Crossfire enabled with no performance increase..

Well this is the second time I had dell replace my cards. im getting 20-40 fps in all my shooters with crossfire on and off. I had dell replace them 2 times and I'm still not getting a performance increase.

1. I got the catalyst apps installed and A.I enabled
2. Replaced the cards 2 times
3. Updated all the drivers possible
4. Throttlestop

Only thing i haven't done is throw the laptop against the wall..

Please if anyone have any suggestions I've been battling this issue for 2 months already

 

You will most definitely notice a difference in 3DMark Vantage between one card and two. Post your scores for one card and two if you can.

 

ok im going to be working on the benches now

 

Result

 

For dual 5870s, that is a low score....looks like only one card is working.

Do both cards show up in device manager? Have you tried cleaning out the drivers with driver sweeper when updating them? Which drivers are you using.....Dell or ATI?

Also, download and post a screenshot of GPU-Z. Your core clock should be running at 700MHz, and 3DMark is reporting 500MHz......

 

This makes me nervous of getting my first CFX M18X laptop. I heard and read that the 5870CF has a ton of problems, so is the 6970M going to have just as many? Is it driver problems?

 

The 5870M's did not really have problems at all. Drivers are the ones to blame really...and/or user error. Not saying the OP caused it. I have seen cases where the motherboard causes the cards not to work properly. Happened to my old R2 and needed the board replaced.

I had the issue, and the cards showed up in Device Manager, were enabled in CrossfireX, and did not work properly, and it ended up being the motherboard, because I had done a clean install of windows, so I know drivers were not to blame.

I think the OP's issue is drivers though......possibly.

 

Dell drivers with vbios. Its the My 2nd replacement of videocards. I tried all drivers. I can't imagine it being the bridge cable if dell and 2 on sight techinicians replaced them. I'm beginning to think its my motherboard.... :/

 

Everything looks top notch.

I would try to uninstall the catalyst from Control Panel, clean drivers with driver sweeper, reboot the machine, and then download and install the latest 11.3 with CAP3 profiles from ATI.

If that doesn't work, you may have an issue with the motherboard possibly. But the only way to tell for sure is A) to do a clean install of windows to ensure no drive issues exist, and/or B) replace the motherboard.

 

Well I've done driver sweepe several times, I even let dell do it over the internet for me. I already have the cap3 installed as well. I've covered just about everything I can do on my part. I just have to tell dell to send me a box again...

Honestly I heard a lot of problems with 5870 in particular. Not necessarily the card itself but a lot to deal with drivers. I wouldn't let it stop you from getting a m18x at all though. But I definitely would pick Nvidia over ati from past experience

 

I am not one to get an M18x......its just not practical IMO. The money you would spend on that laptop to get really good performance.....you could spend half that on a desktop and annihilate the M18x.

The price/performance cost of the M18x is not there IMO. Its nice, for a laptop, don't get me wrong. But that thing is just too darn big.

It definitely sounds like your motherboard is having a problem though. It most likely needs to be replaced. I had the same problem.

 

are you sure that you dont have stealth mode enabled? that score is exactly what i get with stealth mode on

 

That could be a possibility. But the score would not be the same with CrossfireX enabled and Disabled even if stealth mode was on.

 

I'm sure it's not stealth mode :/

 

Stealth Mode disables Crossfire without really telling you : o

 

Looking at closer detail at your Results, I can pick out the following:

Memory: 4096 MB

Module 1
2048 MB Samsung 9 @ 533 MHz

Module 2
2048 MB Samsung 9 @ 533 MHz

The memory clocks are below 1/2 speed.

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870

# of cards: 2

SLI / CrossFire: On

Memory: 1024 MB

Core clock: 500 MHz

Memory clock: 1000 MHz

the core clock has been down clocked by 200MHz

Imo, I think it's the MB if the RAM is also being effected as well as the GPUs.

 

What Harryboieye said...I think that's a real possibility. I had a similar issue happen about a month ago, where I was getting almost the same performance with crossfire enabled vs crossfire disabled. Turns out that somewhere along the line my video drivers had gotten completely hosed (even after doing clean uninstalls and downgrading the driver). I decided before calling Dell that I'd do a complete system reload, and it fixed everything. Not to say that you don't have an actual HW problem (as you may very well have one), but if reloading is an option you'd consider, it "might" resolve the problem.

Good luck either way!

 

To do an update*

I did a total wipe on the computer. My issue still isn't fixed. I don't know if its because of my i5 processor, but it shouldn't be because when I had 4870's in crossfire I was getting double performance than a single card. All of my games are running nearly the same performance but here are my benchmark score

 

Ok maybe this is really basic and you already tried it but what you are going through sounds exactly like what caused me to get 3 sets of cards replaced for no real reason...

In the Catalyst Control Center (CCC-command? control? what ever it is called...) you should have ALL the sliders all the way to the left EXCEPT the catalyst A.I. and the Mipmap level, both of which should be all the way to the right. That is to say that everything should either be off or application controlled except those 2 cateragories.

Whenever I had the dell drivers installed and messed with any of the other settings everything went to hell for me just like you are discribing. Especially the general category "standard settings" I think it was called in the "basic" view of CCC. Every other computer I ever owned I turned that all the way to "performance", but on my m17x r2 doing so causes everything to go to hell...even now with the ATI catalyst 11.3 drivers installed.