Crossfire wont run in x8/x8

[Alex White]

I have searched and searched and cant find a solution. The other day i just finished building my new pc asrock z77 extreme4 mobo i5 3570k at 4.5ghz 16gig gskill aces series and a few other things from my old pc. I am running 2 sapphire 6870s in crossfire i reused from old pc for now. But i am seeing a few issues with frames in games so i decided to check my gpus.

The issue i am running into is that the first card is pci 2.0 x8 and the second card is running pci 2.0 x2. As far as i know and according to the owners Manuel its supposed to be running at x8 for each.

I have checked both cards by swapping them trying 1 by 1 and checked the power supply. both pcie slots run at x16 with only 1 card in. i have reinstalled drivers and cleared them multiple times.

I have also read that usb 3.0 and sata 3 can steal buss speed from pci slots? anyone know if that could be my issue. Thanks in advance everyone.

[havasuphto]

Re: Crossfire wont run in x8/x8

Are you familiar with ULPS? This is a feature in crossfire on the newer systems that basically disables the second card, when it's not needed. that might have something to do with it...but, I've never seen the problem you're describing. And, I don't think it's even physically possible with the crossfire bridge to install the card in the wrong slot.

Do you run 2 monitors? Games? Most games I play will only use both cards in crossfire, when using "full screen", or multiple monitors. Otherwise, the 2nd card is basically "sleeping". I actually like this feature-as it saves on electricity/heat.
I'm running dual 7970 Ghz in crossfire, and using 13.3 beta drivers.
When I open up something that monitors my cards-if I'm not running a game or a 2nd monitor, the bottom card is off-no reading-no power, no light on-nothing.

you can google ULPS and there is a program that can disable it-you might try that.....