7950 Crossfire Usage issues..

MOOGLEYS · 20 Mar 2013 at 20:13

I have just installed a pair of HIS 7950 Boost cards as I fancied having a play with a crossfire setup but I'm having quite bad usage issues I cannot seem to fix.

I have run crossfire 7950's before and do not remember getting these issues so I'm hoping its a driver or setup issue.

What happens is anything I run my cards usage jumps all over the place on both cards. You can see when this happens in game as the FPS drops quite a bit. I have been using MSI afterburner to monitor the usage.

I have tried the latest Beta drivers and the WHQL drivers and both give the same results. I have installed a GTX 690 which both cores stay above %98 at pretty much all off the time.

I'm not really sure what else to try and was hoping someone would have a fix or has had this issue with some advice.

Cheers...

Yaayuh! · 20 Mar 2013 at 20:18

Join the club, as i said before, i'm having issues with 7970 Crossfire.

Are you on X79? What's the rest of your system?

MOOGLEYS · 20 Mar 2013 at 20:20

No I'm using a 4.6ghz 2500k and a Z68 Gigabyte board which runs PCI-E 2.0 @ 8x8, 16Gb 1600Mhz DDR3.

I have had 7950 crossfire before a pair of xfx cards and did not notice this problem and had no performance issues.

It's a bit weird.

Tobes · 20 Mar 2013 at 21:06

What games is this happening in?

MOOGLEYS · 20 Mar 2013 at 21:10

It's happening in just about everything. Tomb raider runs great until the usage on one card drops to under %60 causing a juddering on screen. It makes everything you play feel very unstable there is no constant framerate.

Both Heaven 4.0 and Valley do the same as does 3D mark. Furmark shows it the worst with huge drop off's into the %30 range.

I have tried everything I can think off even swapping one of the cards for my 7970 and still the same happens.

Removing one card and running with just one gives a lower FPS but a much smoother game. Individually both cards run as expected.

Tobes · 20 Mar 2013 at 21:12

You removed one card but did you try the other card on its own?

MOOGLEYS · 20 Mar 2013 at 21:13

Tobes said:
You removed one card but did you try the other card on its own?

Yes mate both cards seem to work fine on their own. I only gave them a quick test but they worked as expected.

LtMatt · 20 Mar 2013 at 21:14

Are both the cards fully stable and working ok? I see gpu usage drops when my card is unstable more often than not.

Failing that you could try a complete driver sweep. Might consider sweeping Nvidia drivers as well if you're using two different sets of drivers on one system.

MOOGLEYS · 20 Mar 2013 at 21:15

Both cards are at stock and seems stable. I will give them a better individual test to confirm.

This is a clean install of Windows 8. I have an AMD drive and an NVIDA drive

The usage seems to drop up and down on both cards not just one. I have now set them to AMD stock and will see what happens as these are Boost cards with a 925mhz core.

LtMatt · 20 Mar 2013 at 21:19

MOOGLEYS said:
Both cards are at stock and seems stable. I will give them a better individual test to confirm.

This is a clean install of Windows 8. I have an AMD drive and an NVIDA drive

The usage seems to drop up and down on both cards not just one. I have now set them to AMD stock and will see what happens as these are Boost cards with a 925mhz core.

What drivers are you using, any cap files installed?

Mr.Cookie · 20 Mar 2013 at 21:20

have you tried a different crossfire link cable?

Tobes · 20 Mar 2013 at 21:21

Wonder if there's any Xfire problems with Windows 8? Other than that all I could suggest would be try a different bridge port and a different bridge cable. Or maybe they draw more power than your other cards. Doubtful but that's all I can think of. Any other PCI E sockets you could try? Or would that make it impossible because of the bridge? I have no idea lol.

LtMatt · 20 Mar 2013 at 21:23

Mr.Cookie said:
have you tried a different crossfire link cable?

Tobes said:
Wonder if there's any Xfire problems with Windows 8? Other than that all I could suggest would be try a different bridge port and a different bridge cable. Or maybe they draw more power than your other cards. Doubtful but that's all I can think of. Any other PCI E sockets you could try? Or would that make it impossible because of the bridge? I have no idea lol.

Good suggestions.

MOOGLEYS · 20 Mar 2013 at 21:24

Will try another bridge and see how that goes. Is fitting both advised ?

I only have 2 slots on this board. I did swap the cards over but this made no difference.

What drivers are you using, any cap files installed?

I have tried the latest Beta and the WHQL ones 13.1 with and without caps and had the same results.

I have a Win 7 install on a drive kicking around I think I will try that as well.

Tobes · 20 Mar 2013 at 21:33

MOOGLEYS said:
Will try another bridge and see how that goes. Is fitting both advised ?

You only need 1. 2 wont blow it up but there's really no point.

MOOGLEYS · 20 Mar 2013 at 21:35

Just tried a different bridge on the second set of connections and its still the same.

Just going to try a complete driver uninstall and driver sweep with a re-install and see if that does anything.

It's annoying as I had crossfire 7950's running fine before and nothing has changed apart from the brand of cards.

MOOGLEYS · 20 Mar 2013 at 21:46

Drivers cleaned and re loaded and still the same. Changing the crossfire bridge I noticed one of the cards fans is making a horrid buzzing/Rattling noise so that will need to be RMA'd.

The fan is doing it's job but compared to the other which is silent it sounds horrid.

MOOGLEYS · 20 Mar 2013 at 22:08

Just tried my Win 7 drive and it's still the same. I'm really lost as what is causing this.

The FPS is up and down on both cards which causes stuttering and in tomb raider a horrid rubber banding effect where the game seems to slow then catch up with itself.

I have even now connected both cards to a different PSU just to rule that out but it makes no difference.

Something is not right and I have no idea what it is.

Yaayuh! · 20 Mar 2013 at 22:11

It's good (for me lol) that i'm not alone. I've tried pretty much everything Google finds, but to no avail.
Hopefully we can find the cause/s soon.

MOOGLEYS · 20 Mar 2013 at 22:19

Rossi~ said:
It's good (for me lol) that i'm not alone. I've tried pretty much everything Google finds, but to no avail.
Hopefully we can find the cause/s soon.

I have no idea what is going on.

I have just tried a pair of 680's both superclocked editions and it holds %99/%100 usage on both constantly in furmark.

With these HIS 7950's it jumps all over the place dropping down to %8 and everywhere inbetween. The only thing left is that one or both of the cards are faulty ?