python OpenCL bitcoin miner

[nster]

until now I had down-clocked back to 1000 core as that is the frequency where at -f 30 I can basically use my comp normally and watch videos etc. I never got the verification failed before, only computer freeze if OCed at 1055+

idk if I'll OC it to 1040 again or take the 13Mhash/s hit

[qet]

Twice I have run this miner overnight on my PC and twice I have woken up to the CMD window saying "problems communicating with RPC server" or something of the like.

Yes, it was working fine when I left it (i.e. displaying the khash rate).
Bitcoin was still running (with -server) fine.

Os: winxp

not much point using this program if it cannot reliably mine 24/7.
anyone else have this problem?

[slush]

"problems communicating with RPC server" or something of the like.

not much point using this program if it cannot reliably mine 24/7.

This error does not mean that program crashed. It just inform you that there was trouble on network side, but it can recover easily. No restart or whatever needed...

[marcus_of_augustus]

In linux I issue a

$./poclbm

and get in return

•    AMD Phenom(tm) II X2 555 Processor
[1]   Cypress
[2]   Cypress

yet I have HD 5970 installed, so it should return 2x "Hemlock"no?, or is it really just two Cypress GPU's on same card?

Has anyone actually seen this command query return "Hemlock".

[ZeroByte]

Can anyone tell why this miner is maxing out one CPU core / instance. I don´t seem to be the only one having this problem.

My specs:

Win 7 64bit
Cats 11.2
AMD Stream 2.3
Dual 5850s
Miner: poclbm_py2exe_20110222

I tested using older Cats 10.12 & Stream 2.2 but it didn´t help at all. Disabling or enabling crossfire also doesn´t help.

I have quad core i5 processor so when i start first instance CPU goes up to 25% and after starting second one it goes up to 50%
MH/s rates are always normal nevertheless.

Didn´t have this problem when i had only one HD 5850, so it probably goes away if i take the second card off.

[Kiv]

I don't have a 5970, but my understanding is the 5970 is just two 5870s together on one card with an internal crossfire bridge and a slight downclocking. So I think Cypress x2 is the correct report.

In linux I issue a

$./poclbm

and get in return

•    AMD Phenom(tm) II X2 555 Processor
[1]   Cypress
[2]   Cypress

yet I have HD 5970 installed, so it should return 2x "Hemlock"no?, or is it really just two Cypress GPU's on same card?

Has anyone actually seen this command query return "Hemlock".

[nster]

I don't have a 5970, but my understanding is the 5970 is just two 5870s together on one card with an internal crossfire bridge and a slight downclocking. So I think Cypress x2 is the correct report.

In linux I issue a

$./poclbm

and get in return

•    AMD Phenom(tm) II X2 555 Processor
[1]   Cypress
[2]   Cypress

yet I have HD 5970 installed, so it should return 2x "Hemlock"no?, or is it really just two Cypress GPU's on same card?

Has anyone actually seen this command query return "Hemlock".

2 5870s at 5850 clocks, so yes, 2 downclocked 5870s, roughly the performance of 5850 x2 in CF. Easily Overclockable to 5870 clocks so that it makes 2 x 5870 speeds

[qed]

I have a weird problem about cpu utilization.

Using 2x HD6950 with 2 separate process the total cpu utilizzation is around 15%. Starting a 3rd process on the 3rd card makes the cpu utilizzation rise to around 40% (13% each process as shown in the task manager). I'm using an i7 920 atm.

[os008]

Using 2x HD6950 with 2 separate process the total cpu utilizzation is around 15%.

That's because this miner is GPU-only. It doesn't need the CPU much. It shows 1% here at 300MH/s.

[Garrett Burgwardt]

For some reason two of my CPU cores are maxing out with poclbm running on my 5970.

Any ideas anyone?

[os008]

Are you getting 500MH/s?

[qed]

Using 2x HD6950 with 2 separate process the total cpu utilizzation is around 15%.

That's because this miner is GPU-only. It doesn't need the CPU much. It shows 1% here at 300MH/s.

What i was saying is that it uses too much cpu.

[Garrett Burgwardt]

Are you getting 500MH/s?

I get the right hashes/s, I'm not a noob don't worry I get 600mh/s in fact.

[Cerebrum]

OK, first off I need to thank you for making this miner. It's giving me much better performance than DiabloMiner ,which for some reason was giving me less than 40 Million Hashes per second with two 5970's, using all four graphics cores.

However, I'm seeing a huge parade of invalid/stale results when I run the miner, with a few accepted results between them (About 80% of results are invalid/stale). I've tried down-clocking the cores (they are running at 625 MHz now), removing the -v option, removing the -f option, and decreasing the work-unit size. Nothing seems to have helped it much. ATIConfig reports all core temperatures below 70 Celsius. I'm mining with slush's pool.

Any ideas as to why this is happening?

EDIT: I tried using Deepbit instead of slush's pool, and all of the invalid/stale results are gone. Is this something to do with using slush's pool, or does the deepbit server work differently? They say that "no block confirmation is needed", but does that mean that I'm still submitting invalid blocks, and that they aren't checking them?

ANOTHER EDIT: Tried changing drivers to Catalyst 10.11, as I read that was more stable and reliable. I am using it with Stream SDK 2.1. Nothing doing.

UNLIMITED EDIT WORKS: Anyone know of a verification program that I can run to ensure that the OpenCL Libraries are installed correctly? I got the list program to run correctly and return all of the GPU cores, but I don't know if there is one that will tell me whether or not the calculations going on in the cores are valid.

[FooDSt4mP]

For some reason two of my CPU cores are maxing out with poclbm running on my 5970.

Any ideas anyone?

Use stream 2.1... in my experience it has almost no cpu usage when GPU mining, and 2.2 and 2.3 both eat cpu.  I'm running linux, but windows users have reported similar circumstances.

[slush]

However, I'm seeing a huge parade of invalid/stale results when I run the miner, with a few accepted results between them (About 80% of results are invalid/stale).

Yes, this was an temporary issue of the pool, bitcoin client crashed for no particular reason. Now it is OK.

or does the deepbit server work differently?

Yes, there is difference between those pools. My pool is analyzing every submitted share in realtime and deepbit accept all submits and analyze them later. So the fact that you see more stale shares in my pool is not a bug, it is a feature.

But yes, the thing you reported was an issue of the pool, it's without debate.

[[Tycho]]

EDIT: I tried using Deepbit instead of slush's pool, and all of the invalid/stale results are gone. Is this something to do with using slush's pool, or does the deepbit server work differently? They say that "no block confirmation is needed", but does that mean that I'm still submitting invalid blocks, and that they aren't checking them?

You aren't submitting blocks to pool, you are submitting shares (hashes for difficulty 1). Block confirmation is not related to shares.

BTW, what operating system are you using ? If it's Windows, then you need older version of python miner to work with 5970s.

[Cerebrum]

EDIT: I tried using Deepbit instead of slush's pool, and all of the invalid/stale results are gone. Is this something to do with using slush's pool, or does the deepbit server work differently? They say that "no block confirmation is needed", but does that mean that I'm still submitting invalid blocks, and that they aren't checking them?

You aren't submitting blocks to pool, you are submitting shares (hashes for difficulty 1). Block confirmation is not related to shares.

BTW, what operating system are you using ? If it's Windows, then you need older version of python miner to work with 5970s.

I'm using Linux. And there seems to be no problem now that slush's pool is back up and operating correctly, I'm still getting invalid/stale results but now only about 1 in 10 instead of 9 in 10.

[slush]

I'm still getting invalid/stale results but now only about 1 in 10 instead of 9 in 10.

It's still quite high. With the default miner ask rate (5 seconds), the normal ratio of stale shares is around ~1-3%.

I'm watching pool console right now and there are no problems, so the higher-than-expected stale rate should be something on your side.

[molecular]

I've been looking at code and now I'm confused, maybe someone can help me out:

At the end of BitcoinMiner.cl (the kernel) there's a condition for outputting a solution candidate:

if (belowOrEquals(H, targetH, G, targetG))

Now 2 things strike me as odd:

1.) targetH is passed as 0xffff0000 (BitcoinMiner.py around line 293). why not 0? doesn't H have to be 0 even for a difficulty 1 block?

2.) (parts) of the calculation of G is commented out in the kernel code (likely to save some cycles, assuming that G is not going to be needed)...

//W13 = W13 + (rotr(W14, 7) ^ rotr(W14, 18) ^ (W14 >> 3U)) + W6 + (rotr(W11, 17) ^ rotr(W11, 19) ^ (W11 >> 10U));
//C = C + (rotr(H, 6) ^ rotr(H, 11) ^ rotr(H, 25)) + (B ^ (H & (A ^ B))) + K[61] + W13; G = G + C;

//G+=0x1f83d9abU;

...but G is used in the solution condition. So since G is some intermediary value of sha256 and targetG is 0, why does this even work?

I'm clearly missing or misunderstanding something and I would be happy if someone took the time to explain what's going on.