5970 power related questions. turns into mining question

[squall1066]

hi all, hope your all good, alot of people ask aboout psu for what card, and i know its much more than wattage, it's amp's, rails, good capasiters and such, i'm trying to get me 5970 in a barebones system mining for me, the problem is i have 2 psu's both 34A, one is 500w one is 550w, but some sites say i need 50A to power this beast, getting another one isnt a prob but i need to make sure before i choose one, there are antec, xfx, ocz that are available near me.

the other question related to this, is when i try the psu's i have, it boots up using on board graphics, (i have monitor plugged into card, but when no display i try others) is this because of underpowered psu or do i have a bigger problem.

I need to know as soon as poss (or things to try) as i am looking to get a psu later today. time is money LOL

[John (John K.)]

Seems to be the underpowered PSU that's the problem. Go for a Gold rated, as high wattage as you can go PSU, preferably from antec. I personally use 1200w psu's regardless on how much GPU's I load in my systems.

[squall1066]

ok, i just needed to know i havent messed up the gpu with low powered psu. the fan spins and even gets hot, but is not used by the system atall, not in system settings. dont think i can afford a 1.2kw psu, but i know what your saying, a little more never hurts.

[John (John K.)]

ATI Radeon™ HD5970 System Requirements:

PCI Express® based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard

650 Watt or greater power supply with one 75 watt, 6-pin and one 150 watt, 8-pin PCI Express® power connectors

850 Watt power supply with two 75 watt 6-pin, and two 150 watt, 8-pin, PCI Express connectors for ATI CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode
------------------------------------------------

Go for 800w I'd say, as the total power intake depends on other components in your system too.

[squall1066]

cool, the problem is i read all that, but they dont advise on amp's, which i beleive to be just as important as wattage, antec do some nice psu's i will look into, do you know what amp's v-rails i should be looking for, its my only reserve now, then i think its cracked.

thanks for quick replys!

[DILLIGAF]

hi all, hope your all good, alot of people ask aboout psu for what card, and i know its much more than wattage, it's amp's, rails, good capasiters and such, i'm trying to get me 5970 in a barebones system mining for me, the problem is i have 2 psu's both 34A, one is 500w one is 550w, but some sites say i need 50A to power this beast, getting another one isnt a prob but i need to make sure before i choose one, there are antec, xfx, ocz that are available near me.

the other question related to this, is when i try the psu's i have, it boots up using on board graphics, (i have monitor plugged into card, but when no display i try others) is this because of underpowered psu or do i have a bigger problem.

I need to know as soon as poss (or things to try) as i am looking to get a psu later today. time is money LOL

For the on board video look in your BIOS for an init video or similar you want to change from what is there now to PEG or PEG2 depending on whether you have one or two slots and which the card is in the first slot then you want PEG, there may even be option to disable the onboard if so choose it. For the power supply you want single 12v rail, Active PFC, 80+ certified and a wattage of at least 500w for single card. I have three of them cards and the most any of them take is 340w from the wall according to my Kill-A-Watt running flat out hashing, this in a basic system stand alone miner with Sempron processor, 1gb ram with all unnecessary items turned off in BIOS single 5970 in the machine.

Edit: The 5970s are run at 800,300 at 1v so if you run at stock you probably need a little more power for yours a good 650 should leave you way more than enough and the amps a power supply needs is dependent on the output as amps x volts = watts of output..

[squall1066]

a kevin bloody wilson fan lol, great nik. he he, afraid i allready went through bios, there is nothing for my ga-8I915G-MF, i have just a hdd and 3 fans, no other devices to keep it low on power as poss, i got the card running in another system with a 1kw psu 80+ rating, so a really good 500W should do it? i got my eye on a antec 600w its 80+ with the connectors i need.

[John (John K.)]

a kevin bloody wilson fan lol, great nik. he he, afraid i allready went through bios, there is nothing for my ga-8I915G-MF, i have just a hdd and 3 fans, no other devices to keep it low on power as poss, i got the card running in another system with a 1kw psu 80+ rating, so a really good 500W should do it? i got my eye on a antec 600w its 80+ with the connectors i need.

As what I've said above, the minimum requirement is 650w. No idea the 600w would work or not, but you could test it out.

[squall1066]

well i went and got the 700w antec, but no joy, i beleive the pci-e port to be not working, i have cleaned and re-seated loads of times, used the 5870 (which was working in this mobo a few weeks ago) and nothing, just keeps booting via onboard vga, so, a new one i think, as i am out of options.

[squall1066]

a further note, think i have solved this, can anyone confirm this :- my mobo only has 1 pci-e slot and i am trying to run a crossfired duel gpu graphics card? is that why it does not detect atall??

[DeathAndTaxes]

depending on the MB you may need to disable onboard video.

Sorry can't help exactly because every BIOS labels things differently.  Should be an option to disable onboard video and/or an option to set primary video device.

The 5970 has a little red light on the backside of the card.  It will light up if it doesn't have sufficient power and disable the card.  So if you don't see a light it should have sufficient power to at least post.

[squall1066]

[quote author=DeathAndTaxes link=topic=76978.msg855107#msg855107 date=1334670982
The 5970 has a little red light on the backside of the card.  It will light up if it doesn't have sufficient power and disable the card.  So if you don't see a light it should have sufficient power to at least post.
[/quote]

i didn't know this! but it does come up with a green light. i have been looking quite hard at manuels and bios screen, there is absolutly no option to do anything with video or init first display, not even a jumper setting.
i think i have lost this battle, thinking of giving up on this 5970, as i need a xfire board, which means a bigger case as i have taken out the hdd racks on a small case to fit this card, i dont fancy spending another 100quid to get it running.

[MrTeal]

I'm running a 5970 at 750/1V along with two 5770s in a P4 rig with a Corsair vx450w (33A 12V rail) and it's hashing along drawing 430W from the wall.

As for running a 5970 in a single x16 slot, I can't see why that would be a problem.

The PSU you're using has 8pin connectors, correct? The card won't wok with just two 6pin connectors.

[DeathAndTaxes]

You don't need a xfire board to use a 5970.  For mining you won't even enable xfire.  A 5970 will work fine in a PCIe1x slot (with converter or extender). 

It either a defective motherboard or a conflict with your onboard video.  Very weird your BIOS has no option to disable the onboard video.  Never seen that before.  If there is a conflict with onboard video and you can't disable it then I guess you are stuck.

The light turning on is not a good sign.  It is indicating a problem with either the power connector or the expansion slot (some power comes from the slot and the BIOS has to let the slot run in high power mode).

[squall1066]

just had another go, bios very basic, can assight irq, lots of sata config, i can set video chip buffer from 1-64mb, but thats it, no off or zero option.

yes the light, as you look in on the 2nd gpu, the top left corner is green, and watching it, goes slightly dim every 2 seconds.

[squall1066]

and another attempt, put a 5870 in and fired up no problems, put the 5970 in another system (crossfire mobo x58chipset) fired up no problems, so basicly its compatability between 5970 and ga-8I915g-mf.

[AzN1337c0d3r]

and another attempt, put a 5870 in and fired up no problems, put the 5970 in another system (crossfire mobo x58chipset) fired up no problems, so basicly its compatability between 5970 and ga-8I915g-mf.

A BIOS update may help you there. Have you tried it yet?

[squall1066]

and another attempt, put a 5870 in and fired up no problems, put the 5970 in another system (crossfire mobo x58chipset) fired up no problems, so basicly its compatability between 5970 and ga-8I915g-mf.

A BIOS update may help you there. Have you tried it yet?

acctually, no, this hasnt crossed my mind, just looked into it, i have version f7 and f8 is the last one, though it is just of cpu compatability, would this help atall? as i have no floppy atall, i would have to make a bootable cd to flash it.

[squall1066]

right, i thought if a 58xx works on this board and the 59xx works on my other board then why not keep it that way!! lol sometimes the obvious answer is staring you in the face,

sorry but i need more help (if someone is kind enough to help me again) i got the 59xx recognised by guiminer, but i can only use one core at a time to mine, when i start other core off it only goes to about 15mhs (thats both way round) its all installed and dummy plugs in, just cant get the full whack.

any ideas please

[Olly_K]

I dont think you need the dummy plug for the 5970. In GUIMiner, have you select the different in each tab ?

One should read

• and the other tab [1]

I have feeling you're using the same core on both tabs