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Title: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: PeerMedia on January 19, 2014, 03:08:50 AM I have a small LTC rig with 2 XFX Double D 7950's (Black Edition), they run at 81c, slightly overclocked but runs well with an external fan. Great hash rate for a 7950, 730k/card. I came home on Friday to find my rig off. Not sure why (wasn't a power failure), so I went to turn the rig back on and bam, fire started in one of my 7950's. I turned off the power immediately and blew on the GPU until it went out. Scary as hell.
After I let things cool off, I wasn't able to turn on the rig, I was able to restore it when I removed the GPU that caught on fire. The other GPU seems ok, has anyone experienced something like this? I'm petrified to mine again if another fire happened when I'm not home. I have no explanation what happened or how it would catch on fire from turning the power on. I realize XFX doesn't have a great reputation among miners but I'm stuck on what to possibly do. Rig specs: 2 XFX Double D, 7950 (Black Edition) 1000W Gold PSU ASRock Extreme 4 4 GB RAM Anyone have advice? Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: Scyntech on January 19, 2014, 03:21:43 AM anything over 75c isn't good. That said, it very well may have been a faulty card. XFX I understand are not great at mining, but they are good gaming cards. I'd suggest dropping your OC a little and play around with the mining program settings and see how high you can get you hash rate up without going over 75c. Also you NEED proper cooling if your going OC and do the normal cleaning...dust and such.
Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: empoweoqwj on January 19, 2014, 03:22:22 AM I have a small LTC rig with 2 XFX Double D 7950's (Black Edition), they run at 81c, slightly overclocked but runs well with an external fan. Great hash rate for a 7950, 730k/card. I came home on Friday to find my rig off. Not sure why (wasn't a power failure), so I went to turn the rig back on and bam, fire started in one of my 7950's. I turned off the power immediately and blew on the GPU until it went out. Scary as hell. After I let things cool off, I wasn't able to turn on the rig, I was able to restore it when I removed the GPU that caught on fire. Clearly the GPU is fried, the other GPU seems ok, has anyone experienced something like this? Even if I can RMA this GPU, I'm petrified to mine again if another fire happened when I'm not home. I have no explanation what happened or how it would catch on fire from turning the power on. I realize XFX doesn't have a great reputation among miners but I'm stuck on what to possibly do. Rig specs: 2 XFX Double D, 7950 (Black Edition) 1 1000W Rosewill Gold PSU ASRock Z77 Extreme4 4 GB G.Skill DDR3 RAM Anyone have advice? Its always a possibility when running electrical devices "hot". Strange it happened just when you turned the device on though. No idea why that would happen .... probably result of previous mining session. Did you ever measure card temperatures before the "big bang"? Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: PeerMedia on January 19, 2014, 03:31:21 AM I cannot for the life of me get the temperature lower than 80c even with an industrial fan (identical temperatures without or with the fan). I always assumed their temperature was calculated by fan RPMs and not actually measured at the source.
I've backed off on intensity and OC a bit on the other GPU but temperature is still 79c, not much cooler. Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: Scyntech on January 19, 2014, 03:34:21 AM I cannot for the life of me get the temperature lower than 80c even with an industrial fan (identical temperatures without or with the fan). I always assumed their temperature was calculated by fan RPMs and not actually measured at the source. I've backed off on intensity and OC a bit on the 1 GPU that hasn't fried but temperature is still 79c, not much cooler. It's possible the crappy thermal paste (most companies) they use needs to be replaced OR the heatsink fins are dirty. How hot does it run at idle? Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: PeerMedia on January 19, 2014, 03:45:53 AM I cannot for the life of me get the temperature lower than 80c even with an industrial fan (identical temperatures without or with the fan). I always assumed their temperature was calculated by fan RPMs and not actually measured at the source. I've backed off on intensity and OC a bit on the 1 GPU that hasn't fried but temperature is still 79c, not much cooler. It's possible the crappy thermal paste (most companies) they use needs to be replaced OR the heatsink fins are dirty. How hot does it run at idle? I don't have many ways to check the temps other than the first reading when starting cgminer, in this case its around 40c. The GPU's were just 5 weeks old, very clean room, no dust, no pets. I also wanted to add that my rig is in a milk crate and very well spaced out with risers. Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: Scyntech on January 19, 2014, 03:49:23 AM http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm (http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm) MSI Afterburner. That will tell you the temps. If those are only 5 weeks old. RMA them, you shouldn't be having these issues.
Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: PeerMedia on January 19, 2014, 03:54:50 AM http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm (http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm) MSI Afterburner. That will tell you the temps. If those are only 5 weeks old. RMA them, you shouldn't be having these issues. I'm on Xubuntu so MSI won't work (I think?) Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: empoweoqwj on January 19, 2014, 03:54:53 AM http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm (http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm) MSI Afterburner. That will tell you the temps. If those are only 5 weeks old. RMA them, you shouldn't be having these issues. Yep, you defininitely need to measure the temp whilst running. Then you will know at what stage things start to go wrong. Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: Scyntech on January 19, 2014, 04:11:05 AM http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm (http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm) MSI Afterburner. That will tell you the temps. If those are only 5 weeks old. RMA them, you shouldn't be having these issues. I'm on Xubuntu so MSI won't work (I think?) I've never used Ubuntu, quick Google search here https://www.google.com/search?q=Xubuntu&oq=Xubuntu&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8#q=ubuntu+gpu+temp+monitor&safe=off (https://www.google.com/search?q=Xubuntu&oq=Xubuntu&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8#q=ubuntu+gpu+temp+monitor&safe=off) I don't think MSI has a temp monitor for Ubuntu Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: empoweoqwj on January 19, 2014, 04:12:33 AM http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm (http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm) MSI Afterburner. That will tell you the temps. If those are only 5 weeks old. RMA them, you shouldn't be having these issues. I'm on Xubuntu so MSI won't work (I think?) I've never used Ubuntu, quick Google search here https://www.google.com/search?q=Xubuntu&oq=Xubuntu&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8#q=ubuntu+gpu+temp+monitor&safe=off (https://www.google.com/search?q=Xubuntu&oq=Xubuntu&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8#q=ubuntu+gpu+temp+monitor&safe=off) I don't think MSI has a temp monitor for Ubuntu There's a serious issue. How can you run a rig without monitoring temp? Scary stuff.... Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: Scyntech on January 19, 2014, 04:17:43 AM http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm (http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm) MSI Afterburner. That will tell you the temps. If those are only 5 weeks old. RMA them, you shouldn't be having these issues. I'm on Xubuntu so MSI won't work (I think?) I've never used Ubuntu, quick Google search here https://www.google.com/search?q=Xubuntu&oq=Xubuntu&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8#q=ubuntu+gpu+temp+monitor&safe=off (https://www.google.com/search?q=Xubuntu&oq=Xubuntu&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8#q=ubuntu+gpu+temp+monitor&safe=off) I don't think MSI has a temp monitor for Ubuntu There's a serious issue. How can you run a rig without monitoring temp? Scary stuff.... Agreed, I've seen guys lose $1500+ gaming rigs because of either hardware failures or improper overclocking. I've killed a few Opteron(s) in my day :P Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: PeerMedia on January 19, 2014, 04:22:28 AM CGMiner has temperature monitoring through aticonfig and I setup cgminer temps to 80 (target), 83 (overheat), 85 (shutoff). It never exceeded 82c while running and I regularly monitor temps.
Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: empoweoqwj on January 19, 2014, 04:28:41 AM http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm (http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm) MSI Afterburner. That will tell you the temps. If those are only 5 weeks old. RMA them, you shouldn't be having these issues. I'm on Xubuntu so MSI won't work (I think?) I've never used Ubuntu, quick Google search here https://www.google.com/search?q=Xubuntu&oq=Xubuntu&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8#q=ubuntu+gpu+temp+monitor&safe=off (https://www.google.com/search?q=Xubuntu&oq=Xubuntu&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8#q=ubuntu+gpu+temp+monitor&safe=off) I don't think MSI has a temp monitor for Ubuntu There's a serious issue. How can you run a rig without monitoring temp? Scary stuff.... Agreed, I've seen guys lose $1500+ gaming rigs because of either hardware failures or improper overclocking. I've killed a few Opteron(s) in my day :P I'm still wondering why it caught fire when the OP turned it back on though. I suppose something got fried when he was out, and the system luckily cut out instead of catching on fire then. I think the OP got off very lucky. He could have come back to a shell of a house. Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: PeerMedia on January 19, 2014, 04:30:46 AM anything over 75c isn't good. That said, it very well may have been a faulty card. XFX I understand are not great at mining, but they are good gaming cards. I'd suggest dropping your OC a little and play around with the mining program settings and see how high you can get you hash rate up without going over 75c. Also you NEED proper cooling if your going OC and do the normal cleaning...dust and such. I've cut all OC out and running at stock settings, its running at 79c with the external fan, saved just 2 degrees by not OC'ing and lost 100kh/s. Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: Scyntech on January 19, 2014, 04:33:01 AM CGMiner has temperature monitoring through aticonfig and I setup cgminer temps to 80 (target), 83 (overheat), 85 (shutoff). It never exceeded 82c while running and I regularly monitor temps. Do some research on your cards. See if those have general heat/overheating issues. My 7850 is OC'ed from 860Mh/z to 1100Mh/z core and 1200Mh/z to 1350 Mh/z Mem. At 99% load I never reach 76c with a 2% increase in voltage. It's also fan cooled, I have two fans on the back pulling air out of the case. Two on the side and two in front pushing air in. I know XFX and a few off brands run hot, but that doesn't me ALL XFX cards will have heat issues. Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: Scyntech on January 19, 2014, 04:40:17 AM Kind of what I thought
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1700706 (http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1700706) there are a number of threads of people asking about high temps with the same card you have. Reviews show it should be running at much lower temps. Thinking you got a couple of cards from a bad batch. It does happen. Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: Gator-hex on January 19, 2014, 11:22:28 AM Quote The other GPU seems ok, has anyone experienced something like this? I'm petrified to mine again if another fire happened when I'm not home. Fires are caused by dust balls building up in the PSU, CPU and GPU heatsink and fans. Buy a can of compressed air and clean them out once a month. Put a smoke alarm near your equipment and never place equipment where fire can spread, near curtains etc. Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: empoweoqwj on January 19, 2014, 11:27:10 AM Quote The other GPU seems ok, has anyone experienced something like this? I'm petrified to mine again if another fire happened when I'm not home. Fires are caused by dust balls building up in the PSU, CPU and GPU heatsink and fans. Buy a can of compressed air and clean them out once a month. Put a smoke alarm near your equipment and never place equipment where fire can spread, near curtains etc. Great advice. Is there any material you can "surround" your rig with to prevent fire spreading should it start? Also think about what your rig is standing on e.g. not a carpet that is going to catch fire. Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: Gator-hex on January 19, 2014, 11:35:32 AM Quote The other GPU seems ok, has anyone experienced something like this? I'm petrified to mine again if another fire happened when I'm not home. Fires are caused by dust balls building up in the PSU, CPU and GPU heatsink and fans. Buy a can of compressed air and clean them out once a month. Put a smoke alarm near your equipment and never place equipment where fire can spread, near curtains etc. Great advice. Is there any material you can "surround" your rig with to prevent fire spreading should it start? Also think about what your rig is standing on e.g. not a carpet that is going to catch fire. Cooking tin foil is a good heat/fire retardant shiney side facing the fire source. It's also a good conductor of electrcity though so be careful not to put it in contact with anything electrical. You can also get fire retardant paints but it's not as cheap as tin foil. Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: PeerMedia on January 19, 2014, 06:03:51 PM Quote The other GPU seems ok, has anyone experienced something like this? I'm petrified to mine again if another fire happened when I'm not home. Fires are caused by dust balls building up in the PSU, CPU and GPU heatsink and fans. Buy a can of compressed air and clean them out once a month. Put a smoke alarm near your equipment and never place equipment where fire can spread, near curtains etc. I mentioned this in the other thread we both posted to, but thought I'd add it here too: The fire I had recently happened from off-state to when I turned it on, just 5 weeks old, definitely no dust and no pets/hair, with open rig and external fan. I'm almost certain its not a dust issue as it was really new. The rig I have was running at 82c and was 2 XFX 7950's Double D's, from what I've read they aren't a good miners card, but they should not be catching fire. I've stopped overclocking and brought the temp down to 79c and will be RMA'ing the one that caught on fire as that thing is not going near my PC ever again! I do like the idea of putting tin foil around the PC just in case but as you mentioned as well, its also a great electrical conductor, gonna have to find something else that can prevent a fire. Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: atp1916 on January 19, 2014, 06:07:55 PM Undervolt that card by modding using bios using the VBE07 bios editor (http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/vbe7-vbios-editor-for-radeon-hd-7000-series-cards.189089/).
Worked like a charm to bring my xfx 7950 volts down to 1.09. I lopped off 10c from the top-end doing that cause the card came stock @ 1.256v which is way too much. Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: PeerMedia on January 19, 2014, 11:19:06 PM I just bought the largest industrial fan I could find (its twice as big as the crate), and not a single degree temperature change. I'm pretty sure the airflow could be considered a mild hurricane by most standards, I have a hard time believing this couldn't lower the temperature.
I'd undervolt the card but Trixx and MSI Afterburner won't let me mod the changes and since there's just 1 BIOS (they decided to leave out the BIOS switch), that's not something I'm willing to try since I've never flashed the BIOS before. Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: Smellbad on January 20, 2014, 02:43:58 AM I am running 4 XFX 7959 Double D's on one of my rigs. They run hot and like crap with the stock bios. You can download your bios and go to the litecoin fourm. Stilt will optimize it for a donation. Memory is bottle necked on the cards with the stock bios. With the newly fixed up bios, the cards are monsters. My cards now run at 615 kh/s and at 70-72c, no external fans. Rig is pulling around 1075w from the wall.
https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=12369.0 Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: PeerMedia on January 20, 2014, 11:54:06 PM I'd love to flash them but I'm somewhat paranoid as there's just 1 BIOS on XFX cards, no BIOS switch. The thought of bricking a 30 day card somewhat scares me more than the heat issue.
Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: Wipeout2097 on January 21, 2014, 12:09:46 AM I'd love to flash them but I'm somewhat paranoid as there's just 1 BIOS on XFX cards, no BIOS switch. The thought of bricking a 30 day card somewhat scares me more than the heat issue. You will brick it sooner by mining at gamer/overclocker settings. People forget that these are Windows direct3d devices that come with useless (for mining) Crossfire connectors, multiple monitor outputs and Battlefield 4 coupons, ffs! While gaming, accept shitloads of commands, have pauses, interrupts, perform diverse operations, there's some sort of load balance. In other words, at gaming nothing bangs the card 24/7 on the same transistors and components. At least, please post Gpu-z screenshot of the "Sensors" tab, a few minutes after start mining .. Edit: your cards core reached 81 ºC in the winter?? Perhaps the fan was at low speed or the VRM's went above 110ºC Title: Re: XFX 7950 Double D Caught on Fire Post by: PeerMedia on January 21, 2014, 12:40:43 AM I'm on Xubuntu so I only have the temp settings that CGMiner spits out which is 81c. There was no difference in temps between the desktop fan I had and the industrial sized fan. I backed off the optimal settings to intensity 17 and removed all OC settings to lower the temps a bit further to 79c, but I lost 120kh/s for just 2 degrees. It seems like its almost not worth the savings.
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