Bitcoin Forum

Okay So Im running 2x 7970 xfx


Win 7 64 bit
cgminer 2.11.4
No cross fire
Driver version: 12.100.17.0
CCC: 13.3 beta 3
SDK: 2.8
Core: 1025
Mem: 1800
Voltage: 1.170


I cant get it to stop giving me HW errors!!!

When i run it with no extra settings it gives me HW errors..

I am going INSANE I cant figure this out...

OKay i got it up to 200kh/s a card.. But i cant turn the intensity up more than 11?? without it starting HW errors

Try 13.5Beta and 2.7 SDK,cgminer or bfgminer or biablo miner.

Do you have a 750Watt powersupply, and adequate cooling?

Mining at speed 11 is HIGH. You HAVE to have an "already stable card", at that speed.

Try lowering your voltage, lowering your clock-GPU, lowering your clock-MEM to 150... That will "help"... but try sticking to the default 7-10 for mining speed, unless you have water-cooling, adequate air-cooling, decent power, and "stable cards"... Obviously, your cards are unstable, so reduce to a stable setting.

What speed is your memory at? Stock clock on your Black Edition is just 1425, you appears to be running it way over this, which introduces a lot of problems for no gain at all on Bitcoining.

Fix that then try Phoenix 2.0 miner, its the only miner I could get to run on a HD6950 that was doing the same thing.

Wait, are you mining LiteCoins... you said 200KHs... Then ignore my memory comment. Litecoins are heavily memory intensive and demand more from your card than bitcoins. Don't expect speeds over 11 without specific modifications to configurations, for those specific cards.

If your speeds are 200MHs and the K was a type-o... then you have other issues, because that card should get about 600MHs on bitcoins, with stock settings at speed 7-auto.

The higher your clocks, the slower your "speeds" have to be... you can't just crank everything up to 120% and expect it to work... The purpose of clocking is to make it efficiently stable. Not just to crank up the volume and HOPE for it to work. Liquid nitrogen cooling, possibly, but not with stock fans, inside a computer case, on an overheated wasteful CPU also spitting out heat, and ten fans also adding heat and just recirculating hot air in your case...

We need more details than just numbers... Photos, other specs... processor, PSU, available watts... ambient room temperatures...

Switch to Phoenix 1.7.5.

It's the only miner that doesn't give me any hardware errors. I'm using the one that is bundled with 50 miner.

how much ram on the system?

I'm assuming that you are trying to scrypt mine. I screwed with CGminer for a while trying to get it to work but eventually gave up and went to GUIminer for Litecoins. It is surprisingly efficient for me. I'm getting about 625 kh/s on a 7950. I have it clocked to 1075/1525 @1.125 volts. Remember, it's all about getting the right balance between the core and memory speeds when scrypt mining. If I change my core speed to 1050 or 1100 my hashrate will go down. What I did was leave the clock speed at stock and increase the memory to it's highest stable frequency. Then I increased the clock speed small increments at a time, until my hash rate started decreasing. Then I found the lowest voltage my card would be stable at running those speeds. I am running on the 7950 high usage preset, except i turned the intensity down to 19. It is stable for me, but YMMV.

First, go here: https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/Mining-hardware-comparison

Second, get 13.1 Catalyst, it's the best for mining LTC (currently).

Room temp ranges from 70-80°f

RAIDMAX RX-850AE 850w
AMD Athlon II X2
500gb hdd
GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3
4gb ram

(I took this picture yesterday.. I haev removed the CrossFire cables since then, And also added another fan to the back)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BJlddEmCAAE9E46.jpg:large

I have already tried that.. Those settings wont work..

I have heard people have had problems with XFX cards, but I have had troublesome cards too.  If you want, feel free to PM me your settings and I may be able to help you figure out some great settings.

My XFX 7970 is shit too. But there is some success with flashing the card with a bios from another manufacturer. Im still playing with mine so cant claim this works yet. But if it does Ill let you know!

I tried that.. But my system is unstable.. So im sending back my PSU and my vid cards.. Getting different ones of both..

You should be able to get 700Kh/s+ with that card, no hardware errors.

I THINK the XFX Black edition requires a BIOS flash. Check out my thread here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=200777.0

What are you current parameters?

Before considering a flash, try the following:

GPU Clock - 1040Mhz
GPU Voltage - 1100Mv
Memory Clock - 1500Mhz
Memory Voltage - 1500Mv

cgminer --scrypt -o yourpool -u yourusername -p yourpassword -s 2 --expiry 1 --queue 0 --thread-concurrency 20992 -I 13 -w 256 -g 2

Also try thread concurrency 8192, and don't forget to set GPU max allocation as i said in that thread ^

Let me know if you get hardware erros with those settings and what hashrate you get.

Edit - just seen your post above - So you tried flashing? What happened and which BIOS did you flash too?

I've got a Black Edition HD7970 that churns out ~600Mh/s non-stop @ 79°C.  (Win7 x64, 850W PSU, Catalyst 13.1, cgminer 2.10.2, Bitcoin)

Well you should be able to get at least 700Kh/s with that card.

What voltage are you running? That temp seems a bit high for only 600 Kh/s

Don't you mean Mh/s?  I'm running it stock.  I'm afraid of tweaking it, for fear of making it unstable.  I would love to get 700Mh/s, though.

Well i've been referring to scrypt mining i.e LTC - So if you got 700Mh/s SHA-256, you should get 700Kh/s scrypt, if you get what i mean.

Sorry i read what you said as Kh/s.

As for mining SHA.. hmm well i found SHA got hotter than scrypt, but you should be able to get 700Mh/s with that card and still have lower temps.

I can't remember how i optimized back when i was mining BTC, but i can try and help you.

What are you current settings for GPU/Memory clocks and voltages (the stocks if that's what your using) and cgminer settings for each card?

I reckon the voltage is probably way too high at stock just like with the Sapphire.

OK, I understand now.  I've never dabbled in scrypt/LTC.

Catalyst Control Center → GPU: 1000, RAM: 1425, auto fan
The only command I use in cgminer is -I 9

I recommend you use MSI afterburner version 2.2.2 to change settings, catalyst doesn't allow you to adjust voltage AFAIK.

Have a play about with the CGminer settings you use, try the ones i posted in my other thread or a couple replies ago in this one (not the GPU settings, the ones i posted were optimized for scrypt, with SHA you are going to want a higher GPU clock).

Wish i had of saved my settings for BTC mining, had them written down but lost them, so i can't remember what was optimal lol.

It's really easy to begin mining scrypt if that's what you decide to do btw.

Cranking the GPU clock to 1100(+10%) gets me about 660 Mh/s(+10%), but anytime I try to underclock the GPU RAM, the system hard locks upon startup of cgminer.  It does this with v2.10.2 & v3.1.0.
When using --gpu commands/arguments in cgminer.bat, should one enable or disable Graphics OverDrive in the AMD Catalyst Control Center?

PRO TIP: Some cards have these stupid aluminum trim disks stuck to the center of the fans.  They look nice, but REMOVE THEM BEFORE INSTALLING THE CARD.  One of mine came loose and got stuck in the fan/shroud, stopping that fan entirely.  I only discovered it after noticing my GPU temp was at 96°C!  :o  I shut down the system, dislodged it, then removed the other one (which was intact) so that it could not repeat the problem in future.  Had it been a single-fan card, it could have really overheated in a very short time, possibly killing the card/starting a fire/ending the world.

Well, this got moved from Mining Support, so FML.  :-[

FYI only one bridge is required for crossfiring 2 cards.

Did you not read the quotes above the picture?

(I took this picture yesterday.. I have removed the CrossFire cables since then, And also added another fan to the back)
-Picture here-

Unfortunately XFX cards are notoriously bad for mining.  You need to flash your bios to another model to have any decent rates, and even then, unless you have XFX Black edition, you will be very, very lucky if you can get over 600mh or kh.  I needed to flash my vapor-x 7970s to break above 550kh (scrypt mining).  Google XFX radeon bios and other similar search phrases to get the step-by-step.

He should be able to get way over 600 even if it's not a black edition.

What did you manage to get out your vapor-x btw? I got mine to 740, i could push a bit more out of it, but i'm really enjoying these 60C temps, and any memory over volting seems to send my temps rocketing.

I'm getting about 736 on average (past 24 hours), but they definitely run cooler just with their own fans.  And yeah, I don't mess with the volts.  I'm satisfied with performance.

Jesus Murphy, add this to the top of your .bat file;

setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1

increase I, problem solved