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Author Topic: Newbie question on [c/bf]gminer (temperature / fan speed)  (Read 1233 times)
christian.gaertner (OP)
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March 29, 2013, 11:30:31 AM
 #1

Hi to all of you! Smiley

I have started with bitcoin mining a few days ago and now I have a question which I suppose to be a newbie question but I have not found any satisfying answer in the internet.

To start with my systems: both systems run Windows 7, 64 bit, one with a nVidia NVS 2100M (yes, it's a notebook) and one with a nVidia Quadro FX 550. Driver: nVidia 311.35 from 2013-03-08 ("Quadro ODE graphics driver"). BTW: should I take the the "Quadro performance driver"Huh

I know, both systems are not great for minig but I want to gather some know-how with my existing equipment.

I have downloaded both cgminer 2.11.3 and bfgminer 2.10.5 and they work fine regarding the mining process. BUT: they do not display any values for temperature and fan speed (the place is left blank). This is a serius problem because on the notebook the GPU temperature raises to 105 degrees celsius! And for the reason cgminer and bfgminer are not able to read the GPU temperature, all of the options to automatically adjust GPU engine clock speed and fan speed (--auto-fan, --auto-gpu, ...) do not work!! Sad

I am running OpenHardwareMonitor and GPU-Z during the mining process and both programs display the temperature value without any problems.

Am I missing any necessary driver, dll, program option, ...? I'm stuck and I would be glad for any hints! Huh

Thanks in advance, Christian
christian.gaertner (OP)
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April 02, 2013, 12:54:56 PM
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Hi, it's me again. Smiley

I did some additional research with another notebook equipped with something like an ATI Radeon Mobility 4xxx. This time both cgminer and bfgminer showed values for temperature and fan speed and they were the same like the ones displayed by OpenHardwaremonitor and CPU-Z.

Lesson learned: cgminer and bfgminer fail to read out the values for temperature and fan speed on the systems with the nVidia graphic cards I mentioned above. Why? Am I missing some nVidia related driver?

Then I tried to configure cgminer and bfgminer to work at 85 degrees celsius ("temp-target" : "85") and set the values "temp-cutoff" and "temp-overheat" both to 90 degrees celsius. During the minig process the GPU temperature raised up to 90 degrees celsius and then the GPU was disabled by the miner (according to the overheat value).

Question 1: Why does the miner not slow down the GPU to stay at 85 degrees celsius?

Question 2: What does "temp-hysteresis" : "1" exactly mean?

Thanks and greetings, Christian
milone
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April 28, 2013, 09:04:09 PM
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If you're still looking for answers, I may be able to provide a little help. I'm not an expert yet so hopefully someone will correct me if I am wrong on anything here.

Because of the inefficiency of mining with Nvidia GPUs, they do not get the same level of attention from miner developers as AMD GPUs do. The reason that the miner is not displaying Nvidia GPU temps is most likely because it wasn't worth the extra development time to add such a feature since the vast majority of miners use AMD.

CGMiner has three temperatures you can set. Obviously, these settings only apply if CGMiner is able to get the GPU temperature, which currently only seems available to AMD cards. For these settings to work, you have to set auto-fan and auto-gpu to true.

  • temp-target: This is the temperature CGMiner will try to maintain by increasing or decreasing fan speed. According to the ReadMe, it may also change clock speeds but I am not sure of that. To specify at what temp you want the miner to down-clock, use the next setting as I am sure it down-clocks the GPU when/if it is reached.
  • temp-overheat: When temperatures reach this value, CGMiner will down-clock the GPU in an attempt to return to the temp-target value. I am guessing it will later return to normal/specified clock speeds once the temperature is back to the temp-target.
  • temp-cutoff: If a GPU temperature reaches this value, CGMiner will disable it. I am not sure if it automatically re-enables it once it cools down.

Temp-hysteresis, according to the ReadMe, is how much the temperature can fluctuate outside of the limits you've set when CGMiner is managing GPU speeds/temps. The default value is 3 degrees.

I've written an interface/monitor for CGMiner/BFGMiner and am currently looking into finding the GPU temps for Nvidia and Intel. It would be ideal to have these values in the miner itself, but my goal is to get them on my own (and send commands to the miner to increase/decrease fan and clock speeds) until that happens, if it happens. That is how I came across your post.

The program I've written is called CGWatcher (http://manotechnology.blogspot.com/p/cgwatcher.html). It provides a friendlier interface as well as options for monitoring (and restarting) the miner to ensure it is working properly. Right now it only gets GPU temps from the miner, so it will also not display temps for Nvidia (or Intel I believe) GPUs, but I am hoping to add that functionality so it is not dependent on the miner for this info.

Until then, I would suggest you keep running a program that is capable of getting the GPU temps for all cards any time you mine with Nvidia or Intel GPUs. I recommend AIDA64 Extreme Edition, which has an OSD feature that overlays information like this (you can customize what it displays) on the screen so it is always visible.

CGWatcher, a GUI/monitor for CGMiner & BFGMiner: http://www.cgwatcher.com
CGRemote, a remote mining dashboard for all of your miners: http://www.minerremote.com
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