Happy 7970 Day!

[optimator]

Sweet Day! I've got a custom 7970 setup up and running. Unbuntu 12.04 running from a USB stick and most importantly I found a use for those black light led's I just had laying around!

I've got cgminer plugging away.

Right now I've got 1 thread for both cards. Card 0, 7970 is averaging 450 Mh/s. Card 1, overclocked HD 7970, is averaging 600 Mh/s.

I launched cgminer just with the --auto-fan option.

Now for tuning.... Where should I start? What the -I 9 option I see? How do I know if I'm going to blow up that overclocked HD 7970 card?

Cheers!

[Undefined31415]

So jealous. :p.

[FLHippy]

w for tuning.... Where should I start? What the -I 9 option I see? How do I know if I'm going to blow up that overclocked HD 7970 card?

If your miner is dedicated running with the -I 9 option.

Like the directions say, most of the options beyond username/password/host/intensity cause problems.

That said, I think the default overheat shutdown temps need to be reduced to 78c from 85c and the target temp needs to be reduced to 65c from 75c.

What version of the 7970 did you get? Some can be overclocked more than others.

I have three MSI 7970s with the Frozr fan setup and a voltage regulator for overclocking. (NewEgg $519 currently)

I am running ubuntu 12.04 also on a usb like you.

my MSI cards with the following..

GPU Clock: 1185
MEM Clock: 1300
Fan Speed: 80%
GPU Temperature: 65c
Voltage: Factory
Hash Rate: 708MH/s
Case: open side panel.

I don't understand the voltage settings so I have not attempted to modify that. I have tried very low memory clocks and the system becomes unstable below 1200. I have tried much faster memory clocks and the system becomes unstable at 1400. I have tried very high gpu clocks and the system becomes unstable above 1200 Somewhat more stable at 1190. 1185 seems to be the most stable (so far)

1200 gpu clock produced 730-743 MH/s
1190 gpu clock produced 715-720 MH/s

There is a wiki which lists cards and settings at - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

I would love to hear other people's settings on this card though.

EDIT: I didn't mean 1900 for gpu clock (1300 is max). I meant 1190... fixed.

[optimator]

Thanks for the info! It's really good to have a target.

The 7970's I picked up are used. I'm not sure on the model, but:

ASUS HD 7970 DirectCPU II
7970 - 3G5D

That's what's marked on the units. The HD 7970 is overclocked, but I suspect I'll change the speed with cgminer so I don't think that matters.

I'm running at about 75C on both cards. My house is a little hot and the temperature should drop once I get them into a data center.

My case is some slotted angle iron I bolted together. The power is Corsair750, it came with two PCIe cables, but I have another HD 7970 I'll have to figure out how to wire in once the 1x-16x riser arrives.

Getting Ubuntu running on a USB took a couple of tries, but that's just because I like to make things harder than they should be.

I'll let you know what hash rate I get with some of the tweaks.

I'm still confused on the -I. Since I'm running one cgminer with 2 cards I should use -I9? Right now my output show I:6 for card0 and I:7 for card1

[FLHippy]

Getting Ubuntu running on a USB took a couple of tries

I had some problems setting up ubuntu on a usb stick also.

I continue to have problems actually. I have one USB stick which worked and I made that on a borrowed windows laptop with unetbootin. I have a windows laptop of my own and unetbootin wouldn't create a bootable stick on any stick I owned... same stick, different windows machine... success.

Yesterday I tried to make a backup of my now configured stick. Shut it all down and put in an exact duplicate sandisk 8gb stick.
dd if=stick1 of=stick1
This wrote out a file system just fine but the stick will not boot so I don't know what I'm missing.

I'll let you know what hash rate I get with some of the tweaks.

Great. I would like to know.

I'm still confused on the -I. Since I'm running one cgminer with 2 cards I should use -I9? Right now my output show I:6 for card0 and I:7 for card1

As long as your CPU isn't at 100% and you aren't using the machine to do anything else, -I 9 is recommended in the README.

[aznjack31]

What did you use to get ubuntu on the usb stick? I'm thinking about moving from windows 7 to linux with a flash drive.

[optimator]

I have a Windows install. I have no access to Linux. I tried to do this from 1 USB stick.

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3qlire/

My time is valuable. Here's what I did.

1. Get 2 USB drives (Or 1 USB + 1 CD if you have a CD drive)

2. Get http://www.pendrivelinux.com/downloads/YUMI/YUMI-0.0.6.9.exe

3. Get Ubuntu Desktop - http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/ubuntu-iso/CDs-Xubuntu/12.04/release/xubuntu-12.04-desktop-amd64.iso The desktop version (versus the server) is important because it installs a GUI (X Windows Something) that is needed for the 7970. Don't mess with the server version. It's too time consuming.

4. Use YUMI to install the .iso onto the USB stick. NOTE: If you are partitioning or creating a USB stick (versus just shoving it in and using YUMI, the USB stick needs to have a Primary Partition with the ISO installed on it - That's just an aside - for most people just use YUMI)

5. Boot with the YUMI stick. Choose install. Put another USB stick in. The second USB stick will be /dev/sdb - That's where you want to install Ubuntu.

6. Then follow Leonard's excellent google doc - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gw7YPYgMgNNU42skibULbJJUx_suP_CpjSEdSi8_z9U/edit?pli=1#heading=h.n12e5wx0s4xh

That's it.

Cheers!

[optimator]

FLHippy - With your settings I'm getting exactly 707.8Mh/s on each card.

The only difference is Card0 is running at 83.0C and Card1 is running at 73.0C.

HD7970 fans. I guess it makes a difference.

Cheers!

[SysRun]

pretty sweet.