New Miner - Questions and looking for advice on build (cgminer + 11.04)

[urlord]

I've been mining for a few months on my gaming PC and finally got the parts together to create my first dedicated rig.

I followed the cgminer usb linux 11.04 instructions to the T.  thank you ckolivas!!!

So I got the miner working fine and would like to make it headless, so I loaded PUTTY on my win7 machine and used SSH to connect to the rig and was able to launch cgminer and hash away.  So, I thought I could just kill PUTTY and it would continue, NO it stops mining.  And I had to go back to the counsel to start it up.

Any help please? what do I need to do to launch and maintain the miner without leaving a putty/ssh/terminal session open.  I am a newb with linux/ssh so please to flame :-)  Also , I'm on the same LAN in my office, but will I be able to SSH from home to this miner and check it's status?  fuzzy on the over the internet capability of SSH.

this set of questions answered below thanks!

One more question,  my linux desktop got messed up somehow,  I lost the menu at the top and the mac like menu at the bottom and I have a second screen on the right that I can't get rid of.  (mouse pans off the right side of my screen)  I'm using the VGA port on the 5770 only, yet it's acting like I have two active monitors. It's ok because I can right click to access all menu items, but a bit irritating.

Also, I'll list my config below, any advice is appreciated!


Software:

CGMINER 2.2.6 linux 64bit ubuntu 11.10  binary (I'm using xbuntu 11.04 wondering what issues this may cause)
AMD APP SDK v2.41
Catalyst control center 2.13  ( cant seem to run the admin version or selected the second card 6950, only shows 5770 (primary card))


Hardware:
OPEN AIR rig
8 GB USB formatted with 4 GB persistant
ASUS Crosshair IV MB
Sempron 145
Corsair AX850
GPU 0= ASUS 5770
GPU 1= XFX 6950 (shaders unlocked)
(Diamond 5870 used being delivered via EBAY any day - will this fit with my current config?  I have a slot, unsure on the PS)

STATS


after 18 hours:

hashrate 536
Reject ratio 0.2%
 GPU 0 84.0C  85% fan avg 195.9 Mh/s
 GPU 1 66.5C  3719 RPM avg 340.1 Mh/s

I'm shocked at the temps, when I ran these with GUI miner in my win7 rig the temps were opposite,  however my 6950 was primary in that rig, not sure why the 5770 is taking such a beating now with this setup.

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[jake262144]

RTFM && use screen.

[urlord]

which FM should I start with?  Also, what is the syntax to use screen from the terminal?

Thanks for the pearls!

[jake262144]

which FM should I start with?

Any of these will do.

The basic steps of getting a rig going are installing the os, installing the drivers, sdk, and miners, configuration of X server and miner, startup automation.

You can learn more about screen by issuing the man screen command (man as in manual).
A more readable form can be googled out. Screen tutorials are also aplenty.

[urlord]

Excellent tutorial on screen, thank you so much, got it working,  one more question, I notice that when I run cgminer from SSH, my rig runs faster and quieter.... does running from the counsel really add that much more of a load?  very cool result either way.


Also, I only read the manual provide with CGminer and that has worked fine, I did'nt want to confuse myself while building this with the pleathora of others available.  but I will experiment when my gear comes in for rig 2.

So my remaining questions and also looking for more critical comments on my configuration!

1. Lost menu's on counsel for xubuntu 11.04 and extra screen.  how do I restore these?

2. temperature differnces,  possible sensor issue on the cards, config issue?

3. best miner, right hardware, sufficient power, etc?

[urlord]

Stuck again,  I added a 5870 to my rig and I cannot get to the desktop anymore.

I had to do CTRL ALT F1 to get to a terminal.

When I aticonfig -lsa I can see all 3 adapters


but when I try to do aticonfig --adapter=all -- odgt

I get Error - X needs to be running to perform ATI overdrive commands.....

I tried to initialize again and it seems to do the same thing,  then sudo sync / restart and still boots to blank screen and I need to do CTL ALT F1 to access the system.

Also, strangely I cannot SSH in anymore it lost my password - did I hose the persistant drive somehow, or do I need to reinstall the drivers even though the ati drivers were just working?

[jake262144]

Did you try sudo aticonfig --initial --adapter=all?
This will re-create the X.org server configuration file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf). You might want to make a manual backup before issuing the command.

Did you execute aticonfig --adapter=all -- odgt as root?

Whatever do you mean by "it (SSH?) lost your password"

[urlord]

what i mean is since I added the card, it does not boot to the desktop anymore, and I have to use CTRL ALT F1 to get to a terminal prompt.

yes I ran sudo aticonfig --initial --adapter=all
sync and restarted, - still boots to black screen have  to ctrl - alt - f1 to get terminal.

and then tried aticonfig --odgt    This fails with ERROR - X must be started.



and what I mean by SSH passwords is I can no longer PUTTY into my linux box the username/passwords is now incorrect.

[urlord]

Just resolved my desktop issue but adding -f

sudo aticonfig --initial --adapter=all - f

thank you search!

let me see if I can get cgminer updated to latest version and running now.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Just resolved my desktop issue but adding -f

sudo aticonfig --initial --adapter=all - f

Yup.  I always use -f.  If you don't need it it won't hurt and if you do need it then it will prevent a lot of frustration.

-f tells aticonfig.  "I don't care if you think xorg is configured properly wipe everything and rebuild from scratch".

Without -f it attempts to parse the file and update as needed.  If file gets way out of wack it may not be able to detect all the issues and won't make any changes.

[urlord]

Update with Pictures!

Ok finally settled in and made a few last changes today  - but I can't think of anything else to do with this miner other than automate a restart script on power loss. ( which I have not clue where to start)

upgraded to CGMINER 2.3.1
still using xbuntu 11.04 and SDK 2.4
I switched/replaced all 3 cards to 5870s
replaced the motherboard with a 890FXA-GD70
Increased ram to 4 GB

Downvolted all cards to 1.000-1.050
Downclocked core memory to ~800/150

getting ~1.15 GH/s @ 500 Watts

Fan noise significantly reduced

So on to my second miner, have a 5770 @ rma and a 5830 coming from newegg, but I think I really need to stick with 5870s or 5970s if I can find them.

PLEASE COMMENT / ADVICE on anything I am doing wrong in your opinion.

THANK you for your time and consideration.

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