Problems with cgminer and 4 R9 290Xs

[Doc_Gore]

Ok, so me and some friends built a mining rig. Specs are i5 4670K, MSI POWER Z87, 4 R9 290X's, 4Gb G-Skill Ram (switched with 16Gb Corsair Ram termporary), 1600 LEPA Gold PSU, Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. If you need to know any other specs let me know. So basically, we got the PC  up and running, but for some reason we can't get the cgminer to work with it. We have the latest drivers from AMD Catalyst and we have cgminer properly installed, but for some reason the miner only runs at 14 Kh per GPU. Even if we change the intensity higher it doesn't change the Kh, if anything, it makes it lower. We exhausted all of our ideas, from taking out some of the GPUs, changing RAM, trying to redownload everything, disabling AMD Catalyst, making sure the GPU's were cool enough. We tried everything. Any idea on what the problem could be? I've been messing with it for 3 hours and nothing changes, so I'm getting desperate enough to try everything.

 

EDIT: And yes, we turned it off and on again

 

Thanks. Doc_Gore

 

Pics below of the rig 

[Vitalius]

If you are going to invest in 4 R9 290X's for mining, you should probably learn about mining before hand. That's kind of a big investment. 

If you think that's too snippy or wtv, you didn't mention editing your settings (aside from Intensity) in trying to fix it. There's a lot more to Intensity.

[Doc_Gore]

If you are going to invest in 4 R9 290X's for mining, you should probably learn about mining before hand. That's kind of a big investment. 

If you think that's too snippy or wtv, you didn't mention editing your settings (aside from Intensity) in trying to fix it. There's a lot more to Intensity.

[Note: I'm currently editing this post. I'm explaining how I would fix this. I own an R9 290X that I actively use to mine which I get 867KH/s on consistently.]

We've been mining for a year now. I think that'd be enough experience. And I wasn't really the one messing with the settings. But I do remember we looked through all the settings beforehand. 

[Bloodyvalley]

Did you seriously get 4 R9 290X's and not put a waterblock on them

[DirkaFat]

Did you change settings other than the intensity?

 

 

Like shaders, thread concurrency, etc.

[Doc_Gore]

I also had a problem with the graphics card stalling and only getting 60KH/s. Fixed after setting the display output to iGPU in the BIOS. You could also try using dummy plugs.

Ok, I'll try that tomorrow. Won't get to work on the rig until tomorrow because it's at a friends house. I posted beforehand just to get a list of possible fixes we could try out. Will try though, thanks.

[Shd0w2]

Did you seriously get 4 R9 290X's and not put a waterblock on them

so ture.

[Doc_Gore]

Did you seriously get 4 R9 290X's and not put a waterblock on them

We are thinking about it still, we already spent 4000$ which is quite a lot. We'll probably add a water block once we get some more money, and actually get it working.

[Vitalius]

We've been mining for a year now. I think that'd be enough experience. And I wasn't really the one messing with the settings. But I do remember we looked through all the settings beforehand.

... Then why didn't you mention settings you've tried?

i.e. Thread Concurrency, GPU Threads, Shaders, Worksize, Lookup-Gap, etc etc? 

Mining for a year doesn't mean anything imo. Unless you've explicitly messed with the settings for cgminer, it's irrelevant how long you've mined. 

Try these settings for each GPU:

-g 1 --thread-concurrency 31592 -w 512 --lookup-gap 2

If you see HW with that setting, try this one:

-g 1 --thread-concurrency 8192 -w 512 --lookup-gap 2

Note that Lookup-gap and Worksize shouldn't be a reason you get HW. That usually is only because of GPU threads and Thread Concurrency.

[Doc_Gore]

 

... Then why didn't you mention settings you've tried?

i.e. Thread Concurrency, GPU Threads, Shaders, Worksize, Lookup-Gap, etc etc? 

Mining for a year doesn't mean anything imo. Unless you've explicitly messed with the settings for cgminer, it's irrelevant how long you've mined. 

Try these settings for each GPU:

-g 1 --thread-concurrency 31592 -w 512 --lookup-gap 2

If you see HW with that setting, try this one:

-g 1 --thread-concurrency 8192 -w 256 --lookup-gap 1

True dat. I'll send this to the one who was setting up cgminer earlier. 

[Vitalius]

True dat. I'll send this to the one who was setting up cgminer earlier.

Ah, I gotcha.

Yeah, try that. Note that from my experience, any 290 (X or not) shouldn't be run with -g at 2. It just creates HW at any Intensity over 13. Although, Litecoin mining is weird. Very weird. Some things for GPUs sometimes end up being opposite depending on the specific GPU. 

So, like, I can have a 290X made by XFX and you can have a 290X made by XFX, but our two GPUs run best with completely different settings. You just gotta guess and check basically.

However, that -g 2 thing could be wrong with a multi-GPU rig. Try it, but if you see HW, stop it immediately. Long term HW can cause permanent damage to a GPU.

 

[Doc_Gore]

Ah, I gotcha.

Yeah, try that. Note that from my experience, any 290 (X or not) shouldn't be run with -g at 2. It just creates HW at any Intensity over 13. Although, Litecoin mining is weird. Very weird. Some things for GPUs sometimes end up being opposite depending on the specific GPU. 

So, like, I can have a 290X made by XFX and you can have a 290X made by XFX, but our two GPUs run best with completely different settings. You just gotta guess and check basically.

However, that -g 2 thing could be wrong with a multi-GPU rig. Try it, but if you see HW, stop it immediately. Long term HW can cause permanent damage to a GPU.

 

Awesome, thanks so much. Will try this when I get to work on the rig again.

[Virgule]

snip

 

look at this :

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/105547-questions-about-how-to-mine-with-cgminer-read-this/

 

all you need to know.

[Doc_Gore]

look at this :

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/105547-questions-about-how-to-mine-with-cgminer-read-this/

 

all you need to know.

Thanks, will take a look