Wingless's Build problems

Gonna try and make this easy

Card #1 is the first 5870 that I bought from Fry's
Card #2 is the second 5870 I bought from Amazon

So I built the computer with card #1, no problems at all. I get card #2 a week later and start having BSOD's and hanging problems aka clicking on icon's and nothing happens. Card #1 is in PCI #1, card #2 is in PCI #2. With Crossfire Disabled no problems.

So I move card #1 to PCI #2 and she works fine. So it's not the PCI bus. I put card #2 in PCI #2 and boom BSOD "Pagefile in non paged area". Seems like the DRAM on card #2 is bad. All of the BSOD's i've had are ATI driver realated. Driver stopped responding that kind of stuff. I have had the "Pagefile in non paged area" BSOD before to.

So I put card #1 in PCI #1 and she works fine again. Card #1 works in PCI #1 and PCI #2. I know that it isn't a Crossfire bridge cause it fails even when it's not in Crossfire.

I did put card #2 in PCI #1 and she hung up on clicking icons.

So, thank god I don't have to take the card back to amazon. That will take forever. I am going to take it back to Fry's and pick up another one.

I ram Memtest86+ for 5 hours and no errors so it seems like the RAM is fine.

Again, PC ran great until second card was installed.

Don't know too much about the specifics of video cards but something wrong with the VRAM would make sense. At least one of your video cards is good!

Yeah I really didn't read too closely on all of that.. but you should be trying each card individually, same driver. If one fubars, freezes, artifacts, bsods, or doesn't output, start the RMA process.

If both are stable and it's an xfire issue, make sure you've got the latest mobo drivers, and read online for similar issues.

Well I called Diamond and updated both the cards BIOS's. I am running them like I did before. No problems yet but I am not holding my breath. I have to take back my sound card tonight so if this thing gives me one problem I am going to take card #2 back.

Good call, I should've known to make sure you had all of the updates.
What sound card do you have?

Well I had a Creative Fatality card. Thing sucked. Dolby Digital didn't work so it's going back, the onboard sound works great and sounds great too.

Well, I am still getting some freezing so back the card goes. If they don't have another 5870 in stock then i'll run 1 for a bit and see how it goes.

I don't think I really need 2 5870's but now that I have 2 24in 1080p monitors I might, probably not though.

I'll post again when I get home with an update. It might be late though. Going to dinner with my dad.

I'll just be here for moral support seems u have all your ducks in a row

I am now the proud owner of 1 Diamond 5870. I didn't think that I needed 2 so 1 it is.

Now just to overclock my 5870.