ATI 5850 - Looking for assistance

[RyanRed]

My friend sold me an ATI 5850 for $60 bucks. I planned on using it to mine for a few months before ASIC hits. I am also a gamer, so it will hold value to me even after I cant mine with it anymore.

Currently I am using an ATI 6750 just to do some light gaming, and mine at night.

I was planning on adding the 5850 as a second card in my system, and mine with it 24/7 until my Jalapeno arrives. I may also order a SC Single too. Still unsure of that though. But thats going off topic.

My question is how do I go about setting this up? Ive never ran a computer with 2 video cards before. I am however very tech savy, just never dabbled with multiple GPUs. I would like to keep my existing 6750 as my desktop/gaming card while using the 5850 to mine while I game, and go about my business for day to day use. Is it just as simple as putting in the 5850 into the next PCI-E slot over, and powering the machine on? Also, how will CGminer know what card to use? Im still pretty newbish when it comes to CGminer, but I have toyed around with the settings quite bit trying different command lines to get the best performance out of my 6750 in my attempts to learn about mining.

Any information would be helpful. If I failed to be detailed about something let me know, and Ill be glad to fill in any information I left out that would allow for better assistance.

Thank you!

-Ryan

PS Current system (Internal)
ASUS Sabertooth 990fx Motherboard
AMD FX-8150 8core CPU
4 gig Patriot DDR3 1600ram
120 SSD Patriot Inferno SSD HD
XFX ATI 6750
620 PSU

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[Photon939]

Is it just as simple as putting in the 5850 into the next PCI-E slot over, and powering the machine on? Also, how will CGminer know what card to use?

That's pretty much it really, you may need to install drivers for the 5850, but otherwise CGminer will detect all OpenCL compatible cards. You will probably want to write a batch file to open CGminer with the settings you want for fan control and whatnot.

[RyanRed]

Is it just as simple as putting in the 5850 into the next PCI-E slot over, and powering the machine on? Also, how will CGminer know what card to use?

That's pretty much it really, you may need to install drivers for the 5850, but otherwise CGminer will detect all OpenCL compatible cards. You will probably want to write a batch file to open CGminer with the settings you want for fan control and whatnot.

Alright thank you! Yeah I have a bunch of different .bat files Ive written to excute different setting depending on the environment I want to mine with at currently.

But is there a setting within CGminer that tells it not to use one card, but use another? Im not sure if it defaults to use every card possible, or not. Im trying to just use the 5850.

Mind you I dont have the card in my hands currently. I wont have it until tomorrow, but I was just trying to get some good info in advance to be ready

[Photon939]

By default CGminer will use all available cards, but you can specify by using the -d (device flag) although you'll want to read the CGminer config file for exact syntax

[os2sam]

Is it just as simple as putting in the 5850 into the next PCI-E slot over, and powering the machine on? Also, how will CGminer know what card to use?

That's pretty much it really, you may need to install drivers for the 5850, but otherwise CGminer will detect all OpenCL compatible cards. You will probably want to write a batch file to open CGminer with the settings you want for fan control and whatnot.

Alright thank you! Yeah I have a bunch of different .bat files Ive written to excute different setting depending on the environment I want to mine with at currently.

But is there a setting within CGminer that tells it not to use one card, but use another? Im not sure if it defaults to use every card possible, or not. Im trying to just use the 5850.

Mind you I dont have the card in my hands currently. I wont have it until tomorrow, but I was just trying to get some good info in advance to be ready

I would first try setting the GPU running the display to dynamic intensity and and mine with and see if you have any performance problems while doing other stuff.  CGMiner is pretty good at throttling so that you can still mine while using the desktop too.
Sam

[RyanRed]

Yeah thats what I have been doing with my single 6750 card now. Using the -d setting, That seems like a good plan to set both at -d and see what happens. Ty as well!

[segabtc]

./cgminer -o mining.location.com:8332 -u username -p password -I 9 --auto-gpu --auto-fan -worksize 256            linux

cgminer.exe -o mining.location.com:8332 -u username -p password -I 9 --auto-gpu --auto-fan -worksize 256         windoze

mining.location.com = your pool you mine at.
-u username  =   your username at pool
-p password  =     your password for worker at pool


try that

[os2sam]

Yeah thats what I have been doing with my single 6750 card now. Using the -d setting, That seems like a good plan to set both at -d and see what happens. Ty as well!

Well I would set the one driving the display it dynamic, that's -I d and your 5850 to an intensity of 8 so that would be -I d,8, provided your dedicated mining GPU is the second one, an intensity of 9 may be better as previously said, but it isn't for my 5830.
Sam

[RyanRed]

Awesome everyone! I really do appreciate you all taking the time to help me out! It should be here today, so Ill give the above command lines a go. Again, thank you very much!

-Ryan

[segabtc]

drop back by when you get this up and running, kinda curious to see what cgminer does for auto-gpu, after you get it up I will give you another command that will allow you to set core speed and mem speed.

[RyanRed]

Im back! Got it up and running. I think... lol having some issues mining litecoin now though. I made another thread about it, but ill go ahead and copy it in here as well.

(copied this from my other thread)


When I mine for bitcoin, and I get the speculated hashrates as I should. I use this command line, and it seems to work ok.

cgminer.exe -o http://mmpool.bitparking.com:15098 -u username -p password -I 8,d -w 256 -g 1 --auto-fan --queue 1 --temp-target 70 --temp-overheat 80 --gpu-fan 75-85 --gpu-engine 850 --gpu-memclock 1150 --shaders 1440,720

Heres a Screenshot of it working



When I use the same command line but for Litecoin, and of course I change the intensity I crash.
(The reason I like to mine litecoin sometimes is because when I just had the 6750 card I felt I would get a better turn around mining Litecoin. I would then just trade them into Bitcoin. Not sure if was working out better for me or not, but I was just having some fun playing on the exchange market since this is all new to me

cgminer --scrypt -o http://mine.pool-x.eu:8080 -u username -p password -I 18,d -w 256 -g 1 --auto-fan --queue 1 --temp-target 70 --temp-overheat 80 --gpu-fan 75-85 --gpu-engine 850 --gpu-memclock 1150 --shaders 1440,720

(no need for a screenshot)

Anything above intensity 12 makes me crash while mining litecoin. I can get the ATI 5850 mining litecoin at around 250 mhash/s without a crash. Anything above that locks my computer. I can get my bitcoin mining to the desired mhash/s at around 330, and be just fine. I dont understand why mining litecoin would crash my system at the desired mhash/s of 330ish.

Any incite would be much appreciated. If my command line needs help, please feel free to toss some constructive criticism my way Ill take any help I can get!

Thanks for taking the time to look this over!

-Ryan

P.S. I'm aware my GPU 1 (ATI 6750) runs ridiculously hot, but Im ok with that. The card is lo profile card with a crappy Heatsink and fan. Not much I can do about it. Figured I'd burn that mother till its dead lol

[AndrewBUD]

I would use I:9 on your dedicated card and I:6 on your Desktop card...

[RyanRed]

I would use I:9 on your dedicated card and I:6 on your Desktop card...

Alright, ill give it a shot

[RyanRed]

Any thoughts on why I would be crashing mining litecoin though trying to get the same hashrate? Its beyond me

-Ryan

[AndrewBUD]

kernel might not be as stable, ?

[os2sam]

Any thoughts on why I would be crashing mining litecoin though trying to get the same hashrate? Its beyond me

-Ryan

Don't know nothing about lightcoin.  But I thought copycat coins hashed at different rates than bitcoin?

I would drop the memclock on your dedicated card to around 250-300Mhz for bitcoin.
Sam

[RyanRed]

Any thoughts on why I would be crashing mining litecoin though trying to get the same hashrate? Its beyond me

-Ryan

Don't know nothing about lightcoin.  But I thought copycat coins hashed at different rates than bitcoin?

I would drop the memclock on your dedicated card to around 250-300Mhz for bitcoin.
Sam

Nice I just did that and it actually raised my hashrate by 10. And its running cooler to boot! Ty for the great tip!

[AndrewBUD]

I keep my mem clock @ 1/3rd of the Engine clock... so If I have a 900mhz core clock I use 300mhz Mem..... and so on



Mining required very little Vram.

[Reckman]

Idk if anyone mentioned this but you can't crossfire a 5xxx with a 6xxx they have to be in the same family to do that

[AndrewBUD]

No reason to crossfire when mining.