Can't get crossfire option to appear in Crimson. Due to 2 different R9 290 specs??

[JaredzzC]

I have two R9 290 GPUs.

1. XFX R9 290
2. ASUS R9 290 Direct CUII OC

The XFX was my primary card for a good few years and have had no problems with it whatsoever, even ran a crossfire XFX R9 290 setup for a couple years before I had to return the second card.

I invested in a second R9 290 after a while, with it being the ASUS Direct CUII OC edition.
I use this card in my primary slot and the XFX is now in the secondary slot.

I ran benchmarks, stress tests etc to test the ASUS version and it runs completely fine so I can conclude that individually each card has no problems and is working as expected.

I am not seeing any crossfire option available in Crimson for some reason.

On GPU-Z and 3DMark they both recognise that the second card is there and that it is the XFX option but of course crossfire is not on so it is not being utilised. The fan for the XFX is spinning and the logo light is on so it seems to be working fine.

The ASUS has core clock of 1000MHz and memory clock of 5040MHz
The XFX has core clock of 947MHz and 5000MHz (stock R9 290).

My initial instinct is that because they have different clocks then they wouldn't work in crossfire, but is this true or should it just be that the ASUS should decrease its performance in order to work in line with the XFX or should crossfire appear in Crimson regardless of the fact that they have different clocks?

Latest drivers installed on both cards.

-------------------------------------------

Specs:

i7-3770K @ 4.1GHz
16GB HyperX Savage 2400MHz
ASRock Z77 Extreme 4
XFX 850W Silver
Crossfire XFX R9 290 + ASUS R9 290 DirectCU II,
Corsair H55 Liquid Cooling

 

[Deleted member 67555]

It's in the global settings on the gaming tab
You shouldn't need to have the latest drivers for both.... Just install one and when you put the other card in it's recognised on the same driver.

 

[JaredzzC]

It's in the global settings on the gaming tab
You shouldn't need to have the latest drivers for both.... Just install one and when you put the other card in it's recognised on the same driver.

It doesn't appear on the global settings tab, which is the premise of the issue.

Sorry, I should have clarified this in my original post!

 

[Deleted member 67555]

It doesn't appear on the global settings tab, which is the premise of the issue.

Sorry, I should have clarified this in my original post!

Uninstall the drivers for them.. Start with one card then reboot twice then install the second reboot and try again.

 

[cadaveca]

My initial instinct is that because they have different clocks then they wouldn't work in crossfire, but is this true or should it just be that the ASUS should decrease its performance in order to work in line with the XFX or should crossfire appear in Crimson regardless of the fact that they have different clocks?

Cards can be different and not cause issues like this. I would hazard a guess to say this is just a driver problem, and you need to re-install the driver.

What you described above can happen with SLI, but even SLI doesn't seem to have much issue with mismatched cards these days. Several years ago, sure, but not with AMD cards!

 

[Deleted member 67555]

I was asked to tell you to read pages 6, 10, 27, and 28 of your manual...

And to reset the cards and possibly the CPU.

Oh and you might need a BIOS update.

 

[JaredzzC]

Alright, thank you everyone!

I will go ahead and do as you've advised and get back to you soon

 

[JaredzzC]

Thanks for your help!

Sorry to have wasted your time because after all it did seem to be a driver issue.
I had tried a couple of different drivers before posting here which is why I thought this wasn't the issue, but it turns out it was.

Oddly enough though, out of the 8 different drivers I had tried, only 2 of them would allow me to use crossfire and would recognise both of my cards in the Crimson software.

Of the two drivers that worked:
- 1 allowed me to use crossfire, but not turn it off as this option wasn't available
- 1 allowed me to use crossfire and it does give me the option to turn it off so this is the one i'm currently using

Seems very strange as i'm sure it really shouldn't be like this so perhaps there is another underlying problem (perhaps related to my mobo so jmcslob i'll go ahead and try what you've said as well), but at least now I am able to utilise both cards.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Of the two drivers that worked:
- 1 allowed me to use crossfire, but not turn it off as this option wasn't available
- 1 allowed me to use crossfire and it does give me the option to turn it off so this is the one i'm currently using

Since these threads are great for research in the future, it might be useful for some persons to know which those two drivers are, if you wouldn't mind?

 

[JaredzzC]

Since these threads are great for research in the future, it might be useful for some persons to know which those two drivers are, if you wouldn't mind?

17.3.1 is the driver I am currently using, which allows me to utilise crossfire and gives me the ability to turn it off.
16.2 was the driver that allowed me to utilise crossfire, but didn't give me the option to turn it off (it only showed the option to toggle the CrossfireX logo)

 

[R00kie]

I had a similar issue with 2 R9 270x's before, what fixed it is I flipped the crossfire bridge around and both cards were able to work together and the options to enable Crossfire re-appeared.

 

[jboydgolfer]

Since these threads are great for research in the future, it might be useful for some persons to know which those two drivers are, if you wouldn't mind?

Unfortunately that's an issue that's plagued forums for years . The first thing a person needs to do when solving an issue in a help forum, is to post the answer to that issue when they do (or if they do) find it, because otherwise it's totally in vain and leaves only the initial poster with the solution. I know it's easy to forget and seems trivial but you be surprised how many people can be helped when the answer is posted as well as the question. I can't count how many times I've searched for an answer to an issue and found 9 out of 10 posts with the original poster saying "I solved it thanks" and never to be heard from again. And then you get about 10 "did you ever solve this issue "posts