Problems with 2 X HD5970, Please Help!

rob_1990

Hi people, first of all I’m new here, and fairly new to the whole mining scene. I recently got my hands on 2 X HD5970 cards, which I intend to use to mine Feathercoin. They seems really temperamental and will usually crash the display driver after a few moments. I have tried all sorts of different thread concurrencies and intensities, but cant get them to play properly. Yesterday was probably the closest I got to a decent performance. I was getting around 330K/H from 3 GPU’s, but as soon as I fire the fourth up the display driver crashes and the speeds reduce. I tried the newer AMD driver 13.4 but now each GPU will crash after about 5 minutes getting 220K/H. So I think I’ll revert back to 13.1. I haven’t set the clocks to anything other than default, and when I do it seems to make no difference.

I am using GUIMINER Scrypt. I have tried using CGminer, but I cant get that to play nicely. It seems to hammer the GPU’s but the DOS box just stays black.

If anyone can suggest anything, that would be great

[Oh, and also I have an Intel DP55KG which only has one x16 PCIe the second card is plugged into an x8. Is this ok?

rob_1990

[quote name=“d2” post=“19469” timestamp=“1372845131”]
Which 5970s specifically?

Would you be up to trying cgminer again?

If so, I have someone else running on 3 5970s at the moment with cgminer 3.1.0: http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/3.1/cgminer-3.1.0-windows.zip

(You can find any version you want through the authors site: http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/)

You need to run the following setx lines as well for Feathercoin mining due to the algorithm. You can make a batch file “start.bat” in the cgminer folder with them in there and start cgminer that way:

[code]
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
cgminer.exe
[/code]

You can create another file in the cgminer folder named cgminer.conf and populate it with the following to test (this is for 3 cards) and it will make it nice and easy to change it up:

[code]
{
“pools” : [
{
“url” : “http://YOURPOOLINFOHERE:3333”,
“user” : “YOURWORKERNAME.1”,
“pass” : “x”
}
]
,
“intensity” : “13,13,13”,
“vectors” : “1,1,1”,
“worksize” : “256,256,256”,
“kernel” : “scrypt,scrypt,scrypt”,
“lookup-gap” : “2,2,2”,
“thread-concurrency” : “8000,8000,8000”,
“shaders” : “0,0,0”,
“gpu-fan” : “0-85,0-85,0-85”,
“gpu-memclock” : “0,0,0”,
“gpu-memdiff” : “0,0,0”,
“gpu-powertune” : “0,0,0”,
“gpu-vddc” : “0.000,0.000,0.000”,
“temp-cutoff” : “92,92,92”,
“temp-overheat” : “80,80,80”,
“temp-target” : “72,72,72”,
“api-port” : “4028”,
“auto-fan” : true,
“expiry” : “30”,
“failover-only” : true,
“gpu-dyninterval” : “7”,
“gpu-platform” : “0”,
“gpu-threads” : “1”,
“hotplug” : “0”,
“log” : “5”,
“no-pool-disable” : true,
“no-submit-stale” : true,
“queue” : “0”,
“scan-time” : “5”,
“scrypt” : true,
“temp-hysteresis” : “3”,
“shares” : “0”,
“kernel-path” : “/usr/local/bin”
}
[/code]

Save and then double click start.bat =]

The setx lines will sometimes take a while before they complete from the batch file and cgminer actually starts.

If cgminer crashes as soon as it tries to start, you need to try a different thread-concurrency.

Some additional parameters to try:

thread-concurrency to 5632
gpu threads to 2
worksize to 128

^ Each of those should be changed one at a time though, not all at once as each one can impact your hashrate up or down.
[/quote]

Many thanks for getting back to me!

The cards are a Radeon and an XFX.

Also, in the catalyst manager, one of the cards will show the fan as being 0% all the time. The fan is spinning and adjusting, but I tend to use speedfan to max the fans out to be on the safe side.

I will try Cgminer again later with the settings you have included.

I will be sure to donate you some FTC when I get up and running ;)

All the best

rob_1990

Ok, I have tried what you suggested this evening. I made a cgminer.conf with the following info.

{
“pools” : [
{
“url” : “http://coinotron.com:3337”,
“user” : “rob_1990.worker5”,
“pass” : “1”
}
]
,
“intensity” : “13,13,13,13”,
“vectors” : “1,1,1,1”,
“worksize” : “256,256,256,256”,
“kernel” : “scrypt,scrypt,scrypt,scrypt”,
“lookup-gap” : “2,2,2,2”,
“thread-concurrency” : “5632,5632,5632,5632”,
“shaders” : “0,0,0,0”,
“gpu-fan” : “0-90,0-90,0-90,0-90”,
“gpu-memclock” : “0,0,0,0”,
“gpu-memdiff” : “0,0,0,0”,
“gpu-powertune” : “0,0,0,0”,
“gpu-vddc” : “0.000,0.000,0.000,0.000”,
“temp-cutoff” : “95,95,95,95”,
“temp-overheat” : “80,80,80,80”,
“temp-target” : “72,72,72,72”,
“api-port” : “4028”,
“auto-fan” : true,
“expiry” : “30”,
“failover-only” : true,
“gpu-dyninterval” : “7”,
“gpu-platform” : “0”,
“gpu-threads” : “1”,
“hotplug” : “0”,
“log” : “5”,
“no-pool-disable” : true,
“no-submit-stale” : true,
“queue” : “0”,
“scan-time” : “5”,
“scrypt” : true,
“temp-hysteresis” : “3”,
“shares” : “0”,
“kernel-path” : “/usr/local/bin”
}

And a start.bat with this in it.

setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
cgminer.exe --scrypt -o http://coinotron.com:3337 -u rob_1990.worker5 -p 1 -T

This seems to work, at an ok speed. But I get the following errors

C:\Users\Rob\Desktop\cgminer-3.1.0-windows>setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100

SUCCESS: Specified value was saved.

C:\Users\Rob\Desktop\cgminer-3.1.0-windows>setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1

SUCCESS: Specified value was saved.

C:\Users\Rob\Desktop\cgminer-3.1.0-windows>cgminer.exe --scrypt -o http://coinot
ron.com:3337 -u rob_1990.worker5 -p 1 -T
[2013-07-03 20:05:12] Invalid config option --kernel: Cannot use sha256 kernel
with scrypt
[2013-07-03 20:05:12] Started cgminer 3.1.0
[2013-07-03 20:05:12] Loaded configuration file cgminer.conf

[2013-07-03 20:05:12] Error in configuration file, partially loaded.

Which indicates to me that it is trying to use a different algorithm?

Anyway. It is successfully mining at 1.1MH at the moment, which is obviously a lot better than the 700 or so K/H I was getting with GUIminer.

I guess I just need to tweek the concurrency and clocks to get more like 1.5-1.6 M/H?

Thanks for your help.

rob_1990

Thanks, I will try that key sequence later. I have managed to get a consistent 1.55M/h, one card is running at about 84C and the other 76C. I will tweek the fan speeds so that they are not 100%. Over night I had no hardware errors around 4000 accepts and 2 rejects. That sounds pretty good to me.

Thanks for your help. When I get home I will send you some FTC!

Cheers