Rebranded 5870 (6870) for only $130 on Newegg

[zvs]

Grats on getting up and running.  I've hardy ever been successful uninstalling and reinstalling different ATI drivers, most of the time I get the same application error if I do that.  Since these are mining machines, it doesn't take long for a reinstall (Win7 64-bit SP1 installed from USB stick, no updates or anything else).  I disable windows update and the rest of the action messages, install system drivers, a few utilities (VNC, Winzip, Afterburner, .net 4.0), then install the ATI drivers depending on card (6x gets 11.11, 7x gets 13.4, 7790 gets the custom one), copy my base cgminer and go.

The reinstall saves a lot of frustration.  A 450w PSU is enough to drive a single card, anything above that you may be running into power issues.

I only have a single card. I didn't have any luck with XP, and it looks like it just flat out won't work with XP, so I gave up on any uninstallers, and did a Windows 7 install, and everything worked out of the box. The install didn't take long for me, since I just ran it off the Active Directory server here at my work. It's currently running in a company machine, while I figure out the settings and order a license key for my own rig at home, to run it off of.

I tried the settings that were posted above, but going for a full 900mhz and 1300mhz RAM. instantly caused a reboot (not sure if it was a bluescreen, or not, because I was running it over Google Remote Desktop. I will play around with settings some this morning. Forgot to bring the PSU with me. I'm only running one card.

I was able to run the RAM up to about 1280, but it was unstable and caused the driver to crash. It SEEMED stable at 1233mhz RAM and 898 Engine, @1.1v, but automatic updates rebooted the machine about 45 min. after I went to bed last night, so I have no idea if it would have run stabile or not. More testing throughout the day today. The difference between 1280 RAM and 1233 is only about 1.5khash, so definitely not worth pushing it much harder than it is, if it will run solid with these settings. There also doesn't seem to be much difference in performance in going from 20 Intensity down to 19, except that it too may have contributed to the driver failure when it was at the full 20. Hard to say without more long-term testing.

Thanks again for the help, you guys! I may give Linux another shot at home, before I drop $200 on a Windows 7 license.


EDIT: Well, crap. It ran for about an hour and a half and the driver crashed, and CGMiner declared the card "sick" but kept running it while very slowly dropping hashing speed. I gave it 10 minutes, and it never fully stopped, or restarted, so I restarted it manually.

Is this a driver issue? Any idea what might be causing this?

overclocked too much?

i've never had cgminer successfully restart a card

[wrenchmonkey]

Grats on getting up and running.  I've hardy ever been successful uninstalling and reinstalling different ATI drivers, most of the time I get the same application error if I do that.  Since these are mining machines, it doesn't take long for a reinstall (Win7 64-bit SP1 installed from USB stick, no updates or anything else).  I disable windows update and the rest of the action messages, install system drivers, a few utilities (VNC, Winzip, Afterburner, .net 4.0), then install the ATI drivers depending on card (6x gets 11.11, 7x gets 13.4, 7790 gets the custom one), copy my base cgminer and go.

The reinstall saves a lot of frustration.  A 450w PSU is enough to drive a single card, anything above that you may be running into power issues.

I only have a single card. I didn't have any luck with XP, and it looks like it just flat out won't work with XP, so I gave up on any uninstallers, and did a Windows 7 install, and everything worked out of the box. The install didn't take long for me, since I just ran it off the Active Directory server here at my work. It's currently running in a company machine, while I figure out the settings and order a license key for my own rig at home, to run it off of.

I tried the settings that were posted above, but going for a full 900mhz and 1300mhz RAM. instantly caused a reboot (not sure if it was a bluescreen, or not, because I was running it over Google Remote Desktop. I will play around with settings some this morning. Forgot to bring the PSU with me. I'm only running one card.

I was able to run the RAM up to about 1280, but it was unstable and caused the driver to crash. It SEEMED stable at 1233mhz RAM and 898 Engine, @1.1v, but automatic updates rebooted the machine about 45 min. after I went to bed last night, so I have no idea if it would have run stabile or not. More testing throughout the day today. The difference between 1280 RAM and 1233 is only about 1.5khash, so definitely not worth pushing it much harder than it is, if it will run solid with these settings. There also doesn't seem to be much difference in performance in going from 20 Intensity down to 19, except that it too may have contributed to the driver failure when it was at the full 20. Hard to say without more long-term testing.

Thanks again for the help, you guys! I may give Linux another shot at home, before I drop $200 on a Windows 7 license.


EDIT: Well, crap. It ran for about an hour and a half and the driver crashed, and CGMiner declared the card "sick" but kept running it while very slowly dropping hashing speed. I gave it 10 minutes, and it never fully stopped, or restarted, so I restarted it manually.

Is this a driver issue? Any idea what might be causing this?

overclocked too much?

i've never had cgminer successfully restart a card

Thanks, I'll try dropping the clock speed.

[Oldie]

Thanks, I'll try dropping the clock speed.

Run it at stock speeds for a while.  I would also set intensity to 19.  Once it is stable at stock speeds then you can start playing around with bumping things up, although with scrypt mining it's more about ratios than how far you can push everything.

You can also look at recommendations for 5800 series cards from this thread - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=117221.0

good luck (again).

[wrenchmonkey]

Thanks, I'll try dropping the clock speed.

Run it at stock speeds for a while.  I would also set intensity to 19.  Once it is stable at stock speeds then you can start playing around with bumping things up, although with scrypt mining it's more about ratios than how far you can push everything.

You can also look at recommendations for 5800 series cards from this thread - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=117221.0

good luck (again).

Thanks. I've dropped clock speed to 850, and RAM back to 1200. I'll run it at 20 intensity and if it fails again, I'll go back to stock speeds for a while.

[endriuska]

I have 14 cards available to sell in chicago area! selling them $150 flat! PM me, i live in Aurora.

[wrenchmonkey]

I have 14 cards available to sell in chicago area! selling them $150 flat! PM me, i live in Aurora.

You've been expected.

Hurry and get yours before the vultures come, buy them all up, and then try to sell them at a ridiculous mark-up.

[endriuska]

It was not my intention to do so, I wanted to mine, but realized that it doesnt make sense for me. the heat in my garage is 100F at all times, couldn't cool them if i wanted

[wrenchmonkey]

It was not my intention to do so, I wanted to mine, but realized that it doesnt make sense for me. the heat in my garage is 100F at all times, couldn't cool them if i wanted

Sure you could. 100*F is 37*C. Still plenty of room for thermal exchange. I was only half serious anyway.

[endriuska]

whats the max temp i can keep it in? i mean max card temp

[wrenchmonkey]

whats the max temp i can keep it in? i mean max card temp

a good target is 75-80C. It won't start to overheat until, I think 90cish? But cooler is usually better.

[endriuska]

yea.. there's no way i can keep the cards. I have one rig with 4 cards running, + 2 fans. Last night plugged the hair dryer and blew out the fuze, i would need at least 30 amps more in order to run the setup, i dont really want to rewire my electricity right now, so i still have 14 cars for sale for 145$ - local pick up only! Aurora, IL

Thanks!

[FreedomCoin]

Ive had to put my testing on hold for these new cards, my AC unit went out and my ambient temps are over 80f. Within 5 minutes my temps shoot over 90c with all fans at max.

In the mean time i reformatted my win7 box to ubuntu 12.04 LTS so once im not sweating in my seat ill test it further.

Does anyone have a suggest for which catalyst driver/sdk to go with for 5870/6870s on ubuntu? Im sure some searching could find this answer too..

[Kinetic915]

any other awesome deals like that!

[MeltManBob]

Does anyone have power consumption for these cards when running 400+ KHash/s?

[tice03]

Anyone played around with these anymore and gotten higher than the 415-425 range for BTC or LTC?

[endriuska]

I was able to get them up to 460~, but stocks were running at: