Unable to activate CrossFireX in AMD Vision Engine Control Center HD 7870

Jikangire

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May 10, 2013
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Hello and thanks for taking a look at my issue. I have two Sapphire HD 7870 GHz Edition cards installed in my PC as of today, however I cannot get the AMD Vision Engine Control Center to let me activate CrossFireX. Under the Performance tab on the left side, I select AMD CrossFireX. This takes me to the screen where I see two bullet choices: Enable CrossFireX (with a box underneath that says Enable AMD CrossFireX for applications that have no associated application profile), and a second bullet option that says Disable AMD CrossFireX.

Of course the first choice is what I want to be able to select, however this option is grayed out, as in it's not selectable. Further towards the bottom of the window I get the following message:

"The following issues have been detected for the current configuration.

The AMD CrossFireX internal bridge interconnects linking your graphics cards together are not properly attached. Both bridge interconnects must be attached. For more information, see the user's guide for your graphics card."

Ok so I've looked up and down and side to side on the graphics cards themselves and for the life of me I cannot see where I can connect a second bridge cable. Am I going blind here or does this graphics card only have one bridge interconnect? If that's the case how am I supposed to be able to enable CrossFireX through the AMD Vision Engine Control Center? Another thought I had was maybe I connected the cable the wrong way and I'll need to unplug it and flip it over, but if that was the case why can my computer see the second video card? Thanks for any help you can provide!


Specs in case you need them for troubleshooting:

EDIT: Change to Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth 990FX/GEN3 R2.0
CPU: AMD FX 8350
Video cards: 2x Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition


Also I am now done with full removal of software/drivers, reboot, full reinstall of software and drivers, and reboot. Alas this did nothing to solve my problem though. The AVECC software (AMD VISION Engine Control Center) software still does not let me enable CrossFireX for the exact same reason. I've also tried powering the system off completely and flipping the bridge cable, as well as using a completely different bridge cable, and I still get the same issue. I've dug into my motherboard's manual to see if anything in particular has to be set in the bios for CrossFireX, but there are no settings that need to be set. It's a simple, plug in the card and attach the proper power cables as well as the bridge cable, installation. I'm running out of ideas of what to try next. If anyone has a suggestion, please let me know. Thanks!
 
Solution
Sorry to necro-post but this might save people some time, I have been trawling the net for hours to try and solve this and somebody suggested that I'd pushed the crossfire bridge on too hard and when installing to leave it off like 1mm or so. After all of the technical driver sweepings, card swapping, re-mounting, contact-cleaning, bios-updating, bridge replacing and other futile attempts I tried it was literally pull the bridge off a bit... I hope this saves anyone else the trouble I went through. Other-wise good-luck! (and yes I do feel silly) If you're interested this was 2 gigabyte R9 270 (R927XOC-2GD) cards on a 970a-g43 mobo.
ur6beersaway my video card definitely looks more like the first link you posted, (http://img.hexus.net/v2/graphics_cards/amd/Sapphire/HD7870FLEX/7870flex-2b.jpg). Where on this card would the second bridge connect?

Also, just an FYI, I've already done everything they listed in the third link you posted. I appreciate the suggestion though.
 


Ok this is interesting: GPU-Z see's both video cards, however it says ATI CrossFire is Disabled. Also another interesting thing is when I select the second video card from the list in GPU-Z, the Bus Interface changes from PCI-E 3.0 x16 @ x16 2.0 to PCI-E 3.0 x16 @ x4 1.1, even while I'm running a render test. This may be a completely different issue however so as of right now all I want to do is get CrossFireX enabled, after I'll worry about why the second port is running at 4x.
 
It looks like one of the cards is not fully seated, causing the bus interface to drop down to x4. Try taking the card out, blow compressed air in the slot and reseat the card. Make sure it is not being pulled out when you secure it with a screw at the backplate as well.
 
Ok I have a bit of an update here:

First I've switched out the motherboard with an ASUS Sabertooth 990FX/GEN3 R2.0 After doing so all software and drivers were removed and reinstalled, however I am still having the exact same issue with the AMD Vision Control Center not letting me enable CrossFireX. Someone suggested on another forum that I use the AMD Catalyst Control Center instead of the Vision Control Center, however I am not sure where to download it. Each time I think I'm downloading CCC, I'm actually download VCC. Is VCC and CCC one and the same? If not, could someone post a link to CCC so I can try going that route? Thanks.
 
The amd Vision control center is CCC that everybody refers to (same). Early versions it was called that, the name stuck thru the re-design & upgrades. Now open CCC>> click on "gaming" (left side)>>llisted underneath "3D application settings" should be Crossfire X settings If it is NOT there the system does not "see" both cards.
 
This is what I'm getting in the AVCC:
2013-05-1017_59_14-AMDVISIONEngineControlCenter.png


As stated in previous posts my computer does see both video cards, I have tested output display on both cards to the same monitor and neither has any display issue.

This is what GPU-Z shows for the first video card:
2013-05-1820_13_57-TechPowerUpGPU-Z071.png


This is what GPU-Z shows for the second video card:
2013-05-1022_06_12-TechPowerUpGPU-Z070.png


Also here is another screenshot, this time from SAPPHIRE'S TRIXX Tweak Utility showing both video cards:
TRIXX.png
 
Good observation ur6beersaway, I didn't notice that until now, and quite frankly I have no idea how that happened. I'm going to update the second card's drivers to 13.5 and see if that does anything.
 
Ok here is another interesting bit of information. It seems under the Information tab, then clicking on Hardware in the AMD VECC, my second video card is displayed, however it's labeled as "Disabled Adapter". However when compared side by side to Device Manager you can clearly see that it's NOT disabled.

Pic:
DisabledAdapter.png



Now look what happens when I disable the second video card manually, in Device Manager, then close out and restart AMD VECC:
NoCrossfireXoption.png


As you can see the "Disabled Adapter" changes to "Linked Adapter", but at the same time I also loose the AMD CrossFireX option on the left bar under Performance. The more I dig into this issue, instead of finding answers, I find more questions. If anyone has any more suggestions please feel free to let me know! Thanks again!
 
Was windows and everything installed with both cards installed in system and interlinked for crossfire? I did this with my 7950s and it goofed CCC and crossfire up. Either card would run just fine by itself except when crossfired. I solved by doing a complete reinstall of windows, drivers, software, games etc before inserting card number 2 and enabling crossfire, things cleared right up
 


Drastic, but it should work he is so close and crossfire seems like such a pain in the ass to enable (but should be simple with exact twin cards). I'm out of ideas so windows is left. thanx
 


When doing this, I advise using an old HDD that is not in use, or barely in use. Leave your current boot drive intact in case it doesn't work.
 


Originally all I had was one 7870 and it was installed and running perfectly on it's own for about a week. Then the second card was delivered and I powered off my system, installed the second card (including the CrossFireX bridge) and powered the computer back on. Windows 8 found the second card and automatically installed the drivers for it. I then launched the AMD VECC software and received the pop up message about activating CrossFireX. I proceeded to the CrossFireX tab under Performance and right away got the error message you see in the pic posted above.

After trying everything listed in this thread (and on another forum), this morning I decided to do a full system wipe and install Windows 8 again from scratch, this time the opposite way from what you suggested, (as what you suggested I had already done first), leaving both cards in with the CrossFireX bridge, to see if that would do anything. It resulted in the same error.
 


Looking at your mobo you are using the 2 tan slots and not the black or brown for card #2 ?

 


Yes that is correct, both tan slots, the motherboard manual labels them as PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX16_3.
 
Another update for everyone, I've ordered a brand new CrossFireX bridge cable (XFX brand) from Newegg to see if that could possibly be the problem, but alas, after installing the new one and booting back up, I'm getting the same error.