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as per title. i got MSI 990FXA-GD65. i connected 1 master card on x16 riser and other 5 on x1 risers. i did connect 6pin power onto motherboard. power is fine. all the guides mention catalyst 13.1 from techpowerup site or 12.6 from amd website make 6gpu rig happen - though none of them support new r9 290 cards. im now on 13.11 beta 9. device manager only see 4 video adapters. please advise.

http://pl.msi.com/pic/product/five_pictures1_2401_20110531112823.jpg

edit: SOLUTION:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=712228

https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=11761.0

Get the latest beta drivers.
Do you use Linux?

The maximum number of gpus supported on one board also depends on the model of gpus you are running.
Since you can only see 4 cards in device manager, it might be a bios issue and not easy to fix.
I would suggest you try the method of shorting pins of A1 b17 and see if it would get more gpus to work.

im on latest beta drivers right now.. im not really keen on linux. though will have to try as a last resort i guess.

thx for the tip. should i only short them for cards that dont work? im running latest bios btw.

what psu you planning on running? Suggest you simply build another cheap rig and run 3 cards on each. Thats very easy to do and if one goes down and you dont notice it for hours and hours (yes it will happen, many times) you only have 3 cards not mining instead of 6, ie you just paid for your second rig because 3 cards mined all night while you slept

i might be wrong but i think windows 7 onky supports 4 cards u need windows 8 or linux.

I am having similar issues but mine is only 2 of my 5 are showing. I have seen on many sites that Windows 7 only supports 4 gpus and you need windows 8 for more.

What are you trying to mine?

Also worth a try to disable on-board pcie devices as much as possible in bios and see if it helps.
It's said 6 gpus did work on win7 x64 for some people, at least should be shown in device manager. See:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=188334.0

The problem is not with the motherboard. It is a windows / driver problem. Linux allegedly supports more GPUs easily, but I've never used it (i got out of GPU mining a long time ago). Good choice on the motherboard BTW. You won't need powered risers for this, because you will be powering the risers with the built in PCI-E power plug right on the motherboard.

anything that is profitable or easy to mine for the timebeing.

ok. little update. i had some time today to tinker with this project of mine.

i disconnected all but master card. checked all x1 risers - all working. then checked all pcie x1 ports on the motherboard one by one to see if device manager would see the cards. checked all cards - they all get recognised except when put in PCI_E1 and PCI_E5 ports. basically my motherboard dont see any card on those ports. ill google all i can but if you have any tips for me id really appreciate that. thank you.

btw im using 5 risers just like in the picture. i just cut the plastic limiter off to go into x16 cards:

http://i00.i.aliimg.com/photo/v0/464869416/PCI_Express_PCI_e_Riser_Card_Extender.jpg

here is the little peek of how it looks like now. waiting for 3 140mm fans to go in front of those babies. there are three 750W corsair psus.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/68357967/Images/Photos/Miners/sargas%201.jpg

found this msi forum thread. some dude on reply #2 mentioned that 990 chipset only allows upto 4 gpus. in my case i just cant get PCI_E1 & PCI_E5 ports working even with only one master card connected - making 2 effective gpus connected to the motherboard. could somebody please confirm that.

https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=170785.msg1246971#msg1246971


here in the 990fx spec sheet we have mention of upto gpu 4 cards possible to be connected, though in crossfire. will they still be recognised without crossfire?

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/chipsets/9-series-integrated/Pages/amd-990fx-chipset.aspx

The motherboard should be fully capable of utilizing all 6 cards. The problem lies in using Windows, and driver support. Windows 7 will support 4 of these cards at the max. Windows 8 may support 5 (In my experience, Windows 8 would be able to operate 1 more card than Windows 7. This was with Radeon 7970's)

There are reports of being able to use all 6 cards with Linux.

you see it would make sence if i had all cards connected at the same time. but in my case i removed all cards and just attached master x16 card and second card through PCI_E1 - device manager shows one card only. then if i attach the same gpu with same riser to PCI_E2 slot then device manager shows two cards. in this particular moment its motherboard issue. i wonder if it has 2 faulty slots..

i had this board when BTC mining "back in the day"

I'm pretty sure I had to short 2 of the pins in the PCI-E slot. Even on the x1 slots.

could you elaborate please. i never done that before.

yep. this might help:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=102547.0

It's been 3 years since I GPU mined but I think it had to do with the slot not recognizing when a card was plugged into it when using a riser

wow! thank you! i just shorted the presence detection pins and now i get all six cards in device manager, though two are with explanation marks! gotta work out what that means now. thank you Olly_K & ssateneth!

np np making progress now :)

might need to install the drivers manually for the ones showing !! in device manager.

There's also another setting in the BIOS which can help, I can't for the life of me remember what it was........something to do with the pci-e lanes bandwidth. I know the setting was 96 or similar but can't remember the option. Something like "pci express lanes"

in all honesty I found windows with that amount of cards to be flakey, and went over to BAMT - apparently it does litecoin now too

The !! ones in device manager is a driver/windows problem, unfortunately. You will be limited to 4 GPU in windows 7 (doesnt matter 32 or 64 bit), and probably 5 in Windows 8. Look up linux solutions to get all 6 working. I'm not fluent in linux, so unfortunately i can't help with that. Most linux guys here seem to keep to themselves as far as actually setting it up software-wise.

I've had more than 4 cards working on Vista 64 bit so W7 should be no different

Win8 x64 supports 6 gpus but some driver tweaking might be required.
Here is a guide for it:
http://www.gobitgo.com/articles/1002/How-to-Mine-with-6-GPU/

i tried this but the guide only has custom drivers for upto 7xxx models. i got new r9 290 video cards and totally stalled right now.

Windows 8 will do 5 gpu's out of the box no problem. Install different version driver than the other 5 for the 6th is also a trick I hear sometimes work. Then you got all 6 cards running.

Should really use linux with a rig like that. You spent that much dough on it but you are running Windows? Quite tragic... Linux is easier than people think. Your uptimes alone will be worth the switch.

i tried bamt, ubuntu, xubountu. i cant get pass boot. as soon as i click install the screen goes blank (black with underscore blinking).. apparently its something to do with my uefi bios or gpus or usb port or usb partitioning. will research later when i have more time. frustrated by now. ok gotta go to work now. hashing four cards right now at 825kh. thanks for all your help lads - will update this as i go along.

I pretty much wrote the steps for this a long time ago. This website is just adding pictures to my steps.

Also, this guide is invalid for any of the new R7/R9 GPUs (or radeon 7790), as they will not be supported with the 12.6 driver, which enables 6 GPU in win8.

I'm in the process of building a 6 gpu rig. although now I'm considering sticking to 4, spend a bit more on more Mother boards, etc. but I'd like to run the 290 cards as well.

Suggestion on best mobo for these cards?

Thanks for the insight guys!

I'm sorry for that. I just found the link for the guide via google.
So there is no way to port the method to the latest driver?
 

bs, just needs shorting of the detection pins, when in doubt short the pins in all cables and be done with it. There was a way to even get 6x79xxs to run under win 7 but it included running 2 of the cards with a older version of catalyst (not exactly an option for 290s) and was just a pain. The problem is win/catalyst and not the motherboards.

well id pretty much recommend this board as its way cheaper than the rest and have power plug for pcie lanes. once you short the pins on the motherboard you are good to go. now hardwarewise im hassle-free. though the 6 card project will have to wait until after the holidays as im going away in two days.

Somewhat wrong. You don't run older driver for just 2 of them. Doing the trick to get them all properly installed replaces the driver entirely. You can only have 1 catalyst driver installed. Replacing it for 1 card replaces it for all the cards, so you would be running 12.6 on all of them, not just 2 of them and the other 4 run on 13.1.

finished hardware:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7216.msg4016641#msg4016641

Hi,

Did you get to the bottom of this?

I am having exact same problem, need Windows 8 maybe? Does it work?

I have no experience at all with Linux and there are no easy step by step guides to follow :(

If you are using 6 of any 200 series cards you have to use linux. The beta drivers you have to use for R9 cards don't support more than 4, even in windows 8. It is a driver limitation, not hardware, as 6 work perfectly fine in linux.

R9 cards won't mine on anything but the 13.11 beta drivers, it's not possible to use modified 79xx series drivers to get 6 working in windows (yet, give it time...)

Thanks for the advice :)

I have tried 5 in one mobo with Windows 8 and 13.12 drivers.

I can confirm that works OK.

Windows 7 only detects 4 cards, Windows 8 detects all 5 OK and mines OK too.

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m296/cjw32/cgminer_zps07d78992.png

What combination of drivers/sdk are u running with Windows 8.1??? I have 5 x 280x but it detects 4 cards, and on of them as disabled (code 43). This is with Catalyst 13.12 and SDK 2.9 on Win 8.1. Any advice?

I'd kinda like to know as well, because I never got any more than 4 detecting (w/o errors) in windows 8 either.

I have a MSI Z77A-GD80 and im waiting for risers before adding 4 more 280x's so ill be joining the party.. currently have two mining on that board and im running win8. May give linux a shot when the risers get here!

i have big problem with my asrock z77 extreme 9,if i use risers windows see only 1 gpu  :-\ why?
this MB has 5 slot pci-e 16x and i have 5 risers 16x powered,please help.

Anyone get around the R9 290 random black screens?

MSI Z77A-G45 - G1610 - Corsai 860i x2 + add2psu - 5 x MSI R9 290 cards - Win7 x64 - 8GB RAM - Latest AMD beta video drivers (the ones that supposedly stop the black screen).

Does BAMT support these cards and would a change from win7 to linux fix the random black screens? These are happening at random times, I have gotten mining and my settings are tuned nicely but these random black screens lock the entire system up. I can't even teamview into the box after it happens. I'm done for tonight but I'll have another go with a fresh install of windoze tomorrow but if anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear it.

I have to join this party. I got a rig with #6 r9 280x and it won't detect more than 4 or 5 GPUs in Windows 8. Problems start as soon as the new ATI driver gets installed. Same thing with BAMT. Random black screens. I just RMAed my mobo in hopes that I can get it working with an Asus mobo. I may have to go 4 GPU per rig and build another rig to throw the other cards on. I'm sitting on another #4 r9 290s here also and that was also giving me troubles with the new drivers. WTF ATI?

I got the msi z77a gd80 because its supposed to be like the gd65 except with thunderbolt ..

I was told the gd80 should NOT have an issue running 6. I heard the msi z77a-gd45 has to be shorted via some pins on the motherboard.  Ya short the PCI-E presence pins ... Maybe the gd55 too.. Dont quote me on that but look it up

Im waiting on risers still but i will confirm if i get 6 running on the gd80 without mods in the next week!!

Right now i have split the task via a couple motherboards .. Asrock extreme6 and a MSI m77a-gd80
 

I think I'll only run 4 per board, once stable maybe expand, but I don't like the idea of 6 cards down or 1/2 of my power, I'd rather 3 rig's and only loose 1/3.

If they drop in price, than expand :)

THIS is very smart thinking and exactly what I do. Run more rigs with fewer cards, WAY easier to manage and your down time (there will be lots) will not hurt you as much.

IS THAT GREEN LIGHT AN INDICATOR THAT THE RIG HAS AN INTERNET CONNECTION??  HOW DO YOU SET THAT UP?

Sounds about right. Looks like I'll be RMAing this 750w PSU and buying another mobo, cpu, ram and 1600watt PSU + 2 more GPUs for another unit!

Hey mate just wanted to say is really cool how u are spreading the love from your xp with multi gpu setups

Crypto need more pplz like your self :D

I'm pretty fluent in Linux. If I can get it working with 6 R9 series cards I'll let you all know how. I was getting black screen every time I'd install the proprietary ATI driver before with a Gigabyte board. BAMT went to black screen after starting GDM every time.

I'm waiting on mobo RMAs ATM... Oh the torture. 5k in GPUs sitting here, not being used.

Wow, thats brutal. I would think you should sort all issues and have a rock solid build before cloning it with $5K in cards

Well usually I'm pretty good with this stuff and I know I can get it working (anything short of a hardware driver issue). I also believe that GPU mining is on it's way out. Had the money to invest... Figured I'd milk it as much as I can until the ASICs are released. I just hope I can get a year of profitable operation before the ASICs are released. I know that Alpha-T is claiming they have them already, but it looks like a BF labs scenario to me with an estimated shipping date of Q2/Q3 of 2014. They also have relatively low hashing power for an ASIC. Honestly I looked at their design spec and I don't think they have enough memory in them (128mb per chip) for effective scrypt hashing.

I'll just take my rigs apart and sell the parts on Ebay used once they are no longer profitable to run. I get power really cheap where I live also, so my main investment was the hardware. I got about 6k invested, about 4.5k in GPUs. Unfortunately, 1 mobo arrived DOA and the Gigabyte is known to have issues with BAMT so I sent it back for a different model. Also I am not cloning any rig but building 2 seperate rigs (maybe 3 now if the drivers won't support more than 4 cards.

ok back from holidays - im at it again! just got pass the black screen once connected my usb stick to usb3 port - bizzare. installing gpu drivers now. fingers crossed.

right. more agony. while having only one gpu connected to the motherboard i got pass the black screen during os install. i installed sdk, adt and 13.12 ati drivers. when all was ready to go i connected other 5 gpus to the motherboard. now after bios post i get the very same black screen with blinking underscore (!!!). it seems the xubuntu 13.1 just dont want to get through with 6 gpus.

any advise?

Try installing nothing but the AMD drivers, they have the SDK/ADT built in.

You are building the install package from AMD's driver right? You need to make sure you compile, rebuild, whatever, for the version of xubuntu you are running.

No idea why you are having such trouble. With Xubuntu I just tossed all 6 280x cards on the board and it fired right up the first time. Of course it did the same for windows, but two were just code 43'd as expected. Everything would start and mine just fine. Maybe something about the 290's makes for these problems?

I loosely followed this guide, except skipped the "install ssh, curl, and package updates" as well as skipping the start up scripts and alias. Figured I'd work on that after it was stable, but it's so stable I haven't bothered.

http://www.cryptobadger.com/2013/04/build-a-litecoin-mining-rig-linux/

I think the drivers are broken. It happens with Fedora, Debian, no matter what. Sorry guys, ATI fucked us on this one. Try 4 GPUs and see if it works.

Happened me with different CPUS, mobos, OS's, its got to be hardware or crappy wiring in my house.

Either way a courier came today and relieved me of my mining duties.

Im out

Can anyone, anywhere, confirm running more than 4 290 cards on one board? Not 280's, I know that works, but 290's?

Wish I could order more than 2 at a time  ::)

Wait, Thank you NewEgg! Taking this one as a challenge  ;D

im now running 5 gpus on this rig. temporarily set up win8. gonna wait for some custom drivers. my first linux experience was a let down. even bampt is against me.

Newegg has a deal on xfx 290 cards, buy two and get $100 off. As a bonus it seems to defeat the quantity limit as well, because I could order 3 pairs instead of the limit of 5.



BAMT fought like crazy when I was mining with 280x's, long before there was a BAMT for the R9 cards like I think there is now.


I've noticed that the 290x will not start at all if the fan is disconnected in windows, it just won't do anything unless you remove the GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1 from registry. Even then, it will only work at tc 2816 which makes for miserable mining. I have one watercooled, to get cgminer going I have to plug the fan in, start cgminer, then unplug the fan. Pretty damn annoying... If you aren't getting temp and fan speeds it probably wont mine right.

Since "Cryptokeeper" has not chimed in....

He has some great troubleshooting steps for a 6 card rig here.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=226210.msg2480038#msg2480038


Woodser

Isn't the r9 290 a dual core gpu?

Also I don't think that troubleshooting guide is going to help him.  It is for older gpus.  I can run 6x7950 with no issues in windows 7, but r9 290 x6 is a different story.

Bamt is a pain in the ass.  I screwed around with it for a couple of days, then decided windows was working fine, why fuck with it.

argh! another problem. when disconnecting hdmi and having it run as standalone miner windows 8 loads some crappy 640x480 temporary driver that screws up my hashrate from 800 to 500-600. when i teamview into it i cannot change the resolution. i cannot do dummy plugs as new cards dont support analog output.

Does your motherboard have onboard video, or a pci slot you could put a shitty video card in?

Does your hashrate go down on all cards or just one?

no onboard video - 990fx chipset. all cards suffer.

I have an idea. I have a spare r9 280x along with 4 r9 290s. I am going to try to make the r9 280x the main display and then boot into BAMT. Perhaps it will detect the cards but something with the output is screwed up with the driver on those cards. I'll let you guys know ASAP, likely Monday. I got 5 r9 280x up this weekend no problem so it is definitely the 290s issue.

wait a minute I am confused, I thought that you need 1x 16x Risers if your GPU has a 16x Slot? How can you use 1x to 1x? The slots are totally different?

Confusion!!!!   ???

I have 4 x 16x on my motherboards and 2 x 1x slots and 1 MiniPCIe Slot

I thought 16x to 16x Risers do not need power because the slot handles the draw, But people use powered risers from the 1x - 16x cables..

I am totally baffled now that I see OP using 1x > 1x On a 16x GPU.... Doesnt the GPU NEED the adapter riser which converts 16x down to 1x?  If not how does it fit into the Longer slot?

I already bought my risers this is purely educational , Im just learning

This is not the place to ask silly questions. Everything you've asked has been covered millions of times on this forum.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=pci-e+riser+cable+for+mining

very top link...

Sorry Pro... your awesome!!

Anywayysss

.. That site didnt answer my question I knew how to put a 1x into a 1x slot and 16x into a 16x slot. .. But dont worry, Dont stress , Relax , take a breather. I will find my answer elsewhere - I may go look through the thousands of posts hoping I come across it ::) Like I have not already.. LOL

Its not important I was just curious , I did not want to go on a search trying to find out if you can plug 1x Plugs into 16x slots without Converting them to 16x plugs. Because when I typed - 1x to 1x For 16x GPU... My answer did not come up as expected.

cuByeee

i just took the female part of the riser and cut off the plastic limiter with dremel tool. do it carefully as you can damage actual pins.

Okay yeah, r9 290s are definitely screwed up. Drivers won't work at all with Linux and spotty with Windows at best. I am done trying to get this card to work. Time to sell them.

can anyone confirm whether these hdmi to vga adaptors can work as a dummy plug together with resistors? thanks.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PC-HDMI-Male-to-VGA-SVGA-RGB-Video-Audio-Cable-Lead-Converter-Adapter-1080P-3-5-/201016938652?pt=UK_BOI_Office_Equipment_Supplies_Office_Equipment_ET&var=&hash=item2ecd8b109c

Okay, after another post by someone else pointing me in the right direction I stumbled across this site: http://www.ohmpie.com/mining-on-an-r9-290-in-linux/

This goes into detail on how to patch the latest linux driver (13.12) and actually has a link to some .deb binaries so you may not even need to patch. If you can get that far...

Then you need to recompile cgminer from source, from the tarball linked on their site. I am gonna give it a go here within the next 24 hours. If you don't think you can do this then I'd forget the r9 290s for now... I am familiar with linux and patching source and compiling in linux. Really from what I've read it shouldn't be too difficult (might eat my words on that). Anyway, I'll let you all know if I can get them up running stable and post you all my history log so you can see how I did it. Figured I'd post what I've figured out so far for those technically inclined to move forward themselves.

thank you. after days of linux bashing i gave up as too stressed on time. running win8 with 5 cards for now. if you can get it working and post the log of step by step inputs that you did i (as well as many others) would really appreciate. good luck/.

I just spent all day on this. The drivers are broken. There is just nothing I can do at this point. I went as far as to implement fixes and then recompile the drivers as well as cgminer... It just won't work with more than one card. Sorry boys these things are not ready for real mining yet. Glad I didn't cancel my Ebay auctions.

On the other hand... R9 280x work absolutely fantastic with only a small loss of hashing power, a large loss of noise, and $100 less. Highly recommend those.

to be honest im hashing fine at 4.1Mh with 5 cards currently in win8. too bad i got nowhere sticking that idle card somewhere else as only spare hardware i have is old motherboards that dont have win7 support.

current heating room:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/68357967/Images/Photos/Miners/farm.jpg

What are you hiding over in the corner?

Also do you want to sell that extra card or I can sell you a cheap ass mobo/processor/ram combo for $50, that would run that card and win7.

Once the driver is corrected, and CGMiner is recompiled the R9 290 runs pretty well. I am going to do some more tweaking, and see if I can run more than one  R9 290 before I say everything is working 100%. Currently running around 870 KHas/sec with current settings.

I've got 6 detecting with aticonfig --lsa, but cgminer says I've got a ADL count mismatch and only one card will mine. I'm using the "pre-re-compiled" cgminer .tar off the ohmpie page.

Arrgh, going to play with those .deb files tomorrow. I've read the ohmpie page and that forum link too many times tonight, it's all running together. Sounds like those might be pre "fixed" drivers for linux noobs like me  :D

And one more thing, the only way I got my card detected was by installing the AMD Beta driver by just running the installer. When I built the driver just for Xubuntu CGminer seemed to not like it. So I did a fresh install, ran the Catalyst installer, and built the CGminer with the ADL file fixes(or download the one from the site). I started out with a -I of 9, and it started right up.

I have not figured out why CGminer will not pick up the cards when building packages for certain distros of Linux. If anyone has input let us know!

Hmm, that is exactly what I did, and I get the results you describe! Well, mostly. I still have one detecting at least. It did fire right up and I tweaked it up to ~840kh/s using basic 290 settings before I gave up for the night. With more TC tweaking and finding the prime core/mem ratio of my individual cards I think 860-880kh/s should be manageable.

So if I understand correctly, I should just sudo *.run --i, right? Or even just ./*.run?

No sudo *.run --buildpkg /Ubuntu/....?

I think I remember seeing the ATI Linux install gui at some point when I was flogging without knowing what I was doing. I'm thinking just running that .run file will get me back to that CCC install gui, right?

Yes, you would see the Catalyst GUI come up when running the .run file.

Basically,

I unzipped the driver, opened up terminal,  sudo chmod +x *.run, and then sudo ./*.run. The installer pops right up, and you can install it. Since you can detect one card, it seems like your drivers are working.

When uninstalling drivers, I broke everything, and had to do a fresh install. So keep that in mind while working on the drivers. Always check to make sure the hardware actually works so you don't mess up your install just for a bad card.   

When more cards come in this week I will post my results.

I see, I will give that a shot when I get home tonight. I've not had faith in myself being able to remove drivers entirely so I've been reinstalling every time, started a fresh one before I went to sleep last night  :D

sudo chmod +x just sets some file permissions on downloaded files, right?

I'll be sure to post results if I see em!

Sudo chmod +x gives the current filename give the current user the permissions to execute the file.

Guys I messed with this for almost 2 weeks just like all of you. I made all the progress you've all made. I hacked and modified until I couldn't take it anymore. I listed them on EBay and got $480 per card, originally paying $500 per card. A $20 loss not to deal with that shit is totally worth it. I got #5 r9 280x's now and they are all working like a dream at 750kh/sec. The 290(x)s SUCK!

Maybe in six months when AMD gets off their lazy asses and fixes the drivers, then it will be worth another try. Until then forget it... They are garbage.

Five card r9 290x rig running in windows 8.1 is good just had to switch pci latency over

Derp  ;D

http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab357/pontiacg5_2010/IMG_20140116_180454_zps49fd0e61.jpg?t=1389917161

Absolutely perfect. No modded cgminer, no modded drivers, no modded anything. Fan speed, clock speeds, and temp display works flawless...

Super easy. Install 13.10, "saucy salamander" then install beta 13.11 drivers released 1/8/13. Then, install cgminer 3.7.2 and go to town.

Haven't "tuned" the cards at all yet. I want 5MH/s from this one rig  ;)

That was posted a long time ago, and you still won't get 6 in wondows.

That is a clean one right there.

Are those the new risers?

I might have to switch from the classic "flexible" ones if so.

Thanks!

Yes, they are USB 3.0 riser cables. I didn't make these, but I have a bunch of blank PCBs I'm putting together that appear to be working (on less expensive hardware, to start  ;D )

I love these risers, I've never had a single issue with one other than the ridiculous price gouging. I miss November, when they were >$10..

http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab357/pontiacg5_2010/IMG_20140116_190317_zps27aa32b5.jpg?t=1389920673

I've managed over 5mh/s, and am closing in on 5kWU/m  8)

This is without a 20" box fan, as my case is designed to use, and I think I have a lame mounted card in the mix. Too early to tell. I'm not sure how much the reference cards will benefit from the box fan, but I'm about to go buy one and see. Sure does work well with the non-ref coolers though.

Very nice.

Hopefully GPU 5 was just working on an extremely difficult share rather than being lame but you may be right, time will tell once you leave it mining for an extended period to see if the numbers even out at all.

On the upside it looks like the tweaking you are doing is paying off, nice rates so far!

I have two cards running perfectly now, and it wasn't to much work.

.05btc bounty!!!

So, do you think this is the case even for four? {290x} I'm downloaded Ubuntu now...

I'm having a problem keeping 1 stable with win7, nonetheless four or six.

I have:
Four Sapphire r9 290x cards
GA 990FXA-UD5 [mobo]
AMD FX 4130 4-core 3.8GHz
12GB RAM
1500w Enermax
Four 16 x 16 pci extenders [not powered]
(optical, WD 350gb hdd, Windows 7)

pics of my rig here: https://imgur.com/a/uKm87

Also, this is my first rig and may be missing something obvious to others.
All drivers are installed plus win 7
In the bios, I didn't really do anything. It was already set to boot pcie 1
Not sure what else to do in bios.

When trying just one card:
- I have to try multiple slots multiple times.
- Each time, either windows is scrambled, gets frozen at startup, looks 8-bit and distorted, or no signal, no beep
- when it gets going and looks perfect (1 out of 20 starts), it eventually crashes
- When i try other slots (like the x16 ones), it doesn't even beep once, or does the 1 long, 3 short beeps (gpu code).
- Once I got windows up with 2 cards, but one had an error 43
- I've tried to download the updated catalyst, but as it's installing, when the screen goes black a few times, it eventually never comes back.
- Tried uninstalling the drivers and restarting and installing, but trying to start windows without this driver and using this card is damn near impossible. Did it once though.
- Sometimes windows is going, but the monitor stops and says no signal, but the pc sounds no diff than a second ago...like it's still running win7
- If I try to start with two cards in any slot combo, i get the 1 long, 3 short beeps

.05btc bounty to the one that get's me up and running.

If you don't see it listed above, assume I haven't done it..even if basic

Thanks!!

This is what I did, and two cards are running fully maxed out.

To start-

1. Install the Ubuntu

2. Update Ubuntu fully

3. Download the latest AMD Beta drivers for Linux, and download the fixed CGminer from http://www.ohmpie.com/mining-on-an-r9-290-in-linux/  Do not download anything else.

4. Extract the AMD drivers to your home directory, and extract the Cgminer.

5. I renamed the CGminer folder to just cgminer so it is easier to type in command prompt.

Install AMD drivers-

1. Open up terminal, and check to see if you extracted the AMD drivers to the right spot by typing

ls

2. Once you see the driver file type

sudo chmod +x ./name of your AMD driver

3. To install the drivers type

sudo ./name of your AMD driver

4. Once the installer is finished reboot the PC

Set up CGminer-

1. Open up terminal, and install CGMiner required files.

sudo apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev pkg-config libtool libncurses5-dev

2. Change to cgminer folder

cd cgminer

3. Export your display settings

export DISPLAY=:0
export GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT=100
export GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS=1

4. Check to see if CGminer detects all GPUs, and you can see the temps etc...

./cgminer -n

5. If all your GPUs show up you can go ahead and start mining. I started at a I of 9 to check stability of system

./cgminer --scrypt -o pool address -u workername -p password -I 9

6. If CGminer does not detect all GPUs type

sudo aticonfig --adapter=all -f --initial

Then restart PC

7. Export your display settings again, and retry

./cgminer -n

If all GPUs are detected start mining!

Lastly I recommend that you save a conf file using CGMiner, and you can edit your settings from that file instead of typing a huge command list every time you want to start mining.

For instance I have one set up with all my overclocking settings so I can just ./cgminer -c r9290 and CGminer loads up all my favorite settings.

Refer to the README files in CGminer if get stuck on the CGminer parts.


 

What motherboard are you using with those? I've been hit or miss with 6 GPU and different Z87 motherboards, interested in what manufacturer/model/chipset you are using?

try sdk 2.7 + catalists 12.6 +cgminer 3.7.0

Hey

I wrote a guide for using the Sapphire 290's on Ubuntu with the latest drivers and latest of everything else. I get around 880 khs per card.

http://infinitecointalk.org/index.php/topic,1128.0.html

Check it out, if it might help

I can run 3x Sapphire R9 290 Tri-x , 1x Sapphire 280x Toxic, and 1x 7950 in Windows 8.1 just fine, but in Windows 7 I get Code 43 on the 7950 (if I put another 280x in there I still get the Code 43) no matter what I do.  13.11 beta, 13.12 both work in Windows 8.1, but in Windows 7 I can only get 4 cards going.  Fucking sucks.  AMD needs to work this shit out.  And of course, in Win 8.1 my GPU mapping is so screwed up I don't even want to waste my time trying to fix it.

Hey

I noticed that there is an issue running 7950/290 with 280X card in the same rig. The issue lies with the gpu threads setting. Basically both the 7950 and the 290 prefers 1 thread but the 280x prefers 2. Running 290 with 7950 works great, with just different settings on the intensity, shaders and everything else but running with a 280X in the same rig is not something that I would recommend. You can run multiple instances of cgminer on the same rig, but I dont really recommend that either...

I would put the 290 and the 7950 in one rig, and sell the 280X or swap it with another 7950 or a 290 to get a more stable rig.
Also, if you are not using riser cables that are shielded, that could also be an issue with EMI between the cards. You can buy aluminium tape to shield the cables and make sure the cables don't physically touch each other.

Also, remember that the 290 is a quite new card so it requires later versions of drivers, that can also be an issue if you run on older set of drivers, as some other guide sometimes suggest. I.e you have to run this version, with this version of sdk etc. I think that is just bullshit. AMD releases new drivers for a reason, not to make the cards perform worse.

I prefer using the newest drivers, since I have seen they provide the most stable configuration. I run both on Ubuntu and Windows 7 without any issues, but I have heard people having issues with more cards due to EMI or bad riser cables.

I had a really strange issue with one rig, where two of the 290 cards worked fine but the third didnt, and it stopped after a while. I then switched to 1X->16X powered risers, and connected two of the cards to the 1X and one to the 16X and the problem dissappeared.

Check my guide out in the previous post, if you fancy trying Ubuntu and want to run it on a USB stick instead of on a HDD and Windows.

Anyone tried bamt 1.3 for the r9 290s yet? Apparently they implemented a load of fixes to get shit up and running with the r9s. Check it out.

Not yet, but I will give it a try tomorrow when a lot more of my 290's show up  :D

Thanks for your reply.

I can run 3 290's and one 280x on the same machine by using the "--device=" command, so that isn't an issue for me.  The issue lies with windows itself.  CGminer won't even recognize the 5th card because windows won't assign it resources.  Windows would only show 4 until I did the trick where you short the pci slot.  I have tried different types of 16x-16x risers and 1x-16x powered risers in different slots and different cards.  I always seem to get the Code 43 in device manager.  Currently, the 7950 has the Code 43.  When I swapped the 7950 out for another 280x from my other system, the 280x picked Code 43, while the original 280x still worked fine.  

It has to be a driver issue because I see people running 6 and 7 cards, and I'm through trying to figure it out.  Everything works fine in windows 8.1 except for my gpu mapping, it's all fucked up so I don't use Win 8.  Not dealing with that.  Hopefully a driver update from AMD will fix the Code 43 in win 7.  I want to call and see if I can speak to someone at AMD who know what's going on, but I don't know if that would get me anywhere.  Over to Linux for now.

I've tried 2 different USB sticks and can't get them to boot BAMT.  Tried 2 different machines too.  Went through bios boot order as well.

Are they Gigabyte? Gigabyte and BAMT don't play nice I've found.

I hate Gigabyte. I'd rather buy ASRock than Gigabyte.

ocz and some other brand

I would not count on AMD to release drivers for windows 7 that allow you to run 6 cards. It's not going to happen, not straight from AMD. Why would they? There's really no support for gaming cards, that is the reason the firepro series exists and why they cost so much more for so little relative power, all the $$$ is in drivers and support.

If anything, someone will figure out how to modify the drivers. Right now, Linux will do what you want though.

Also, I don't think nvandertill was asking about the USB thumb drive, but the manuf. of the 290 cards themselves.

Quit jacking with BAMT and go straight to Saucy Salamander!

Yeah i have salamander ready to go on a usb stick,  just need to find the time.   Cards are all sapphire.  It boots straight to windows when i put the bamt stick in.  even when i disable the hdd it wont boot,  its like theres nothing on the usb stick at all.

As the previous post said, forget BAMT and go with Ubuntu, there is a link I posted some posts back which contain all you need to set it up on a usb stick.

How did you make the USB drive?

On my MSI boards, to get things going quickly, I unplug the hard drive and plug in the USB disk. Since the bios is set to boot from HDD that no longer exists it boots straight to UEFI bios. Then, I can go to boot settings and select the USB stick by name. It will show us as verbatum, or store and go, or sandisk cruiser etc...

Then, I set that USB as primary, save the bios changes and shut down instead of restarting. Then I just plug the sata drive back in and fire up, worked fine.

Depending on your hardware you may need to change some settings. Common ones are "full/partial USB initilization" usually by fast boot options. Legacy boot options are another option, though you should be able to get UEFI to work. Finally, try other USB ports or even the USB 2.0 headers. You can't boot from USB 3.0 ports on the MSI, apparently, for an example.

Good luck!

I can get ubuntu to boot from usb no problem.  I have also gone through bios and selected the usb stick with bamt manully.    I used win32 diskimager and the litecoinr9_1.3.img from the litecointalk forums.   I'm stumped.

I'm having the same issues as you with the strange stuck resolution of 640x480 in the adapter settings in windows.

How did you solve this?

i used hdmi to vga adaptor with resistors. you can buy on ebay for about BTC0.0125.
http://hardwarefun.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/hdmi-to-vga-adapter.jpg

I've followed this guide, been working at it all day. I've tried the 13.11 beta 9.95 and the 13.12 drivers, did everything perfectly, it's showing all 4 of my 290's in the cgminer devices list when I do ./cgminer -n but as soon as I try to actually mine, the screen goes black and I have to reboot. What driver are you using? What settings are you using? I just cannot get it to do anything.

gonna try this as soon as i get some free time dammit!

https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=11761.0

Hey I have 3 machines running windows 8.1 and 6 gpus. 2 of them using 290s and one using 7950s. You may have to presence short your riser or pcie slot (I had to on my z77-ud3h but not my z77 mpower) but as long as you can see the cards in device manager you should be able to get them to work using one of the following methods. For the 290s the key is that you don't use the AMD drivers, use windows update and let that install the drivers for you. For the 7950s I had to use thetechpowerups 13.1 AMD drivers. Also for the 290s I am using 4 nonpowered 1x-16x risers and 2 powered 16x risers and for the 7950s I am using 6 nonpowered 1x-16x risers.

thanks for the windows drivers tip. will try that. very tight on spare time recently so im still mining with 5 cards. i know lame.

My issue with Windows 8 is cgminer's gpu mapping.  It's so screwed up I don't think I could possibly fix it with the mapping option within cgminer.   Also, --gpu-reorder doesn't fix it either.  I've reinstalled windows, tried different versions of cgminer, and tried different drivers from amd.  Has anyone else had this issue?  

i can confirm that this method worked for me. now hashing at 4.8Mhps with all 6 cards! thanks to all involved!

Which part?  I've had a few glasses and don't quite know which part you are talking about.  Post number would be fine.  Thanks!

the very first post of the thread. there are custom driver libraries that have to be installed manually through device manager. works flawlessly now.

Is there any confirmed method for this?

I have a 6GPU rig, running 2x 7950 and 4x 280x. I am running 13.1 drivers, as any drivers above 13.1 will kick out 2 GPU's, they will show up in Device manager, and i have heard, i just need to install them manually, but how, is a whole different ball park.

I know where AMD stores the drivers, well amlost, but how to move on from there, i do not know.

Can anyone help me out.  I am attempting to build a 6 GPU mining rig but I can only get windows to recognize 5 cards.  So here is my System I am running:

1x Gigabyte 990FX-UD3
6x MSI R280x
8GB PNY Ram
1x Corsair 1050 watt PSU
1x Corsair 850 watt PSU
1x AMD Sempron 145
64GB Hard Drive
Dual Power Supply Adapter
6x Powered Riser Cables

Ok so I will try to explain what's going on and hopefully someone can help me out.  In the beginning I could get windows to recognize all 5 cards, but when I started CGMINER 3.7.3 Kalroth's.  I now have 5 cards hashing away at 695 kh/s with no HW errors and about 0.6% rejected shares.  However, the problem I am having is getting Windows 8.1 to recognize all 6 cards.  I keep getting a code 43 error.  I used Windows update to download all device drivers and I am using the latest Catalyst Drivers I believe.  Does anyone have any suggestions? 

You need Windows 8.1 no question about it. windows 7 is making problems with multi gpus with that number. Windows 8.1 recognizes them with no problems.

check this video, hes having the same problem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfqfEpanpig

and by the way you will need to find a way to undervolt those cards dramaticly. i had exactly those cards with the same psu.
2x290 with cx750 and i had a lot of crashes, needed to replace the psu eventualy.

good luck

i believe for 6gpu in scrypt you'll need more than 8gb ram.

I run 6x 270x with win7, ubuntu and bamt with 4gb, and have verified they still work with 2gb.  the 290s are roughly twice the speed, so i would guess that 4x the minimum would suffice.  I intended to build a 290 rig but haven't unboxed the gpus yet, and i am not going to loose the value of them by opening them just to verify ram, but I assume that 8gb would be fine.

This is not a RAM, motherboard devices, Windows, sexual orientiation or dog breed preference issue.

The problem is Catalyst drivers since 12.6 or 12.8 for Windows limited the number of GPUs to 4.  Anything after that will show up with an exclamation mark.

The workaround to this is to remove any and all catalyst drivers (thoroughly).  Perhaps use TechPowerUp's cleanup utility.  Then disable verified driver installation, reboot and use modified drivers.  Final step is to manually install OpenCL.

This has worked on the three rigs I have built, every single time.  More details here, closer to the bottom of the page:
https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=11761.0

Cheers!

you should reinstall all drivers. Windows 7 is running 6 cards and better to use linux

i think if he just reads this thread a bit better he'll find his answer.

may be he forget this question? lol ;D ;D ;D ;D