Problem with Litecoin mining??

[AlliumPorrum]

How come my Win7 PC with 2 * R9 290 is able to mine only something like 14Kh/s?? I startted cgminer 3.7.2 with --scrypt- option, and the result is:


cgminer version 3.7.2 - Started: [2013-12-29 18:36:31]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(5s):28.42K (avg):28.39Kh/s | A:0  R:993  HW:0  WU:23.1/m
ST: 2  SS: 0  NB: 1  LW: 126  GF: 0  RF: 0
Connected to p2pool.org diff 810 with stratum as user xxxyyyzzz
Block: 97d7c0f9...  Diff:2.85K  Started: [18:36:31]  Best share: 1.5K
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GPU 0:  73.0C 1122RPM | 14.23K/14.36Kh/s | A:0 R:993 HW:0 WU:10.4/m I: 8
GPU 1:  84.0C 1037RPM | 14.19K/14.29Kh/s | A:0 R:  0 HW:0 WU:12.8/m I: 8
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[2013-12-29 18:37:43] Stratum from pool 0 requested work restart
[2013-12-29 18:37:49] Pool 0 difficulty changed to 758.719441
[2013-12-29 18:37:49] Stratum from pool 0 requested work restart
[2013-12-29 18:38:13] Pool 0 difficulty changed to 930.541099
[2013-12-29 18:38:13] Stratum from pool 0 requested work restart
[2013-12-29 18:38:19] Pool 0 difficulty changed to 723.959473
[2013-12-29 18:38:19] Stratum from pool 0 requested work restart
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


What could be the problem??

[illodin]

Problem is you use the default intensity, which is too low. Add -I 13 to the command line.

[icey]

Can we see your config file please?

[digicoin]

It should be 1600+ KH/s. Please post your config file

[AlliumPorrum]

I don't have any config file... These instructions that came with cgminer are so difficult to understand, that I just cant get that config file to work. I always just got errors with it, so I tried to start miner without a config file, just to get started...

Could someone give an example of a good config file?

[atp1916]

Try a config from here or here.

You will need to hammer out a config either way.

[AlliumPorrum]

Ok, thanks! I did not understand that those settings are so critical, I thought that they are just for fine tuning...

Anyway, with options following options I was getting something like 700kh/s per GPU:

  --scrypt -I 20 -g 1 -w 512 --thread-concurrency 24550 --gpu-powertune 20

But then in a minute or few, temperature of the GPU´s rise to somewhere near 95c, and then whole Windows crashed with a blue screen :-o

What would be maximum temperature for such Radeon cards??

[AlliumPorrum]

Ok, with a slight decrease on GPU voltage and few settings tested, it seems to be stable with ~700kh/s. But, the problem is that mining seems to use all the power from the Windows, and even the cursor movement is quite jumpy. What settings should I try to get the mining going on the background, so that the PC can still used for other applications also?

Would it also be a good idea to use motherboard's internal graphich card for the monitor, instead of the R9?

[BitshireHashaway]

I believe to keep it running in the background without any problems you would have the decrease the intensity to keep it from being all jumpy. However, that would of course decrease the number of kh/s that you are getting. I personally would go get a second graphics card (assuming you don't already have one), something low end and then plug your monitor into that so that you can drive up the r9 290 as much as possible. Or another thing you could do is when your using the PC decrease the intensity and then once your done with it increase it back up.

*Edit*
I would try out your motherboards graphic card and see how it works, it should work fine for regular usage unless you have multiple large monitors or are trying to game. Then you can drive up the r9 290 as much as it can handle. Also do you have the latest drivers, I heard that there were some cooling problems for the latest radeon series that have been fixed in the latest drivers. It shouldn't have gotten up to 95 degrees and crashed.


For more replies & quicker responses post your question in the dedicated litecoin section or alt coin mining section of my forum: digitalcoindiscussion.com

[Spiffy_1]

I don't get it.. No offense to the OP but if you don't understand how to use the program, why the hell would you start it up in the first place?  Those annoying popups in your web browsers, do you click yes on those without hesitation? I understand that everyone has to start somewhere but seriously.. I knew how to run cgminer before I started mining because I did research on my cards, and had my settings pretty much nailed down and what the settings did before I even fired up my miner.  I'm trying hard not to come across as an A!@#$@e but its just so frustrating with people jumping into something they know nothing about, and will lose their shirts thinking they'll make money and then give crypto a bad name because it didn't work for them so it must be a scam. 

/END RANT

P.S.  Good luck on your mining adventure.. Its a great journey if you continue and learn from it.

[AlliumPorrum]

Spiffy_1; for me the best way for learning is by doing. Rather than reading 2 weeks for the manuals and try to understand in theory what is the correct setup, I'd like to play with the miner's setup for that 2 weeks period and learn bit by bit. It just works better for me.

[AlliumPorrum]

Ok, after AMD driver update, changing monitor to internal graphics card, and messing around with settings I was able to easily get over 800kh/s.

But, for some reason when I removed the monitor from the R9 and changed it to internal output in the motherboard, neither GPU Tweak nor MSI Afterburner detects any cards at all??? Why's this? I mean; CGminer sees cards just fine, but these tuning apps do not.

[AlliumPorrum]

Could anyone help with this; I just can't get Afterburner to see my 290 cards. Is there some trick that I should be aware of, if neither of R9's is connected to the monitor?

And I also noticed that while CGminer *seems* to do mining just fine, it won't show the temperature for the GPU's at all.