• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

MSI Lightning 7970 Xfire, very unstable

TYPO, sorry guys, that should he said NOT SUCKING POWER :). Got too much work on, hoping to play swapsies in a bit. By the way, the comment about 15 mins to swap a PSU, 5 if you know what you are doing, I find highly amusing. thoroughly generalized comment, not knowing the complexity/tidiness of the current PSU wiring etc etc and space to work in ;). I have built more phase change/watercooled custom rigs than I care to remember over the years, I like to think that I have half a clue ;).
 
Mr Footlong said:
TYPO, sorry guys, that should he said NOT SUCKING POWER :). Got too much work on, hoping to play swapsies in a bit. By the way, the comment about 15 mins to swap a PSU, 5 if you know what you are doing, I find highly amusing. thoroughly generalized comment, not knowing the complexity/tidiness of the current PSU wiring etc etc and space to work in ;). I have built more phase change/watercooled custom rigs than I care to remember over the years, I like to think that I have half a clue ;).
Click to expand...

Sorry I don't anticipate people having wires tucked in and around and all over the place :) I just put mine in and cable tie the wires in a bunch so all I have to do is unplug everything and pull it out
 
:). I am stupidly anal about cable tidying is all. Sadly I have an update. I spoke too soon about stability. Was doing my normal desktop-type work stuff about 15 mins ago when the screen 2 went blank, mouse was locked on screen 1, which then went blank a few seconds after. After about 10 seconds I got the usual atikmpag.sys BSOD and the machine rebooted. Didn't load the desktop up after logon properly (another of the glitches I came across with the crossfire setup over the last few days) after that and I had to physically power down the machine.

I have physically removed the secondary card (haven't swapped them around yet, just removed the secondary). Hopefully I can work without losing everything again. I may try putting the secondary card in as the primary tomorrow morning, but I am not prepared to go juggling this crossfire setup, too much work on to be prepared to be crashing out of stuff any more.

Tempted to ask that the title be changed to just 7970 xfire very unstable as it isn't the fault of the MSI design IMO.

Thanks guys.
 
Just to add, a special thank you in particular to ScottiB for his excellent support on behalf of MSI, really impressed thanks!!!

OCuK have happily accepted the RMA, no fuss at all so apart from the lost work and frustration which hasn't been the fault of either the above, this has been a pretty painless experience.

Shuddering at the thought of it but going to have to jump back to Nvidia, haven't had any Nvidia cards in any machine I have made for anyone since the 8800GTX days!
 
Mr Footlong said:
Just to add, a special thank you in particular to ScottiB for his excellent support on behalf of MSI, really impressed thanks.

OCuk have happily accepted the RMA, no fuss at all so apart from the lost work and frustration which hasn't been the fault of either the aabove, this has been a pretty painless experience. Shuddering at the thought of it but going to have to jump back to Nvidia, haven't had any Nvidia cards in any machine I have made for anyone since the 8800GTX days!
Click to expand...

Shuddering? With delight at the anticipation of getting working cards? :p

*Kelt grabs coat and runs before getting accused of fanboyism!
 
Not sure what to make of that link to be honest but thanks. Bit too much Guinea Pig antics going on for my liking.

Probably getting boring now but guess what? I had another screen blank/freeze/BSOD while doing normal desktop work.

I have now yanked the single primary card and I have the secondary card in place of it, so still just 1 card but let's see if this holds stable for the afternoon.

Tempted to just run this seccondary card as the single primary for a day or so (assuming that OCuK won't mind waiting for a day or so more for me to return anything) as if this card stays solid then I will happily return just the single card and exchange for another. They will have their work cut out for themselves proving the card is faulty though based on this totally random instability!

Will update/continue to bore as needed ;).
 
Mr Footlong said:
Not sure what to make of that link to be honest but thanks. Bit too much Guinea Pig antics going on for my liking.

Probably getting boring now but guess what? I had another screen blank/freeze/BSOD while doing normal desktop work.

I have now yanked the single primary card and I have the secondary card in place of it, so still just 1 card but let's see if this holds stable for the afternoon.

Tempted to just run this seccondary card as the single primary for a day or so (assuming that OCuK won't mind waiting for a day or so more for me to return anything) as if this card stays solid then I will happily return just the single card and exchange for another. They will have their work cut out for themselves proving the card is faulty though based on this totally random instability!

Will update/continue to bore as needed ;).
Click to expand...

I had serious hassle with a 570 a while ago. Was doing **** like that. Could play games for 3 hours and then lock up on desktop. Wrecked my life for 2 weeks before I RMA'd it. Working perfect for 4 hours then boom, craps out for 2 days doing word processing.
 
Well, I almost made dead on 3 hours of crash-free random work before another screen blank+BSOD. This is with what was the secondary card, in ad the primary/only card. Not going to play with disabling ULPS etc, just going to have to return both.

Going back to Nvidia after all these years of problem-free ATI goodness makes me feel dirty :(.

Going to memtest x86 for a few passes this evening then move on to OCCT overnight just be be totally and utterly certain, then courier will be picking them up in the morning.

C'est la vie.
 
I understand your frustration but I hope you understand that you might receive a faulty nVidia card. The problem about setting things up yourself is, if there are problems, it can be quite time consuming to find the fault and this can happen with both nVidia and AMD.

I hope you get sorted though. And next time buy a Seasonic PSU - that way you will not get people telling you your PSU sucks ;)
 
ScottiB said:
Hi EZ,

Thanks for your input but this problem is solely 7000 series related. There are a number of almost identical forum threads relating to most manufacturers & involving cards from basic 7770s all the way up to our market leading 7970 Lightning. Yet another reason why I believe it to be related to AMD's new Zero Core feature, a feature not present on your cards.

Also, it has been suggested that he test the cards one at a time. The OP says that he is too busy right now as he needs his PC for work.
Click to expand...

Thanks ScottiB.

Can you point me to those? I could only find one problem with a Gigabyte 7770 card which was solved with a BIOS release for the card.
 
they are on different forums & i'm afraid that OcUK wouldn't appreciate me pointing people elsewhere.

tbh I never understood the whole anti-coolermaster thing, I used to build twenty systems a week with Coolermaster PSU's & never had a problem.
 
OCuK got the cards back and a refund should be coming through shortly. Still wish I had not had the problems as those cards were great and I just prefer ATI when working as expected.

I have been really weak and ordered a PAIR of Palit GTX 680 4gb cards. Got a slightly less insane price on them than the current average across sellers and bought them on my company so can claim the vat back and other bits ;). Still think I need a huge slap though for "going green".........

Now, if I have all sorts of problems with these I might just start thinking that my PSU might be pish ;)
 
kitch9 said:
I've removed a card this morning and PC is running perfect again..... Both cards work fine on their own but all hell breaks loose when they are paired.
Click to expand...

I know you've had to return them now, but if you get similar problems with the 680s, it might be worth checking you haven't got a problem with your motherboard like a subtle timing issue...

Is there a newer BIOS available for your motherboard?

Anyway, good luck with the 680s. I'm not jealous...much! I'm waiting for the EVGA 4GB FTW cards, but I can only have one. :(
 
I should have only got the one card but I figured what the hell, if these are all that people say they are then I should get a good 2-3 years out of them before swapsie time. Buying ones with only 2GB RAM just didn't sit right.

Board is on the latest BIOS, was set back to defaults and is currently running all stock, as it was when having all these issues with either 1 or 2 7970 cards. If I have problems with the 680's then I will look at PSU, then RAM I guesss after that.
 
lol only just noticed that, strangely enough this sig was the same size as my old one which I had in place for a year.

*edit* omg i just noticed, it was deleted because the file size 10kb too large
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom