[RavageTheEarth]

...and its affecting the performace. Also, I can't monitor the GPU2 temps in afterburner. The cards are an MSI twin frozr III 7950 with a Sapphire Dual x 7950. I tried sliding the power control to 20% and it didn't help. This is my first time crossfiring so I'm totally lost. Someone told me that I would have to flash the bios to non boost cards and that is the only way it will fix it. I can't even find the bios switch on my cards. So confused... I do have the bios's handy so it is possible for me to do that

 

[LukeJoseph]

Hey brother man! Glad you got the card. I can try to help, but all I can suggest is the steps (at least in testing/monitoring) that I did.

Are they both "boost cards"? Or is one boost, and one just an "OC" card?

I did not use AB at all during my testing. I only used GPU-Z (running two instances, one for each card) for monitoring, and then CCC/Overdrive for any type of overclocking/stabilization. I felt like if I couldn't get the cards stable in CCC (with no or a slight OC) then why use AB?

What you might be running into with the monitoring in Afterburner, and you will run into this with GPU-Z. Is that GPU-2 is actually "off" when not in use. i.e. a very very low power state. You have a couple of options. When you open GPU-Z if you wait 5 seconds before selecting GPU-2, you will hear GPU-2's fan kick on, and then it SHOULD show properly in the sensors tab. Doesn't always work though, so what I will do is open up MSI Kombuster. You don't need to run any of the tests, just by opening it, Kombuster will kick on both GPU's. After Kombuster is open, then open up GPU-Z. You can close Kombuster after that.

In CCC/Overdrive, since you mentioned +20 isn't working. Try a mild OC (bump the core up by 10-20mhz), make sure each card is matching.

If that doesn't work, you can put the non boost card as slave, and the boost card as primary. And I can almost guarantee your issue will go away. That is how I have my TFIII's setup right now. My Boost card (using the bios you sent me, which out of the BIOS's I have tried it is a good one), is my primary, and my non boost TFIII running it's stock "OC" bios (880mhz, 1.13v) is the slave. And it is solid/stable etc....

Something to think about though, is that I did flash the bios you sent me on both of my cards so they were both "boost" and and it was stable. i.e. no jumping core. And I could push the OC further in CCC than before due to the 1.25v. BUT it made my "non-boost" card's VRam much much hotter than with with any other bios. Stock BIOS I never really get above 65, but with the boost bios you sent me I was getting in the high 90's.

The bios switch, at least on the TFIII is right by the crossfire connections on the card. Both my cards are 7970 PCB's though, so I guess they might have removed the switch from the standard 7950 PCB, although I doubt it.

 

[RavageTheEarth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LukeJoseph

Hey brother man! Glad you got the card. I can try to help, but all I can suggest is the steps (at least in testing/monitoring) that I did.

Are they both "boost cards"? Or is one boost, and one just an "OC" card?

I did not use AB at all during my testing. I only used GPU-Z (running two instances, one for each card) for monitoring, and then CCC/Overdrive for any type of overclocking/stabilization. I felt like if I couldn't get the cards stable in CCC (with no or a slight OC) then why use AB?

What you might be running into with the monitoring in Afterburner, and you will run into this with GPU-Z. Is that GPU-2 is actually "off" when not in use. i.e. a very very low power state. You have a couple of options. When you open GPU-Z if you wait 5 seconds before selecting GPU-2, you will hear GPU-2's fan kick on, and then it SHOULD show properly in the sensors tab. Doesn't always work though, so what I will do is open up MSI Kombuster. You don't need to run any of the tests, just by opening it, Kombuster will kick on both GPU's. After Kombuster is open, then open up GPU-Z. You can close Kombuster after that.

In CCC/Overdrive, since you mentioned +20 isn't working. Try a mild OC (bump the core up by 10-20mhz), make sure each card is matching.

If that doesn't work, you can put the non boost card as slave, and the boost card as primary. And I can almost guarantee your issue will go away. That is how I have my TFIII's setup right now. My Boost card (using the bios you sent me, which out of the BIOS's I have tried it is a good one), is my primary, and my non boost TFIII running it's stock "OC" bios (880mhz, 1.13v) is the slave. And it is solid/stable etc....

Something to think about though, is that I did flash the bios you sent me on both of my cards so they were both "boost" and and it was stable. i.e. no jumping core. And I could push the OC further in CCC than before due to the 1.25v. BUT it made my "non-boost" card's VRam much much hotter than with with any other bios. Stock BIOS I never really get above 65, but with the boost bios you sent me I was getting in the high 90's.

The bios switch, at least on the TFIII is right by the crossfire connections on the card. Both my cards are 7970 PCB's though, so I guess they might have removed the switch from the standard 7950 PCB, although I doubt it.

Thanks man. They are both boost cards and I tried to flash the BIOS's on both cards to non-boost to fix the problem and it was an EPIC, let me say it again EPIC, fail. The MSI card failed and I'm pretty sure I bricked the Sapphire's BIOS 1, although luckily BIOS 2 still works.