M18x R2, lockups while playing World of Warcraft

Hello Tempdale,

According to this article from Blizzard, WoW doesn't support multiple video card set up. Check it out:

World of Warcraft Video Troubleshooting (PC)

It also provides a few recommendations of what you can do if you are experiencing video issues while playing that game.

I am having the exact same problem. I am running on the exact same settings as you. Would be very interested in a response to your question.

Thank you for the feedback.  However the Blizzard link you listed was for WoW version 4.0.1 Blizzard is now on 5.0.5 and support a 64bit vesion which was not around during 4.0.1

Many people have successfully been running Crossfire and SLI dual graphic cards with WoW since 4.0.1.  As WoW does not officially take advantage of Crossfire enabled dual graphics cards, it does not have a known incompatibility with them according to Blizzard.  

I have checked that link before and have checked my temperatures etc. to disprove that as an issue.

My current change to fix this issue has been going with DirectX 9 rather than 11, however there is a FPS reduction with doing this as WoW supports DirectX 11 more efficiently.  

So far DirectX 9 has not had any screen lockups, however I have only used this for an hour or so last night.  I will keep you posted if this is a work around.  However it is a work around that degrades the performance which is disappointing.

I did find it mandatory to upgrade to the latest 7970M drivers and Catalyst drivers to run WoW initially.  The factory installed Video drivers were a disaster with WoW.  It was unplayable.  I strongly suggest upgrading to the latest drivers from AMD.  

Blizzard has also suggested that if DirectX 9 is not a solution that launching WoW with the openGL configuration is another option.  However I believe this is another option that has reduced performance.

I have found that lowering the settings from Ultra to High or lower does not effect the lockups.  Therefore I have my settings on Ultra with 4x Multi-sampling.

I should add to this problem as it has changed but still exists.

With AMD 7970M driver updates I no longer get the lockups while playing World of Warcraft and I can also use DirectX 11, however I do get Blue Screens (BSOD) requiring a reboot when launching WoW.

I have been through numerous tech support calls and twice as many AMD driver updates as I try the new ones including betas when they look semi stable. The problem still exists after months of AMD updates.

Other  people are having problems with the M18X R2 with AMD7970M boards and WoW, so it is not just me.

It would be great to get an answer to this, or have someone from Dell/Alienware escalate the issue before my warranty runs out.

I appreciate the tip, it is a useful one.  However I followed that procedure with tech support on the previous AMD release driver with no luck, and after numerous BSOD's I followed it again for the latest AMD 7970M beta driver myself with the same issue still occurring.

Last night I was alerted of AMD releasing a new non-Beta Catalyst/driver package that included my 7970M.

I again followed the procedure listed above by Natalia :

www.dell.com/.../ArticleView      

I found that the new driver package would not re-install the Device Manager driver, I was stuck with "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter" for both cards.

I tried to manually install the driver, but that did not work, plus I was guessing at which INF file to use as selecting the driver folder was not enough for it to find the appropriate driver.  

However I followed the procedure above to clean everything up again (with a reboot after uninstall) and installed the next Beta driver from AMD as a last resort.  The installation of the Beta driver package went fine with no problems, it replaced the "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter"  just as it should.  

After the driver installation I performed a reboot, and ended up getting a blue screen on boot, uggh.  A subsequent reboot worked fine with the Beta driver and I was able to run fine when launching World of Warcraft as a test.   However It is very likely that I will still get blue screens when launching WoW.  

My question besides the point of the thread wanting to solve my blue screen problem, is why did the non-Beta release driver not install the adapter driver, and has anyone else had a work around for this?

I also remembered one of my Alienware Tech Support calls having the same people when they were trying to update the driver in an attempt to fix this.  They ended up going with a Beta as the release version would not install the driver. The Tech spent quite a bit of time trying all kinds of things to get the production version of Catalyst to work with no luck.

Any tips would be appreciated.

Thanks

I thought I would update my situation for people having the same problem.

My last comment about not being able to install the non-beta AMD 7970M driver is still unsolved.

However I should say that after installing the Beta driver amd_catalyst_13.5_mobility_beta2  I no longer get blue screens when launching World of Warcraft.  I took almost 6 months of blue screens and driver updates, but I think the issue has been solved with the amd_catalyst_13.5_mobility_beta2 driver.  :-)