5870's Crossfire issues

So I got 2 new 5870's from dell. None of my games run well at all. I have tried every single driver. 11.2, 10.8. 10.5(which doesn't work). The vbios doesn't work even after i installed my drivers.

1.) I have crossfire enabled but badcompany 2 runs at a 25-35 fps with medium low graphics.

2.) stealth is disabled, power is in high performance mode, using throttlestopper

3.) Currently on dell drivers right now with 10.8

4.) All my games feel as if crossfire is not even working.

5.) Done a lot of googling this guy wen't through exactly what I did with the same problem AMD Game Forums - Catalyst driver install problems, mobility radeon 5870 CF He also mentioned that the older drivers provided better performance before and i aswell noticed this on my 4870's. nothing before 10.6 works on 5870's though...


I had 4870's before and had badcompany at release. The game ran beautifully at medium/high graphics. But this is just sad.

 

There's obviously no way that your 5870s are less powerful than your 4870s were. If all of your games are suffering, I would start looking at some settings in CCC. If Catalyst AI is anywhere below the middle setting, CrossFire won't be enabled. Every other slider should be in the far left position, with the exception of mip maps. Make sure that your powerplan in Windows is set to Balanced or High Performance. Verify that CrossFire is indeed enabled with GPU-Z. Make sure you're not in Stealth mode. Make sure you're plugged into the wall. If you've got all of these bases covered, your cards should be running at maximum performance. I get the best performance from the newest driver, found on the AMD website. I'm sure there are others that would disagree.

 

Thanks for the reply, I just check GPU-Z and it says both cards are enabled. I'm going to run some benchmarks. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the drivers. But I can't understand why vbios doesn't recognize my 5870's after installing drivers...

 

Excuse my ignorance, new to the m17x. What is stealth mode?

 

^^^An option on the R1 to run on integrated graphics only. It came with a chip on the mobo for better battery life. By using it and not the Discrete/dedicated cards, you prolong battery life but lose on performance. It was real nice when/if it worked right. Not available in the R2.

 

No problem,

Stealth mode is an option to put your laptop into low power consumption to save battery. Normally you'll enable this if your not playing games and disable it to play games for maximize performance

 

Is there any reason why you had to start a new thread for this, when you already have another thread ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/560261-10-5-drivers-5870s-please-help.html) for the same issue?

 

What do you mean the vbios doesn't work? Have you managed to flash both cards? You need to have the updated vbios for the amd/ati drivers to work properly

 

And also, to upgrade the V-bios to the latest you must have official dell video driver installed, or the software that will create the usb drive for the purpose, will fail to do that and will return an error in response. After V-bios is correctly flashed, you can install AMD driver set

 

Well I installed both files from the dell websites, first the ati driver. Then I try to install the vbios and I get the error message.

 

Well, first off double check that you actually have 5870's installed.
Then (if you do) you can just extract the bios file from the dell vbios exe and use that file along with atiflash and a usb dos boot disk to flash manually.
(I detailed this stuff in your other thread also)

I am surprised this thread has gone on so long without merging from BatBoy.... he must be on vacation

 

Or waiting to strike at night...

(just kidding! juuuust kidding! )

 

I posted this in the other thread, but here it is again for reference...
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Before you try the VBIOS update, make sure that don't already have the latest version. Use GPU-Z to find your VBIOS version. If it's "012.020.000.027.037640" on both cards then you're already up to date.

If you do need to update your VBIOS, you don't have to fiddle around with your graphics drivers. You can get around Dell's video card check by using WinRAR.

When you run the file you download from Dell (R281544.exe), it creates a folder that contains a single file - Setup.exe. With WinRAR installed, if you right-click on the file you should get an option to "Extract to Setup\". Click this option. (It may be hidden under a WinRAR sub-menu.)

Once you've extracted these contents, go into the Setup folder that was created and look for a file called create.exe. It should have an alien head logo. Run this and you should be able to create the boot disc.