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5970 Crossfire cooling options?

Don't think getting a refund is an option, took me almost 4 months just to get them to replace the faulty machine they sent in the first place. Their preferred method is to send out bog standard dell technicians who have no clue what they're doing. (I mean no clue as in the first couple they sent didn't even know how to remove the side door of the case).

If gettin a refund was going to be an easy process I'd probably do it, there's really no reason to buy from Alienware other than not having to deal with this kind of stuff, and that has most definately not been my experience.

If I can't move the card down a space I may well just sell one of them, as has been said there's probably not enough benefit to justify the extra cost of a second 5970, especially if I can't even run them safely anyway.
 
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Judging by the service manual it looks like I should be able to move it down a slot, pretty much going to have to be either that or just get rid.




Currently have the fans at 50-55% just for general browsing, and even then it only keeps the temps at around 70 degrees.
 
The top and bottom PCIE slots are both 16x lanes, so are the obvious choice.
But if i were you i would still sell one of the 5970's and get a 5870 for Tri-Fire.
The scaling in Tri-Fire is actually better than Quad-fire.
 
Crossfire cable should be here in a few days, here's how I plan to rearrange the cards (100mm is easily long enough to do the job) -



The bottom gpu fits reasonably comfortably in the lowest PCI-E slot (although it did require a lot more force to clip into place and I'm hoping I'm not creating a whole new airflow issue with all the wires underneath it).

Once the cable arrives, is there anything I need to do besides uninstalling the sound and video card drivers before switching cards?
 
Do you need to reinstall drivers just for changing the lanes the cards are in???

You should get better flow generally with a bit of space between the cards, the heat off the lower one isnt ramming directly into the top one. I notice there is space for an exhaustr fan on the back, that would be handy.

But seriously, two 5970's, why??? Surely one would munch anything thrown at it?
 
take them to trading standards for providing an ill specified computer.

whenever we have done systems with crossfire 5970 at OcUK it has either been in a case with massive airflow or arranged on the board with double slot spacing such as the p6t deluxe series where there is a substantial 2 slot gap between the cards

this is a very poor specification to land a customer with, especially considering the premium paid for a system like that.
 
The longer Crossfire bridge arrived today so I switched the cards around as planned - it failed. The second card is detected in some way, except only 3 gpu's show up (in device manager, gpu-z, afterburner etc) and crossfire is disabled.

The moron at dell technical suggested that the bottom pci slot was not suitable for a video card (same moron also tried to suggest against all logic that it would be the bottom card that should run hotter). I'm pretty sure it's not a dodgy Crossfire cable as I had this exact problem in the system I sent back (although that was from simply switching cards in the same slot) and the problem persisted even with different Crossfire cables.

Is there any possible cause for this other than I simply didn't properly connect the bottom video card? Was just as tight a fit here as with the previous system and to be honest I felt I was starting to need to apply a little more pressure than appropriate for it to snap into place.

I'm getting bored of this, who want's to buy a 5970? :D
 
the computer doesnt work in the way it is intended to work

it is their responsibility to make it work
 
Personally I'd just sell one of the 5970s, the only time you'll see a noted improvement over one 5970 would be when folding IMO.
 
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