crossfire BSOD

[Psycrow]

Here is my spec

Asus p6z68 deluxe Motherboard

2 x 5870 ati crossfire

750 w zalman psu

6 gb ddr 3 1600 mhz

3.33 sandybridge 2500k cpu

1 tb sasumg hhd

3 screens samsung 245B 24"

win 7 64 bit


When i install the second 5870 card then windows loads fine and every thing looks to be fine. But when i start any 3d test or games then i get a BSOD or the system just freeze up not responding on the programs.

When i run with only 1 x 5870 card then there are no problems at all.

when i open the mini dump file then it says
"Here is my spec

Asus p6z68 deluxe Motherboard

2 x 5870 ati crossfire

750 w zalman psu

6 gb ddr 3 1600 mhz

3.33 sandybridge 2500k cpu

1 tb samsung hhd

3 screens samsung 245B 24"

win 7 64 bit


When i install the second 5870 card then windows loads fine and every thing looks to be fine. But when i start any 3d test or games then i get a BSOD or the system just freeze up not responding on the programs.

When i run with only 1 x 5870 card then there are no problems at all.

The dump file says something with
"Probably caused by : atikmpag.sys ( atikmpag+79c8 )"

 

[EarthDog]

Sounds like a driver issue. Uninstall and update your drivers.

Also, 6GB? 4 sticks or 3? If 3 ditch the 3rd stick.

(you duplicated things in the first post, FYI).

 

[ytpconquer]

It could be your PSU not supplying enough power. You might want to try upgrading your PSU to something like a Corsair, Antec, Seasonic, or PCP&C in the 750-900W range. Zalman makes good coolers but I'm not sure about their PSUs. I could be wrong though, do you know the exact model number? Looks like they have some decent ones on newegg but nothing that is 750 watts.
See this thread
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=589708

EDIT: If not that maybe you could try disabling ULPS in the registry?
Run>Regedit>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet00 1\Control\Class\{4D36E 968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

There will be folders labeled something like 0000, 0001, 0002... Disable ULPS in all folders that have it.

 

[Psycrow]

This is my psu
I have contacted zalman to ask em the same question regarding crossfire
and they told me it was crossfire ready for it

http://www.zalman.com/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=197

 

[ytpconquer]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817379006

Here is the specs for your PSU from newegg. It is a good PSU, but I think it is starting to show its age. On the Zalman site they say that it supports "the latest Core2 and AMD Athlon64-X2" processors which are pretty ancient by todays standards. It also only delivers 20A on each 12v rail and only has 2 PCI-E connectors, whereas 5870s need 4. You can use the adapters, but this means you are pulling power from one of the other rails that isn't dedicated to the graphics cards and are probably sharing power with another component for one of the cards. Not to mention as your PSU ages it's efficiency decreases. How many years have you had it?

Regardless, you could still try disabling ULPS before anything else. It can cause BSODs in crossfire.

 

[Conumdrum]

Yep, really sounds like the PSU being old/not enuff amps.

 

[Psycrow]

It is at least 3 years old and yes i also noticed the ancient specs they promise. So your words could be 1 reason. but i realy want to believe that it is something else.

I use 11.7 catalyst drivers and performance test from passmark.
The test runs fine until it changes to fullscreen gfx test were som floating trees are turning around. That is were the BSOD happens..i tryed it twice and it was the same test round and place it happend again.

I have a dmp file but i dont understand anything from it

 

[ytpconquer]

Like I said try disabling ULPS, it takes 5 minutes and if it doesn't work you can always re enable it.

 

[Psycrow]

So what is this ulps ?
I found it in the regedit were it shows 0000.001.0002

and then what ?

 

[ytpconquer]

ULPS is Ultra Low Power State and effectively turns off the second card when it isn't being used, but can cause stability problems when you use 3D apps. To disable it, go into the 0000, 0001, 0002 etc folders ( you may have more) change the EnableULPS values to 0 in each folder you have it in. You may also have EnableULPS_NA. Change its value to zero as well. If you haven't used regedit before, to change the value, just right click on the entry, hit modify, and change the 1 to a 0. Then exit regedit.

 

[Psycrow]

ok..going in..worth a shot

 

[Psycrow]

So i tryed your suggestion and i also reinstalled the drivers again.
Then i found out it has something to do with the overdrive feature.
Because if i disablet it then the performance test ran stable but still 3dmark 11 crashed in the ending test. No BSOD just froze the pc.

Another thing i want to ask about before i screw this crossfire thing.

I use 3 screens and in the catalyst driver center then the enable crossfire part was grayed out. and the text in the box said something with only 1 monitor and the use of crossfire...So when i play games in eyefinity mode then i dont get anything out of 2 cards ?

i tryed to run with low clocks and then i played blackops call of duty on full settings and it dident feel like it was running smooth..it actualy became worse. until i removed the shadow and warm cluster thing.

How this keeps failing..im gona sell the card :/

 

[ytpconquer]

So i tryed your suggestion and i also reinstalled the drivers again.
Then i found out it has something to do with the overdrive feature.
Because if i disablet it then the performance test ran stable but still 3dmark 11 crashed in the ending test. No BSOD just froze the pc.

Another thing i want to ask about before i screw this crossfire thing.

I use 3 screens and in the catalyst driver center then the enable crossfire part was grayed out. and the text in the box said something with only 1 monitor and the use of crossfire...So when i play games in eyefinity mode then i dont get anything out of 2 cards ?

i tryed to run with low clocks and then i played blackops call of duty on full settings and it dident feel like it was running smooth..it actualy became worse. until i removed the shadow and warm cluster thing.

How this keeps failing..im gona sell the card :/

I've never used eyefinity so I can't help you with that but I still think it is likely the PSU. If you can rule that out which is probably the simplest possible problem, then there are several other things to check, but I would start with the PSU.

 

[EarthDog]

PSU shouldnt be the problem unless its going bad. That PSU has 60A (720W) on the 12v rail(s) so there is PLENTY of power for that setup, even with overclocked CPU. It is actually a true multi rail design so that may be possible that you are overloading a rail depending on what else is on it. Maybe try moving a molex to another cord and see if that stops the problem.

 

[Psycrow]

I allready tryed that, because that also crossed my mind.
last day i tryed to disable the overdrive feature ( ati clock ) and then i was able to
play call of duty black ops and do the performance test but the 3D mark11 test froze the system in the last test..

but i dislike the the idea of downclocking my crossfire
and i play with eyefinity crossfire mode and it dident seems like the game was running batter due to crossfire..so i have my doubts that it works in eyefinity mode

Were do you see the 60 A ?..dosent it say 30 A ?

 

[EarthDog]

If it was 30A, your system wouldnt power that at all. I read it from newegg.com.

If you play games fine, I wouldnt worry about a benchmark not finishing. Sounds like too high overclock or it is possible that the PSU just cant hack it ONLY because of how its divided up (rails).

 

[ytpconquer]

If it was 30A, your system wouldnt power that at all. I read it from newegg.com.

If you play games fine, I wouldnt worry about a benchmark not finishing. Sounds like too high overclock or it is possible that the PSU just cant hack it ONLY because of how its divided up (rails).

The reason I was thinking it might be a problem is because I believe each PCI-E connector has a dedicated 12v rail, but the 5870 uses 2 connectors. If both connectors are plugged into the same card that one card is using both 12v rails, the other card needs to use the molex connectors which share the rails with the CPU and other stuff. So the card that is not connected to the PCI-E cables might not be getting adequate power.

 

[EarthDog]

If thats the case, try this:

One dedicated PCIe plug to one card, the other dedicated PCIe to the other card, then molex for each.

Again, if you are playing games fine, then do not worry about it.

 

[Psycrow]

I think we are getting somewere about what you both are mentioning

I had both pci-1 and pci-2 connected to the main card and then i had the other card connected with the molex adapters in 1 rail.

Now i tryed what you said: One dedicated PCIe1 plug to one card, the other dedicated PCIe2 to the other card, then molex for each.

It ran stable with the default overdrive clocks in 3d vantage and 3d mark11 and performance test.

Then i tryed to enable overdrive for both cards
And then i found out that my second card that use stock cooler wont work with full clock in overdrive. So i ran 3d mark vantage with 870 gpu and 1270 in ram mhz stable
If i used 900 - 1300 then 3d vantage crashed and left me with a black screen. So no bsod atleast..that is progress

Now i need to test some games or else i must keep the secondary card on default clocks...because i think it is also heat related. There is like 10-15 temp in difference
from the artic extreme cooler and the stock cooler

Now im gona test games and see if it runs stable..brb tomorrow





So i think it is heat related because i use a artic cooler on my main card and it can rul full overdrive clock

 

[EarthDog]

At this point if it works with the cards at stock.. leave it. 2 5870s r going to pound on almost anything with 2 monitors.