Help please help!!!

[ntemples1]

Hi guys,

After having this problem before I completely built a whole new system,

i7 Haswell @ 4.4
8gb Ram
MSI z87-G45 Gaming Mobo

2 x R9 290's FLashed by OCUK to 290X in crossfire.

The ONLY original thing from the old PC was my thermaltake Toughpower 1200W PSU - Here: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Thermaltake/Toughpower_1200W/

I have fresh windows 8.1 loaded up on a 256GB SSD latest amd drivers

But I am having this strange GPU Usage thing and gaming is NOT smooth at all, just fired up crysis 3 on very high at 2560 x 1600 and am getting the following from afterburner.



Could it be my PSU that is causing this? I am at my wits end with it really, any help would be gratefully received.

 

[Marine-RX179]

Could just be a MSI Afterburner issue. Try closing it and run GPU-Z instead to see if you still get spikes?

 

[Puppetmaster]

What have you got the power limit set to? Also have you disabled UPLS?

 

[ntemples1]

Hi guys thanks for the input, I have managed to find out what the problem is. The 290's are somehow interfering with the MSI Z87 G45 motherboard's onboard sound. But only when they are in crossfire.

If I put the cards in one at a time they work fine, but as soon as I put another one in I get an error in Device manager saying that HD Audio Device cannot start as something is already using that resource. Wierd!

I have the most up to date Bios on the mobo, also I have tried SLI 780's and they work absolutely fine, so I can only ascertain that this is happening due to the HDMI audio on the 290's. I have tried disabling the onboard sound and that actually stops the cards working at all so it must be tied in. Also disabling the HDMI Audio makes no difference either.

There are no settings in the bios apart from an on/off toggle for the Onboard Audio.

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up as maybe this motherboard might not be compatible with the latest generation of crossfire.

I am going to have to RMA the 290's as they just don't work, got some 780ti's on order instead though!

 

[Puppetmaster]

For what its worth, my gpu usage looks the same even with one card, afterburner cant report it properly - apparently a driver issue not something a new version of ab will fix but games are smooth.

 

[Marine-RX179]

Yea...MSI Afterburner seem to be not able to properly report the GPU usage for me as well.

 

[ntemples1]

For what its worth, my gpu usage looks the same even with one card, afterburner cant report it properly - apparently a driver issue not something a new version of ab will fix but games are smooth.

agreed, I didn't see the GPU ussge problem when using gpu-z. The problem for me was really stuttery bad framerates, almost unplayable. Anyway at least I got to the bottom of it!