Alienware m17 - Crossfire enabled?

I recieved my alienware m17 with dual ATI 3870s yesterday. However, how do I know if crossfire is enabled or not? I visited ATIs site, and it showed how the devices should appear in the device manager/display adapter list, as four cards(master and slave). Mine doesnt, it just shows two 3870s with no tags. Then it says to open CCC and I should see a crossfire options under the advanced menu, again I dont have that option. Did I get two master cards? Or was the ATI site just out of date? How do I know it is running in crossfire?

 

..hmmm i guess a 3dmark would help if you get a high score(13,000+)

 

Since the M17 is based off the OCZ Whitebook, I would suggest you take a look in the OCZ section under "Other Manufacturers". There have been a few people that have posted there regarding the M17 and you may be able to find your answer. If not, if you create a thread there I'm sure people would be more than willing to help.

I myself have a Whitebook with the dual 3870's and in device manager (Vista) for me it only lists two under display adapters and crossfire works for me.

 

I would suggest downloading and running the free version of 3d mark 06. If you get more that ~12,500, then it's a pretty sure thing that you're crossfire is working properly.

http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/3dmark06/download/

 

As ive seen from other people's 3dmark scores you should have a score around 11.000-12.000, if your score is around that range then your cards are just fine.

If your score is around 8-9.000 then something is wrong

 

as people said, your Score should be in the range of 11k-12k depending on your CPU, if you had something like a 2.4ghz C2D then you should be expecting around 11,500 to 12000

 

I just ran it and recieved 12,135, so I would say its working. I am not allowed to post the image yet otherwise I would post the results. Thank you to all who helped.

Now to the next question which I will post in the alienware forum, ram...

 

Zevooptik, dunno if you will read this now as it was December you last posted.

But anyway.... your alienware M71 Crossfire does not have crossfire enabled.
When you enter the ATI Catalyst Command Centre you should see at the bottom of the settings tree an icon for Crossfire. (This is not there - reason to come)
Also in your device manager you should have 4 cards instead of the 2 (these are not there either -reason to come)

Reason - Alienware have messed up BIG time. The M71 is not crossfire enabled as they do not have drivers that support the cross fire on the M71.
Alienware are working desperately to fix this problem by the end of January.
I know this as I was speaking to one of their techs today regarding the same problem as yourself. I was disgusted, considering they have advertised this laptop as an Alienware M71 Crossfire notebook except it doesn't do crossfire, yet(tm).............

I have received confirmation that a full refund will be offered and collection made available if the issue is not resolved before end of Jan 2009.

I am seriously thinking of opting for this now as I am sickened that a company could give out a product that specifically states it does something and doesn't do it at all.

BTW I paid €2862 for this laptop.

 

MickSlo,

With all due respect, I have to call 'BS' on your post. There's plenty of evidence of people in these forums with working Crossfire for their system with benchmarks on what a crossfire and non-crossfire system and how it should perform. The reason why I think this post isn't true is because you miss type the m17 as an m71 not once, but several times. It appears your adamant that this is in fact an m71. I'm not sure why anyone would put down such a large amount of cash on a system but not get the name of the system correct. Maybe you've been had (scammed)... who knows.

Drivers have typically come for the vendor of the GPU card itself and not directly from Alienware. All they would do is mirror the file or at best, put their logo into the install file.

 

My crossfireX desktop only shows 2 devices in the device manager. Try downloading GPU-Z. It clearly indicates ATI CrossFire Enabled (2 GPUs) on the bottom. If two cards are connected properly but crossfire is disabled, it will state ATI CrossFire Disabled (available).

 

Not in the mood to start a conversation about this so i hope this helps.

 

How are the drivers on this... as far as getting new drivers to use in CF? Because CF 3870s w/P8600, 4GB DDR3 & 320GB 7200rpm HDD for $2050 sounds like a steal.

But I'd be worried about proper driver support.

 

Drivers atm are pretty good, especially after the 8.12 got released. Boosted the performance in a lot of games.

In a few days the new drivers should be out, hopefully we will see even more performance gains from those, at least thats what the leaked info make us believe.