M17x R1 - 5870 Crossfire problems

Dear NotebookReview!

I just installed two HD 5870's to my R1, this is the procedure that i did;

Uninstalled Nvidia Drivers for my 260m GTX
Removed 260m
Replaced with 1 HD5870.
Booted back in, installed Catalyst control center.
Turned of, putted in the second HD5870.

When i booted back into windows to enable Crossfire, there is no option at all to enable the crossfire functionality, and in Catalyst Controle Center it sais that the secondary card is "disabled" / non active.


What have i done wrong? Is there any special way to get the dual cards to cooperate?
- Scott.

 

Did you flash the vbios? May want to take the vbios from the first card and flash it to the second. But before trying that, I'd try to reset the system bios by pulling the CMOS battery for a min or two.

 

vBios, whats that?
I flashed the BIOS from dells site to A07 (R1)

Please explain!

 

Follow these steps, it will allow you to pull the vbios from one card and flash it to the second card.

 

vBIOS = the graphics card's BIOS (video BIOS)

Find it on Dell's support site under M17x R2.
HERE:
Drivers and Downloads

Flash both of your cards with that BIOS.

But before you do that,DR has a point: do clear the CMOS first and see if you can enable CF.
Make sure that Hybrid SLi is disabled in system's BIOS, just in case.

 

Ok, should i flash the cards before or after i install the drivers?
Also, should the crossfire-cable be connected?

 

It doesn't matter if you flash before or after, the cards ID will remain the same, same with the crossfire cable, leave it there, won't change anything.

 

Umm... yea! only if you want crossfire to work

Flash before.

 

I meant while flashing the cards..

 

I figured this is what you meant that's why i said it doesn't matter, though it did confused me too the first time i read your post

 

I'm sorry

Here is an picture of how ive assembeled the cards, just to make shure that the cards are on the correct sides? (The card with the connector is on the left, the right side card is welded i think?)

http://i40.tinypic.com/289x8np.jpg

Should both the cards appear under "graphics adapters" in the "device manager" menu?

 

No, it's not welded, you just can't see it because it's under the card's heatsink.
Both cards are exactly the same.

So, what's your status?

 

Ok, so both the cards are shown under device manager.
Both cards are shown in the Catalyst center, where one is primary, other one is deactivated.

I started up the vBios update, but i got an error message telling me its only intended to be used on an m17x, also that update cannot be performed on the system.


What have i done wrong?

 

Also, i removed the coin-cell battery and now, sometimes, during boot-up, the screen won't start up, but the CPU fan is maxed out.

Edit : Forget about that, windows boots fine now, time and date was set back to 2008, so i updated it. Still can't get the vBios you linked to work, Katalin.
SS of my catalyst center and the install;

http://i40.tinypic.com/r01mdi.png

 

That might be a check that Dell implemented so the flash will work only on the R2. You can get it from someone that can dump it for you and use atiflash (se DR650SE's post above on how to)

does GPU-Z show both cards? look under BIOS version, and post here what you have for both (to select the second one you have the drop down menu on the lower left part of GPU-Z).

 

GPu-Z shows two cards in the drop-down menu,
Bios for cards are the similiar as mentioned below;

012.020.000.027.037640
Edit: Device ID in Gpu-z is also showing the same.

-------------
Would the guide that Dr. posted earlier solve it? I mean, the bios is the same on both cards, won't his guide just copy one bios from one card to the another? (and in this case, i need to update?)

 

You do have the latest vBIOS already :/
Must be driver related or worst case, the CF cable.

Let's recap:
-you do see both cards in Device manager right?
-have you disabled hybrid SLi in BIOS? try that too and reinstall AMD drivers.

 

I just finished Dr's guide, but i got the message "Flash allready programmed".

What does that mean, Katalin? am i ed?

By the way, could you link me to the correct driver for the card? seeing as i've not seen any guides on how to apply Crossfire in the Catalyst center i'm running. (Check the screenshot, please).


Thank you guys,
- Scott.


Edit:
I don't think it can be the crossfire cable,
because there is no crossfire settings at all in the drivers. If there is no crossfire-cable, it should ask for it to be connected to enable?

Edit:

yes - I see both cards in Device Manager.
I have disabled Hybrid Graphics, as well as Integrated Graphics in the BIOS. (There is no Hybrid SLI)


Edit:
I've tried to reinstall the 11.10 drivers twice till now,
could you please link me to the proper drivers for the cards? Is there an own driver for crossfire mobile cards?

 

I sold these cards to Scott from my R2 why would he need to update the vbios

 

Install the Dell stock drivers and than the 11.10 over the Dell drivers. Sent install the Dell drivers at all.

But first do a clean sweep and start from scratch

 

DR650SE;
Start from scratch - Do you mean that i should remove all the drivers,
install the DELL ones, then get the 11.10,
then do the procedure with copying the graphics cards, or?

I don't need to remove my graphics cards while installing, right? I can just do anything without removing one of the cards?

- Scott.

 

Yea. All the video drivers. No need to remove All drivers. But hopefully that will work. Naively 5870s are not for the r1. But there is a guide here on the forum have you seen it?

Yea install Dell drivers than install 11.10. You shouldn't have to remove the cards.

 

M17xR1 - 5870 Crossfire running...


Found this if you haven't seen it yet.

 

Thank you, Dr!

I followed the guide, but it doesent thorougly describe what he did. (I've done what he did )


Ill try to remove the drivers and then start with the DELL ones,
do you have a link to it? (As i can't find it if i sarch up the m17x servicetag of mine).


Ill give an edited feedback on this, shortly!


Edit:
Ok, so i found the HD5870 drivers under the R2 version. Installing it now!

 

Ok guys, problem is solved! (Currently running CrossfireX enabled on 11.10)

Want to thank you all for trying to solve my problem, i really appriciate the dedication of you guys, and i think i might stick around at this forum - Seems like there is a lot of helpfull guys here, i could probably participate with some knowledge myself


What initially solved my problem, was going with the Radeon driver off of DELLs webpage, and then installing the 11.10 on top of that.


Thank you guys,
- Scott.

 

Thought that might do the trick. Glad to see another happy ending.

The thing is that if you do it in that manner, the drivers retain some of the functionality that the dell drivers had, and the AMD did not. So if you do a clean install, dell GPU drivers first is a must. Glad that worked out for you, and now you have nothing to do but enjoy that Crossfire setup

Glad you found a good place. Tons of knowledge here and welcome to NBR.

 

Woww another R1 user who has HD 5870 CF working...

 

Why don't you do an upgrade as well , Tyranus ?
I am really sorry inzelux, for not answer your questions . In fact , I wasn't able to connect to the internet at all , for the past month , too busy with my mid-term test . But if I could, that would definitely be my answer . Just go with the Dell's original driver first so that CF is recognized , then update it to the latest CCC . I am glad you realized that yourself though .
Why don't you do some benchmarking as well ? "And together we will rule the galaxy , like father and son =))"

 

Is just the upgrade is not that big for the money you have to expend. how much cost a couple of HD 5870?? $600?? and the diff.. is not that big compared to SLI GTX 280M, but I'm glad for people who are upgrading from single GTX 260M and stuff like that... so far HD 5870 is the best choice. Danyboy5609 if you are able to test HD 6970M and get it to work, I'll do the upgrade because that will be huge

 

The Dual HD 5870s costed me 450 bucks with the shipping included, so thats still a reasonably fair price if you ask me, and in fact, the performance "uprade" from the 280m's are pretty significant.



DannyBoy, I'll try to do some benchmarking tomorrow, what would the optimal software to use, be? 3Dmark 11?

- Scott.

 

In benchmarks maybe... but in real games......I don't think so.. wanna compare numbers?

 

Sure, Tyranus.

Do you have BF3?


- Scott.

 

I don't .. do you have Crysis 1 ??

The games I currently own are:

1. Assassin's Creed
2. Assassin's Creed 2
3. Batman Arkham Asylum
4. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
5. Dark Void
6. Dirt 2
7. GTA IV
8. NFS: Shift
9. Pes 2011
10. SH2, SH3, SHH
11. X-men Origins: Wolverine.
12. Far Cry 2

PS: My's GTX 280M are overclocked at 285M speed, but I can underclock them, to test at stock.

 

What is the speeds of your cards?
I've currently OC'd mine aswell, just a soft clock, but still..

I have BF:BC2.

- Scott.

 

Core 600/ Memory 1020/ Shader 1500

Is there a benchmark tool for BFBC2 ?

 

In the games that support SLI well , the GTX280M SLI overpower even a HD6970M ( Crysis / Mafia 2 ,...) , but if not , then they perform badly . Too bad that two of my favourite games was in the second catergory . They were MW2 and Dead Island , both didn't support SLI ( I think they weren't even Nvidia Optimized ) That's where I thought of an upgrade .

 

Core 800, memory 1100 is mine, else is stock.


Don't think so, we could simply just see whose 3Dmark 11 score that is highest, we have pretty similar computers, don't we? Only big difference would be the processor..


- Scott.

 

eeekkk , GTX280M is not DX11 supported , so 3dMark11 is out of question...

 

Exactly, GTX 280M only support up to DX10. I thnink one can get avarage fps using fraps for any game, but if we are going to compare we need to do the exact same level/time/ etc.. which is difficult.

 

Well, in my opinion, if your card don't even support DX11, then you're allready bummed Since DX11 is allready released and enhanced by the most requiring games out there.

But i get your point,
anyhow, as you say, it would be too unaccurate. A proper benchmark would be with the same computer, where you swap out the cards and run the same benchmark over and see what scores best..

- Scott.

 

Actually the 280M supports DX 10.1 but not DX 11

Compare Vantage GPU scores!