GPUs throttle or shut off when they're at such a high temperature that the components are in immediate physical danger. That point is usually way higher than the temp at which the card becomes unstable.

Thanks.

P.S. For those considering switching pools due to downtime, you could instead try the Phoenix Rising GUI -- it implements a backup pool mechanic when it detects the preferred server's down and checks in with the preferred server as often as you set it.

Could we please have an ability to set # miners in "Miners" tab displayed per page via web GUI instead of having to set it to 25/50 manually every time I open the page?

As implied earlier, don't underestimate liquidation value of parts. I bought 5850s @ ~$170 new and had no problem selling one @ ~$150 in BTC last week (the BTC of which has appreciated well beyond the $170 I paid). 4 garbage PSUs, CPUs, MoBos & RAM/HDDs I had lying around doing nothing came to about $700 (note I bought one excellent PSU, MoBo, HDD, etc. to be my own personal gaming rig whenever I felt like it) to run 7 5850s which can be sold @ $1050. Total investment of ~$2000 (-$170 because I sold one card) after I purchased a dedicated "real" fan for each setup means I only needed ~$400-500 to get into the black which took about a week.

Cards @ a higher voltage/clock seem particularly susceptible to becoming unstable when temps rise. @ 1.18v, 890MHz core, my 5850s have no problems running up to 100c if I try to conserve energy by turning the fans in the room down or off during hot summer days. @ 1.198v, 980 MHz core, my 5850s are prone to the graphics drivers failing once temp rises above 80c.

At any rate, while heat may lessen the lifespan of a GPU if constantly above 90c (which probably won't be a concern to you if you're using software tools to bump voltage/clocks up and your card has a 3-year+ or lifetime warranty as many do), it's perfectly safe to run cards 24/7 assuming the electrical lines running to your rigs is rated a safe amount above what you're demanding of them (don't neglect this!). Do ensure your fire detectors are functional and.... in existence... Can't ever be too careful (well... until it becomes too costly, anyway  ). Investing in some fire extinguishers and fire insurance may be wise, too, but if the environment is dry, this shouldn't be an issue (though there have been some cases of power supplies exploding, but this isn't exclusively because they were run 24/7).

+1. I have the problem where miners insist on taking up 100% of a core and can't seem to fix it with driver upgrades/downgrades, producing unnecessary heat and consuming costly electricity, so (after downclocking/downvolting the CPU via BIOS) being able to just start them off on one core instead of starting task manager and manually switching affinity of both programs saves me a lot of time.

After autostart feature is added, I just need to figure out a way to auto-restart my miners when the graphics drivers fail and can't restart. Ambient temperature varies up to 40*F day-to-day which causes hassles trying to volt/clock my GPUs as high as possible without crashing.

I ended up removing a chunk of code and rebuilding to get it to run properly. I'll try again with your new file in a few hours when I have time and get back with you on the results. Thanks very much for this program, btw - it will save me a lot of time from how I normally get my miners up and running.

P.S. Just solved my first block using your GUI, btw

For problem of cards running @ 60-80%, enabling fastloop appears to solve it (for me, anyway).

Thank you for your response. I get a similar message with the new file.

From SciTE: 
C:\Phoenix\Phoenix Rising 1.22.au3 (167) : ==> Array variable has incorrect number of subscripts or subscript dimension range exceeded.:
$timer[$i]=0
^ ERROR
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "phoenix.py", line 123, in <module>
  File "Miner.pyc", line 79, in start
  File "ConsoleLogger.pyc", line 144, in log
  File "ConsoleLogger.pyc", line 135, in say
IOError: [Errno 22] Invalid argument
->06:01:11 AutoIT3.exe ended.rc:1

Am I missing something really obvious? Upon hitting "run" button:

"AutoIt Error
Line 4946 (...PR 1.22.exe):

Error: Array variable has incorrect number of subscripts or subscript dimension range exceeded."

Win7 x64, 2 5850s non-CFX w/dummy plug, ran as admin, using phoenix 1.48 and phatk (disabling phatk kernal [which is installed] does nothing helpful), Catalyst 11.5, trying to use btcmine.com. Same error when starting either card after switching all options on or off. It does successfully start up an instance of Phoenix (which becomes hidden -- there is no OSD popup), but only uses 73-75% GPU resources with aggression @ 12.

That's incorrect. ASUS's 5850s go to ~890MHz (up to ~920MHz depending on how "lucky" you are with the card) safely at default voltage. They can run stable @ 950MHz (and higher) only after you've bumped the voltage up to ~1.2v (I think this may be lower, but I haven't fiddled with it enough). However, without overvolting, overclocking will generally not brick your card.

Simply reboot the computer (assuming you didn't set MSI AB to apply settings at startup) and you should be fine.

I've been on BTCMine for a couple weeks and very pleased. Note I have not used Deepbit.

I very much appreciate the quick server response time and the operator's careful watch for exploiters. Being able to pick a fee is very dignifying and an ideal I very much support. Pool hash rate will probably be > 300 GH/s tomorrow or the next day. Payout's quick and miner notification is very much appreciated. I don't have a single significant qualm with BTCmine.

I'm willing to "finance" you (and only you) if you take them both and pay what you can now and the remaining sum within a month :p

P.S. Delivery confirmation will be included if you pay using Paypal.

P.P.S. Accepting offers until 10am server time (9.5 hours after OP posted)

Deal struck -- thanks all



Selling USED (was not exposed to very much heat, used for ~3 months) and fully-functional 460 GTX. Ships with one DVI->VGA adapter. View card @ http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6491183&SRCCODE=WEBLET101SATSFY&cm_mmc=Email-_-WebletMain-_-WEBLET101SATSFY-_-Satisfy -- Asking $90PPUSD or 10 BTC. Includes shipping inside contiguous US.

Also selling NEW (but out of box) 5850. Ships with one 4-pin to 6-pin adapter for power connection, one DVI->VGA adapter, as well as one crossfire bridge. View card @ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121375 -- Asking $160PPUSD or 18 BTC. Includes shipping inside contiguous US.

*BTC strongly preferred. Clearcoin okay -- please select EFF as charity.
*Will ship USPS ground (does not include tracking!). Will ship UPS or FedEx for additional $8 or 1 BTC.
*For shipping outside US, you will assume shipping price minus $5 (or .7 BTC).

http://bitcoinx.com/profit/ (<- sometimes is down - refresh if so)

You'll probably be able to get 700MH/s or more out of the cards if you overvolt them a (SAFE!) bit.

I'm getting 8.5-10 BTC/day off 7 5850s, so expecting ~2.5 BTC/day seems reasonable. Edit3: That was BEFORE the latest difficulty increase. Thanks xenon.
 
Edit: a barebones system with two 5850s will consume ~350-500w depending on how hard you push them, fwiw.

Edit2: Note BTCX website does not account for difficulty or BTC<->USD changes. Always expect poor performance if you're really not sure, but I think you'll see there's good BTC to be made mining.

All miners can be shoved onto the same core. Through BIOS, AOD, or similar tool, you can downclock and downvolt individual cores in most modern setups. Shove all miners onto one core, downclock and downvolt that core as much as possible, and losses will be minimal. There is no effect on hash rate by doing this because (for the most part) the CPU usage does not seem related to the work the miner is doing. It does not solve the issue -- one core will still effectively be useless -- but I think this is preferable to the earlier suggestion of downclocking/volting all of the cores.

Edit: Meant to say entire CPU voltage can be lowered more after individually underclocking the core the miners use.

Thanks for the great work, dbtc. I'm increasing my pool fee for a while.

stable @ ~$.07/KWh in PA, US. State regulators have utility companies by the balls, here, to my advantage (nominally, anyway).

//Whoops - server upgrade reset json token -- my bad

Thanks again for the tool!