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Ok, this has happened twice.

One day booted up after some routine Windows Update on my Win 7 Pro system.

Right after boot up, my 2X5870 cards running in crossfire sound like blow driers (i.e., windows somehow has their cooling fans running at the top of the dial).

Worse, Device Manager recognizes only one card, which of course kills Crossfire.

Using system restore, I get back to pre-windows update state wherein my cards/Crossfire are again recognized and functioning normally.

Then, exactly the same thing happens (Windows Update kills card #2/Crossfire and bring on the blow drier).

WTF?

I'm not the only one with this problem it seems. Running sfc /Scannow as administrator to see if that works by some miracle.

Any ideas guys? You'd think somebody at Microsoft or AMD would be on top of this #%&*$# by now.

Thanks,

d.

The only suggestion I have is to never install device drivers from windows update.
Turn off auto update, check manually yourself once a week or so and untick and device drivers before installing.

Yes, it might be a driver update for ATI cards causing the reset...

I always do manual Windows 7 updates because I assume some updates will "break" my system -- don't know which ones. I read a lot and try to establish that the latest crop of updates is OK before I allow install.

For example, a recent Microsoft optional update puts spyware on your computer to periodically check Windows 7 for being "non-pirated". I can imagine someday that unwanted application will erroneously determine I pirated my copy and turn me off. I skipped that one and permanently disallowed it (I hope).

Good advice. Screw Microsoft.

OK, this is killing me.

Something Microsoft did to Update Win 7 64 killed the Crossfire (it won't even recognize the card as stated above).

So I call Radeon. I pull out the one card. Clean the drivers. Reinstall the (old) drivers, then shut down install the Crossfire setup, then yes, Win 7 recognizes the card ATI CCC activates crossfire. Yipee!

Then Borderlands freezes my computer. Hard shut down. And, as it has EVERY time, I'm back to where I was before.

Not a word from Radeon to address this problem nor Microsoft, and yet it's all over the internet.

Hell if I'm playing musical cards again. WTF? When are they going to fix this?

d.

Did you try a system restore?

Yup--- no luck there. :{

Weird things is, it comes and it goes with each boot. I try to stay in sleep mode as long as I can when both cards are ID'd.

I'm praying microsoft and/or Radeon fixes this krapp!

Hello Dash, I am running 5870's in crossfire, with Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate, I have taken all updates with NO troubles at all..Call Origin PC, ask them how they set up 5870s. They did my build with no worries at all.

Good Luck, Jim

Thanks for the advice! Weirdness here is it's all over the web, but there's no fix as of yet. I'm thinking of a clean install of Win 7, but how fun is that?

Anyway, thanks for the input. Maybe I'll buzz Origin PC. Weird how it works sometimes; sometimes not. Sometimes a simple driver clean/reinstall does it, but the next time I boot, it's hosed again.

UGH! Not what I forked out major bank for.... Sure you can understand.

d.

PS> This was a recent onset. My system (usually build 'em myself but decided to indulge with Cyberpower) worked fine in crossfire for quite a while until... who knows? You'd think Radeon would put out a hotfix or something!

Is there anyway you can just switch back to the older ATI/AMD drivers for your video card?

I was thinking of upgrading to an ATI card because Nivida's drivers suck, but it seems like ATI does not have their stuff together either...

OK, fixed it. Feel like a bit of a dumba$$ (broke one of the primary rules of fixing anything).

I'd tested both cards, taken out one, cleaned/reloaded drivers (which provided a temp fix till power down).

What I didn't do was REARRANGE the cards in their PCIe seats. That's all it took. 8-10 power ups, Crossfire working each time. Before 1 out of 10 power ups (from restart or coldstart) worked.

Oh well, problem solved.

I do love my Cyberpower rig, and it was nice to have someone else build it for me. But here's one thing for those of you who like me have built your past (6 in my case) systems:

If you weren't the one that put it together, basic installations, repairs, add-on hardware becomes much more challenging. Took me almost 8 hours to install a friggin' hard drive.

Anyway thanks to everybody who took time to give advice!!!!

d.