SAVE money - undervolting 7970 XFX, self made VBE7 bios = TABLE OF CONTENTS =

[stsonic]

Cool thread but my XFX 7970 DD GHZ Edition just can't not suck ass.    

Stock voltage/bios best I could get was 540khash/s at 85oCw100%fan 1025/1500.  After many many many bios tweaks I have settled on a variation of the economy mod...440khash/s@72oCwith45%fan 852/799/0.95V.  Still utter crap but at least its quiet, cooler and less expensive crap...

To get decent hash rate I have to use a gigabyte bios which is locked at 1.170v. I tried to mod it with the c bios settings from darkoin from above but my temps are way to high for 0.9v I don't know where I'm going wrong. GPU'z says I am running at 0.9v but I am getting 80c at 90% fan speed   on the other hand if I flash with the xfx bios darkoin made I get very low temps but as I said above a horrible hash rate of 300kh/s.
Revision: FX-797A-TDBC
Bios: http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/133826/gigabyte-hd7970-3072-121106.html

Any help would be greatly appreciated I would love a 600kh/s with 0.9v low temps
I am close but don't really know why my modded bios did not work.

[1714636572]

1714636572

[stsonic]

Does anybody have experience with revision FX-797A-TDBC? For now I have settled on 440kh/s 854/799 0.900v 75c 35%.

If anybody has managed to get this card flashed with a good hash rate and low voltage then please let me know 

[drakoin]

Those who succeed
are never seen again

- but  please remember the donation :-)

For now I have settled on 440kh/s

horrible hash rate of 300kh/s.  I would love a 600kh/s with 0.9v low temps

Cool thread but my XFX 7970 DD GHZ Edition just can't not suck ass.    best I could get was 540khash/s

I am sorry to hear that some of don't get your 7970 up to speed yet.

And I don't know why, because mine is running fine.
And I have documented everything in this thread here.

For you to check:

* Do you run 2 threads ?
* Intensity 13? No hardware errors?
* Do you choose thread-concurrency 8192 ?
* Are you running cgminer 3.7.2 ?
* Do you use Catalyst 13.12 ?
* Do you provide enough power to the cards?
* Have you underclocked all the way down to approx 0.025V above the crash?
* Have you taken the cards outside with a riser, or are they frying in a badly vented rig chassis?
* Have you switched off all background processes that might consume CPU power?  I noticed if my CPU is fully busy, the GPU output drops.
* But I can actually have a CPU miner in parallel, if I run that with only one core. Check out animecoin.
* Have you checked a few Mhz to the left and right?

If any of those questions will have helped you, please report that back.

Thx
 

[stsonic]

Thanks for your reply. I will go through some of those but I don't think it will help. I tick most boxes other than drivers and cgminer build. This revision seems to have problems for everyone. To get from 300kh/s to 440kh/s I changed GPU threads from 2 to 1. That helped a bit even though it should be the other way around.

The only way I can get a good hash rate is with the gigabyte bios above. If I do get my card up to speed I will donate $5.
I went down the root of trying to modify the Gigabyte bios but it's impossible from what I have read.

[stsonic]

* Do you run 2 threads ? 1 thread gives me a higher hash rate  
* Intensity 13? No hardware errors? 13, no errors
* Do you choose thread-concurrency 8192 ? Yes
* Are you running cgminer 3.7.2 ? yes
* Do you use Catalyst 13.12 ? yes
* Do you provide enough power to the cards? yes
* Have you underclocked all the way down to approx 0.025V above the crash? yes
* Have you taken the cards outside with a riser, or are they frying in a badly vented rig chassis? The card is in an open rig and the temps are fine
* Have you switched off all background processes that might consume CPU power?  I noticed if my CPU is fully busy,
* But I can actually have a CPU miner in parallel, if I run that with only one core. Check out animecoin. The GPU output drops. CPU is 0% utilized
* Have you checked a few Mhz to the left and right? yes

[induktor]

Very interesting thread, read all the 7 pages.

I write here because I can't lower the voltage of my card, which is: MSI R9 280X GAMING 3G  (series 057)
for now I am in W7 64bit, cgminer in scrypt I can get 700KH at 1000Mhz , 1500Mem but from cgminer, the minimum voltage is 1.144V
tried from TRIXX and same result.

Used VBE7 to edit my BIOS, but no matter what voltage I put on it, when I load cgminer, the computer restarts.
I did a small testing, I load the original bios in VBE7 and saved it, without modify anything, and flash that, and the card works as usually at 1.144V so it must be something related to the voltage regulator this card has, that is not included in the VBE7 program
I even tried 1.134 and 1.155V , same result, the computer restarts as soon as loads cgminer.
tried to lower settings (GPU 900 Mhz, mem 1250Mhz) same, restarts.

any idea what can I try?, I have none, and buy three of these cards for a new rig every card is eating 290W at the wall at 700 KH (bronze PSU at 50% load).
thanks!
Idkt.

[drakoin]

Bios: http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/133826/gigabyte-hd7970-3072-121106.html

I opened it in VBE7.

Compared to my XFX factory BIOS which you see here:
tweaked #45 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=395004.msg4523960#msg4523960
and here original #7 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=395004.msg4276709#msg4276709


that Gigabyte Bios is exclusively for "Hynix" while my card definitely has "Elpida" (see #108 ).

I don't like to flash my XFX with a random BIOS of another vendor, anyways. Like so expressively described here, it's just crazy.

I much prefer to work with the original, either through VBE7 undervolting,
or through asking TheStilt and then VBE7 undervolting.

That's why I will send you that BIOS now only by PM.
I don't want it here in this thread. If it should destroy your card, I cannot be held responsible.


Still, as you ask so urgently,
I took that BIOS, and lowered these values:
vddc=850 so that you can undervolt now
CC=404 MC=555 so that with that low voltage the card still starts up.

The clockspeed values themselves are nonsense, but you change them later in cgminer anyways.

I don't know if that is enough, if it still crashes, then also lower the #5 clockspeeds.

Please update us.

[drakoin]

Very interesting thread, read all the 7 pages.

I am flattered, thanks :-)

MSI R9 280X GAMING 3G  (series 057)

Sorry, no idea. Until I have such a card, I cannot really say what to do.

Perhaps, if here in BTCT noone can help you, the guys over there can?
http://www.overclock.net/t/1432035/official-amd-r9-280x-280-270x-270-owners-club

perhaps you need a special BIOS editor for the R9 s ??


Edit: Just checked, TheStilt in his thread says
"Only Radeon 7900 and 280X cards are currently supported."
so for his strategy they seem to be alike.

[drakoin]

* Do you run 2 threads ? 1 thread gives me a higher hash rate  

You might not be able to get above 600 khash/s with 1 thread.

I couldn't.

[drakoin]

one important remark to all the people who have so far
not yet been successful at raising the khash/s or or khash/s/Watt:

this whole thread is intended to document well my progress with this
one particular GPU. And I do give parameters values which work well - for my card.

Please you experiment yourself, and explore the parameter space.
I want to inspire you to "crawl into your own card" by following this manual.

But those parameter values that I have found out
to work best ... might only work best with my card.

Capice?

[drakoin]

I have put another big chunk of effort into this,
scrolled through the whole thread,
and made you a

table of contents of this thread

[drakoin]

Oh, and by the way:

I have tuned my 2 cards (7970 & 7850), and measured several optimized values for the

ultracoin (UTC) miner
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=413978.msg4902845#msg4902845

I still don't know what to think about that coin. The premine could destroy the price even more?

But the UTC difficulty has just dropped to 5.55, which with my "COOL" settings equates to 7.21 in scrypt difficulty.
Even with an exchange rate of 0.0093 LTC, that should at the moment give >20 euros per day per MH/s?

UTC Donations please: UQ3eqjGqBycgLKuaMeA6kKnoTHp4eENYuo
or other currencies: www.tiny.cc/drakointip


EDIT 20 minutes later: diff is at 9.533 now --> 13 euro / MH/s / day.

[Hilux74]

Cool thread but my XFX 7970 DD GHZ Edition just can't not suck ass.   

Stock voltage/bios best I could get was 540khash/s at 85oCw100%fan 1025/1500.  After many many many bios tweaks I have settled on a variation of the economy mod...440khash/s@72oCwith45%fan 852/799/0.95V.  Still utter crap but at least its quiet, cooler and less expensive crap...

Tried another bios...this time I flashed it with one for an XFX R9-280X that has same memory type.  720 khash/s at 1000/1500 1.2V!!!  Alas temps climbed to 99oC within minutes of mining so I had to shut off.

So tweaked that bios in VEB7 and lowered the voltage.  701 khash/s at 1000/1500 1.1V but again 99oC within minutes. 

Then I tried an underclock at 854/799 at 0.9V and even at that it would heat up to 99oC within minutes.

DAMNIT!!!!!

So back to stock bios and spending my time paying Assassins Creed instead!   

[drakoin]

720 khash/s at 1000/1500 1.2V!!!  Alas temps climbed to 99oC within minutes of mining so I had to shut off.
701 khash/s at 1000/1500 1.1V but again 99oC within minutes.  
854/799 at 0.9V and even at that it would heat up to 99oC within minutes.

wow.

first of all: Congratulations!

You have been successful with tweaking your card, undervolting it, perfect.  Yiehah!

What is weird is the boiling temperature with 854/799/0.9V - my system is at lazy 67 degrees Celsius then.



Ideas for the temperature:

* don't plug the card inside the chassis, directly into the PCIe slots.
    Inside a closed box, it's just too hot.   Instead using a riser cable.

* use an extra fan to blow away heat

* check if fan is working well, and the heatsink sits properly on the GPU
   ( I actually wouldn't know how to do that because I never had to,
     but that could actually be a reason, right? )

* undervolt even more.
    I can get it down to 1.065V at approx those clockspeeds

* intensity 13 ?

* have the right drivers installed.


Still: 99C, there is something wrong. But I don't know that card. I'd say:
Ask in the 280x owners thread about it, there are not only gamers but also miners.

[induktor]

Hello Drakoin, Thank you for the modded MSI R9 280X bios that you made for me.
I tried last night, the card works with your mod, and I can change the voltage from CGMINER, i can see it on cgminer itself and in GPU-Z changing as well.

but the heat and power consumption doesn't change at all (I measure at the wall with a tool similar to kill-a-watt but for 240V).
I think that the card is just making me believe it is changing the voltage but it does not.

I am exactly at 340W (with motherboard and HDD) with the original bios at 1.144 and with the modded, I tested going from 1.200V to 0.900 V and nothing changes, the power consumption is exactly the same and the temperature of the card remains at 70 C with the fan at 100%.

I believe this is something specific for this card, maybe it is simply impossible to modify the voltage in this card, dunno.
I will keep reading in the forums if I can find something specific for the MSI R9 280X Gaming 3G card, still, at 1.144 the power consumption is not terrible, but, we can always do better (well, almost hehe)

[EasyQuest]

Thank you for this guide, I have save over 800 watts of power from my electric bill just from under volting all my video cards. I am running on BAMT miner for Litecoin and under-volt was not there so I found this guide.


All my hashrate are still the same or higher

[drakoin]

Thank you for this guide, I have save over 800 watts of power from my electric bill

WOW WOW WOW.  That makes me proud.

It's soooooo cool what is happening here. I could only afford two Radeon cards so far - so my electricity savings are not even 200 Watts. But by documenting here what I learnt - and passing on this knowledge, it's going into the thousands of Watts now.  We save energy!

Happy happy happy!

[drakoin]

Anyone
got good 7970 and 7850 settings
for the maxcoin cgminer already?  

--> http://max.1gh.com/


EDIT: MAXCOIN

* Afterwards, I wrote a longer text about my half sad half fascinating days in the purgatory of maxcoin.

* In the first launch attempt Maxkeiser DDoS'ed bitcointalk - we actually spent time outside BTCT :-)

* The next day they were far from ready with their coin - but forced the birth. Ugly violent angry crazy night. Working through a tunnel is a weird kind of fun. Seeing other people reap profits is really frustrating.  CPU and Nvidia only.  In the end, I bought servertime, whew expensive. But learnt so much in the process, great!  Stratum code was faulty, but cudaminer & #1ghcom got it right.

* During the stormy birth then, I made this collection of BATCH files to call RPC-API functions of the wallet
  (posting #4425 & #4131 - only 5 hours between 300 postings!!)
   Very helpful for newbies, who before only knew the GUI windows wallet, and were going nuts with maxcoind.exe.
   Caldeio over at overclock contributed a superb manual and a whole thread to my idea to make the maxcoind.exe clickable by batch files.

* Difficulty through the roof. Pools collapsed under the load. Very few pools known.
We did a crowdsourcing of known & stable pool servers. Relax.

* The only exchange, corrupted into this coinstart, failed us bitterly. "Orders are queued".
   About a dozen attempts to sell just failed.  Then I had to have a pause for REAL LIFE, not in my power.

   When I came back, and saw the ignored sell orders, and the dropped price ... I stopped my purchased servers.
   Almost made losses in this.  Got no profits for all of my work out.


That's life, you cannot always win.  
Especially not with hard work.

Gained a LOT of experience. For next time.

Come on, Max Pumper, drown your 2nd baby - and start stacycoin.

/sarcasm

[Space3003]

Not working?:

https://mega.co.nz/#!x8g1WJ4Z!D8Sw9Ue3MRxhYpUBmY3GbA8MGl862caCZfREg8dj47g
 message 45
only when logged in ?


edit:
 now above link works....

[drakoin]

CGminer wouldn't open when I did, it kept requesting a URL even though I put the pool name in the conf.

If that happens, there is probably a comma too many / few, or any other syntax error.
If you don't find it, try a json validator like http://jsonlint.com/

I also tried to lower the voltage via CGminer using [G] [C] [V] and lowering the stock 1.175 to 1.155 (as recommended, 0.02 at a time), but I do not think it actually lowered the voltage.  It says "Driver reports success but check values below."

If your voltage is locked, you need to flash the vgaBIOS of your card.

Extract the vgaBIOS ("ativwinflash" or "gpu-z") and backup it in a safe place, then (in a copy) lower the voltage with "VBE7" and save your new vgaBIOS to a USB-stick, to boot with, and flash the card with atiflash (how-to-flash is described in download in posting #45 ). Most people then report that they can now vary the voltage.

If you have never done BIOS flashing, it's recommended to read the whole thread, and other info pages about it. It's your own risk.

I suggest to study at least the postings #45, #67, #37 , #56 - and more which is linked from the "table of contents" on page 1

HTH