April 22nd, 2013 
CryptoBadger 
My optimized rig: nearly 2 Mh/sec @ only 680 watts of power.
This fourth installment of our litecoin mining guide will focus on getting the most out of your hardware—finding the sweet spot between maximum performance and acceptable power usage (and noise/heat generation!).
The tweaks that I outline in this article are applicable whether you’re using Linux or Windows. If you’re using the hardware that was recommended in the first part of this guide (or very similar hardware), you should expect to see a performance increase of 10% or more in your litecoin mining hashrate, compared to the baseline cgminer settings that were given in our Linux and Windows setup guides.
In addition to increasing your mining speed, I’ll also show you how to set up a backup mining pool to automatically failover to in case your primary pool becomes unavailable. There is nothing worse than having your mining rig(s) sit idle because your pool went down!
Click “read more” for our mining performance optimization guide!
Build a Litecoin Mining Rig, part 4: Optimization
I want to preface this guide with a strong recommendation that anyone following it have access to a Kill-A-Watt
With that said, if you don’t have a kill-a-watt, but you do have the same hardware that I recommend in the first part of this mining guide, then you can be relatively confident that all of the tweaks below will result in positive monetary gains for you (at current litecoin prices and mining difficulty, anyway).
Overclock your GPU(s)
Overclocking your video cards will likely result in the largest overall mining gains, and it can be done right from within cgminer in most cases. Some cards are more overclockable than others (the MSI 7950
Disclaimer: overclocking beyond factory default settings may cause system instability, harm your hardware, and/or invalidate your warranty. The author assumes no responsibility if you fry your computer.
The best way to find your ideal clock speeds is to start cgminer, and press “G” while it is running to open the (G)PU menu. From there, press “C” to (C)hange settings (and then press “0” to select your first GPU if you have more than one).
cgminer GPU settings: use the (E)ngine and (M)emory options to change your video card’s core and memory clock speeds, respectively.
You should be looking at a screen similar to the one shown above. From here, use the “E” and “M” keys to slowly push your GPU core and memory clock speeds upwards. I recommend increments of about 25Mhz at a time, with a 1-2 minute pause after each change to observe the effect on hashrate performance and stability. Don’t forget to check your kill-a-watt for changes in power consumption, too. For best results, keep your memory clocked about a third higher than your core speed.
You’ll know you’ve gone too high when one of the following occurs:
- Your GPU (or computer) simply crashes or hangs. You may require a system reboot at this point (a cold boot is best).
- You start to see hardware errors (watch the “HW” column next to the GPU that you’re overclocking—if it’s higher than zero, you’re probably too high).
- Your last clock speed increment brought only very small (or no) hashrate gains compared to the previous increases.
When any of these things happens, drop the clock speeds back down a bit and try to find the sweet spot where your system is stable and hashrates are highest. When you’ve found settings that you’re happy with, add them to your cgminer startup script (mine_litecoins.sh in Linux, or mine_litecoins.bat in Windows) with these switches:
--gpu-engine [YOUR CORE CLOCK SPEED] --gpu-memclock [YOUR MEMORY CLOCK SPEED]If you’re using the recommended hardware, then 1050 core / 1250 memory should give you excellent results while still allowing you to undervolt significantly. If you’re using Windows and MSI Afterburner, you should set your Afterburner clock and memory speeds to match your new cgminer settings.
Tweak cgminer settings for performance and noise management
Another easy way to increase hashrates is to modify your cgminer settings. The easiest and most obvious setting to change is the intensity, which controls how aggressively your GPUs are scanned by cgminer. If you’re using 7950 GPUs, go ahead and increase this to the maximum of 20 (on other GPUs, 20 may result in lower hashrates, or errors). You can do that by simply changing the -- I 19 in your cgminer startup script to -- I 20. Again, monitor cgminer’s output for awhile with the new setting in place to make sure that your hashrate moved in the right direction, and everything is stable.
If you don’t have the luxury of being able to tuck your mining rig someplace where it is out of earshot, you may have noticed that the fans are quite loud at default settings. To help control the noise, add these settings to your startup script:
--temp-target 80 --auto-fanThis tells cgminer to automatically control all of your GPU fans, and that 80C is the target temperature. The fans should work at about half speed or less whenever your GPUs are below your target, which should make them quite a bit less noisy. Using these settings, the recommended hardware, and the plastic crate build I described in part 1 of this guide, my GPUs hover around 78C at fans speeds of 30-40% (the ambient room temperature is kept at 72F). The rig is certainly audible, but it’s a far cry from the jet engine that it sounds like if the GPU driver is allowed to manage the fans.
Set up a failover / backup mining pool
Nothing will kill your mining performance faster than an unavailable pool. It doesn’t matter what your potential hashrate is if your miner isn’t constantly being fed work to do!
I highly recommend signing up at a second mining pool so that you can use it as an automatic failover whenever your primary pool isn’t reachable. I’m currently using give-me-ltc as my primary pool, and Coinotron as my backup, and that combination has resulted in no gaps in my mining time in over two weeks. Whatever you do, just stay away from notroll.in and do your research on the pool(s) that you choose!
To tell cgminer about your backup pool, simply add this to your startup script, at the end (substitute the pool URL/port and your credentials!):
--failover-only -o stratum+tcp://backup-pool.com:3333 -u user -p passwordNow you’re covered if your primary pool goes down for whatever reason. Whenever it does come back up, cgminer will switch back to it automatically.
You can actually add as many backup pools as you want by simply listing more pools after the “–failover-only” switch; cgminer will use them in the order that they’re listed.
My cgminer startup settings
If you’re using the same hardware as me, and just want to copy & paste my cgminer settings (remember to substitute your pools & login credentials, though!), here they are:
cgminer --scrypt -I 20 -g 1 -w 256 --thread-concurrency 24000 --gpu-engine 1050 --gpu-memclock 1250 --gpu-vddc 1.087 --temp-target 80 --auto-fan -o stratum+tcp://stratum.give-me-ltc.com:3333 -u [YOUR USERNAME] -p [YOUR PASSWORD] --failover-only -o stratum+tcp://coinotron.com:3334 -u [YOUR USERNAME] -p [YOUR PASSWORD]
The “–gpu-vddc 1.087” switch tells cgminer to attempt to undervolt all GPUs to 1087 mV, but whether or not it actually works depends on your card’s BIOS and driver. In Windows, using MSI Afterburner gives you a much better chance of successfully controlling GPU voltage, but unfortunately in Linux you’re probably out of luck if cgminer can’t do it (update 10/2013: undervolting is now possible in linux as well).
With these settings and the hardware I recommended, you should get at least 1940 kH/sec in cgminer. Power consumption should be around 720 watts in Windows (after undervolting), and slightly over 800 watts in Linux. Individual results will vary a little bit, but those are realistic expectations.
Some cards (including the MSI that I recommend) can definitely be pushed more than these clock settings, especially at stock voltage settings (you may also want to check my FAQ for settings for some other popular mining cards). Whether or not the extra heat/noise/power consumption makes the corresponding hashrate increase worthwhile is up to you to determine. Which brings us to:
Analyzing the cost/benefit of different setups
Perhaps you’ve found that you can push your particular 7950 to 1150Mhz core / 1575Mhz memory clock speeds, provided you leave the voltage at stock settings. This nets you an additional 30 kH/sec of hashing speed at a cost of ~50 additional watts. How can you decide whether or not that is a good trade-off?
There are a few handy online calculators that are built to answer exactly these kinds of questions. Here is the best one that I’ve come across. Simply plug in your information, and the calculator will tell you how much daily (or weekly, or monthly, etc) profit you can expect. Change the values to other configurations that you’re considering and watch the profit number go up or down.
In the next and final installment of the litecoin mining guide, I’ll post a mining FAQ and some other tidbits that didn’t fit anywhere else. Until then, thanks for reading, and feel free to leave questions or comments!
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Hey, what happened?? Everything was working just fine for three days and all of a sudden all three cards shut down…can not get cgminer started again…have xubuntu working…using all the script from the set up here …hashiing average between 580 & 600 each card showing average on pool of 1700 PLUS…
3 Sapphire Radeon HD7950s on ASRock 970 EX4 with Seasonic 1250W Gold 80 plus.. pulling about 900W at the wall…
Do not have cards on risers yet but temps were running 78, 81,78 on average with a fan blowing directly over the rig.
Any ideas where to start looking..already tried reboot and entering
./miner_launcher.sh….NO LUCK there.
Happy new year!
Edwardf, had similar symptoms way back back when I first started… sadly, it was a simple case of the Pool being down for unannounced maintenance issues. Have you tried a different Pool? I may be completely off track but it couldn’t hurt… what else have you done to troubleshoot?
Phil, I considered that but when I checked the pool everything looked ok and I did not see any signs of a shutdown. I am looking at other smaller pools to try. It seems that a very large hash rate is needed to earn any coins in a large pool. I did a lot of different things to look for the problem including clearing the CMOS on the mobo and doing “reset”. Then I went back to the beginning of setup and checked the driver installation on through to the scripts, etc…finally after working for a while I was able to reboot and everything is going well now. I go the temps down to
77-78-77 most of the time although it varies. I had to open a window to let some cold air in so the fan could do a better job. I am waiting for risers now and then will finish the build.
you burned the card man
anonymous?
No, did not burn the card! It was the pool shut down momentarily I think.
Anyway I check all my settings and rebooted..all is well. Have since
made some adjustments to bios and clock settings for better hashing.
Still have not been able to under-volt Sapphire HD7950 cards below 1.125mv and maintain for a long period of time. I have one card that is always 8 to 10 degrees hotter than the other two and it’s fan speed is always at a lower RPM than the other two. Don’t know why unless it is just the nature of that one card…all my cards were purchased used but had been overclocked.
Hello, I have an odd problem in a rig which is a 280x & a 7950. The optimal settings for these 2 cards require “-g 2” and “-g 1” respectively but since cgminer doesn’t allow multiple card settings for GPUthreads, I can’t launch cgminer with a batch or config file. If I try launching cgminer with -d 0 or -d 1 to run each card individually, one of the cards hash rates will drop like a rock almost instantly and never recoup. Any ideas??
You have run two instances of cgminer by specifying -d 0 and -d 1 to tell it which card to start.
Great guide!
Thank you!
This is my first attempt at mining and the guides have been very helpful. I’m running Linux and decided to go with a 7850 card to be sure that I could really get things working before I invested in a more expensive card. I’ve had Coinotron running for about a few days now as I try different settings and have some questions.
1. As I make my changes, should I be guided by the hash rate showing in cgminer or at Coinotron? They can be dramatically different and Coinotron is all over the place even when I’m not making any changes.
2. In looking at additional cards, which would be the better choice; 2×7850’s for about $380 which together give 2048 shaders and 4Gb of VRAM
-OR-
one 7950 for about $460 with 1760 shaders and 3GB of VRAM? The various stock clock speeds between the two don’t seem that different.
In other words, do things scale up in a linear fashion or is there an additional benefit in mining (perhaps when the difficulty rises) of having it all on one card.
Thanks for any insights that you can provide. And thanks again for the great guides.
Hi great guide to start off. I am stuck with 400kh+ on my 2nd 280x but the first 280x is 740kh. What actually went wrong anyone can help?
cgminer –scrypt -o url -u worker -p 2468 -d 0 -d 1 -g 2 –lookup-gap 2,2 –thread-concurrency 8193,8193 -I 13,13 -w 256,156 –auto-fan –gpu-fan 30-85,30-85 –temp-cutoff 90,90 –temp-overheat 85,85 –temp-target 70,70 –gpu-memclock 1500,1500 –gpu-engine 1080,1080 –gpu-powertune -20,-20 –failover-only -o url -u worker -p 2468
Your worker -w 256,156 should be 256,256
Tong, are you only using two cards ?
i have 3 x 7950’s just like in the guide.
the first two are giving me 500-600 KH/s but the third is only getting about 250-300kH/s.
What is the significance of the -w 256,256 ?
What do these set, and can I do the same with my settings ?
i have the exact same settings as shown in the guide optimisation.
My power supply is a Corsair RM1000 Gold
Any ideas ?
Anybody ?
-joan
Hi, i have 3 x XFX DD Radeon HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 Graphics Cards, will your cgminer scrypt work for me. Im having difficulty setting mine up. Tempretures reaching 100c getting worried is the normal?. My scrypt im using is
-I 18 -g 1 -w 256 –thread concurrency 21712 –gpu-engine 1000 –gpu-memlock 1500 –temp-target 70 –auto-fan and obtaining about 1050 KH/S
please can someone help me, thank you
Danny, XFX cards seem to be less suited for mining, and more prone to get hot faster than for example Sapphire, HIS, MSI. That said, working with what you have, temps above 80 will bring on trouble for any of them.
Aim for 78 max temp on any card. Try starting at the lowest settings in the guide, e 850 m 1250,Intensity 19, point a box fan on high at your rig, don’t use powertune at this point, which greatly increases hashing but also heat! Try your rig at these settings and monitor their numbers in your cgm screen while the rig is working in the pool.
Gradually increase your engine and memclock settings 25 points at a time, and give them 3-5 minutes between changes to watch the temp change. If they don’t send up the temps too bad at any point, change to Intensity 20 and see how it goes. You may or may not be able to use powertune with them, and 3 may be the highest you can set powertune if you are able to use it. Also google your problem and skim through all the threads on this site to read what others know about XFX cards and this situation.
Good Luck!
Good
Danny, if you’re not using cgminer, I def recommend that you do, and I recommend cgminer 3.7.2
Just for the record, you dont need to duplicate same values for each setting, if both cards use same concurrency and or worksize and or what else just write down one input.. exampl:
(-d 0 -d 1 not necessary if you actualy are using only 2 cards)
cgminer –scrypt -o url -u worker -p 2468 -g 2 –lookup-gap 2 –thread-concurrency 8193 -I 13 -w 256 –auto-fan –gpu-fan 30-85 –temp-cutoff 90 –temp-overheat 85 –temp-target 70 –gpu-memclock 1500 –gpu-engine 1080 -gpu-powertune -20 –failover-only -o url -u worker -p 2468
both cards, or 3 cards even will work at exactly same configurations..
Omg my bad. Thanks man!!
Hello I have problems with my 6xgpu rig, I have 6 GPU connected to my MSI z77a g-45 with powered risers PCI-E but the cgminer only recognizes 5… Seems I have to make some workaround in the motherboard, or it could be just some driver’s issue? I have Windows8, any solution would be really helpful.
Thanks
I seem to remember reading somewhere that windows will only recognize 5 cards.
So… I should move to Linux?
MSI R9 270 OC Edition seems very stable at 1.038V.
http://imgur.com/J0A4her
WOW really? I can’t even drop mine 25 mV without them crashing. Stock is 1.206V and that’s all I can run them at. What are your miner settings? I’m doing 1080/1500 for about 455 KH/s.
cgminer –scrypt -I 19 –gpu-engine 1050 –gpu-memclock 1500 –temp-target 73 –temp-overheat 80 –auto-fan –thread-concurrency 10240 –gpu-powertune 20 –gpu-vddc 1.038 –no-submit-stale
It took 3 weeks of tweaking.
Until I set TC to 10240 (8×1280 shaders) I often had instability. Evenso, setting the core above 1050 resulted in unpredictable sick/dead cards. Sometimes it would run great (~470kH/s) at 1125MHz for 8-10 hours then suddenly crash. I’m more interested in stability than max hash rate so 1050MHz works out just fine for me.
cgminer –scrypt -I 19 –gpu-engine 1050 –gpu-memclock 1500 –temp-target 73 –temp-overheat 80 –auto-fan –thread-concurrency 10240 –gpu-powertune 20 –gpu-vddc 1.038 –no-submit-stale
It took 3 weeks of tweaking.
Until I set TC to 10240 (8×1280 shaders) I often had instability. Evenso, setting the core above 1050 resulted in unpredictable sick/dead cards. Sometimes it would run great (~470kH/s) at 1125MHz for 8-10 hours then suddenly crash. I’m more interested in stability than max hash rate so 1050MHz works out just fine for me.
Thanks! Got it, finally. It seems with the Gaming 270x any bios voltage modification causes me a blue screen instantly when any load is put on the GPUs … I’ve got the drop maxxed out with Afterburner though at -96 mV or so and they’re screaming along happily, 5 and 8 degrees cooler than they were! -I 19 does indeed seem to be the sweet spot, but for me an 18k TC seems to perform better than 10k.
Shame I can’t top ~750 kH/s (combined) with -g 2 -I 13 no matter what I try. When I switched my Tri-X 280Xs from high intensity single thread to -I 13 -g 2 they produced the exact same hashrate but were running quite a bit cooler.
Had to RMA one of my cards and after that I couldn’t get the second above 350 kH/s no matter what I tried. I searched around and found some settings on a reddit thread that are giving me my best results yet (after modifying the intensity to 19 to 20) –
–gpu-powertune 20 –auto-gpu –auto-fan –gpu-memclock 1500 –gpu-engine 1140 –scrypt -I 19 –thread-concurrency 15508 -w 256
480 kH/s average, stable for 13 hours now, 74 degrees with the fan only going 1036 RPM!
I’ve only got the one 270X in there now, but I threw a 650 Ti Boost I had lying around in to the free slot while I wait for my other 270X to be returned, and it’s running at 86 degrees, so I think when I put the other 270x back in case heat isn’t going to increase much, if at all, and I should be able to maintain these settings! Will post an update when I get back to two cards … should hopefully be another week or so at most.
HI i have 2 msi r9 280x, but cgminer is only picking 1 of the cards.. any ideas on how to start the second one..
Also could any one share your cgminer setings for 2x 280x..
Many Thanks
Check your dummy plugs first. I had 1 card stop being recognised all of a sudden and after fiddling with dummy plug out starter again. Also try re enabling them LSA config? As per guide.
Is there anyway to turn one of my 2 gpu’s off in cgminer so I can use it to do other stuff while only 1 of them mines? please help…
-d 0 or -d 1, whichever you select will mine, the other will not. You’ll have to relaunch with -d 0,1 or omit -d when you want to resume using both.
You can also do it while cgminer is running from the GPU menu (G), disable (D), and select the one you want to turn off. Do the same but enable (E) when you want to resume.
This place is a gold mine of information, but I have a weird issue that I’ve not seen mentioned before that I can find.
Have a very common setup (3 Sapphire Radeon HD7950s on ASRock 970 EX4), with two on powered risers and one directly in a mb pciex16. The fans on two just sit there at about 95% (~4600rpm), regardless of what Afterburner or Catalyst say (or try and set). One card reacts to temperature as expected, and the obvious culprit is the risers, but no-one else seems to have this issue. Any thoughts anyone?
Are they 16x-16x risers? If so, I don’t believe they should need powering…?
When I’ve had extra power going into a card through it’s PCI-e slot (by accidentally turning off the main PSU, but not an auxiliary one that was powering the riser).. then the fans have gone crazy.
So, what happens if you put the cards direct in the slot, or, if you use unpowered risers? (not sure if you can remove the power from a 16x-16x riser and it still function?)
Just some rough idea, not sure how helpful it’ll be… but thought I’d try!
Hey.
Thanks for your guide. I am running into a pretty strange behaviour.
Used your config with a Sapphire Radeon HD7950 with boost running on ASRock 970 EX4 using Enermax 1000watt platinum.
That gave me about 600 to 650. Now I added an second 7950 (same type) hoping to get about 1200. I used the same config for both of the cards but not using a crossfirebridge and without risers yet. What i got was both cards running a 320 average…
Any ideas ? Played along with the config without any success :/
Thanks
I had some strange issues like that when I was CPU mining at the same time. Having my system memory at less than optimal speeds has also impacted my hashrate on my GPUs before too. While they don’t use system memory to mine, I guess the speed that work gets from the NIC to the GPU’s memory via the system has an effect or something … and yes, it only happened when I had two cards going – with a single card mining, I was able to CPU mine at the same time with zero issues … so, are you CPU mining or doing something else CPU intensive?
Hey Hyacin.
Thanks for your quick answer. I am neither cpumining nor is CPU used for something but Ubuntu and cgminer. So it seems it is a different problem 🙁
One more info.
If i disable 1 GPU in the cgminer while running the remaining one goes right up to 600+. Reenabling the 2nd again brings both down to 300 again…
Ok.
It is working now.
Solution was to simply install catalyst 13.11 ! Working like a charme.
1250 average
Hey – I have the same set-up and also had your issue. I solved it in a similar way by switching to Xubuntu 12.4, My problem now is that I’m not getting a good hashrate. Would you mind sharing your miner settings? And do you have the ‘boost’ button pressed? Thanks.
Mole, That is not a boost button if you mean the one that is on top near the front end of the card and has a blue light. That is the switch to switch Bios settings on the card. If you want to undervolt the cards, you should read the section in CryptoBadger very carefully before you start. Pressing the button changes from primary bios to secondary bios and you should never try to change both of them. Always keep one at factory default settings or you may not be able to use the card.
If I have all of them pressed when I’m adjusting settings is that okay? (ie I don’t change the primary bios). However, I did originally set up the rig without the buttons pressed – does this mean I’ve already messed with the primary bios? I haven’t tried to undervolt on either yet.
Mole,
The bios would not be affected by changing the settings in your mining script, only when you use ATIflash to change the voltage.
I have not had any success lowering the voltage down to 1.094v. Even though it is set at 1.087v in the mining script does not effect the bios settings of the cards themselves from what I have read here in CryptoBadger.
I think that the Sapphire HD 7950 cards are set at 1.250V in the bios from the manufacturer. I have purchased some used cards that had a different setting so I am guessing that someone changed it along the way.
It’s my understanding that you start up a worker for each GPU however I can’t find any examples of a start up script that will do that. I can see how to modify the cgminer.cfg to handle multiple cards but not how to start the pool and miners.
Thanks for any help you can provide.
No.
One worker per rig.
SC,
The common guidance from the pools is to register as one worker per rig. Register at the pool, go to “my workers”, you will probably see your login name on the page with a line or box behind it. There will be a period behind the name, put “1” behind the period, then put “x” in the pw line. My worker example would be -u ezpacer.1 -pw x. then in nano mine_litecoins.sh, enter that in your user and pw fields. Put the pool address in after the stratum+tcp:\\ as shown in the guide, exit and fire her up. Good mining!
Actually I have one worker for two rigs. Never thought that one thru when I set up the second rig, just used the same worker name and password so the two are working together. Is that not a good idea?
Nope.
Several reasons… most importantly (IMHO) to monitor individual rig output.
Phil,
I was monitoring each rig using Putty on my desktop computer or laptop; however, that was probably not a good indication of how they were performing on the pool. I changed today so now each rig is a separate worker and the net combined hashrate on the pool is still the same on average. The pool automatically combines the two workers to show total hashrat but there is a window to show each worker’s hashrate at any given time. Thanks for the heads up.
As you add more rigs they can be xxx.2, xxx.3 etc.
Hi there. Currently I have a rig running 3 cards off the full length pcie slots and they run fine. But when I try to run 1 card off the shorter pcie slot with a riser, powered and non powered. Msi afterburner does not detect it nor windows. I tried reinstalling the drivers but still the same.
Cgminer detects it though but it’s running only at 50khs instead the normal 360khs. I’m running a 750w cosair gold power supply which is more than enough power.
Hi,
I’d be really grateful for some advice. I have 3xSapphire 7950s and all the components specified in Cryptobadger’s guide. I followed the set up exactly as described and am using the software versions specified. I am not running dummy plugs.
CG Miner fires up on start-up but GPU 2 always shows up as ‘OFF’. I have swapped the GPUs but whichever one is in the 2-slot is always ‘OFF’. Also, GPU 0 and 1 are running very low hashrates. When I disable one of them it goes up a lot. If I try and disable GPU 0 or 1 and then enable 2 then I get a message ‘Screen is Terminating’. If I then try restarting CG Miner I get a message saying “there is no screen to be attached matching cgm”.
Any advice?
Post startup config please.
Hi Hyacin,
Please forgive my ignorance but I am new to linux – what command to I need to find this for you?
Miner startup config I mean. Did the instructions you followed tell you to create a .sh file or anything like that? How do you start your miner? If you run a file, post the relevant parts of the file (or the whole file if you’re not sure which parts are relevant) … if you click a button, then you’ll need to let us know what the button says (and thus what program you’re running) for someone to be able to tell you where to find the config.
Mole,
I’m not technically knowledgeable enough to tell you the cause, but here are suggestions that may get you past it.
1. use a 1x riser to be able to test the function in the other two slots.
(a 1x riser will work in any of the pci-e slots, long or short)
2. download cgminer 3.7.2 and use instead of 2.11.4
3. redo initial command with “force” entry
(sudo aticonfig -f – -adapter=all – -initial)
4.run “export DISPLAY=:0” and “sudo aticonfig – -adapter=all – -odgt” to see if all are recognized by system.
5. switch bios to number 2 with the switch on the nonworking card ( if it also doesn’t work when tested in other slots.)The location on Sapphire cards of the switch is about an inch back from the front, on the top. it slides on older 7950’s and pushes and lights on recent ones. Don’t know about other brands. Keep at it!
Just wondering if anyone could help me. I have 3xSapphire 7950s and all the components specified in Cryptobadger’s guide. I followed the set up exactly as described and am using the software versions specified. I am not running dummy plugs.
CG Miner fires up on start-up but GPU 2 always shows up as ‘OFF’. I have swapped the GPUs but whichever one is in the 2-slot is always ‘OFF’. Also, GPU 0 and 1 are running very low hashrates. When I disable one of them it goes up a lot. If I try and disable GPU 0 or 1 and then enable 2 then I get a message ‘Screen is Terminating’. If I then try restarting CG Miner I get a message saying “there is no screen to be attached matching cgm”.
My config is:
#!/bin/sh
export DISPLAY=:0
export GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT=100
export GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS=1
cd /home/USERNAME/cgminer-2.11.4-x86_64-built
./cgminer –scrypt -I 19 –thread-concurrency 21712 -o stratum+tcp://usa2.wemineltc.com:3335 -u USERNAME -p PASSWORD
I think only one card is actually mining despite what it says in CG Miner…
Any advice much appreciated!
For the benefit of others who might have had the same issue, the problem turned out to be some kind of conflict between Xubuntu 13.10 and the latest AMD Catalyst (13.12). After several false starts I installed Xubuntu 12.04 and everything fired up first time.
Other complete beginners like me might also me interested to note that when reinstalling the OS it is important to clear the ‘known hosts’ file (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1861839) or the ssh remote log in won’t work.
On to optimisation…
I’m ssh-ing into a the rig from terminal and start the miner by typing ‘cgm’
Ok, so type –
which cgm
That will show you the path to the startup script, then when you get that type –
cat /path/to/startup/script
e.g. – cat /usr/local/bin/cbm
Then paste the contents of that file 🙂
When I type ‘which cgm’ nothing happens. But if I type ‘cgm’ I get the CG Miner display.
Might be an alias … try –
alias | grep cgm
I get: alias cgm=’screen -x cgm’
Oi.
Yeah, I don’t know then … cgm is obviously doing something, and it’s obviously in your path if the alias doesn’t have a fully qualified path … my last shot at it is this –
sudo find / -name cgm -print 2>/dev/null
If that doesn’t find it for you we’ll have to wait for someone to come along who’s familiar with your setup. Is it a BAMT box or something?
Hey, finally figured out how to find my miner config:
#!/bin/sh
export DISPLAY=:0
export GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT=100
export GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS=1
cd /home/USERNAME/cgminer-2.11.4-x86_64-built
./cgminer –scrypt -I 19 –thread-concurrency 21712 -o stratum+tcp://usa2.wemineltc.com:3335 -u USERNAME -p PASSWORD
Also I think that although CG Miner says 2 out of the 3 cards are working actually only one of them is actually mining…
Any help much appreciated
Hyacin, I’m really grateful for your efforts – I have to go to work now (already bunked off the morning trying to sort this out!). I’ll get back on it as soon as I’m back this evening if that’s okay. Thanks again for the help so far.
Hi, i have 3 x XFX DD Radeon HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 Graphics Cards, i need the correct cgminer scrypt that will work for me. Im having difficulty setting mine up. Tempretures reaching 100c getting worried is the normal?. My scrypt im using is
-I 18 -g 1 -w 256 –thread concurrency 21712 –gpu-engine 1000 –gpu-memlock 1500 –temp-target 70 –auto-fan and obtaining about 1050 KH/S
please can someone help me, thank you
Danny, XFX cards seem to be less suited for mining, and more prone to get hot faster than for example Sapphire, HIS, MSI. That said, working with what you have, temps above 80 will bring on trouble for any of them.
Aim for 78 max temp on any card. Try starting at the lowest settings in the guide, e 850 m 1250,Intensity 19, point a box fan on high at your rig, don’t use powertune at this point, which greatly increases hashing but also heat! Try your rig at these settings and monitor their numbers in your cgm screen while the rig is working in the pool. (Remember that you will do your changes in the cgm screen Hit “G” then “C” then choose and enter your values as prompted.) Once you’re satisfied with the settings you can go back to your nano mine_litecoins.sh and enter them in the scrypt settings so they take effect every startup.
Gradually increase your engine and memclock settings 25 points at a time, and give them 3-5 minutes between changes to watch the temp change. If they don’t send up the temps too bad at any point, change to Intensity 20 and see how it goes. You may or may not be able to use powertune with them, and 3 may be the highest you can set powertune if you are able to use it. Also google your problem and skim through all the threads on this site to read what others know about XFX cards and this situation.
Good Luck!
Good
Danny, I recommend cgminer 3.7.2, and, do you have your cards on risers and well separated?
Hi, Thank you for the info. I will try this and see what the outcome will be. I am using cgminer 3.7.2 and my graphic cards are inside the PC tower stacked together. Do you think i should open it up and leave the panels off?
Thanks D
You should definitely open it up and let the air circulate properly.
Just wondering if anyone could help me. I have 3xSapphire 7950s and all the components specified in Cryptobadger’s guide. I followed the set up exactly as described and am using the software versions specified. I am not running dummy plugs.
CG Miner fires up on start-up but GPU 2 always shows up as ‘OFF’. I have swapped the GPUs but whichever one is in the 2-slot is always ‘OFF’. Also, GPU 0 and 1 are running very low hashrates. When I disable one of them it goes up a lot. If I try and disable GPU 0 or 1 and then enable 2 then I get a message ‘Screen is Terminating’. If I then try restarting CG Miner I get a message saying “there is no screen to be attached matching cgm”.
My config is:
#!/bin/sh
export DISPLAY=:0
export GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT=100
export GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS=1
cd /home/USERNAME/cgminer-2.11.4-x86_64-built
./cgminer –scrypt -I 19 –thread-concurrency 21712 -o stratum+tcp://usa2.wemineltc.com:3335 -u USERNAME -p PASSWORD
I think only one card is actually mining despite what it says in CG Miner…
Any advice much appreciated!
Hello Mole,
Have you sorted your problem out yet ?
I have the same rig as you do, 3 x Sapphire HD7950’s with a 1000W PS., and it works fine.
I use cgminer 3.7.2 , maybe you should consider upgrading.
In my rig, I can detect all 3 cards, but one of them, GPU2 is always running at half the hash rate of the others. I’m still working on that, and once you get up and running, maybe we can compare notes.
You can check what hash rate you are getting by looking at your pool website stats.
Anyway, do you have any other PCI-e cards that you could stick into slot2 of your motherboard to see if it works ? It soulds a bit like a dodgey motherboard to me.
Hey Joan,
Thanks for the feedback. I tried a bunch of stuff and eventually found switching to Xubuntu 12.4 got all the cards up and running.
What hashrate do you get with your 7950s? I’ve been struggling to push 520 kh/s even with plenty of tweaking to cgminer config…
Hello Mole,
in my script I have:
Thread-concurrency: 24000
Engine : 1100k
Memoryclock : 1450k
I : 20
My GPU’s are showing:
No.0 590kH/s – 610kH/s at 78deg.
No. 1 590kH/s – 610kH/s at 78deg.
No. 2 290kH/s – 300kH/s at 60deg.
My pool is showing me to be hashing at between 1300kH/s and 1640kH/s. I don’t really understand the big difference.
I also took out my Card No.2 and put it into a PC and ran it for a day in my backup pool.
Working on its own this card was giving me aboy 500kH/s – 535kH/s.
Funny enough, but the two remaining cards on my rig dropped from their previous levels to about 500kH/s each.
I fail to understand anything here.
Optimising these cards is more like witchcraft than it is engineering.
usually the GPU’s that aren’t plugged into a monitor or dummy plug say off.
Thanks but I found that by changing the version of Xubuntu to 12.4 everything worked fine without dummy plugs (or a monitor for that matter).
I recently reconfigured my rig using a PVC frame to allow for better airflow and to allow up to 5 or 6 GPU’s. When I re-installed the hardware, I changed the order of the GPU’s. I ran aticonfig with the -f and also with the –initial command and the system recognizes and mines with all the cards. However, whereas before, the cards had an order of 0, 1, 2 in cgminer with respect to the order of the cards on the MB. Slot 1 was GPU0, slot 2 was GPU 1, and so on. NOW, slot 2 is GPU0, slot 3 is GPU 1 and slot 1 is GPU 2. This makes for a slightly messy setup for me. I’ve tried physically re-ordering the GPU’s, but I can’t get it to change the order in CGMiner. Any suggestions? Of course I can reinstall the system, but I’m trying to avoid this.
I only using 1 7970 to mine when im not using my pc and im getting 730kh/s using these settings this card is are really stable at a 1800 mem clock I use it for gaming too although while im gaming I bump the engine clock up to 1200 but here’s my mining script and i run under 80c
–gpu-platform 0 -d 0 -w 256 -v 1 -I 13 -g 2 -l 1 –gpu-engine 1070 –gpu-memclock 1800 –gpu-fan 60 –thread-concurrency 8192 –no-submit-stale
Has anyone here used cgmon? (https://github.com/chrisbraddock/node-cgmon)
From what I read it monitors cgminer and detects if GPUs go SICK or DEAD and then either restarts the GPU or reboots the computer. Sounds like a neat tool but I’d be interested in your views. Do you see any issues using this?
I’m running (2) Sapphire 7950 GPU’s in CGMiner but it is not detecting the temperature and RPM. Other than that, things are running fine. Any ideas as to why it’s not showing up? I installed ADL_SDK and ADL v6.0.
Another thing – I have a 3rd Sapphire 7950 GPU but Xubuntu will freeze up on the blue logo screen while booting with (3) cards on board. Getting 1.12MH/s with (2) cards so it would be great to get this 3rd card in without the boot up freeze. Any ideas? First person to give me good answers will get 1 LTC! 🙂
Did you copy the ADL header files in when you built cgminer? It’s not just a matter of installing it, they need to be in the ADL directory when it’s built.
Not sure about the three card thing. Did you do your aticonfig with –initial –adapter=all ?
You need to redo it when you make any hardware changes.
Head into your cgminer source directory and copy the ADL files over from where ever you have them –
cd cgminer-3.7.2/ADL_SDK
cp ../../ADL_SDK/include/*.h .
(for example, if your cgminer source and extracted ADL_SDK are in the same top level directory)
Oh, and then rebuild cgminer of course –
cd ..
./configure –enable-opencl –enable-scrypt && sudo make install