BFG miner crashes on scrypt

[karlb]

Hello.
I am new here, signed up to ask this question. been searching around on the internet and found no answer.
The problem is that BFG miner crashes for me when running in scrypt mode
I'm running command: bfgminer --scrypt -o xx -u x.x -p x --debug 2>log.txt
It works fine for mining bitcoins but I can't seem to mine litecoins.

When i was running poclbm to mine bitcoins this crashed too, but I needed to do the BFI_INT patch to phatk.cl as follows:

Replace:

#ifdef BFI_INT
   #define Ch(x, y, z) amd_bytealign(x, y, z)
#else
   #define Ch(x, y, z) bitselect(z, y, x)
#endif

With:

#define Ch(x, y, z) bitselect(z, y, x)

There doesn't seem to be anything obvious in the log file to show why it is crashing.
Although I noticed that it does say: BFI_INT patch requiring device not found, will not BFI_INT patch
So I'm assuming that scrypt also needs the BFI_INT patch to work on my card.
Can I force BFGMiner to patch it or can I do a manual patch to the .cl file?

Thanks

EDIT:
This thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=245350.0 seems to have the same problem to me, but no helpful replies

[b!z]

I don't think it should be used to do that. Check the mining software subforum, there are experts who might be able to help.

[milone]

Have you tried cgminer? Bfgminer is a fork of cgminer, so the two are maintained by different developers and one may work better than the other in certain situations. The config is essentially the same unless you are using USB devices which you aren't if you're scrypt mining. You can download cgminer builds (compiled with scrypt) here: http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/

The thread is here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=28402.0

[karlb]

Thankyou for your suggestion milone.
CGminer doesn't crash but it reports:
GPU 0 failure, disabling!

here is part of the log before it says this:
 [2013-09-11 15:22:19] Selecting scrypt kernel
 [2013-09-11 15:22:19] GPU 0: selecting lookup gap of 2
 [2013-09-11 15:22:19] GPU 0: selecting thread concurrency of 1408
 [2013-09-11 15:22:19] No binary found, generating from source
 [2013-09-11 15:22:19] Setting worksize to 256
 [2013-09-11 15:22:19] cl_amd_media_ops found, setting BITALIGN
 [2013-09-11 15:22:19] BFI_INT patch requiring device found, patched source with BFI_INT
 [2013-09-11 15:22:19] CompilerOptions: -D LOOKUP_GAP=2 -D CONCURRENT_THREADS=1408 -D WORKSIZE=256 -D BITALIGN -D BFI_INT -D GOFFSET
 [2013-09-11 15:22:24] Binary size for gpu 0 found in binary slot 0: 692412
 [2013-09-11 15:22:24] At 050951d1 (4290330379 rem. bytes), to begin patching

It is interesting that CGminer does the BFI_INT patch and BFGMiner does not. Obviously one of them must be wrong. And yet both still do not work.
I know that the card does not have hardware problems because it works fine for mining bitcoins.

[Zanatos666]

Is that your full command line (because I dont see anything in there about a declared thread concurrancy)?  What GPU(s), OS, driver/SDK are you using?

[karlb]

Yes it's my full command line, I'm not declaring a thread concurrency so I guess it's just using the default.
I'm using an ATI Radeon HD 5450 running on Windows 7
The driver info is:
Driver Provider: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Driver Date: 28/03/2013
Driver Version: 12.104.0.0

Thanks for the help

[BRADLEYPLOOF]

I've got 2 5450's running on CGminer version 3.3.1.  Here's my command line and it works pretty well, getting about 15kh/s from each one.  Boost the memclock and GPU clock, and don't forget to max the fans...


cgminer.exe --scrypt -o http://pool:port (or stratum+tcp://poo:port) -u username -p password --intensity 8 -w 64 --thread-concurrency 1600

[karlb]

Thanks for your help Bradleyploof.
I just tried your command with cgminer 3.3.1, still same problem.
Tried version 3.4.2 and even the new version released today 3.4.3 of cgminer.
Also tried rolling back my graphics drivers to 9.12.0.0 with still no luck.

What driver versions do you have installed for your graphics card Bradleyploof?

Having to resort to cpu mining is really frustrating that I'm missing out on those extra Kh/s. So I'm willing to donate some LTC/BTC to the person who helps me solve this.

Thanks

[karlb]

Here is my log:
 [2013-09-13 14:22:01] Started cgminer 3.4.3
 [2013-09-13 14:22:01] CL Platform 0 vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
 [2013-09-13 14:22:01] CL Platform 0 name: AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing
 [2013-09-13 14:22:01] CL Platform 0 version: OpenCL 1.2 AMD-APP (1124.2)
 [2013-09-13 14:22:01] Platform 0 devices: 1
 [2013-09-13 14:22:01]    0   Cedar
 [2013-09-13 14:22:01] GPU 0 iAdapterIndex 0 strUDID PCI_VEN_1002&DEV_68F9&SUBSYS_21261028&REV_00_4&1AA93DC8&0&0008A iBusNumber 1 iDeviceNumber 0 iFunctionNumber 0 iVendorID 1002 strAdapterName  ATI Radeon HD 5450
 [2013-09-13 14:22:01] Failed to ADL_Adapter_ID_Get. Error -1
 [2013-09-13 14:22:01] Failed to ADL_Adapter_ID_Get. Error -1
 [2013-09-13 14:22:01] GPU 0 ATI Radeon HD 5450 hardware monitoring enabled
 [2013-09-13 14:22:01] Probing for an alive pool
 [2013-09-13 14:22:01] Popping work to stage thread
 [2013-09-13 14:22:01] Testing pool http://ltc-eu.give-me-coins.com:3333
 [2013-09-13 14:22:01] Probing for GBT support
 [2013-09-13 14:22:02] HTTP request failed: Empty reply from server
 [2013-09-13 14:22:02] Failed to connect in json_rpc_call
 [2013-09-13 14:22:02] No GBT coinbase + append support found, using getwork protocol
 [2013-09-13 14:22:02] HTTP request failed: Empty reply from server
 [2013-09-13 14:22:02] Failed to connect in json_rpc_call
 [2013-09-13 14:22:03] Pool 0 stratum session id: 904a47a47a7f00001
 [2013-09-13 14:22:03] Pool 0 stratum session id: 905d39ae7a7f00001
 [2013-09-13 14:22:03] Pool 0 difficulty changed to 16
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] Stratum authorisation success for pool 0
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] Pool 0 http://ltc-eu.give-me-coins.com:3333 alive
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] Init GPU thread 0 GPU 0 virtual GPU 0
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] CL Platform vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] CL Platform name: AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] CL Platform version: OpenCL 1.2 AMD-APP (1124.2)
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] List of devices:
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04]    0   Cedar
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] Selected 0: Cedar
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] Preferred vector width reported 4
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] Max work group size reported 128
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] Max mem alloc size is 199753728
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] Selecting scrypt kernel
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] GPU 0: selecting lookup gap of 2
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] No binary found, generating from source
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] Setting worksize to 64
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] cl_amd_media_ops found, setting BITALIGN
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] BFI_INT patch requiring device found, patched source with BFI_INT
 [2013-09-13 14:22:04] CompilerOptions: -D LOOKUP_GAP=2 -D CONCURRENT_THREADS=1600 -D WORKSIZE=64 -D BITALIGN -D BFI_INT -D GOFFSET
 [2013-09-13 14:22:08] Binary size for gpu 0 found in binary slot 0: 669372
 [2013-09-13 14:22:08] At 054f51cf (4290307341 rem. bytes), to begin patching
 [2013-09-13 14:22:10] Pool 0 difficulty changed to 32

Then the log ends because cgminer crashes

[Zanatos666]

What about your SDK?  You have to have an SDK 2.6 is needed (I believe, could be wrong, could be older) for scrypt mining.

[karlb]

Thanks,
How do I find out what SDK version I have. and where can I download the latest one for my card?

[Zanatos666]

I think Catalyst will tell you, but not sure (dont use it).

Here is the AMD page.

http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/heterogeneous-computing/amd-accelerated-parallel-processing-app-sdk/downloads/download-archive/

[karlb]

Installed version 2.8 but still no luck.
This is getting frustrating 

[milone]

See if GUIMiner Scrypt will work. It's still cgminer behind the scenes, but it should at least rule out a config problem since it simplifies this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=150331.0

It might be worth uninstalling the drivers and reinstalling. This means getting the cleanup tool from AMD to make sure the old one is gone completely (you must do this), then reinstall. Perhaps try a different version. Check mining hardware comparison sites to see if you can find what others are using.

Also delete kernels (scrypt**************.bin) between changing things so they get rebuilt.

[karlb]

Okay, all fixed now! Here is a detailed explanation of what I did:

I read through the gui miner scrypt thread and saw the part that says:

Known working for all cards AMD driver (12.8 ):
12.8 32-bit
12.8 64-bit
AVOID 12.10 DRIVERS, THEY SEEM TO BREAK LITECOIN PERFORMANCE. 13.X SEEM TO BE OKAY.

I checked my driver version, and of course I was using 12.104.0.0
So yes, AVOID 12.10.xx DRIVERS!!

I then ran the cleanup tool from AMD to get rid of my 12.10 drivers, this was absolutely essential. (thanks milone, will send you some BTC when I get home tonight )
Then restarted the pc.
Then installed the 12.8 64-bit drivers, (32 bit here). Then restarted again.
After doing this CGminer ran and did not crash, but reported 0.00kh/s. I then changed my thread concurrency to 2048 and everything was good. I'm now getting 16.1kh/s from this card after some fine tweaking with the following settings:
"intensity" : "8",
"worksize" : "128",
"lookup-gap" : "0",
"thread-concurrency" : "3048",
"gpu-engine" : "700",
"gpu-memclock" : "900"

BRADLEYPLOOF: you might wanna change your settings to this to get an extra kh/s or so!
The next step will be for me to try the 13.x drivers and see if these work, and if so do they give me a better hash rate. I'll make sure to report back on here.
Anyone who has the same problem feel free to donate to me or the other people on this thread for the help

[BRADLEYPLOOF]

"intensity" : "8",
"worksize" : "128",
"lookup-gap" : "0",
"thread-concurrency" : "3048",
"gpu-engine" : "700",
"gpu-memclock" : "900"

BRADLEYPLOOF: you might wanna change your settings to this to get an extra kh/s or so!
The next step will be for me to try the 13.x drivers and see if these work, and if so do they give me a better hash rate. I'll make sure to report back on here.
Anyone who has the same problem feel free to donate to me or the other people on this thread for the help

Using intensity 8, not defining worksize or lookup gap, rolling 1600 thread concurrency and maxing out the engine and clock i'm getting 16.5 kh/s from each 5450.  Thanks for the info though, I appreciate it and am glad that you've got your miner working!