AMD HD Radeon 6870 Crossfire causes BSOD and Freezing in games

[Renzokucant]

Hey everyone. I just recently bought another card to xfire for my rig. Since ive done this however my games randomly freeze or bsod, or freeze with a loud buzz until i shut my rig down.. i think its a driver issue, because it used to do it when i had 1 card and i bumped it down to like 11.10 and everything worked fine.. but when i got the new card, apparently 11.10 didnt support xfire.. so i had to update to 11.12.. and now i have my issue..

850w PSU

12GB DDR3 Ripjaw G.skill Ram

ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz OC to 3.6GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ955FBGIBOX

>>>>>>SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100314VXSR Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card ...

Crossfired with >>>> SAPPHIRE 100314-3L Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

with Coolermast HAF 932 Advanced

 

[mgp1964]

When having stability problems the first thing you want to do is not OC, don't start OC until you have the system running stabile.
Check you ram timings in BIOs and make sure they are correct.
Try bumping up you ram voltage and see if that helps.
Try upping your graphic card voltage a little.

 

[Renzokucant]

ok ill try that and post back

 

[Renzokucant]

Here is a screenie of my GPUZ

and here is a image of my CPUZ report... If someone can look at that for me and maybe tell me if my voltages are off for what i got it set as, i always get confused as to what they should be..

 

[Renzokucant]

OK, so put my Processor back to 3.2ghz stock. and checked my memory, its at 1.5v recommended for 1600. and i tried running benchmark on arkham city. it ran fine, ive had physx enabled even though i dont have ATI cards, the benchmark finished with about 25fps ave with physx on and max of 55. but then when i went to exit the benchmark, game froze and a very loud noise persisted until i had to hard reset the comp....

 

[scrooge]

i think that vcore voltage of 1.519 is set too high causing your system to overheat well playing games.
what do your temps look like ?

scrooge

 

[scrooge]

just found this on newegg maybe it will you.

Manufacturer Response:
Dear Valued Customer,

Sorry to hear about the issues. 16GB and 32GB functionality is very much processor dependant (Deneb CPUs have limitiations when it comes to memory frequency with high density modules).

In any case, relaxing some of the memory timings and increasing CPU/NB voltage can help stabilize the system:

1) Set DRAM Read to Read to 7

2) Set Command Rate to 2T (AKA Command Mode)

3) Set CPU/NB voltage to around 1.30V

4) Set DRAM VOltage (VDIMM) to the specified voltage of the memory used.

Regards
ASUS Customer Support


scrooge

 

[Renzokucant]

i will play a game soon and then screenie coretemp and post it. Lets close that door first, then i can try the voltage and timings on the memory etc. stay tuned!

 

[mgp1964]

Can you post a pic of your memory settings with CPU-Z.

 

[Renzokucant]

here's a pic of the memory.. my Mother board initially had it set to 1300 but its 1600 stock, i read that some boards like mine for some reason always set it to 1300, so i manually changed it to 1600, but checked on my packaging for the memory that its supposed to be 1600 for sure.

 

[Renzokucant]

I also feel that its worth noting that my first card is plugged directly into my PSU using the PCI-E connections, however the second card is plugged in using the PCI-E chords it came with which has the PCI-E connection on one end, and a molex connection on the other.... my PSU is modular and if i had more of the same cords i used for the first i woulda done that with the second, but i didnt know if it mattered or not.

 

[Renzokucant]

i think that vcore voltage of 1.519 is set too high causing your system to overheat well playing games.
what do your temps look like ?

scrooge

i cant remember or find what the stock voltage of my processor is supposed to be

 

[scrooge]

i think that vcore voltage of 1.519 is set too high causing your system to overheat well playing games.
what do your temps look like ?

scrooge

i cant remember or find what the stock voltage of my processor is supposed to be

Voltage 0.875V - 1.5V
yours is set to 1.519 thats why i'm saying it's set to high.
the max should be 1.5v.
scrooge

 

[Renzokucant]

i think that vcore voltage of 1.519 is set too high causing your system to overheat well playing games.
what do your temps look like ?

scrooge

i cant remember or find what the stock voltage of my processor is supposed to be

Voltage 0.875V - 1.5V
yours is set to 1.519 thats why i'm saying it's set to high.
the max should be 1.5v.
scrooge

ok cool thats good information to know then lol. for my future knowledge, think you can kinda elaborate on how high voltage like that can cause it to overheat or freeze up etc?

 

[scrooge]

the higher the voltage the more heat it makes. i'd turn it down to maybe 1.24v and see what happens. also putting to much voltage to the cpu can damage it. ( not saying it will just that it can).

scrooge

 

[scrooge]

this site may help you out a little more with voltage settings and heat.

Overclocking AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz - [H]ard|Forum

scrooge

 

[Renzokucant]

Great link, learned a lot Im going to put all back on stock for now.... question though, what if in bios the voltage is on auto, if it is why would it put my volts so high, and should I just lock it at something like 3.5 etc.

 

[Renzokucant]

ok.. i tried bumping the voltage down to 1.375 and i could only play a game for about 10mins before massive freezing... im totally stumped here... before with 1 card and the voltage at 1.5v and OC to 3.6ghz i was having 0 issues, but add another card and all of a sudden im crash central.. no idea what to do now.

 

[Renzokucant]

dropped the voltage to 1.3v... still froze. so i put it to auto...