X1900 Crossfire Sucks SOOOO much....

Ok guys... Remember that jitter I was talking about a while back??? The one that was happening everytime I clocked my cards up to STOCK 3D speeds???? For those that don't, heres the thread....

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=467500

I got my replacment card from ATI, brand new, shiney X1900XTX. Installed a FRESH copy of both XP Pro, and Cat 6.7's....

I'm not OCing the cards AT ALL, and using CCC with all services enabled. Completly stock. If I try to run ANY 3D app, my PC freezes and this is what I get in the Event Viewer on my reboot.:

The driver ati2dvag for the display device \Device\Video0 got stuck in an infinite loop. This usually indicates a problem with the device itself or with the device driver programming the hardware incorrectly. Please check with your hardware device vendor for any driver updates.

Click to expand...

What the hell is going on??? I've even tried running my whole system at stock and get this error EVERYTIME! As soon as the game starts, it freezes! I paid 1200.00 for this!?!?!?!?

If anyone has an idea as to what the hell is going on, please help. I'm at wits end.... Thanks!

There could be many problems causing the jitter from bad drivers, to a bad bios on the motherboard or video card. The crossfire card could be damaged, yadda yadda. So many things could cause this issue, but it does seem to me like a hardware based problem if you went with a clean install of windows and drivers.

Personally, even when I had my x1900's in crossfire working I was disappointed. There was massive tearing across the screen, the image quality was shoddy (because you have to have Cat AI enabled for crossfire enchancements to work, in the process you enable "tweaks" for your games which lower the image quality in my opinion), and all I ended up getting was just a large increase in FPS. Personally, I am returning my x1900 Master card and regretting I ever bought it in the first place. Coolers were a headache, making everything work was a headache, the actual performance was a headache, having to buy a new PSU was a headache, terrible experience when ATI has such great quality single cards.

edit: not to mention, support on these forums is practically nonexistent because we were part of an elite few who actually had the balls to purchase 2 x1900's. whenever i've had questions on here the answers have been extremely limited.

The best suggestion I can make for you is to make sure you have the latest bios for your motherboard, you find a new bios on www.techpowerup.com/bios/ for your Master card and try that out, look into testing different parts on your system for the jitter. Try a different brand video card (if you have a ****ty pci-e laying around like I do, an x300), and see if you still get jitters. It's possible the jitter is being caused by something other than the cards themselves.

I've tried both cards in a single configuration and they both work fine and are able to clock to 3D speeds with no screen jitter. Running the latest BIOS and my 12V is rock solid at 12.2.

I'm trying out one last thing here to see if I can get it to work. If not, the master card is up for sale....

yea the only other thing I can think of that would cause the jitter is your monitor; your PSU is definitely strong enough.

Chipset drivers in? All Win updates there? Seems to me you could have a bad driver install, have you tried an older CAT version such as 6.6? What are the card temperatures doing? Does it crash immediately when entering 3D or after some time in the 3D App? Your not trying to overclock with Overdrive in CF mode are you?

El<(')>Maxi said:

Chipset drivers in? All Win updates there? Seems to me you could have a bad driver install, have you tried an older CAT version such as 6.6? What are the card temperatures doing? Does it crash immediately when entering 3D or after some time in the 3D App? Your not trying to overclock with Overdrive in CF mode are you?

Click to expand...

You beat me to it.

As he was saying; Process if elimination should help you find your problem. Try running one card in the second PCI-E slot and see what happens.

I dunno what the cause is. That's terrible! 3D apps fail to even launch!

3D app launch failure can be many things. It can range from a problematic
video-related driver installation to a faulty video card.

ouch that sux.... BIG TIME... as others have said drivers or hard ware.. .but that leaves stuff WIDE open... this is why nvidia is at the top in my book...

Well try downloading Windows Installer (I think the latest is 3.2) then install the .Net framework. (dotnetfx.exe) THEN install anything but the newest version of Catalyst.

I just installed a 9600 Pro and it requires .net for some odd reason, and I can't even install .net. So go figure...

My buddy with basically the same setup as you got his working after he got his power situation straighten out with the FX700 so it is possible.

Get this guys.... As it turns out, the XTX I JUST got back from a Newegg RMA needs to be RMA'd again. When I ran it as a single card and played a game, I didn't have the ATI Hot Key poller running so the card never clocked up to 3D speed. Once I used ATItool, I found it right away.

So, it's back to the Egg with the XTX and another wait of 2 weeks to get the card back....

Figures, lol. Sorry for the tough luck... I hope you are satisfied once you do get crossfire up and running. I was disappointed :X

It may have been mentioned, but I will repeat it anyway. Try different driver versions. Most report better results with 6.3 or 6.5s. I personally get the best results with 6.5s.

i had a few probs with crossfire first up but 2 settings fixed it all

1. disable in windows desktop properties - troubleshooting tab that you have write combining disabled BEFORE enabling or installing crossfire cards and drivers

2. in regedit ensure largesystemcache is set to disabled BEFORE enabling or installing CF cards and drivers

The Cat6.6's were a bit flakey for some folks. It had an issue with some monitors until a patch was released. I find 6.5'sto be the most stable. The current 6.7's are also proving to be quite stable as well.

I've never seen the jitters you described. But power supply is crucial to having a stable crossfire setup.

eva2000 said:

i had a few probs with crossfire first up but 2 settings fixed it all

1. disable in windows desktop properties - troubleshooting tab that you have write combining disabled BEFORE enabling or installing crossfire cards and drivers

2. in regedit ensure largesystemcache is set to disabled BEFORE enabling or installing CF cards and drivers

Click to expand...

What problems did this fix?

I see the 'jittering' effect in 3d. I turned off write combining and every instance of 'largesystemcache' had a value of '0' in regedit. I still saw these problems after doing this. Just curious as to what problems it fixed for you.

Seabee said:

What problems did this fix?

I see the 'jittering' effect in 3d. I turned off write combining and every instance of 'largesystemcache' had a value of '0' in regedit. I still saw these problems after doing this. Just curious as to what problems it fixed for you.

Click to expand...

it fixed the system OS being corrupted when enabling crossfire.. also my monitor/kvm switch also caused problems which i now have fixed http://i4memory.com/showthread.php?t=2947