python OpenCL bitcoin miner

[Mahkul]

how do I confirm this is running for me? In the bitcoin app I don't see and khashes/s I only see it in the terminal in which I ran this from.

If you can see the khash/s rate this means your miner is working. Otherwise it would give you an error message, like: Unable to connect to Bitcoin RPC or Bitcoin isn't running.

Second question, my cpu is not being used at all can I use my cpu with the regular bitcoin client to work in parellel.

Yes, just enable "Generate coins".

Lastly can I use another computer to work in paralell?

Yes, as long as you allow its IP in the Bitcoin config file using the rpcallowip option.

Please note that all these questions have already been answered on the forum. Next time try to use Search.

[chris200x9]

ok Mahkul sorry and thanks so much!

[FairUser]

Edit: False alarm, please ignore.

Hi,

I'm seeing several repeat "accepted" hashes.  Here's an example.

01/01/2011 18:09, e62d8177, accepted
01/01/2011 18:09, e62d8177, accepted
01/01/2011 18:09, a753edb1, accepted
01/01/2011 18:09, c46b1614, accepted
01/01/2011 18:10, 51ccbc9c, accepted
01/01/2011 18:10, 51ccbc9c, accepted
01/01/2011 18:11, 2b411e8b, accepted
01/01/2011 18:11, 2b411e8b, accepted
01/01/2011 18:11, 2b411e8b, accepted
01/01/2011 18:13, 3ddfdb84, accepted
01/01/2011 18:13, 9e29c06c, accepted
01/01/2011 18:13, bdc65504, accepted
01/01/2011 18:13, bdc65504, accepted
01/01/2011 18:14, f4d73c8f, accepted
01/01/2011 18:14, 7229e2dc, accepted
01/01/2011 18:15, af861f38, accepted
01/01/2011 18:15, c5d3b074, accepted
01/01/2011 18:16, c446c905, accepted
01/01/2011 18:16, 5e9072e6, accepted
01/01/2011 18:16, 5e9072e6, accepted

It seems to be getting more frequent over the last few days too, as in I'm now see 3 to 4 repeat "accepted" hashes.
The number of "shares" I get from bitcoin.cz doesn't increase with repeats either.

What would cause the same hash being accepted more than once?
Is my client computing the same hash more than once?  If so, why?

Thanks for the great code.  Getting ~150,000 khash/s.....I think.

[Edogaa]

alright, I followed the instructions on that site... but why do I keep getting this error regardless of whether I open the .bat file or do so manually?


C:\bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20101228\poclbm.exe --user=no --pass=no
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "poclbm.py", line 3, in <module>
  File "pyopencl\__init__.pyc", line 3, in <module>
  File "pyopencl\_cl.pyc", line 12, in <module>
  File "pyopencl\_cl.pyc", line 10, in __load
ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified procedure could not be found.



I thought I was just doing something wrong at first, but even when I followed the instruction on the blog, word for word, with a slight variation in version numbering I get this error. I don't get what this means, and the poclbm.py has 0 lines in it, and takes up 0 KB. :/

[FairUser]

alright, I followed the instructions on that site... but why do I keep getting this error regardless of whether I open the .bat file or do so manually?


C:\bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20101228\poclbm.exe --user=no --pass=no
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "poclbm.py", line 3, in <module>
  File "pyopencl\__init__.pyc", line 3, in <module>
  File "pyopencl\_cl.pyc", line 12, in <module>
  File "pyopencl\_cl.pyc", line 10, in __load
ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified procedure could not be found.



I thought I was just doing something wrong at first, but even when I followed the instruction on the blog, word for word, with a slight variation in version numbering I get this error. I don't get what this means, and the poclbm.py has 0 lines in it, and takes up 0 KB. :/

Just a guess, but do you have the latest drivers for your video card?  
My friend saw something similar last night and a video card driver update resolved it.

[ColdHardMetal]

alright, I followed the instructions on that site... but why do I keep getting this error regardless of whether I open the .bat file or do so manually?


C:\bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20101228\poclbm.exe --user=no --pass=no
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "poclbm.py", line 3, in <module>
  File "pyopencl\__init__.pyc", line 3, in <module>
  File "pyopencl\_cl.pyc", line 12, in <module>
  File "pyopencl\_cl.pyc", line 10, in __load
ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified procedure could not be found.



I thought I was just doing something wrong at first, but even when I followed the instruction on the blog, word for word, with a slight variation in version numbering I get this error. I don't get what this means, and the poclbm.py has 0 lines in it, and takes up 0 KB. :/

Just a guess, but do you have the latest drivers for your video card?  
My friend saw something similar last night and a video card driver update resolved it.

I had the same problem when getting started and installing the latest drivers fixed it for me.

[Edogaa]

After finding the main through on technical support that is what I'm doing right now. I'm not particularly sure if I am up to date or not so I'm just get my latest drivers and hope it works. -.-


Edit: It finally works.

42,000 khash in my GTX 260

[FairUser]

After finding the main through on technical support that is what I'm doing right now. I'm not particularly sure if I am up to date or not so I'm just get my latest drivers and hope it works. -.-


Edit: It finally works.

You gotta love bleeding edge technology...changes every month.

[FairUser]

Edit: False alarm, please ignore.

Does anyone know why I'm getting double or triple accepted hashes?

01/01/2011 18:09, e62d8177, accepted
01/01/2011 18:09, e62d8177, accepted
01/01/2011 18:09, a753edb1, accepted
01/01/2011 18:09, c46b1614, accepted
01/01/2011 18:10, 51ccbc9c, accepted
01/01/2011 18:10, 51ccbc9c, accepted
01/01/2011 18:11, 2b411e8b, accepted
01/01/2011 18:11, 2b411e8b, accepted
01/01/2011 18:11, 2b411e8b, accepted
01/01/2011 18:13, 3ddfdb84, accepted
01/01/2011 18:13, 9e29c06c, accepted
01/01/2011 18:13, bdc65504, accepted
01/01/2011 18:13, bdc65504, accepted
01/01/2011 18:14, f4d73c8f, accepted
01/01/2011 18:14, 7229e2dc, accepted
01/01/2011 18:15, af861f38, accepted
01/01/2011 18:15, c5d3b074, accepted
01/01/2011 18:16, c446c905, accepted
01/01/2011 18:16, 5e9072e6, accepted
01/01/2011 18:16, 5e9072e6, accepted

[m0mchil]

FairUser, please describe your setup with as many details as possible. When did it start showing this?

Does anyone else see something similar?

[FairUser]

FairUser, please describe your setup with as many details as possible. When did it start showing this?

Does anyone else see something similar?

AMD Athlon(tm) X4 620 Processor
8GB RAM
1TB HD
ATI RADEON 5750

Using the following to run my miner:
python poclbm.py --user=<removed> --pass=<removed> --port 8332 --rate=2 -f 1 -d 1 -a 5 -w 128 -v -o mining.bitcoin.cz

~149,000 khash/s average speed

I'll start dumping the output to a log to keep better track than using the buffer on my terminal.

[FairUser]

FairUser, please describe your setup with as many details as possible. When did it start showing this?

Does anyone else see something similar?

False alarm. My bad.

The log file is not showing repeats.  We running on a console, it's fine too.  When displayed through my ssh session, it does. 
I think it's the way I have my shell setup.  Whatever it is that's causing it to show up on my remote session twice, is NOT because of the miner.

I repeat.  The problem is NOT because of poclbm.  False alarm, my bad.  Sorry for the mistake.  Please ignore the previous posting.

Thanks again for the awesome work!  What's your bitcoin address, I want to send you a little something for your efforts... 

[teknohog]

I have experienced some further oddities with the vectors option, since upgrading to a HD5770. The option seems to work, as in increasing the hash rate (as opposed to the slowdown on HD5570). However, the blocks found are invariably "invalid or stale". Without vectors the blocks are fine, at least on testnet.

As with the HD5570, going back to commit 99c57637ca0d1db70187 helps. The vectors option increases the rate, and blocks are OK. Unfortunately, this is somewhat slower than using the new version with vectors (about 156 vs. 164 Mhash/s) but I think I will choose the way that actually generates blocks The new version without vectors gives about 153 Mhash/s.

The system is a Gentoo Linux, kernel 2.6.36.2, with catalyst 10.11 drivers and SDK 2.2. The PCIe slots are only 1x wide, but this probably only affects performance.

[m0mchil]

Just posted my best settings for Windows 7, Stream 2.2, AMD 5770, 5870 (first post). Teknohog, could you please try with Stream 2.1. I can't see why 'vectors' would give invalid results.

[teknohog]

Teknohog, could you please try with Stream 2.1. I can't see why 'vectors' would give invalid results.

With SDK 2.1, the miner does not even compile with vectors

Code:

/tmp/OCLQa31hL.cl(128): error: mixed vector-scalar operation not allowed
          unless up-convertable(scalar-type=>vector-element-type)
        sharound(E,F,G,H,A,B,C,D,R(36),0x650A7354);

But it gets stranger. After reinstalling 2.2, I am getting accepted results with vectors, using the latest version of poclbm. So this looks like an error in my system, and poclbm is fine

(Possible sources of error: overheated GPU, which is now cooler after the SDK changes; pyopencl, which is the only component I have to manually compile and install with every SDK change.)

[Sawzall]

I've not had any luck connecting to slush's pool using this miner with the -o flag. I set it to mining.bitcoin.cz and I get an error reading "Problems communicating with bitcoin rpc". I got the actual IP address for the server (109.74.195.190) and put that in for -o and got the same error.
I tried setting the -p flag to 8332, and get an error saying non-numeric port.

[dingus]

I have experienced some further oddities with the vectors option, since upgrading to a HD5770. The option seems to work, as in increasing the hash rate (as opposed to the slowdown on HD5570). However, the blocks found are invariably "invalid or stale". Without vectors the blocks are fine, at least on testnet.

As with the HD5570, going back to commit 99c57637ca0d1db70187 helps. The vectors option increases the rate, and blocks are OK. Unfortunately, this is somewhat slower than using the new version with vectors (about 156 vs. 164 Mhash/s) but I think I will choose the way that actually generates blocks The new version without vectors gives about 153 Mhash/s.

The system is a Gentoo Linux, kernel 2.6.36.2, with catalyst 10.11 drivers and SDK 2.2. The PCIe slots are only 1x wide, but this probably only affects performance.

Just thought I should add I am using two 5770s in crossfire. Both are overclocked to core @ 1020mhz / memory @ stock, volt @ 1.35 and are producing a total of 364 million hashes per second with vectors enabled. Everything is running fine with my setup. Blocks are accepted with no problems.

Win 7 64bit. latest catalyst drivers and latest stream sdk.

[FairUser]

I've not had any luck connecting to slush's pool using this miner with the -o flag. I set it to mining.bitcoin.cz and I get an error reading "Problems communicating with bitcoin rpc". I got the actual IP address for the server (109.74.195.190) and put that in for -o and got the same error.
I tried setting the -p flag to 8332, and get an error saying non-numeric port.

try "--port 8332"

[Sawzall]

I've not had any luck connecting to slush's pool using this miner with the -o flag. I set it to mining.bitcoin.cz and I get an error reading "Problems communicating with bitcoin rpc". I got the actual IP address for the server (109.74.195.190) and put that in for -o and got the same error.
I tried setting the -p flag to 8332, and get an error saying non-numeric port.

try "--port 8332"

fixed the issues with traceback but not the connection issue.

[teknohog]

Just thought I should add I am using two 5770s in crossfire. Both are overclocked to core @ 1020mhz / memory @ stock, volt @ 1.35 and are producing a total of 364 million hashes per second with vectors enabled. Everything is running fine with my setup. Blocks are accepted with no problems.

Thanks for the info. By the way, does Crossfire mean that the client sees a single GPU with doubled performance, or do  you need to use two clients?

It seems I may have some thermal issues, as my card is passively cooled and needs extra care with the case airflow. When using slush's pool, a few % of my results were invalid, but the error rate goes down as I improve ventilation.

The card does feature thermal throttling, which became evident as the case fan was accidentally disconnected, and the hash rate went down. Unfortunately, it is not sensitive enough. I assume the error tolerance in GPUs is higher than in CPUs, considering the majority of uses. In any case it is hard to say if the GPU is faulty, since it works fine most of the time.

As for Sawzall's RPC problems, I wonder if this is relevant: I used to have a http_proxy variable in my shell, as some browsers (notably Chrome) could not be configured to use a proxy otherwise. Since json-rpc uses http, it was confused by the proxy, and it took me a while to see where the problem was.

Update: I swapped the PSU, and have been running error-free for 20 hours since then, about 2700 shares in the pool. Also tested with AMD's tools (aticonfig, atiode) that the GPU is fine. So it was most likely a PSU problem.