How to enable crossfire?

[newls1]

GUys, having the most horrible time with my 3870's..... I just did a fresh format, installed 7.11 driver with 1 3870 installed. Shut down the PC, installed the 2nd 3870, windows loaded, found the driver, I reboot, and thought maybe something would pop up saying "click here to enable crossfire", like nvidia does with SLi, but nothing popped up. I went into CCC, now I see a crossfire tab, clicked the check mark box to use crossfire, nothing flashed, moved, NOTHING. I existed CCC went back in, and the check was still in the crossfire box, so I thought crossfire would be working. Went into GPUz (newest version) it says crossfire enabled, but using only 1 GPU:mad: WTH is going on here. I decided to load up 3dmark06, and got a score of 13028:down: That is 1000 points lower then my single 8800GTS 640 card. Clearly something is wrong here, I am using the 2 crossfire bridges attached to both cards, this is a fresh install of windoz, etc..... What can I do to make myself feel better about this issue? I cant believe 2 ATi 3870's get 13028 in 3dmark06, when all over the net I see people getting close to 18k with these? I must be doing something incorrectly. This is my first ATi purchase, so I need to learn how to use CCC, etc...... Maybe this is the problem. Thanks

[SNiiPE_DoGG]

did you put the crossfire bridge on?

[BOBDOLER]

Why the hell did you install the drivers then put the second card in? You should have just had the second card in from the get go...perhaps something in the drivers didn't get installed because you did it that way.

Did you turn off catalyst AI? Because that must be on for it to work. (but make sure it's in basic mode!)

Does GPU-Z detect your crossfire?

Are you running any apps in the background like fraps? ATI tool or anything like that? If so try turning them off some people have reported crossfire not working because of certain programs like fraps.

Also a tip for when you get it working, the latest drivers for some reason create artifacting in certain games, but you can prevent this by enabling VSYNC

Perhaps its something obvious, do you have your second card connected to your PSU?

How about rivatuner, does it list your second card? Also ignore ATI tool ATI tray tool or really any other tool other then rivatuner, it really is the best at least for the 3800s

[xMrBunglex]

if you have a P35 motherboard, you might have to enable an option in your BIOS to make CF work. i forget what it's called though.

and yes, your score is very low. i score higher than that with my little dual core @ 2.8.

[newls1]

I have CGI (I think its called) in the bios enabled, I have no background programs running at all, as this is a fresh install of XP. been trying to get this performing all night, and still nothing. I guess I will format again, but this time use my new motherboard (ASUS MAXIMUS X38) instead of my P5K-DLX (P35) and see if that makes any difference.

[mak1skav]

newls1 somewhere in the CCC there is an option that says Catalyst AI. I think that you have to set this option at Standard for Crossfire to work. You can try this.

[Blue frog]

I had pretty much the same problem with 2 HD3850s- see my other thread.
Do all of the above then remove quicktime - worked for me. my 3D score is now over 15K (includes a bit of CPU overclocking)
Good luck

[solidus667]

I had pretty much the same problem with 2 HD3850s- see my other thread.
Do all of the above then remove quicktime - worked for me. my 3D score is now over 15K (includes a bit of CPU overclocking)
Good luck

Thanks Blue frog!

I was having the same troubles. I have 2x 2900s in my P5E3 Deluxe WiFi, with the 2 SLI-style bridges on (what are these called in the ATI world?)

I would go into Catalyst Control Center and enable crossfire. The monitors on my second card would shut off, so it really felt like it was working.

I started Trackmania United (my favorite game) and benched it at 2560x1600 Very High Quality, No Anti-Aliasing and I was getting 45 fps, same as I always got. GPUz said Crossfire was disabled on both cards.

I uninstalled quicktime and even Safari since I consider it guilty by association :) I turned off fraps in there somewhere too but I think it was all about the quicktime.

After I rebooted from the uninstalls, I enabled crossfire and this time got a framerate of 57 in TrackMania at the same settings.

I was hoping for more than a 12 fps increase, but it's a considerable improvement and I am very happy with it.

BTW, GPUz STILL says crossfire is disabled, but apparently it's wrong.

So, apparently quicktime gets in the way. If I need to watch all those playboy movs I downloaded, I guess I will try quicktime alternative or VLC. :)

[jamend]

Wow, I will give that a try. I've been having he exact same issue. Actually I just made a post about it here:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=2631756&postcount=1006

Seems I was able to pwn the 3Dmark06 charts by scoring 18385 with "Linked Display Adapters" at "no" (crossfire was only sort of working I guess). I will try removing Quicktime tomorrow, but that will kind of suck because I need it for the iPhone...

[xMrBunglex]

i don't think you have to uninstall QuickTime. just remove it from your startup queue (Start / Run / msconfig / Startup).