Crossfire in my hands now too ... ~8)

**Doomeous** · 12-25-2005, 02:00 PM

I have some weird stutter in EQ2, and it also showed up in source, but I truely think it's my Audigy, it's on the same damn IRQ as one of the video cards. I have been fighting with this card for some time now, and I'm going to remove it and use the Azalia audio card that bolts onto the mootherboard. After reading about the Azalia, I think it is probably nearly as good as the audigy minus the crappy IRQ conflits. I tried moving it around, but instead of using one of the 5 or 6 empty IRQ's, it loves to join with one of my damn video cards, and browsing thru the many support pages regarding IRQ issues on the soundblaster site, I think this card is just going to be that way.

Now, overclocking with just one card will gain me some couple hundred points, but both overclocked I get like 500-700 points more in 05. The only time I tried was with the overdrive util. It worked, but only on the master card, and the master is already warm enough. I have a pair of Zalman Fatal1ty coolers bolted on them, but they just kinda circulate the warm air, and the top card (master card) gets very warm. If your going to Xfire cards, dont use the Zalmans, they just don't do anything to remove air, especially the master card. I suppose you could mounts fans all over to get some better circulation, but I am just going to get a pair of those new Danger Den X18 coolers listed for sale on their site. I already have the water cooling crap from my last video card, I'll just re-use it with the new water blocks.

**techstyled** · 12-25-2005, 02:11 PM

I'm having a hella time getting my Crossfire going. The first X1800XT I got has been working fine for quite some time. I just got this new X1800XT CF Edition on Friday and I've yet to get them working in CF mode.

BTW, I have the DFI RDX CF-DR

At first, I just tried installing the Master card in the primary slot in place of the first 1800 and moved that one to the other slot. Fired it up and I didn't see a Crossfire option in CCC.

In my haste I forgot to enable CF in the BIOS. So I rebooted and enabled CF in BIOS and set both slots to 8X.

Now I see Crossfire as an option in CCC but when I try to click on Enable Crossfire, it just unchecks itself. Also, I can only see my Crossfire Edition in the Adapter drop down.

I flashed the RDX to the 11/23 BIOS. No change.

I uninstalled all ATI Drivers, did a round of Driver Cleaner, re-installed the Cat 5.13's. No change.

In Device Manager, I see 4 Display Adapters listed:

Radeon X1800 Crossfire Edition
Radeon X1800 Crossfire Edition Secondary
Radeon X1800 Series
Radeon X1800 Series Secondary

The Cat 5.13's are listed as the driver for all of these.

I feel like I'm missing something fundemental, like not changing a jumper or something. BTW, both cards spin up the fans and all that. I really thing both cards are 100% functional hardware wise.

I'm completely at a loss. If anyone has any ideas or knows of a better place for me to post this, please let me know.

TIA

**k0nsl** · 12-25-2005, 02:35 PM

techstyled,

Put your Master Card in the second slot

-k0nsl

**macci** · 12-25-2005, 02:38 PM

techstyled,
Switch to another adapter in Display properties (there should be 4 items available) and try again. I have had problems enabling CF mode when the #3 adapter (Slave) has been active, switching to #1 has fixed the problemo.

**Doomeous** · 12-25-2005, 03:56 PM

Are we supposed to set the PCIX slots to 8X? I have them 16x and 12x..

**biohead** · 12-25-2005, 04:18 PM

my bet is it would go 8x/8x anyhow

**Dynasty** · 12-25-2005, 04:19 PM

Originally Posted by Doomeous

Are we supposed to set the PCIX slots to 8X? I have them 16x and 12x..

Both gfx 0 and 1 in bios should be x8.

Btw, My crossfire enabled mode disappears in CCC.

After I shut down far cry, I look in both ati tool and ccc, only master card device gets recognized.
Only way get it going again without re-installing drivers is
take slave card out of pci-e slot. Then you just put it back in boot up and
device gets recognized and crossfire could be enabled through CCC.
Happens with games.

This is with DFI RDX-200 CF-DR.

**Doomeous** · 12-25-2005, 05:53 PM

huh, thats weird.. You have IRQ conflicts like I did? I finally got the two video cards in the clear and have no issues with anything now.

**techstyled** · 12-25-2005, 06:19 PM

Originally Posted by k0nsl

techstyled,

Put your Master Card in the second slot

-k0nsl

Tried this, still not working. Now, instead of only being able to select:

1. Radeon X1800 Crossfire Edition

I can only select:

3. Radeon X1800 Crossfire Edition

@macci

Sounds like you have your cards working fine in the normal configuration where the slave would appear as #3. I'm going to switch back to that way since it is the way stated in the manual but I can't seem to switch display adapters (may be because it things mine is Inactive). I'll try hooking a display to both and see if I can switch back and forth.

EDIT: I meant to say that in Display Properties, I do see all 4 selections under Display:, I just can't switch to any other one because it's shown as inactive (nothing connected I assume).

This is quite frustrating. I'm no newb either, at least not in regards to getting graphic cards working.

Thanks for your suggestions.

EDIT: I also assume that during the getting it working phase, you DO NOT need to have the CF Cable connected. Please let me know if that makes a difference. I had it connected but during the juggling I'm leaving it off. I assume that when I finally (if ever) am able to select Crossfire Enabled, it will ask me to reboot and THEN I'll need to connect the fugly cable.

**Dynasty** · 12-25-2005, 09:19 PM

Originally Posted by Doomeous

huh, thats weird.. You have IRQ conflicts like I did? I finally got the two video cards in the clear and have no issues with anything now.

Yep, was IRQ conflict with the karajan audio device. I only used my
RDX-200 with pair of X850's to run some CrossFire 3d marks, never tried
any games with crossfire till other night and discovered this conflict.
Cause, when i ran 3d benches I would disable audio.

**techstyled** · 12-25-2005, 11:26 PM

Ok, I finally got it working. Here's my experience in case someone has similar problems.

My breakthrough point was when I clicked on the 3 monitor in Displays in CCC. After doing that and answering a bunch of stuff about "are you sure, that seems to be inactive", I was able to get both adapters to show up in the drop down.

Then, when selecting my slave card, under Crossfire section it had a warning about making sure my CF Cable was connected (like it could tell it wasn't).

It said to press F1 for more info and in that section I read it said something to the effect that only 1 of the 2 DVI-I slots on the slave card could be used for the compositing.

So after attaching the cable to the CF card, and attaching the cable to the TOP DVI port on the slave (which is contrary to my diagram that came with the CF card), upon reboot, selecting Crossfire on my CF Edition Adapter in CCC showed a warning about connecting my monitor to my CF Cable (it was currently in the DVI port on my Master card.

Moved the monitor to the other connecter and selecting Crossfire Enabled!

Just ran my first 3d05 with everything stock (Opty 146) and got 9854

The tweaking/oc begins tho...

**Dynasty** · 12-25-2005, 11:31 PM

Just ran my first 3d05 with everything stock (Opty 146) and got 9854

I would check all your configs/settings over, your score seems low for two X1800's.

You should be getting over 12.5K on 05 with stock clks on cards.

Whats spd is the opty running at ??

**techstyled** · 12-26-2005, 12:10 AM

Originally Posted by Dynasty

I would check all your configs/settings over, your score seems low for two X1800's.

You should be getting over 12.5K on 05 with stock clks on cards.

Whats spd is the opty running at ??

Everything is stock and nothing is tweaked yet. Will have a go at that tomorrow.

**Hicks** · 12-26-2005, 04:54 AM

You should be getting 12-13 stock, 9800, obviously something is wrong there.

**giorgioprimo** · 12-26-2005, 05:44 AM

signed

**althes** · 12-26-2005, 08:29 AM

Yup something is up.

**saaya** · 12-26-2005, 01:42 PM

Originally Posted by macci

You dont have to set em to identical speeds but it just doesn't make any sense to clock one higher than other since the overall speed wont go up that way.

if only one card is clocked higher it doesnt give a boost?
in supertiling it should give a boost, even if its a small one, as there is load balancing, right?
how do i enable super tiling?

Originally Posted by macci

When the service is enabled the card will throttle back to default speed if temp gets too cold (CCC will read +120C and thinks that the card is running too hot). When the service is not running this wont happen.

my bad, i have a little fever and read the cards clock to default if the servics are DISabled

**techstyled** · 12-26-2005, 07:38 PM

Originally Posted by althes

Yup something is up.

I've got a new Raptor I've been wanting to test out so I'm just going to start with a fresh install in the morning. All I got to do is take it into work with me and tell my boss, "hey, look at my cool new system" and he'll say, "well let's see how she clocks" and then I'll be able to tweak it on company time. Nice to have a boss that's an enthus, enthusia, enthusic... likes messin' with computers too.

I'll post back in the morning, there is no doubt something up with this build.

Say, anyone got a "Best tweaks and tips for 3d05" linky for me

Edit: or do you just wanna point out the last stickie in this forum

**saaya** · 12-26-2005, 10:28 PM

150gb raptor?

**saaya** · 12-26-2005, 11:47 PM

theres no way i can manage to oc my 1600s in crossfire, not one card, and not both cards... i disabled the services, shut down all ati relaed apps in task manager, but the cards clockspeeds get set to default when i try to benchmark.

ati tool shows
0x71c2: rv530pro;bus:2;device:0
0x71c2: rv530pro;bus:1;device:0
thats it... when i try to enable any of the other 3 monitor outputs in ccc either nothing happens or my scren turns black and 3 seconds later my system resarts...

any ideas how to get ocing going with two 1600s in crossfire?

**techstyled** · 12-27-2005, 07:14 PM

Ok, something definately is not right.

I just (rebooting where approriate):

1. Installed XP SP2 fresh
2. Installed the IGP Chipset driver from ATI which included Cat 5.13 (should I have used the seemingly outdated one from DFI's site?)
3. Installed the Marvell LAN Driver
4. Let Windows install all updates and then selected optional .NET 1.1
5. Opened CCC and checked Crossfire Enabled (this time it seemed to work from the get go because, I assume, I've got my CF Cable connected properly)
6. Ran 3dMark05 and scored 9756 !!!

It's like I'm only running 1 card. When I go back into CCC, the checkbox for Crossfire Enabled is still checked.

Any ideas?

**saaya** · 12-27-2005, 07:50 PM

theres your mistake:
4. Let Windows install all updates

uncheck the mark for cf in ccc and check if you get the same score?
what cpu speed?

click on the ati logo in the task bar and then go to the second primary card and click on "extend desktop" and then enable crossfire again.

btw, big thx to althes, i managd to get both 1600s oced in crossfire

dont know why it worked all the sudden, maybe theservices have to get disabled in a sequqnce or i have to start ati tool before i shut down the services?
or maybe its because i had oced a singelc ard with rivatuner before?
i set it back to defaults though.... anyways, it works now as described.

kill all ati related processes, disable the ati hot key and smart service in system management services, and use atitool.
settings, select bus1, back, oc, settings, select bus2, oc, bench

7350 in 2k5 and 10250 in 2k3
too bad theese cards dont scale at all with more cpu power

this is 2 1600pro cards at 600/900 128bit gddr2 is limitig them greatly, althes has 2 xts and they have 2x the memory speed at 1.8ghz and the same core speed and he gets almost 10k in 2k5...

**techstyled** · 12-27-2005, 07:59 PM

Ok, turned off CF and got 8011 in 3dMark05!

OMG, could my measly Opty 146 at stock be impacting 3dMark05 that much?

And if so, were y'all oblivious to me mentioning I was running that?

Gonna do some CPU only OC and see if I can hit 11-12k with cards at stock like y'all think I should be getting.

**Elfear** · 12-27-2005, 08:42 PM

If you're running your Opteron at stock I'll bet that's the problem. I score ~9700 with my cards and cpu at stock and ~12,700 with the cpu@2.9GHz. SLI/Crossfire overhead sucks.