Why does my new 4870x2 suck so much?

Hello, I have recently bought a 4870x2 card to go in my system (I'll post specs at bottom) because my 8800GTX died on me.
When my 8800GTX died, I bought this card and put it right into my computer with my current OS (Vista x64). It gave me some driver errors so I found a driver sweeper and cleaned out my old drivers. After doing that I installed the latest drivers from Ati. Those drivers didn't work well.

A few things that happen include:

When playing wow, the screen would freeze with wow up. I would then have to end the wow task. If I were to start any other program up my computer would freeze and then bsod. The bsod seemed in avoidable, because even if i didn't open any other programs it would still bsod after a min or two.

Next, when playing counter strike, after getting flashed and as the effect would wear off, it would flash the last frame before getting flashed as it faded away. It was really annoying.

Also, everything I did had lower frames then my dying 8800.

I then proceeded to reformat my computer. The same things happened.
After getting fed up with this, I found the 8.542RC1 drivers. Those seemed to get rid of my lock ups in wow and my flash problem in CS, but my frames were still Way under par. I was only displaying about 25-30 frames in wow when by my self. Come on ATI Wow is not Graphic intensive at all.
Other games like L4D and DoW 2 seemed to play fine on full settings. though I don't know that the frames I was getting are.

The probles I had with the RC1 drivers were:

random blue screens, atikmdag stop responding and still lower frames

Also, I recently started having a problem with my monitor every time on start up and coming out of sleep mode. The monitor could not seem to locate the signal and I would have to Hold the Source button until it would switch to digital. Sometimes I would have to do that a good couple of times. My second monitor started up just fine.

I just recently installed most recent drivers, 9.2. As of now Its fixed my monitor problem. But I've only restarted the computer once or so.... and I haven't played WoW enough to tell if the lockup's are back. I did however get my stupid low frame rates back and my CS Flash problem..


If you have any advice on what might be wrong or what drivers to try or anything let me know.
I'm also having some sound card difficulty, before and after re-install, along with mouse lag problems.

My Specs
Mobo > Asus Striker Extreme
Ram > Corsair ddr2 800 1G x4
CPU > Core 2 Duo E6850 (Tuniq Tower Cooled)
Sound > X-Fi Fatal1ty
PSU > Thermaltake Tough power 700W
4xHDD (2 10k RaptorX in raid)
Thermaltake Armor case with standard led fans
1x cd/dvd (all that crap writer)

Sounds alot like you got a dud card.

atikmdag is typical of a computer that still has nvidia drivers on it.
Go and uninstall anything from your computer thats nvidia/rivatuner/ntune.
Then remove any files associated with nvidia/rivatuner/ntune.
Then download drivercleaner and clean anything nvidia. Reboot, and reinstall the latest ATI drivers.
This solved this annoying problem for me.

I'd say you have other issues too though. Sounds like mobo problem to me. Did you install your chipset drivers before you isntalled you video drivers? Mouse lag? Sound problems? Monitor sleep mode issues? These cannot be caused by a graphics card.
Try running memtest86. Your framerates should be double what you had with your 8800.

Some mobos need a bios update for certain cards.... check what version your bios is and see if u can update it.

Actually it sounds like you just need a little more power.. 4 raptor and sound. Full RAM slots and A behemoth board/ cpu combo. Add to this the massive power consumption of the Beastie vidcard and you are probably sucking almost every bit of power you have on hand. Bump it up a min of 100 wats and more than likely stability will come back. Also are you plugged into a UPS. If you are try it with just a surge protector. I have had some customers where the computer would not power on their graphics card at all just due to an aging UPS not having enough oomph to kick it on as it is the last thing to power on during POST. Therefore it is the least likely to get enough power.
Hope it helps.

,Spiralnexus

Hey,

The most important thing you forgot to mention is what make your 4870x2 is ?

I've had major problems with my HIS 4870 x2 and now my new ASUS 4870 x2....

And i had a very simillar problem to yours. Read on

I would advise you to get a GTX 295 if you get a refund.

The driver Packages for ATI are very poor, also there is a Bug that i have found out and most of you guys either know or don't know about it yet

is that these cards sometimes fail to work in dual GPU especially on VISTA OS, so you may think your card is running in dual GPU but it is not.

I only found out that my new ASUS was only running in single GPU a few days ago and was pissed off bigtime its 2 weeks old ..and i was wondering why the heck is my computer messed up considering its brand new.

So anyway the way to test if the Dual GPU enviroment is active is as follows :

1-Right click on your catalyst icon in the tray

2-Select the primary 4870x2 sub menu [ the one that expands]

3-Then you should see a crossfire sub menu

[If the option isn't there then your Dual GPU enviroment is not detected and you are running in single GPU mode]

4- [if you do see the crossFire sub menu make sure you tick the option] and then run any game, you should see an icon on the top right with the CrossFire Logo.

5-If you see the CrossFire submenu and the option is enabled but you are not seeing the CrossFire logo during the game [ then the crossfire is still not working]


*******
Make sure your Motherboard's BIOS is up to date

Now the only driver that i found that works with VISTA 64 Bit is catalyst 8.11 package the driver version 8.542, wait until you hear the sideeffect !! my bluray playback does not work with this driver.....what a killer wither crossfire or Bluray !!

I've raised a call with ASUS and waiting to hear back from them.


Please let me know how this works for you.

Just checked, I do not think my x2 is eligible for an RMA.

Make sure you use Cat 9.1 or cat 9.2 drivers.
I dont play WoW but I havent had any problems with the 4850 x2 on any of my games.
I would assume that the 4850 x2 and 4870 x2 work on the same principle and they use the same drivers.
First make sure you have uninstaled any third party apps like nvtune, rivatuner, etc... They can and they do cause problems.
Than make sure your power supply can provide enough current for the hd4870 x2. You will have the same problem with the gtx295 if it's a power issue since the gtx295 is a dual GPU card.

Than check the settings in the catalyst drivers and make sure that crossfire is enabled and check the ATI Overdrive settings to make sure that the card is rrunning at the proper clock settings

Cheers

A good friend of mine has a brother to my build. He has the same cpu as me. He is running a 4870 (not an x2) and has had no problems with the older drivers he is using. So I really don't think my cpu is an issue. Its a 3.0GHz Core 2 duo. I've had it at 3.3 for a while before I had bought my x2 and didnt notice much fps difference.

I have been really busy and haven't even been able to fix my monitor so I haven't checked any more of your suggestions.

Sorry.

May be, i actually got that piece of info from one of the ATI support reps.

My attitude towards ATI is changing a lot these days.