Cgminer and MSI GPU overheat

[netrat]

Hi, PLEASE help me,

I try to mine litecoins, I bought 2 GPU, both R9 280x, one is Gigabyte, one MSI.
Run on W7 x64, cgminer 2.7.3., latest Catalyst driver (13.2) and APP SDK.

My trouble is that cgminer doesnt regulate temperature on MSI GPU, so the temperature rises to 100°C ...
On Gigabyte GPU is temperature about 83 °C.

Settings:

MSI
export DISPLAY=:0
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1

C:\Cgminer\cgminer.exe --scrypt -o stratum+tcp://coinotron.com:3334 -u netrat.user -p passwd -d 0 -I 13 -g 2 -w 256 --thread-concurrency 8192 --gpu-powertune 20 --temp-target 75 --temp-cutoff 80 --auto-fan


GIGABYTE
export DISPLAY=:0
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1

C:\Cgminer\cgminer.exe --scrypt -o stratum+tcp://coinotron.com:3334 -u netrat.user -p passwd -d 1 -I 13 -g 2 -w 256 --thread-concurrency 8192 --temp-cutoff 90 --temp-overheat 85 --auto-fan


THANKS very much for any help, I dont want to destroy that GPU ... :-)

[Wipeout2097]

 --temp-cutoff 80 --temp-overheat 70 --gpu-fan 70-100 --gpu-engine 500-1050

Don't use --auto-fan

You should also undervolt the cards with MSI Afterburner or modding the Bios

[netrat]

Hi, thanks fo reply,

i tried your settings today morning, but nothing has changed, look at video (Google Disk, you have to download it, Gdisk doesnt know to play it)

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0Bw93waNBnEbeX2puNU9Mc1VYTnM&usp=sharing

I try to update GPU bios, but I never did it before :-)
Is possible, that GPU card is broken ?


Thanks very much ...

[omgbossis21]

How is your case setup?  You need decent airflow at least....

[Wipeout2097]

I try to update GPU bios, but I never did it before :-)
Is possible, that GPU card is broken ?

Use  --gpu-vddc 0.95 --gpu-engine 900 and see if the cards respond to undervolting. If not, use http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm to undervolt the MSI, and maybe Gigabyte OC Guru. With the software, there's no need to mod and flash the bios, but sometimes they don't work.

950 ~ 1000 mV or so should be ok. You will lose a bit of hash rate, but preserve the cards.

When using cards to mine inside a PC case, temperatures can really be terrible. Remove the side panel and point a large household fan to it.

[SpeedDemon13]

Is it an open setup or is it in an enclosure?

I have an MSI Twin FROZR III HD 7970 OC BE, I had to buy a Arctic Cooler Accelero 7970 for it to cool it decent to be inside a ATX Case. Also, I had to make sure I was getting more negative pressure in airflow, as positive pressure tend to lock in heat more.

The best stock coolers are on the Sapphire Toxic and Tri-x/Trixx. They are worth their prices because of the superior cooler they run.

[Legionnairez]

When using cards to mine inside a PC case, temperatures can really be terrible. Remove the side panel and point a large household fan to it.

This is something I will argue against. I get better temperatures with 2 120mm case fans inserting and 2 case fans blowing hot air out. I have Zotac gtx 680 on top and Gigabyte r9 280x below, and the temperatures are better when the case is closed (also less dust going in which is a major thing for me since there's dog(e)s in the house =) I can manage 78-80C easily with 4 fans.


I'd love to have one fan pulling cool air in from the bottom, but the PSU is taking up too much space to fit a fan at the bottom :/

I still have to investigate more efficient ways to lead the hot air further away, possible with air ventilation pipe in order to avoid re-circulating the warmer air. I also should play a bit with the positioning of the fans on top and maybe blocking the unused one - it's pulling air in slightly through there.

So basicly I'd say if you can handle one card, then you can handle two cards inside the case temperature wise - Maybe more if you mine something which doesn't heat the GPUs that much, like HVC. With 3rd card you'll likely have trouble fitting it in though.
Anyway, it's worth trying with the case open and a fan blowing air in - THe problem is the hot air might not be lead out the fastest way, which might lead just more heat in the case because the hot air gets blown all over instead of neatly going out from the correct places.

[omgbossis21]

I have 120mm on the cpu, 120mm built in power supply, 2 80mm rear exhaust, 2  80mm front intake and 1 80mm top exhaust in a full size thermaltake case with 2 video cards mining 24/7.  Everything stays nice and cool though I would like to upgrade one of my front intakes to a better fan, most of them are thermaltake fans.  Yes its pretty loud but stays in the other room.

[Wipeout2097]

Could be a MSI with defective fans. http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoinmining/comments/1x1ovc/msi_r9_280x_cant_maintain_a_good_temperature_even/

[Holm]

much better to use Linux (BAMT and SMOS-Linux) with yours cards

[netrat]

Hi all and thanks for help,

I tried almost everything I has read here but Linux and external fan, nothing works :-)

For this moment I try it in open case, my case is horizontally on the table.

1. I tried --gpu-vddc and --gpu-engine (first command change nothing, second commnad doesnt work, cgminer wrote unknown parametr).

2. I Tired MSI afterburner, but Core Voltage is not possible to change (I tried changed settings and enabled it, but nothing change, it seems to be locked somehow). When I reduced Core Clock, Memory Clock and Power Limit, GPU freezed whole OS and it needed to be restart. Default settings are +20, 1050 and 1500.

3. True is, that 100% of fan speed is only about 3035 RPM on that GPU, Gigabyte has about 3600 RPM on 100% of fan speed.

4. I compared a productivity of those 2 GPU cards, Gigabyte has about 725 kH/s in Controcoin, cgminer shows about 580 - 820 kH/s, temperature max 89 °C, MSI has it same, it seems sometimes a little bit more, but temperature 100°C :-).


So I decided to return MSI GPU to store I bought it, I can return it in 14 days from purchase, and change it to Gigabyte GPU same or higher type.


Thank you all for your help ...


PS: I have one question from different topic, I Tried to mining in GPU a CPU (it is about 120 kH/s :-) but when I power on GPU mining and power on CPU minig, the hash of GPU fall down to about 250 kH/s - 350 kH/s, my question is WHY :-)

[Wipeout2097]

So I decided to return MSI GPU to store I bought it, I can return it in 14 days from purchase, and change it to Gigabyte GPU same or higher type.
...
PS: I have one question from different topic, I Tried to mining in GPU a CPU (it is about 120 kH/s :-) but when I power on GPU mining and power on CPU minig, the hash of GPU fall down to about 250 kH/s - 350 kH/s, my question is WHY :-)

Yes, that was a wise decision. Peace of mind is priceless...

Regarding CPU mining, you must always leave 1 thread free, set the priority of the CPU miner to idle, run the GPU miner at high priority, or even all of those. That is to leave the processor free to run the GPU miner and allow it to quickly feed and grab work from the GPUs.

Most miners have a -t parameter to set how many threads. Set the value to the # of CPU cores - 1.
To lower priority, use task manager or Process Explorer. Or in a batch file, use start /low minerd ...

Make sure CPU mining is worthwhile, though...

[netrat]

EDIT:

something wery funny happend to me :-). Today morning I took out MSI GPU and run only on Gigabyte GPU, but cgminer wasnt able to start, it wrote error61 ... Finally i had to dissable internal Intel GPU (was set as primary) and set as primary GPU Gigabyte in BIOS. Now cgminer works fine, but mining performance of Gigabyte fall down to max 600 kH/s :-D (no CPU mining use).
I tried to change PCIex slots to slot 1, because Gigabyte was in slot 2 (no 1), but nothing has changed.

I used the same setting as before, same TC, only change is that I removed MSI GPU.
I tried to reinstall GPU drivers, nothing has changed.

It seems to GPU doesnt run on 100% of its performance (because of temperature, fan speed atd).

Any idea what is wrong now :-)


PS: thanks for CPU settings, I will try it later.

[omgbossis21]

I would try gpu miner-scrypt to see how it performs, plus its way easier to setup.  I had a lot of issues with cg miner ,trying various settings constantly etc.  Ultimately gpu miner-scrypt performed better and the best part was worked first try.  It would at least rule out your config settings and let you know its a hardware issue.  Power supply perhaps?   With poor airflow in case removing the side of the case  should of notably dropped the temps....