Optimizing ATI performance, 6950 in particular

[travex]

I get nervous bumping the voltage that much...

Nice OC though!

I am at 1115mV and haven't tried past 890 as I am at 75C with the fan at 50% (loud).  I do have a 5770 in the case as well so the temps would be lower without that card right next to it.  However, I can 't OC the 6950 enough to make up the 172 Mhash I get from the 5770

Dont worry so much dude, as long as you keep the card operate under 90 degree, and you will be fine at 1.200v-1.300v, in fact my old GTS 8800 used to running at 100-110 degree without any problem lmao!

[JWU42]

I get nervous bumping the voltage that much...

Nice OC though!

I am at 1115mV and haven't tried past 890 as I am at 75C with the fan at 50% (loud).  I do have a 5770 in the case as well so the temps would be lower without that card right next to it.  However, I can 't OC the 6950 enough to make up the 172 Mhash I get from the 5770

Dont worry so much dude, as long as you keep the card operate under 90 degree, and you will be fine at 1.200v-1.300v, in fact my old GTS 8800 used to running at 100-110 degree without any problem lmao!

YMMV is the key here.

Heat can kill over time

Voltage can kill more immediately from everything I have read/experienced

[JWU42]

Up to 360 MHash/s @ 940 core 

140 Mhz OC was way more than expected.  It seems to still have more room to go...

[fasti]

My temps from GPU-Z under full load:

GPU #1(gpu core?): 83.5c , this value shows on other apps like MSI afterburner
GPU #2(shader core?): 93.5c
GPU #3(memory?): 91.5c

I'm wondering if that high shader?/memory? core temps are ok for 24/7 usage?

[Kick]

My temps from GPU-Z under full load:

GPU #1(gpu core?): 83.5c , this value shows on other apps like MSI afterburner
GPU #2(shader core?): 93.5c
GPU #3(memory?): 91.5c

I'm wondering if that high shader?/memory? core temps are ok for 24/7 usage?

better to be safe than sorry and make sure  u update gpuz. it should show vrm sensors

turn up your fan speed.

[fasti]

It's freshly updated, 3 unknown temperature sensors ><, anyway vrm temperature should be the highest and it should be fine to go at least 120c? :)

Not going to raise my fan as I want to sleep.

[Xer]

None of the sensors on the 69xx series is for the vrm's its been confirmed from unwinder that they are for different parts of the gpu chipset. Secondly the 6950 chunks down Watts when overvolted, i measured a rise from 280w to 400 when i tested out 1.3 vcore on mine. That's definitely not a minor rise in power consumption/heat, and i only got a extra 40 mhash out of the overclocking from it. ~2.5w extra per mhash? not realy worth it.

[Dusty]

I'm using Sapphire HD6950 with custom shader unlocked, using MSI afterburn latest version.

Since I've no windows machine around I would like to know if there is a way to unlock my Sapphire HD6950 under linux.

Anybody has hints?

[Xer]

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57750 , just make sure you flash a Unlocked bios and not a 6970 bios, as those will kill you card slowly due to aggressive memory timings.

[Grinder]

Since I've no windows machine around I would like to know if there is a way to unlock my Sapphire HD6950 under linux.

There may be easier ways to do it, but I would make a bootable USB-stick with Free-DOS or similar and a flash utility. Boot to it, dump your current firmware to "original.bin". Boot back to Linux, run the attached script on it, and boot with the stick again to flash it.

Code:

<?php
$file=@file_get_contents("original.bin");
if ($file===FALSE)
{
        echo "Could not find input BIOS. Put it in this folder and name it original.bin\n";
        exit();
}

$search=chr(0x4A).chr(0x8D).chr(0x54).chr(0x22).chr(0xFF).chr(0x0F).chr(0x49);
$idx=strpos($file, $search);
if ($idx!==FALSE)
{
        $idx+=strlen($search)-1;
        $file[$idx]=chr(0x43);
        $file[33]=chr((ord($file[33])+6) & 0xFF);

        file_put_contents("modded.bin", $file);
        echo "BIOS has been modded successfully and saved as modded.bin\n";
} else
{
        echo "Could not find byte sequence in file.\n";
}

I've used this script with my Sapphire 6950 2GB and it works. Wouldn't do it if you don't have one of the original 2 GB cards, though.

[Dusty]

I've used this script with my Sapphire 6950 2GB and it works. Wouldn't do it if you don't have one of the original 2 GB cards, though.

Grinder, thanks very much for the script, that's really great.

The problem is just I discovered that my 6950 that has 1GB only of ram is not able to unlock shaders, nor it is possible to flash a different rom

Thanks anyway, it was much appreciated

[caston]

I just bought a ASUS HD6950 DirectCUII with 1GBDDR5. So you need more RAM to unlock the shaders do you? Damn I bought the cheaper one thinking I didn't need a that much RAM for mining.

I was looking on https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison and ended here when searching for how to unlock the shaders.

At the moment i'm getting ~300kh/sec

Default Adapter - AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series
                            Core (MHz)    Memory (MHz)
           Current Clocks :    790           1250
             Current Peak :    790           185
  Configurable Peak Range : [600-950]     [75-1350]
                 GPU load :    96%
chris@galaxy:~$ aticonfig --odgt

Default Adapter - AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series
                  Sensor 0: Temperature - 67.50 C

Voltage is 1.030

I am using AMDOverDriveCtrl and fan control is on auto and I am keeping the side of my case off for greater airflow. The card comes with dual fans some kind of direct ICU heatsink but it was getting really hot (about 79C) at 96% CPU just on the out of the box settings.

The way I am doing this at the moment is to try to keep the temp and voltage as low as possible and my belief is that if I keep the memory clock down I can get a high hash rate with a lower voltage. I set it to 185 in
AMD control panel but from aticonfig it might not really be this low.

What settings would you recommend?

Note: I have added a link to a screenshot of my AMD overdrive control panel below:

http://img221.imageshack.us/i/amdover1.png/

I also occasionally get messages like:

12/05/2011 14:03:40, long poll: Deepbit is temporarily unavailable
12/05/2011 14:03:43, long poll exception:                  
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/chris/Downloads/bitcoin-0.3.21/bin/64/BitcoinMiner.py", line 259, in longPollThread
    (connection, result) = self.request(connection, url, self.headers)
  File "/home/chris/Downloads/bitcoin-0.3.21/bin/64/BitcoinMiner.py", line 222, in request
    response = connection.getresponse()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 1027, in getresponse
    response.begin()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 407, in begin
    version, status, reason = self._read_status()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 371, in _read_status
    raise BadStatusLine(line)
BadStatusLine: ''

Is it likely my GPU configuration causing these errors?

I first got one when I opened AMDcontrol panel and thought crap that voltage might be a bit high and then moved it down quite a bit. Never had any errors like that on my 5770 which while being excited about my badass new card I have a bit of nostalgia for as I got it up to 190m/hash a sec and it only required a thermaltake 430w PSU without any fancy 8pin connectors just one 6pin.

[jkminkov]

I've used this script with my Sapphire 6950 2GB and it works. Wouldn't do it if you don't have one of the original 2 GB cards, though.

Grinder, thanks very much for the script, that's really great.

The problem is just I discovered that my 6950 that has 1GB only of ram is not able to unlock shaders, nor it is possible to flash a different rom

Thanks anyway, it was much appreciated

probably wrong, I used RBE to unlock shaders by hand on http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3693#ov , just checked 6950->6970 on last page, saved BIOS and ... I can't flash another BIOS anymore ... but it's unlocked gui-miner-01-05-2011 with -f 15 -w 128 -v shows 386Mhash/s @ 900 core /775 memory, CCC power tune +20

[fasti]

I just bought a ASUS HD6950 DirectCUII with 1GBDDR5. So you need more RAM to unlock the shaders do you? Damn I bought the cheaper one thinking I didn't need a that much RAM for mining.

ASUS HD6950 DirectCUII with 1GBDDR5 has bios switch and 8pin+6pin power stuff, so it might be ok for unlocking shaders only with modded bios. The origional 6970 bios would need 2GB, but it also increases voltage and other stuff that most likely makes your card take damage. Modded bios only unlocks extra shaders, which you would want. I haven't tried unlocking, maybe after I get my money back from bitcoins first :P

Because I don't have AMD CPU, I'm just using card drivers + opencl drivers. No Catalyst Control Center. Using MSI Afterburner.

As I play with this card, only dropping memory to 759Mhz(-(3-4)c to temp), not playing with that thou, it's just because of Afterburners minimum value cannot be set to ~300 while keeping your default 1250 in range. They say that best range for memory is somewhere between 299-401Mhz, some memory values might be unstable and make your system crash. Memory effects temperature a lot.

Core is overclocked to 850Mhz, tested that I could go up to ~900Mhz but I lowered it down as at some point it crashed, but it might be because of my faulty PSU that blew ~3 capacitors yesterday. Old PSU 4x 12V 18A rails with unkown rail setup ftl (don't buy cheapest PSU you can find ><), now 4x 12V 25A with impossible to overload any of the rails with dual cards or below ftw. Moving core value doesn't seem to effect temperature so much.

Can't edit voltage value, which should effect temperature a lot.

So 850core 759memory 80c(32c room) fan at 40%-42%. Try to keep it below 83c.

Using this in .bat: start /DC:\Bitcoinmining poclbm.exe -d0 -v -w 128 -f 60 --host=deepbit.net --port=8332 --user=xxxxx --pass=yyyyy
-f 10 when I'm gone/sleep 335Mhash/s.
-f 60 general use, 330Mhash/s.
-f 120, if I don't want it to interfere what I'm doing 325Mhash/s.

[fasti]

I get "12/05/2011 14:03:40, long poll: Deepbit is temporarily unavailable, 12/05/2011 14:03:43, long poll exception:" also as well, most likely Deepbit being configured or backup popped up.

[Dusty]

probably wrong, I used RBE to unlock shaders by hand on http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3693#ov , just checked 6950->6970 on last page, saved BIOS and ... I can't flash another BIOS anymore ... but it's unlocked

I've a Sapphire 6950 1GB and it does not allow bios to be flashed so I was not able to unlock it.
I suppose this capabilityt depends wether your graphic card allow it or not to flash the bios.

RBE works directly on the bios on the vga or it works on the saved image file of the bios?

[jkminkov]

probably wrong, I used RBE to unlock shaders by hand on http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3693#ov , just checked 6950->6970 on last page, saved BIOS and ... I can't flash another BIOS anymore ... but it's unlocked

I've a Sapphire 6950 1GB and it does not allow bios to be flashed so I was not able to unlock it.
I suppose this capabilityt depends wether your graphic card allow it or not to flash the bios.

RBE works directly on the bios on the vga or it works on the saved image file of the bios?

you give RBE saved BIOS file or you acquire* BIOS, edit and save to file or flash with RBE*

* - RBE uses WinFlash - an external program, which you only have to install somewhere on C:\ and give RBE the exact path

[caston]

Thanks Fasti,


I have been reading your post and playing with settings:

At the moment I am getting:

 Core (MHz)    Memory (MHz)
           Current Clocks :    825           1250
             Current Peak :    825           215
  Configurable Peak Range : [600-950]     [75-1350]
                 GPU load :    99%

and around about 315 mhash.

I'm keen to find out more about the possibilities of unlocking those shaders. If we both have the same cards we should stay in touch. I bought a new PSU the day after I bought my card. I got a XFX PRO650W.

Tonight  though I am going to leave it underclocked at about 600 so I can get some sleep.

[moro]

probably wrong, I used RBE to unlock shaders by hand on http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3693#ov , just checked 6950->6970 on last page, saved BIOS and ... I can't flash another BIOS anymore ... but it's unlocked gui-miner-01-05-2011 with -f 15 -w 128 -v shows 386Mhash/s @ 900 core /775 memory, CCC power tune +20

What do you mean by saying "I can't flash another BIOS anymore"? So, you can't go back to stock?

[polishwarrior]

I thought I'd chime in with my sapphire 6950's performance

390-392Mhash/s
unlocked the shaders via bios flash
Core @ 965MHz with 1140mV
Mem @ 1250MHz
core temp steady @ 68C with fan @ 65% (4000 rpm)
no flags
this is with the stock heatsink and 2 120mm fans blowing on the card
ambient temperature is 20C.