HD 4770 x2: Won't run in CrossFire

[LordMontezuma]

Hey folks.

This is my first post here at Tom's Hardware (I actually just joined yesterday), but I've been following the website for a few years now. I recently (literally one week ago) purchased a brand new computer system for myself, from parts, which I just finished assembling a few days ago. I went out on a limb and bought two 4770s before Tom's review of them had been released: I guess I just had a gut feeling they would be great. Anyways, before I get into my problem, here's my setup:

GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Motherboard
OCZ StealthXStream OCZ700SXS 700W ATX12V PSU
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (This is not new, I scavenged it from my old setup)
G.SKILL PI Black 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM
2x XFX Radeon HD 4770
Windows XP Professional (32-bit)

Everything on the computer is working just fine, except for the graphics cards. I have them connected with the CrossFire bridge, and I have CrossFire enabled in Catalyst, but they do not seem to actually run in CrossFire. I have run 3dMark06 with one card and with both of them in Crossfire, and the difference was only about 600 points (~11400-11700). Not only is this lower than the score I used to get with my old system (which I used to run with an 8800 GTX), but World of Warcraft (the only game I currently have installed - I've been too frustrated to get anything else) won't run above 20 FPS.

In CCC, under 'Information Center>Graphics Hardware' this is what is displayed:

Primary Adapter
Graphics Card Manufacturer Powered by ATI
Graphics Chipset ATI Radeon HD 4770
Device ID 94B3
Vendor 1002

Subsystem ID 2901
Subsystem Vendor ID 1682

Graphics Bus Capability PCI Express 2.0
Maximum Bus Setting PCI Express 2.0 x8

BIOS Version 011.022.003.000
BIOS Part Number 113-B74302-105
BIOS Date 2009/03/27

Memory Size 512 MB
Memory Type GDDR5

Core Clock in MHz 750 MHz
Memory Clock in MHz 800 MHz
Total Memory Bandwidth in GByte/s 51.2 GByte/s


Disabled Adapter
Graphics Card Manufacturer Powered by ATI
Graphics Chipset ATI Radeon HD 4770
Device ID 94B3
Vendor 1002

Subsystem ID 2901
Subsystem Vendor ID 1682

Graphics Bus Capability PCI Express 2.0
Maximum Bus Setting PCI Express 2.0 x8

BIOS Version 011.022.003.000
BIOS Part Number 113-B74302-105
BIOS Date 2009/03/27

Memory Size 512 MB
Memory Type GDDR5

Core Clock in MHz 750 MHz
Memory Clock in MHz 800 MHz
Total Memory Bandwidth in GByte/s 51.2 GByte/s

I think the problem lies in the the fact that my second card is "Disabled," but this is the first time I've ever run CrossFire so I don't know if that's even it, let alone how to fix it. I've seen a few posts, both on different forums and here at Tom's, about people have problems with 2x HD 4870s doing the same thing, but not only have I not found a solution to that problem, but I can't even find another person with 4770s to see if they know how to fix mine.

Any help would be greatly apprectiated. I'm sorry about the wall of text, but I wanted to be pretty thorough in my first post so that people can have the information they need to assist me. If you need any other information just let me know, I'll be around checking this post pretty reguarly.

Thanks!

 

[coozie7]

Weird. Everything looks perfectly OK to me.
I know some ATI cards have diagnostic LEDs built in, do yours and are they showing the same?
Check the BIOS settings, is the display set to PEG1?
Try the cards individually in the first PCI-E slot, perhaps one is defective.

 

[cybot_x1024]

To me this looks like a drivers problem. What version of catalyst are you running?

 

[LordMontezuma]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

@coozie7: The cards run just fine in both PCI slots independently of each other. They do not, however, have built in LEDs, so I can't tell anything from that. And I'm not entirely sure how check if they're running in PEG1... I know how to get to my BIOS, but I don't see that being an option or anything - if you have any idea where to look in the Gigabyte BIOS, let me know.

@cybot_x1024: I know this probably isn't exactly what you were looking for, but CCC tells me that it is version "2009.0317.2131.36802" If you're looking for a different number, just tell me where to look to find it. Like I said, this is my first time with both CrossFire and CCC, so this all might be something that I'm doing wrong - I'm just not sure what!

 

[cangelini]

Lord,

I've had zero problems thus far with the 4770s in CrossFire. If you'd like to give my pre-production drivers a try (the same ones I used in my CrossFire story last week), I'd be more than happy to send them to you. My email is cangelini at bestofmedia dot com.

 

[LordMontezuma]

Chris, I sent you an email. Thanks!

@PsychoSaysDie: So you're having no problems running the cards in Windows XP? What version of XP do you have? Also, what motherboard are you using? If worse comes to worse, I'll replace my motherboard to see if that fixes the problem, rather than replacing the cards (which seem to be working fine in and of themselves, just not in conjunction with one another).

 

[heroofspirits]

if i were you i would wait for 9.5 drivers to come out in a weeks time.
i have a 4870x2 running on 9.4 and the drivers suck. i dont even think that xfire is working on the card due to the drivers!
just give it some time and ati will pull their finger out their bum. and supply PROPPER drivers for those cards you got.

 

[cybot_x1024]

@LordMontezuma: thats the CCC version. Unfortunately i could not get any catalyst 9.5 leaked anywhere, though its being released on May 13th.
By the way i hope you have both crossfire bridges on. If not put them and see if that sorts the problem out.

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

Heroofspirits

2 4870 X2s on 9.4 here without problems. The only thing that gave me a headache was crashing in Fallout (not fallout 3, old fallout lol) because the drivers did not want to use only 1 of the 4 GPUs, but some tweaking fixed that. Also Oblivion had some texture glitches, but a reinstall worked fine.

 

[Tknockers]

The thing is that it's a drivers fault... I bought two 4890 last week and tried to enable crossfire under XP x64 SP2 and no luck. The tech support guy from Sapphire told me to switch places of the cards and to clean crossfire conneectors with school eraser!? I did no such thing and left everything as I first connected it, however I installed Vista 64 SP1 and crossfire started working properly, and showed second adapter as linked adapter and not disabled adapter as it did under XP. Just for fun I then installed 32 bit XP and the same thing happened, showed second adapter as disabled in catalasy system info. Now i'm running Windows 7 RC with new 8.612 drivers and it works fine. I dont like Vista and 7 seems pretty same to me, ok little better but still... slower than XP x64 was. I hope those idiots will start making proper drivers, I wish I never sold my 8800 gts sli rig...

 

[LordMontezuma]

XP Pro SP3 and a Gigabyte EX58-UD3R. No problems whatsoever. I also used drivers from the CD

Do you think it has something to do with the fact that when I use both PCI-E 2.0 slots on my Motherboard, they run at x8 instead of x16? GPU-Z tells me that is what they're running at, rather than x16 like the cards require (do they actually require it - that's part of my question).

This is what it says for product specifications for my mobo on Newegg (where I bought it):
PCI Express 2.0 x16: 2 ( x16 / x8 ) The PCIEx16 and PCIEx8 slots support ATI CrossFireX technology

@cybot: I do have both CrossFire bridges on. Does it matter which way they word "CrossFire" actually faces on the cards? I can't imagine why it would, but I'll try anything at this point.

 

[nemesisv]

The problem IS the driver.
Catalyst 9.5 solved the issues. Get via :
http://nemesisv.blogspot.com/2009/05/ati-catalyst-95-suite-is-out.html

 

[LordMontezuma]

Weird. I've seen a lot of people very happy with the 9.5 drivers, and yet they did absolutely nothing for me. My 3DMark06 scores stayed the same, and World of Warcraft still runs poorly (rather, more poorly than it should). It may have fixed issues with some games, but like I said, I don't have anything else installed on this computer just yet. Oh well, I guess I wait for the next release. At least WoW is playable.

 

[herestoreth]

Weird. I've seen a lot of people very happy with the 9.5 drivers, and yet they did absolutely nothing for me. My 3DMark06 scores stayed the same, and World of Warcraft still runs poorly (rather, more poorly than it should). It may have fixed issues with some games, but like I said, I don't have anything else installed on this computer just yet. Oh well, I guess I wait for the next release. At least WoW is playable.

I have 2 XFX 4770's crossfired. My 9.5 CCC info center/graphics hardware section also reports the second card as disabled however I do have full Xfire in operation reflected by 3dmark, overdrive, furmark, etc. So I don't think the issue is that one is shown as disabled. Also in some of my games the crossfire logo is displayed in game play.

ANYWAYS I had some similar issues at first and here is what worked for me:

Uninstall all ATI drivers

Reboot with only one primary 16x card installed (take out the other)

In bios change INIT DISPLAY FIRST to PEG or Graphics Priority Option (depending on Mainboard)

Shutdown

Install 2cd card and both bridges...thats right 2 bridges

Restart, load Catalyst 9.5

IN CCC Enable CrossfireX


This is what worked for Me and yes both bridges matter...when I take one off I lose the Enable Crossfire function (it's greyed out)

Good luck

 

[sanders4617]

Weird. I've seen a lot of people very happy with the 9.5 drivers, and yet they did absolutely nothing for me. My 3DMark06 scores stayed the same, and World of Warcraft still runs poorly (rather, more poorly than it should). It may have fixed issues with some games, but like I said, I don't have anything else installed on this computer just yet. Oh well, I guess I wait for the next release. At least WoW is playable.

Whats your GPU?

I have a Radeon 9700 Pro and played WoW one time with a trial and the game ran fine for me.. I don't see how it could run poorly. I didn't find it to be that much of a graphics hog.

 

[LordMontezuma]

@sander4617:

Dude, no offense, but did you not even read the thread?

 

[sanders4617]

Yeah I did. I guess I got mixed up reading where different people had your problem or didn't.

So you are still running not able to get 4770 to run in crossfire?

And I was just saying that about WoW because I am running a much older 9700 pro and got more than 20 fps. Still though, I forget we are talking about a card that drivers aren't totally supported yet.

Anyway.. Sorry. heh.

 

[LordMontezuma]

Haha it's no problem man. On topic though, I'm still unable to get the cards to run in CrossFire. Both cards work fine independently of each other, but CrossFire'ing them produces no performance increase over a single card. Disabling shadows makes WoW playable, but I only average 30-35 FPS, which is much, much, much lower than it should be. I'm trying to work with XFX's tech support to see if we can diagnose the problem, but they're not being a huge help at the moment.

 

[g0su84]

Lord,

I have exactly the same problem, 2nd card shows as Disabled. However, when I run Furmark to benchmark the card, the ATI Crossfire logo shows up and my scores and framerates almost double up.

But in games, I don't see any performance, and the ATI Crossfire logo won't even shows up

The games are Fallout 3 & Farcry 2.

Here is my spec
Intel Core2 Q6600
2x 1GB Kingston KHX8500 DDR2 1066
Biostar T-Power i45
Corsair TX650w
2x Sapphire ATI HD 4770 - 1 Bridge
Windows XP32 Professional Service Pack 3
Catalys 9.5

I do overclock but when I run the system at default setting, the problem stays the same.

 

[g0su84]

The thing is that it's a drivers fault... I bought two 4890 last week and tried to enable crossfire under XP x64 SP2 and no luck. The tech support guy from Sapphire told me to switch places of the cards and to clean crossfire conneectors with school eraser!? I did no such thing and left everything as I first connected it, however I installed Vista 64 SP1 and crossfire started working properly, and showed second adapter as linked adapter and not disabled adapter as it did under XP. Just for fun I then installed 32 bit XP and the same thing happened, showed second adapter as disabled in catalasy system info. Now i'm running Windows 7 RC with new 8.612 drivers and it works fine. I dont like Vista and 7 seems pretty same to me, ok little better but still... slower than XP x64 was. I hope those idiots will start making proper drivers, I wish I never sold my 8800 gts sli rig...

Do you see performance in gaming? Does the ATI crossfire logo shows up if you enable it from right clicking the CCC icon at the taskbar

 

[micky_lund]

@g0su84
some people say u need both bridges for the 4770, but i dunno... its rather worrying, since they're the new cards, and i want to get some... :S

 

[g0su84]

@micky,

its ridicoulous for me to use 2 bridges, as I can see improvements for Crossfire in bechmark softwares, but it won't work in games

and those games are used in certain reviews to benchmark hd 4770

what gives?

 

[mantiscs]

@micky,

its ridicoulous for me to use 2 bridges, as I can see improvements for Crossfire in bechmark softwares, but it won't work in games

and those games are used in certain reviews to benchmark hd 4770

what gives?

I am having a similar problem. I am runnin two 3870's (512Mb) with two bridges. I am able to enable crossfire in the CCC, the frame rates go up in game and in benchmarks. Originally i saw the CrossFire logo on the top right corner of the screen when playing some games, but after installing new drivers i don't see it in any bench tool or any game. There is no option or checkbox to "enable crossfire logo" or anything like that. Why can't i see it now? Does it mean i'm not running crossfire anymore? Does anyone know how to fix this or what it means?

Is just a pain in my ass, because before i know when i was in a game and Crossfire was running, and now i don't know if it is or not.
--------------------------
Now, going back to Lordz problem:

I am assuming you have checked everything else, Mem Test, CPU stress test, hard drive scan for bad sectors, etc. Also a 700 Watt power supply seems a little small for 2 vid cards and a quad core processor, have you tested a different psu?

Good Luck,

George

 

[g0su84]

I am having a similar problem. I am runnin two 3870's (512Mb) with two bridges. I am able to enable crossfire in the CCC, the frame rates go up in game and in benchmarks. Originally i saw the CrossFire logo on the top right corner of the screen when playing some games, but after installing new drivers i don't see it in any bench tool or any game. There is no option or checkbox to "enable crossfire logo" or anything like that. Why can't i see it now? Does it mean i'm not running crossfire anymore? Does anyone know how to fix this or what it means?

Is just a pain in my ass, because before i know when i was in a game and Crossfire was running, and now i don't know if it is or not.
--------------------------
Now, going back to Lordz problem:

I am assuming you have checked everything else, Mem Test, CPU stress test, hard drive scan for bad sectors, etc. Also a 700 Watt power supply seems a little small for 2 vid cards and a quad core processor, have you tested a different psu?

Good Luck,

George

I got mine fixed by changing os to vista, I dont really know why, but I've even tried fresh install of xp, still not working, so I had to install vista instead, now it works flawlessly

 

[aussieReko]

This is my first post so apologies for any miss informations.

Basically long story short, I have purchased two XFX Radeon 4870 graphics cards and only one will show as enabled. When I check Catalyst Control Centre (V: 9.8); Information Centre, Graphics Hardware it displays my 2nd card as DISABLED just like the 1st poster.

Now after reading a few threads it would appear this is an issue with windows XP 32-bit. I will list my PC for reference before getting into it.

Motherboard: Asus P5K-E/ wi-fi (BIOS not updated)
CPU: Intel e8400 core 2 Duo 3Ghz (unclocked)
RAM: new 8Gb OCZ PC2-8500 Platinum 2x2GB OCZ2P10664GK
Power Supply: new Cooler Master Real Power M850 (just upgraded from Zalman 600w to rule out PSU).
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit beta (unsure or revision)
Graphics Card: XFX Radeon 4870x2

Further reading on forums indicate that the 2nd GPU will only be enabled under heavy load but i would imagine 3d mark would do this. After running 3D Mark 06 free version with both cards in, it would show no difference from only 1 card.

What i have done is tried both bridges to ensure one of those are not faulty, un-installed CCC 9.8 and drivers and then re-installed the drivers one card at a time but still get the same

What i will be trying if downgrading to vista 32-bit doesn't working is flashing my BIOS is yet to be done.

Any advice or suggestions on this topic would be appreciated.