Can't seem to control memory clock on multi-card setup

[DrG]

So I finally got 4 16x risers and wanted to see if I could make a decent multi-card setup (up until now have been running only 1 card/rig with mostly 6950s).  I got a MSI 790FXA-GD70 that I broke in over the last few days.  I was able to run 2 6950s in there spaced at the 1st and 4rth slot I believe.  I used MSI Afterburner and Trixx.  I noticed when I used Trixx alone it would not let me control memory clock, but if I launched MSI afterburner then Trixx would allow me to take the memory down to 400 and keep my temps down below 85c.  Oddly I was only able to drop the memory on the top card which is the one that ran hot.  Ended up running it 850/400 and the lower card 900/1250 (couldn't get MSI afterburner or Trixx to control it).

Flash forward to today.  I thought 4 6950s even with risers would just be too much heat in one area and decided to alternate 6950/6870/6950/6870.  I did get all 4 cards to boot and get detected (which after reading on these forums appears to be a feat in-and-of itself).  When I run all four cards at stock (just to initially try to see what temps I was getting) the top card was hitting 91C which I was not comfortable with).  I used a cheap wire rack to lift the card out of the case and placed the case in horizontal position.  I put a big 20 inch fan right in front of the case to clear the heat but the top 6950 was still smoking at 91c (this is with no OC).  Room temp is about 70c with AC running (my wife's work office where I have free electricity but AC only runs during the day).

Here's the problem. MSI Afterburner fails to load its driver at boot - says driver failed to load so I can't launch it.  When I launch Trixx 2.0 and run 4 instances (one for each card on the pull-down) I am able to set the fan speed of both 6950s and both 6870 all independently of each other (I tried 49/50/51/52% just so I would know it's working).  I used 4 instances of GPUz to see the temps since Trixx was off on temps I think.  No matter what I tell the memory to downclock to - whether it be 650, 500, 400 - GPUz shows the memory never downclocks.  I can downclock the core, but that defeats the goal of higher hash rates.  Maybe I don't know what I'm doing with Trixx (couldn't find a tutorial) but I couldn't get the memory clocks on any of the 4 cards down.  The same 2 6950 when planted directly into the board just 1 hour earlier - well I was able to get one to downclock as mentioned before.

Is there something in the ATI Catalyst center I need to do?  In MSI Afterburner I typed that consent message and set the 2nd field to 2 (which I guess allows the memory downclock).  Trixx also lets me lower the slider for the core voltage but again I have no idea if it's doing anything (think I lowered from 1125 to 1100).

I was hoping to consolidate my 9 rigs into 2 or 3 "efficient" rigs.  It was actually cheaper to setup the 9 rigs since I was using leftover boards, chips, RAM and PSUs.  For those 4 card setup I bought the board for $175 and the PSU for $60 (LEPA 850 deal at Newegg).

Any pros have any suggestions, tips, or can point me in the general direction for something to read?  OS is Win 7 64 bit.  I'm pretty much a noob when it comes to linux (only tried Backtrack to crack a WEP before) but it seemed like people were having more trouble with multicard rigs in Linux.

[abracadabra]

you have the setting to "link gpus" unclicked right?

[DrG]

Yes - synchronize similar GPUs is unchecked.  I have Catalyst 11.8, MSI Afterburner, and Trixx 2.0 installed.

I was able to tilt the large fan down towards the cards and get the temps down to the low 70's, so I bumped up the core frequencies a bit, but I would still like to be able to lower the memory clock.

So from my past experience when I install Trixx on it's own it's not able to modify anything.  I just reinstalled a Win7 rig with a single card last night and cannot get Trixx to control the card. When I launch MSI afterburner and then Trixx I am able to control everything with Trixx.

When I went from 2 cards directly plugged in to 4 cards on risers on this 790FXA-GD70 board I lost all ability to memory clock (I'm assuming because the MSI afterburner driver crashes at boot).  I can control the core frequencies and fan speed, just not the memory clock 

[Swishercutter]

Use driver cleaner and reinstall the drivers.  Uninstall Afterburner.

I personally am using 4x5830's and 1x6950 per board with 11.7 drivers, trixx to control the fans (and memory on the 6950), aoclbf to control core overclocks on all cards and the memory on the 5830's.

I read somewhere there is an issue with the memory clocks not really going down on the 6xxx series unless you use trixx or flash the overclocks to the bios.  GpuZ will show you...its kinda a strange thing, if its not working proper one of the programs either gpuz or trixx will not agree on the memory clock.  I noticed it was doing it a while ago and just ignored it thinking it was just a glitch but I believe now that afterburner/aoclbf (phoenix) does not properly set the memory clock.  Someone correct me if I am wrong, if its working for you please post your settings/software.

[abracadabra]

i've tried pretty much every o/c utility out there and i've been sick and tired of the crap you have to go thru to get them to work for multi-gpu setups.  Started using something called clocktweak.  Search the forum.  Cmdline utility.  Nice cause you can put it in a batch file.

[DrG]

i've tried pretty much every o/c utility out there and i've been sick and tired of the crap you have to go thru to get them to work for multi-gpu setups.  Started using something called clocktweak.  Search the forum.  Cmdline utility.  Nice cause you can put it in a batch file.

I saw one of you other posts about it so I did a quick forum search and only found three posts including its name and one of the post mentioned lack of fan speed control.  Happen to know where it is? 

[abracadabra]

First hit in forum search for me:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=9982.0

[Jezzz]

I've had similar issues.  You should try clocktweak.  It's functions well with multiple gpus.