Ubuntu Natty Narwhal 11.04 Mining Guide / HOWTO

[jpm99]

I was running fine using this guide with 1 6950, but after adding another one, and going back through all the install steps, I am now getting an error when I try to start the miner.  It looks like both aticonfig and poclbm can see my cards...

~/poclbm$ ./poclbm.py
No device specified or device not found, use -d to specify one of the following

•    Cayman
[1]   Cayman
[2]   AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 250 Processor[/color]

..., but then when I try to start it using phoenix, I get this (even though I am using the DEVICE=0 argument)...

~/phoenix$ ./phoenix.py -u

http://username:password@mining.bitcoin.cz:8332/;askrate=10 -k poclbm DEVICE=0 VECTORS BFI_INT AGGRESSION=8
No device specified or device not found, use DEVICE=ID to specify one of the following

 

• Cayman                         
[1] Cayman                         
  [2] AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 250 Processor

[0 Khash/sec] [0 Accepted] [0 Rejected]-k: command not found

I'm sure I am missing something obvious, but any help is appreciated.

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[SchizophrenicX]

Inaba, I'm having trouble 'not' using live.

Do I have to do the installation while running Ubuntu onto the USB stick? [meaning have and running a working version of Ubuntu before I could install it onto a USB stick]

After that do what this guide does... but first...
How do I SSH, must I do it in Ubuntu to Ubuntu or can I do it using Windows to Ubuntu?

Sorry, but I have no prior experience in Linux. So this is hard for me... thanks for your patience... really.

[jpm99]

The formatting got screwed up, the first card came up as [Zero] Caymen

Which I'm interpreting as devices 0 and 1 are my 6950s and 2 as my CPU

[darkpandora]

Inaba, I'm having trouble 'not' using live.

Do I have to do the installation while running Ubuntu onto the USB stick? [meaning have and running a working version of Ubuntu before I could install it onto a USB stick]

After that do what this guide does... but first...
How do I SSH, must I do it in Ubuntu to Ubuntu or can I do it using Windows to Ubuntu?

Sorry, but I have no prior experience in Linux. So this is hard for me... thanks for your patience... really.

you can ssh from windows to ubuntu. this is what im doing:) my mining rig is in the kitchen and my computer is in my room.

you need to install ssh server on ubuntu: sudo apt-get install openssh-server
then find out what ip ur ubuntu is on. you do it by typing this in terminal: ifconfig

on windows, download putty http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html
then insert the ip on putty, login. thats it.

[Inaba]

You screen buffer is too small, you need to increase it in PuTTY.  Don't ask me how to do that, because I don't use PuTTY (I use SecureCRT).

I set my buffer to 32000 lines of scrollback.

i set mine to 50000 lines. this is what i got: http://pastebin.com/rRr105GP
and i reinstalled ubuntu to be 100% sure it was not the updates that was causing this.

Based on your lspci output, it looks like the drivers are not installed properly.  You may want to go back and review the output of installing fglrx.  If nothing else, reinstall and on the line that installs fglrx, leave that out, then do it manually with apt-get install fglrx and see if it comes back with an error.

The formatting got screwed up, the first card came up as [Zero] Caymen

Which I'm interpreting as devices 0 and 1 are my 6950s and 2 as my CPU

Put your stuff in [ code ] blocks to keep it from being munged up by the forum.  But to answer your question, you've got a messed up phoenix command line.  there shouldn't be a trailing / after the port and definitely no ;.  It may be affecting the rest of it, fix those and see if it helps.

Inaba, I'm having trouble 'not' using live.

Do I have to do the installation while running Ubuntu onto the USB stick? [meaning have and running a working version of Ubuntu before I could install it onto a USB stick]

After that do what this guide does... but first...
How do I SSH, must I do it in Ubuntu to Ubuntu or can I do it using Windows to Ubuntu?

Sorry, but I have no prior experience in Linux. So this is hard for me... thanks for your patience... really.

I'm not really following your question(s)?  You put the CD in the drive, boot it up and it gives you two choices... I forget what the first one is on the left, and the second one on the right is Install Ubuntu (or something like that) - you click Install Ubuntu and start the installation process.

For SSH, you need to use PuTTY or another SSH program (I use SecureCRT, so I can't answer specific questions about PuTTY).  PuTTY as well as other SSH clients are available for Windows.

When I install a new box, after the install is done, I immediately open a console window type "sudo apt-get install openssh-server".  After it's done, verify it's IP address, unplug the monitor, keyboard and mouse.  I then connect on my development machine with SecureCRT to the IP address of the new Ubuntu box and continue the install from there.  Never again does the box see a monitor, mouse or keyboard unless there's a problem.

[darkpandora]

how do i install the driver manually?
btw, i skipped step 7 when i followed your guide for v2.4.
7. screen -d -m -S icd wget http://download2-developer.amd.com/amd/Stream20GA/icd-registration.tgz

thanks

[jpm99]

Thanks Inaba, that was it.  I knew I was doing something dumb (I sent you a donation).  Now I have both cards working, and the problem is the heat 

Before I was using AMDOverdriveCtrl to dial back the memory clock to 350-400 and lower the voltage a bit on the single card.  That allowed me to get improved hash speed without heating up too much.  But the AMDOverdriveCtrl GUI only seems to work on the first adapter.  Do you know a way to use AMDOverdriveCtrl on the 2nd adapter via command line or override the "configurable peak range" with aticonfig?  (If I try to lower the memory clock, it tells me that it is outside the configurable range.)

Thanks again.

[mouser98]

question:  aticonfig limits gpu clock speed on the 5830 to 875.  is there any way to get past this limit?

[miningnew]

 I am planning to put 2 5870 and two 5850 on one board with Linux

Can i overclock them differently?

[minerX]

Hi Inaba,

Having a small issue with my Ubuntu 11.04.    I followed the 2.4 SDK driver installation.  Everything was running smooth.   I had 2x 6870s installed.   I then swapped them out for 1x6950, 2x 6970s.    After the swap out card # 3 was not recognized by ATI Config.    After a bit of reading I came up with this:

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


Afterwards all 3 cards were recognized.   I was able to get all 3 mining.   The problem is once I overclock them the hash DECREASES by 30-40 from stock hash.

This is the command I used:   (Paste into putty SSH.)

aticonfig --od-setclocks=840,1250 --adapter=0  '(6950)
aticonfig --od-setclocks=950,1375 --adapter=1
aticonfig --od-setclocks=950,1375 --adapter=2

I'm running 64 bit Ubuntu w/ 64 bit driver.   Any ideas what's going on?

Thanks!

p.s. epic guide.

[chut]

Hi, I followed these instructions almost exactly, except that I installed stream sdk 2.3 It worked as soon as I finished, but then once i restarted my miner, my cards were no longer recognized by poclbm as opencl devices. any ideas why this might be? I already tried the export display line as well as the export LD_LIBRARY_PATH line. any help would be appreciated, i feel like I'm so close, but something isnt working

[hugolp]

Thanks Inaba, that was it.  I knew I was doing something dumb (I sent you a donation).  Now I have both cards working, and the problem is the heat 

Before I was using AMDOverdriveCtrl to dial back the memory clock to 350-400 and lower the voltage a bit on the single card.  That allowed me to get improved hash speed without heating up too much.  But the AMDOverdriveCtrl GUI only seems to work on the first adapter.  Do you know a way to use AMDOverdriveCtrl on the 2nd adapter via command line or override the "configurable peak range" with aticonfig?  (If I try to lower the memory clock, it tells me that it is outside the configurable range.)

Thanks again.

AMDOverdriveCtrl --help will give you the comand option to select the card you want.

[Dusty]

Thanks for the guide. I see you installed unofficial ubuntu drivers taking the last version from ATI, why the need to do so?

I'm able to get everything working with the stock drivers included in Natty, is there a a particular reason to upgrade them?
Maybe for performance?

Another question: under windows with MSI afterburner I can overclock my 9650 to 930Mhz core while with aticonfig under linux I'm stuck to 840.

Is there a way to overcome this limitation?

Thanks!
Dusty

[CubedRoot]

Thanks for the guide. I see you installed unofficial ubuntu drivers taking the last version from ATI, why the need to do so?

I'm able to get everything working with the stock drivers included in Natty, is there a a particular reason to upgrade them?
Maybe for performance?

Another question: under windows with MSI afterburner I can overclock my 9650 to 930Mhz core while with aticonfig under linux I'm stuck to 840.

Is there a way to overcome this limitation?

Thanks!
Dusty

Nope. Theres no easy way to overclock past the GPU limits in Linux. It sucks so hard. I can mine a heck of a lot faster in Windows due to aall the overclocking and overvolting tools available in windows.  In Linux, I loose alot of money because there are so such tools.  I have been contemplating switching to Windows 100% due to all the limitations I have found in Linux..
Oh.. heres another kicker..
If you GPU hangs in Linux.. your screwed! you have to hard power down and reboot to be able to anything.  In Win7, catalyst will usually recover, and you can simply restart your miner. No rebooting necessary.

[Inaba]

Not true.  There are a couple different tools that allow Linux overclocking, which have already been mentioned in this thread.

Personally, I flash the BIOS with RBE and don't even worry about overclocking from the command line.  If you can't overclock in Linux, the fault lies with the operator, not with the (lack of) ability.  Is it as slick and easy as Windows?  Nope, but then again, Windows can't do half the things a Linux machine can in terms of mining, so it's a trade off.  I'd like to see you run more than 8 GPUs in Windows.  Can you even run more than 4?

[darkpandora]

You screen buffer is too small, you need to increase it in PuTTY.  Don't ask me how to do that, because I don't use PuTTY (I use SecureCRT).

I set my buffer to 32000 lines of scrollback.

i set mine to 50000 lines. this is what i got: http://pastebin.com/rRr105GP
and i reinstalled ubuntu to be 100% sure it was not the updates that was causing this.

Based on your lspci output, it looks like the drivers are not installed properly.  You may want to go back and review the output of installing fglrx.  If nothing else, reinstall and on the line that installs fglrx, leave that out, then do it manually with apt-get install fglrx and see if it comes back with an error.

can you please tell me how do i do that? i really need to downclock my graphic cards ram and overclock the gpu...
thanks.

[Inaba]

How to do what?

[darkpandora]

How to do what?

install the drivers properly.

[CubedRoot]

Not true.  There are a couple different tools that allow Linux overclocking, which have already been mentioned in this thread.

Personally, I flash the BIOS with RBE and don't even worry about overclocking from the command line.  If you can't overclock in Linux, the fault lies with the operator, not with the (lack of) ability.  Is it as slick and easy as Windows?  Nope, but then again, Windows can't do half the things a Linux machine can in terms of mining, so it's a trade off.  I'd like to see you run more than 8 GPUs in Windows.  Can you even run more than 4?

Im going to disagree here just on the side of mining though.  I am a Redhat certified engineer (Earned RHCE earlier this year), and I work with RHEL6 and RHEL5 machines for a career. So I totally understand the subtleties between Windows and Linux.
But, there is absolutely nothing available that will allow you to overvolt a a non-reference GPU in linux. There are a multitude of tools for Windows that allows voltage adjustements for non-reference cards.  Trixx, MSI Afterburner are just a few.  AMDovrdrvctrl will not allow you to adjust voltages on non-reference cards.  You also have to modify the BIOS ont the GPU if you want to do anything worth while with AMDovrdrvctrl.  You dont have to modify the BIOS to do the same with the Windows tools mentioned above.

For example, I can overclock all 4 of my GPU's in Windows and they will stay STABLE at higher clock speeds than in ubuntu.  In windows I Can run my 3 HD5850's at 950 core 325 RAM at 1.188 volts and they will hash at 360-370 Mhash all day long, below 65-70c.  I can also overclock an additional HD5870 in this same rig to 1000 core 350 ram at 1.2volts and it will stay stable.

Now, in Ubuntu Natty, 64 bit running SDK 2.4 and Catalyst 11.5 I CANNOT get the stupid GPU's to run for over an hour at 800 core and 300 ram.  With these clock speeds  I only see about 300 Mhash/sec. These GPU's have the same BIOS settings as they do when I can overclock them in Windows.   I have read every post in this thread, and posted questions in several others with no improvement in results.  You yourself even mentioned you had no idea how to free a froze GPU in linux.  I have not found a way to kill the process or even detach the module from the kernel without causing a kernel panic.  I was highly dissappointed to find out that I can run my 3 5850's at 950 and my 5870 at 1000 for days on end in Windows without the first freeze.  Linux has never had a great relationship with GPU's (especially ATI).

Please dont get me wrong, I am not trying to minimize what you are doing by helping out in this thread, but I have had no luck in getting the same results in Ubuntu as I have in WIndows, and I absolutely hate that.  This mining rig is actually the only Windows machine in my house (I am running Fedora and RHEL Workstation on my personal machines).  I have read every post, and tried everything in this thread as well as others. I still cannot get my GPU's stable above 800 core in ubuntu.  I am going to try Debian Squeeze 32 bit later tonight, and I may even try a fresh install of Ubuntu Maverick or Lucid since I despise Natty so much.

[Dusty]

Not true.  There are a couple different tools that allow Linux overclocking, which have already been mentioned in this thread.

Which ones?

Personally, I flash the BIOS with RBE and don't even worry about overclocking from the command line.

Can you help me on how to use RBE to overclock an unlocked 6950 to 900Mhz core?[/quote]

Thanks!