Treebeard1337 Posted January 30, 2006 Posted January 30, 2006 So here’s the deal. Just built this computer a few weeks ago with my friend during winter break, thought I had this problem solved before I took it back to campus. Then a few hours into playing DoD source back in the dorm it does the same . it had done before. Below ive got some videos linked where you guys can check out what it looks like when this thing bites the dust. I’m so utterly frustrated with this problem that im willing to pay anyone who can give me information leading to its resolution $50 through paypal. Im not much of a computer wiz, it was almost entirely my friend that built and organized the computer for me, so extreme layman’s terms or baby like instructions on how to fix this problem would be appreciated. PLEASE help me out with this if you can, if Im not able to find the solution to this crossfire problem im going to have to sell these two cards separately and invest in something that would be as good if not better than them, like a x1900, which would cost me about another $300. Although a x1900 would be nice, im perfectly happy with these two cards when they’re both working in crossfire, and would hate to have to spend another $300. So take a look at the info ive laid out below and leme know if you think you’ve got a fix for me. Thanks System build: DFI RDX200 12-23-05 Bios AMD x2 3800 (OC 2.4 ghz 1.36v) OCZ Platinum 2x1G (220mhz 2.5-2-3-5 2.80v) Aspire ATX 520w power supply Ati x800XL (no PCI-e power connector on card) Saphire x800 Xfire Master card (no PCI-e Power connector on card either) 2x74g Seagate Raid 0 on SB chipset Onboard sound Windows XP pro SP2 Prime Stable Mem test Stable Hangs on Any 3d game with Crossfire enabled I throw at it. Anywhere from 3mins to 5hrs The type of hang will vary. Sometimes it will initiate a GPU recover and pull me to desktop and restart the cards. Other times the game will freeze completely or artifact without freezing until much later. The strangest thing I had happen was one of these hangs took place, then right before I was about to restart it kicked me to a blue screen with half a page of text that I was unable to read at all before it restarted the computer on its own. I haven’t gotten every example of what the card will do, these are just some samples of what has happened in the last few days and that I was able to catch on my digital camera. You might want to turn your audio down a bit before running the videos, they’re kind of loud. The first two have the actual in game audio on them, I just placed the head set over the camera sound. The last one however I didn’t bother to do that with, since the sound was unaffected. battlefield 2 hang battlefield 2 hang #2 battlefield 2 artifacting Although ive used BF2 as the example for all of these videos, the same thing happens in every game that I play. The most frequent type of hang ill get is one where the screen freezes in place, then that repetitive buzz (found in the first and second videos) sound loops in an endless cycle until I decide to restart the computer. Description continued... Runs completely stable w/o Crossfire enabled I've ran Each graphics card by itself and they both seem to be working fine more then a day of gaming under their belts with no problems. The Temps never get over 60c on the master card and barely ever get to 50c on the Slave card. The other option is that its just some sort of wild occurrence between these parts and games where it’s corrupting graphical data. It hangs at everything stock so I’ve just given up on that and OC'ed stuff. I doubt there's anyone out there with this EXACT same system. Any ideas on what might be causing these hangs or how I could tweak the card to test other options for what the problem might be would be great. Thanks Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExtraPickles Posted January 30, 2006 Posted January 30, 2006 Two thoughts... is it dual prime stable for at least 8 hours at that voltage? Do you happen to have another power supply you can try? The Aspire is not generally known for it's stellar power delivering capabilities although it could be something else other than that it would be good to rule it out if possible. Edit: Keep your money, the best things in life are free. -pickles Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirbs Posted January 30, 2006 Posted January 30, 2006 For ExtraPickles, As the best things in life are free then that is obviously the reason why we all had to pay for these god damn DFI Crossfire motherboards. For Treebeard, You will find a floppy disk power connector next to the PCIe slot for your Crossfire mastercard. Do you have a power cable plugged in there? If not then stick one in, as the manual advises, when running Crossfire. Or are you like the rest of us men who don't read manuals that come with products (except maybe flatpack furniture from Ikea). Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treebeard1337 Posted January 31, 2006 Posted January 31, 2006 As for the question "is it dual prime stable for at least 8 hours at that voltage?" I cant answer since I have no idea what that means, remember im pretty much incompetent when it comes to stuff sounding like that, it was my friend that did all the work in that area. I do however know that we DID swap out his power supply for mine, the original one I bought for the rig was an "Antec Truepower 2.0 550w PSU" same thing happened with that power supply as happens with this one now so I don’t think power is the issue, unless of course both supplies have been unable to provide appropriate power. Also in response to Kirbs, Yes we did plug that floppy drive power connector in to the motherboard. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JasonM Posted January 31, 2006 Posted January 31, 2006 very stupid thing to say, but, have you checked all the drivers?. latest software, patched all games. ATI has 6.10 Catalyst drives out, and I thought I heard some games have updates that support duel cards. also, all the settings maxed out, right card in the right slot, system getting over heated, maybe remove a side panel?? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treebeard1337 Posted January 31, 2006 Posted January 31, 2006 Na, i dont think thats it, everything is up to date, got the 6.1 cat drivers, and every game i own has the latest patches on them. I dont think its overheating either because like i said in the first post it will sometimes happen right as the game starts, and before its even given time to heat up. It really is a huge mystery whats wrong with this thing, i dont know if anyone will figure it out. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treebeard1337 Posted February 1, 2006 Posted February 1, 2006 Ok I’m pretty sure ive narrowed it down to a driver problem or possibly an installation problem, dealing with drivers. When catalyst AI is disabled in the catalyst control center and crossfire is enabled, whatever 3d game I run immediately crashes, when it’s on advanced, it still crashes, yet less often. And when the crossfire is disabled and the AI is off again, it runs fine. So this can only mean there is some conflict between the games and the way the crossfire drivers are trying to initiate and perform. Anyone help me out on getting to the bottom of this? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirbs Posted February 1, 2006 Posted February 1, 2006 https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default...ge&folderID=293 Try this link. It's the ATI 6.1 drivers with the motherboard drivers included, and it may include updates to your motherboard drivers you currently have installed. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treebeard1337 Posted February 1, 2006 Posted February 1, 2006 Thanks for the link, but I’m almost certain I have all the most recent drivers for all the hardware and all the games. I’m thinking the problem is more to do with how the drivers were installed, how the hardware was installed, or some combination of the two. If you guys know of a common x800 or crossfire driver problem, please let me know. Also instructions on how to completely wipe and reinstall my drivers and cards would be useful if I end up needing to do that. Thanks Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treebeard1337 Posted February 1, 2006 Posted February 1, 2006 Don’t know if this is related to my problem or not, but I just tried to get into a game of Dystopia (a 3rd party mod of HL2) and steam kicked me to desktop with the error: "The instruction at "0x24250f17" referenced memory at "0x0d83b138". The memory could not be "read". Click on ok to terminate the program" Anyone know what this means? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirbs Posted February 1, 2006 Posted February 1, 2006 ATI do a piece of software that uninstalls their Catalyst software for you. Have a look on their divers pages. You could always run something to clean up your registry once you've rebooted after uninstalling anything (Registry Mechanic is good and free if you can a serial number on the net to fully activate it). Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrPcmd Posted February 1, 2006 Posted February 1, 2006 I had the same problem with the saphire master card and I believe its due to the lack of an external power source. I tried everything under the sun that I could think of and the master card runs fine when its the only one installed, same with the daughter card but when both where installed games would crash. I tried a crossfire setup on the same board with the same supporting parts with two x850's w/ external power connectors and it runs fine. I imagine you bought the card from newegg as did I, just get on the live chat w/ customer rep and explain whats happening and they should give you an rma refund for the master card. Hope this helps DrP Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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