Asus EAH4850 TOP x2, Asus P5Q Pro, No Crossfire

[mcexley]

Hey, folks. First post.

I rebuilt my wife's gaming machine with an Asus P5Q Pro P45 MB and two Asus EAH4850 TOP cards. Installed Cat 8.9, it says CrossfireX is enabled, but GPU-Z and 3DMark06 results say it's not. What's more, the machine is unstable running her current game, Neverwinter Nights 2; crashes after an hour.

I searched extensively on Google and here, tried everything I could find, no difference. Tried the stepwise HW install, older drivers, no difference. Here's a more complete System Spec:

ASUS P5Q Pro
2 ASUS EAH4850 TOP
XIGMATEK MC NRP-MC651 650W ATX12V Ver.2.2
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
ASUS Arctic Square 92mm Vapo Bearing CPU Cooler
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066
Microsoft Windows XP SP3

Suggestions? Please help - it's going to end up in divorce! Thanks!

 

[Zanga]

Hi there

I have also built a system with two Asus 4850 cards on a P5K/EPU MB. Same thing happened, GPUz reports no crossfire although Catalyst detected second card / bridge connect and let me enable Crossfire. Didn't have time to run any benchmark.

For the stability issue try putting the memory in single channel mode to see if it helps.

 

[spy_web314]

Hi

I have a P5Q but not a Pro or anything, everytime i do a search for details on my motherboard etc it always comes up with Pro and all the upper ranges of it. Any way i can search for just my board?
Cheers (Noobie)

 

[wolf2009]

Your wife has 2 x HD4850's ? WOW

What do you have in your machine ?

 

[mcexley]

Your wife has 2 x HD4850's ? WOW

What do you have in your machine ?

I've got one EVGA 9800GTX with an Asus P5B-E & 4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800. Pretty good for now, I'll probably go to SLI eventually.

 

[mcexley]

Doesn't anyone have any suggestions?

 

[NinkobEi]

how's your memory timings? sometimes RAM has different timings for DDR1066 than it does DDR800. and check the voltage too? but I guess you already know that..

 

[newconroer]

Your wife has 2 x HD4850's ? WOW

What do you have in your machine ?

Right, to play NWN2 ?

And to think, there's like..starving kids in Indiana or something...




Seems like a BIOS setting or possibly motherboard drivers?

 

[zithe]

Right, to play NWN2 ?

And to think, there's like..starving kids in Indiana or something...




Seems like a BIOS setting or possibly motherboard drivers?

Indiana? The state? LOL. Nobody lives there! Who's there to starve? Just kidding...

Is it performing like crossfire in games?

 

[mcexley]

Indiana? The state? LOL. Nobody lives there! Who's there to starve? Just kidding...

Is it performing like crossfire in games?

Nope, just normal one card performance. 15k in 3DMark06.

No concern about memory timings, everything is in default mode on the motherboard.

I tried a fresh install of XP today, but I think I messed it up adding the second card wtihout plugging in the PCIE 6-pin power connector prior to enabling CrossfireX. I'm going to try that again, as well as Vista.

Any other suggestions?

 

[PennySavre]

15k in 3DMark sounds right to me, I guess... I couldn't get near that high with an E4300 @ 3GHz and a single 4850.

 

[Fitseries3]

plug the dvi cable to the monitor into the second video card(card in the black slot)

 

[erocker]

Make sure both cards are installed with both crossfire bridges connected.

Also make sure that your motherboard chipset drivers are up to date. Installing a 2nd card in your system activates another PCI-E slot and it probablly needs the driver for it.

Follow this: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52502 *Read the update too!

After rebooting, after uninstalling the drivers run driver sweeper

 

[mcexley]

I tried a fresh install of XP slipstreamed with SP3 and the drivers for the motherboard, no difference. However, when I introduced the second card, I neglected to plug in the PCIE 6-pin power connector, and when I enabled CrossfireX, I got the BSOD. I powered the machine down, noticed my mistake, corrected it, and enabled CFX again. No joy. CCC shows CFX enabled, GPU-Z says no. Same performance with 3DMark06.

I think I'll try a fresh XP install again, then Vista, remembering to make all connections this time. Seems pretty finicky. I'll probably try older drivers, too.

 

[Fitseries3]

you try what i said?

 

[mcexley]

you try what i said?

Not yet.

So, to be clear, the ports on the two cards are like this, looking from the rear of the chassis:

Card 1 Card 2
Blue Black
P3 P1
P4 P2

Which port should I plug the DVI cable into?

 

[TRIPTEX_CAN]

I dont know if you solved this but....

15k is not normal single card performance

The problem isnt your drivers or any other configuration like that. You simply need to disable the HDMI audio devices in the Device Manager. With a single HD4850 installed and using only one monitor the HDMI driver will consume +22% usage of my (CPU) E8400, enabling the extended desktop of the second display port drops the usage to 0%.

So with 2 x 4850 installed my CPU usage was hovering between 45-50% and my 3Dmakr score was.......... 15k

I leave HDMI disabled unless I need to play a game on my TV or watch a movie. 3 clicks and HDMI is enabled again. As long as there is a monitor accepting signal through that display port the CPU usage remains normal.

 

[NinkobEi]

15k is normal HD4850 card performance with an e8400 clocked close to 4ghz. I scored 14100 with 3.0ghz and stock gpu settings.

 

[TRIPTEX_CAN]

really... ? I'll run it again tonight to see but that's not really the point I was making.

Did you notice high CPU usage after you installed your 4850?

EDIT : Taken from the 4k series 3DMark thead.. without a heavy OC I dont think I'll break 15k

Dual Core

1. 15156 - CBOT - E7200 @ 4.1ghz 4850 @ 800 Core 1100 Mem XP
2. 14521 - blTb - E8400 @ 4.3 ghz 4850 @ 720 Core 1100 Mem Vista
3. 13761 - HTC - E6850@ 3.78 ghz 4850 @ 690 Core 1120 Mem Vista
4. 13664 - dark2099 - E7200 @ 4.1ghz 4850 @ 700 Core 1138 Mem Vista
5. 13422 - SonDa5 - E8400 @ 3.60ghz 4850 @ 700 Core 1155 Mem xp
6. 13182 - Urbklr - E6650 @ 3.4 ghz 4850 @ 730 Core 1075 Mem Vista
7. 12679 - tigger69 - E6750 @ 3.6 ghz 4850 @ 625 Core 933 Mem Vista
8. 10354 - sideeffect - Athlon x2 @ 2.7 ghz 4850 @ 700 Core 1050 Mem XP
9. 9102- Widjaja - Athlon X2 @ 2.4ghz 4850 @ 625 Core 993 Mem XP
10. 8896 - Ninkobwi- Athlon x2 @ 2.5ghz 4850 @ 625 Core 993 Mem XP

 

[erocker]

15k is normal HD4850 card performance with an e8400 clocked close to 4ghz. I scored 14100 with 3.0ghz and stock gpu settings.

With a quad core at around 4ghz 15k+ would be normal but not a dual.

 

[spy_web314]

Can u check my stats and let me know if anyone likes my set up? I would have preffered SLI but was just over budget on MBs, are MBs easy to just wack out and wack in another when i can get a SLI one? Dont get me wrong my unit is mind blowing to me at the moment, sold a crappy un-over-clockable Dell XPS 420 Q6600 to get this rig and now im in heaven. The best part is the Asus boards seem to never fry or break if i overclock too much they just shut down and restart to original settings or to Bios screen, so EASY!
Anyway please let me know what you think (from your point of view) i should do to my new rig?
Cheers guys!
Stoobie!

 

[NinkobEi]

there's a way to run it in Vista 64? I'll do it again tonight if there is..last time I tried it didnt let me. sorry to hijack

edit: maybe its because I was in Xp32? I'm not sure. ah well the benchmarks dont lie...

 

[spy_web314]

from what ive heard of vista 64 loadsa stuff doesnt work with it is that right?