7970 Crossfire and Motherboard Issue

[SebNAbt]

So recently did an upgrade for some new components for my PC.
A little about my computer:

Graphics Card 1:
SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100351-6GVXSR Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition 6GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
Graphics Card 2:
SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100351-6GVXSR Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition 6GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Note: Both graphics cards are placed into a PCI Express X16 slot

MotherBoard:
ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Processor:
AMD FX-8350 Vishera 4.0GHz (4.2GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor FD8350FRHKBOX

CPU Cooler:
Corsair Water Cooler H90

Memory:
4- G.SKILL Sniper Series 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL9D-8GBSR

PSU:
Thermaltake SP-1000M 1000W ATX 12V 2.3 & EPS 12V 2.92 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply

OS:
Windows 7 64-Bit

Now for the problem:
For the past couple of weeks since i got my new graphics cards, i have been trouble with getting them to turn on crossfire. In fact AMD Catalyst Center doesn't recognize the second card, Device manager doesn't recognize it either.
However even without the computer recognizing there is a second graphics card. I can easily see that both cards are power and running, but only one card is getting anything.


With using Speccy i'm able to see that my CPU idles at 19*C

Ideas i've tried but have failed:
1) Complete removal and reinstall of AMD Drivers
2) Reseat the cards
3) Change which power connector goes where.

These are the ideas i have tried but it still doesn't work. So i'd figure i would ask Tom's Hardware Forum for some help with my issue.

Also another fact. Does anyone know of a better motherboard than the one that i have so i can put in my Soundcard? Either that or a way to extend my PCI Express X16 slot that i have at the bottom of my board,

Hopefully i can get some help with this.

 

[ihog]

You do have the Crossfire connector on, correct? You probably do, just asking to make sure.

You can start by using Card 1 individually in both x16 slots to see how it works, and then the same with the second.

And I don't believe you'll have a problem with using your sound card in the x4 slot. What is the sound card?

 

[SebNAbt]

You do have the Crossfire connector on, correct? You probably do, just asking to make sure.

You can start by using Card 1 individually in both x16 slots to see how it works, and then the same with the second.

And I don't believe you'll have a problem with using your sound card in the x4 slot. What is the sound card?

Sure i'll give that a shot by tomorrow night. It's a Creative Sound Blaster Z, but you see my issue is, these graphics cards are huge, so i need to find away to either extend my PCI slot an use the extension. Or find a larger board, which my case can handle by the way.

 

[ihog]

Sorry, I thought your sound card was PCIe x16, don't know why.

 

[SebNAbt]

Hey sorry about such a late reply. But i did find out the issue apparently one of my Sapphire Vapor-X cards was not properly working and when I sent it out for an RMA it came back, put it into my system and it all works perfectly.

Although one small issue that made me a bit mad was that after talking to ASUS there is no way that i can have the two cards run at x16 x16 and sound card run at x8.
The previous setup was, Graphics card x8, Sound Card x8, Graphics Card x8.
Now it's Graphics Card x16 and Graphics Card x16.

 

[SebNAbt]

Read June 24 post