I'm using them all for hopping. The only pools I have set as backup are PPS pools, which thankfully isn't many afaik.

Also, are the settings for the btcserv configs in the config pack correct? According to btcserv.net, the global network speed was 12.37TH/s, and CherryPicking reports the global speed as 13.7GH/s.. or am I missing something here?

Also, still having issues with mainframe, nofee, unitedminers, and bitp.it.

Yeah, I've already worked out the numbers. I have a good plan going on here, and I know what I'm doing. This is an investment. As long as I can just get this all up and running for a good long while, without overheating and such, I'll get out on top.

Anyone out there use a different 1500W (or higher) PSU that they can recommend, if by chance the new case I've ordered doesn't help?

lol. I already ordered this model Kill-a-Watt from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4480-Electricity-Electronic/dp/B001U638PM

and its what I've been referring to every time I've mentioned a Kill-a-Watt in the thread. Should arrive Tuesday.

As for the spacing between the cards, it doesn't look like it, but I have some spacers in-between them (some rubber erasers that I cut down to size) so there is something like 3-4mm spacing between all the cards. They're not just solid bricks.. although without the spacers they would just be solid bricks without any real cooling at all. Makes me wonder how the AMD engineers thought this was an OK design for a GPU.


Sadly, I already looked into this before, and it only works for 5XXX series cards, not 6XXX.

New Case + Fans should arrive in 3 days, Wednesday probably. In the mean-time, I'll be running the top 3 6970's with some pools I'm set up with so I can earn a little bit of digital money in the interim.

Ah shoot, it overheated and shutdown after 45 minutes of mining with the small fan to help move air along, as opposed to 5 minutes without the small fan. Well this definitely suggests to me that this is a temperature issue. :/

I've been looking through Newegg, and this case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112159 looks like the case I'm going to order. Plenty of fan slots, top-mounted PSU, 10 slots (so I can use a couple risers to give a 2 whole slots of space inbetween 3 cards..!) And I'm planning to replace all 4 of the 140mm fans with these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835553003 .

I'm also going to warranty-replace the PSU while I'm in the mood for ordering new parts, for good measure.

Further ideas/suggestions/comments welcome.

lol, yeah I've kinda suspected for a couple days now that the real issue might be that the case is just too small and the PSU might actually be overheating, yeah. And that caution sticker is the warranty-destroying sticker over the GPU BIOS switch. I'm leaving it on so that I can keep the warranty in-tact, but I'm using a small (small!) screwdriver to adjust the BIOS switch as I see fit.

I think I can still get away with this setup though. Assuming that power isn't an issue (which I'll figure out Tuesday when the Kill-A-Watt arrives from Amazon), and the PSU really is just overheating, then my "fix" might actually work here. If the PSU is overheating because its HUGE fan isn't moving enough air through the PSU, why not just increase airflow through the PSU with an external fan? So right now I have a small fan pressed against the power supply grill on the outside, and it is moving a LOT of air through the PSU. I can feel it sucking a lot of warm-hot hair out of the PSU.

So interestingly enough, before whenever I would try to have all three cards running simultaneously mining, and the cards were stable temperature and clock wise and they didn't crash (which would reduce power usage since the GPU would no longer be mining) then the whole rig would shutdown after ~4-5 minutes. With this little fan on the external side of the PSU pulling more air out, I've been running the whole rig mining with all cards for at least 20 minutes now, no issues. Here's what I'm currently looking at right now over VNC:



And I think the clocks are @ 935, 970, 925, 830, 830 right now. Adapter 1 is a bit warm, so I could probably reduce it by 10MHz or so, and the bottom 6990 (Adapter 3, 4) is hanging around mid-80's, so I could probably increase it to 850.

Assuming the PSU doesn't overheat, I think I could actually get away with this.

Nope, I only took the side panel off to take the pictures. Also, leaving the side panel on provides a lot of extra cooling to the top 3 card slots, since there's an 80mm fan mounted in the side panel that moves a lot of air onto the cards.

And yeah, the extra molex is attached.


Like I said, the PSU would just shutdown randomly unless I fiddled with the paperclip again. Something wasn't working right, which is why vapourminer was suggesting to plug in a few hard drives. Which I'll probably do later tonight after I've left the rig mining with 3 cards a for a good long while, monitor the temps, etc.

Still open to suggestions/observations!

EDIT: It's been running for 1.5 hours at full load. Temps for the 3 GPU's running (all 6970's) are <= 80C. Good stuff. I ordered a Kill-A-Watt from Amazon, should arrive Tuesday, will give me a good idea of how much electricity is actually being used. If the system is crashing @ <1400-1500W of usage, either the PSU is defective (and needs to be replaced under the 3-year warranty) or the 6990 @ 100% fan speed is stealing too much airflow from the PSU and causing it to overheat.

Sure, will do. Gimme a few minutes.



EDIT: Alright, I'm running the top 3 cards right now at full load, with the bottom 6990 sitting idle and with its fan set to a lower speed. Current clocks: 900/180, 950/180, 880/180, yielding a lowly 1220MH/s. :`(
Typically when the whole thing crashes, I can feel the metal plate on the back of the PSU feel REALLY hot. Right now it only feels warm. We'll see! If it turns out that this is a general problem for bottom-mounted PSUs.. well, I'll just kick myself and order a new case with a top-mounted PSU I suppose.

No, read my question. I'm talking about something completely different.

I understand the likelihood that I need to plug in something in order for the power supply to function properly, powering a 6990 or 6970 by itself. But those pictures don't have my 520W in it. My question goes back to the 1500W PSU in the case, which is shown in the pictures. The 1500W has shutdown randomly for full-load overclocked and stock speed GPU configuation. My question has nothing to do with the 520W supply right now.

I'm wondering if the 6990 is robbing enough airflow from the bottom-mounted 1500W supply to cause it to overheat. 

http://imgur.com/a/hBhuI#7oxAx

Any chance the low clearance between 6990 and 1500W PSU and the opposing airflows might have something to do with random shutdowns?

I see information in the manual about minimum power supplied, but nothing about minimum power required. And its not too old either, I only bought it in '07.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121013

Edit: I'm wondering if maybe the way the airflow of the rig is set up is leading to a robbing of airflow through the 1500W PSU. The rig has 4 video cards in it: 3x 6970's on top, 1x 6990 on the bottom. The 6990 intake fan sucks up air in order to cool it off. I have all the fans of the video cards running @ 100%. The 6990 intake fan is directly above the PSU intake fan. I wonder if this is messing with the flow of cool air through the PSU, and leading to overheating and random shutdowns? Will post pics in a little while.

Any chance that there's an 8-pin EPS to 6+2-pin or 8-pin PCI-e adapter out there? The EPS rail definitely has enough juice, the pins are just wrong. And looking at this power supply, it looks like the other 12v rail is the dual 6-pin PCI-e rail, which I guess I could get a dual-6-pin to 8-pin adapter for. But it really all comes down to whether or not an EPS rail adapter exists.

Would it be possible that you could implement support for cherry-picking which GPUs we'd like to use for mining?

Say for instance that I want GPU 0, 1, 3, 4 to be mining with CherryPicking, while GPU 2 is left alone. This can be done with POCLBM and Phoenix, picking which GPU's to dedicate to mining, so could CherryPicking implement this in some way?

EDIT: Anyone else having problems with mainframe, nofee, unitedminers, and bitp.it? CherryPicking has problems connecting to them.

Hm, that's a good point. Let's see here, from Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121013 ,

Output
    +3.3V@32A,+5V@42A,+12V1@18A,+12V2@18A,
    -12V@0.8A,-5V@0.5A,+5VSB@2.5A

So it looks like it has 2 12v rails.. Fgsfds. Hm. I might actually have to go and buy a new power supply after all. :/

So topic bump and update here,

I've hooked it up so that the second PSU, the 520W, is inside the tower and connected up properly. I've shorted the power-on pin and ground pin with a paperclip. I'm powering the 6990 with 2x dual-molex-to-8-pin connectors. The 520W supply has 3 molex lines (a cord with a bunch of molex connectors) and a SATA line, which I used a Female-Sata-to-Male-Molex on, so I have 4 molex lines. One molex from each line is connected to one molex slot on the molex-to-8-pin connector. IT SHOULD WORK JUST FINE. But there are issues.

• If the 520W PSU is running before the rest of the PC is on, when I turn the main PC (by pressing the main power button), the 520W PSU shuts down and I have to fiddle with the power-on paperclip to get it working again.
• When I've actually gotten the whole system up and running in Linux, where the OS can see all the cards and report temps etc, when I actually set one of the 6990 cores to start mining with phoenix, the 520W PSU shuts down.

  Why would it shut down as soon as I increase the load on it? Doesn't make sense. This thing is rated for 520W.

EDIT: Just switched the 520W from powering the 6990 to powering a 6970 set to low wattage BIOS switch position. Same symptoms. Ubuntu will start booting just fine and then the 520W PSU will just shut off. I have to play with the paperclip a bit to make it start running again. :/

I know about shorting the two pins, but I don't want a paperclip sticking out of anything related to electricity if I can help it. So I'm ordering the cable out of principal. But I guess I could get a coated paperclip and strip off the ends and short the pins, but idk, can you blame me for being wary of sticking paperclips near electrical pins? lol

BUMP & Update:

I've managed to jam the 520W supply in, fitting it snugly where the 5.25" drives would go. I've slotted the power cord through one of the watercooling holes on the back of the case.

Right now I'm waiting for a dual-PSU 24-pin connector in the mail (so that both PSU's are turned on when the whole computer is turned on) and the 520W will power the 6990 by itself (or a single 6970 if that would be easier for a 520W supply to power). The 520W supply is maybe 4 years old, was great when I used it with my 8800GT back in the day, and it only has some 6-pin connectors. So I'm using a couple dual-molex-to-8-pin adapters that came with the 6970's with 4 separate molex lines from the 520W to power the 6990. Since I'm splitting it up so that the whole thing is powered by two internal PSU's, I plan to overclock all the cards and aim for at least 2100MH/s, if not slightly higher. Heat exhaust be damned!

Will post pics once the cables arrive in the mail this upcoming M/T! Its all finally coming together! Am still open to suggestions/advice about the rig, interpretations of power requirements, etc.

Wait, are people buying PCI-e 1x to 16x adapters so they can plug in their 6990's into their PCI 1x slots? How well does that work, lol?

It does weigh like 30 pounds. I remember it being pretty heavy when I pulled it out of the box.

I put a lot of thought into reliability and build quality when I was shopping for all the parts. I did my research, and I remember reading that this PSU had been tested and was a high-quality, solid 1500W supply, even in a "hot box" testing environment. It's a shame it can't keep up with the load. It's also a shame there isn't a better, higher-wattage Gold/Platinum certified supply out there for me to blow all my money on.

I think I have an old 520W KINGWIN modular power supply lying around somewhere.. Was going to give it to my parents so they could use it in a simple office rig I was building for them -- sorry mom & dad! -- but I might just set it in the empty DVD slots in the mining tower and connect up the 6990 so it has its own private power supply. I don't think this position will compromise effective PSU cooling since there is just SO MUCH airflow in the case. I think it will fit in just fine too.. the mining tower case is certainly big enough, and that PSU isn't all too big. Maybe I'll run the power cord out through one the rig's unused water-cooling holes? lol. Not an ideal setup I know but I really want this rig to be set up as a single unit, just plug it into the wall, close the door, and its good to go, helping me pay for rent.

Now if only I could get my shit working proper.

Tomorrow I'm gonna flip the 6990 BIOS switch back to high-wattage mode and let it run all day mining by itself with a bit of overclock. Should push the PSU, but should definitely not cause a random shutdown. If it randomly shuts down, I probably have a defective PSU. For good measure I'll probably underclock the CPU and RAM a bit too.

I'm still welcome to suggestions and insight and such. I can't believe it still crashed after I returned everything to stock and flipped BIOS switches back to low-wattage mode..