I'm stubborn and gave it a try since it only took a few minutes.  As expected, you're correct; running BitMinter as a service on Windows 7 does not work.  It only works on Win XP.

Yeah, it's WinXP.  I'll try it on a Win7 sometime today and let you know whether it works.

Today a Radeon 5850 I ordered arrived, and I installed it in a workstation at the office that is only used 3-5 hours per week.  The rest of the time it is logged off.

I setup the BitMinter client as a service using instsrv.exe and srvany.exe.  The service is set to start automatically, so when the workstation boots up to the login screen, the service starts and it mines at about 315 MH/s.

When a user logs in, a login scripts stops the service and taskkill.exe shuts down javaw.exe (it doesn't shut down when the service stops, for some reason).

When the user logs off, a logoff scripts starts up the service again.

I was so excited to see that BitMinter worked as a service because Diablo was only giving me ~250 MH/s.  +65MH/s with BitMinter = Woot!

Is the reason for secrecy of their actual place of business due to fear that a crazed mob might break their doors down?

Wow, it works!  I have a Dell Optiplex 755 in my office that doesn't get used much.  It has an x16 PCI-E slot, but no room to fit a 2-slot video card there.  However, there is also an x1 slot.  I used a soldering iron to melt away the end of the x1 slot to allow a Radeon 5850 to be inserted.  It's now mining away at ~315 MH/s! 

Here's a stock photo with an arrow pointing at the spot I melted away on the x1 slot to allow a Radeon 5850 to fit.


To keep the pins inside the slot pushed out of the way so no plastic melted onto them, I broke and cut an old stick of RAM down to size and stuck it in the slot for the duration of using the soldering iron.  As a side note, I was surprised that an average pair of paper cutting scissors could cut the PCB of a RAM stick with decent precision.

Doc, please turn the block finder cheat back on.  Ethics be damned!

Yeah, let's keep those BTC blocks coming!  3 in the last 15 hours = good!

kjakman, our hero!

I just hope we never see a block like one I recall from sometime around October.  I think it was BitMinter's 18th block or somewhere in that range.  It took over 9 days and the CDF was 99.7% or 99.8%, if I recall correctly.  We only had ~30 GH/s at the time, though.

I sometimes trade NMC for BTC at Vircurex.

I slipped a referral link in there. :-)

Good thought, but I'm the IT Manager and configured everything.  Still, I double-checked and nothing's being blocked.


Yup, same results either way.

Thanks,
WP

Thanks malavita.  I thought I was about to have a facepalm moment, but I'm afraid I get the same result with an underscore as I do with a period.

EDIT: Not sure what was wrong, but I got it working with DiabloMiner.

I'm a total noob miner, as I've never used anything but the BitMinter client.  Hence, I'm way more familiar with everybody in the BitMinter thread, but let me know if it's inappropriate for me to post this here vs the mining support thread.

I found a computer at work with a GeForce 8800GT.  The computer is logged off about 90% of the time, so I want to setup some startup/logon/logoff scripts to mine with it when it's not in use.

Before starting all this, I tested with the BitMinter client and it gave me about 19.5 MH/s.

One poster claims that the 8800GT does about 20 MH/s using Phoenix and 24 MH/s using puddinpop's RPC CUDA miner.  Not real impressive, but I'll take free hashes. :-)  I spent about an hour and a half trying to make the RPC miner work, but here's what I'm getting on ports 8332 and 80.

Command:

Result:

I'd be happy to just use Phoenix, but I also spent about an hour trying to make that work, without success.  Here's what I get when I try to use ports 8332 or 80.

Command:

Result:

I also tried Phatk and Phatk2, but I couldn't find a way to disable BFI_INT.  Here's what I get with those kernels:

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
WP

Streaks of bad luck are often followed by streaks of good luck.  Everything tends to average out.

Very nice :-)

You're hanging with my 5970 and XFire Mobility Radeon 5870s, which are presently doing a total of 1007 MH/s.  Sadly, two Mobility 5870s go about as fast as a single desktop version 5870.

Eveofwar and bravetheheat, thank you for pushing me in the right direction.  I found the rest of the answer in a similar thread.

Any help? - 5970 not hitting ~700 mhash/s

I followed ssateneth's instructions in the second post to extract and install "ATIStreamSDK_dev.msi" from "ati-stream-sdk-v2.1-vista-win7-64.exe".  After rebooting, the two new GPUs showed up in BitMinter's list. Using those, I'm getting about 745 MH/s now.

Thanks again!
WP

ssateneth, you are the MAN!!

I've been fighting a 5970 for about a week on an issue similar to this, except with the BitMinter client.  It was giving me about 670 MH/s using every driver I tried.  I extracted "ATIStreamSDK_dev.msi" from "ati-stream-sdk-v2.1-vista-win7-64.exe" and installed it.  Two new GPUs showed up in the list, and using those I'm getting about 745 MH/s now.

Thanks!
WP

It looks like I'm using APP SDK 2.5.775.2.  I have no idea which version I was using with the other 5970.  Does anybody here know whether that version number indicates that I should change something?

Thanks,
WP

DAT, thanks for the reply.  The load on both GPUs bounces between 96% and 98% with a temp of about 65C.  Strange that it's not 99% like the old card.  I guess I'd expect about 30 MH/s less than the old card at 96%.


Good thought, ZD84.  Does anybody know if this is possible with Bitminter, or any miner, for that matter?


Eveofwar, thank you also for the reply.  I was able to verify that I was running 11.10 on my old card.  I am running 11.10 on the new one, as well.  Is that what you're referring to when you say SDK?

Thanks,
WP

Thank you in advance for stopping to look at my post.

I mine using Bitminter's Java client, and up until a few days ago, I used an AMD 5970, which was giving me about 745 MH/s at 825MHz.

Then I swapped it out for an XFX 5970 Black Edition.  The only reason I swapped is because the XFX has an Accelero Xtreme 5970 cooler installed, which is substantially quieter.

When running the XFX at 825MHz I only get about 670 MH/s.  So at the same clock speed as the AMD card, the XFX does about 75 MH/s less.

I'm running Win7 Pro x64 and using Catalyst 11.10 drivers.

Has anybody here seen this sort of hashing speed difference between two video cards of the same model clocked at the same speed?

Thanks,
WP

Just in case anybody's interested in some E-Mail dialogue I had with Sonny at BFL:




I'm surprised that they can't even give me a guesstimate on the rig box when all I asked for was a vague answer.  I'd have to see strong evidence that the rig box performs as well as they claim before risking that amount of money on equipment for BTC mining, not that I even have it other than through a line of credit.

Likewise, not that I have $100k or $1 million, but I was hoping to get something out of them about the Super Computer since their website says, "If you would like more information about this institutional grade system, please contact us with your inquiry."  I didn't think an answer on whether it's closer to $100k or $1 million would require speculation.

They've given me more cause for doubt, but I'm also still hopeful that they're just slow at production and reluctant to answer questions.  Time will tell.

WP