Bitcoin Forum

       It looks like the Catalyst 11.9 are finally out (http://downloads.guru3d.com/AMD-Catalyst-11.9-RCx-Windows-XP-download-2784.html#download) and some here have mentioned it gives a nice performance boost without the 100% CPU bug being prevalent.

If this post has been helpful donate,lol !

Edit: A newer variant (http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?p=4101605) of the Cat. 11.9(8.892) has been released ! Although,when I tried these the bug is still prevalent.

If this works I will make passionate love to any member (or all members) of the development team.

On a 5770 this fixes the 100% CPU bug and a small increase of 2-3MHash/s on poclbm. Nice!

Thanks for letting us know about 11.9 I've been waiting

Am I the only one that the bug is not fixed?

I've got two cards locked down to one core of the four cores I have, other wise if not locked down, each card maximizes one core per card.

Two 5830's.

https://i.imgur.com/xuLR0.jpg

Reduces cpu usage massively on my 6950s and gained about 5mh/s.

I won't be rolling it out on all my machines as I don't really trust rc drivers.

unfortunately this did more harm then good just spent an hour fixing the computer but maybe its just me i never had the 100% bug my comp always sit around 50%. lol you guys are happy bout 3mhash

Perhaps it sat at 50% because you have a dual core cpu and it was only using 1 core? Also, I'm not massively thrilled at a 5mhash increase, but over 10 workers that's potentially 50mhash, and I'm certainly not complaining at that.

Also, an hour? really?

The bug make a core run at 100%, if you have a dual-core cpu of course total cpu usage is 50%.

Been using it since yesterday. It's good stuff.

Even though it's a RC, it doesnt look to damn good. It is the same as 11.6, 11.7 and 11.8.

For the ones stating "it is fixed for me", can you post what hardware you are using, OS, everything.

See, I never had this problem with 10.11 drivers with 2.1 sdk, but moved to 11.8, 2.5 sdk and newest guiminer for more mhash/s, a while back.

dub0matic, what do you mean, "spent an hour fixing the computer" what happened? BSOD? Did you not click allow driver signing install button upon 11.9rc installation?

I would like to see these specifics for all that it worked and didn't.

direct link to 11.9rc on amd's website please?

I guess he "as in asder00" is using
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/embedded/Pages/embedded_windows_all.aspx

My gpu-z
https://i.imgur.com/Upv7B.jpg

thanks. i prefer downloading such software directly from amd.
i will just wait for a few more people to chime in with their results before taking the plunge.

Yea for the time stopping the miners, then uninstalling, then running driversweeper in safemode, reboot back into safe mode to clean the registry with registry cleaner, then boot back into windows normally, install 11.9rc, then reboot again is not worth the hassle atm.

I highly doubt this bug fix will be implemented in the final release of 11.9.

This is why i leave miners running unless something BIG happens, they're running now mostly on 11.6 except for rigs with more than 4 cards unless 12.0 brings a huge jump in performance or allows better overclocking/lower temperatures somehow it's not worth the effort, how long does that 4mh boost take to cover an hour of downtime when you're already at 1gh per rig?

what mean by an hour is i installed it checked to see if it ran didnt seem like much of a difference so i rebooted then had trouble restarting. then when it actually started up guiminer would just say connecting not shares or whatever so then i had to go back to 11.8/2.3. cool story bro ill try it again when the official release is out

uninstall and reinstall cleanly is about 20 minutes including a reboot getting things overclocked again plus any issues with the new driver that have to be dealt with i'd give an hour

to do it "properly" does take some time.
now if you just slap the new driver over the old and reboot.. well that takes less time but sometimes
causes a lot of havoc.

and deslok makes a really good point.. of just how long does it take for an extra 4 mh/s to make up for
a 1 gh/s box being down for an hour?

i think it would be about 10-11 days.

1000 mh x 60 seconds x 60 minutes = 3,600,000 mh/hr
4 mh x 60 seconds x 60 minutes = 14400 mh/hr

3,600,000 / 14400 = 250 mh/hr

250 mh/hr / 24 hours = 10.41 days at 4 mh/s

rough math. i prob made a mistake. dunno. need to think it through more.

Seems in the ballpark i was thinking, changes to the mining programs are one thing and usually simple to install driver changes can be hell and require complete reinstialls if things go sour enough

Also don't forget image backups of the OS before the driver install as well just in case something goes really bad. What was it, 11.6 beta screwed a lot of people over with sudden BSOD's? or 11.7 beta's? But yea, that adds another 10-20 minutes as well, for me it is 3-4 minutes, reading off an SSD to write the image backup on a somewhat fast western digital.

Both the official and Guru3d variants do not install for me on XP.

Funny thing: when I tried installing it, I already had the latest driver version
anyway, I tried the lastest 2.5 SDK, and indeed, it solved the 100% CPU issue
too bad it's still 1% slower than 2.1 SDK on my overclocked 5750, same driver version

haha 5750 is garbage move on

I had to RMA my 5850 because of artifacts, so waiting for them to mail me a new one

but I HIGHLY suspect that all 5xxx cards are faster on 2.1 SDK
I will test and report back when I get my 5850

I've been running 11.7 as the last stable rev for my rigs. I tried 11.8 and it BSOD'ed my rigs whenever I tried underclocking my 5970s memory below 500. Under 11.7 I am able to clock down to 250 and remain stable. From my personal exp the 11.8 update was targeted at gamers and miners got the shaft. Did anyone try underclocking memory to 250-300 range under 11.9?

Thank you!
 ;D

I've got an increase using between driver 11.6-11.8 and latest guiminer, increase was from 314mhash/s to 320 mhash/s on my first, 316 to 322-323 mhash/s on my second card that just mines. Coming from 10.11 & 2.1 sdk.

two 5830's.

From another thread, this worked for me:

There is no reason to clean out the entire driver, just install the OpenCL Package by itself, it is open cl, not the driver that makes the difference.

Only about 2 minutes of downtime and I get 3Mh/s more on Phoenix with the Phakt kernel.

In the guru3d download it is under: Setup -> Packages -> Apps -> OpenCL


More info:
I am running 11.8 Win7 x64 on a R5830. I installed the regular version of OpenCL from 11.9RC not OpenCL64.


(In the last 5 min: 24 Accepted; 0 Rejected so looking pretty stable to me at first glance.)

Card: No Name 5830

OS: Win7

Miner: CGMiner, no special settings

Clock at 960 mem at 300

Fixed the 50% CPU bug for me

Going at 300ish MH/s sometimes less than 300 sometimes up to 310, not sure if it's any higher than normal (I think the second number it lists is an average... 301)

You're getting 420 MH/s on a 6850?

If I'm following correctly, this is what AMD does.  They'll make a 6870 and if it doesn't pass their QA they'll sell it as a lesser compnent (6850).  The reasons this happens more with reference cards is that since their first off the line, the line hasn't been tweaked.

I say this because the same thing happened with the Phenom II x2-x4.  The first-production x2s were x4's with 2 'bad' cores.  But you could unlock them to see if they worked enough.

I'm on 1.8 but I have all my Sapphire Xtreme 5850s at 175 memory clocks using Trixx with no problems (Win 7 x64)

As far as I can tell, AMD never officially sold a 2GB version of either the 6850 or 6870. Ok so there's a 6850M that comes with 2GB RAM but that's based on the Juniper design, not Barts.

Also the 6870 GPU only has 1120 SPs so to get 420 Mh/s you would have to supercool your "6870" and run it at ~1300 MHz.

By this point, I think your 8 key is too close to your 9 key. 420 Mh/s isn't unreasonable on a 6970 or unlocked 6950.

win7 64 and win7 32 here.. installed fine, get 1.5% increase in hashes and no cpu bug. love the drive so far.

tried installing just opencl. did not fix the bug.
tried just installing the beta drivers right over the other. rebooted. turn off ccc crap. reboot. did not fix the bug.

win7 x64 6950x2 and a 5850.

also no noticeable speed bump.

not worth it for me.

Installed just new openCL and it did not fix the CPU bug on win7 64-bit with 5830.  Might try to do the whole driver with a full cleanup first.

Still bugged for me
2 x 5850
Win7 64bit

Really? $55 for a card that gets 175 Mhash/sec seemed pretty nice to me. It turned an old box of mine into a nice miner for cheap.

Don't let the hate get to you.  I'm not sure what the wattage is on a 5750, but on a 5770 it's about 2:1 mh/j.  They're small but stout.

I'm not good with numbers, but if it's doing 150 to 175 Mhash/s at ~100 watts, that's 1.5 to 1.75 Mh/J, right?

The 5750 was $100 at a local store, and there was a $25 mail-in manufacturer's rebate (HIS brand). A new 5750 was purchased and taken right back: the store kindly applied the rebate price to it plus knocked more off for being "used", so I got to purchase it for extra cheap.
I used it to upgrade an old system that had an 8600 GT (6 Mhash/s).

Actual power consumption might differ some but the TDP for the 5750 is just 86 W compared to 108 W on a 5770.

And as for efficiency, I can say that after some comparative testing done by adding and removing my 5750 into my part time mining rig next to my 6850 I got a total system wattage increase of ~108 W (at the wall).I'm not sure how much of that is due to the extra CPU cycles but if I assume negligeable increased CPU power consumption and factor in my power supply's (in)efficiency, my 5750 is using up ~86 W.

That's 86 W while overclocked to 955 MHz and pumping out a nice 200 MH/s. 2.3 MH/J is not exactly garbage in my book.

Installed and it didn't fix my CPU bug , i have two 6870, still didn't try to do driver clean up as some one mentioned here ,
is the cleanup only removing the catalyst from the windows control panel or also from the device manager  ? do i have to reinstall the SDK ?
Thanks guys !

I found by express uninstall CCC removes everything, I found that using custom uninstall CCC removes everything except the CCC manager.

If you used custom, you might find CCC manager stuck in programs and features, and cannot remove, throws an error about uninstalling.

If you used custom and find yourself stuck with CCC in Programs and Features, I had to use Windows Install Cleanup program to remove it from Programs and Features. If you try to install a new ATI/AMD driver with that older version of CCC manager, you will have two CCC managers and/or will cause headaches.

Windows Install Cleanup Utility Download-Softpedia (http://www.softpedia.com/get/Security/Secure-cleaning/Windows-Installer-CleanUp-Utility.shtml)

Now that is out of the way, and you haven't uninstalled yet, uninstall CCC by using express uninstall.

Download Latest version DriverSweeper-phyxion.net (http://phyxion.net/Driver-Sweeper/Driver-Sweeper/)

After uninstall of CCC, boot into safemode and run driversweeper, Driversweeper removes left over residue registry keys and ATI/AMD file/folders. It will ask to reboot, so reboot. You can also run some kind of registry cleaner tool like ccleaner or registry cleaner expert.

Boot into windows regular, install your version of CCC that you want, reboot, on regular boot into windows, re-run the CCC driver setup .exe, install the sdk that is packed with that setup, no reboot is required.

I would avoid everything in the setup except for CCC install manager, AMD Display Driver,MS C++,CCC and for the last AMD APPSDK RUNTIME. Avoid everything else in the setup and you will most likely receive a failed install ect.

Hope this clears up some of the questioning you have.

The newest variant still doesn't fix the bug for me..

I *think* the newest beta version ONLY fixes the bug with single GPU (or maybe it is single card).

Looking on AMD support forum it looks like there are actually two bugs. One bug only affect multi-GPU and the other affects all cards.

I suspect AMD only fixed the later.  

Anyways those saying it did work indicate how many GPU (and/or cards if you have multi GPU cards) you have.  Same for those who don't.  I suspect everyone who says it works has only one card (maybe only one GPU).  Everyone who says it doesn't has multiple GPUs (or maybe multiple cards).  Also include OS.

I'll go:
Windows 7
2x 5970s
My system has the 100% bug running 11.9

I agree, DeathAndTaxes. I have 2x5870 with 100% cpu usage. And I have single 6970 cards on a few PC's, on which 11.9rc fixed 100% usage.

Windows 7, 2 nos. of 5870, 11.9RC (sep 9)release & APP 2.5, don't solve 100% or less CPU usage.
Each phoenix uses 25% of CPU usage.

installed it on my htpc with single 6770. works, 1-2% usage. vista 32 bit. cgminer.

method: express uninstalled 11.6, ran drivercleaner in safe mode, installed 11.9rc.

I'd go so far as to say the keys are mislabeled on his keyboard... that'd be 10+ typos lol
But yeah, surely he's referring to an unlocked 6950...

It fixed the 100% bug on both of my systems.

Single GPU?

With 11.9, I can verify that at least w/ one GPU...the 100% mining bug is GONE! yes! FINALLY.
Bet that saves me a few watts =)

Im runnin Vista 32bit, i3 550 @ 4ghz 1.175v, HD6950 1GB @ 890core 150mem

No change in mhash(373mh/s) from previous 11.8 version! yay!

Yea one system has a 6850 and the other a 5750. Both no longer run a cpu core at 100%, total cpu usage stays around 1-3% now.

already used 11.9, and it works. removing cpu bug but not improved performance  :-\

11.9 final installed on two systems (Win7 x86 w/ 5750, Win7 x64 w/ 5830). 100% bug is gone on both.

Installed 11.9 on my 2x 5830 Win7 32 bit system and the cpu bug remains. No changes in performance.

I did just slap the new drivers over the old though so I'm not sure if that makes a difference.