HELP!!! Is my second crossfire card REALLY working?

[pabloottawa]

Hey guys,

Hope someone can help me here.

Running 2 5850s in crossfire on Win 7 Ultimate 64

Primary is an ASUS 5850
Linked is Power Color 5850

Both cards show up in device manager and running the same drivers
Crossfire is enabled

Everything SEEMS stable and nice IN WINDOWS.

Ran Battlefield Bad Company2 and maxed out all my display settings and the game started to run worse the more I played. opened the case and the Primary card was running FAR hotter than the secondary.

Opened CCC and the primary was running at around 68-70 celcius while the second card was running at around the 48-50 degree mark..... I'm guessing they should be sharing the load equally thus making the game run smoother but like I said, it gets slower and choppier the more I play. I'm guessing this is due to the heat the primary card is generating.

So I start to dig.

BACK TO WINDOWS:

-Opened CCC and checked AI, it is enabled
-Checked Overdrive and the default GPU and memory clock settings differ (ASUS is 725GUP/1000 memory, Powercolor is 760GUP/1050 memory
-ALSO, the temperature for the Primary card is 48 degrees while the linked is at 0

I also went to the information center and here is what comes up:

Primary Adapter
Graphics Card Manufacturer Powered by ATI
Graphics Chipset ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series

Device ID 6899
Vendor 1002

Subsystem ID 0330
Subsystem Vendor ID 1043

Graphics Bus Capability PCI Express 2.0
Maximum Bus Setting PCI Express 2.0 x16

BIOS Version 012.011.000.006
BIOS Part Number 113-C00201-100
BIOS Date 2009/09/25

Memory Size 1024 MB
Memory Type GDDR5

Core Clock in MHz 725 MHz
Memory Clock in MHz 1000 MHz
Total Memory Bandwidth in GByte/s 128.0 GByte/s


Linked Adapter
Graphics Card Manufacturer Powered by ATI
Graphics Chipset ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
Device ID 6899
Vendor 1002

Subsystem ID 2290
Subsystem Vendor ID 1787

Graphics Bus Capability PCI Express 2.0
Maximum Bus Setting PCI Express 2.0 x16

BIOS Version 012.019.000.002
BIOS Part Number 113-C00802-J02
BIOS Date 2010/03/16

Memory Size 1024 MB
Memory Type GDDR5

Core Clock in MHz 760 MHz
Memory Clock in MHz 1050 MHz
Total Memory Bandwidth in GByte/s 134.4 GByte/s

NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE IN THE BIOS VERSIONS???



More digging:

Opened GPU-Z and here is what comes up for the ASUS card

Here is what comes up for the Power Color card

Notice some differences in diver versions????

Also IN WINDOWS GPUZ tells me the temps of BOTH cards but CCC tells me the primary is at 48 while the linked is at 0.... Weird.....

It seems to me that even though I'm being told crossfire is up and running, only one card is being used in the game, hence the terrible performance when settings are maxed.

I this normal for a crossfire setup???? is Battlefield Bad Company2 supposed to run this way with 2 cards pumping out the power????

If anyone has ever had this issue and fixed it, I'd love to hear from you. I'm very new to this so I have no clue as to what to expect.

Cheers and Thanks for reading

 

[nforce4max]

Load gpu-z and click the sensor tab and click logging in back ground. Then pan it over to your next monitor while playing any game that you like. Be sure to have the lower card selected first. It should be easy from there.

 

[pabloottawa]

Thanks nforcemax,

DONE. GPU-Z is showing activity and a heat increase on both cards although the primary is still running about 20 degrees hotter than the linked card IN GAME.

Aren't they suppose to share the load equally????

 

[notty22]

The heat is not a result of only load.

heat rises and its very common for the top card to run warmer.

 

[pabloottawa]

That I can understand but is crossfire MEANT to run this way?

 

[nforce4max]

No unless you got very good airflow for the lower card vs the top card. In both Nvidia and 3DFX sli both gpus heat up with only only slightly hotter but not 20c difference. See if MSI after burner pans out. If you got a cam then upload a pic of your card installed. Is your current crossfire (driver) set to AFR, SFR, or Tile based rendering. AFR has the most issues with micro shutter and SFR has its own issues. Tile based rendering is ATI only so that might be an option for you. Why use Tile or SFR, simple it forces both gpus to work on a single frame vs separate frames.

 

[pabloottawa]

DO I HAVE A CAMERA??? DOES A BEAR $HIT IN THE WOODS????

I know what' you're all thinking. I've got the thicker, boxier card on top so of course it's gonna get hotter. That's understandable but 20 degrees hotter????? Hmmmmm, something ain't right me thinks. I'll try the tile based rendering but I don't see it anywhere in CCC. Any idea where that might be????

 

[nforce4max]

Like Nvidia they have removed it as a option so far as I know and most of the so called pros don't even know they were ever there. For now we need to figure out how to monitor the usage load on the lower card usually just checking the temps would do but in your case we need actual figures. As for the tamps if the cards get to toasty for you just dump a 80mm fan near the year of the cards and you can sit and ***. Riva Tuner or MSI after burner if not try gpuz and select the lower card. Enable logging in background when needed. If you only got one monitor then just minimize and play any game for a few quick min and exit the game to compare. The last option but pain in the ass would the to disable crossfire and compare bench results but they are always screwed like every thing else.

 

[pabloottawa]

Hmmm.... Well the fan idea sounds good but question....

Could all this be due to the second card not getting a proper supply of power? If you look you'll see that it's actually getting it's power from 2 molex 4 pin connections that have been split (via adapters) to connect to the 6 pin adapters that came with the cards. my PSU is only made with 2 6-pin connectors so I had to improvise to get power going to the second card.

 

[nforce4max]

No that shouldn't be a problem so long there is nothing else on that molex chain like drives ect. If there is a hard drive on that molex chain then take it off and power it on another chain. Same for optical to prevent spikes going to the card. As for total wattage and amps the psu has to be up to the job.

 

[pabloottawa]

OK I'll disconnect the hard drives then .. Let's see if that makes a difference.

 

[pabloottawa]

To nforcemax and notty,

Thanks so much for helping me out with this whole crossfire hing. I'm not new to pcs and I even build my own systems but crossfiring two cards together was a first for me so thanks.

I disconnected the drive but it did not help any as it was just a DVD writer that hardly gets used and chances are I'm not using it when I'm gaming. Also, it did nothing to make the GPU temps a bit more equal. I think I may try switching the cards around and make the power color card the primary.

BFBC2 is now running beautifully but for me it's about the temperatures on both GPU's.... I think they need to be a bit more even

 

[nforce4max]

OK I understand and at least you moved the hard drive of that molex chain since they create spikes on spin up. So I believe that crossfire has been working this whole time but confirming it has been tricky I guess. Be sure to keep that ram cool though I have had a lot of kits go bad on me.

 

[pabloottawa]

Really???? I know RAM can heat up but do I really need to vent it direct???? my case is a cooler master HAF 22 or something like that. Anyway, it's huge and has 1 intake and 2 exhaus fans. So do you really think I need to use something else to vent the air around the RAM?

By the way. I know this is against what you recommended but I reconnected the DVD drive..... It's my sedondary drive anyway so I don't really use it. The reason why I reconnected it is because when I disconnected it, Windows started having problems.... Explorer is now crashing about 4 times a day and it has only started happenning since I disconnected the drive. Hopefully reconnecting it will solve the problem..... you mentioned power spikes on startup but if there is no disk in the drive do you think it's still an issue????

Also, to avoid this problem entirely I can just get another drive. Much cheaper than a fancy PSU so if I'm gonna blow the 39.99 for an up to date DVD writer do you think it will completely solve my problem or do you think I should just keep the old DVD rewriter and and use the money towards a PSU that properly supports crossfire. The ones with 4 PCI-E connectors aren't cheap lol.

What do you think????

 

[nforce4max]

You must not know very much about hard drives and how they operate. When they first power up is when they use the most power till the spindle has reached it's stock rmp and by doing so it makes a quick spike on the chail. I have lost drives as a result of this. So you can continue at your own risk but don't blame me when something bad happens.

 

[pabloottawa]

HAHA yeah you're right.. I'm not a guru about hard drives but the drive I reconnected is a DISK DRIVE so is that still dangerous???

Just say the word dude and I'll disconnect it lol

P.S. All my hard drives are on separate connections

 

[nforce4max]

Having an optical isn't a problem just the hard drive. I'll explain why. When you take out a sata or molex chain you see that there is two or more connectors on the same wire. If there was any spike on that wire if effects every thing attached to it. So if you got two molex chains just us it on the drives and the other for the card. If you are using fans that take power from molex connectors then you can use them with the drives but be sure that they have a snug fit. After all data is data and you want that 5850 to be as safe as possible.

 

[pabloottawa]

Makes perfect sense.... As you can see from the pic, one of the fans is connected to that same molex chain. since I only have one molex chain it will have to do. All fittings are snug but I will check them again to be sure.

So with this all said and done. Do you think I should get a better power supply down the road? I mean this one is pretty good. I paid alot of money for it and the newegg reviews were consistently positive so I think I purchased a good product. the only thing holding it back is the PCI-E connectors as in, there aren't enough of them.

If I'm getting the exact same power with this "setup" then I'll keep what I have but if not I'll buy another one soon.



BTW, I just noticed why you thought it was a hard drive lol.. sorry bout that

 

[nforce4max]

It is a very nice psu but short on connectors thats all. I am picky with psus. This is one reason more why I go for a unit that has two molex and two sata chains then at least 4 6pin. That is the sweet spot but not very many have that arrangement.

 

[firebird]

From looking at the pic it seems the primary card has a reference cooler and has no room to breath, while the secondary card has an beefier cooler and extra room to breathe.

Seems like that's obvious, but you could always swap the positions and see what the temps are.

 

[pabloottawa]

yEAH i WAS THINKING ABOUT THAT BUT IF i SWITCH POSITIONS WILL IT SCREW THINGS UP IN WINDOWS???

 

[nforce4max]

yEAH i WAS THINKING ABOUT THAT BUT IF i SWITCH POSITIONS WILL IT SCREW THINGS UP IN WINDOWS???

No it won't and you can play musical chars with them if needed. Crossfire will still be enabled and they are already installed in windows is concerned so feel free to swap around.

 

[firebird]

Same cards with the same drivers; I don't think Windows will complain at all, especially Windows 7.

I'd think that the aftermarket card has a cooler that pulls from the bottom from a larger fan, so I think it should perform better then the reference cooler. I wonder if taking the shroud off of the aftermarket card when used on top would help even more since it would allow air to move more freely...

 

[pabloottawa]

You know, I've thought about all that since i got the card so now that things have settled down I think I'm gonna try it.

By the way, the Catalyst 10.5 drivers seem to work the best. I tried the 10.9 and it just screwed up EVERYTHING..... Or... Mayber I had to remove one card, install the drivers and reinstall the next card. Seems like a tedious process just to run crossfire. This can't be the BEST way to update drivers lol.