Radeon 5870 am I being throttled? (GPU-z screenshot within)

[evanesce]

Here it is...



Throttled?  The core is usually clocked at 850, not 600, looks like the memory is low too.  Ideas as to what's causing this?  Thanks!

Edit: just fixed grpahic, wasn't loading...

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[crazyates]

Core of 600 and memory of 900? Temps upwards of 95C? If you scroll down, what are you VRM (or VDDC) temps? Those are some screwy looking results...

[evanesce]

Didn't realize there was a second page.  Yeah, it should be 850Mhz, 1200Mhz memory clock.

[crazyates]

First off, reboot your computer. When those 5xxx cards get stuck with those speeds, you need to reboot to reset them.

2nd, what program are you mining with? I'd set your memory speeds to 300, and your temps (and power usage) will go WAY down.

3rd, Your VDDC temps look good, but check on those again when you're mining at 850,300.

[evanesce]

These readings happen a few minutes after the computer is rebooted.  Using phoenix to mine.. I think it's just too damn hot.  Might need to put a window fan in the rig.

[crazyates]

These readings happen a few minutes after the computer is rebooted.  Using phoenix to mine.. I think it's just too damn hot.  Might need to put a window fan in the rig.

After the computer is rebooted, lower your memory clocks straight down to 300. Open GPU-z, and then start mining.

[evanesce]

These readings happen a few minutes after the computer is rebooted.  Using phoenix to mine.. I think it's just too damn hot.  Might need to put a window fan in the rig.

After the computer is rebooted, lower your memory clocks straight down to 300. Open GPU-z, and then start mining.

As soon as I lower the clocks down to 300, the whole system freezes, no blue screen, just frozen video.  RawR!

[foggyb]

try disabling ULPS in registry or with Sapphire Trixx.

Also turn off PCI-E power saving feature in power management.

[evanesce]

try disabling ULPS in registry or with Sapphire Trixx.

Also turn off PCI-E power saving feature in power management.

ULPS helped with the crashing, thanks so much.  I can now downclock the ram without the whole system freezing.

Now only one of my cards is throttling, the reference ATI card.  The sapphire 5870 doesn't throttle.

I have a big box window fan blowing on the case, and that reference card is still at 89-90c not even overclocked on the frequency, and when it hits 94-95c i see it's throttling again.  Argh!  I see fan speed is auto at 53% or so, even at 90-95c... not sure why it's not revving up that fan first before throttling.   

Could you possibly help me further?  Thanks

[crazyates]

try disabling ULPS in registry or with Sapphire Trixx.

Also turn off PCI-E power saving feature in power management.

ULPS helped with the crashing, thanks so much.  I can now downclock the ram without the whole system freezing.

Now only one of my cards is throttling, the reference ATI card.  The sapphire 5870 doesn't throttle.

I have a big box window fan blowing on the case, and that reference card is still at 89-90c not even overclocked on the frequency, and when it hits 94-95c i see it's throttling again.  Argh!  I see fan speed is auto at 53% or so, even at 90-95c... not sure why it's not revving up that fan first before throttling.   

Could you possibly help me further?  Thanks

Try using MSI AB to set a custom fan curve that ramps up at higher temps. I normally use CGMiner to do this, but you're using Phoenix.

[evanesce]

I see that sapphire trixx has a custom fan curve, but correct me if i'm mistaken, it's very buggy with multiple gpu's?  I set the temp/speed curve on one card, it seems to ignore it on the other card, and vice versa.  Afterburner is the way to go you think?

Wow, thanks for the speedy response as well

[crazyates]

I see that sapphire trixx has a custom fan curve, but correct me if i'm mistaken, it's very buggy with multiple gpu's?  I set the temp/speed curve on one card, it seems to ignore it on the other card, and vice versa.  Afterburner is the way to go you think?

Wow, thanks for the speedy response as well

Never used Trixx, and I"ve heard AB was better.

[ssateneth]

Yes, you are being thermal throttled. I have 5870's that did this in the winter (outside rigs, frozen heatpipes = skyrocketing temperatures = throttle). You need to find a way to cool your card better by doing 1 or a combination of these things...

Clean out your fan/heatsink
Increase fan speed
Run reduced core clocks.
Run reduced core voltage.

You can also try re-greasing your heatsink, but you will need to get new thermal pads if it is a reference heatsink because just taking off the heatsink will ruin these pads.
You should also already be underclocking your memory if it is a dedicated miner. 150-200 is good for worksize 128, and 300-380 for worksize 256 (slightly faster, but slightly more electricity)

Also I should note: When your card is thermal throttling, your fan speed profile will be changed to one specific to thermal throttling as well, which is about 55%, even if you fix the fan to a different value. You HAVE to cool the card better (or cause less heat by underclocking/undervolting the gpu core) to prevent this from happening in the first place.

also I only use trixx for software clock/volt management. Yes the auto-fan across multiple gpus was bugged last time I used it, but I run fixed fan speed anyways. I found trixx to be less cumbersome when selecting different cards compared to afterburner, which was a huge plus for me. I recently switched to doing bios flashing instead to set mining clocks without extra software on boot up, so now I only use trixx to find initial max stable core speeds for a gpu before I flash them.

[crazyates]

Yes, you are being thermal throttled. I have 5870's that did this in the winter (outside rigs, frozen heatpipes = skyrocketing temperatures = throttle). You need to find a way to cool your card better by doing 1 or a combination of these things...

Clean out your fan/heatsink
Increase fan speed
Run reduced core clocks.
Run reduced core voltage.

You can also try re-greasing your heatsink, but you will need to get new thermal pads if it is a reference heatsink because just taking off the heatsink will ruin these pads.
You should also already be underclocking your memory if it is a dedicated miner. 150-200 is good for worksize 128, and 300-380 for worksize 256 (slightly faster, but slightly more electricity)

Also I should note: When your card is thermal throttling, your fan speed profile will be changed to one specific to thermal throttling as well, which is about 55%, even if you fix the fan to a different value. You HAVE to cool the card better (or cause less heat by underclocking/undervolting the gpu core) to prevent this from happening in the first place.

Undervolting can do wonders for cooling a card, but the power difference from going from 160mem to 300mem is almost negligible.

[ssateneth]

Yes, you are being thermal throttled. I have 5870's that did this in the winter (outside rigs, frozen heatpipes = skyrocketing temperatures = throttle). You need to find a way to cool your card better by doing 1 or a combination of these things...

Clean out your fan/heatsink
Increase fan speed
Run reduced core clocks.
Run reduced core voltage.

You can also try re-greasing your heatsink, but you will need to get new thermal pads if it is a reference heatsink because just taking off the heatsink will ruin these pads.
You should also already be underclocking your memory if it is a dedicated miner. 150-200 is good for worksize 128, and 300-380 for worksize 256 (slightly faster, but slightly more electricity)

Also I should note: When your card is thermal throttling, your fan speed profile will be changed to one specific to thermal throttling as well, which is about 55%, even if you fix the fan to a different value. You HAVE to cool the card better (or cause less heat by underclocking/undervolting the gpu core) to prevent this from happening in the first place.

Undervolting can do wonders for cooling a card, but the power difference from going from 160mem to 300mem is almost negligible.

Hmm, think I will test that right now actually.. Going to note here 900 watts exactly with a 7 Cypress GPU rig and 2.36 ghash @ 150mem across (almost) all cards; 1 is 159 because it clocks really good at 0.95v. Lets see what happens with 256 worksize and adjusted memory... posting back in a bit

edit: it'll take a good deal of memory tweaking to get the right memory timings.. Cant only do 2.34 ghash with worksize 256 and memory at 299-309 across low (725ish)/high (810) clocked cards. Power is at 915 watts too.

[QiVX]

Wait are those the temps when your clocked at 600?

Because if that is, when your clocked at 900 the temps would be way higher.

[ssateneth]

Wait are those the temps when your clocked at 600?

Because if that is, when your clocked at 900 the temps would be way higher.

He's not clocking to 600 on purpose. When it clocks to 600 core and 900 memory, it is in thermal throttle mode. He needs to fix his cooling/heat issues first by doing 1 or a combination of the solutions I gave earlier.

[evanesce]

Yeah, the 600 is automated.  When it enters throttle mode, it also UPclocks the RAM to 900mhz, stupid thing heh...  I got it to work finally by using a big walmart case window fan with open case door... but that fan is using a whopping 70w on low, not too efficient mining until i figure out something better...

Any suggestion on how low I can downclock the voltage?  Do you know what the stock voltage is on these 5870's?  I can't seem to find it.  What is a safe voltage to try? 

[crazyates]

I think my stock voltage was 1.163 on my PowerColor 5870. I had it running at 925,300 @ 1.000V tho.

Funny thing about those 5870s, tho. The voltage actually only has a few settings, and it jumps between them.

>= 0.950
0.951-1.000
1.001-1.050

Beyond that, i'm not sure.

Try setting it to 1.000V @ 850MHz, and see what happens.

[ssateneth]

Yes, volterra voltage regulators indeed have steps to their voltage settings. Don't be fooled by software overclocking utilities that say otherwise. You can find out what these steps are in radeon bios editor (RBE) under the clocks tab > GPU registers. For me, my steps are 0.95 > 1.0625 > 1.15 > 1.1625. If you flash a voltage between one of these steps, it will run at the next highest step (if you flash 0.97v, it will actually run at 1.0625v, confirmed by hwinfo).

Anyways, you can change operating voltage with Sapphire Trixx, or you can flash them with RBE. Afterburner will probably work too, but its a little more cumbersome to get it to work the way you need it to.