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Need help doing crossfire with 2900's

Forum Graphic & Displays : Graphics Cards - Need help doing crossfire with 2900's

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Romstar   05-22-2007 at 04:05:04 PM

I just built my new computer and I got it to run damn well with 1 2900. So me not knowing anything about CF thought i just turn off the comp and hook up the second video card and the crossfire dongle n what not. Well when i started it up no matter what dvi slot I plugged my monitor into(3007Dell) nothing showed up.... so i turned off my comp hoping windows hadnt loaded yet and now i have to reinstall..... but anyways what did I do wrong? was I was supposed to turn CF on in the bios or something? or just in catalyst??

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Farhang   05-22-2007 at 04:11:41 PM
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Can you please send your full system spec!
Seems like a power supply problem as 2xHD2900XT need serious amount of power to operate!

Reply to Farhang
Romstar   05-22-2007 at 04:18:04 PM
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1kilowatt silverstone that has 2x8 pin pcie and 4x6pcie

Reply to Romstar
Romstar   05-22-2007 at 04:18:39 PM
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maybe it is because i used the pciex6 pin connector that are connected to each other rather than independent ones?

Reply to Romstar
Romstar   05-22-2007 at 04:21:56 PM
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also I think I seem to have artifacts(not sure why they just appeared after i shut my comp down and took out the 2nd card). I mean tons of artifacts like at the posting screen i see like 4 rows of red bars and like 5 colums of green and even the windows it outlayed in like artifacts(i think that is what they're called)

Reply to Romstar
Romstar   05-22-2007 at 04:24:53 PM
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It doesnt seem like my system wants to load windows vista anymore b/c of the artifacts or something b/c i just reinstalled vista and installed ati drivers and artifacts were still there and it woulndt load vista I got the blue screen of death. So now im in safemode

Reply to Romstar
Romstar   05-22-2007 at 04:38:22 PM
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Bump. Could really use some help!

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BigCharb   05-22-2007 at 04:45:50 PM
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20 bucks on drivers

Reply to BigCharb
ROBSLIN   05-22-2007 at 04:52:40 PM
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Quote :

20 bucks on drivers



Yup. Probably so. It definitely is not his PSU.

Reply to ROBSLIN
Romstar   05-22-2007 at 04:56:31 PM
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but I cant do anything lol... whenever it tries to start in normal mode i just blue screens me and restarts. plus the whole entire screen is just like full of artifacts. Maybe I did something wrong when hooking it up even though I havent changed it and this morning it was working perfectly until I put in the 2nd card and it wouldnt start and I shut down my comp and took out the 2nd one to only have this....even reinstalled vista.

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ROBSLIN   05-22-2007 at 05:00:47 PM
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Quote :

but I cant do anything lol... whenever it tries to start in normal mode i just blue screens me and restarts. plus the whole entire screen is just like full of artifacts. Maybe I did something wrong when hooking it up even though I havent changed it and this morning it was working perfectly until I put in the 2nd card and it wouldnt start and I shut down my comp and took out the 2nd one to only have this....even reinstalled vista.



So even after going back to 1 card and reinstalling vista it doesnt boot up correctly?

Reply to ROBSLIN
Romstar   05-22-2007 at 05:04:26 PM
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yeah with 1 card. I get the blue screen everytime I try to boot up normal and it is full of artifacts from the second I turn it on to wherever im at constantly. I think I can get the error report info right now.

Reply to Romstar
ROBSLIN   05-22-2007 at 05:05:49 PM
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Quote :

yeah with 1 card. I get the blue screen everytime I try to boot up normal and it is full of artifacts from the second I turn it on to wherever im at constantly. I think I can get the error report info right now.



Switch cards and try it again.

Reply to ROBSLIN
Romstar   05-22-2007 at 05:20:47 PM
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well I just switched the cards and it seems to have done it...

Reply to Romstar
ROBSLIN   05-22-2007 at 05:24:51 PM
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Quote :

well I just switched the cards and it seems to have done it...



BINGO! you have a bad card my friend :(

Reply to ROBSLIN
Romstar   05-22-2007 at 05:29:27 PM
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but that makes no sense as it was working perfectly earlier today until I tried to crossfire.... damnit another thing to rma..

Reply to Romstar
ROBSLIN   05-22-2007 at 05:31:14 PM
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Quote :

but that makes no sense as it was working perfectly earlier today until I tried to crossfire.... damnit another thing to rma..



So are you now saying that your original first card is the one thats now not working or is it the one you bought for crossfire?


Most likely its your second card that you purchased since everything was fine until you went crossfire.

You just got a defective card from the factory, sucks but it happens sometimes.

Reply to ROBSLIN
ROBSLIN   05-22-2007 at 05:47:51 PM
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Oh well...........your welcome :lol:

Reply to ROBSLIN
bfellow   05-22-2007 at 07:39:29 PM
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Quote :

maybe it is because i used the pciex6 pin connector that are connected to each other rather than independent ones?


wait a minute... are you saying you are trying to draw power from one 2900 to the other?

Reply to bfellow
Gary_Busey   05-22-2007 at 08:15:58 PM
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Quote :

maybe it is because i used the pciex6 pin connector that are connected to each other rather than independent ones?


wait a minute... are you saying you are trying to draw power from one 2900 to the other?
I think he's saying he's using two connectors from the same line?

Reply to Gary_Busey
Romstar   05-22-2007 at 11:59:30 PM
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The card that is now considered broken was working perfect this morning..... hmm.

Reply to Romstar
morerevs   05-23-2007 at 01:01:12 PM
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So do you have crossfire now or still one card? Also post your specs as to what mobo your on. Did you use the external dongle(you seem to mention that in your post) or internal crossfire bridge (both of them are required i believe) Also are you sure that you've put the second card in the correct slot. Some boards have three PCI-e slots, but only two of them are for crossfire/SLI. When in doubt, go to ATI's site as they have some instruction videos on how to install correctly. On the powerplugs issue... if there's a choice try to use separate rails for each card. The manual with your PSU should have some advice on that also. Hope you get it to run man, good luck 8)

"edit" on the "both of them are required" thingie.. what i mean is both of the internal crossfire connectors, not the external dongle as well. It seemed a bit vague on rereading it :D

Reply to morerevs
blade85   05-23-2007 at 01:06:13 PM
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perhaps in the process of setting up ur crossfire rig, you managed to damage the card that was working in the morning.

can you get it replaced???

Reply to blade85
Romstar   05-23-2007 at 09:06:25 PM
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I just RMAed it today back to newegg for a brand new one hopefully and do I have to do anything for crossfire? or do i just have to physically set it up? is there anything that I have to do in the bios or ati driver before I put in the second card?

I am using a badaxe2 motherboard from intel and im pretty sure I put them both in the right slot.

Reply to Romstar
morerevs   05-23-2007 at 09:47:18 PM
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As far as the pci slots go that should be in your manual but for SLI it's usually the two 16x (black slots in your case) that are furthest apart from each other.And no you don't have to enable anything in the bios just enable crossfire in the Catalyst Control Center after you've put the card in. Also, to what card did you connect the monitor, cuz from what i can tell from the ATI site is that it should be connected to the bottom card.

Here are the links to both driver options and setup instruction vid:

http://ati.amd.com/technology/cros [...] setup.html

http://ati.amd.com/technology/cros [...] sdemo.html

Have fun!! :P

Reply to morerevs
Heyyou27   05-23-2007 at 09:50:20 PM
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Quote :

but that makes no sense as it was working perfectly earlier today until I tried to crossfire.... damnit another thing to rma..



So are you now saying that your original first card is the one thats now not working or is it the one you bought for crossfire?


Most likely its your second card that you purchased since everything was fine until you went crossfire.

You just got a defective card from the factory, sucks but it happens sometimes.Rob, why can't all your posts be more like this? :?

Reply to Heyyou27
Romstar   05-23-2007 at 09:50:28 PM
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well I did do teh bottom one and even tried all 4 of them but anyways I think it was because one of the cards was bad but its no biggy, i'll just wait 2 weeks till my next one comes in.

Reply to Romstar
Romstar   05-23-2007 at 09:52:41 PM
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well based off of the ati demo video i noticed that the dvi cable was attached to a splitter dvi cable? or something like that and went into both cards... my monitor(dell3007wfp or w/e) didnt come with a splitter thing and neither did the cards so all it has is 1 dvi thing and it says dual link on it so iunno.

Reply to Romstar
Farhang   05-23-2007 at 10:13:47 PM
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Quote :

Rob, why can't all your posts be more like this? :?


Good question! :?

Reply to Farhang
morerevs   05-23-2007 at 10:55:09 PM
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The splitter type cable in the demo is the old way of connecting cards in crossfire. On the newer cards (like yours) ati incorporated an onboard crossfire controller hence the flexible bridge thingies supplied with the cards. In reviews i read they said to use both brdges to connect the cards but that is something that's probably covered in the manual. The dvi adapter should go into the bottom card(from the demo but again.. check the manual) probably in the left dvi slot. That's usually the main connector.
This is all theoretical though as i do not own a crossfire setup. IS THERE NO ONE HERE THAT DOES??? :D

Reply to morerevs
human_error   05-23-2007 at 11:40:06 PM
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When setting up my corssfire (old style with an extrenal dongle) i found that it is best to get one card working, once that happens stress test it, then put in the other card and take out the first, stress test again, after that put the 1st card into the spare slot you have and then try crossfire.

I say this because my first crossfire setup had a bad 2nd card for 2 weeks before i found out and my master card had been covering for it. Leave the DVI connector in wherever it was plugged in before you tried crossfire- any of the dongly ports should work but if they don't then look in your mobo manual - most xfire mobo's have a pci-e slot that is the master slot for the primary card, make sure the dvi is plugged into the card in that slot.

And if it is driver related the catalyst 7,5 is due out tomorrow i believe, so hopefully any software errors will have been fixed.

Reply to human_error
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