CF 4870x2 + Vista 64 + Drivers = Fail

[Cutless009]

So formal black is up and running, and as usual Im troubleshooting the little things to get it running smooth, and Ive come across something Ive never seen before. I get plenty of display goodness with stock vista drivers, but as soon as I install the Catalyst drivers, I get nothing, as soon as I reboot, it wont go into windows, nothing but black screen after the scrolling bar. Both are seated properly, the crossfire bridge is in place and snugged up, device manager recognizes that there are two cards, but those drivers just brick vista, and the only way to get back in is to do a system restore by booting from the install disk.

Anyone ever had this problem or know how to get around it? Ive been googling for hours and come up with nothing, and Im usually a google mastah!

[Septim]

try older version of catalyst drivers? something vista64 approved blah blah...

black screen is weird... is there any safe mode in vista?

[Cutless009]

Safe mode works, tried drivers all the way back to 8.1 (january of last year), no luck. Installing bios updates now from 0404 to 1003, might fix something....

[Septim]

yeah, i really hate driver hunting... sometimes newer drivers gives me lower benching points in some software...

[Cutless009]

Wow so thats fail, the bios update finished, and hung on the "computer will reboot automatically in 5 seconds" screen for like 10 minutes, and then the computer shut OFF, no reboot, now when I turn it on I get nothing but a BLACK SCREEN. It doesnt even power anything on (no cd rom power etc etc).


....... HAX wtf do I do now?

[Cutless009]

Im seriously going to go cry into the wall in a moment, it looks like Im going to have to replace the fucking bios chip at this point, unless somebody here has any other brilliant ideas, but pretty much everything Im reading says I need either a new chip, or to do some retarded dangerous hot swap bullshit I dont intend on doing.

I dont think I could scream fuck any louder at this point. I think this computer hates me, I swear to god it does, Ive never had so many problems from a fucking computer in my LIFE. *SCREAMS*

[Cutless009]

Yep I get to scream now, theyre sending me a new bios chip, yay for having to take my WHOLE RIG APART to replace a bad chip. EFFING HELL.

[Langer]

I feel your pain man, I had alot of issues with my last build as well. I was ready to snap.

Seriously goodluck to you man.

[bigslappy]

PPl have Mega problemo's with the exteme MoBo

[Gazmtk]

extreme PITA should of been its code name ;)

[Cutless009]

OK, im completely pissed off now. New board, same problem, exactly the same problem. Ive tried everything, EVERYTHING. Anyone have any last ditch ideas I could try before I set campfire to this stupid effing project?

[mcoffey]

Is there anyway you can return those cards and get an Nvidia model:shrug:

Good luck,

andyc

[Cutless009]

Is there anyway you can return those cards and get an Nvidia model:shrug:

Good luck,

andyc

Um, ...... I wish? Seriously.... too late cuz, I bought them over 30 days ago, and theyve been under water, and I dont have the back plates for them anymore cuz I broke one (I replaced them with copper heatsinks) I am never buying another ATI product ever again... EVER. F U ATI.

[ND40oz]

Is there anyway you can return those cards and get an Nvidia model:shrug:

Good luck,

andyc

Yeah, then he's looking at a new mb too though. Have you tried it with a different OS to determine if it's an OS problem or Hardware issue? You can enable crossfire with just one card installed right?

I'd give windows 7 a shot and see if it works.

[Cutless009]

Yeah, then he's looking at a new mb too though. Have you tried it with a different OS to determine if it's an OS problem or Hardware issue? You can enable crossfire with just one card installed right?

I'd give windows 7 a shot and see if it works.

get no post whatsover with dual cards, one card works fine until I hit windows, then I get blank screen. Its a known issue with no resolution that I can find, even ATI's AMD website doesnt have a known fix.

[ND40oz]

get no post whatsover with dual cards, one card works fine until I hit windows, then I get blank screen. Its a known issue with no resolution that I can find, even ATI's AMD website doesnt have a known fix.

Earlier in the thread you said it POSTs with both cards, but now you get no POST either with both installed?

[Cutless009]

Earlier in the thread you said it POSTs with both cards, but now you get no POST either with both installed?

only get post with 0403 bios.

[LowBrowser]

The 9.1s worked crap with me for a while. I had to do a few clean installs and a few repairs until they worked right (FYI I'm on a single 4870x2 with x58). Sorry to hear about your troubles. So maybe try one card, and try repairing from the DVD. Good luck.

[Cutless009]

so you just ran the installer repair a bunch of times and it eventually worked?

[LowBrowser]

Pretty much. It wouldn't boot into Windows, so I guessed it was a Windows problem. I'm sure the Catalyst installer is pretty much shit. AFAIK 8.12 with hotfix is about the most stable Catalyst if that helps. But 9.1 seems alright now with me. Sorry to be a dick, but you're using 64bit drivers right?

[Cutless009]

Pretty much. It wouldn't boot into Windows, so I guessed it was a Windows problem. I'm sure the Catalyst installer is pretty much shit. AFAIK 8.12 with hotfix is about the most stable Catalyst if that helps. But 9.1 seems alright now with me. Sorry to be a dick, but you're using 64bit drivers right?

NEVAR, 32 bit works on 64 bit right?! o.0 LOL. Yes, Im using 64bit ;) *looks just to make sure he's not being a tool* YEP, 64 bit :) I think IVe tried 8.12? and 9.1..... Ill try 8.12 if I havnt yet. *looks* yep I have, but I'll keep trying.

I reflashed my bios to 0404 since I know that it works with the cards, and Im in windows now, but when I install the drivers for the cards, it black screens right past the windows loading screen, and just locks the whole computer there.

[LowBrowser]

Well that's pretty fucked. All I can recommend is again, try repairing Windows once, see if it boots in. If it doesn't work, maybe try redownloading 9.1 or 8.12 (with hotfix). If that doesn't work... I'm out of ideas sorry.

[Cutless009]

Well that's pretty fucked. All I can recommend is again, try repairing Windows once, see if it boots in. If it doesn't work, maybe try redownloading 9.1 or 8.12 (with hotfix). If that doesn't work... I'm out of ideas sorry.

how do I know if my 8.12 has the hotfix?

and ur talking about repairing windows, or the driver install?

[ND40oz]

Try running the repair option from the Vista disk, boot with the disk and in the lower left, you'll see an option to repair windows.

[Cutless009]

lol now it wont let me boot from my rom drive.... this computer is cursed, CURSED I TELL YOU.

[Cutless009]

got it to work, only wanted to go back to a restore point.... went back to restore point, no drivers = went into windows.... not sure how that was sposed to fix anything though :-/

[LowBrowser]

Nah not restore point. They never work properly. There should be an option for repair Windows Installation from disk or something, it was one of the five or so options as I remember. Maybe consider getting what you still want off the HDD, and doing a clean install. Or if it gets really desperate try XP and see if the drivers work on that.

[Cutless009]

well Ithink Im just gonna hit up windows 7 and see if that works any better, if not I'll go back to Vista.

[ND40oz]

http://img.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/vista-repair-options/setup-option.jpg

It's the repair option right on the vista boot screen in the lower left.

I'd probably grab another hard drive at this point and install Windows 7, it installs in 15 minutes or so and you won't have to do many updates or driver installs like you would with XP. Plus, does XP support CrossfireX, pretty sure the 32 bit version can't, 64 bit version might, never tried.

[Cutless009]

Im rockin vista 64bit bro.

[BiNGE]

I got rid of my 4870x2 so fast after testing out a GTX260. That's gotta say something man. :D Good luck though!! You'll need it.

[Cutless009]

Yah Id ditch it if I thought I could get my money back on it, but unfortunately I cant, and this computer is being sold to make profit so I can keep the bills paid, so yah....

[ND40oz]

Im rockin vista 64bit bro.

Yeah, I know, hence the repairing vista point. I was just saying don't switch to XP to test CrossfireX, use Win 7 instead.

[Cutless009]

windows 7, same problem, WHAT THE HELL. I will destroy something.

[LowBrowser]

So what's happening is you install Catalyst, restart your computer and afterwards you can't
-log into windows?
-Windows hangs on the loading screen?
-log in but Windows black screens?
-something else?
I really think using the repair option when booting from the Vista DVD should fix it. But if it doesn't, sorry mate, this is out of my depth as far as I can tell.

[TedShred]

we gotta send Cutless some Jack Daniels PRONTO!

Sounds like some bad aggro, good luck man :up:

[Cutless009]

basically..... I get this:

power on > post > mb tells me theres no hd, but then continues to load windows anyways, stupid fuck > CPU FAN ERROR! no shit, there isnt one genius! > windows loading screen > Windows loading screen locks up, nothing happens, ever, it just stays there > fail.

[LowBrowser]

basically..... I get this:

power on > post > mb tells me theres no hd, but then continues to load windows anyways, stupid fuck > CPU FAN ERROR! no shit, there isnt one genius! > windows loading screen > Windows loading screen locks up, nothing happens, ever, it just stays there > fail.
Holy fucking hell I know about not being able to find my HDD. Try a different SATA port and cable, repair from DVD (having gone into BIOS to change boot order already), try the repair from DVD option from before. Somewhere along the way Catalyst fucked up Vista, it happened to me a few times. If that doesn't work you might need to clean install (which is what I eventually did, luckily there wasn't anything important).

If not, follow what TedShred said. Crack out the Jack.

...sorry but I had to :rofl:

[Kayin]

Shit, all I run is ATi now, and I get no Catalyst fucking up windows shit. I still point fingers at that board.

I've had the problem plenty of times out of nVidia though, and when Microsoft publishes that 50% of all Vista crashes are due to their drivers, you tend to take note.

[Baleful]

I dunno, to many variables here. For one, set your BIOS back to defaults, maybe even flash your BIOS to the newest version. Then do a fresh install of Vista, and load up all the newest drivers for your hardware.

[Kayin]

I'm wondering if the PCI-E voltage is proper on that board, or if the PSU is having issues as well.

I can only crash CCC with either severe GPU OCing or a badly written program, and if it's that I normally have a patch within a day or so. ATi drivers have been the very definition of imperturbable to me, so I can't imagine someone having these kind of issues with it. If it was a 4850x2, yeah, cause they only got support in 9.1, but this is a standard reference 4870x2.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/27/nvidia-drivers-responsible-for-nearly-30-of-vista-crashes-in-20/

There's my reference-it's older, yes, but the concept is sound and that's also when I permanently dumped nvidia. I have a pair of 8800GTS SLi that constantly give me bluescreens, and that's all I'll put up with. Speed is nothing if it's not stable.

Actually, try this (trust me)-install Win7 clean, no drivers. Put it on Windows update, get your drivers from there. It's getting the most recently certified drivers, as apparently MicroShaft is mirroring them as part of Windows update. I did it last night, my daughters' 8800s after the reboot asked me if I wanted to enable SLi, and there was the nVidia control panel. I bet it will finally determine drivers or other issue.

[Cutless009]

this is where my noobishness is going to show.

I thought about the PCI-Voltage thing as well, but I dont see anything in here about PCI-E voltage in the bios. Only NB/SB voltage, dram voltage, vcore, cpu pll, and fsb termination.

[Baleful]

PCI-E voltage isn't something you can change. If that is fucked then your board is fucked.

[Cutless009]

PCI-E voltage isn't something you can change. If that is fucked then your board is fucked.

then I dont think its that then, cuz two boards in a row doing the same thing.

[Kayin]

If you're OCed, remember to turn off spread spectrum. It can really fuck up GPUs.

[Cutless009]

for trouble shooting purposes, all bios settings are at defaults :)

[Kayin]

Good, good. Have you tried the clean install thing I showed you?

BTW, that board has no PCI-E voltage or clock settings? Fuck that board...

[Cutless009]

has PCIE clock settings (100 to 150), no PCIE voltage settings, in any of the bios's Ive tried. Im seriously considering telling Asus I just want a refund for it and picking up a board that doesnt suck monkey balls.

[Kayin]

Got a friend who will let you try them in a real board?

Call them names or not, a lot of the "less popular" board manufacturers are a lot more stable. 3.85 on a stock cooler with no tweaking is nothing to sniff at, and I've had no other problems a new BIOS didn't fix.

[Cutless009]

nope :( Im thinking about investing in a cheap 775 motherboard just to use a testbed.

[Kayin]

EP45-UD3P. Cheap, 2xPCI-E, fast as fuck. So it has a few pretty colors, if it's faster than what you had who cares?

[Cutless009]

Sweet, I'll try and find one on the cheap, if it fixes my problem it'll be the cheapest solution. Thanks a ton Kayin.


*edit* actually, I have an EVGA X58 SLI coming, I could test them on the new testbed, but if its an X58 compatability issue, I doubt I'll see any improvement.

[Kayin]

LMK how it works out, a few of us have that board so we can help turn wrenches too.

I'm still looking at a VGA setup similar to that, 2 dual cards, I'll let you know how mine works out too...

[Cutless009]

Lol @ sapphire tech support "solution to problem" response email "huh... thats strange..."

[Cutless009]

Does this look right to you guys? shouldnt some of this be non generic drivers, esp for the pci bridges?

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z6/Cutless1/systemdevices.jpg

[LowBrowser]

Just checked it against mine. You're good.

[Cutless009]

thanks a ton LB, thats actually more helpful than you know :)

I honestly think one of these cards is iffy, Im gonna load them in one at a time and stress test them singled out and see if one of them crashes out under load.

[Cutless009]

After loading both cards up individually again and stressing them with FurMark, one finally gave out and showed itself up as a bad card after only moments of running FurMark. The other one doesnt seem to be doing so well as it cannot run fullscreen graphics without blinking in and out and running at a very low frame rate. I've emailed sapphire requesting an RMA for the bad card, hoping that with a good one and the other one working fine other than the blinking issue, I will be able to get this up and running finally.

For anyone else having this problem, in the end the solutions were:

Flash bios to 0404 if you cannot see post with both cards plugged in
Make sure PCI-E voltage is correct for both cards
Make sure you are not running both cards in a single rail on a multi-rail psu
Use 8.12 drivers with vista 64 patch (most stable installer)
If screen goes black when booting into windows but windows still boots, you're display resolution was set too high as a default, find a way to lower it (safe mode does not work from what I hear)
Dont buy an ATI in the first place, and if you just bought yours, SEND IT BACK BEFORE ITS TOO LATE.

In closing, here is my middle finger to ati and Asus, you both suck and have made my life hell, and I wont be buying either of your products for a very very long time to come :bird:

[Broken]

Glad it was just a bad card, but sorry for all the crap you went through... Really sucks.

Hopefully I have no issues later today. Been rocking a 4870X2 for a couple months and my second will be here today...

Can't wait. Now I just have to wait for the Watercool GPU-X2 blocks.

-Update-
Working like a charm!

[NeKoS]

After loading both cards up individually again and stressing them with FurMark, one finally gave out and showed itself up as a bad card after only moments of running FurMark. The other one doesnt seem to be doing so well as it cannot run fullscreen graphics without blinking in and out and running at a very low frame rate. I've emailed sapphire requesting an RMA for the bad card, hoping that with a good one and the other one working fine other than the blinking issue, I will be able to get this up and running finally.

For anyone else having this problem, in the end the solutions were:

Flash bios to 0404 if you cannot see post with both cards plugged in
Make sure PCI-E voltage is correct for both cards
Make sure you are not running both cards in a single rail on a multi-rail psu
Use 8.12 drivers with vista 64 patch (most stable installer)
If screen goes black when booting into windows but windows still boots, you're display resolution was set too high as a default, find a way to lower it (safe mode does not work from what I hear)
Dont buy an ATI in the first place, and if you just bought yours, SEND IT BACK BEFORE ITS TOO LATE.

In closing, here is my middle finger to ati and Asus, you both suck and have made my life hell, and I wont be buying either of your products for a very very long time to come :bird:

I will agree here. My 4870x2 gave much trouble back in November when installing. After days of playing with settings, I finally got it working but early March the card gave up on me. I RMA'd it back to visiontek (royal fuckers, had to pay for shipping both ways) and received a replacement that did not work either. Graphical tearing under load, my 4870 1GB works perfectly. I was asked to pay for shipping again, boy did I call corporate and rip the poor soul on the other end a new ass. They emailed me a prepaid label and all. I sit here now waiting for the second replacement. I have no intention to buy a ATI card ever again because of the problems installing and the horrible service from their partners.

Once there is a suitable upgrade (this is if they actually send a working replacement)from BFG or EVGA, back to Nvidia I go.

[Kayin]

Funny, I'm rocking a pair of these on Vista 64 with no problems.

YMMV.

[MomijiTMO]

And multi gpu set ups are all the rage .. . .

I'm happier with my slower single card but hey, no eye stabbing moments due to drivers.