Bitcoin Forum

Hi there,

Setup:
3 machines, all with 4x 5830.

Recently i've build custom wood cases for my motherboards/videocards to keep them cool.
I've ordered these extensions cables: http://www.ebay.nl/itm/250865690511?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

Since then LOTS of problems;
- On one system I can get a maximum of 2 cards to work.
- On two systems i can get a maximum of 3 cards to work, both systems dont work with cards on slot 3 and 5.
- Random BSOD's, shutdowns and application not responding on all systems.

Any help? Thankyou.

they look a bit different than the good ones from cablesaurus, in that they have a locking tab on the female connector and the blue tape is folded down on the sides below the female connector.

Please take a picture of the cables your actually received

I had the same problems, I cleaned the contacts of the extensor and connected and disconnected several times, and until get it stable.

Try to do the same, maybe this can help you.

Not that it helps you with the ones you already ordered, but these are very reliable.  I have bout 10 of them with no issue.  https://cablesaurus.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=8 (https://cablesaurus.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=8)

Just need to do some physical modification to make them work.

I got two 16-16 from 9mart and they both appear to work fine for a couple hundred shares, but just hardlocks linuxcoin. Even with just 1 card installed, not overclocked, and different cards do it.

Showing the lotes, the other had a winning connector on it.


http://imgur.com/a/Y0cL4

If none of that helps, this might! (http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=42)

Look for "Shorting Pins for Presence Detection"! A little less than ¼ the way down!

There's no edit anymore!

For the random BSOD/Lockups, try reinstalling your drivers! Remove the old ones first with driver sweeper or ccleaner! If you're OCing your cards, drop it back 5-10MHz and see if that helps!

Oh, and, close the Goxlive tab, it really draws on resources! ;)

Did you examine the extenders to make sure that none of the pins are shorted? I got mine from www.9mart.com, and they work fine. But out of 6 I ordered, one had shorted pins, and the replacement they sent me may have the same problem. It's adjacent pins that short due to misaligned or bent pins. IMO, the quality is a little sketchy for the 9mart cables, but if you order a few more than you need, you should be fine. I remember reading somewhere on this forum that for 16-->16 cables, you want to look for extenders that use three separate ribbon cables. I don't know if there is anything to this, or why it would be the case, but I noticed that yours only use two ribbon cables. Also, it would help to know what motherboards you are using.

The Cablesaurus 16x/16x extenders have three 'split' sections, but there's really only two 'ribbons' if they weren't split (which they don't need to be).  Any extender with only a single ribbon cable is asking for trouble - PCIe connectors have pins on both sides of the connector, so you need two ribbons.

The ribbon cables are also a rather tiny gauge, so using two ribbon cables splits the +12V and +3.3V power among multiple wires.  This keeps the extender from overheating and starting a fire / frying your card.

I was talking about the split sections on each side. I agree they don't need to be split. But people do seem to be reporting more problems with the 16-->16 extenders that don't have three split sections per side. Even for the 1-->1, some extenders are split into two sections per side, and these may be better cables. If there is anything to this, and I'm not claiming there is, it probably has to do with manufacturers. Perhaps the manufacturer(s) that use split cables make a better quality product. It's just a superficial mark of the manufacturer, like the locking tab, which also shouldn't matter.

The only purpose the locking tab has ever served is frustrating the hell out of me when I want to remove just the lower card, and the damn tab is blocked ;)

2nd that!

I think motherboard makers put the locking tab on just to mess with us.

It's a MSI NF750-G55.

The x16 extenders have 3 split sections and no shorts on the one I tested.

I used linuxcoin and did make a new image on the flash drive to make sure, but no dice.

Since my situation differs from the OP's somewhat, maybe there's another cause?

I found gigabyte boards sometimes dont like 3 or 4 cards. SUprised that MSI though, i found them be solid.

I use X1 - X16 extenders, £3 off ebay. ANyone recomending cablesauraus as either got more money than sense or works for that guy. No one seems to be selling them with molex power adaptors either except him which is really frustrating. I just make them myself now from the £3 extenders. Simple

I use cablesaurus' adapters and I'm certainly no shill.  I really dislike paying so much for them, but he gets them out the door really quickly, it's convenient, and I've yet to hear about a bad adapter from him.

When I'm plugging my $150+ equipment into my $150+ mainboard, I'd rather have the consolation that the adapter has actually been tested.

He's also the only vendor accepting bitcoins for them unless you get them from someone random in the marketplace here.

Regardless of all that I think they should be half the price they are, but it doesn't stop me from spending a day or so of mining profit for them.

[edit] well shit, after re-reading that I guess I am a shill ;)

haha :)

Im in uk, so its not fast and 5 times the price :)

 I bought a Cablesaurus 1x-16x. They delivered quickly but it doesnt work for me at all, even with the shorting-to-recognize trick.

Since you're talking about shorting, I assume you mean you're using it in a 16x slot.

Does it work in a 1x slot?  It could simply be a bad one.

I forgot to post this quite a while back, but I should have.  I'm surprised that I haven't heard this mentioned anywhere else, but I had a similar problem that took a little time to figure out.

Backstory -- When I first started putting together my first mining rigs, I noticed that some cards were performing slightly better than others.  Card performance varied anywhere from 1 to 4 percent.  It didn't make any sense.  I had 32 identical cards that had the same clock rates, so the performance should be nearly identical between cards.  At the time, I was using separate instances of Phoenix for each card instead of a combined miner, so I could see the hash rate discrepancies.

Long story short, I noticed that the cards connected directly to the board never varied...  only the cards with 1x risers did.  My rigs have 4 cards each -- 2 in the board and 2 connected with risers.  I then noticed that the hash rate in Phoenix would fluctuate when I moved the riser cable around.  Yep...  the risers easily pick up EMI from nearby components.

Since PCI Express runs at such a high frequency, it's extremely susceptible to interference over long distances.  You'll notice that most of the "name brand" risers are shielded (like this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815158290 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815158290)).  They're shielded for a reason.

With every miner I assembled, I sat and watched Phoenix while moving the cable around until I hit the max hash rate (and then left them there).  However, I had cards that would stop mining randomly.  Sometimes they would mine for a few hours, sometimes 1/2 of a day, and sometimes days without hanging.  When they would hang, it didn't take anything more than restarting the miner.

I started logging these hangs over the course of a week or so.  I noted which machines would hang and which cards it happened to.  Of course, it always happened to the cards with the risers.

Here's what I did to fix it.  I bought a roll of aluminum duct tape and shielded the cables myself.  Be very careful with this though -- aluminum is very conductive.  If you're afraid of them touching against your components *wrap them in electrical tape* after applying the aluminum tape.  I'm sure you could use aluminum foil to shield them too, but I'd recommend the tape if you have very many risers to wrap.

After doing this, I *rarely* get a miner that hangs.  With 54 video cards mining 24/7, I only have to restart a miner about once every week or two.  It rarely happens.  Here's the exact tape that I used, but I'm sure that just about any aluminum foil will do the job.  http://www.amazon.com/Nashua-324A-Cold-Weather-Premium/dp/B0015V93KG (http://www.amazon.com/Nashua-324A-Cold-Weather-Premium/dp/B0015V93KG).  I bought it at Home Depot.

Great find, aluminum tape is so useful :)

Will definitely be giving this a try.

Man, nice one. Thats it! With 4 5850's on each rig i noticed with 4 cards connected i the one in the main slot has to be clocked down a little over the others. Im using £3 cables and added my own molex power (£15+ is just a joke, by anyones standards) but no shielding. I have LOADS of aliminium tape about also. I will be doing this promptly :) Nice find :)

In 3 months I have had no problems with my 9mart x16 extenders.  Currently I am using 8 of the 10 I bought.  I added Molex power to a couple of them myself since I am running 5 cards/rig.  Once or twice there was an issue with the miner not starting but it was because I had bumped a cable, re-seating the connector solved the problem both times.  Be careful that your cables are not rubbing on the PCB of the neighboring video card, I can see that as being an EMI source as well as a potential short if the fan vibration/heat wears through the insulation.

I haven't had any problems with the x16 extenders...  only the x1.  I have six 9mart x16 extenders and they have been just fine.  I'm guessing with PCI-E's ECC and the additional bandwidth through the cable, it's able to deal with the interference.  Just a guess though.  I've only had to worry about wrapping my 1x extenders, and I've had to do it with every rig to prevent the random miner hangs.

I'll be moving my rigs to the other side of the room this weekend...
going to vent all the hot air into the cold air duct instead of outside

[edit] had a power failur and just wanted to save this post before PC died...
anyways...
when i reset up my miners i'll be putting on the tape to make sure all is good.
curretnly i have each cable seperated by a piece of wood so that they don't touch

A piece of wood between each cable is enough to block EMI at those frequencies...  However, that would only block EMI between cables.  If there's nothing else near the cables, you're probably fine.  My problems were more pronounced because a lot of my miners had extenders running between cards that were physically plugged into the board.  However, I've experienced this problem on a rig with 4 cards *all* on risers.  They probably got their EMI from each other's riser cables being close to each other.  The tape took care of it though.

Quick Question...
when I wrap the PCIE cables with metal tape...
do I wrap them up with a layer in between the cables?
or just around them?

I wrapped between them (and then around), but it's most important that you wrap around them to keep external EMI out.

I wrapped around 2 of them then i came across the idea to wrap between them
so i thought i would ask.
unfortunately I'm now to inebriated to do the task on hand...
so it will have to wait till tomorrow

I've got an Asus P5B-Deluxe (LGA 775 with 2x PCI-e X16). Can I add a riser and newer card to this? I'm thinking I can add two! :)

Got a http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004XD74MC for $9 and it works perfectly... excepting that every time I restart my computer it only displays a blinking dos curser and doesn't start up unless I replug it in. But its those little quirks and flaws that keep a guy interested!