Bitcoin Forum

Hello,

I only started Bitcoin mining this morning, and I'm not sure if I'm getting as much out of my graphics card as I should be.

I have a 5970 clocked at 850/1200, I'm running Catalyst 13.1, I have Crossfire enabled, I have ATI Stream SDK 2.1 installed, I'm running Windows 7 x64, and I'm using GUIMiner.

I have both GPUs working, and I'm getting anywhere from 400 to 550 Mhash/s all together.

I read that the 5970 should be getting around 700 Mhash/s, and even more so overclocked.

Could anyone help?

Are you using the flags in guminer?

try this:

-v -w 128

Should bump up your mhash/s

Source here:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

Forgive my cluelessness, but how do I do that? Do I add it to the shortcut?

I added those flags to the shortcut, and it seems to make it more consistent, but still only sitting around 520 Mhash/s.

There's a text box in guiMiner to add the flags. Open GUIMiner and add the flags into the textbox and start mining. You. can also try changing -w128 to -w256 and see what works best. By default GUIMiner keeps some frames for general use. Think it's 30 by default. You can decrease this by adding the flag -f n where n is the number of framerates reserved for general computer use. If you arent using the computer at the time of mining you can set it to -f0. I leave mine at -f 1. This also gets a bit more mhash/s

Great, thanks. I found that text field and put in  '-v -w 128' and now I'm getting over 700 Mhash/s most of the time. Using 256 doesn't help.

Thanks!

No problem man glad to help

Another thing: usage keeps spiking and then dropping for some reason.

https://i.imgur.com/rFe2qJm.png

This is after I stopped the workers.

It doesn't seem to do the spiking on stock clocks.

I'm also only getting a bit over 600 Mhash/s on stock clocks. Shouldn't this be closed to 700, and more like 800 when overclocked?

Is the temp changing a lot? I use MSI Afterburner to auto control my fan and it seems pretty stable. Other than that I'm not sure, sorry

The temp stays a bit over 70c.

Are you using any software to control fan speed? It might be that the card gets very hot and starts going bandy.

I think you can set fan speed in ati catalyst control centre too in the performance section. Maybe set the fasn to about 70 - 80% and see if it helps.

As a side note you should be able to post in other parts of the forum now so you could ask the question in the mining hardware sub forum. My guess though, and it is a guess, is that it may be temps

I'm using aftermarket cooling (Accelero XTREME) and I have the fan speed at 100% at all times. The temp is only a few degrees higher when overclocked.

In that case I'm stumped. Unless it's a case of the observer changing the behaviour. If you are using the computer to tweak the card and then opening different apps this will affect framerate and will affect mhash/s. Leave it running for a few hours mining and see what the average mhash/s is

You know, actually, I think it may be the temperature.
It would be stable up until about 72c, and then the usage would bottom out and then go back up.
No idea why though, because that's a perfectly good temperature. This card is good up to about 90c.

This means I have two issues: Getting about 100 Mhash/s less than I should, and having the card throttle (or something) at 72c.

See here: https://i.imgur.com/dwLM02f.png
The top line is GPU usage, and the line below it is temperature.
You can see that the usage is maxed out until the temperature hits 70c, and then it starts dropping out.

Can anyone help? I can't post in the other sections yet.

Clock the memory down to 300 and the temps will decrease. This could be the thing that nails it for you. If not make sure the pc is not cramped into a space and that there is no dust. Maybe open the case if the memory underclock doesn't work but I think it will