Okay, unstable was the wrong term. The distro I was using, linuxcoin, proved to be fairly unstable FOR ME. No disrespect to the guy(s) who worked on it as it is great for many people.

Linux is just fine if you know what you're doing. I was mostly pointing to the fact that I don't believe there is a huge power savings and as noob I felt like I was led to believe there was.

Of course, there are added costs to windows rigs, licenses and drives. Drives are coming WAY down, especially the 30gb SSD's. Just bought two for $30 each and they use 2 watts at peak.

Didn't intend to start a windows/linux war. Linux just has driven me insane for months and I think newer miners should know they don't HAVE to go the linux route to be efficient. I lost more money with rigs that wouldn't run than I ever would have if I had just started with windows. Even if I had to buy the licenses and drives.

Just putting this out there for new miners, UPTIME is everything, the rest is negligible when you do the math. Yes, an efficient linux machine might costs $200 less(windows license+drive) but if it doesn't run consistently or you can't get it working for weeks, you've lost more than that already.

I estimate I lost about 300 potentially mined coins screwing around with linux. At current prices that is $1500. Had I started right away and bought 9 SSD's for my rigs at $99 each(64gb) I'd still be ahead since I have the licenses.

even if you buy 7 home premium when it's on sale at newegg for 79.99 and a $50 30Gb ssd that's $130 per rig, still would have only cost $1170 for 9 rigs.

Nevermind, you can sell the windows with a built rig down the road and the SSD. Not so much with used thumb drives.

Thanks, flashed the mobo bios, because there are some known issues booting from USB.

Well low and behold I found it the 5970 is just dead.

in linuxcoin, or windows 7

i flashed to the newest bios on MSI-890FXA-GD70
I've tried every fix on the web.

cards get recognized in windows but cannot install any driver, 12.1, 11.12 or 11.6

Could it be that the cards need a bios flash?

they seem to be running fine otherwise and have run before in other systems.

Any ideas?

Tried to use all the threads here on how to load amd 11.12 driver and then use older sdk.

i can't even get 11.12 to load and reboot without lock up at windows logo screen.

windows 7 pro 64 bit SP1 fresh install.

WTF am i doing wrong? I got it work on two other winds 32 bit machines, but nothing on this one.

specs:
msi 890FXA-GD70
2gb ram
amd sempron 145
seasonic x1250 gold
5870 in slot 1
5970 in slot 3
5870 in slot 5

any suggestions?

I know you're a windows expert D&T, but without the underclocking of the cpu, my answer is yes, windows 7 would do just fine. I'll be proving it soon.

I'm using old ide drives and they are doing great and they are FREE because people give them to me.

So I can still turn off just as many mobo features on my MSI 890FXA.

F*ck linux unless all you do is IT for a living, it's unstable and sucks. My new windows machines have not stopped running yet.

I just want rigs that never stop running. I can make a shitload more at my real job than I can screwing around with linux distros. I can afford the extra 10 watts if it keeps me away from these machines for a month.

This was a hobby turned nightmare by linux.

My only goal in getting into this was to support a currency outside of the global banking thieves and to have some fun with hardware. software SUCKS...lol

okay, but once running is the power consumption i'm talking about, who cares what it uses for the first 60 seconds. Our dedicated rigs run 24/7 for weeks/months.

I just have felt there is this bias towards linux for power reasons which is unjustified from my own tests. I understand people want linux because it's free, but due to my business, I have plenty of windows licenses to use.

Also, i have found windows to be 10x easier to use and WAY more stable so far. Just the ability to swap out video cards without issue is huge. Every time I did that with linux the system crashed and required me to reload the USB stick.

Also as far as remote access, it is not hard in windows anymore than it is with linux. Gotomypc works fine. Or in my case I can have them all connected to my server at work and access them from anywhere in the world with a nice easy to use GUI.

considering SSD's at 30gb are going for under $50, this whole linux usb thing is not looking too good to me anymore personally.

I'm starting to wonder if this is a bit of a myth or over-statement. I have two rigs with the same exact hardware:

msi 890FXA-GD70
amd sempron 145
2gb ram
seasonic gold psus
2 x 5970's

one with windows 7 32 bit on an old hard drive
one with linuxcoin on 16gb flash drive

using cgminer on both at stock voltage 800/300

windows machine with kill-a-watt - fluctuates at 590-610
linux machine with kill-a-watt - fluctuates at 580-600

mind you, windows machine has 4 extra fans running because it is in a case.

linux machine is open air with two fans behind the cards blowing air through.

all things turned off in bios that i can, except sata stuff on windows machine.

So, where is the significant energy savings again?

Flashed to latest version of what? BAMT or linuxcoin?

Well you already made BAMT and i get it. I've stopped with any harsh words. I am not an a-hole who thinks all of you guys who work hard developing free open souirce stuff deserve any shit from noobs like me.

I just can't f'in understand how something worked so well for me for months and now i can't get anything but windows to work.

I've used 4 different motherboards, switched out over ten different video cards, 5870's, 5970's, 6990's 6970's

2 different MSI 890FXA-GD70's and two asus p8p67 WS boards. I've switched out PSU's seasonic x1250's silverstone 1500 watt and seasonic 750 watt gold.

I just can't figure out why I have two machines running linuxcoin final without issue for months.
both on msi-890fxa-gd70's, one with 2 5970's and a 5870 in the middle and one with a 5870 on an extender in slot 1, 5870 in slot 3, 5970 with extender in slot 4 and 5870 in slot 5.

these run great, occasionally gpu's get too hot, I reset and bam everything is fine.

The only thing I can figure is that these are crucial 16GB flash drives. I started using transcend 16gb usb 3.0's got a few to work and now, not anymore, maybe it's the drives.

I have 4 rigs at another location all the same:

MSI 890FXA-GD70
amd sempron 145
2gb ram
16gb crucial flash drive
linuxcoin final
seasonic 750 watt gold
2 x 5970's with replaced thermal paste and pads.
using cgminer 2.0.7 800/300 fan at 85

These again occasionally have dead gpus, but a restart and they're good to go.

So WTF? Are crucial 16gb drives the only ones that work with linuxcoin final?

i use unetbootin 555 load the iso and then copy and paste the 2048 persistence file.

My linuxcoin drives now load to the unetbootin, I scroll down to persistent and then the graphic loads with the penguin or whatever and then black screen with Underscore in upper left hand corner.

So, yeah if you lived near me, I would pay you $100 an hour to come out, get all my rigs running perfectly with the optimum drivers for my cards and a stable mining OS with best power efficiency, that doesn't break down and only needs to be reset occasionally. Oh and using the newest cgminer.

I would pay part of a bounty for a new and improved linuxcoin, not restricted to p2pool or whatever as I don't want to deal with networking crap. I hate dealing with that shet. I know it's easy to everyone here, but DNS, MAC and that shit drives me mad.

I just want a plug and play linux OS that is like linuxcoin without any bitcoin software that is as stable as possible.

For some reason I have 6 rigs running linuxcoin final, but can't get a single new one running no matter what I do. I have three rigs running on windows now because of this and their power draw sucks.

I know BAMT is the answer, but I can't even get that to boot past the original screen and I don't need to remote in nor do I want to. I want a GUI I can work with because my machines live at my house, no need for remote access.

will afterburner handle all of your card? do you have to set different profiles for each card?

I want to run 2 5970's and 2 5870's under water eventually, but want to get it running on air first of course. I'm using windows 7 pro 32bit. I can upgrade to 64bit but it doesn't seem to matter unless you want 8 gpus, so screw it. I have free copies from work of 32 bit.

So do i set four profiles somehow? Or do you guys recommend different software for something like this ? Or should I do 3 5970's and then hut a machine with 4 5870's together?

what do you mean by remove xorg file jimm ?

Points taken, I'll shut up. I think my issue is with the asus P8p67 motherboard. I have limited problems getting MSI 890FXA-GD70's to work. I have over 6 GH/s going on three of those and another 5.5 GH/s at my friend's house. all 5970's and 5870's.

My frustration should not have boiled over to this forum or the community.

I apologize and should have known better, it's like firing off an angry email.

Again apologies to those who read my bullshit posts, I have received plenty of help here and people deserve better treatment.

Sincerely,

jjshabadoo

Had it thursday with two 5870's and two 5970's.  5870 in slot 1, then 2 5970's and then 5870 in last slot.

Booted it up fine, thought I was gold.

never again since. Black underscore in upper left hand corner after clicking on persistence.

So weird.

anyone get this board to work stable at all with linuxcoin of any version?

I can't get BAMT to load at all on any of my machines so that's not a option for me. I get to the menu with the flames and then black screen after that.

My intent wasn't to piss on BAMT or linuxcoin, onbviiously i did. just 5 days now trying to get one or the other to work.

My issue is people saying it's "easy" well that's pure bullshit unless you have a lucky combo of hardware or really don't want to mine past 4 gpus.

It's also "easy" when you have a linux background. Most of us don't and if people want bitcoin to truly succeed past this speculative enthusiast phase, we have to get beyond expecting people to become programmers and linux experts.

Now having said that, my comments were out of line due to frustration. I just can't fucking understand why linuxcoin works fine on 6 rigs, but not two. That's just crazy to me.

I don't know shet about BAMT, but from what I see on the install instructions you need a special iso image loader and also need to add special libraries and stuff to your windows machine, that is just not "easy" for your average windows user.

I've had plenty of help and will just shut the fuck up about complaining about people doing open source work.

I will assure all of you though this thing is NEVER going mainstream unless you make it easy for people with basic computer backgrounds to use, mine and exchange bitcoins in a windows or apple environment without special tweaks, codes or files.

I am not an idiot and have built plenty of machines from basic office to over-clocked water-cooled systems. I own three businesses and am halfway through an MBA. If this is driving me insane you can bet that 99% of the population doesn't stand a chance.

If bitcoin gets back into the $20-$30 range the network will be hacked because there will be too much money involved for it to NOT entice someone to do so. If you don't think there are botnet people out there who control millions of machines plus have access to large amounts of gpu hashing power, you are naive. $200 million dollars is enough to entice most people to do anything, especially those with bad intentions.

This network needs at least twice as many tera hash to survive.

We also need more comprehensive databases to show complete hardware set-ups and their compatibility with specific mining clients/OS systems .

Does it mater if it's 32 bit or 64 bit windows 7?

I have a bunch of free 32 bit licenses from work.

Want to get 2 x 5970's and 2 5870's in each machine under water.

searched a bunch of threads, but saw mixed reviews.

was that just a driver thing? also, does 32 bit or 64 bit matter?

thanks.

so is this going to get some updates and/or support?

This OS is haunted as far as i am concerned. i can sometimes load it with ease and other times can't get past a blank screen with an underscore in the upper left hand corner.

I got a rig working today, had to add some fans and then went to reboot and nothing. Plenty of PSU power, etc. just wouldn't work.

i can't even get f'in BAMT to load so f that. i get to the boot screen and then a bunch of shit passes the screen and then black screen. Easy my ass. linuxcoin loaded easier for me the first time I used it.

Maybe BAMT is easy once it boots, but nothing is easy when it won't boot. I also see it's a little bitch with certain hardware. that just sucks, should work with everything.

people can bitch about windows, but at least it works.

I guess my question is, is it recognized as just another unit like another gpu in something like cgminer? Or would you have to run two separate mining software clients?

I'm just thinking that adding something like a butterfly or other usb fpga to an existing rig would be a great way to increase the rigs total efficiency without completely starting over with all new hardware. Kind of a way to slowly convert and still use your existing hardware to get maximum has power and increase efficiency.