4870 Cross-Fire FPS Slow down?

Hey, I know I've read a couple posts by people who experienced occasional FPS slowdowns in games while running games with 4870 crossfire setup on M17x-r1s. I personally hadn't had the issue with every game, but I noticed it with a few. The issue is that every once in awhile FPS gets cut down to like 10-15fps for like a second or 2.
Left4dead 2 runs flawlessly for me, but games I've had this issue on are: crysis, divinity 2, SW: the force unleashed, supreme commander forged alliance. The issue goes away when crossfire is disabled tho. I've had these results with catalyst 9.12 mobility-modded.
I'm leaning towards doing a fresh install of win7 because I haven't done so since swapping cards..but has anyone had this issue on a fresh install?

 

Thought the 4870's fixed the stuttering problem guess not

 

Well audio stuttering and DPC latency etc are non-existent...but now I'm having random slowdowns associated with crossfire and certain games. I'd say the problem is unrelated to the stutter problem people were having with Nvidias

 

What your experiencing is exactly what i had with the M17x when running SLI... Running a single card was fine or disabling 2 cores of the CPU also fixed the issue... I would maybe call Dell...

 

lol. i thought ati "problem-free"
maybe this is microstutter or not existing proper profile for crossfire? if driver hasn't profile for game for dual cards utilising it may occur slowdowns i think

 

Also check the drivers you are using. Mandrake had given the best drivers to use with the 4870 in the M17X.

I forgot though which ones.

 

Micro stutter, is not like 'experiencing FPS drop to the 10-15 range out of the blue.' It's literally what it reads, micro stutter; frame rate feeling 'mildly jittery'. What our OP is experiencing, sounds like actual stuttering.

You should look out for the best drivers as recommended by Mandrake; he has tested these cards and pushed them to their limits.

 

Exactly what I told him but I could not find the post where Mandrake has the link to the best drivers for the ATI.

 

Yeah I've been looking for mandrake's post..No luck so far. Guess I'll try a bunch of different drivers for now. If you're around Mandrake..any suggestions!?

 

just pm him and ask

 

Yes.

This might help:
http://www.notebookforums.com/thread230061.html

Mandrake's personal review of the best tweaked setup for the M17x, from the ideal hardware to the ideal software/drivers.

 

Cool thanks. I had the 9.12 with hotfix...maybe I'll try and reinstall it without.

 

Momiji1,

Make sure you are using the A03 bios... When I had my cards swapped I was warned in advance by Dell Escalations that if I was using anything earlier the swap would not correct the issue.

- Denver

 

Hmm still get problem with just 9.12 catalyst. was playing crysis and after about 20 mins fps got slow...like 10...then it gradually sped up back to normal in a span of about 10 seconds.
Temps never went above 61.. and yea I have A03.

 

Does it look like this

 

yep! pretty much.
on a side note - i'm surprised my 4870s only get like around 22 fps for me AA off in crysis when moving around. not sure if its related tho

 

That sounds more like one card running to me.

 

Thats exactly what i had going on across to many games to even count.... Drove me insane ....

 

Possibly. Although it also sounds like a bad crossfire config.

A single Radeon 4870 shouldn't be doing 22 when a well-scaled crossfire does around 28-30 (very high). Then again, I don't know how well crossfire works with this game, and I also don't know what settings we're talking about when it comes to Crysis.

 

Yep..looks like that what the problem was...bad secondndary card. Tried testing a couple more games...certain ones caused a crazy loud electrical buzzing sound from the right card. So I called it in and got a replacement en route. Thanks for your help guys..finally narrowed it down

 

that's what i am also experiencing.

 

so after swaping bad card all ok now?

 

Well that's what I'm hoping for. Will let you know when it comes if that fixes the problem.

 

Ya good luck we changed 5 video cards still the same they finally sent me a replacment system exact same problem

 

dual video cards is just really, really.... really bad in general, one gpu is ALWAYS the best

 

Yes, a strong single GPU is always consistent.

But. . . with laptops, what other choice to we have in order to play games at enthusiast settings?

 

become an engineer and... yea

 

Lol pretty much none until laptops become the equivalent power of desktops which i dont see happening anytime soon ...

 

I was originally a desktop user; never believed in laptop power. Then moved on to the simplicity of consoles, because I had too many other issues.

Ever since, I have moved back to computers, but laptops, since it isn't practical for me to manage a desktop. I would certainly like the power, but can't deal with the other challenges of the package.

 

Seems like chipset to me...

guess we will find out when the R2s get fired up.

 

seems like nvidia just gave up when ati came on board.

 

i experince this b4 and was drove me crazy also, but i fixed this problem recently with the program called "ThrottleStop" which is develope by UncleWebb. i always thought it was my GPU issue and spent lots of time to find the solution but the problem still remain. Since i read the thread from 5150Joker http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=439546 which is fix the m15x Throttling Issue. im now reliased maybe im suffering the same issue and gave it a try. and now i can play crysis on very high with no AA and didnt experince any stuttering at all. i recomend u guys to try this out and is really work for me.

 

Will Throttle Stop work properly with qx9300 tho? Says i7. Maybe a noob question, but just wanna make sure!

 

u'r kidding i'm going insane now.. stuttering or throttling.. somebody please tell me could dell make something "problem-free"?.. (sarcasm, it's a rhetorical question, it hasn't an answer..)

 

My spec Qx9300 with 280m SLi. its work fine for me.

 

Nice one trying now Update didn't work for me do i have to mess with any settings in ThrottleStop

 

open "ThrottleStop" and checkmark the "Clock Moduration" and "Chipset Clock Mod". make sure both r running 100% and again make sure ThrottleStop is Enable. Minimize to ur tray and start a game to test.

 

OMG IT WORKS thanks rep for you

 

Thats Great! Glad is work for u also. i think we all r facing the CPU Throttling Issue but not GPU. With 'ThrottleStop' enable u could even try overclock higher than b4. i`m stable at 3.2 now and with 'ThrottleStop' disable i got bluescreen after 1 min i boot in to window. once again recomend to all u guys whose facing the same problem.

 

I second that! problem with is gone with ThrottleStop running. All games run flawlessly now

 

Well, what do ya' know. . . something that works. Hah.

I'll keep this in mind incase I run into problems. Just had a problem-free session with Crysis Warhead.

 

Just to confirm, this is a quad only issue right?

 

Oh my god - I just tried trottlestop with a t9800, 280 GTX SLI system and I am not getting stutter any more!

I almost cant believe it.

 

Its really great to work for everyone here. Our Machine finally show it true power with jus a little software fix. Hope DELL will gonna fix this with the new BIOS update. And of course thanks to the developer UncleWebb!

 

The only problem is that the system runs more than it should with that app. I tried it yesterday and my fans were running at max power all the time during WOW. This never happened before...

 

The GPU stay at 100% load until the CPU starting throttled. The 'Throttlestop' is lock ur CPU at 100% load to prevent GPU throttles with them. i suspected b4 will i get any extra Temp from my CPU? But suprisingly my Temp jus as cool as b4 even with 'Throttlestop' enable. Try monitor ur CPU Temp during game play...

 

[/QUOTE]I almost cant believe it.[/QUOTE]

Me to had to pinch myself thought i was dreaming. Now we can truly enjoy our machines

 

Did anyone confirm?

 

If it's true then they should be able to do a BIOS update to integrate what that software does and correct the problem.

 

Well I have a core2duo t9800 - so it can't just be a quad issue - its not too hard to try, if it works it works, if it doesnt it doesnt - like less than 1min to download the program and run.

i have tried installing and reinstalling vista, win7, drivers, updates to fix my stuttering - now that was painfull!