4870 X2 problem

Status
Not open for further replies.
You might as well look to see if you can flash your BIOS, its a long shot, but youve tried everything else..

I would rather not reinstall the card, and the drivers. It's the second latest BIOS, and I doubt it will do anything. I packaged it up, was thinking about dropping it off tomorrow but I'm thinking about buying this:

Newegg.com - ASUS P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

and seeing if it will work on that. If not, RMA and another 8800 GTX.

EDIT:

Actually that motherboard looks to have many flaws. :/
 
Why wouldn't you take every opportunity to fix the problem? Rather than spending more money and wasting time.

Um, because I spent almost two whole days trying to fix it and I'm sick of trying pointless things. It's either I lose 90 bucks for the RMA (restocking fee and what not) and stick with one 8800 GTX, or get another motherboard, see if that works, and if not have SLI potential, I'm actually trying NOT to waste money.
 
Beefcake,
First of all,
By loooking at your sig, you've got a e6600 which is not powerful enough for the x2. It works well with a 8800gtx, but the x2 is more than twice as powerful.
so you might be looking at a cpu upgrade in order to fully utilize your 4870 x2.
Second,
From what I've read about the x2 its only utilizing 1 core in windows xp.
That was back when catalyst 8.8 drivers just came out ( i thought that they'll fix that by now), so your card is not faulty.

I have the same card ( sapphire 4870 x2) with vista 64 bit and it works fine, but when i bought the card, i had xp and vista dual boot and i had the same problem - only 1 core was enabled in xp.

So I'm just tryin to save u the hassle of returning it, that is if u wanna switch to vista, but in the end it is your money so its up to you.

You can search for the "4870 x2 owner's club" in guru3d forums and post your problem there. I think that's where I read about the issue with xp and this card.

Oh and BTW,
As far as i know, you cannot disable one core so,no matter what settings u try, u should see the cores as "linked". It doesn't matter how u set the other options - catalyst AI and such.
 
Beefcake,
First of all,
By loooking at your sig, you've got a e6600 which is not powerful enough for the x2. It works well with a 8800gtx, but the x2 is more than twice as powerful.
so you might be looking at a cpu upgrade in order to fully utilize your 4870 x2.
Second,
From what I've read about the x2 its only utilizing 1 core in windows xp.
That was back when catalyst 8.8 drivers just came out ( i thought that they'll fix that by now), so your card is not faulty.

I have the same card ( sapphire 4870 x2) with vista 64 bit and it works fine, but when i bought the card, i had xp and vista dual boot and i had the same problem - only 1 core was enabled in xp.

So I'm just tryin to save u the hassle of returning it, that is if u wanna switch to vista, but in the end it is your money so its up to you.

You can search for the "4870 x2 owner's club" in guru3d forums and post your problem there. I think that's where I read about the issue with xp and this card.

Oh and BTW,
As far as i know, you cannot disable one core so,no matter what settings u try, u should see the cores as "linked". It doesn't matter how u set the other options - catalyst AI and such.

I tried the card on a new ASUS P5Q Pro which uses PCI-Express 2.0 and it supports Crossfire therefore there should be no incompatibility with having multiple GPUs. I also tried it on Vista 64-bit which fixed the "disabled adapter" problem, it says linked adapter now, but still no performance increase and the second GPU just sits at 40 C while the first one is around 60-70 when I'm running something.

Also are you being serious about "the E6600 is not powerful enough for the x2"? There will always be CPU limitation but to think that my performance would be heavily hindered by my CPU is pretty ridiculous (even in CPU heavy apps like 3dMark06). I also have it overclocked to 3.2 GHz so there should be no problem with my CPU. In 3dMark Vantage my GPU score in performance mode on the trial thing was only around 8000, it should be at 12000 or around that area.

I'm going to RMA it for a replacement, and if that don't work, I'm just going to get a refund.
 
I tried the card on a new ASUS P5Q Pro which uses PCI-Express 2.0 and it supports Crossfire therefore there should be no incompatibility with having multiple GPUs. I also tried it on Vista 64-bit which fixed the "disabled adapter" problem, it says linked adapter now, but still no performance increase and the second GPU just sits at 40 C while the first one is around 60-70 when I'm running something.

Also are you being serious about "the E6600 is not powerful enough for the x2"? There will always be CPU limitation but to think that my performance would be heavily hindered by my CPU is pretty ridiculous (even in CPU heavy apps like 3dMark06). I also have it overclocked to 3.2 GHz so there should be no problem with my CPU. In 3dMark Vantage my GPU score in performance mode on the trial thing was only around 8000, it should be at 12000 or around that area.

I'm going to RMA it for a replacement, and if that don't work, I'm just going to get a refund.
the only 750i board i recomend is the evga 750iftw. any other 750i mobo is garbage also they wont oc well where as the 750i has pushed 475fsb on my q6600.
 
the only 750i board i recomend is the evga 750iftw. any other 750i mobo is garbage also they wont oc well where as the 750i has pushed 475fsb on my q6600.

Yea, I couldn't find any decent SLI mobo with PCI-E x16 2.0 support that wasn't very expensive. So I decided to screw SLI and just got the P5Q Pro which from all the reviews I've read overclock dual core CPUs just fine but the quads have issues. I can get my 2.4GHz E6600 to 3.4 GHz but doesn't run stable when running programs and what not. 3.3 is kind of iffy but 3.2 works perfectly.

EDIT: Played around with the BIOS and now I can get it to boot at 3.6 GHz, but doesn't run SuperPi stable (round error and what not) and sometime it doesn't boot. Still unstable at 3.5 GHz but now I can run 3.4 GHz just fine.

Also the Arctic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro is a great heatsink. Temps are about 40-44 C on full load @ 3.4 GHz. My old stock intel HSF got to about 69C on load @ 2.8 GHz (couldn't go higher anyway on my old PoS of a motherboard).

Anyway I'm RMAing the card for a replacement just to make sure it isn't the video card. There should be no other reason for it not working. If it doesn't work on a PCI-E x16 2.0 Crossfire motherboard, and in XP and Vista, I don't know what will.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom