Quad Radeon 6950 mining rig troubles

[Jere.Jones]

I have built a mining rig with 4 Radeon 6950's and I'm having no end of problems.

The first problem was heat.  Those puppies just sit so close together that there was no room for air to move and it sounded like a jet aircraft before I even started mining.  So I took out two gpus and ran it on air cooling until the water cooling equipment showed up.

This was my first water cooling system so it took me a while to setup.  The forums at Overclock.net were extremely helpful there.  But after a day or so, it's all physically setup.

After installing Windows 7 (32bit) without issue, everything seemed extremely stable and quiet.  Gotta love quiet.

I installed the guiminer and it wouldn't even start.  Neither would MSI Afterburner.  GPU-Z would start but with a dialog saying that there was a "Bug in the OpenCL driver.  OpenCL checks will be skipped".

I spent the next 4 days (I'm on vacation) trying various drivers and even a variety of Linux distributions with no luck.

Right now, I am only running 3 cards and everything is fine.  But if I install that 4th card then the whole world goes to crap.

My question is: Has anyone gotten 4 Radeon 69XX cards to run together harmoniously?

My contribution to the community is this:
1) XFX Radeon HD 6950 1 Gig cards (HD-695X-ZNFC) are not reference cards for water cooling purposes.  They are however laid out exactly like the 6870 reference cards so you can get a full coverage block for a reference 6870 and it fits perfectly.
2) If you have cards that aren't plugged into monitors and they show up as "disabled", what you need is a dummy plug.  It is, in essence, a DVI to VGA adapter with 3 resistors plugged into it.  Google "DVI Dummy Plug" and you'll find lots of instructions.
3) The three cards I have running are overclocked to 920Mhz and produce around 340Mhash/s each.  The hottest card runs at about 60C.

Thanks,
Jere

[1713259086]

1713259086

[1713259086]

1713259086

[TheShoura]

hey

mee tooo

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7270.msg106751#msg106751

I been working for almost 24 hours now and no luck getting it to run with 4th GPU.



http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=360&threadid=150215&enterthread=y

[Jere.Jones]

LOL

Search failed me there.

Jere

[gigabytecoin]

I have built a mining rig with 4 Radeon 6950's and I'm having no end of problems.

The first problem was heat.  Those puppies just sit so close together that there was no room for air to move and it sounded like a jet aircraft before I even started mining.  So I took out two gpus and ran it on air cooling until the water cooling equipment showed up.

This was my first water cooling system so it took me a while to setup.  The forums at Overclock.net were extremely helpful there.  But after a day or so, it's all physically setup.

After installing Windows 7 (32bit) without issue, everything seemed extremely stable and quiet.  Gotta love quiet.

I installed the guiminer and it wouldn't even start.  Neither would MSI Afterburner.  GPU-Z would start but with a dialog saying that there was a "Bug in the OpenCL driver.  OpenCL checks will be skipped".

I spent the next 4 days (I'm on vacation) trying various drivers and even a variety of Linux distributions with no luck.

Right now, I am only running 3 cards and everything is fine.  But if I install that 4th card then the whole world goes to crap.

My question is: Has anyone gotten 4 Radeon 69XX cards to run together harmoniously?

My contribution to the community is this:
1) XFX Radeon HD 6950 1 Gig cards (HD-695X-ZNFC) are not reference cards for water cooling purposes.  They are however laid out exactly like the 6870 reference cards so you can get a full coverage block for a reference 6870 and it fits perfectly.
2) If you have cards that aren't plugged into monitors and they show up as "disabled", what you need is a dummy plug.  It is, in essence, a DVI to VGA adapter with 3 resistors plugged into it.  Google "DVI Dummy Plug" and you'll find lots of instructions.
3) The three cards I have running are overclocked to 920Mhz and produce around 340Mhash/s each.  The hottest card runs at about 60C.

Thanks,
Jere

How exactly does the "whole thing go to crap"?

Does your OS bluescreen or something?

[TheShoura]

I have built a mining rig with 4 Radeon 6950's and I'm having no end of problems.

The first problem was heat.  Those puppies just sit so close together that there was no room for air to move and it sounded like a jet aircraft before I even started mining.  So I took out two gpus and ran it on air cooling until the water cooling equipment showed up.

This was my first water cooling system so it took me a while to setup.  The forums at Overclock.net were extremely helpful there.  But after a day or so, it's all physically setup.

After installing Windows 7 (32bit) without issue, everything seemed extremely stable and quiet.  Gotta love quiet.

I installed the guiminer and it wouldn't even start.  Neither would MSI Afterburner.  GPU-Z would start but with a dialog saying that there was a "Bug in the OpenCL driver.  OpenCL checks will be skipped".

I spent the next 4 days (I'm on vacation) trying various drivers and even a variety of Linux distributions with no luck.

Right now, I am only running 3 cards and everything is fine.  But if I install that 4th card then the whole world goes to crap.

My question is: Has anyone gotten 4 Radeon 69XX cards to run together harmoniously?

My contribution to the community is this:
1) XFX Radeon HD 6950 1 Gig cards (HD-695X-ZNFC) are not reference cards for water cooling purposes.  They are however laid out exactly like the 6870 reference cards so you can get a full coverage block for a reference 6870 and it fits perfectly.
2) If you have cards that aren't plugged into monitors and they show up as "disabled", what you need is a dummy plug.  It is, in essence, a DVI to VGA adapter with 3 resistors plugged into it.  Google "DVI Dummy Plug" and you'll find lots of instructions.
3) The three cards I have running are overclocked to 920Mhz and produce around 340Mhash/s each.  The hottest card runs at about 60C.

Thanks,
Jere

How exactly does the "whole thing go to crap"?

Does your OS bluescreen or something?

Poclbm, guiminer, phoenix miner, none of the miners will launch

I conform 4 GPU works on windows, its just 4 different cards dont work (if 4 pcie slots full=fail)

I have a Radeon 5970 and two 6870's running in one rig right now churning out over 1.2 Gh/s.. Four GPU works. its just when I use 4 cards/PCIe slots, everything breaks

[Jere.Jones]

How exactly does the "whole thing go to crap"?

Does your OS bluescreen or something?

When trying linux, the machine won't boot.  All I get is a black screen.

In Windows, the following happens:

• GPU-Z reports the OpenCL bug
• MSI Afterburner won't start due to "Unable to initialize driver wrapper"
• rpcminer-opencl crashes immediately

Jere

[TheShoura]

How exactly does the "whole thing go to crap"?

Does your OS bluescreen or something?

When trying linux, the machine won't boot.  All I get is a black screen.

In Windows, the following happens:

• GPU-Z reports the OpenCL bug
• MSI Afterburner won't start due to "Unable to initialize driver wrapper"
• rpcminer-opencl crashes immediately

Jere

EXACT thing here

I load up linux with 4 cards installed and I get a black and purple flashing screen.. probably the same thing however, given the stupid shit that linux does sometimes

[melco]

exactly the same thing. No luck with Windows 7 x32/x64 and 4*6950(unlocked). Bug in driver?

[melco]

No one? Bump

[1.21gigawatts]

could it be a power problem?  Not big enough amps on power supply on the +12 rails?  or maybe you are drawing too much power on the pcie slots from the motherboard with 4 cards going at the same time?

[Basiley]

stick with 2.1 and 2.4 OpenCL SDK versions.
play with Catalyst drivers versions[in my sense, 9.2, 10.3 and 11.4, 11.6 are best for different purposes].
verify/ensure you OS/appz integrity.
hint: its harder even to guys/advise something to someone without more serious input/info.

[Jack of Diamonds]

The cards will require 300 watts total just from the motherboard PCI-e slots, and 900 watts in total from the PCI-e 6-pin dual connectors.

[arrowdynamic]

exactly the same thing. No luck with Windows 7 x32/x64 and 4*6950(unlocked). Bug in driver?

Like many, I have been trying to get 4 x 6950 running. I suspect that it's just not possible with this card.
My thread:
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=20758.0

I also run Windows 7 64 with MSI 890FXA-GD70 mother board, AMD Athlon II X2 260 Regor 3.2GHz 2 GB mem.
and 4x XFX HD-695X-ZNFC Radeon HD 6950 1GB 256-bit GDDR5

I think the windows drivers are just not supporting 4x6950. Would Linux work better? Someone in the hardware comparison has made it work??? (I think it's removed from the list)

I got 4 cards working(1.3Gh), but I get "unable to initiate display wrapper" when opening msi afterburner. As a result, I can't control the fans even with other software, and the cards heat up way too much.
What is that error? I think it's related to the drivers but updating drivers does not help.

So, has anyone succeeded with the quad 6950 setup or shall we just build 3x6950 rigs? (or use other cards)

[Fuzzy]

I have my 4X 6950 setup running, but it took 6 days and 2 broken fan blades to get there.

And yes, MSI AFTERBURNER DOES NOT WORK WITH 4 CARDS, driver wrapper error

What Motherboard/CPU/PSU are you using?

I'm on a Sapphire Pure Black, with a i7 2600 and a 1250W OCZ PSU

XP cannot boot into the setup screen, think it's a SATA problem, running Win7 x64, GUI Miner works no problem, but CPU usage is 100%

Couldn't afford water blocks, so had to stick with air. Had to remove the back plates and wedge stoppers between the cards to make clearance for the air intake. Cards range from 75'C at the bottom to 90'C at the top. Not good, I know, but even my 2x 6950 machine ranges from 80-90'C

[1.21gigawatts]

I have my 4X 6950 setup running, but it took 6 days and 2 broken fan blades to get there.

And yes, MSI AFTERBURNER DOES NOT WORK WITH 4 CARDS, driver wrapper error

I am using MSI Afterburner with four 5830s and it works fine.  Perhaps it's four 6950s that it doesn't work with.
I will test this

[naypalm]

This is coming from a dual 6950 miner but.... Did you "extend your desktop" to that video card/monitor in display settings? Also, do you have Crossfire enabled/plugged in?

[steamboat]

yes it works. i'm currently running quadfire unlocked 6950s at 950/1250 w/ afterburner.
 
check the device manager. everything look good? if not, fix it. if so, carry on to the next steps

download CCC 11.6 and AB 220 beta 3 (not 100% that that's the latest, just happens to be what i'm using)
remove afterburner and all of it's components
manually delete each cards drivers from device manager (my rig happened to not like the hd audio drivers either, so i deleted those at the same time and reinstalled w/ the new CCC)
remove CCC and all of it's components
reboot
reinstall CCC and w/e cap you're using.
reboot
open CCC, device manager, gpuz, make sure alls well.
install AB
enjoy

edit: sidenote: they are xfired as i use this rig as well as mine on it.

[1.21gigawatts]

I could not get this to work.  I gave up and just moved the 4th 6950 to another computer, and swapped a 5830 to take it's place