New here.. new build.. weird 4870x2 behavior.

[artemm]

Hey all. First post! (Sucks that it has to be this type of question.)

Anyway, I just recently set up my new build and am very satisfied so far (aside from one thing):
Phenom II 940BE (@ 3.5ghz)
ASUS M4a79 Del.
2x2 Corsair Dominator
Water cooling
2x146 gig Fujitsu 15K RPM SAS drives (RAID 0)
4x1TB Hitachi Deskstars (RAID 5)
Adaptec 4805SAS (PCIe SATA/RAID)
Enermax Galaxy DXX, 850W

And last, but not least: GIGABYTE Radeon HD 4870x2

Board flashed to latest BIOS. I'm running XP x64 with latest SP. All drivers were swept and reinstalled several times. Card is in blue PCIe 2.0 x16 slot (#3.) PCIe bus clock untouched. All settings in CCC are at default (except for fan.) GPUs have no water block (yet) and are using stock cooling.

What I'm seeing is that nothing I do causes the 2nd (1st?) core to kick in. I've logged using GPU-z and only one core sees activity in 3dmark06. Temps tell the same story. One core (second one in drop-down list) heats up dramatically, while the other one seems to heat up from ambient temps. As a side note, GPU-z reports insane values for only one of the cores (the first...) pic attached.

3dmark06 score: 15,400 (with Cat A.I. ON)
And get this: 15,600 WITH CAT A.I. OFF! Doesn't that normally disable one of the cores??

FWIW, it's around 14,000 at stock CPU freq.

If anyone's heard of this issue, I'd greatly appreciate some feedback. Hope my card isn't a dud

[CMetaphor]

To be perfectly honest... it sounds like a dud. Sorry to be a the bearer of bad news. At my work a few months ago I saw the same behavior from a 3870x2. Only thing is, after a few reboots / driver installs the second core stopped being detected at all... RMA?

Edit:
PS: Welcome to the Forum! (Sorry I forgot to mention that the first time, hehe)

[artemm]

Argh...

Well, I called Gig. tech support and they were pretty useless. The guy was eating something as he talked to me. He couldn't give me any real help because his source of info is the consumer website... he couldn't even tell me if there were any BIOS updates or if this issue happened before. He suggested installing the original drivers from the CD citing: "newer is not always better." What a joke.

I reorganized the power configuration in my case.. taking EVERYTHING off the 3rd and 4th rails (the ones used by the card) since this is great PSU, but only delivers 17/22A per rail.

Nada, same crap. Anyone have any other suggestions?

[rjbarker]

Go green.....sorry man..couldn't resist. Honestly...thats a real bummer...I'm sure you'll get it squared away some way some how.

[Efx]

Do you have another pc to throw them into? maybe use a friend's pc and try benching again...

[gingerbee]

my sonic did this for a very short time and it turned out it was because of vista not allowing the driver to be read but i mean like not even a day so watch out

[SKYMTL]

Here is what I am going to recommend:

Open up two instances of GPUz. Set one to log the usage of GPU0 and the other to log the usage of GPU1. Then run 3D Mark VANTAGE and report the GPU score. Forget 06. Also, report the GPU usage.

If the Usage is 100% for both cores and the GPU score falls within the acceptable ranges, then you are good to go.

If usage is at 100% and you are getting a buggered score, then reinstall Windows.

If usage is at less than 100% for both cores with Cat AI on, you have a buggered card

[artemm]

Originally Posted by Efx

Do you have another pc to throw them into? maybe use a friend's pc and try benching again...

I will try that after this weekend. He has more juice on the 12v rails.

Originally Posted by gingerbee

my sonic did this for a very short time and it turned out it was because of vista not allowing the driver to be read but i mean like not even a day so watch out

I have XP x64... so I'm not sure that applies.

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Open up two instances of GPUz. Set one to log the usage of GPU0 and the other to log the usage of GPU1. Then run 3D Mark VANTAGE and report the GPU score. Forget 06. Also, report the GPU usage.

If the Usage is 100% for both cores and the GPU score falls within the acceptable ranges, then you are good to go.

If usage is at 100% and you are getting a buggered score, then reinstall Windows.

If usage is at less than 100% for both cores with Cat AI on, you have a buggered card

Here's what's going on in the logs:
Core 1:
- Activity: blips of 1-6%
- Clocks 507 core, 900 memory (yeah, weird, I know)
- GPU temp: peaks at 38C (hey, at least it's running nice and cool, lol)
- VDDC current doesn't budge from 17.6A

Core 2:
- Activity: 99% during all tests except CPU
- Clock: core jumps from 507 to 700 when program starts, 900 mem
- GPU temp: peaks at a toasty 66C
- VDDC current: peaks at about 52A

Again, I have XP, so Vantage isn't an option. I know it utilizes the card better, but I doubt it'll magically revive the first core.

Thanks for the input so far guys. I've gotten an RMA number, so I'll be wasting money on shipping in about a week if I can't figure this thing out.

[artemm]

RESOLVED! .. kinda

It was something with CCC. I don't know what it was, but I reinstalled drivers without CCC and the frame rates have shot up. Both cores are working normally. I'm using RivaTuner now instead, but I'm a little concerned that I can't use CCC.. it has some useful features. Ah well... maybe it'll be resolved in a future update.

At least my 3mark06 score is OVER NINE THOUSAND now.