View Full Version : Is something wrong with my 4870X2
His PSU is fine. I'm using the same one to power 2 of his cards. He may want to think about swapping PCI-E connectors, though.
Viral, are you using the hard-wired connectors or the modular ones? Switch to whichever one you're not using and see if that fixes the problem. Make sure the connectors plug in all the way and that the card is seated properly all the way into the slot on the motherboard.
Also, check your northbridge and southbridge temps in your bios after some gaming. Come back and report what they are, if you can.
I was thinking the same last night. I'm using the modular connectors as I wanted to make sure the 8 pin was on one rail and the 6 pin was on the other. Do you have any idea what rails the hard wired connectors use? Hopefully one of each. I'll have a go using them and a combination of hard wired/modular.
What are you using? Obviously both, but is one card using hard wired and the other modular or one type on each?
Also the RAM tested fine. I actually got into gameplay with the GEIL, but only up to where you have problems with your chute. Both sets of RAM run the benchmarks (CPU and GPU) fine, although quite slow and with lots of tearing.I assume tearing might be normal, as I didn't run the benchmarks on my old system. I have to use v-sync in game or I get it there too. Anyway at 1776x1000 (still) no AA/AF all very high I get an average of around 24FPS on GPU flybuy with it dipping into the mid teens. On CPU bench 2 I get a min of 4fps and an average of 15. Is this bench supposed to be so stressful? Seems rediculous. Anyhow both benchies loop fine for over 10 mins, while game crashes at any point right at the start and after a few tries on a new install gives corrupt intro FMV and menu.
Also the ticking does depend on the frame rate as it is much slower on the CPU2 bench at the start but then speeds up with the FPS. Is this normal?
Right now I'm also thinking of trying just the WD drive for a new install of Crysis/Catalyst. I'll also try some other games, don't have much on me, Bioshock, COD4, STALKER, FEAR.
I'll get back to you with the NB temps too.
Ok just setup my PC again after having it at my mates place. I just noticed something... I don't have my new monitor yet so I'm using my 40" Bravia 1080P tv, with a HDMI adaptor. I bought an XFX 5m HDMI cable with my PC... the adaptor that comes with it has all the pins, while the one that came with my 4870X2 has 4 colums or so of the middle ones missing. My mates 4850 HDMI adaptor doesn't have missing pins either! I remembered that at one stage I was using this adaptor when I had my PC right next to my tv and using another cable... this is probably when Crysis was working for me. I just played 5 mins of Crysis, still bad performance though. It seemed to jerk a little just with no one around on the beach at the start. Average was in the low-mid 20's :\ The intro FMV is still corrupt but this can be fixed with a reinstall of crysis (hopefully it wont come back now).
I'll reinstall my drivers on my RAID and do some more benchmarking. Crossfire is definitely enabled but performance is what I'd expect if it wasn't.
LordJuanlo
09-20-08, 08:01 AM
Low-mid 20s at the beach?. That's not normal at all, I got higher numbers with the single 4870
Xion X2
09-20-08, 10:08 AM
@Viral
Installed the 8.9 drivers last night and crysis ran lovely, though I did experience flashing textures and corruption on one occasion but I put that down to swapping between crysis and the desktop when trying to get AA to work. A quick reboot of crysis stopped it happening and played for about an hour after that. My god the 4870 X2 is so silky smooth compared to my 8800GTX
Talking of AA, Is there a trick to enabling AA in crysis as I can't seem to get it to show up. I was using edge detect 12X AA, is this type supported under crysis or do you have to use the standard Box type AA?
Use Crysis' in-game AA. Driver AA doesn't work in Crysis. Also, make sure that the driver (CCC) is set to "Box." Edge-Detect (12xAA for in-game 4xAA) is too demanding for a single X2/Crysis.
Xion X2
09-20-08, 10:48 AM
Low-mid 20s at the beach?. That's not normal at all, I got higher numbers with the single 4870
Yeah, that's too low. I get around 35 there w/ 4xAA on a single X2.
What are your in-game AA settings, Viral? Make sure it's not on 8xAA.
For the PCI-E connectors, Card 1 is on hardwired connectors and Card 2 is on the modular. Each work off a different 12v rail. The HX1000w has dual 12v rails w/ 40 amps on each. Depending on your setup, you may need to swap them or use one connector from each 12v rail going to the card.
hell_of_doom227
09-20-08, 10:54 AM
Return your card and get two GTX280. Save yourself from ATI.
Xion X2
09-20-08, 10:56 AM
Return your card and get two GTX280. Save yourself from ATI.
Or, he could keep his more reliable Intel chipset, keep the money he saves on an X2 (300$ more for 2 280s) and stay with ATI.
Heinz68
09-20-08, 06:26 PM
Ok just setup my PC again after having it at my mates place. I just noticed something... I don't have my new monitor yet so I'm using my 40" Bravia 1080P tv, with a HDMI adaptor. I bought an XFX 5m HDMI cable with my PC... the adaptor that comes with it has all the pins, while the one that came with my 4870X2 has 4 colums or so of the middle ones missing. My mates 4850 HDMI adaptor doesn't have missing pins either! I remembered that at one stage I was using this adaptor when I had my PC right next to my tv and using another cable... this is probably when Crysis was working for me. I just played 5 mins of Crysis, still bad performance though. It seemed to jerk a little just with no one around on the beach at the start. Average was in the low-mid 20's :\ The intro FMV is still corrupt but this can be fixed with a reinstall of crysis (hopefully it wont come back now).
I'll reinstall my drivers on my RAID and do some more benchmarking. Crossfire is definitely enabled but performance is what I'd expect if it wasn't.
Probably the best is to use the ATI supplied DVI to HDMI adapter. It's modified to support up to 7.1 audio format it also supports the HDCP ready components.
My PowerColor HD 4870 adapter has also the middle pins missing and it's ok for 1080p. DVI connectors as pictured at Wikipedia.
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/6788/dviconnectonu4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
My card OUT has the DVI-I (Dual Link) as on picture.
The DVI to HDMI adapter looks like the DVI-D (Single Link), the four pins on the left are only for VGA that's why not included.
The single link is OK for 1080p, the DVI dual link is required for the max resolution 2560 x 1600 like on some 30 inch monitors for example from Apple or Dell.
Sorry to hear about the performance, looks like something is wrong with your setup since others with the x2 card have better performance.
Even on my old AMD system my average frames are about 25 (1080p) and no stuttering or artifacts on single card.
I know your settings are higher but the 4870 x2 plus better system should give much better performance.
At least I hope so since it's my next upgrade.
On my present setup the game run the best with all CCC settings set on default except the Overdrive which I set too max OC.
In game settings are all high with AAx2. This is with WindowXP, I'm sure my system is not Vista ready for gaming.
I also close all the application and background process except the system ones as recommended in Crysis manual. For that I use ProcessExplorer (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx) much better utility than Task Manager.
Here some in game screen shots at AA2x all high, the benchmark was actually at AA4x all high.
http://img144.imagevenue.com/loc1172/th_50437_Beach_122_1172lo.jpg (http://img144.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=50437_Beach_122_1172lo.jpg)http://img198.imagevenue.com/loc600/th_50452_NOMAD_122_600lo.jpg (http://img198.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=50452_NOMAD_122_600lo.jpg)http://img217.imagevenue.com/loc408/th_50464_Village_122_408lo.jpg (http://img217.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=50464_Village_122_408lo.jpg)
http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/3898/crysis89wt2.th.jpg (http://img262.imageshack.us/my.php?image=crysis89wt2.jpg)http://img262.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)
Yeah, that's too low. I get around 35 there w/ 4xAA on a single X2.
What are your in-game AA settings, Viral? Make sure it's not on 8xAA.
For the PCI-E connectors, Card 1 is on hardwired connectors and Card 2 is on the modular. Each work off a different 12v rail. The HX1000w has dual 12v rails w/ 40 amps on each. Depending on your setup, you may need to swap them or use one connector from each 12v rail going to the card.
I'm not using AA since it's unplayable even with 2xAA. For some reason my TV will only work in 1080/24P (24FPS) or 1080i for games when using ATI drivers, but I never used my tv with my 8800GTS. If I take the 1080P 24Hz option out of CCC is uses 1080i despite the fact I have both 1080P 50Hz and 1080P 60Hz checked. I have reinstalled 8.9 officials and Crysis both on my RAID setup. Intro FMV is still corrupt in Crysis unlike my last reinstall.
I just had crysis running fine for around an hour played through contact at my usual slow stealth favouring pace. Ran fine sticking to 24FPS for the most part with the biggest drop being when looking at the flare on the beach in the night section it dropped as low as 16FPS. Pretty piss poor really. I know something is still wrong.
I got to the second level, recovery, and exited. Restarted my PC an hour later and loaded it up... was a bit jerky compared to before, got about 5 mins in and in the middle of a intense battle my PC crashed again.
I have a feeling it might be power related, so I'll swap the modular cables for the fixed. I am already using one of each rail with the modular (accoring to the layout on the back). Hopefully the fixed 6+2pin connectors use one of each either, although I'm sure 40A is more than enough for a single X2.
Thanks Heinz. I think it might just be a weird coincidence that using the ATI HDMI adaptor fixed my problem (for a short time). Good to know what the missing pins mean, though. I'll have to look into using the 4870's audio at a later date once my PC is running well.
I don't want to use CCC just yet because A, I like crysis the way it looks normally, B I've heard of performance issues with X2's and C, I don't want to complicate the issues I'm having by adding other possible problems into the mix.
Return your card and get two GTX280. Save yourself from ATI.
Return yourself to the GTX200 forum and stay the f*** out of my thread.
Xion X2
09-21-08, 12:18 AM
Do you have just a regular computer monitor you could hook it up to? That would rule out everything but video scaling if it worked like it's supposed to. You seem to be having some strange TV scaling issues similar to what Slawter was reporting earlier.
Arturia
09-21-08, 12:41 AM
reporte
?
Lfctony
09-21-08, 02:33 AM
Return your card and get two GTX280. Save yourself from ATI.
Or you can shut up...
Return yourself to the GTX200 forum and stay the f*** out of my thread.
well said.:)
Low-mid 20s at the beach?. That's not normal at all, I got higher numbers with the single 4870
something wrong here 2 then? i get like 30fps but it dips to 20's some times:( warhead and clearsky runs great :D
Do you have just a regular computer monitor you could hook it up to? That would rule out everything but video scaling if it worked like it's supposed to. You seem to be having some strange TV scaling issues similar to what Slawter was reporting earlier.
Nope, sold my 19" CRT last week and my 22" went with my old system a couple of weeks ago. I get my new monitor on the 30th of this month.
I switched to the hardwired PCI-E cables and had s crash not far from my save at the start of recovery. I went back to a save near the end of contact and it was fine, played through to just past the destroying the tanks and making my way up the trail beside the river before another crash (seemed to be fixed before this!). I turned off v-sync and the FPS was up to 64 when looking at the ground, but as low as 16 when looking into the distance with over 2,400 tris on screen. But it was stuttering and tearing all over the place, having it sync to 24FPS is much better as that's about the average I'm getting anyway.... probably closer to 30FPS with vsync off but in action it's low to mid 20's. So this still sounds too low, right? Performance degrades the further I get into the game because of the larger/more complex areas and more enemies.
I might just have to borrow my 19" back to test with.
I also moved all FMV files into a new folder do I don't have to put up with that anymore. I have no idea what caused the corruption there. I also had the in game go corrupted when alt+tab-ing a few times in a row. I just quit and re-loaded my last save and it was fine again.
I think I'll install Bioshock and STALKER tonight, but really as long as Crysis doesn't work properly I won't be happy.
Oh yeah, checked my NB temp after the last crash. It takes about 20 secs to get into the BIOS cause of the damn RAID scan but it was sitting at 40C stable, with CPU at 30C.
Update:
I've been doing quite a bit of testing. I started out running the Crysis GPU bench, it crashed. I changed the settings to windowed 1440x900, it ran but slow and with stuttering every 2 secs for 1 sec ( VERY BAD), I think this is obviously because the 2D clocks are still in place while windowed, so one GPU is 750MHz and the other is 500Mhz. Since the gap between pausing is 2 secs and the pause is around 1 sec, you can see that it's just the GPU that's 50% faster waiting for the slower one to finish. Also, the amperage of the faster core fluctuates between as high as 55A and as low as 25A, while the slower core fluctuates between 25A and 12A. Both cores are meant to operate at 12A when idle in 2d mode and 25A when fully loaded. In 3D they start at 25A and go to 55A. This is why the first core is so much hotter in 2D, not only is it clocked 50% higher, it also has twice the voltage supplied to it.
Ok on to other things. First up, pressing alt+enter to go fullscreen during the bench causes an immediate crash. On the other hand, I can do whatever I want in windows and the bench will simply come to a crawl. Xion, I think you're right about the HDTV scaling. I also used my mates 720P HDTV when at his house. I'm going to have to get a monitor to prove this though.
The last thing of note is to do with fixed fan speeds. I noticed with the auto fan speed that temps do not exceed 85C under load for me. The fan went as high as 1850rpm to maintain this temperature, and droped down as low as 1500rpm on the fly when it was obviously obtaining this temp a little easier. Basically the rpm is always on the move in 3D mode depending on load and temps. With fixed fan speed, 30% = 1600rpm. With this enabled the hotter core went up to 92C after quite a bit of testing. At 35% the fan ran at a nicer (still very quiet in my case) 2120rpm and kept the hotter core at 72C.
So to all those out there using fixed speed fan hacks, 1 I wouldn't recommend it, and 2 if you do, I'd set it to at least 35% to be safe. 32% is probably around 1850rpm which for me is all it got to on auto, but who knows what conditions your card may be faced with.
slaWter
09-21-08, 05:52 AM
Update:
Xion, I think you're right about the HDTV scaling. I also used my mates 720P HDTV when at his house. I'm going to have to get a monitor to prove this though.
Sorry to hear that you're also having scaling issues with your X2. My card worked flawlessly on a normal PC monitor (Dell 3007) using different resolutions and frequencies over a Dual Link DVI cable. On my HDTV using a DVI-HDMI cable it was a bit more problematic. I've tested different games and by the looks of it DX9 works fine, the card was always using 1080p 60Hz resolution. But in DX10 it switched back to 1080i 50Hz (no matter what HDTV output option or scaling option used in CCC) and that looked horrible on my Samsung HDTV. Are you using DX9 or 10 in Crysis?
I'm using DX10, and the only 1080P mode I can get to work is 1080/24P which is 24Hz and designed for movies. I might give DX9 a shot. But it definitely sounds like that is my problem. Good to finally have it sorted! Thanks for the feedback.
Also since I brought it up in this thread earlier, here's a diagram for the HX1000's 12v rails:
http://www.houseofhelp.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=3676&stc=1&d=1213300906
So as you can see the hard wired cables use the 12v2 rail. This should be ok as the motherboard uses 12v1, but I think I'll go with using the hard wired cable for my 8pin connector and the 6pin as my modular. This should balance nicely as the 8pin will draw more power, but the 12v1 rail the 6pin is on also has to supply the motherboard.
slaWter
09-21-08, 06:37 AM
One other thing, regarding your performance issues in Crysis. Using Crysis DX10 it took the card like 30sec to use Crossfire properly and enable the second GPU. In DX9 both GPUs were enabled directly. But that was with early drivers after the X2 release. Perhaps this bug is already fixed.
Hmm, that could explain early performance issues, especially in benchmarks. When looping the benchmarks the start seems much better the second time around.
I just played an hour of Bioshock. It too had problems with HDTV scaling which I assume is because it's DX10. On anything over 1680x1050 it would use 1080i not 1080P. I just used 1680x1050 and my TV centred the image. Still looked pretty damn good just a slightly smaller screen area. Performance was immaculate but then again if it wasn't I'd be wanting my money back right now.
Xion X2
09-21-08, 11:39 AM
Viral, is any other game crashing on you besides Crysis?
Do you have Lost Planet? If so, try that in DX10 and see if it crashes at all. That and Crysis are the most demanding games out right now for GPUs.
I really don't know of a reason that a driver or malfunctioning card would cause crashes on certain games and not others (on fresh installs.) It would almost seem as if your PSU is giving out on you under intense load. Those Corsair models have a great track record, though.
Hmm.. a close relative of mine actually had an issue where his PC was trying to draw more power from the wall socket and, due to a bad breaker in his house, wasn't able to and kept crashing in the middle of stuff. Have you tried hooking up to another outlet at your residence?
A few more things to try:
1) Go into your BIOS and check your PCI-E speeds
2) Try hooking your PC up to a different wall socket in a completely separate room of your house/apartment.
3) If you're using the OCZ drives, go here to disable AHCP in your bios if you haven't already:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=40561
I think the TV scaling issue is separate and wouldn't cause the crashes you're experiencing. Slawter can chip in on that one, but I don't recall him saying his was crashing on him--just that he couldn't get the resolution he wanted.
DeusGear
09-21-08, 11:50 AM
Hmm, that could explain early performance issues, especially in benchmarks. When looping the benchmarks the start seems much better the second time around.
I just played an hour of Bioshock. It too had problems with HDTV scaling which I assume is because it's DX10. On anything over 1680x1050 it would use 1080i not 1080P. I just used 1680x1050 and my TV centred the image. Still looked pretty damn good just a slightly smaller screen area. Performance was immaculate but then again if it wasn't I'd be wanting my money back right now.
Same problem. However dx10 1080p works with DMC4 and lost planet (same engine). What works for me is this: go to options menu. uncheck full screen, select 1920*1080 in window mode and then hit alt enter. The fulscreen tab stays unchecked but I have fullscreen 1080p.
slaWter
09-21-08, 12:29 PM
I think the TV scaling issue is separate and wouldn't cause the crashes you're experiencing. Slawter can chip in on that one, but I don't recall him saying his was crashing on him--just that he couldn't get the resolution he wanted.
Exactly, the system was stable otherwise.
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