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SOLVED Radeon 5870's not working in crossfire?

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soldierguy

Member
Joined
Dec 31, 2009
Location
California
Hi all

I've got two Radeon 5870 2gb gpu's in crossfire and using in Eyefinity and suddenly--just a couple days ago I noticed my multiplayer gaming abilities totally "tanked"--and it took some investigating of my on line connection and other before I noticed on my MSI Afterburner monitoring software that one GPU was "flatlined"... I'm not a hardware pro, but I've assembled a couple machines, including this one, and I just went about analyzing as best possible. First I replaced the Crossfire bridge and reseated all and power connectors etc- and still only one card was working--. And so I removed the cards from Crossfire and just intalled each card in the primary gpu slot and each card when tested ran fine. So its not the cards. Now that I think about it, I probably used the same power connectors. Maybe I better test different power connections--Although I doubt thats it, but... Assuming its not the power is it the MOBO? I guess there's no software config I could have selected that is preventing crossfire? Its enabled in the Catalyst control center, but it only shows the big number "1". I think it should show "two"--Can't remember for sure. Running latest driver AMD 11.6.

Any other diagnosis thoughts before I replace the Mobo?
 
Could it be the game not supporting crossfire? Have you tried running benchmarks to see if both gpus are running?

I don't know. I guess I've never heard of that as a possibility. That's a new one on me. I wasn't aware Crossfire and such are configured by a specific game. But by the way I was playing BlackOps and I've played it before with no problem.

And just as an update..Not sure what all is happening with my system. I just got home from the store and turned on my computer and the date and time were 2002??...Ya I dont' know what's happening. I had to use this mornings WIN7 Restore point.

Its all working good now, but clearly something has become marginalized. Haven't had any problems with this machine since I put it together about twelve months ago. Oh no ..I forgot..I did replace the C drive some months back. And I don't recall, but I think it was the drive from my previous desk top. So it was old etc.

So maybe by tomorrow--I'll have some new issues. haha

Guess I better get out the laptop...Looks like this is gonna be trouble.

I wonder if my overclocking profile--which I've used for months--has somehow become unstable..? Could it cause these kinds of problems. I'm running a moderate overclock--I believe. i7 930 2.8ghz OEM o/c to 3.8ghz Manual,cpu ratio 21.0, Speed Step enabled, B Clock Spd 181, DDR3 dram freq 1451, CPU voltage 1.2, QPI/DRAM 1.33125.
 
Do a complete power down and let it sit for a few minutes then power it back up and see if the time and date have rolled back again. If it has then replace the MB battery, you can get them at any major super market.
 
Do a complete power down and let it sit for a few minutes then power it back up and see if the time and date have rolled back again. If it has then replace the MB battery, you can get them at any major super market.

Since that event the other day...I have... in the normal course of my daily routine had occassion at various times to turn off the PC, and when I did start up again there was no problem with time/date etc. I hasn't done it again. It was likely a coincidence or caused when i changed the location of Mirrored backups to another drive etc or was unplugging the machine and working on the PC hardware from time to time.

I wish I had a spare GPU that I could install to double check the MOBO"s ability to get Crossfire functioning etc. I had a spare 4870? or...similar, but passed it to a on line competitor when I did my system upgrade last year.
Before with another MOBO I would run those in Crossfire too, and never had a problem. If I added that older card to a single 5870 and the gpu's and the mobo were all working then Crossfire would engage etc. In that way I could distinguish which GPU was not working in Crossfire or that its the MOBO and not one of the gpu's. I'll have to ask my neighbors..haha.
 
I still haven't got the two 5870 gpu's to work in Crossfire again. But I'm getting closer to sorting it out--I believe. Learned from a thread on AMD gpu forum that others have similar issues. Has to do with latest AMD Catalyst suite not recognizing the already existing 2nd gpu for some reason...? Anyway the fix is to "disable the 2nd gpu in device manager and reinstall the latest Catalyst driver etc" and "according" to them it will now see the 2nd gpu once its been reenabled in Device manager etc. I've looked into it for a moment but haven't suceeded...yet. Just haven't figured how to remove existing driver and reinstall etc. I think? a week or so ago I did install the latest AMD catalyst 11.7? i guess--I hear there's a 11.8 haven't seen it for Win7 64, anyway still haven't accomplished all. I'm sure I'll figure a way. Anyway it appears to all be somehow? driver related.
 
If you use msi, sometimes the cards will not function in crossfire mode. I had that happen once with these 6970s..

I stopped afterburner from auto starting with windows,
rebooted, started CCC, enabled crossfire
rebooted restarted afterburner
voila

try that
 
If you use msi, sometimes the cards will not function in crossfire mode. I had that happen once with these 6970s..

I stopped afterburner from auto starting with windows,
rebooted, started CCC, enabled crossfire
rebooted restarted afterburner
voila

try that

REally? Yes I use MSI afterburner...I'll give that a try.

Thanks
 
Hopefully it works for you like it did me... I dont use CCC ever except to enable crossfire when I first install the 2nd card. After that I remove it from windows startup and use Afterburner for my fans and clock speeds etc..
 
Hopefully it works for you like it did me... I dont use CCC ever except to enable crossfire when I first install the 2nd card. After that I remove it from windows startup and use Afterburner for my fans and clock speeds etc..

I've been working at it for a bit and tried just about every combo I could think. But still no success..yet. I've totally uninstalled MSI afterburner and all the ATI Catalyst too, and "tried" to reinstall the CCC with the apparantly older driver version of same 11.6 but unfortunately the screens would just stay "black" until I reboot and all starts fine but I don't know which driver version I'm running--probablyl not the older 11.6 but whatever still no success in getting the second card in crossfire "seen" by Catalyst.?? Is their some sort of "properties" box or? where I can determine which driver version that I'm using? I don't see it, but maybe I'm not accustomed to looking for the "driver version". I've got two drivers saved/both the newer 11.7 and the older 11.6. Maybe CCC we no longer load the older driver? Just guessing.

I'll keep working at it. Probably bump into some way. I've even tried removing Crossfire bridge and starting computer and "then" its good that CCC sees that the bridge is not connected etc and it tells me so--but when I connect it still doesn't see the second card. uh? It only shows "1". mmh?
 
Any chance you can just reinstall Windows? I'm afraid I personally don't have a better answer...it's what I always do when I see Crossfire issues. Reinstall Windows with all the cards in the system and the bridges in place. Usually works without a hitch then.
 
Any chance you can just reinstall Windows? I'm afraid I personally don't have a better answer...it's what I always do when I see Crossfire issues. Reinstall Windows with all the cards in the system and the bridges in place. Usually works without a hitch then.

Really? Well I might try it. Got nothing to lose at this point haha. I'm looking at a few other threads about this topic, and I appreciate your comment.
 
BTW I did mention earlier that I wasn't sure how to see which driver version of Catalyst is installed, and I do see one way and that's if one is using MSI Afterburner to monitor GPU"s etc--it states the GPU and Driver version of same along with specific version of Catalyst. All in the upper portion of MSI controller etc.
 
Hey Soldierguy,

Any updates on your situation?
\

Hey Tokae

How's it going? Ya/ Thanks for asking. Never have got it working...I've tried what was suggested from here and everywhere..I've for sure seen similar situations at the AMD forum and they've found solutions. It may be me..haha.
It must be a driver conflict..? I mean my operating system sees the second gpu--..It must just be the Catalyst version etc. I tred going back to earlier versions of Catalyst and when I did I could at least manual operate the 2nd gpu fans in manual mode from MSI afterburner etc. And I thought the second gpu was indicating some activity--but it didn't seem to be doing half the work--and as I understand it..that's pretty much how the Crossfire works. Meaning the cards just alternate back and forth to automatically split all the chores..or similar. But when I use the recent Catalyst 11.7 the second gpu just disappears from all. Even Afterburner doesn't see it--at all as I recall..Forget all the details at times. But what I'm planning is to reinstall Win7 and see if that doesn't clear all and get it working again. Been working long days outside in high heat...Need a little recovery time before I work on it more. Thinking suffering. At the moment I'm playing Black Ops Annihliation on my PS3 and in some ways liking it better. Not too many good/competitive Black Ops servers in my neighborhood. PS not as "pretty" etc, but for me better/more closely contested games and I like that.

Goodluck
 
Try both cards in the other PCIe slot. I saw where you tried both in the primary but not both in the secondary.
 
Most boards have 16x primary and 8x secondary and that is one reason. It should work fine though but in BIOS you may have a setting to boot using PCIe x16 slot 2.
 
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