ATI 5870 Crossfire Driver Issues with Alienware - Discussion Thread

I think you just don't notice it but it's there. There is no variance in specification between these cards nor have they been changed. They may update the bios version after a time but that's about it. Just like some people think they have working 10.6 out of the box without any modifications, I'm not convinced no matter what they say. I'd bet money they probably have a bastar_dized driver using 10.5's D3D + 10.6 CCC and their registry is telling them they have 10.6 when in fact they don't. How do I know this? Because with 10.6, the culprit is powerplay. The second GPU does not kick into 3D mode when most games are turned on in Crossfire mode. Others like mass effect 2 have no issues with 10.6 with or without a fix. What does that tell you? AMD Catalyst problem, the usual culprit, just like in this case with the flickering.


It's too bad Dell didn't give us the option of purchasing SLi 285M with the M17x. I think all the guys with R1 ruined it for us, they complained so much about the nVidia cards and got free 4870s in exchange that Dell probably decided not to bother this time around even though the 280's had nothing to do with R1's problems. If I could've gotten a pair of 285M I'd have taken it over 5870 anyday.

 

Thanks for your insight. Perhaps the UK folks making the most noise could upload a video for your analysis as you have been looking at these issues longer than most of us. At least that way we could see how bad their problems are. I totally agree with you about the _ized drivers anything is possible when you just drop drivers overtop of one another without deleting the original catalyst.

Cheers

 

OMG yes, totally and completely. I'd +1 if I could..

 

I'm going to pester some AW reps about it and see if they'll at least consider issuing a bios update for 285M support and let us trade our 5870s in. Very long shot but worth a try. Looks like we aren't the only ones that have issues with AMD Catalyst drivers: [ATi Forum] Ati Catalyst 10.7 to be out on July 21st - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net

It's pitiful that after all this time ATi/AMD still can't get their drivers on the same level as nVidia.

 

honestly, considering the poor physix in some games, better drivers and the fact that my 5870's just bench the same stock as my R1 with an overall less powerfull system I wouldn't mind changing my 5870's for some 280s. I upgraded for the LED and i7 mostly, the 4870s/5870s were just the icing for me. There's < 100mhz different between the two cards anyway. Who knows though, maybe we'll get lucky and they'll find away to make a mini nuclear reactor to power some 480M's in the M17x R2.

 

Lozz, if you are not buying what I am selling than please bring your own ideas to market for a change. I am sure Stevie or Adrianrp would welcome a solution to their problems. And I'll rep you 10+ if you find one. thx

 

I'll say it again, I think the CF cable is to blame..it's my educated guess from seeing how many problems could come from it.

 

Back on topic please. Take this Foxconn/supplier discussion to PM along with any back and forth bickering...

Thanks.

 

Sorry just had to get that off my chest!

On a better note: My new R2 replacement is working just fine out of box with stock clocks, no line flickering just "All Powerful"!!!!! The i7 920XM and CFX 5870's are a huge leap over my defective R1 and 280's. However, I have to admit that I miss my QX9300 and 280's with switchable GFX.
"You win some, you lose some, but you live to fight another day"

Has it been ruled out that these issues are directly tied to individuals upgrading from 4870's to 5870's?

 

I have exactly the same problem. Sort of wavy screen is that what you call flickering?

I dnt upgrade any its what that came with the r2.

 

Seems like this is the new place to post for CF issues..
Well i too am experience the horizontal lines that u blokes are describing, it's not that bad for me. I thought i would add on this forum that people with choppy framerate should try out v-sync. I did and it has smoothed my games right out, as if i got a massive increase of framerate.

However i still have issues with the 5870's, whether it is software or hardware i have no idea. But in crysis my fps is shockingly bad compared to some of the benchmarks posted on these forums.

At 1920x1200, 2AA, and all very high settings on normal crysis i get something in the area of 15-20 fps. And people have been posting with fps up at ~30. Plus i was also getting some crazy flickering in the game itself, like the trees, shadows, sky were really glitchy and flickering like mad, havn't noticed this before, but i thought i would post it anyway.

My driver version is 8.692 and it's from the dell support site. Massive issues with ATI drivers, i wouldn't recommend them.

Overall i'm really dissapointed with my first experience with ATI cards and crossfire, whether or not it's specific to these cards i don't care; if i hadn't already spent a crapload of money on this laptop i would be going straight back to nvidia. But unfortunately i'm stuck with this so called 'best performing laptop in the universe' for 3 years or so while i get money for a decent system.

It's funny that they make out this laptop is so fantastic when all i've had since i got it was bloody problems, and my performance is clearly low rate compared to what it's meant to be (~17 fps in crysis, and i saw some guy on this forum did a benchmark for me and his system is the same as mine basically, and hes getting ~29, yeah sick..) I'm furious at alienware for not building my system properly after handing over $3000.

Clearly it is on their heads, because i have done everything right according to the instructions and websites. Wouldn't be suprised if one of the techs was putting in my cards on a friday arvo, and screwed something up. Probly should have bought my own computer.

The very worst part is that i can't get help anywhere it seems, forums can't help, techs don't care and just get u to send it back or something, why the hell would i do that? So they can tear it apart and wreck it more? Not to mention having to wait 2 more f'ing weeks. No thanks.

Guess ill just put up with the cards performing badly for the laptops life, feel gutted, ripped off and nothing i can to do about it really, apart from sending it back.

 

India and UK = 240V The worst cases seem to be coming from the UK. Maybe the type of voltage or ground is the cause?


External monitor flicker, laptop ground loop problem solved MrGnome

When you disconnect the AC does the flickering remain? (you would have to change power to run on performance when unpluged)

 

Interestingly the flickering disappears. However the performance got floored so my suspicion is that running on battery disables crosfire to conserve power, regardless of power plan.
Investigating further.

EDIT: it doesn't disable crossfire it just forces the clocks down to 100/150 on both cards. Gonna try rivatuner to see if i can get te cards to stay at 3d clocks the have another look.

 

If battery settings are still factory than you may be in stealth. Click on battery and select high performance. And force stealth off. Thank you very much for checking.

There are devices to regulate the power supply. They are big business in the home theatre industry. Electronics are suppose to have circuits inside to regulate fluctuations but maybe some UK power is just on the brink of the PSU & Laptops capabilities.

 

well it to stay at 3d clocks and played a bit of crysis, no flickering but the framerate was still lower than normal. So checked and the gpu utilisation on the second card was 0. When i did a mutigpu run on furmark on these clocks on battery it shutdown.

EDIT: Just tried again - looks as though the battery shuts down to prevent overdraw. It can't take the draw of the gpus at full load for longer than 5 seconds. Powering the screen, the fx, the fans at full, the cpu and 2 gpus on full 3dclocks seems to be to much an ask for the battery.
Don't really know how to test this further without flying to america lol.
Surely the power brick is designed to regulate power to the right settings regardless of the socket on the wall though?
Also i thought we'd established that it wasn't a problem native to the uk.

 

I look foreward to Stevie Joining this converstation today as he is very keen about power supplies. He had his PSU changed and he had an issue about the type of prong. Maybe his less usual prong could be the source of a ground loop for him. I think just testing your computer at your office vs home might shed some light on the issue. Or you could pretend to buy a MONSTER power regulator and test your laptop in a home theatre store. I am not saying buy the thing but at least testing would shed some light on whether the problem is dirty power, ground, or wether the problem is elsewhere. Have seen power regulators for sale as low as $200-300. The models below are probably 10x that. Or maybe your hydro company may know of some known issues in your area.?

http://www.monstercable.com/power/voltage_stabilizers/signature_series.asp (these are USA models but I am sure they have the same thing in Europe)

 

While it would be interesting i think doing all that would be jumping the gun at this point and based on what i have observed i dont think it is a power problem.
It seems to me to be bad synchronisation between the gpu's and/or the monitor. The cause of it could be as lozz said the crossfire cable having poorer shielding on some than others, as it does look like a signal issue.
OR the drivers arent making the cards communicate properly.

If it were dirty power or a problem with the power in general in the uk i would have seen some evidence of this with my r1 and other machines we have but i havn't.

 

Adrianrp has had his system crash every time he turns CF on. Stevie does not have that problem. So perhaps they have two separate issues. We discussed reseating cards back on July 11. Not sure whether anyone tried that or not.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...eam-games-will-not-run-crossfire-hd5870s.html

Monsters premis is that 100% of customers have dirty power. Not buying what they are selling but at the same time I see a lot of information about UK and flickering relating to power on the net. 240v is a whole different kettle of fish.

Have you tried reseating your cards?

 

Re: Ghostly horizontal flickering on external monitor? - HP Support Forum

The power bar has 3 prongs but the laptop itself due to low voltgage does not. Many people across all brands of laptop with external LCD monitors have a flickering problem. Perhaps the lack of proper grounding to the M17x R2 is the cause of the flicker.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_loop_(electricity)

"In video, ground loops can be seen as hum bars (bands of slightly different brightness) scrolling vertically up the screen."

Laptops are floating loops as they are not properly grounded. PSU have the potential for ground loops.

 

I understand your point but if that was the case it wouldn't matter wether crossfire were enabled or not. Or is v-sync were enabled or not.

I have reseated my cards once yes but it did nothing. I might try it again later just to be certain as the first time i only reseated the second card.

 

I guess I am wondering if there is an imbalance between the two GPU voltages caused by the floating loop nature of laptops. Perhaps this is why when the crossfire is turned off the vertical lines stop for some. This theory would also explain why different people are experiencing different phenomenon because they are using different power sources. It would also explain why when you shifted to battery the problem went away as the power source changed circuits.

http://www.audioholics.com/education/cables/thinking-in-isolation-2013-a-primer-on-ground-loops

 

The reason it went away when i shifted to battery power is because it wouldn't use crossfire. Only when i used mulitgpu furmark did it utilise crossfire and even then it used 2d clocks in windowed mode (which doesn't produce flickering). If i put it in fullscreen mode it used full 3d clocks but only used 1 card - which also produced no flickering. When i tried to make it use both cards on battery it shutdown after a few seconds to protect the battery.

Also that theory doesn't account for v-sync because that setting has no bearing on voltage - what it does have bearing on is the refresh rate employed by the cards, which i am now 90% sure where the problem lies.

My theory; is that because no component is identical to another and when they are used in conjunction like in a crossfire/sli setup, the driver has to coordinate to get them working as a unit.
These card are new and only have 1 official driver that supports them (the dell one) and it is expected that in the first driver release there be some bugs to be corrected later.
As for the conflicting reports of some people having problems and others not. I can only guess that some cards work better together than others, some people have cards that are more suited to eachother than others - its luck of the draw atm because the drivers are so young.
I rekon that it is just a teething problem and that a new driver could correct it.

 

If one GPU is being juiced (slight variation in voltage) due to floating loop design than you are tweaking one card relative to the other which would account for cards being out of sync and again why vsync helps some. Also turning on the second card could drop the voltage of the first.

In regards to running Furmark on battery, AMD Cypress based cards, implemented a hardware solution to protect the VRM. They dedicate a very small portion of Cypress’s die to a monitoring chip. This chip monitors the VRM. If the chip detects a dangerous situation (current overload), the chip will immediately throttle back the card by one PowerPlay level. Once the dangerous situation has disappeared, the card goes back to its performance level. In the case of Furmark or OCCT, this can continue to go back and forth as the VRMs permit.

 

Looks like im late to join this "party" but i have now found it LOL

Just to encapsulate my problem with c/f....its not like the flickering in the you tube vid posted earlier...thats more like a flashing or breaking up entirely of the image..

My image onscreen does not get distorted to anywhere near that degree....what i DO see though is more comparable to these "hum bars" that roll or scroll predominantly vertically up the screen and traverse the whole width of the display...they come in waves which are clearly visible but do not distort the screen.

As i cant upload what i see, ive looked for an online video of what my problem is and its like this...... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lhYbz3cYrw - if you can imagine those lines BUT whilst gaming, they become very obvious scrolling up the screen.....they are more pronounced than this video shows and the frequency of the "waves of lines" varies and sometimes they go up, soimetimes down and also vary in terms of how far apart they are spaced.....sometimes they are like very close waves and others are more like this image in the video....nonetheless, they are still obiously there.....

I have seen that these "lines" alter the brightness/darkness at the point of where they are, hence being very noticable....for example, if i load metro and right at the beginning, just stand Artym still looking at a brick wall with no other action, its clear to see these PITA lines.....

If i disable crossfire, this stops. FULL STOP.

Same in Crysis, the lines are apparent while c/f enabled, i can turn on vsync still with c/f and the lines STOP but obviously frame rates take a massive hit so not a real solution - but disabling c/f, i can run the game without the lines or vsync on but then i loose the "benefit " of my secondary gpu.

I will watch this thread now as have been posting on another one about this problem so best to keep things centralised as BatBoy says....

Falcon, I will catch up with you later on today i hope....

Also, just a quick question.....ok , so i know that my system "loves" the juice from ac.....BUT, should i be able to play games on battery to the same level of detail/performance using on "high performance battery" ?? (i know it will give me like 2 seconds worth of gaming but should it run the same regardless?) - only ask as noticed some rather obvious lag/performance drop when i tried to experiment with games with pure battery power only.....

 

Hi Stevie

I have never benched with and without battery so not sure. You might run for 15 minutes on full and than it would start scaling back. Or it might start automatically lower on battery.

My thoughts are something (beyond your control) is degrading your video signal through some kind of interference. It could be a design flaw, or quality control issue, or damaged hardware, or something external. If you are confident that the problem is not your AC than you really have no other choice but to turn the problem over to Dell for a full refund, repair, or replacement.

 

Anyone having issues with Starcraft 2 beta? Apparently when using crossfire, some textures don't load and come up as invisible.

 

I cant be confident that its not the ac as basically as a new alienware owner and being new to this level of laptop computing im on a new and un experienced learning curve....all i can go by is what ive said to you falcon, ie, the problem persists with both battery and ac but doesnt somewhat with c/f disabled....

Getting sick of things now......i cant help feeling that ive bought a lemon and that Dell will turn around and say suck it up......you bought it.

My rep STILL hasnt got back to me but i guess thats how things go in big business....once you have parted with the cash, you dont mean a thing but before....ooooooohhh they sweet talk you till you fall over.......i would swear like a trooper now but im tooooo tired of thinking about it and how i may be stuck with this problem....

 

I have similar problems in napoleon total war, sometimes the textures don't load correctly and I get 'invisible' men, until I zoom in close.

 

Again, when posting an issue with flickering, a specific game, etc., please - post your driver version you are using.

 

Specifically, on Dell 10.5's. The issue is apparent in Empire total war (which is understandable since they're essentially the same game) The game loading time is also outrageous, 1.5 minutes from menu to campaign map, 6.75 minutes to load battles. It has to be a problem with the 5870s, my desktop with 4GB of ram, 1 HDD and 1 GTS250 plays the game fine without any of the before mentioned issues. Specifically, the units are invisible on the battle map until zoomed in upon. I've already diagnosed the issue and there is simply no solution to it currently on the 10.5 drivers. I've tried with crossfire off, running the game in low settings, disabling every feature in CCC I can think of, ect.. The game stops responding at the 30-40% loading mark and that is where most of the 'loading time' takes place before it starts running again.

 

Lozz: Switch catalyst AI to standard (or advanced if it's on standard) and see if that improves the loading time. Crysis used to have a similar issue with older Catalyst drivers if Catalyst AI was on advanced.

Try the 10.6 drivers out using my method and see if it helps. I've notified adriana from Alienware about it and she's forwarding this thread and everyone's posts to the engineering team. Hopefully we have a resolution to this and other 5870 issues soon.

 

Hi Joker

If you increase voltage without increasing clock speeds, can this cause vertical lines?

If you have two gpu's with slightly different clocks can this cause vertical lines without BSOD?

What happens if you change voltage on just one GPU?

In home theatre the solution to rolling lines on video is usally to clean up voltage or buy better cables to prevent interference. Could there be any issues with wifi or Bluetooth intefering? I believe Lozz was suggesting poor crossfire cable shielding the other day which from a home theatre perspective makes good sense. Maybe shielding is bad inside these machines.

If one GPU is producing 30 FPS and the other 31 FPS would that cuase a rolling vertical line?

I was wondering if people with this problem are seeing different temps across either GPU.

Thank you

 

It can't be shielding because only some games have this issue, not all. If it was a problem across the board with every Crossfire game then it would be a possibility.

 

I think Stevie is saying that he sees this with every game. Others on the forum have said only some games.

 

Originally I thought that this was a UK problem attributed to their voltage but than a number from the US have reported a problem as well.

 

XOXO

I had tried it in standard mode previously as I had the same thought about the crysis issue however you sparked me to look at it harder and I just went ahead and disabled it completely. The game functions perfectly now, 16 second save game load time and 45-60second battle map load time. We'll just blame the extra time versus my desktop on the 3.6ghz 6 core 1090T in it

Thanks! All I have to do now is figure out how to get it to work in crossfire...

 

Yeah lozz i had the same dissappearing units thing on nap but i forced 10.6 to install and since then the units stay. Loading times are still appauling though.

 

Ive only installed 3 games but it happens on them all (Metro 2033, Crysis and Portal) Portal was d/l from steam - the others from disc.

In crysis, i can run with c/f enabled but still get the lines, enabling vsync does make this go but with the others, still the same....

 

I originally thought it was on all games as i tried about 10. But then i tried the RUSE weekend beta on steam and with cf enabled there was no flickering at all. The only game to not flicker so far.

 

Just been messing with settings on "Portal" wich i d/l via steam as a freebie when i set my account up.....

I have been getting "the dreaded lines" with all settings high etc etc...but i found vsync among the options thismorning...turned it on and low and behold, my lines were no longer there.....

Seems that for me anyway, vsync does stop it but it aint obviously a good cure is it!

Another thing, Both Dell tech and Falcon have said for me to check that my gpu's are seated properly and i understand the logic behind doing so....BUT, does the fact that my games seem to run ok without the line issue with vsync enabled indicate that the gpu's are already seated correctly....im thinking that if they werent, even vsync would have no effect on the generation of these horizontal little horrors??? - if they werent seated properly, surelly i would still get the lines with vsync enabled coupled with an incorrectly or poorly seated gpu?

 

Stevie you ask some great questions. Ill look for an answer to your Vsync question.

One of the games you are playing is crysis and the 1.1 patch does give you the Vsync funcitonality in D3 Dx10.

With Crysis I wasn't sure if you needed to install the patches in order so I did anyways, 1.1, than 1.2, than 1.21 hotfix.

Crytek GmbH: Crysis

 

Hi Stevie, with a game like cryis on HIGH or a modern demanding game it is doubtful that you would ever get above 60FPS anyways so using vsync probably will be a moot point. Here are a list of points about Vsync that help explain what it does to help you better understand why it helps your vertical line problem.

*Monitor has a vertical refresh rate of 60Hz
*Vsync forces graphics cards to match monitor (ie max 60 FPS)
*With Vsyc OFF GPU tries to update more than 60 times per second.
*If FPS were above 60 you might get tearing with Vsync ON
*In games with tearing turn up your AA settings
*But at 1920x1200 max settings unlikely that you would go above 60 FPS
*LCD response time controls max FPS.
*High end LCD is normally capped at around 240 FPS (function of Ms response time)
*The lower the response time the higher the maximum FPS
*As GPU's get faster, monitors will have to go to go to 120 Hz to increase FPS.


P.S. Stevie make sure you are running everything in 16:10 aspect ratio. DO NOT USE 16:9.

 

The GPU's they are testing in this review are very dated but I did notice that they had rolling lines and their conclusion was some kind of interference.

"Next up on our list of disadvantages is a strange display issue which plagued our reviewer kit from the beginning of testing to the end. That issue was rolling lines. Basically when we had the CrossFire graphics cards installed there was interference on the screen (CRT) which was most noticeable when on a white background. A faint set of lines could be seen rolling up the screen and it was most annoying. We put it down to one of the components being sensitive to electric interference however we couldn’t fix it. ATI assured us that they had received no other reports of this so hopefully it was just a one off."

DriverHeaven.net: ATI Crossfire

 

They stated here that they "couldn't fix it" and as v-sync was a big thing with crt monitors and they make no mention of it fixing the problem that is probably a separate issue.

 

Hi Oogamar

Not sure if you are using wifi or RJ95 connection while playing games. Have you tried turning off your wifi and bluetooth and plugging in via RJ95 to see if this makes a difference to video signal?

 

disable catalyst AI and enjoy your sub 1 minute loading times. I didn't notice that the units disappeared with it disabled either, and I'm still on 10.5s. 10.7's are supposed to be out on Wednesday, so I'll just skip 10.6's.

 

I did try that but it disables crossfire as you said and therefore made performance a little jerky. Hopefully the 10.7's will fix everything.

Also falcon i disabled wireless and it did nothing.

 

Thats all fine and well and i know that im more or less certain to not exceed 60fps with settings high @native res. so in that scenario, i guess vsync fixing the problem is ok.
BUT.....lets also say that im running a much les demanding game that im pulling down 100fps......in that situation, (and im presuming the lines are still present as they are at the moment) i have two choices....either play with c/f enabled and vsync off with lines at 100fps or i enable vsync, get rid of thhe lines but slash frame rates down to 60max.

It is my strong belief that although vsync can cure (or seems to cure) this issue, it is with sacrifice to performance - which is what i (and you guys) have paid so much money for.

The cards should work fine without the need to sacrifice gaming performance or cap it at a set limit - i mean , its Alienware here....you dont put a speed limiter on a ferrari do ya?

Back to the point that something is still obviously not right and like alot of people, im not gonna put up with a sub standard / lower performance machine that i have to cap frame rates just to get a clear and still image!

Where's that Michael Dell guy, i think someone should have a word in his ear about his high end gaming laptops that offer high end gaming if you are prepared to put up with low frames or poor picture reproduction!

 

I'm sorry but this is unacceptable. I just paid a small fortune for this laptop and now I can't play a single game without lines or texture flickering. Alienware or ATI or whoever is responsible needs to fix this, or they need to offer a FREE upgrade to the next generation of SLI or Crossfire cards. Bull.

 

HERE HERE!!!! - well said that man!!!! - it is TOTALLY BOLLO**S that customers get treated like this....either get it sorted, or refund us the money so we can buy a system which DOES work and DOESNT have issues that require a technician visit to ATTEMPT to rectify.

My system cost me £2500 gbp so maybe close to $3800 us dollars.....( i know you guys in the us probably can get a 920xm and 8gb for that but us poor brits get the the SHI**Y end of the stick and have to pay through the nose to get a lower spec) - i thought Alienware was the "top dog" in terms of gaming laptops but its proving not to be the case.....i may as well use mine as a heavy paperweight at the moment......

I dont accept or expect that spending that much on a laptop, it should have faults...i expect perfection as thats what i have paid for.

Get it right Dell or go home and take my laptop with you shoved squarely up your rear end.......