I don't recall the listings for the splitters I purchased mentioning anything about them being powered, which is why I was surprised to discover it was powered when the first one arrived and is also why I mentioned here.

Yes, I used all three slots. I have 6 risers plugged into 6 PCIe slots on the board, the 1 to 3 splitter plugged into the 7th PCIe slot, and 3 risers plugged into the splitter. Note that the 1 to 3 splitter is powered. I believe it has a Molex connector.

I am using the latest MSI BIOS. It was my understanding from my research that the "hacked BIOS" was created before MSI introduced the latest BIOS and was thereafter obsolete. I didn't make any other changes to the BIOS other than selecting the settings noted in both of our posts.

I am using the 1 to 3 PCIe splitter. It comes in a blue box, and it looks like all of the Amazon and eBay vendors are selling the same product.

All I can say is that my boards are stable for weeks at a time running 9 RX 470 4GB cards. I haven't tried 10 cards because my rigs have been so damn stable with their current setup, I didn't want to risk introducing new issues, especially with mining difficulty increases as of late, since the prospect of obtaining additional RX 470s at a reasonable price appears to be minimal at best.

I have a vague recollection of Tytanick mentioning that smOS can handle up to ten cards, but he needs to update scripts before it can handle more, though I may be way off base with my recollection.

Glad you were able to get this mobo working with 7 cards. Your instructions are substantively identical to mine from over a month ago (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1541084.msg18423032#msg18423032 and https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1541084.msg18756984#msg18756984). Sorry for not pointing this out earlier, but other commitments (i.e., yard work) have been taking up all of my free time as of late. For whatever reason, there were a handful people who simply couldn't get their mobo to work for  5+ cards, so don't be surprised if people report back that your instructions don't work for them.

Also, this board can handle more than 7 cards.

I'm having the same exact problem he is. My RX 580s average approximately 3.5 mh/s less on smOS compare to windows. Now, I'm not foolhardy enough to throw around absolute statements concerning the root cause of smOS's relative poor performance running my RX 580s relative to windows based solely on my own observation, two people's observations, or even three people's observations. Maybe you should give reserving judgment and avoiding jumping to conclusions a try. You may like it.

I don't doubt that others are having problems with their z170 boards, but just to reiterate a point a made several posts back, I run MSI z170a M5 with 7 cards a board, and I haven't had any issues. In fact, I just set up a new one this weekend without a hitch. If it makes a difference, I am running all RX 470 4GB cards, with the exception of two MSI Gaming RX 580 4GB cards on the latest board. I do acknowledge, however, that I am not realizing the hash rate I expected with the RX 580 cards. Like someone else posted on the previous page, I am stuck in the 24-25 mh/s range on those cards.

One random thought I just had: has anyone who is experiencing problems with these boards confirmed that they have ordinary USB thumb drives (not UEFI thumb drives) set as the number 1 boot option? I highly doubt this is the cause of all the issues, but I remember someone mentioning that they could boot using Windows in a UEFI configuration. As such, someone might as well take the time and confirm that these issues are not being caused by some arcane conflict with the priority of boot devices, notwithstanding the very low probability of realizing positive results.


The red and blue lines flicker on and off my screen a couple times while the MSI splash screen is displayed, but it always subsides and smOS commences to boot.

That may be a small part of it (and a larger part of the motivation for comments from key players in the Ethereum Project along these lines), but the commenters on the various Ethereum reddit boards appear to consist mostly of traders and holders. Their underlying rationale for reducing mining rewards should be obvious, at least with respect to a short term time frame.

In the last couple of days, there has been a decent amount of discussion on https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/ about cutting ETH mining rewards. See the following two posts as examples:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/68jtnb/is_eth_mining_reward_a_danger_to_the_network/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/681pkp/we_should_reduce_issuance_for_metropolis/

Two camps are emerging with respect to this issue. Those in favor of leaving mining rewards as is to ensure the future security and performance of the Ethereum network are not compromised during these times of high growth, and those in favor of cutting mining rewards to inflate the price of ETH.

Given the underlying purpose of Ethereum (i.e., a global, decentralized computing system to run smart contracts), I don't see how propping up the short term appreciation of the value of ETH serves that purpose. However, cutting mining payouts could severely undercut Ethereum's main purpose of being a decentralized computing platform. This is especially true now with Proof of Stake looming in the shadows. I don't think the traders who want mining rewards reduced truly appreciate that if they scare of miners from ETH now, they may not come back given the looming implementation of PoS.

Obviously, this issue has significant implications to ETH miners and the Ethereum project. Make sure your voices are heard on this issue to ensure the continued stability and success of the Ethereum Project.

I'm sorry to say that I am out of ideas beyond what I have posted over the last week or two. If you have tried everything I posted, I'm at a loss.

EDIT: You may want to compare the release date for the latest BIOS for your mobo with BIOS ver. 1.D for the z170a M5 board. If your BIOS predates 1.D, it may be that MSI hasn't updated your BIOS to handle more cards since my mobo couldn't handle a full set of cards without hacking until BIOS ver. 1.D.

Tytanick,

I just wanted to confirm that I am still able to to boot smOS with above 4G decoding enabled on two separate MSI z170a M5 mobos.

To those of you having problems, are you running the Beta kernel (4.11rc3)?

Are you SURE you have downloaded and successfully installed MSI's updated bios (1.D)?

If you haven't updated the BIOS to 1.D, you will not be able to get it to boot properly with the board fully loaded with cards without doing some hacking on the BIOS.

"Overclock Shit saved"

That's to the point.

I'm just spit-balling here, but how much memory do you have installed? "Above 4G Decoding," after all, refers to accessing in excess of 4GB of memory for mapping of PCIe devices.

I made that comment, but it was limited to a specific mobo, the MSI z170a Gaming M5.

Understood and appreciated.

Just to clarify one point, the way I envisioned a lump sum payment would be make a certain payment that would entitle to user to run one rig per account, payment x 2 for two rigs & etc. Also, I would assume that such payment, or perhaps a better way to classify it would be a "donation," would under no circumstances be refundable.

I love smOS, and assuming it makes financial sense, will continue to use it, regardless of how you implement your fee system. The only reason I raised this suggestion was to present a point of view concerning fees and lump sum payments that may depart from your own views. Personally, I would be willing to pay a fairly significant up front amount, relative to the monthly fee, in order to avoid paying a monthly fee.

Again, thank you for smOS. I absolutely love it!

I thought I had replied to you earlier, but upon reviewing my post history, I may have been thinking about a response I posted to another user in another thread.

I run this board with 8 RX 470 4gb cards without issue, and it was very easy to get running. I have helped a couple people with this board, and to the best of my knowledge, everyone has been able to get it to work with the following steps:

1. Use a Skylake processor. One person I know of started with a Kaby Lake processor, and he could not get the board to run more than 4 cards without switching to a Skylake.

2. Update the BIOS to the latest version.

3. Enable above 4g decoding

4. Leave all other settings alone (with the exception of selecting internal graphics upon boot up), especially the settings concerning PCIe speed. Leave PCIe speeds set to "Auto." Other people have suggested changing these settings to Gen I or Gen II, but most of those suggestions concerned getting this board to work using a superseded version of the BIOS.

5. I know Tytanick is working on some issues with smOS and how it interacts with RX 5xx cards. I don't know what those issues are.

Sounds great. Personally, I would love having the option to make a one time, upfront payment in lieu of a monthly subscription. I have used a couple open source/freeware programs that adopted this approach over time. One example that many of you may be familiar with is Plex, which provided the opportunity for users to make a one time donation early on in the project in exchange for a "Plex Pass," which entitled the holders of the pass to receive free access for life to most of the Plex services.

This approach has several benefits for all involved parties. First, this permits the developer to raise a decent amount of cash upfront, which he can then use to finance continued development of the project. Second, it establishes a devoted, loyal core user base.

As for me, I know one of the biggest benefits of allowing user to make a single upfront, lump sum payment is that I wouldn't need to worry about making future payments. I have an admittedly irrational and somewhat extreme aversion to paying monthly fees. As such, I always appreciate when I have an opportunity to avoid it.

I have no idea how you are going about implementing your fee system from a technical perspective, so I appreciate that my suggestion may be impractical to implement at this time. However, I thought I would share just in case it was a possibility.

Also, any possibility of permitting payments to be made with ETH, even if the ETH fee is pegged to the value of BTC?

It is likely "other settings to Gen 2" that is causing you the problems. This is precisely what I was referring to when I said "leave all other settings alone, especially concerning PCIe speed." Change those settings back to "Auto," and see if that helps.

Correct. Tytanick has made several recent posts that he is working on introducing grouping functionality.

In the meantime, a quick and easy workaround is to simply create multiple smOS accounts associated with different email address, with each email address associated with your "group." Then, all you have to do is make sure the .txt file is pointing to the right email address. I run smOS off of USB drives, and I keep a "test" USB handy that I can quickly throw onto a mobo that I am working on if I want to try new configurations without disturbing my other rigs.

I run this board with 9 cards without issue, and it was very easy to get running. I have helped a couple people with this board, and to the best of my knowledge, everyone has been able to get it to work with the following steps:

1. Use a Skylake processor. One person I know of started with a Kaby Lake processor, and he could not get the board to run more than 4 cards without switching to a Skylake.

2. Update the BIOS to the latest version.

3. Enable above 4g decoding

4. Leave all other settings alone, especially the settings concerning PCIe speed.