Help! Installing crossfireX!

[domy85]

I got my 4850 1gb in today. So I already had 2 4870 1gbs. I followed these instructions for crossfireX and got a blue screen of death and windows is now disabling my 4850 telling me to install the appropriate driver for it. Ati is telling me theirs no ati drivers installed for it

1.Uninstalled all ati software from windows uninstall
2.Rebooted
3.Ran Cnet cleaner to remove all registry stuff etc
4.Shut down
5.Removed 1 of my 4870's (1 4870 graphics card only installed)
6.Booted
7.Windows installed a standard vga driver etc
8.Shut down
9.Installed the other 4870
10.Booted
11.Windows installed the device (4870)
12.Rebooted
13.Shut down
14.Installed the 4850, installed the 2 bridge cables
15.Booted
16.Windows installed the 4850 device
17.Rebooted
18.Installed 9.2 Catalyst package
19.Rebooted
20.Blue screen of death
And heres where I am now. Help guys

 

[eidairaman1]

tweakguides Driver Guide, also i recommend you grab the DX9C redist from Nov 2008 and get DX updated, Recommended Drivers are Catalyst 8.10-8.12

 

[domy85]

tweakguides Driver Guide, also i recommend you grab the DX9C redist from Nov 2008 and get DX updated, Recommended Drivers are Catalyst 8.10-8.12

Ill give it a whiral

 

[domy85]

Im going to try the 8.12 drivers, but that guide doesnt tell you how to install 3 graphics cards and configure them correctly.

 

[domy85]

I tried the 8.12 drivers and it still blue screens. When I enable the 2 4870's it works, but when i enable the 4850 then restart the pc it blue screens. I have to remove the 4850 for it to boot now. This isnt working as easy as I thought it would be, any tips?

 

[ShadowFold]

You have to install the drivers before you put the bridge on the third card. And make sure it doesn't install the generic drivers!!

 

[domy85]

You have to install the drivers before you put the bridge on the third card. And make sure it doesn't install the generic drivers!!

!!!!

 

[erocker]

Using an AMD chipset I was able to Tri-Fire using the drivers only and not using CCC. The standalone drivers are available under the full catalyst drivers on AMD's page.

 

[domy85]

Hm so it seems I tried every possible install configuration with these 3 video cards. The 3rd slot is giving me the issue. I tried installing each driver seperatly to, but once I installed the driver in the first card, it went to all 3 somehow and when it restarted I got the bsod. The 3rd slot wont give me a bsod when the card is in, but it will only if the display drivers from ati are installed. It still works perfectly with 2 cards in crossfire in the 2 x16 slots. I tried 8.10-8.12 and even 9.2 drivers and installed CCC seperatly. I looked in my manual and on their website and biostar specificly says this 3rd port is a 4x pcie and some video adapters "may not work with it". Im leading towards this because I am using the 4850 right now flawlesly by itself in one of my 16x slots. Ill give it a bit more to see if anyone else has any ideas im not aware of because I have never done this before, but I might be stuck with 2 cards with this board(which isnt bad). Im a little disapointed, but atleast the card isnt faulty.

 

[Chicken Patty]

domy this is weird, although i am running 2 cards and not 3, I just got my 2nd 4870 today, put it on, plugged up the 6 pin connectors, bridged them, booted into windows and started to bench. Thats it. Good luck and hope you get it resolved soon bro

 

[denice25]

Install the drivers, before you put the bridge on the 3rd card. Don't install the pirated drivers.

 

[eidairaman1]

Rule Of Thumb, ATI probably didnt design the drivers for the 4x slot, only 8x or higher, its sort of like a Built in GART

btw read info here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Address_Remapping_Table

 

[Tatty_Two]

OK, try this, as strange as it sounds, it looks like your process is good, I had a similar problem with 2 cards, when you get BSOD, re-boot in safe mode, go to Control panel > system maintenance > Administrative tools > services

Then find "ATi external events utility" then right click and disable it, save then re-boot in normal mode.

Other than that, yes, check if the card will work in a x4 slot, although it certainly should, most P35 chipset boards have their 2nd slot at x4.

 

[eidairaman1]

could be a Driver Issue on the AMD Chipset trying to force the Card to run at maximum speed, if it doesnt detect its running on a PCI 16 bus it probably has a quirk in the driver somewhere.

 

[domy85]

Well, I removed/installed the ati drivers and CCC so many times with it giving me multiple bsod windows cannot install vgapnp.sys drivers anymore. It keeps failing. I booted into safemode and unhide nonused devices under device manager and deleted the 2 4870's showing that wernt installed. That didnt work. I reformated at like 2am as a last resort AND it still fails to install the vga adapter driver lol because it can detect a previous instance of this. I am running a 3 pass kill disk erase tool on the drive right now.... hoping when i reinstall windows it cant find anything previous info, im not sure if I want to try this again after going through this heh. I would try your idea Tatty_One, but im afraid to lol. Im beginning to believe eidairaman1 with the drivers not being compatible with 4x. Im going to search on this problem if its compatible with 4x or not.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Well, I removed/installed the ati drivers and CCC so many times with it giving me multiple bsod windows cannot install vgapnp.sys drivers anymore. It keeps failing. I booted into safemode and unhide nonused devices under device manager and deleted the 2 4870's showing that wernt installed. That didnt work. I reformated at like 2am as a last resort AND it still fails to install the vga adapter driver lol because it can detect a previous instance of this. I am running a 3 pass kill disk erase tool on the drive right now.... hoping when i reinstall windows it cant find anything previous info, im not sure if I want to try this again after going through this heh. I would try your idea Tatty_One, but im afraid to lol. Im beginning to believe eidairaman1 with the drivers not being compatible with 4x. Im going to search on this problem if its compatible with 4x or not.

Lol why afraid, you cannot do any harm and you can enable it again afterwards easily. I cannot beleive its a 4x driver issue, as i said, there are many boards out there where the 2nd PCI-E slot is 4x so that cannot be it IMO.

 

[merkk]

Well my old AMD rig i ran 3 3850s on a DFI landparty dk m2rs mother board and the PCIe slots were 16x16x4x and crossfire ran trouble free on it but than it was a all AMD rig .

 

[troyrae360]

Check BIOS settings as well, i know with my MOBO you need to press CTRL+F1 , that brings the hidden options to view. in there is where you can set the speeds for graphics cards. may be alredy there in your bois not sure about your mobo.
The setings i would check are PCI Gen 2 speed mode etc etc...
Also, type the BSOD code into google, it will help.

 

[J-Man]

I dunno why people bother with all these cleaners to remove unnecessary files of the GPU in safe mode... etc.

I just uninstall then bang in a second card then re install drivers or whatever. I never bother with all these cleaners crap. Too much hassle.

 

[troyrae360]

I dunno why people bother with all these cleaners to remove unnecessary files of the GPU in safe mode... etc.

I just uninstall then bang in a second card then re install drivers or whatever. I never bother with all these cleaners crap. Too much hassle.

Sadley its not always that simple. in some cases simply uninstalling still leaves crap in the registry.

 

[J-Man]

Not necessary really.

 

[troyrae360]

right you can do it manually. or run a simple program that will do it for you. simply uninstalling Dose Not Work all the time, especialy when dealing with gfx cards,

 

[domy85]

So after reinstalling windows. I put myself back to where I had my 2 4870's crossfired. Then I shut down, installed the 4850, restarted, then it loaded the drivers, flickered the screen many times, but it lost signal, so then i shut down the pc, restarted and it was installed! Then i shut down, then installed the crossfire bridge and CCC let me chose either 2 gpu or 3 gpu config. I set it for 3gpu config and everything is working now. Im not sure what happened before or what I did differently, but it wasnt much. I am using the 9.2 catalyst driver btw.

Thanks everyone for all your help, I will post a screen shot of 3dmark soon.

 

[domy85]

This is using 3Dmark Vantage

First Pic: 2GPU's crossfire OC'ed
Second Pic: 3 GPU's Stock
Third Pic: 3 GPU's OC'ed

Overall the 3 gpu running at stock speed = the score of 2 gpus overclocked. With 3 gpus oc'ed I jumped about 1,500 score points.

CrossfireX Setup:

1st: 4870 1GB
2nd: 4870 1GB
3rd: 4850 1GB

This is with running my 920 @ 3.4ghz

Opinions are welcome. Price vs Performance for this 3rd card, do you think it was worth the extra performance? Once I get some games installed I will see if their is a noticable difference.

 

[Chicken Patty]

nice runs domy, any 3dmark 06 action yet?