Help setting up 7950s.

[MrBilling]

I have been LTC mining using CUDA miner with my GTX 280s for about a week.

Windows 7 64 bit - Core i7 965 Extreme - 12GB 1600 MHz RAM - 240 GB Intel 520 SSD


Today I got my Saphire 7950s in and I installed two of them (still waiting on risers).  No overclock yet.  925 MH/s

I installed the AMD 12-10 drivers.  I read these were good drivers for mining LTC.  Is this correct?  I do not have any SDK installed.  Do I need the SDK?  If so exactly which one do I need?  I cant seem to find anything that I am sure is the one to use.

I started up cgminer with cgminer.exe -o http://mine.pool-x.eu:8080 -u XXXXXXXXXXXX -p XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX which is my LTC pool so obviously it rejects all of my shares but it does say I am getting just under 500 MH/s for each card.


So I started it up with --scrypt, specifically   cgminer.exe -o http://mine.pool-x.eu:8080 -u XXXXXXXXXX -p XXXXXX --scrypt
 to mine LTCs and it works but I only get 15 KH/s per card.

I also tried   cgminer.exe -o http://mine.pool-x.eu:8080 -u XXXXXXXXXXX -p XXXXXXXXXX--scrypt -I 7      Same thing.  15 KH/s



So,

Are 12-10 good drivers?
Do I need the SDK?
Should I be using cgminer to mine LTCs with 7970s?
If so what am I doing wrong?


Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you

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[TheJuice]

easiest way when starting out is to grab guiminer-scrypt. Just use his default settings for your card. I expect without oc or tweaking you'll pull in 475 kh/s. Using guiminer will remove the chance you are mistyping a flag.

[TheJuice]

And just garb a recent sdk - iirc 2.6 or greater is needed.

[crazyates]

Are 12-10 good drivers?
Do I need the SDK?
Should I be using cgminer to mine LTCs with 7970s?
If so what am I doing wrong?

No, you don't need a SDK. Any new drivers have an OpenCL runtime built in, so if you installed the drivers, you installed the runtime. The fact that you can mine without errors confirms this.

Did you read the Scrypt-Readme ? That file inside the CGMiner folder will give you a plethora of information having to do with setting up your miner, and tweaking your settings for the best results. Give it a try, and if you have any questions, post back here.

[MrBilling]

I have read it along with a bunch of the other read me's but alot of it I dont understand.


Like what is a Thread Concurrency or a Lookup Gap?

[Flying Hellfish]

I have read it along with a bunch of the other read me's but alot of it I dont understand.


Like what is a Thread Concurrency or a Lookup Gap?

I have a rig with 2 x 7950 mining LTC.  I use GUIMiner scrypt (search for TacoTime in Alt section should be very easy to find) it is awesome and made my life much easier! The default settings for 7950(high usage) are great.  I Also use Trixx Sapphire to OC them and I really like it (key for my cards was to have the core to mem clock ratio at .7. I am also using the latest amd drivers (13.4 iirc)

I was running both cards at stock settings and getting around 500-550 khs.  After a ton of tweaking to find the right setting for each card (for me the settings are slightly different to get max khs per card) I am able to get 635khs and 609 khs (open air rig temps sit steady in the very low 70's.

[ManBearPig]

I have a very similar set-up, you should be getting around 620 kh/s on each (my drivers are 13.1).

I run 2 separate instances of GUIminer so I can keep an eye each GPU's hashrate.

[MrBilling]

I have read it along with a bunch of the other read me's but alot of it I dont understand.


Like what is a Thread Concurrency or a Lookup Gap?

I have a rig with 2 x 7950 mining LTC.  I use GUIMiner scrypt (search for TacoTime in Alt section should be very easy to find) it is awesome and made my life much easier! The default settings for 7950(high usage) are great.  I Also use Trixx Sapphire to OC them and I really like it (key for my cards was to have the core to mem clock ratio at .7. I am also using the latest amd drivers (13.4 iirc)

I was running both cards at stock settings and getting around 500-550 khs.  After a ton of tweaking to find the right setting for each card (for me the settings are slightly different to get max khs per card) I am able to get 635khs and 609 khs (open air rig temps sit steady in the very low 70's.

Thanks so much.


I searched for TacoTime.  You are talking about the member TacoTime right?  Which exact thread are you talking about with the defualt settings for the 7950?


Sadly I am only getting about 525 KH/s out of each card.


I am going to have to re think my placement of my rig.  These cards are LOUD!  Not GPU loud, like leaf blower loud.

[Amph]

same problem, i found that u can fix it by increasing the intensity to 18

[Flying Hellfish]

I have read it along with a bunch of the other read me's but alot of it I dont understand.


Like what is a Thread Concurrency or a Lookup Gap?

I have a rig with 2 x 7950 mining LTC.  I use GUIMiner scrypt (search for TacoTime in Alt section should be very easy to find) it is awesome and made my life much easier! The default settings for 7950(high usage) are great.  I Also use Trixx Sapphire to OC them and I really like it (key for my cards was to have the core to mem clock ratio at .7. I am also using the latest amd drivers (13.4 iirc)

I was running both cards at stock settings and getting around 500-550 khs.  After a ton of tweaking to find the right setting for each card (for me the settings are slightly different to get max khs per card) I am able to get 635khs and 609 khs (open air rig temps sit steady in the very low 70's.

Thanks so much.


I searched for TacoTime.  You are talking about the member TacoTime right?  Which exact thread are you talking about with the defualt settings for the 7950?


Sadly I am only getting about 525 KH/s out of each card.


I am going to have to re think my placement of my rig.  These cards are LOUD!  Not GPU loud, like leaf blower loud.

Here is the link for GUIMINER scrypt (settings are in GUIMiner and are pretty damn good from what i can tell).
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=150331.0

Here is a good thread for mining specs.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=117221.msg1256502#msg1256502

again all thanks to TacoTime, without these two threads i would have never got my little rig rmining LTC.

[ewitte]

I am going to have to re think my placement of my rig.  These cards are LOUD!  Not GPU loud, like leaf blower loud.

I gave up on 2x7950 there is one machine with 2x7870 and 1x7950 in two others.  The cards overheat and high fan if they are in the same machine.

[nprussell]

I am going to have to re think my placement of my rig.  These cards are LOUD!  Not GPU loud, like leaf blower loud.

I gave up on 2x7950 there is one machine with 2x7870 and 1x7950 in two others.  The cards overheat and high fan if they are in the same machine.

They really do. Whichever card I put in the centre of the mobo hits 85-90 degrees c. If I point two extremely noisy Delta fans at it, I can run it with a slight overclock at 80 degrees, but still... that sucks.

Risers are the only way to do it right, it seems.

[TheJuice]

I have a very similar set-up, you should be getting around 620 kh/s on each (my drivers are 13.1).

I run 2 separate instances of GUIminer so I can keep an eye each GPU's hashrate.

Do you mind posting your OC settings. Thx.

[kevinmyers80]

I use the drivers 12-10 with ubuntu! and I feel fine

[ewitte]

They really do. Whichever card I put in the centre of the mobo hits 85-90 degrees c. If I point two extremely noisy Delta fans at it, I can run it with a slight overclock at 80 degrees, but still... that sucks.

Risers are the only way to do it right, it seems.

The top one hit 98C fans were almost maxed.  1 per machine

At the office - 1150Mhz - fans on auto currently 62% - 70C
Took the hot one home - 1100Mhz - Vcore dropped, fans set to fixed 55% - running 85C

Most likely I'm going to re-paste the one at home.  BTW while slush was down I got about 620KH/s running on the one at the office

[Hippie Tech]

I am going to have to re think my placement of my rig.  These cards are LOUD!  Not GPU loud, like leaf blower loud.

I gave up on 2x7950 there is one machine with 2x7870 and 1x7950 in two others.  The cards overheat and high fan if they are in the same machine.

Are any of these heatbag gpus made by Sapphire ??

I've been noticing that they have been skimping out on the 7xxx gpu and vrm heatsinks... :/

I bought a Sapphire HD 7870 Dualx then returned it 9-10 days later after noticing there was nothing cooling the vrms. The revised and very weak Dualx hsf also played a part with that decision.

[ewitte]

Are any of these heatbag gpus made by Sapphire ??

I've been noticing that they have been skimping out on the 7xxx gpu and vrm heatsinks... :/

I bought a Sapphire HD 7870 Dualx then returned it 9-10 days later after noticing there was nothing cooling the vrms. The revised and very weak Dualx hsf also played a part with that decision.

Those are sapphire I had issues with a single MSI a month or so ago as well although it ended up being a bad card.

[Hippie Tech]

Are any of these heatbag gpus made by Sapphire ??

I've been noticing that they have been skimping out on the 7xxx gpu and vrm heatsinks... :/

I bought a Sapphire HD 7870 Dualx then returned it 9-10 days later after noticing there was nothing cooling the vrms. The revised and very weak Dualx hsf also played a part with that decision.

Those are sapphire I had issues with a single MSI a month or so ago as well although it ended up being a bad card.

Replacing the stock thermal paste should bring the temps down 1-5c and give you an idea on how flat the gpu/hsf contact surfaces are. I have also made gains by reseating the vrm heatsink and/or modding the thermal pads by realigning them or by removing the excess.

Doing this will void the warranty with Sapphire but shouldn't be an issue because the gpu will pay for itself well before it breaks down.

I gave up with trusting any company's factory cooling setup years ago. eg. the mobo's vrms an nb used to get a bit warm..