Rig Troubleshooting Questions.

[TheMightySpud]

Hi all,

I'm hoping this is in the right place.  Mods, if it isn't, please either move or delete?  Thanks.

I've set up a rig with pretty much what I had lying around to run some experiments on how it all works etc. and I've learned a lot over the past few weeks.

I was just wondering how important the motherboard/cpu/memory is in relation to mining certain coins (I primarily mine Ethereum at the moment using WinMiner, I was using NiceHash, but I guess we all know what happened there).

Initially I was using a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 motherboard, and was getting consistently 'high' hashrates, but just as NiceHash went, the motherboard died.  I've troubleshot the motherboard completely and it is truly dead.

So I switched to a backup board that I had.  An Asrock 990FXA Extreme 3.  Now this board doesn't support the processor I had in the old board, so having to use an AMD 8300 chip (at 3.1Ghz), which is a massive step down to the previous CPU.

The board has 16gb of DDR3 memory (can't remember the speed off the top of my head), but it's high end stuff.

As for GPU's I have 1x 1050ti, 2x AMD R9 Fury's, 1x AMD R295x2 and 1xAMD Vega 56.  The Vega is dual bios, one with stock bios, one with Vega 64 Bios.

None of the cards are currently overclocker because the lower end process is preventing me from doing so.

Power wise, I know these cards aren't generally great for mining profitibility due to the amount of power they suck up (the 295x2 eats 500w at full load), but elec costs aren't an issue for me.

Also, I have both an eVGA 1000GQ (1000watt), and a Corsair AX1200i (1200watt) PSU.

Board/SSD/both R9 Furys/1050ti and 2 risers plugged into the eVGA, and the 295x2/Vega, CPU Cooler(AIO Liquid) and 2 risers plugged into the Corsair.

The issue I'm having is that I'm getting far lower (at least on some cards) hashrates than I expected/was getting on NiceHash.

I've attached a screengrab of my WinMiner 'Live' page to show the rates I'm getting, these rate are pretty consistent, but the R9 Fury's actually start at full tilt, getting around 27Mh/s each, but then drop through the floor after a few seconds.  And the R295x2 is a little confusing as one of the GPU chips seems to be running at a slower rate than the other.  The Vega is quite a concern too as it appears to be running much lower than it is capable of (based on what I've seen/read) and the switch over to the Vega64 Bios has very little, or no effect.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ho3xnjdr0rwjift/Hashrates_001.png?dl=0

Now I thought that this might be an issue with WinMiner as I've read that it still has a few problems, but I tried out MultiPoolMiner and saw the same drops in hashrate.

So, I'm a little confused as to what the issue could be, and the only thing I can think of is that there is something about the PCI Express bandwidth that is 'throttling' the performance of the cards.

Just an additional note, as I read something about Intensity levels with the Claymore miner, I adjusted the level to 4, from the default of 8 and I did see an improvement.  Just not at the level I was expecting.

I hope someone can help figure this out, or at least say 'yes it's the board' lol.

Thank in Advance.
TheMightySpud

[Deathwing]

There are lots of reasons that might be causing this issue you are having, first of all would be Algoritm. Some algorithms require too much CPU power to maintain GPU hashes while some do not like the others. What you are trying to mine might be one of those coins/algorithms.

[TheMightySpud]

Currently Dual Mining Eth and DCR as WinMiner thinks that's the most profitable.  Using Claymore that's bundled with WinMiner.  I don't really know enough yet to mine directly, but MultiPoolMiner using MiningPoolHub was giving the same results (And I think from memory, few days since I used that one, that it was using Claymore too).

I forgot to mention that the 1050ti is plugged directly into the board in the 'primary' pcie slot, with the other cards on risers.

TheMightySpud

[Deathwing]

Currently Dual Mining Eth and DCR as WinMiner thinks that's the most profitable.  Using Claymore that's bundled with WinMiner.  I don't really know enough yet to mine directly, but MultiPoolMiner using MiningPoolHub was giving the same results (And I think from memory, few days since I used that one, that it was using Claymore too).

I forgot to mention that the 1050ti is plugged directly into the board in the 'primary' pcie slot, with the other cards on risers.

TheMightySpud

Check the CPU usage in general if you can, also risers should not really affect the mining performance. I am not really 100% sure whether or not Ethereum uses that much CPU power but the dual mining Decred with it might have something to do with it.

[TheMightySpud]

Thing is, I've noticed the same performance drop when just mining Etheruem, and other coins.

It's quite perpexing tbh.  The only thing I can think of it being is there's some limitation happening with the motherboard (bandwidth maybe?  Being a lower end board?)

I do have an Asrock H110 BTC+ on order, which I'm hoping will remedy the situation, but as there seems to be a big stock shortage of them atm I have to wait over a week for it.

TheMightySpud

[dejan_p]

as someone said it could be numerous things, but what i like about your post is that you tried to describe as much as possible

since it's a different motherboard, did you just plug in your hdd into the new MB?
either way, it should't be that, but - did you install motherboard/chipset drivers?
what windows version? - i experienced low hashrates / crashes on windows 10, nvidia cards, updated the win and it worked
are you running one instance of the miner for all the cards?  you could try running the cards separately and see if this will have any impact

i don't think that cpu would be your issue, i have rigs with an athlon x2 that are mining&staking at the same time

[TheMightySpud]

Dang, and I thought I'd included everything. lol.

It's a fresh install of Win 10 (which is fully updated).  You mention you've had issues with nVidia on Win10, ironically, the 1050ti is running better than it's ever done. lol. (about 20-30% better).

Actually, thinking about it, I didn't install the chipset drivers as Windows picked everything up.  I think I will give that a try though as there could be something in the wdm drivers that is preventing the board from using all it's pcie bandwidth?

I think it is one instance of the Miner (That's how WinMiner currently works as you can't disable a single GPU out of a bunch that are same manufacturer (AMD/nVidia).

I don't think the CPU is a problem as it's barely registering any kind of activity beyond standard windows stuff.

The thing that is confusing me more than anything is the 295x2.  Just in case you're not aware, it's 2xR290 (or 295, can't remember) GPUs on a single card, so technically they should run pretty much identically.  Also I've checked and CrossfireX is disabled.

Oh, and in the new Adrenalin drivers, I have the r9 Fury's set to Compute performance (bizarrely the other GPU's don't have the option, even the Vega)

Thanks
TheMightySpud

[Deathwing]

Dang, and I thought I'd included everything. lol.

It's a fresh install of Win 10 (which is fully updated).  You mention you've had issues with nVidia on Win10, ironically, the 1050ti is running better than it's ever done. lol. (about 20-30% better).

Actually, thinking about it, I didn't install the chipset drivers as Windows picked everything up.  I think I will give that a try though as there could be something in the wdm drivers that is preventing the board from using all it's pcie bandwidth?

I think it is one instance of the Miner (That's how WinMiner currently works as you can't disable a single GPU out of a bunch that are same manufacturer (AMD/nVidia).

I don't think the CPU is a problem as it's barely registering any kind of activity beyond standard windows stuff.

The thing that is confusing me more than anything is the 295x2.  Just in case you're not aware, it's 2xR290 (or 295, can't remember) GPUs on a single card, so technically they should run pretty much identically.  Also I've checked and CrossfireX is disabled.

Oh, and in the new Adrenalin drivers, I have the r9 Fury's set to Compute performance (bizarrely the other GPU's don't have the option, even the Vega)

Thanks
TheMightySpud

If the issue is not with the drivers or CPU it leaves only a few other options, I heavily doubt it but the option 1 = PSU, it shouldn't really affect it, option 2 = Motherboard, motherboard just are not able to handle CPU/RAM etc and more several extra GPUs with Risers etc. Latter one seems to be the issue.

[TheMightySpud]

Hi again all,

Thanks for all the pointers, I have figured out what the issue is and it is indeed the motherboard.

Because it's a lower end board it seems that the PCI Lanes actually share bandwidth, so this was causing the 'slow down'.

I decided to check each GPU on their own in their current slots, and with the other GPU's removed they ran at full tilt.

So the issue will be fixed completely when my new board arrives.

Thanks again for the help.

TheMightySpud