x2 4850s in crossfire...help pls?

[cowykillr]

I have 2 ATI Radeon 4850's installed in my MSI x48 motherboard, both in PCI 2.0 x16 slots. The bridge is installed, as well as the latest driver. When checking them out on the device manager, they both come up. However, in the ATI catalyst control center there is supposed to be an option that pops up when it detects 2 graphics cards: a Crossfire option. It wont come up, no matter what i do. Any suggestions?

 

[mactronix]

Well i do know that sometimes there is an option for enabling/disabling crossfire in the bios. Apart from that, are both cards getting power, all leads attached etc.
Also i know this is daft but you do havethe cards in the correct slots ? (Yes i know but i had to ask) the blue ones right

Mactronix

 

[cowykillr]

lol, yeah, the blue ones... Like i said they come up in the Device Manager, so they are all properly running...

Is it possible there's something wrong with the bridge?

 

[Maziar]

Update the VGA driver and see what happens

 

[cowykillr]

all drivers are up to date, just double checked...

 

[cowykillr]

The dvi for my monitor is plugged into the 4850 in the PCI 1 slot . The Device manager shows the 4850 in PCI 1 slot enabled, and the 4850 in PCI 2 slot enabled. on CCC (catalyst control center) in the graphics hardware tab its showing the PCI 1 slot enabled as the Primary Adapter. The 4850 in PCI 2 slot is showing in CCC as disabled...

I took out one graphics card at a time to double check that both cards were working and both slots were working...

I'm stumped on this one guys...

 

[mrbobc]

i had this problem when i first tried crossfire. turned out i just needed to do a thorough cleanout of the drivers in safe mode, running drivercleaner at least 4 or 5 times.

i'm sure its just a rogue part of the old catalysts.

try that and see!

 

[cowykillr]

k thanks, ill try

 

[cowykillr]

Running Driver Cleaner Pro 1.5 didnt work...followed directions...ran it a few times...no luck

 

[megamanx00]

Personally by now I would have just formatted the stupid thing ^_^. Anyway check your BIOS to see if you have any settings for crossfire. As mrbobc said, it's probably just some rouge file or registry setting mucking everything up.

 

[mrbobc]

Running Driver Cleaner Pro 1.5 didnt work...followed directions...ran it a few times...no luck

did you try it in safe mode?? its the only way it'll get rid of the files properly. if u havent do it in safe mode a few times then reboot/reinstall.

you could also try going into device manager and uninstalling the 2 cards from there after uninstalling ccc (dont worry you wont lose your screen) then reboot and install the new drivers

sometimes you just have to do a fresh install of windows if u cant get rid of the problem like megaman said. if you have no problem reinstalling windows then do that AFTER trying everything else first.

 

[tnywatkns]

The only way to get this to work is to roll back to catalyst 8.10 (about 6 months old) , i know this because i had the EXACT same problem with my two 4850's. and the performance with 8.10 is terrible too. i get the exact amout of fps in warhammer with the single 8800 gtx i borrowed from a friend. this month's drivers (9.4) were the last straw, they did nothing to fix the issue. i have sold off my two 4850's and picked up a gtx 280. . if you browse the ati forums you'll see that you are not alone with this and it is pretty common. just to clear the air too, i am not a fan boy, i go where the price/performance is... but after having this issue for the past SIX MONTHS i am done with ati.

 

[tnywatkns]

o yea btw, i tested on an AM3 790x mobo, and the ASUS pk5-e, didn't matter what chipset i was using it still didn't work

 

[cowykillr]

hey, thanks guys...this has been driving me insane for quite some time....ccc 8.10 you say?

and yes, i did use the DRiver Cleaner in safe mode...

 

[Euphoria_MK]

hey, thanks guys...this has been driving me insane for quite some time....ccc 8.10 you say?

and yes, i did use the DRiver Cleaner in safe mode...

It's highly unlikely that using 8.10 will fix your issue. You should use Cat driver 9.1 and newer, since ATI improved their drivers for crossfire starting from 9.1

I would say that your issue is most likely lack of power from the PSU or a bad Crossfire bridge.

 

[SP3CIALAG3NTBOB]

I have this same problem with 2xHD4850's, and the only drivers that give crossfire is 8.10. I heard this is a bios issue, because some companies thought it would be cool to put old bios on the cards. So if anyone has a fix please help. I really don't want to flash bios though...

 

[tnywatkns]

idk if installing broken ass drivers from six months ago (catalyst 8.10) is honestly a fix, but it allowed me to enable and crossfire and see no real performance gain, get frustrated and sell my cards off (like a boss!)

 

[tnywatkns]

and in addition to having both a amd and an intel chipset to test it on, i also had three diff crossfire bridges, two diff pwr supplies (corsair hx620 and a ocz gamestream 700w). so believe me when i say that the ONLY fix i found was to roll back to 8.10 and below.

 

[Euphoria_MK]

Than it has to be an older BIOS as SP3CIALAG3NTBOB said.
Call the manufacturer and tell tehm to either give you a newer BIOS or RMA the cards and get new ones. Although in small number, apparently this does happen.... knock on wood, I havent experienced yet any problems in Crossfire, but everything is possible.

 

[cowykillr]

see, i have the MSI x48 Platinum MoBo...and ive been reading the manual with it...it says that the MoBo is already crossfire ready and nothing needs to be changed in the BIOS for it...it states that its all involved with the Driver and software like CCC for example...

 

[cowykillr]

It's highly unlikely that using 8.10 will fix your issue. You should use Cat driver 9.1 and newer, since ATI improved their drivers for crossfire starting from 9.1

I would say that your issue is most likely lack of power from the PSU or a bad Crossfire bridge.

Ive got enough power from my psu: 750w

 

[mrbobc]

did u try uninstalling the cards in device manager? it has worked for me when all else has failed!

if you have then a fresh install of windows is the only way you'll know if its a driver issue or a hardware issue.

 

[cowykillr]

I'm just going to do a fresh install of vista.... garrrrrr....pissed...

 

[cowykillr]

Gahhhh, alright, 2 weeks later after i made a whoopsie...in the process of flashing my BIOS, one of my sticks of RAM decided to die on me...

I now have an updated bios, a fresh install of vista, latest driver for my radeon 4850, bridges connected properly and identified in my device manager, crossfire is already enabled in bios...

what the freaking hell could be the problem now?????

 

[Di7]

graphics cards: a Crossfire option. It wont come up..

Make sure yo plug the crossfire cable at the top of the cards and try again..

I was talking about the weakness of 4870X2 drivers but the close my thread.. they think that I hate Ati!!

I'm a customer of Ati and I bought many of their products but I meant no harm when I said that some of their products are still in developing (not ready for public use).

By the way.. did you face any crashes during the drivers installation with 4850 card?