(Scrypt mining) Low Kh/s on Gigabyte Windforce 290 (non-X)

[NodCommander]

Hey guys!

 

I dont come here to post often, but I felt like giving it a try today.

 

So, I got myself a Gigabyte 290 with their famous Windforce-cooler to see how well it could do at mining LTC. As far as I understood from the many posts spread all over the internet which I found, people are getting around 800-850 Kh/s on their cards.

 

However, when I copy and use their very same settings my card only manages a modest 720 KH/s. Ive tried playing around with different settings up and down but without any success.

 

My currently running settings are:

 

-g 1 --thread-concurrency 32765 --intensity 19

 

But I have also tried:

 

-I 19 -g 1 -w 512 --thread-concurrency 32765

-I 20 --thread-concurrency 20480 --gpu-threads 2

 

And none have given any form of real improvement.

 

Some help is much appreciated!
 

 

Edit: Probably should have said Im using Windows 7 x64 with a Phenom II 1100T CPU, 8 GBs of RAM and running the latest AMD drivers, and using CGMiner.

[legopc]

as far as i know some gpus just dont get the best results but you could try using some diferent miners 

[NodCommander]

Try Linux, they say its better for mining

I have no real experience working with Linux, I am hopelessly a newbie there. I have tried to use the RabbitOS/SMOS mining-OS, however this perticular computer refuses to boot with it, just giving a boot-error just before loading it.

 

as far as i know some gpus just dont get the best results but you could try using some diferent miners 

 

A different miner such as Reaper? Or another pool?

[legopc]

A different miner such as Reaper? Or another pool?

sure and no dont think pools make a diference

[.:MARK:.]

Have you got overclocks going? I have noticed that some overclocks make a decrease in hashing power.

[MariusJS]

Try BAMT, got me almost 200khash more per card!

[Toxic Tom]

Here's some other configs you could try:

 

-I 23 -w 256 --thread-concurrency 32765 (tested with sgminer)

 

-I 20 -g 1 --thread-concurrency 32765 (tested with bfgminer)

 

-I 20 -w 256 --thread-concurrency 32765

 

-I 20 -g 1 -w 512 --thread-concurrency 32765

 

-I 20 -g 2

 

-I 20 -w 512 --thread-concurrency 24000 -g 2

 

Unless stated otherwise these configs were tested in cgminer

[Toxic Tom]

Have you got overclocks going? I have noticed that some overclocks make a decrease in hashing power.

 

I've noticed that too, freaking weird eh?

[.:MARK:.]

Yeah, memory overclocks reduced mine significantly.

[DyGr00339]

Try looking at the litcoin hardware comparison, and try ,lowering intensity

[NodCommander]

Thanks for all the replies!

 

No, the card is running at stock.

 

Lower intensity gives a lower hashrate, 17 actually froze the PC. 16 gave even lower.

 

I have tried many different configurations seen at the Litecoin Hardware Comparison without much success.

[RuecanOnRails]

You can try tuning the GPU manually, It can be very time consuming, tedious, and occasionally rage inducing, but it should help get a higher hashrate.  A high hashrate requires a balance of settings unique to each system, running someone else's settings may not get the same hashrate they reported.

  

Try following this guide for tuning a 7970 listed in the readme file of cgminer.

---TUNING AN AMD RADEON 7970Example tuning a 7970 for Scrypt mining:On linux run this command:export GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT=100or on windows this:setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100in the same console/bash/dos prompt/bat file/whatever you want to call it,before running cgminer.First, find the highest thread concurrency that you can start it at. They shouldall start at 8192 but some will go up to 3 times that. Don't go too high on theintensity while testing and don't change gpu threads. If you cannot go above8192, don't fret as you can still get a high hashrate.Delete any .bin files so you're starting from scratch and see what bins getgenerated.First try without any thread concurrency or even shaders, as cgminer will try tofind an optimal valuecgminer -I 13If that starts mining, see what bin was generated, it is likely the largestmeaningful TC you can set.Starting it on mine I get:scrypt130302Tahitiglg2tc22392w64l8.binSee tc22392 that's telling you what thread concurrency it was. It should startwithout TC parameters, but you never know. So if it doesn't, start with--thread-concurrency 8192 and add 2048 to it at a time till you find the highestvalue it will start successfully at.Then start overclocking the eyeballs off your memory, as 7970s are exquisitelysensitive to memory speed and amazingly overclockable but please make sure itkeeps adequately cooled with --auto-fan! Do it while it's running from the GPUmenu. Go up by 25 at a time every 30 seconds or so until your GPU crashes. Thenreboot and start it 25 lower as a rough start. Mine runs stable at 1900 memorywithout overvolting. Overvolting is the only thing that can actually damage yourGPU so I wouldn't recommend it at all.Then once you find the maximum memory clock speed, you need to find the sweetspot engine clock speed that matches it. It's a fine line where one more MHzwill make the hashrate drop by 20%. It's somewhere in the .57 - 0.6 ratio range.Start your engine clock speed at half your memory clock speed and then increaseit by 5 at a time. The hashrate should climb a little each rise in engine speedand then suddenly drop above a certain value. Decrease it by 1 then until youfind it climbs dramatically. If your engine clock speed cannot get that highwithout crashing the GPU, you will have to use a lower memclock.Then, and only then, bother trying to increase intensity further.My final settings were:--gpu-engine 1141  --gpu-memclock 1875 -I 20for a hashrate of 745kH.Note I did not bother setting a thread concurrency. Once you have the magicendpoint, look at what tc was chosen by the bin file generated and then hardcode that in next time (eg --thread-concurrency 22392) as slight changes inthread concurrency will happen every time if you don't specify one, and the tcto clock ratios are critical!Good luck, and if this doesn't work for you, well same old magic discussionapplies, I cannot debug every hardware combo out there.Your numbers will be your numbers depending on your hardware combination and OS,so don't expect to get exactly the same results!