flicker was even more noticable on her LCD.


What it boils down to, is that I see the flickery bars whenever I am connected through the dongle cable it seems. They seem to be triggered by loading a website and will become continuous if there is an animation on the screen, and they are continuous in games. They also seemed to be continuous on the LCD, even when displaying a static image. Each card has been tested individually and is fine. The power supply I am using is the Silverstone Zeus ST56ZF, which is rated at 560w with 38A on the 12v rail. It is not crossfire certified by ATI, however I got several votes of confidence that it would work (and indeed, I can run benchmarks and games in crossfire, only with those annoying flickery bars.) My motherboard is an Abit ATA 32X.

I'm looking for some feedback and suggestions on other things I may be able to try, because I'm pretty much out of ideas. I'm thinking that the dongle may be faulty or is picking up some interference somehow, but I could be wrong. I'm also concerned that it may be my PSU, however I'd rather not drop $200 on a new one just to find out that the problem is not solved. The only other thing I can think of is that crossfire just doesn't want to work with a DVI-VGA adapter and a VGA cable, although I am about 99% sure that I've seen other people doing just that without problems.

I may have to call Asus also, but I cringe at trying to work with tech support.
 
I had almost the same problem, but mine were only visible in 3d mode. Thin horizontal streaks and the odd random pixel here and there.

The problem lay at my motherboard, a DFI RDX200. To solve it I had to lift the voltage of the northbridge from 1.2V to 1.4V. This of course raised the temperature of the northbridge and I had to add another fan to that area as I had the standard (crap) nb fan at the time. I should add I was overclocking the life out of the system at the time ;) .

Try extra cooling at your nb first, failing that see if you can give the nb extra juice, small increments to begin.
 
Thanks for the feedback. I actually found some of your earlier posts where you addressed that problem of yours- I've been searching everywhere!

Unfortunately, I've already raised my NB voltage by .2v (which I had to do to get my overclock stable at a high HTT.) I've already added a small 40mm fan to the NB heatsink as well, I did that shortly after I built the pc. So, I think the problem is elsewhere :(
 
Perhaps try lowering the NB voltage and reducing your overclock and high HTT?

The high 'traffic' on the the bus(s) could be introducing noise, interference or little evil pixes causing the problem ;) . Is your HTT over 1000? I'd return the system to it's stock state, see if that cures it, then adjust up until it happens again and back off a little.
 
Ok, so someone else had suggested I try a DVI cable, as the DVI-VGA adapter may be the culprit. So, I got a DVI cable today, and tried my wife's monitor on my pc again through the DVI cable. And what do you know- NO FLICKER! It seems that the crossfire dongle definitely does not like the DVI-VGA adapter, either of my crt's or my lcd's VGA cables, or both.

The best solution I can think of is to get the most heavily shielded DVI-BNC cable that I can find (as my monitor supports BNC inputs,) and go from there. Hopefully the combination of eliminating the adapter, using a better shielded cable, and using the (supposedly) higher quality of a BNC connection will also make the flicker go away on my crt.

Otherwise, I will be sad :(
 
Well, unforutunately I do not have good results to report. I got the DVI-BNC cable today, and after a short trial of installing it (I did not get a good connection at first, and my monitor was pink,) the flicker remained the same :( It looks exactly the same with the heavily shielded (the cable is very thick) DVI-BNC cable as the flimsy VGA cable with the DVI-VGA adapter.

I think I am going to have to admit defeat. Getting a x1900 master card was a good idea for an inexpensive upgrade, but it is not working out for me. I may just try to sell both of my cards, and put that money towards a 8800gts/gtx at this point. Even though I know the crossfire setup works through DVI, I am unwilling to replace my 24" CRT (heck, I just got it this summer.) I'm very disappointed :(
 
I just wanted to add some closure to this thread:

After quite a bit of Ebaying, I have an 8800gtx on its way. After selling off my x1900xt, a motherboard I wasn't using (K8N Diamond Plus,) and re-selling my master card, I've figured that it's only costing me around $200 out of pocket. I'm excited :)
 
Chaos_Being said:
I just wanted to add some closure to this thread:

After quite a bit of Ebaying, I have an 8800gtx on its way. After selling off my x1900xt, a motherboard I wasn't using (K8N Diamond Plus,) and re-selling my master card, I've figured that it's only costing me around $200 out of pocket. I'm excited :)
Click to expand...

nice
 
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