Is my 7950 dead?

[Ilan Yakov]

Sooo...

I started mining for BTC about a week ago and I added my old 7950 in addition to my main GPU, GTX 1080 and everything was great.

Then, I started overclocking my 7950 and got it to run at 1150mHZ core clock and 1700 MEM on 1190mV. It ran on a maximum of about 84C, which is okay I guess.

It worked great until last night, I left it mining at night(as always), but then I woke up to a frozen PC with a black screen(s). Same thing happened before yesterday, so I just restarted and everything was fine but that time, I was awake and restarted immediately after I saw it, if it matters at all... In addition, something weird happened yesterday. The PC got turned off for no obvious reason. I thought it's just my PSU or something.

 

Anyway, after restarting today when I saw that, the 7950 was not recognized in the device manager so I restarted again and then, half a minute after logging into Windows, the PC just froze.

 

Now, after DDU, I tried re-installing the 7950's driver and while installing the Display Driver, the pc froze again.

Tried installing older drivers as well but had no luck. With no driver installed (while being recognized in device manager), the system is okay.

Without the 7950 in my system, everything works just fine.

 

The question is, is the card necessarily dead?

 

 

EDIT: So it turns out that it can work now only with 2 of my monitors connected to it, even if I am using my GTX 1080 as the main card...

It just crashes otherwise, with 1/none displays connected to it.

 

UPDATE: I have managed to connect it to the secondary ports on my screens and it works OK now.

Stupid problem and a stupid solution but whatever.

Thanks for all the helpers and for the additional info about OC'ing a GPU for mining.

[dragonhart6505]

What's your PSU quality and wattage? Could've burnt out its handling of both cards being pretty power hungry. Tried taking out the 1080 and just using the 7950?

[Ilan Yakov]

3 minutes ago, dragonhart6505 said:

What's your PSU quality and wattage? Could've burnt out its handling of both cards being pretty power hungry. Tried taking out the 1080 and just using the 7950?

I wanted to but thought it was pointless. Well, what can I lose.. I will try it later today or tomorrow.

My PSU is Seasonic SS-750HT. It's 80 PLUS SILVER certified.

[dragonhart6505]

750w then? Pushing it. Try just the 7950. Don't install Radeon software, try the driver alone in Device Manager (may need to locate the driver manually). It'll be in C:\Amd\{driver version}\Drivers\Display or something like that. You can't really lose with just trying. Uninstall any remaining AMD software beforehand

[TheRandomness]

Just saying, but you're not going to make money mining BTC with a graphics card. You would mining ethereum or any other altcoin, but not BTC since that basically requires ASICs to be profitable.

[Princess Luna]

1 minute ago, TheRandomness said:

Just saying, but you're not going to make money mining BTC with a graphics card. You would mining ethereum or any other altcoin, but not BTC since that basically requires ASICs to be profitable.

In addition, it makes zero sense overclock a GPU for mining workloads.

[TheRandomness]

Just now, Princess Cadence said:

In addition, it makes zero sense overclock a GPU for mining workloads.

It makes sense because you can mine faster.

[dragonhart6505]

Just now, TheRandomness said:

It makes sense because you can mine faster.

By .5mhs - 2 mhs? Nah m8

[TheRandomness]

Just now, dragonhart6505 said:

By .5mhs - 2 mhs? Nah m8

Any amount more is better.

[Princess Luna]

3 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

It makes sense because you can mine faster.

Not really, I am sorry I thought you were educated on the matter otherwise wouldn't have quoted you it does not scale well at all like that in mining unlike other types of application, besides considering the long periods of usage the reliability of running stock along side the decrease in energy usage from the OC outweighs any placebo difference in the mining performance.

 

Part of ensuring good profits is making the system as power efficient as possible, OC'ing adds no worthy performance gain at the cost of a slightly higher price tag on your energy bills.

[TheRandomness]

Just now, Princess Cadence said:

Not really, I am sorry I thought you were educated on the matter otherwise wouldn't have quoted you it does not scale well at all like that in mining unlike other types of application, besides considering the long periods of usage the reliability of running stock along side the decrease in energy usage from the OC outweighs any placebo difference in the mining performance.

 

Part of ensuring good profits is making the system as power efficient as possible, OC'ing adds no performance gain at the cost of a slightly higher price tag on your energy bills.

But squeezing as much performance out of the card as possible whilst mining usually results in a higher profit generated, whilst adding maybe 5-10W more power usage if the voltage stays the same.

[dragonhart6505]

2 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

Any amount more is better.

Not in profit it isn't. Your then using more power, increasing your bill and killing your hardware faster. That means more out of pocket and more time to make anything back. With a 1080 + 7950, you're making next to nothing anyway in BTC. Mine Etherium and you're making a little more but still gonna take a year or so to start adding actual revenue to your wallet if your hardware holds out that long

[TheRandomness]

1 minute ago, dragonhart6505 said:

Not in profit it isn't. Your then using more power, increasing your bill and killing your hardware faster. That means more out of pocket and more time to make anything back. With a 1080 + 7950, you're making next to nothing anyway in BTC. Mine Etherium and you're making a little more but still gonna take a year or so to start adding actual revenue to your wallet if your hardware holds out that long

I know you wouldn't make that much more, but without changing the voltage (a stock voltage overclock) the power draw shouldn't go up by much at all, if by any. So, all overclocking does in the situation would just increase the hash rate without increasing the power consumption by an amount that's too noticeable in terms of power bill.

[Princess Luna]

Just now, TheRandomness said:

.

I'm willing to call it a draw as it depends on the workloads, Some mining and such workloads indeed is better leave it at stock, Folding is a great example as @Whaler_99 has taught me before since it brings no advantage at the cost of as mentioned increasing chances of a crash and higher power consumption.

 

I am no mining expert to know which individual coin will or not benefit from the overclock but I particularly rather advise people leaving it at stock.

[dragonhart6505]

Just now, TheRandomness said:

I know you wouldn't make that much more, but without changing the voltage (a stock voltage overclock) the power draw shouldn't go up by much at all, if by any. So, all overclocking does in the situation would just increase the hash rate without increasing the power consumption by an amount that's too noticeable in terms of power bill.

You need the watts to make the power, or you'll run into issues like OP is having now. OC + power draw is less beneficial and efficient than running stock with lowered power draw

[TheRandomness]

2 minutes ago, dragonhart6505 said:

You need the watts to make the power, or you'll run into issues like OP is having now. OC + power draw is less beneficial and efficient than running stock with lowered power draw

I do not understand how leaving the voltage the same would increase power draw by a noticeable amount in terms of money. Stability is a thing, I know, but a stable overclock would be better for mining overall.

[Princess Luna]

7 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

but without changing the voltage (a stock voltage overclock) the power draw shouldn't go up by much at all

Just one last note, Pascal has voltages locked on their BIOS as we know, so it is the same stock voltage:

 

Sure we can only guess as this was tested on gaming benchmark orientated but the increase is still noticeable and can be used somewhat for comparison... 60ish watts extra power consumption could be the difference in profit and no profit depending on your local prices for energy.

 

The 7950 being older and considerable less power efficient will probably show even higher gap in power consumption.

 

Cheers!

[dragonhart6505]

Just now, TheRandomness said:

I do not understand how leaving the voltage the same would increase power draw by a noticeable amount in terms of money. Stability is a thing, I know, but a stable overclock would be better for mining overall.

A stable overclock with no voltage won't do near anything to hashrate, since mining is about raw power anyway. You'll want a BETTER overclock to notice a hash difference, which will require more voltage

[dragonhart6505]

4 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Just one last note, Pascal has voltages locked on their BIOS as we know, so it is the same stock voltage:

 

Sure we can only guess as this was tested on gaming benchmark orientated but the increase is still noticeable and can be used somewhat for comparison... 60ish watts extra power consumption could be the difference in profit and no profit depending on your local prices for energy.

 

The 7950 being older and considerable less power efficient will probably show even higher gap in power consumption.

 

Cheers!

Ugh...HWU is a terrible reference. Dude is annoying and frequently gets info wrong, using way above spec to determine worth of purchase and gets the same results time and again and tries to justify them as "better" value. Dude is a skewer, wouldn't trust his info

[Ilan Yakov]

42 minutes ago, dragonhart6505 said:

750w then? Pushing it. Try just the 7950. Don't install Radeon software, try the driver alone in Device Manager (may need to locate the driver manually). It'll be in C:\Amd\{driver version}\Drivers\Display or something like that. You can't really lose with just trying. Uninstall any remaining AMD software beforehand

I tried it and at first, it looked very promising.

Got recognized on Afterburner and it just looked good. Until I restarted...

It froze while restarting and then, after Windows booted up and was showing the login screen, it just crashed there.

I will try again now and I will run Furmark as soon as the driver gets installed.

[dragonhart6505]

2 minutes ago, Ilan Yakov said:

I tried it and at first, it looked very promising.

Got recognized on Afterburner and it just looked good. Until I restarted...

It froze while restarting and then, after Windows booted up and was showing the login screen, it just crashed there.

Using latest driver? 17.11.2? Get 17.7.1 and try again. 17.11.2 is junk so far

[dragonhart6505]

Ooh, also make sure to reset Afterburner settings. If the overclock is to be applied on boot could cause issues as well

[Ilan Yakov]

Just now, dragonhart6505 said:

Ooh, also make sure to reset Afterburner settings. If the overclock is to be applied on boot could cause issues as well

Okay so I ran Furmark and it seems stable. Did not crash. I am writing this comment using the 7950 right now.

I am using the 17.11.4.

Although, the whole system is very unstable. I will keep checking.

[dragonhart6505]

1 minute ago, Ilan Yakov said:

Okay so I ran Furmark and it seems stable. Did not crash. I am writing this comment using the 7950 right now.

I am using the 17.11.4.

Although, the whole system is very unstable. I will keep checking.

Hmm...could be RAM? Run a memtest while you're at it

[Ilan Yakov]

9 minutes ago, dragonhart6505 said:

Hmm...could be RAM? Run a memtest while you're at it

It is working with ONLY 2 of my displays connected to it (DP&HDMI) and as long as I don't touch its profiles on Afterburner. What the hell??

I want it to stay with no display output and use my main GPU. What could possibly cause that?