SOLVED Radeon 5870's not working in crossfire?

[soldierguy]

I am thinking it could be the slot.

Yes absolutely. At the very beginning I was "thinking" it was somehow the motherboard. And it still could be. In fact I actually ordered a replacement mobo from Newegg and then after reading the AMD forum and seeing how commong this problem seems to be--at least many threads similar etc, that I cancelled the order before it shipped.

 

[mgsickler]

Did the PCI slot work? If not, it could be something in your BIOS.

 

[soldierguy]

Did the PCI slot work? If not, it could be something in your BIOS.

I've been really busy. Haven't checked out the second PCI slot yet, but plan to. And regarding the BIOS--I suppose thats a possibility--I know I reviewed the BIOS updates and didn't see anything in the descriptions that made me think I needed to update it. I could of course, so that's a possibility. Maybe. We'll see.

 

[soldierguy]

I had a little time/energy and enthusiasm haha--got tired of no progress on this issue, but I'm back at it this morning.

I've made big progress and got both cards working again--although I've pushed and pulled and uninstalled and installed so much stuff I've lost any good notion about what I might have done to make all work.

But this morning the first thing I did was Uninstall all Catalyst..and uninstall all MSI afterburner. According to my Device Mgr my Radeon cards are using driver 8.841 but after reinstalling the MSI afterburner 2.1 version it indicates I'm using Driver 7.14? So which is right? I don't know. The Afterburner also indicates I'm using Catalyst 11.4 but no Catalyst is installed--unless I've missed something--I don't see it when I right click on screen etc.. So? Its not suppose to be installed--dont' know why Afterburner says it is?

But I'm currently testing all in a BlackOps game and watching Afterburner etc and I totally hear both gpu fans blaring at max--Good sound for my ears--Couldn't get that before?? And as I observe MSI afterburner graphs/charts etc--it appears that gpu 1 and gpu 2 are both working as indicated by the MSI usage graphs. One thing puzzles me and maybe its always been this way and I just didn't see, but with current 2.1 version of MSI when system is not playing game, but rather at rest so to speak that the gpu1 mem clock is flat lined at 1200Mhz and the gpu2 is flatlined at 300. ? Why not both at 1200Mhz? I dont' recall this before--maybe I wasn't looking? But "at rest" so to speak I guess the system is set up like this? Kinda surprises me..But anyway when I start playing a game or heavy graphics etc the gpu2 will then automatically move up to 1200Mhz also. I just never saw this. Don't know exactly what to make of it. I could guess.

I'm gonna continue to run this older 8.841 driver for the time being, and keep thinking about all, but it seems to work pretty good for now.

 

[soldierguy]

I experimented around a bit today with all, and came to this point: I've never been able to get a gpu driver above number 8.872.0.0. installed on my Radeon 5870 gpus--at least thats the number showing when I evaluate with Device Manager...So I'm guessing--or concluding- that all the Catalyst type driver updates are just "piggybacking" on the 8.872.0.0. driver--At least so it seems because WIN 7 refused to budge from saying there's anything else but the 8.872.0.0. when I search the internet or try to install something from my downloaded Catalyst drivers and such.

I also reinstalled the Catalyst 11.7 suite and the MSI afterburner version 2.1.0 but kept having the below mentioned problems:

My Eyefinity 3 screen was weird. I'm not new at doing the standard configuration via Catalyst etc for arranging three eyefinity screens--its very simple and straightforward, but I kept having two problems. First if I played a 1920x1080 shooter game like Black Ops it kept putting the single viewable screen over to the side monitor---haha. It wouldn't display on the single monitor dirctly facing me. If you can imagine with a landscape mode eyefinity 3 screens and trying to turn keyboard/mouse and all and play on the side screens? Not comfy..haha. And also at the same time my mouse/pointer was weird. I couldn't easily sweep it across all three monitors as one normally can do with Eyefinity multi screens. It would maybe cross two screens but not the third etc. unless I moved the mouse back off the last outside screen and it would disappear and come up the side of the opposite outside screen? Ya goofy unpleasant to use stuff like that.

So I kept plugging/unplugging screen connections and restarting all and hoping to somehow get things solid, but not luck. It wasn't until i downloaded and installed the most currenty AMD Catalyst 11.6b Hotfix file that it all came together.

The above mentioned problems with mouse not moving correctly across all three screens went away as did the issue with 1920 x 1080 games playing on a single screen and appearing in one of the side screens and not the facing center screen. Now the game plays directly in front of me--the center screen as one would want.

Everything seems totally strong now. All seems functioning good. But funny..it did take a lot of messing around haha. But yipee, I spent NO MONEY--That was my one real objective.

It all seems really good now. Thanks for all your comments.

 

[soldierguy]

BTW I mentioned earlier that the MSI AFterburner graphs were indicating in low graphic demand periods that one gpu was at 1200 Mhz Mem clock and the other at lesser--say 400Mhz or so until higher graphic demands were placed on the system etc. Well that went away too. Now both gpu's show same 1200 Mhz mem clock at no heavy load, but I do see Core Clock variation. One Core Clock at rest is 400Mhz and the other 850Mhz. I'll have to check into that. Maybe its desireable/intended--or maybe not. I'll watch it.