OSX Radeon 6970 freezing/kernel panic running Diablo

[KeyserSoze]

New iMac 10.6.8 with Radeon 6970 is freezing (and/or kernel panic) 5-10 minutes after mining begins. Running Diablo miner. Terminal begins giving repeated "possible driver or hardware issue" failures after a few minutes and then the freeze after 5-10 minutes. Could this possibly be generating enough heat in 5 minutes to cause a problem? It doesn't seem all that hot to me.

Is there a modifier when I launch that will keep the GPU at a certain percentage usage so I can see if there's an acceptable percentage that will allow sustained mining?

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[ihokamik]

I wouldn't try to mine in OSX.  I don't think it's possible to monitor the GPU temp or control the fan speed in OSX.   As much as I hate saying this, it makes mining in OSX dangerous for your hardware.  It's especially bad in an iMac because of the poor ventilation.

I would try the card in Windows or Linux while monitoring it closely.   I think that most miners aim for a GPU temp at around 70-80C.  More than that and you risk breaking something.

[Stupidpal]

Yeah I agree. I've been mining with poclbm in Windows with my iMac. Overclocked the chip using MSI Afterburner and notched up the fans using SMC fan control in OS X. Temp doesn't go above 60 C now.

[KeyserSoze]

Thanks for the feedback. I did end up getting it going by installing smcfancontrol and using DiabloMiner.

[Stupidpal]

How much mhash/sec are you getting?

[ihokamik]

Thanks for the feedback. I did end up getting it going by installing smcfancontrol and using DiabloMiner.

Oh so you were able to control the fan in OSX!   Smcfancontrol in unable to control both my GPU fans but they are both PCIe GPUs.

In smcfancontrol do you see a fan specifically for the GPU or because of the iMac design it's just the CPU fan cooling both chips?

[Stupidpal]

Thanks for the feedback. I did end up getting it going by installing smcfancontrol and using DiabloMiner.

Oh so you were able to control the fan in OSX!   Smcfancontrol in unable to control both my GPU fans but they are both PCIe GPUs.

In smcfancontrol do you see a fan specifically for the GPU or because of the iMac design it's just the CPU fan cooling both chips?

It's the ODD fan.

[KeyserSoze]

How much mhash/sec are you getting?

Well I'm kinda new to this so maybe my numbers are off. The Diablo miner says I'm getting 80,000-100,000 which I guess is 80-100 mhash/sec. My deepbit mining account says I'm averaging 35-45 though which I think is typically low but about where OSX normally is.

[KeyserSoze]

Oh so you were able to control the fan in OSX!   Smcfancontrol in unable to control both my GPU fans but they are both PCIe GPUs.
In smcfancontrol do you see a fan specifically for the GPU or because of the iMac design it's just the CPU fan cooling both chips?

There are 3 fan controls, ODD, HDD, CPU. I'm guessing ODD is the GPU. I don't really know, obviously. I just set them all to about midway.

[ihokamik]

Oh so you were able to control the fan in OSX!   Smcfancontrol in unable to control both my GPU fans but they are both PCIe GPUs.
In smcfancontrol do you see a fan specifically for the GPU or because of the iMac design it's just the CPU fan cooling both chips?

There are 3 fan controls, ODD, HDD, CPU. I'm guessing ODD is the GPU. I don't really know, obviously. I just set them all to about midway.

Apparently the ODD fan is the one near the CD drive (Optical Disk Drive).   I doubt that the iMac has a fan just for the GPU but you did the best thing by raising all their speed.

[Stupidpal]

How much mhash/sec are you getting?

Well I'm kinda new to this so maybe my numbers are off. The Diablo miner says I'm getting 80,000-100,000 which I guess is 80-100 mhash/sec. My deepbit mining account says I'm averaging 35-45 though which I think is typically low but about where OSX normally is.

You should be getting way more. I get 110 mhash with a 6750M. Try using poclbm in Windows if you can. Oh and pool sites will never show your actual hashrate. They can't calculate that accurately.

[ihokamik]

How much mhash/sec are you getting?

Well I'm kinda new to this so maybe my numbers are off. The Diablo miner says I'm getting 80,000-100,000 which I guess is 80-100 mhash/sec. My deepbit mining account says I'm averaging 35-45 though which I think is typically low but about where OSX normally is.

You should be getting way more. I get 110 mhash with a 6750M. Try using poclbm in Windows if you can. Oh and pool sites will never show your actual hashrate. They can't calculate that accurately.

It could just be because you use different aggression levels.  OSX basically uses OpenGL for all it's rendering so the -f will affect the hashrate more than in Windows.  Something like -f 240 completely destroys my hashrate on OSX but it barely goes down in Windows as long as I am not rendering anything 3D.

I think that it's possible to disable Quartz Extreme (the OpenGL renderer) and to use software rendering.   Windows 7 users do something similar by disabling Aero.  You should be able to  disable or tweak Quartz Extreme with the Apple tool QuartzDebug but I didn't try it recently.   Quartz Debug is supposed to be in /Developer/Applications/Performance Tools/ if you have the dev tools.  You can probably disable it from the command line too but I am not sure exactly how, everything I find on Google seem outdated.

[Jack of Diamonds]

How much mhash/sec are you getting?

Well I'm kinda new to this so maybe my numbers are off. The Diablo miner says I'm getting 80,000-100,000 which I guess is 80-100 mhash/sec. My deepbit mining account says I'm averaging 35-45 though which I think is typically low but about where OSX normally is.

Then you are using a 6970M not a Radeon 6970.

It has next to no cooling; There's just a small pathetic fan on top of it, enclosed in the iMac. It will die from 24/7 mining.
The design is made assuming sprees of a few hours, after which the device will cool down.

[Stupidpal]

How much mhash/sec are you getting?

Well I'm kinda new to this so maybe my numbers are off. The Diablo miner says I'm getting 80,000-100,000 which I guess is 80-100 mhash/sec. My deepbit mining account says I'm averaging 35-45 though which I think is typically low but about where OSX normally is.

Then you are using a 6970M not a Radeon 6970.

It has next to no cooling; There's just a small pathetic fan on top of it, enclosed in the iMac. It will die from 24/7 mining.
The design is made assuming sprees of a few hours, after which the device will cool down.

After cranking up the ODD fan to ~3000 rpm, GPU-Z is reporting the temp to be stable around 60 which I think wouldn't harm it.

[KeyserSoze]

How much mhash/sec are you getting?

Well I'm kinda new to this so maybe my numbers are off. The Diablo miner says I'm getting 80,000-100,000 which I guess is 80-100 mhash/sec. My deepbit mining account says I'm averaging 35-45 though which I think is typically low but about where OSX normally is.

Then you are using a 6970M not a Radeon 6970.

It has next to no cooling; There's just a small pathetic fan on top of it, enclosed in the iMac. It will die from 24/7 mining.
The design is made assuming sprees of a few hours, after which the device will cool down.

Yep, AMD Radeon HD 6970M. Using SMCFanControl with 3 fans set @50%. Highest temp is GPU diode @67°, heat sink @57°