Topic: Bounty - Help w/ 5 R9 290 rig (Read 1914 times)

Hi Cris - glad you got it working. Have to admit it took lots of hair pulling to get there...

I forgot about the thread as well, only realised when I checked my notifications.


My addy is 1CA4a9dfgbYhW3qc48CJbitBxDTUT3wNgx (BT- if any other is easier let me know).

Hey Cris,

Saw your posts and just wanted to assist a bit.
I have 4x R9 290 running on a MSI board, and I planned to add another 2 cards soon.

It is of course important to have both power connectors attached to the gpus, as you will be running them on high load, so they need the wattage from your PSU.

As for powered risers, I only run with powered risers as this should lower the effect passing through the mobo pci slots. You should keep an eye out if you are running 5 cards, especially if your 1-2 psus (?) are on the edge of what they can handle.

For Windows vs Linux you could use whatever you are more comfortable with. I am currently running on win7 though running on BAMT or PIMP shouldn't be a big problem if you are a little computer savvy. Otherwise ask a friend who knows a little linux about setting up your config files.

If you are running on windows, my no.1 advise is to keep CCC (comand&control center) that comes with the AMD drivers away from your system. They made my rig very unstable and it froze frequently. After uninstalling this trashware everything operated smooth again.

If nothing seems to be working besides your 2 cards, try testing the cards 2 and 2 to see that they are all working ok. After that, swap the cables and see if they too are ok. Finally connect all working cards, with or without powered riser cables, ensure that all power cables are connected to each gpu, and install the latest amd drivers. If the system sees your cards you should be good to go and start hashing away.

Hope these advises can assist you in the trouble shooting.

If it's dedicated for mining I recommend using bamt. check it out http://guiminer.net/bamt
im using 4 270x with my setup. If MB is the issue buy the cheap asrock btc MB, that can handle 6 gpus. GL.

I forgot about this thread for a bit.

Anyhoo - I found out that I have to connect a total of 3 power connectors to my GPUs; 8 pin, 6 pin, and the molex riser. Funny enough I can actually use unpowered risers - just as long as I have those 14 pins connected. Hope this help others.

dazza12 please post your addy. You gave me the idea of attaching the additional 6 pins.

No, I haven't even gotten that far - I'm just trying to get Windows to recognize all of my cards   I'm not familiar with either of these but I'm checking Google now...

did you tried Smos for scrypt mining , or Pimp for scrypt-n

Well, still no go, even after updating BIOS. This board seems to only recognize 2 GPUs!

And I bought 3 of these shitty ass boards.

gl

Just to update you guys - it appears that changing the screen resolution was the culprit for the blackscreen. What crust!

Anyhoo, I was able to successfully install the 13.12 drivers and now the one card I have connected says AMD Radeon R9 290 series. The monitor defaulted as high res so I don't need to change it. I'll be shutting down and adding cards! Wish me luck!

YES it does! System Repair got me back up and running and when it turned back on, the resolution was back to 800x600. Well isn't that something. I'm leaving that alone while install the catalyst drivers

What the hell. Windows launched start up repair on my ass and of course you cancel it. I'm not sure why I got the black screen this last go round - MSI Control Center should have nothing to do it.

Would changing the screen resolution have anything to do with this?

Okay - Will install as soon as I'm back in... looks like MSI Control Center was the culprit this last go round. Uninstalling it from the control center in safe mode got me back to where I see the Windows logging in screen, but it jumps back to black.

Nothing - blackscreen, monitor isn't on

WTF?!

While waiting for the drivers to download, I updated MSI Control Center - and guess what! Monitor went black and jumped off. Switched power off, uninstalled it in safe mode and trying to boot back up now. I don't understand what the MSI Control Center has to do with it - I hadn't even installed the AMD drivers and this happened!

This is fine.

Any idea which version of AMD Catalyst to try?

13.12 shows it has the 13.25 Display drivers

13.9 shows Display Driver ver 13.152

I'll be doing this later tonight

that's a good one - I tried it. Even got the black screen with one card connected.

Just a thought regarding the black screen.

Is there any chance one of the other cards have become the 'primary' card? Next time you get a black screen try swapping the DVI connection to one of the others.

I can almost bet Windows load just fine - just no pic. Same thing happened with Ubuntu as well.

In windows I can start it up in safe mode but it won't let me uninstall or reinstall drivers, so I'm left with reinstalling the entire OS.

I'm going to create a restoration disk before preceding. Maybe I can restore from it if the black screen happens again.