Bitcoin Forum

Is anyone having any issues with BTC PRO boards. I have 9 rigs that i am setting up. I have 5 of them up and running but on two of the boards im having issues with pcie slots. One has a single slot that is not working and another has two slots that dont work. I have switched cards and risers around with no luck. Does any one have a solution or the same issue?

They might be defect, if you used 6x GPU which take too match power from PCI-e slot some +12V line might have burned, I think for BTC board safe limit is 250W from PCI-e slots (combined)

480x for instance is card that pull 80w per GPU, also some newer card can also pull a lot

Thanks for the reply. These boards started this way. They were brand new from NewEgg. I am running 6x cards with 1600w Lepa 80 plus gold power. Using both power plugs on the motherboard and powered usb risers. I have several others that are working fine. Its just these two so far. I have more 3 rigs to build hopefully will finish tomorrow. Im runnning 380x cards undervolted -100v. I have installed new electrical for these rigs. All 240v setup. I am in the US but choose to do this to lower the amperage on my home electrical system. I will post back results on the next three. In the mean time if anyone has any suggestions please advise.

return them back, if they are all the same setup but just two of them are with this problem then it's clear that the problem lie in those two MB

Yeah my thoughts as well. I will do just that i guess. Was hoping i was missing something somewhere.

As said above slot is probably defective. Had this problem with Asrock Anniversary. What kind of risers do you use?

Here are the risers I use. Bought several orders (48 risers total)of them from MintCell and they ship super fast if anyone needs them. Its not the risers if thats where you are going as they work just fine in another motherboard.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAAK940R5081

Well installed my 8th rig last night and low and behold the same issue. I cant believe its a motherboard issue though. 5 of the 8 worked perfect. The first board I had issues with just doesn't show a card at all. The next two Show cards and give no indication of problems until mining starts. I set the rigs up exactly the same. I am using windows 10 pro on all of them and just letting windows install drivers. It has worked well until these last two boards. I downloaded 15.12 and the latest hotfix but nothing solves the issue. When mining starts using claymore 4.6 it freezes and says video drivers failed. I installed cards one at a time until i found the ones cause issues. I will do more trouble shooting tonight. I remember reading somewhere about an audio driver causing problems. Any ideas?

This is a tricky one, it's unlikely, but possible, you have that much bad HW.

Fortunately you have a perfect troubleshooting envirinment with many identically configured rigs.

My suggestions:

1. test all cards in a kown good mobo. this will prove if it's a card problem.

2. take a known good card from a known good mobo and install it on a suspect mobo. Try a couple of good
cards, only one at a time, to produce a pattern.

3. repeat step 2 on the other suspect mobos using the same control cards.

4. try mining with a differnt algo/miner

Thanks. I have two more rigs. I am setting one up each night. With my setup its a real pain to pull a working mother board and test all the cards. So what I will do is set up a new rig on my kitchen table and test each and every card and riser one at a time to make sure they work. Then go from there. I am not using the BTC motherboard drivers on any of these units (drivers on disk) Just what windows installs. Do you think that may make a difference? I guess its worth a shot. Just have to find a dvd drive to hookup.  ???  ???  ???

Don't use a different config as a test rig. If you're still building new rigs use one as a test rig. Just install one GPU
at a time. Minimize the variables.

OK. Will try it when i get home. Post either later tonight or in the morning. Hope its just a fluke and turns out to be something simple but not looking good however. I am currently 6 cards down due to this. I have to get them up and running. Quick question!?! What is too hot for a 380x card. most cards running mid 60s. I have a couple that are low to mid 70s. I have all these set up in a small closet(just listen) With 2 large vent fans. A 14" that pulls 1450cfm and a 12" that is pulling 900 to 1000cfm. Its pulling air(outside temp 85-95f) across the cards and exhausting outside. There is no way to cool 9-10kw of heat with out having a massive AC system and thats not an option in my home. Just wondering about temps though.

Most cards throttle the clock when they get too hot.

Thats good to know. Will keep on mining then.

I didnt have as much time as i needed last night but i did swap motherboards on the last rig and still have the same issues. So WTF! I am lost at this point. I did swap cards around and changed risers again. Still Pcie 5 and 3 are still having problems. I uninstalled drivers and reinstalled. I used video cards and risers from the other slots that I knew were working and still it would either not boot or not see the card.  IDK what is going on. I didnt get a chance to work on the new rig but will do so very soon. Loosing my hair in handfuls at this point.

are you pulling the power the same for each rig? (Using SATA Adapters).

I had an issue where one of the riser SATA power adapters was bad.  Just plugged in a 4 pin directly to the riser. Then it worked.

Yeah each rig using a sata power supply from 1600w lepa. I also had one bad sata power cable. The yellow wire had pulled out and was just barely in the plastic connector. I may try your suggestion to see if that helps. I cant see how it would considering i changed risers and cards multiple times. IDK what the deal unless its just a SSD issue with windows 10. I even used another SSD though. I was wondering if the supply was the culprit but just about an hour ago i went home and hooked up a 390x to pcie slot 5 and working fine. IDK but i tried 3 or 4 working 380x cards on that slot and it would never recognize them. Its strange. Im waiting for pcie power splitters to arrive to see if all cards will work. I will be hooking up a new rig hopefully tonight with 5 290s and one 380x when the power adapter gets here. Then another with 4 390s and 2 380x. Hopefully soon everything will be up and going. With ETH prices the way they are who know how much longer we have to mine and be profitable. :( I was really loving that 20 dollar mark. GD-MF-CS-SB!!! If ya know what i mean.


Question? Has anyone used the Hercules power supply? I have two of them for my next two rigs. Just wondering if any problems or anything.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182251

I completely changed everything on the motherboard leaving only MB and SSD the same and reinstalled windows 10 pro. At best i can get two cards working but thats it. It seems as though the PCIE slots that dont work change from time to time.  ??? . If i change the risers around maybe one of the other slots starts to work. So im going to replace this board. Going to pull and send back to Newegg for a replacement. Hopefully its just a board issue.

What would make the operating system show the wrong PCIE slot. The three cards that are working are in slots 1,3,4 however in the device manager it shows slots 2,3,4. Slot two shows the card but the driver crash as soon as I start the miner. Same thing happens in 5 and 6. I made sure to use known working cards. So could this be bios issues? I did the complete reset. Pulled the battery and let it sit for aout 10 mins. Put battery back in and then jumped the reset pin. Turned on and the above is where i stand. Im wondering if reflashing the bios may help?

PCIe config in bios?

I havnt touched the bios its stock. All settings are factory just like my other rigs. What am i looking for?

@navydude,

I've also had difficulties similar to yours.  I'm building up two rigs gradually, making sure each one works before adding more GPUS.

Both rigs:
Asrock H81 BTC Pro mobo
Powered risers from Mintcell - these have USB 3.0 data cables and SATA power cables
Samsung EVO 850 SSD
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
8GB DDR3 RAM
Claymore dual miner v 5.0
Catalyst 15.12

Rig 1: Intel G3260 CPU
Rig 2: Intel Celeron G1840 CPU

Rig 1: 3 Sapphire R9 390
Rig 2: 2 Sapphire R9 390

I have spent about 3 days tediously testing and troubleshooting, because I've had many issues with getting all the GPUs running.  Here are my conclusions:

1. If I change my board configuration in any significant way (e.g. adding PCIe risers) must flash the CMOS to get video again.
2. Then I must start with only 1 GPU with riser in PCIe slot 1.
2. I must boot the system, get it working, shut it down, then add the other GPUs.
3. If the system loses power (i.e. if I turn the PSU off, or change my plug from one outlet to another), then I have to start over with steps 1,2,3.

This process feels almost superstitious at this point, but this is how I've managed to fight and claw to get 2 GPUs in one rig, and 3 GPUs in the other rig working.  

Not sure if the issue is with the Asrock boards or the risers, but it's been a PIA to get what I do have working.  

I have not yet attempted any more GPUs in either rig.

Let me know whether anything I've said helps, or what you find out.

HOLY SHIT. I'm not crazy!!! Well as much as I am happy to hear I am not alone it does suck to know its real. I have spent so many hours fighting this losing battle. The first two rigs I built were flawless. Put all six cards in and perfection. The next 7 have been a damn nightmare. Most have 4 cards working except the last one and its a real PIA. I have tried almost everything and nothing works to solve the problem. I contacted Mintcell and they said they had many issue with windows and said they finally gave up and went to Linux and all works perfectly now. I don't know my butt from a hole in the ground when it comes to Linux. I'm going to give the new all in one OS miner a try just to make sure all my equipment is working and motherboard and risers are OK as well. I don't want to use it permanently because it takes all sia coins in duel mode. Which i'm not even going to consider as an option but if my all equipment is good then i can move on and try something else.


Here is the OS im talking about or if you know linux you may try that as well. Mintcell said windows 10 was much better than previous versions but still many issues.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1541084.0

PS: Your steps are just about how each of my evenings have went for almost 2 weeks. I am so tired and burnt out on this! Thanks alot for posting though i was bout to lose my mind.