First Rig mining slow (4x7950s) (130Mh/s per)

[LivesUnderTheBridge]

I just put together my first rig and it's mining quite terribly slow. I'm getting around 130Mh/s per card 

I put Ubuntu 12.04 running on a USB 3.0 stick. To get everything started, I followed this guide:

http://rdmsnippets.com/2013/03/20/bitcoin-mining-with-ubuntu-12-04-tls-and-cgminer/

Which went surprisingly well.

I am using:
AMD_APP_2.8
ADL_SDK_5.0
cgminer 2.11.3
Catalyst Control Center 2.17
./cgminer -k diablo -v 1 -w 256 -I 7 (Diablo Kernel, worksize 256, Vectors 1, Intensity 7)

I'm also mining on bitminter pool, although I'm up for a change if that's the problem. However running ./cgminer --benchmark didn't give any better results.

Currently my temps are running super low (77C, 41C, 37C, 35C). The top ones are warmer because my external fan isn't reaching them as well. I have played around with the intensity, and even at 11 it doesn't seem to help much (still sub 200 Mh/s).

I also added --gpu-engine 1175 --gpu-memclock 685 and it locked up hard, although just the --gpu-engine 1175 boots me to around 150Mh/s.

Rest of the computer specs:
Board = Asus P8Z77-ws
Vid = 4x Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7950 3GB GDDR5
cpu = Celeron G550
PSU = OCZ-ZX1250W

If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

[Zalfrin]

Temps make it look like only one GPU is mining. Did you see the replies in that guide you posted?

[LivesUnderTheBridge]

Temps make it look like only one GPU is mining. Did you see the replies in that guide you posted?

I'm pretty sure that all 4 are mining, cgminer was able to set different values (intensity, for example) for each of 4 devices. I wrote the comment about "--adapter=ALL".

From reading other threads, I'm starting to think that the problem is the version of catalyst that I have installed. I tried rolling back the driver and installing 12.8 but I dorked something up and I'm reinstalling Ubuntu as I type.

[wazoo42]

What does cgminer show you when you press "g" to look at the GPU stats? Are all of the threads alive? Also, what does aticonfig --adapter=all --odgc show when you run it several times in a row (it should be at 99-100% consistently)?

[glendall]

I'm a noob so no expert but:

1) Try 3 cards and see what happens.  It will at least help you locate the problem.

2) Try an intensity of 12 and see  what the affect is.

3) Could it be a network bottleneck? Again I'm a noob, so don't consider this correct, but more of a guess: if your network adapter for example is running at min 10Mpbs speed maybe 4 cards are overwhelming it.

[LivesUnderTheBridge]

Temps make it look like only one GPU is mining. Did you see the replies in that guide you posted?

cgminer and bfminer both have a load on GPU 0-3

The quotes in the guide are talking about cards that are disabled w/o a video output, which mine are not.

What does cgminer show you when you press "g" to look at the GPU stats? Are all of the threads alive? Also, what does aticonfig --adapter=all --odgc show when you run it several times in a row (it should be at 99-100% consistently)?

GPU 3: 131.8 / 131.9 Mh/s | A: 526 R:0 HW:0 U:1.72/m I:7
Last initialised [2013-04-04 00:48:03]
Intensity: 7
Thread 6: 65.9 Mh/s Enabled ALIVE
Thread 7: 65.8 MH/s Enabled ALIVE

I'm not sure how to get it to scroll through threads/cards.

aticonfig --adapter=all --odgc shows

Adapter 0 - 99%
Adapter 1 - 0%
Adapter 2 - 0%
Adapter 3 - 0%

 

At current, I'm still pointing my finger at some AMD driver. I'm trying Xubuntu next, hopefully that will let me run Catalyst 12.8 or I'll have to switch to Ubuntu 11.04.

[Vuxil]

I am having the same problem but with 2 HD 7850s. I've rolled back as far as 12.3 and still no dice. One GPU is at 99% and the other is sitting at 0%

[LivesUnderTheBridge]

I am having the same problem but with 2 HD 7850s. I've rolled back as far as 12.3 and still no dice. One GPU is at 99% and the other is sitting at 0%

What distro are you using?

I am trying (http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=86507), or will as soon as Xubuntu finishes loading on this flash drive (sure is taking it's merry time). In short, some people it helps to jump 3 pairs of pins with a resistor on a dvi->vga converter to make the card think that there is a monitor plugged in.

Where I got the tip from (http://rdmsnippets.com/2013/03/20/bitcoin-mining-with-ubuntu-12-04-tls-and-cgminer/) says that cgminer told him that his card was disabled, where I'm showing them all running at slow speeds.

Is your CGminer showing Device 0 and 1 running, or just 0?

[LivesUnderTheBridge]

It wasn't a dummy plug (from what I can tell). Grr.

[Vuxil]

What distro are you using?

I am trying (http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=86507), or will as soon as Xubuntu finishes loading on this flash drive (sure is taking it's merry time). In short, some people it helps to jump 3 pairs of pins with a resistor on a dvi->vga converter to make the card think that there is a monitor plugged in.

Where I got the tip from (http://rdmsnippets.com/2013/03/20/bitcoin-mining-with-ubuntu-12-04-tls-and-cgminer/) says that cgminer told him that his card was disabled, where I'm showing them all running at slow speeds.

Is your CGminer showing Device 0 and 1 running, or just 0?

I've tried Xubuntu 12.04 as well as 12.10. I have two devices running, with two GPUs detected and identified; CGMiner displays information on both. My issue is just I can't get my second card to accept CGMiner parameters.

I've tested both cards individually and they both work. It's just not working right when I try to use both simultaneously. I'm thinking it's either Linux, my motherboard, or  my powersupply (in that order of likeliness). I am going to do some testing with Windows today and will let you know how it goes

[LivesUnderTheBridge]

What distro are you using?

I am trying (http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=86507), or will as soon as Xubuntu finishes loading on this flash drive (sure is taking it's merry time). In short, some people it helps to jump 3 pairs of pins with a resistor on a dvi->vga converter to make the card think that there is a monitor plugged in.

Where I got the tip from (http://rdmsnippets.com/2013/03/20/bitcoin-mining-with-ubuntu-12-04-tls-and-cgminer/) says that cgminer told him that his card was disabled, where I'm showing them all running at slow speeds.

Is your CGminer showing Device 0 and 1 running, or just 0?

I've tried Xubuntu 12.04 as well as 12.10. I have two devices running, with two GPUs detected and identified; CGMiner displays information on both. My issue is just I can't get my second card to accept CGMiner parameters.

I've tested both cards individually and they both work. It's just not working right when I try to use both simultaneously. I'm thinking it's either Linux, my motherboard, or  my powersupply (in that order of likeliness). I am going to do some testing with Windows today and will let you know how it goes

Did you try a dummy plug?

If you don't mind trying an experiment, load up bfg miner and see what that does then uninstall ADM_APP and try it again. Last night I followed install guides for BFG and I got it running (cgminer won't run w/o firegl/opengl) but once I installed AMD_APP cgminer ran but BFG slowed WAY down. Something tells me that it's causing problems.

If not that, ckolivas suggests using a older driver (12.x from what I gather) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=161047.msg1719697#msg1719697) but the 12 series doesn't support the Xorg version from 12.08/12.10. I'll likely look at trying to get my machine running on 11.04 tomorrow morning and I'll let you know how I make out.

[Vuxil]

Did you try a dummy plug?

If you don't mind trying an experiment, load up bfg miner and see what that does then uninstall ADM_APP and try it again. Last night I followed install guides for BFG and I got it running (cgminer won't run w/o firegl/opengl) but once I installed AMD_APP cgminer ran but BFG slowed WAY down. Something tells me that it's causing problems.

If not that, ckolivas suggests using a older driver (12.x from what I gather) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=161047.msg1719697#msg1719697) but the 12 series doesn't support the Xorg version from 12.08/12.10. I'll likely look at trying to get my machine running on 11.04 tomorrow morning and I'll let you know how I make out.

I can confirm both of my cards work under Windows very superbly using CGMiner + the same parameters I would use in Linux, so it's got to be something related to the Linux drivers or mining software.

I still have my Linux partition. Never tried BFG,  only CGMiner, but I can give it a try soon. Where did you remove ADM_APP from? Is it just in /etc/? And, I haven't been using dummy plugs

[LivesUnderTheBridge]

If it works in Windows, I'm pretty sure you don't need a dummy plug.

I really have no idea how to uninstall AMD_app, or anything for that matter. I've reinstalled 12.04 around a half dozen times, usually from a botched ati driver install and not knowing how to get X to reload. I used a bfg install tutorial (http://debianhelp.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/bitcoin-mining-in-ubuntu-with-bfgminer/ i think) and didn't do the AMD_app or SDK.

I just got home and only have a few hours to screw around but I have 11.04 installed on another stick and I'll see how far I get, probably get it finished in the morning.

[Vuxil]

So on Windows I had bad luck with the latest catalyst drivers (13.1) - reverting a year earlier to Catalyst 12.3 seems to work much better. Looks like the most recent firmwares try to do too much and cause some interference with mining, at least from my observations.

Also, the SDK and AMD_APP should come packages in Catalyst 12.3, so I think you are already including them in your install.

I'm at a bit of a loss here right. The only thing I have left to try is something other than cgminer I think. My other suspicion is the Linux AMD driver is doing something in the background that we don't know about yet. Other people have had good luck though, so

[Vuxil]

No luck with BFG either. I'm convinced it's something about the Linux drivers now, but others report success so idk.

[LivesUnderTheBridge]

No luck with BFG either. I'm convinced it's something about the Linux drivers now, but others report success so idk.

With Catalyst 13.1, multi GPU, and Ubuntu 12.x?

Got any links?

[wazoo42]

I probably just missed this. I saw your comment in the referenced thread, but I didn't see if you had tried,

Code:

sudo aticonfig –initial
sudo aticonfig –adapter=ALL –initial
sudo reboot

[LivesUnderTheBridge]

I probably just missed this. I saw your comment in the referenced thread, but I didn't see if you had tried,

Code:

sudo aticonfig –initial
sudo aticonfig –adapter=ALL –initial
sudo reboot

Yeah, I'm way past that.

All cards show up in aticonfig --odgc as well as fglrxinfo. I've also done them with -f with no avail. I'll try it again but I'm pretty sure it's not the problem.

I have not yet tried...

sudo amdconfig --input=/etc/X11/xorg.conf --tls=1

however I'm pretty sure that getting a good result from flgrxinfo & aticonfig --odgc would mean the xorg.conf is loaded properly. Please let me know if that's incorrect.

[LivesUnderTheBridge]

I feel that ubuntu 12.04 is much better and  has a better speed. 12.10 is still being tested & developed further.


I would stick with ubuntu 12.04 for the time being, then look in the comments of that guide you followed. In the comments section there are people asking similar questions to you. Because I don't know your setup I can't really give you a perfect answer, if I just copied what they said in the comments it could be wrong. So you might want to check the different solutions they give, at least then you may have some idea how to correct it.

If you're referring to the rdmsnippets.com article I linked, that's me in the comments (the other 2 than marc). I have a few other comments awaiting moderation.

Are you using multiple GPUs on Ubuntu 12.04? if so, what version of Catalyst are you running?

I'm worried that Catalyst 12.8 doesn't support kernel 3.5 which 12.04 will update to (if I'm reading this correctly). I'll try following the instructions here (http://askubuntu.com/questions/178324/how-to-skip-kernel-update) to hold the kernel to the ship version, which i believe is 3.2

[FatMagic]

I had the same problem yesterday trying to setup 2x 7950's - exact same issue as Vuxil. One was mining half the hash rate, the other was running locked at 300 / 150 on Xubuntu 12.04.

I gave up and switched to Windows, and now I'm doing 530 KH/s per card with CGminer - and can push almost 600 KH/s, but it puts out too much heat for my fans to keep up with. I wish I could get it working on Xubuntu, but it's just not happening. Sigh.

If you guys have any luck, I'll be watching this thread.