Weird video issue
I just upgraded my system to use a third GPU. Since it's all water cooled it was going to take a while, so I put a Radeon HD 7750 in to handle things until the water blocks were set up.
Got everything done and installed the GPUs this morning and I'm seeing two odd things, one that's annoying and one which may or may not be a problem.
My setup:
Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3
Intel Core i7 2600K
32GB (4x8GB) DDR3-1866
3xXFX Radeon R9 290
Areca ARC-1680ix-24 RAID card
The PCI Express layout:
PCIe 16_1 - Radeon R9 290
PCIe 8_1 - Radeon R9 290
PCIe 16_2 - Radeon R9 290
PCIe 8_2 - RAID card
- Annoying: The middle GPU (on PCIe 8_1) is the one the computer has decided to make the primary GPU. When this was a dual GPU setup the primary GPU was the one on PCIe 16_1. Is there a way to force this back to the original primary GPU?
- Problem? I get no video signal until Windows is booted. This holds true even for the BIOS. The only way to get around this for BIOS configuration is to remove power from the GPUs and plug the HDMI cable into the motherboard HDMI port (for the HD3000 GPU).
I had the second problem when first switching to the HD 7750 and I don't recall how I fixed it.
paging @Thrax
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Comments
This is BIOS-related, so I can't be of much help.
My advice would be to do whatever you need to do in order to get BIOS, update if available, reset to optimized defaults and make any changes you know you need like boot order then disable onboard and set PCI as the graphics object (of course, if you've already done this, it isn't going to change anything). I don't think my computer had the ability to set one of them as default, but it goes with the 0 slot as boot device as far as I know.
Yep already did that. I can select the HD3000 or any of the PCIe x16 slots as the one to get initialized first. I've tried clearing the settings, no luck. I may try to reflash the BIOS later.
This is a hell of a first world problem.
Doesn't utilizing crossfire across different lane bandwidths limit what the other cards will do to whatever the lowest bandwidth lane is? I think that is just part of the crossfire spec? If you simply disable crossfire in the driver can you default to the 16 lane card? When you had the dual I assume you used the two X16 lanes and left the X8 vacant?
Also I think Gen 3 8X lanes are fat enough for a tri crossfire 290 without loosing any performance? I understand though, it's one of those hobby things for guys like us, you just have to know you are getting it all.
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Impact-of-PCI-E-Speed-on-Gaming-Performance-518/
What do you run that needs THREE 290's?
Cuz... wow.
had a guess, 4K monitors
You're correct about the bandwidth, but Crossfire doesn't come into play here. I didn't have this issue when there were two GPUs installed, but I saw it the first time when I swapped them for a single GPU.
Solitaire
Not at the moment. Right now this system is sitting behind my couch, connected to a 1080p projector in the living room. Once 4K projectors hit a more affordable price I'll make the jump.