Multiple 5970's - tearing my hair out

[abap01]

Ok, so I have what must be a really generic, known-to-work setup - 2 5970's mining on Linux. Catalyst drivers work great with either card but simply will NOT accept both at the same time. Specifically, I am using a Conroe945PL-GLAN motherboard, Arch Linux, P4-540J processor, and 1x-to-16x PCIE extension cables.

With Catalyst 12.9, it shows all 4 GPUs in "aticonfig --lsa" and "aticonfig --adapter=all --odgc", but when you try to mine, there is a weird issue where although there are 4 devices available, no matter which one you select the drivers actually only run the program on one GPU so the more instances you start the slower the others go.

With Catalyst 12.11, depending on how I fiddle with the screens section in xorg.conf, it either:
  * Works, but "pplib-cmd" thing to control the fans doesn't and the automatic fan control is retarded, so the cards overheat within minutes
  * The fans on each card work and are individually controllable, but have the same issue from 12.9 where it is only REALLY using one GPU despite claiming to have 4 available

Every other version of the drivers I've tried has the same issue with only using one GPU.
Anybody seen this before? Surely it should not be this freaking hard to install a stupid video card, when people are running 4 or more 5970's in a single box all the time.

[max in montreal]

http://bamter.org/

I feel your pain...download it, it is awesome.

[deepceleron]

11.6 has been the most stable and best performing in the face of any further updates. I would recommend 11.11 if you are doing other OpenCL stuff like vanitygen.

Q:"Multiple 5970s tearing my hair out" - A:"Keep hair away from fans"