Bitcoin Forum

I'm sorry if this has been dealt with before, on some other thread, but I've looked.

Which overclocking tool should I use? I have a Sapphire Radeon HD 5830 xTreme.
What should my settings be?
Is there a miner I should be using (i'm running Windows 7)?
My set-up is exactly like the one recommended in the wiki -- https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_rig (the cheapest)

thx
and
sorry
lakehead

idk how you even manage not to get 245, which should be pretty default.
Some things for starters:
- Flash the BIOS with RBE to 950 core 320 memory
- use phoenix with phatk kernel

For both things there are multiple threads in this forum describing the necessary steps.

It has been addressed, many times before.

But I'm a nice guy, so instead of "lawl l2google nub" I'm going to reply like a non-sociopath:

Play with your flags. -v -w128 agression=11 works nicely for me, you might get better or worse with different values of w (must be powers of 2, w64, w128, w256 are valid, w100 is not)
Over/under clock your GPU. Get MSI Afterburner, bump core up to something like 975, bump memory down... as low as it'll go without crashing really.

Wow. thx.
That's better info than I was finding on my own.
I'll try harder next time using the wiki.
lakehead

This is what I did - https://174.143.149.98/index.php?topic=12804.msg194385#msg194385

@ 304mhpm in linux. Had to use FreeDOS and Windows in VM to change the flash settings. Still investigating making a linux BIOS editor.

OK, so the flag you gave me worked [it's now doing 245 Mhash], but Afterburner doesn't let me set the core to 975, or the memory anything lower than 908.
Any ideas?
thx
sorry
sorry
lakehead

I have 2 5830's. One is running at 925/275 (270 mhash/s~), other one is at 900/575 (260 mhash/s~). I'm using poclbm in GUIminer with the flags: "-v -w 256". Running cards independently in windows 7 x64, if that helps.

download sapphire trixx. underclock memory to 300 and start working your way up on the core clock.. start at 900.. if it crashes drop 15 if not go up 15 more. i have a dew of these cards.. one is stable at 985 the other 1015 maybe even more i havnt pushed it farther. windows guiminer -v -w256 -f1   sould get you in 300 Mhash ballpark,  -f1 will make your desktop lag a little so i turn that off if i need from time to time(remove setting stop miner and restart)

yeah trixx is best for sapphire cards.  designed for them, after all

Dont bother flashing the bios, highly unneeded and risky for a new person to do.

Just use TriXX for the sapphire extreme models, lower ram to 300, core up to 900 and go from there.

I fixed it for you.

Good advice, though - no point flashing cards for no purpose.

OK, so this was super helpful.  thx

I ended up using your flag, setting the memory to 300, and pushing the clock up till it crashed at 960.  I then backed it off to 950 and it ran for a while at about 275-285 Mhashes (fluctuating wildly).  This stopped the miner after about an hour, so I backed off the clock to 945.  It is now getting now bouncing from 280 to 283 Mhashes. 
Is this good? Should I tweak about the memory up or down some?

thx
lakehead

And, just one more thing...
Should I be running the ati 2.1 firmware?
Thx
Sorry
lakehead

Beware when you overclock though. Sometimes it won't freeze up for a day or two!

I have a Sapphire (=GOOD) 5830, which was OC'd to 975/550. It was great for a while -- then it froze up, and I had to boot into safe mode and uninstall/re-install drivers to get the card to even work anymore!

Long story short, I lost 2 hours of productive work time (web programming work -- not exactly minimum wage) to get that extra 20 MH/s out of that card. I don't think it's worth it, unless you're unemployed or something.

It would be better for someone like me to simply buy another card(s) and/or a PC to put them in, rather than screwing around with overclocking. It's often not worth it.

Slow and steady wins the race...

Just to add the the discussion, I am getting 302 MH/s out of my Sapphire Radeon 5830 Xtreme, and it's running at a cool 57'C.

I am running Win7 x64, Stream SDK 2.4, Catalyst version 11.5. I overclocked (using TriXX) the core to 980MHz and downclocked the memory to 300MHz. The voltage is stock.

I am using Phoenix miner 1.48, with the following settings:

-k phatk VECTORS BFI_INT FASTLOOP=false AGGRESSION=12 WORKSIZE=256

Hahaha n00bs  :D I'm getting 325 mh/ s on my Sapphire 5830s... with virtually no overclocking. Running CCC 11.5 with the Stream kernel analyzer 2.1, which may or may not be doing anything. OX is at 850/something. Using poclbm at max, and seems to go MUCH faster than phoenix with max settings, although I don't have the phatk kernel. Phoenix slows down graphics, unlike Open CL miner. Temps are super low. The dual cards together are getting 650 mh/s... me likey 8)

Cough cough... BS!

No joke, I can give you a screenshot. For some reason afterburner won't work though. Odd.

Define "virtually no overclocking" then? Because, out of the box without any tweaking my card was getting 220MH/s. Tweaked and overclocked the max with the Catalyst tools I was getting 240-250MH/s. I had to push my core clock speed up past 970MHz to even touch 300MH/s.

Looking at the hardware comparison chart (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison), it shows 319MH/s to be close to (or at) the top range of these cards, and that was with some *heavy* overclocking.

I call BS as well.

I'd call "virtually no overclocking" 850MHz core. You'd probably net around 250MH or so.

"Virtually no overclocking" either means "No voltage increase" or there's some derp BS in this thread.

The clock speed is at 850, max CCC let's me go is 875. Both cards were getting 250 mh/s out of the box with poclbm. I don't know what the mem speed is, butI had it somewhere around 600-800, which oddly worked the best. I would not recommend that you use Phoenix, since it is a less efficient miner. And use the Corsair V2 builder PSU. Mine is only 650W but it's very stable and gives as much power as needed, unlike other supplies that deliver less than needed and than spike. Make sure you have good ventilation, I use the  Rosewill challenger with 5 or 6 fans. I tried using sdk 2.1, but It didn't work until I removed everything but the stream kernel analyzer. Good luck with mining!

I flashed my 3 5830's to 975/300.  They all run around 280-285.  I know I could oc more but I was having temp issues at first so didnt' want to push it too high right now.

What I did :

Download Radeon Bios Editor  http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1962/TechPowerUp_Radeon_Bios_Editor_v1.28.html
Download GPUZ ( to save bios file )   http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/
Download ATIWinflash  There's a link in RBE that says " get winflash ".

First, Open GPU Z and there is going to be a save button to save your bios image.  Save it.  Then open Radeon Bios Editor and click load bios.  Find your previously saved bios.  There are alot of options you can do.  I just did this really quickly and only changed 'clock 0' in the overclocking tab to 975/300 and then save bios.  It will save the bios.  Then open ATIWinflash, click load bios.  IT should display all active cards.  Check the one you want to flash and click 'program'.  This step only took about 10-15 seconds per card and then after reboot they were all OC'd.

Full Radeon Bios Editor tutorial here :

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/154

Yea I was gonna say :P My 5830s do 245 stock.

Noooo! Do NOT use Phoenix miner with either kernel! It is inefficient and slow. Use the OpenCL Poclbm miner. It adds another 30+ mh/s for me, and it also allows you to use your computer for other purposes while mining, without crashes or slowed graphics.