4870x2 works only 3rd PCIE slot on BlackOPs X48 Board

[DWade]

I pulled the trigger on a used 4870x2 today and have ran into some strange
results. Right now my setup is on air, and I have it set up outside the case,
mounted on the cool foxcoon tray . Any who my specs are:

BFG 800 Watt PSU
Seagate 500gb barracuda
Sapphire 4870x2 flashed to the Asus TOP bios
2x2GB of OCZ DDR3 1333
Q6600 G0

I've basically tried all of these bioses thus far:

P04, P05, G26, G30, and G32. Now for some reason, whenever I have the
4870x2 in the first slot on any of those bioses, I get the FF code....but
no boot. Basically it'll just stay on FF and won't go through the rest of codes like normal. So no boot at all with any of those bioses with the 4870x2 in the first slot.

So I try the 2nd slot. In this slot I would get a 7f code at times, and my optical mouse would turn on. So perhaps it booted, but there still is no display.

I finally try the last slot, and the system boots up into windows just fine.
So why will my 4870x2 only work on the 3rd slot on this board? Note that I made sure to test my 4850 on each pcie slot on every single bios I tried...and it would boot up just fine.

One last thing...I get this message at boot that states AHCI bios not installed. Not sure what's going on here. Any help much appreciated.

[saaya]

the ahci message happens when your bios is corrupt or sometimes when oc recovery kicks in.
Did you try the default 4870x2 bios? can your card boot fine with that?

[DWade]

the ahci message happens when your bios is corrupt or sometimes when oc recovery kicks in.
Did you try the default 4870x2 bios? can your card boot fine with that?

Thanks for the help.


Yah, the first time I tried the 4870x2 on the first pcie slot was with the stock
sapphire bios...and same problem. System turns on but no boot. And when it's in the second pcie slot it gives a long beep sound and would eventually
stop at code 7f. And 3rd slot of course it boots and I can go into windows, but I get terrible performance in this slot and I think it's only utilizing one gpu in this slot, which is probably why it will boot in the 3rd slot.

So do you think my bios is corrupt? Because it always gives me the achi message no matter what bios I use. Also the performance on the 3rd pcie-x16
slot is not good. Just tried cod5 with it. I am not sure if it's utilizubg both gpus on the 4870x2 on that slot. Any who that's the least of my problems, need to get it working on the first pcie slot. Any who I am back on the g30 bios.

I know there is a couple of jumper settings by the crossfire bridge. Is it possible that these are set incorrectly, and what is the default settings for the 4870x2 jumpers so I can make sure it's correct. Other than that I think perhaps my bios is corrupt?

[saaya]

the third slot is through the sb pciE lanes and only x4 i think... so each gpu gets 2 pciE lanes... thats def not gonna do the perf any good
jumpers by the crossfire bridge... i havent noticed those... usually they are only for the vivo functions, aka svideo in and out etc... but the 4870x2 doesnt even support those features, does it?

i think theres something wrong with your bios...
G32 should work fine, even G30 iirc.
make sure the bios jumpers are set to select bios chip1 or chip2 ONLY, the lowest or second lowest setting iirc.
then flash the bios to G32 again and... try...

7f eh? hmmmm

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=205999

7F
When the system detects that a critical error happened during the last boot attempt or several boot attempts failed, so OC recovery kicked in. There should be a message displayed on the Display informing you that OC revocery kicked in and that its waiting for your input to enter BIOS. If you cant see this message cause your Display stays black, please check the description for POST Code 2b.

...


2b
When the system powers on and the Debug LED shows the usual POST code sequence but hangs on 2b or you get a beep code as soon as the sequence reaches 2b, then the Mainboard cant detect your Videocard properly. Note that the POST code sequence might not halt at 2b but continue, so the final POST Code it displays could be FF, 1E or 7F which means the Maiboard booted, entered BIOS, or OC recovery kicked in and is waiting for Input to enter BIOS. Since the Videocard couldnt be detected properly you will only see a black Monitor and either 2b, FF, 1E or 7F. Check if there is something wrong with the Videocard, the PCIE slot or BUS, the Monitor or monitor cable. Turn the Monitor on and off, switch the Monitor cable from one D-SUB or DVI plug to the other in case your Videocard has two. If this doesnt help then reboot and load the optimized defaults. If that doesnt help either try another Videocard if possible, or try the Videocard in another system to make sure its working properly. Try another monitor or try the Monitor on another System.

did you ever change the pciE clockspeed setting in bios or windows?
please check with setfsb what the pciE clockspeed is set to, maybe its set too high?
the monitor and monitor cable obviously work since on the 3rd slot you do get a signal..
are you sure you used the same dvi output of the card?
another thing you can try is just switch the card between the first and second slot and try a few times.
there is a weird bug with p35/x38/x48 that causes cards not to detect properly sometimes...

[saaya]

the third slot is through the sb pciE lanes and only x4 i think... so each gpu gets 2 pciE lanes... thats def not gonna do the perf any good
jumpers by the crossfire bridge... i havent noticed those... usually they are only for the vivo functions, aka svideo in and out etc... but the 4870x2 doesnt even support those features, does it?

i think theres something wrong with your bios...
G32 should work fine, even G30 iirc.
make sure the bios jumpers are set to select bios chip1 or chip2 ONLY, the lowest or second lowest setting iirc.
then flash the bios to G32 again and... try...

7f eh? hmmmm

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=205999

7F
When the system detects that a critical error happened during the last boot attempt or several boot attempts failed, so OC recovery kicked in. There should be a message displayed on the Display informing you that OC revocery kicked in and that its waiting for your input to enter BIOS. If you cant see this message cause your Display stays black, please check the description for POST Code 2b.

...


2b
When the system powers on and the Debug LED shows the usual POST code sequence but hangs on 2b or you get a beep code as soon as the sequence reaches 2b, then the Mainboard cant detect your Videocard properly. Note that the POST code sequence might not halt at 2b but continue, so the final POST Code it displays could be FF, 1E or 7F which means the Maiboard booted, entered BIOS, or OC recovery kicked in and is waiting for Input to enter BIOS. Since the Videocard couldnt be detected properly you will only see a black Monitor and either 2b, FF, 1E or 7F. Check if there is something wrong with the Videocard, the PCIE slot or BUS, the Monitor or monitor cable. Turn the Monitor on and off, switch the Monitor cable from one D-SUB or DVI plug to the other in case your Videocard has two. If this doesnt help then reboot and load the optimized defaults. If that doesnt help either try another Videocard if possible, or try the Videocard in another system to make sure its working properly. Try another monitor or try the Monitor on another System.

did you ever change the pciE clockspeed setting in bios or windows?
please check with setfsb what the pciE clockspeed is set to, maybe its set too high?
the monitor and monitor cable obviously work since on the 3rd slot you do get a signal..
are you sure you used the same dvi output of the card?
another thing you can try is just switch the card between the first and second slot and try a few times.
there is a weird bug with p35/x38/x48 that causes cards not to detect properly sometimes...

[DWade]

the third slot is through the sb pciE lanes and only x4 i think... so each gpu gets 2 pciE lanes... thats def not gonna do the perf any good
jumpers by the crossfire bridge... i havent noticed those... usually they are only for the vivo functions, aka svideo in and out etc... but the 4870x2 doesnt even support those features, does it?

i think theres something wrong with your bios...
G32 should work fine, even G30 iirc.
make sure the bios jumpers are set to select bios chip1 or chip2 ONLY, the lowest or second lowest setting iirc.
then flash the bios to G32 again and... try...

7f eh? hmmmm

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=205999


did you ever change the pciE clockspeed setting in bios or windows?
please check with setfsb what the pciE clockspeed is set to, maybe its set too high?
the monitor and monitor cable obviously work since on the 3rd slot you do get a signal..
are you sure you used the same dvi output of the card?
another thing you can try is just switch the card between the first and second slot and try a few times.
there is a weird bug with p35/x38/x48 that causes cards not to detect properly sometimes...

Yah performance was very bad in that 3rd slot, and that explains why. Any who the bios jumper was set correctly, but the board no matter how many times I botted, refused to detect the 4870x2 on the first and second pcie slot. On the first slot it wouldn't even attempt to boot and would show the FF Code.

On the 2nd pcie slot, as stated before, it would usally go to 7f...no boot.

I never changed the pcie clockspeed, and usually cleared cmos before booting, so the pcie clockspeed shouldn't of been set too high...unless the default pcie clockspeeds are set too high which wouldn't make sense.
I am sure I used the same dvi output, and would try booting on both dvi outputs. It's just not detecting the card.

I gave it my all and tried to figure it out for hours, switching to the g30 / g32 / p05 / p06. I don't know, very strange indeed. I finally said the heck with it and returned the motherboard. I know a lot of x38/x48 boards are finicky with the 4870x2, so I'll take this experience with a grain of salt.