Aurora dual 5770s crossfire low fps

I am working from home today, so at lunch I was able to do an uninstall of the CCC. I ran driver sweeper and cleaned out all things ATI, and installed CCC 10.7... I seem to be at 22FPS average now.

I can now get to the BIOS and being a non-OC'r (thats why I went with the factory OC) I am not sure what to set for the stock clock. The 'Adjust CPU BClk MHz' is set to 160, with the min option of 133 and the max option of 300.

for the voltages: 'Dynamic CPU Vcore Offset is set to the lowest setting of +20mv with a max option of 300mv. The IOH voltage is also set to the lowest setting of 1.10v with a max option of 1.65v. The non selectable Vcore is at 1.256v

I did also notice that the PCI-E freq is set to 100 with an option to set it to 200.

I have been trying to follow all of the suggestions you all have offered, but it does seem that something here is amiss.

Next as suggested before, benchmark! Hoping I dont need to reformat.

Are both your video cards installed in the 1st & 2nd PCI-E Slots? or are they installed in the 1st and 3rd PCI-E Slots?

On the Aurora X-58, there is only two x16 slots . There are also two x1 slots, but they each get covered up as you install a dual-slot video card. The Service Manual says they are both x16 slots.

oops, that's what I get for not reading the 1st post or the title. lol. I was talking about the ALX.

Are both your video cards installed in the 1st & 2nd PCI-E Slots? or are they installed in the 1st and 3rd PCI-E Slots?

On the Aurora X-58, there is only two x16 slots . There are also two x1 slots, but they each get covered up as you install a dual-slot video card. The Service Manual says they are both x16 slots.

Yes, the thread is getting a little long ... but not that much work has really been done or accomplished I mean, I could have done what the OP has done in a few hours at most.

But yes ... if they want to send it back, (and I suppose start over) they have that option. I think it's only 30 days though, and I'm not sure when that count-down starts exactly. But, I don't spend hours on here trying to help people ... and get involved in Dell's policies. They can take that up with Dell.

And yes, I agree ... On the Aurora X-58, I think the 5870 is the best option (maybe that's why I bought that config ). I always like single-card solutions anyway. If you want bigger/faster cards or CrossFire-X/SLI ... IMHO, I would suggest you look into an Area-51 or custom build.

Tesla,   Yes. both run at x16 2.0.

Thanks ... good to know.

Also, in Device Manager ... with two recent model 5xxx AMD-ATI cards installed in CrossFire-X config ... in Device Manger, it shows as 2 separate cards, right?

Tesla,

Yes. both run at x16 2.0.

Yes 2 separate cards. 

So, I came across this and started doing my own checking on my system.  I have a M17x-R2 with 5870's in crossfire x.  I also play wow, and have crossfire x enabled, and my frame rates are usually 48-74 depending on the zone (all set to Ultra).  The only place I drop below 40 is in a big city with a huge amount of people and then I have seen it go as low as 24.  The one thing I did notice was with GPU-Z I am having the same issue about the PCI-E...... it says I have the ability to have PCI-E 2 x 16, but I am running at PCI-E 2  x 8.  I have the newest CCC drivers from the ATI site, and I have the latest video card BIOS, so how do you set the cards to be able to run at the full 16?  I am sorry to the OP to hear you are having issues, and I know how frustrating that can be.  I would check your mutlisampling to see if that is to high, I had to play with that some, but everything else is set to ultra.

P.S. I play in windowed mode

P.P.S.  I found out, my MoB can only handle PCI-E 2 x 8.....so ignore that part

I can now get to the BIOS and being a non-OC'r (thats why I went with the factory OC) I am not sure what to set for the stock clock. The 'Adjust CPU BClk MHz' is set to 160, with the min option of 133 and the max option of 300.

Write down the settings, then remove the OC by loading Default Values.

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kcs/document?c=us&cs=19&docid=117679&doclang=en&l=en&s=dhs

On this system:

Dell XPS 410 ~ Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 (2.4 ghz) ~ 4 gigs ddr2-667 ~ Corsair 750w PS ~ ATI XFX Radeon HD 5770 1GB (Single)
Dell 22" e228wfp LCD ~ Win-7 Pro 64-bit

1680x1050 at 60Hz and Vertical Sync ON
Graphics Slider: Good

Farming in Lands: 60 FPS
In town: 60 FPS
In town (heavily populated): 30-35 FPS

I think with Vertical Sync on we are limited to 60 FPS. I also noticed in Advanced, there are some limits on foreground and background FPS (we left those on defaults but did notice they are NOT maxed out). Game is very fluid and graphics are always perfect (no tearing).

If you are looking for max FPS, try changing Vertical Sync, Graphics Slider, or those Advanced Limits. If it has AA setting, be sure it's off also.

Sorry it has taken so long to get here, but as I mentioned, I did have a house full of family visiting for the holidays and I do have a fulltime job. Also, I never claimed to be a leet geek, but I did do what had been done in a few hours total. I have built a few high end systems with no issues, the most recent one that runs WoW at 45-60FPS.

Sorry for the mis-understanding. I did not mean to imply anything like that.

It was really a post to the person that said "with all these problems, you should just send it back".

IMHO, the problems are not that severe nor has the trouble-shooting taken that much time so far. It sounds like you are more than capable of working on this problem (while others might not be up to it). Sending it back is an option, but that would set off a whole chain reaction of events ... all because of some low FPS numbers in WoW ? Again, it's up to you.

Update: final post for this tired old thread 

Yes, the thread is getting a little long ... but not that much work has really been done or accomplished I mean, I could have done what the OP has done in a few hours at most.

  Sorry it has taken so long to get here, but as I mentioned, I did have a house full of family visiting for the holidays and I do have a fulltime job. Also, I never claimed to be a leet geek, but I did do what had been done in a few hours total. I have built a few high end systems with no issues, the most recent one that runs WoW at 45-60FPS. The whole point of buying this setup was that it is a fairly high end system that I assumed I could turn it on and be able to get the expected performance NOT 24FPS!!! If my 2 1/2 year old machine (core 2 duo 2.8 - GT240 - 2GB ram) can get 45-60fps, then a new alienware should do as good or better.

  I think the whole issue was a result of the the primary PCI-E running normal speed and the secondary PCI-E running at half speed.

GPU-Z listed the PCI-E busses as:

Card 1 - PCI-E 2.0 x16 @ x16 2.0

Card 2 - PCI-E 2.0 x16 @ x8 2.0

  With the first 5770 of the two cards listed in the dropdown menu showed x16 and the second showed x8. In my tests, crossfired on the 2 cards - 24fps, with one card in the top primary slot - 24fps, with the second card solo in the primary slot - 24fps. Flashed the VBIOS onto both cards... same result. Clean installed Dell's catalyst (10.7) driver... same result. Put both cards back in and checked that CCC had crossfire enabled, GPU-Z has same specs listed, and still got 24fps.

  And that brings me now to Benchmark time. I downloaded Unigine Heaven 2.1 and got a 896 score with both cards and 481 for either card running in the top PCI-E and I thought that was fairly weak compared to similar systems with almost double those scores. Now this is where it starts to get more confusing. I downloaded 3DMark06 and ran 3 times with crossfire and got an average of 21300... hmmm, that seems pretty good, I ran it 3 times with each card solo in the top slot with an average of 17000, I'm thinking this seems around where I think it possibly should be. Fired up GPU-Z, low and behold, both slots now show 16x! Launched WoW and zomg, 60FPS!! What the?

  So now I get 60FPS in WoW with crossfire, or with either card in the main PCI-E. I can almost live with that, but what the heck happened? Will it go back to 24FPS tomorrow or 2 weeks from now? Today is my last day to cancel and return and I think I am going to do exactly that. To me it seems that there is an intermitant speed issue with the PCI-E slots and I cannot have confidance that it wont revert back to the way it was. Would it be worthwhile to have a tech come out and replace the MOBO? I dont know. I might order another one when this one gets credited back.

I do want to thank everyone who posted for their time, knowledge, and efforts! You have been most appreciated!

Today is my last day to cancel and return and I think I am going to do exactly that.

Your decision is surprising.

In a detailed trouble-shooting thread (where, in the end you fixed it) you still decided to send it back anyway.

Fired up GPU-Z, low and behold, both slots now show 16x! Launched WoW and zomg, 60FPS!! What the?   So now I get 60FPS in WoW with crossfire, or with either card in the main PCI-E. I can almost live with that, but what the heck happened?

Since this thread will stay, and someone might actually search this forum looking for answers one day, I think some explanation is in order (I hate mysteries).

Troubleshooting Dual Video Cards in X-58 based AW Desktops