Can Crossfire Bork a card?

I did a quick check and didnt find anything about it out there, but I had a mishap with a crossfire set up a little while back and am kind of afraid to put the second card back in now that I have gotten my RMA process finished.

Here is the full story.... I am crossfiring a HD7850 with a 270x. Getting it set up took a minute or two because the drivers were being a bit wonky but I eventually got it worked out. Smooth sailing, a day or so of benching in Heaven to test different settings and then I started gaming (Far Cry 3). The first time I took the setup out for more than a 20min jaunt through the game (I played for about an hour) the 270x started acting up. I did all my troubleshooting and found the 7850 to work all by itself and the 270x to be borked in any configuration possible with many drivers. RMA time right? Yep. I got my card back from RMA a couple weeks ago and it seems to be handling anything I can throw at it (Far Cry 3/Unreal for hours; various encoding tasks) without breaking a sweat. Like I said I am kind of nervous to put the crossfire setup back together because of what happened last time. Has anyone else ever had crossfire react this way?

-things I forgot to mention while I was typing-
-270x had already been RMA's once. it went out the door non working and came back in good shape
-temps were fine through out the whole process. Always under 80C and usually under 70C
-I underclocked the 270x to match the overclocked speed of the 7850 (1050/1400 down from 1100/1500) so when crossfire was enabled both cards were already set to matching speeds
-right before it happend Afterburner was being a putz. It would act up and not hold my clocks where they were , and if I reset them and hit apply it would not respond or would only stick at the set speed for a short time

So after all that, once again, am I scared of nothing? Has this happened to anyone else? Thanks in advance

Almost sounds to me like the 270 was a bit messed up in the first place. I can't see any reason other tham temps that would hurt a GFX card in CFX

Johan45 said:

Almost sounds to me like the 270 was a bit messed up in the first place. I can't see any reason other tham temps that would hurt a GFX card in CFX

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Thats my logic as well, but this is my first experience with Xfire. I read countless pages that said it will work before I even bought the thing. I cant see anything wrong with my setup either. And I also wonder if the card wasnt messed up when I got it as well. Like I said though, it went in with no display and came back fighting Its been running flawlessly for a couple weeks now so Im just trying to double check before putting the crossfire setup back together. Im tired of RMA'ing this card. 2x shipping + purchase price adds up to a better card than the 2 im working with right now, and if it borks again, this will be the 3rd time sending it in and a 3rd set of shipping fees.

outside of messing up the bios the only things I can think of that will bork a good card, out of the blue is heat and voltage, are you sure that after burner was not going corrupt itself?

Crossfire itself will not do that, no.

caddi daddi said:

outside of messing up the bios the only things I can think of that will bork a good card, out of the blue is heat and voltage, are you sure that after burner was not going corrupt itself?

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not absolutely sure, but it was a fresh download and a fresh install so Im hoping not. The only thing I can be sure of is that I was watching those temps like a hawk and hadnt touched the voltage at ALL. While we are on the subject of afterburner....are there only certain skins that carry voltage adjustment? It seems there isnt an option in all skins that I use even though Ive enabled all the little switches in the settings ( disable ULPS, extend official overclocking, etc). Is that normal?

The answers Im getting here are making me more comfortable with putting the other card back in. Ill give it another day of hard gaming and monitor it, then set up crossfire.
Thanks for the replies guys. keep 'em coming if there is more to be said

Anytime you send voltage through an electronic device, you risk "borking" it

luckyfrak said:

Anytime you send voltage through an electronic device, you risk "borking" it

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Kind of like: " anytime you leave your house you can get hit by a car" ? That's what you are saying right?

What I am getting at is whether this config is more prone to problems than a standard config. Kind of like is walking down the middle of the street more likely to cause an accident that than walking on the sidewalk or something.... Whatever the appropriate analogy would be

knoober said:

Kind of like: " anytime you leave your house you can get hit by a car" ? That's what you are saying right?

What I am getting at is whether this config is more prone to problems than a standard config. Kind of like is walking down the middle of the street more likely to cause an accident that than walking on the sidewalk or something.... Whatever the appropriate analogy would be

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Yes, just like the odds of there being a sky wizard who controls everything. Even though the odds are low, it is possibly.