5870 + 6870 problems

[muyuu]

I've been running two separate systems, one with a 5870 and another one with a 6870. Decided to get rid of one of them for space reasons and put both cards in the same system, but I can't seem to get it working. The system runs with either card individually but when I plug both it would either detect one of them or none. I've tried all the combinations, putting each card in either slot and I have these results consistently. The last thing I got was one card detected but blinking (going to black and back) until the OS started loading, then the screen went black for good.

So, both cards are fine and work in single configurations in this system, in either of the slots, but then they don't work together. By not working I mean not even showing the boot/BIOS screen.

Any ideas?

My mobo is a GA-990FXA-UD3. Power should be plenty at 700W (XIGMATEK PSU).

[diabinc141]

You know I had that happen to me with those exact same two cards. I had a 750 watt PSU that I thought was plenty but it turned out the PSU was the problem. Now I know 750 watts can easily run those cards but mine was kind of old and not the same as when I got it so if you have another PSU lying around try it. Now there are a number of things it could be but try another PSU if you have one. Otherwise the motherboard might be defective.

[muyuu]

You know I had that happen to me with those exact same two cards. I had a 750 watt PSU that I thought was plenty but it turned out the PSU was the problem. Now I know 750 watts can easily run those cards but mine was kind of old and not the same as when I got it so if you have another PSU lying around try it. Now there are a number of things it could be but try another PSU if you have one. Otherwise the motherboard might be defective.

Ouch... that PSU costed a fair bit.

Right now I'm mining with the 5870 alone. Thing is, I like using this computer for other things occasionally. I run Linux Mint with LXDE on it and I'm quite fond of the whole config I have there. Maybe if I unplugged the optical drive and HD off it would take both? the mobo seems to be okay unless something really weird happens to it, I tested all ports.

[P4man]

I doubt its the PSU. That 700W may or may not be adequate, but it should be enough to boot the machine. If it would fail under load, id start pointing fingers at the PSU, but doing nothing I dont see 2 cards plus the rest of the system pulling more than ~200W. More so if its this PSU:
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/929/pg1/xigmatek-nrp-pc702-700w-psu-review-introduction.html

60A on the 12V rails is pretty good.

Are you using the opensource drivers at this point, or the ATI drivers? If you can, see if you can SSH in to the machine. I think this is just a xorg/driver problem

[muyuu]

I doubt its the PSU. That 700W may or may not be adequate, but it should be enough to boot the machine. If it would fail under load, id start pointing fingers at the PSU, but doing nothing I dont see 2 cards plus the rest of the system pulling more than ~200W. More so if its this PSU:
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/929/pg1/xigmatek-nrp-pc702-700w-psu-review-introduction.html

60A on the 12V rails is pretty good.

Are you using the opensource drivers at this point, or the ATI drivers? If you can, see if you can SSH in to the machine. I think this is just a xorg/driver problem

ATI drivers. The machine is mining right now with the 5870 (stock clock) ~ 391 MH/s (the 6870 gives me ~281MH/s).

It doesn't seem to be a drivers thing. I simply can't get both cards to wake their respective monitors at the same time. Only one is detected at boot.

Roughly this is what happens (I've had weird things happen like blinking, but couldn't reproduce them):
- 1 card in 1 slot: works (any card in any slot, tried the 4 combinations, both cards and both PCI_E16 slots). Went on to boot up and mine, left it mining for a while to make sure it was stable (about 1 hour at a time)
- from a working config, shutting down the computer and plugging the other card in the other slot: most of the time just ignores the second card completely (no output at boot, go into the OS and make sure the second display is not detected, lsmod, etc... nothing). Seems to be stable working with the 1st card though.
- change the contents of both slots in the same boot: usually nothing works, and when it does it goes blinking. When this happened I turned off the computer as I don't want to total any of the expensive bits here. (Text mode seemed to work albeit blinking, didn't go on to graphic mode).

I believe the PSU is that one you linked (I'm at work right now and can't verify the exact model number, but it looks just like that and it was fairly expensive).

At the moment I'm not running any servers in this machine, so I can't connect to SSH. When I'm home I can install open-ssh but I doubt this would change anything... when it doesn't work it doesn't even work in text mode and it doesn't show even the PC health status at boot or the GRUB boot selector. Do you reckon both cards can be working without output?

I connect this machine to the net with a USB dongle, by the way.

[P4man]

Id be willing to bet 1 coin you can SSH in to the machine fine even with 2 cards. When you do, try running

Code:

sudo aticonfig --initial --adapter=all -f 

then reboot.

If that doesnt fix it, try booting with nomodeset. I wrote a howto on this a long time ago, but most if it is still accurate today:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1613132

[muyuu]

Id be willing to bet 1 coin you can SSH in to the machine fine even with 2 cards. When you do, try running

Code:

sudo aticonfig --initial -f 

then reboot.

If that doesnt fix it, try booting with nomodeset. I wrote a howto on this a long time ago, but most if it is still accurate today:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1613132

Right now both cards are connected and it's ignoring one of them (the 6870 in this case). Should I swap them to have no output and then do that? I've done aticonfig --initial before but to be honest I don't remember what was the card configuration when I did. I think I was running the 6870 alone.

Anyway that sounds like something that I haven't really tried and makes sense. Will execute aticonfig when I'm home and see what happens.

Thanks for your input, will update this post in about 7 hours hopefully with a working system

[P4man]

Right now both cards are connected and it's ignoring one of them (the 6870 in this case). Should I swap them to have no output and then do that?

You should run that command every time you change the configuration, and obviously, only after youve changed it. Id also try with just 1 monitor hooked up first, or both monitors on the same GPU. Not sure how well LXDE handles multiple monitors on multiple GPUs.

[jake262144]

Id be willing to bet 1 coin you can SSH in to the machine fine even with 2 cards. When you do, try running

Code:

sudo aticonfig --initial -f 

then reboot.

If that doesnt fix it, try booting with nomodeset. I wrote a howto on this a long time ago, but most if it is still accurate today:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1613132

P4, let's be more blunt and say Hey dummy, use all the cards you got there!:

Code:

sudo aticonfig --initial --force --adapter=all

Nice howto.

[muyuu]

Awesome, lads. It's working 

[jake262144]

Awesome, lads. It's working

It wouldn't dare not to...

 
How happy are you with your 990fxa-ud3?
I've been using this board in one machine (not a mining rig) and needed to flash the bios with the latest beta version to get rid of some minor quirks and glitches.
The PCIe slot layout isn't perfect for a mining rig as you can't use three double-slot cards and keep one unoccupied slot between each of them.

[muyuu]

Awesome, lads. It's working

It wouldn't dare not to...

 
How happy are you with your 990fxa-ud3?
I've been using this board in one machine (not a mining rig) and needed to flash the bios with the latest beta version to get rid of some minor quirks and glitches.
The PCIe slot layout isn't perfect for a mining rig as you can't use three double-slot cards and keep one unoccupied slot between each of them.

I'm ok with it... it's not giving me any stability problems and I only have these two cards anyway. There's just about enough space in my Zalman Z9 box. The 5870 HD is a Powercolor PCS+ and it's really bulky and long. I really wouldn't dare putting anything else in there. My box temp display is showing 43C now mining on both, vs 33-35C on the 5870 alone and 29-30C on the 6870 alone. Also 700W doesn't really let me run anything bigger than this.

I'm a bit disappointed with ATI drivers and their quirky installation, Gnome compatibility problems, etc. I've had nVidias before, ages ago, and I'd say their drivers were more polished than ATI are now! but for mining it's all about ATI even know they are working but the config tool is really poor, doesn't even let me share the extended desktop properly and something as simple as having a background in the second screen didn't work out of the box. Anyway... it's been a while since I used anything other than a tiling wm in Linux and maybe I forgot the quirks I may have had back in the day.

[P4man]

You do remember correctly. If only linux would let ati and nvidia binary drivers coexist in the same machine, I would put some old nvidia card in my PC in a heartbeat for linux compatibility alone. It is a PITA with AMD .
Ironically, the OSS AMD drivers are maturing nicely, but useless for mining

[DILLIGAF]

The 5870 HD is a Powercolor PCS+ and it's really bulky and long.

I just got one of those today if you want to get a few more mh/s then overclock it mine runs fine at 1000mhz for a 454mh/s rate which is better than you mention above for your stock settings, runs damn cool as well with that large heatsink and fan they have on it.

[muyuu]

You do remember correctly. If only linux would let ati and nvidia binary drivers coexist in the same machine, I would put some old nvidia card in my PC in a heartbeat for linux compatibility alone. It is a PITA with AMD .
Ironically, the OSS AMD drivers are maturing nicely, but useless for mining

Yep I've noticed that. In fact, the open source drivers are a lot spiffier in 2D and work perfectly with all configurations. Much better... but as you said, useless for mining and I'd add also useless for 3D... and you don't buy a high-end card for 2D I guess.

The 5870 HD is a Powercolor PCS+ and it's really bulky and long.

I just got one of those today if you want to get a few more mh/s then overclock it mine runs fine at 1000mhz for a 454mh/s rate which is better than you mention above for your stock settings, runs damn cool as well with that large heatsink and fan they have on it.

I'd do that but I'm concerned with the temps the box is already getting and the other card is a vanilla powercolor 6870. I think I will play it safe and run it as is. OTOH it's warmer in the room and I'm liking that

[Beaflag VonRathburg]

Id be willing to bet 1 coin you can SSH in to the machine fine even with 2 cards. When you do, try running

Code:

sudo aticonfig --initial --adapter=all -f 

then reboot.

If that doesnt fix it, try booting with nomodeset. I wrote a howto on this a long time ago, but most if it is still accurate today:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1613132

I have an issue along the same lines as the main user. My main daily use computer has a 6870x2, 6870, and a 5870 that I recently added. Windows and CPU-Z see the 5870, but Catalyst doesn't. I'm okay with that as I haven't tried removing and reinstalling it. I want to create a boot disk to run 11.04 on like my other machines. I actually found that link a long time ago trying to make my first startup disk. I ended up using xforcevesa to get it to boot while plugged into the 6870x2 for video. I've added the 5870 now and since then I still haven't been able to get multiple boot options to work. The only ones that will partially work are: i915.nomodeset=0 and i915.nomodeset=1. They'll start loading, but then I get an error message along the lines of MSI-x not found. I don't remember the exact error, but I can try to test it out again if that'd help. I've been thinking of changing over to the integrated graphics on my 2500k and testing that out, but I knew it worked before with the 6870x2. I've been prioritizing other things, but upon seeing this had to respond. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[muyuu]

Id be willing to bet 1 coin you can SSH in to the machine fine even with 2 cards. When you do, try running

Code:

sudo aticonfig --initial --adapter=all -f 

then reboot.

If that doesnt fix it, try booting with nomodeset. I wrote a howto on this a long time ago, but most if it is still accurate today:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1613132

I have an issue along the same lines as the main user. My main daily use computer has a 6870x2, 6870, and a 5870 that I recently added. Windows and CPU-Z see the 5870, but Catalyst doesn't. I'm okay with that as I haven't tried removing and reinstalling it. I want to create a boot disk to run 11.04 on like my other machines. I actually found that link a long time ago trying to make my first startup disk. I ended up using xforcevesa to get it to boot while plugged into the 6870x2 for video. I've added the 5870 now and since then I still haven't been able to get multiple boot options to work. The only ones that will partially work are: i915.nomodeset=0 and i915.nomodeset=1. They'll start loading, but then I get an error message along the lines of MSI-x not found. I don't remember the exact error, but I can try to test it out again if that'd help. I've been thinking of changing over to the integrated graphics on my 2500k and testing that out, but I knew it worked before with the 6870x2. I've been prioritizing other things, but upon seeing this had to respond. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

AFAIK Windows won't accept that. Not sure if there are any tricks though.

[Beaflag VonRathburg]

Id be willing to bet 1 coin you can SSH in to the machine fine even with 2 cards. When you do, try running

Code:

sudo aticonfig --initial --adapter=all -f 

then reboot.

If that doesnt fix it, try booting with nomodeset. I wrote a howto on this a long time ago, but most if it is still accurate today:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1613132

I have an issue along the same lines as the main user. My main daily use computer has a 6870x2, 6870, and a 5870 that I recently added. Windows and CPU-Z see the 5870, but Catalyst doesn't. I'm okay with that as I haven't tried removing and reinstalling it. I want to create a boot disk to run 11.04 on like my other machines. I actually found that link a long time ago trying to make my first startup disk. I ended up using xforcevesa to get it to boot while plugged into the 6870x2 for video. I've added the 5870 now and since then I still haven't been able to get multiple boot options to work. The only ones that will partially work are: i915.nomodeset=0 and i915.nomodeset=1. They'll start loading, but then I get an error message along the lines of MSI-x not found. I don't remember the exact error, but I can try to test it out again if that'd help. I've been thinking of changing over to the integrated graphics on my 2500k and testing that out, but I knew it worked before with the 6870x2. I've been prioritizing other things, but upon seeing this had to respond. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

AFAIK Windows won't accept that. Not sure if there are any tricks though.

It will show all of the cards in device manager, CPU-Z, and a brute force program I have, but catalyst 12.1 will not detect it. I have not removed and reinstalled catalyst to see if it will recognize the third card. The issue I am having is I want to make a liveUSB for the machine like I had before I added the 5870 in there. Regardless of what I set the boot options to I cannot get the thing to boot into the operating system. I'm not sure what the issue is?

[muyuu]

It will show all of the cards in device manager, CPU-Z, and a brute force program I have, but catalyst 12.1 will not detect it. I have not removed and reinstalled catalyst to see if it will recognize the third card. The issue I am having is I want to make a liveUSB for the machine like I had before I added the 5870 in there. Regardless of what I set the boot options to I cannot get the thing to boot into the operating system. I'm not sure what the issue is?

I don't have Windows at home so I cannot help you with that, but it sounds like what I've read in the forums: Windows' Catalyst drivers won't see it.

Some BIOS vendors won't let you boot from a flash drive (yes... in this day and age). Maybe you can try this if you have an optical drive http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16822/boot-from-a-usb-drive-even-if-your-bios-wont-let-you/


(However this is unlikely... look for USBHDD - it can also be in "HD boot options")

[Beaflag VonRathburg]

It will show all of the cards in device manager, CPU-Z, and a brute force program I have, but catalyst 12.1 will not detect it. I have not removed and reinstalled catalyst to see if it will recognize the third card. The issue I am having is I want to make a liveUSB for the machine like I had before I added the 5870 in there. Regardless of what I set the boot options to I cannot get the thing to boot into the operating system. I'm not sure what the issue is?

I don't have Windows at home so I cannot help you with that, but it sounds like what I've read in the forums: Windows' Catalyst drivers won't see it.

Some BIOS vendors won't let you boot from a flash drive (yes... in this day and age). Maybe you can try this if you have an optical drive http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16822/boot-from-a-usb-drive-even-if-your-bios-wont-let-you/


(However this is unlikely... look for USBHDD - it can also be in "HD boot options")

I may end up giving that a try. The issue is that I had a boot USB for the computer before I added the 5870 that worked fine with the boot parameter xforcevesa. Now, with the 5870 it will not work and gives me an MSI-x error of some sort. The bios and everything, but the 5870 is the same.