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Topic: Lets Solve the unreliable 7970 issues.... (share your observations/input) - page 2. (Read 26004 times)

sr. member
Activity: 378
Merit: 250
So you probably don't want to hear that I instantly got a 5th 7970 running at ~750 right from the start...

Are you guys using two 8-pin connectors? Single 12V rail PS? Powered-risers if you have them? What about
ram? 2 gigs per card minimum...
hero member
Activity: 503
Merit: 500
My completely headless miner does 740khs on all cards. Gigabyte Windforce 3 OC 7970 (GV-R797OC-3GD) rev 2.1 volt locked cards here @ 1060/1460.

cgminer 2.11.4 --scrypt --lookup-gap 2 -I 13 -w 256 -g 2 --thread-concurrency 8192
Catalyst 13.1

Yeah! the same here (750@1080/1500). Love this card!!!
Using the same GV-R797OC-3GD and can't get higher than 550 kh/s...  Sad
Have tried more than 100 combinations with Memory and Engine clocks, still nothing  Sad
I have also tried to remove .bin files from cgminer directory to make cgminer recompile kernel with default clocks.. Still nothing, that shit sucks.



config is:
Quote
"intensity" : "13",
"worksize" : "256",
"gpu-threads" : "2",
"shaders" : "2048",
"kernel" : "scrypt",
"thread-concurrency" : "8192",
"gpu-engine" : "1080",
"gpu-memclock" : "1500",
"scrypt" : true

Copied this post from the Consolidated Litecoin Mining Guide for 5xxx, 6xxx, and 7xxx GPUs thread:


So after reading through this whole thead, I thought I'd contribute my setup and config.

Rig:
i3-3225
Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3 mobo (in hindsight, I should have bought a different board, this one is overkill)
8GB DDR3
(4) Gigabyte 7970s link (in hindsight, I should have bought either vanilla 7970s or 7950s, these are not worth the extra $$)
1200W Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold ps (I can't say enough about this power supply, it's excellent)
250GB Samsung 840 SSD
(2) WD hard drives (500GB, 2TB)
Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit

Setup:
So I had all 4 cards running in my case, but with them being all crammed together, it was way too hot.  So I pulled everything out and sat it on a rack.  I have 2 of the cards plugged into the board, a 3rd card plugged in via 16x riser cable, but couldn't get the 4th card to work with another 16x riser cable. So, I ordered a 1x to 16x riser cable and hopefully this will solve my problem.

In the meantime, I'm running 3 cards and getting pretty nice hashrates.  These are my settings and results using cgminer 2.11.3 and AMD Catalyst 13.1 drivers:

--intensity 13 -g 2  715/710 = ~1500Kh/s
--intensity 13 -g 2  925/1000 = ~1950Kh/s
--intensity 13 -g 2  1000/1206 = ~2100Kh/s
--intensity 13 -g 2  1022/1244 = ~2150Kh/s

Other settings:
--thread-concurrency 8192 -w 256

I've literally spent most of a entire week playing around with settings and trying to find the sweet spot and I feel like I'm pretty much there.  As you can see, I actually underclocked my cards to get these hashrates.  Stock clocks are 1100 core/1500 memory.  Unfortunately the default voltage is about 1.2 volts on my cards and its locked (@#&($$^(@&$!!), otherwise, I'd be able to save 100-150W easily by undervolting.



I'm seriously thinking about getting rid of these cards and getting 7950s or 7970s that don't have the voltage locked.  Having the voltage locked is such a huge drawback, I'm just wasting too much power right now.
full member
Activity: 128
Merit: 100
My completely headless miner does 740khs on all cards. Gigabyte Windforce 3 OC 7970 (GV-R797OC-3GD) rev 2.1 volt locked cards here @ 1060/1460.

cgminer 2.11.4 --scrypt --lookup-gap 2 -I 13 -w 256 -g 2 --thread-concurrency 8192
Catalyst 13.1

Yeah! the same here (750@1080/1500). Love this card!!!
Using the same GV-R797OC-3GD and can't get higher than 550 kh/s...  Sad
Have tried more than 100 combinations with Memory and Engine clocks, still nothing  Sad
I have also tried to remove .bin files from cgminer directory to make cgminer recompile kernel with default clocks.. Still nothing, that shit sucks.



config is:
Quote
"intensity" : "13",
"worksize" : "256",
"gpu-threads" : "2",
"shaders" : "2048",
"kernel" : "scrypt",
"thread-concurrency" : "8192",
"gpu-engine" : "1080",
"gpu-memclock" : "1500",
"scrypt" : true
sr. member
Activity: 378
Merit: 250
Sorry for my last message, I can have 730Khs just by changing the core and mem clock, If i change the VDDC to 1256mV the hashrate dive.
MSI afterburner show me core voltage 1775mV by defaut setting and Sapphire TRIXX 1200mV ... ?
How I can now the true voltage ?
Quote
only Sapphire Dual-X 3gb OC with Boost. All latest non-beta drivers/software. Run afterburner first on startup with the "apply to like cards "setting. Core voltage ~1094, Mem voltage 1638
Clocks 1070/1500 (MUST be a 0.7 ratio or less)
Got 4 cards so far running at 740+ within 5 minutes! lol

What is the version of your bios ? Is it this one ?
http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/129658/sapphire-hd7970-3072-120926.html

How you can control the mem voltage ? On msi afterburner 3.0 beta 9 I can control only the Core voltage...

Thank you

I did not change the BIOS is all I can tell you. There is a setting to unlock the voltage under the advanced tab. You type in the new numbers and hit enter and then apply. After that, save the changes to a profile number. I don't have beta version of anything. Just the latest non-betas.
hero member
Activity: 658
Merit: 500
Caveat Emptor
Got a good deal on new 7970s, that good I couldnt pass on them.

After around 24hours mining my rig gets unstable and the primary GPU starts throwing up artifacts. Reseat the card and also try in a different slot with different risers etc...
Problem persists
Underclocked the core and memory to around 90% of the factory clocks give me a stable and slightly usable card (no artifacts under moderate to high load)
Reboot and get my cgminer launch strings ready...
Problem persists - cgminer appears to crash on launch and the mining pool im with only reports around 33% of the shares I should expect. Artifacts are back and everything I try leads to miners crashing the entire OS on initializing.

Remove the card and all is well. Dropped a 5870 in its place, cut rate yes but effective Wink

Waiting on my supplier to get back to me about a replacement card.

Have any of you guys received a dead or dying new card. Im thinking its all of these RMA's from miners that clock their bits a bit too hard. Have you seen some of the memory clock speeds for the 7970s people are using, are these safe?!? I diddnt feel comfortable OC'ing with cgminer to some of those speeds but I did try to find some decent core/memory ratios with afterburner. Will this have an affect on my ability to return the card to the supplier I got it from or can I just claim it under the XFX warranty/RMA procedure?
sr. member
Activity: 378
Merit: 250
They are not unreliable if you buy the proper version to begin with. Never buy Gigibyte, XFX, but only Sapphire Dual-X 3gb OC with Boost. All latest non-beta drivers/software. Run afterburner first on startup with the "apply to like cards "setting. Core voltage ~1094, Mem voltage 1638
Clocks 1070/1500 (MUST be a 0.7 ratio or less)
Got 4 cards so far running at 740+ within 5 minutes! lol

Use this to run cgminer:

setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
CLS
COLOR 70

cgminer --scrypt -o -u . -p --failover-only -o -u . -p --intensity 13 --worksize 256 --thread-concurrency 8192 -g
member
Activity: 112
Merit: 10
Hey guys, We have a machine setup for mining with 3x MSI R7970 Power Edition 3GD5 cards.
The motherboard is a Asus Rampage IV Extreme
Running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
Catalyst driver version 13.1
ATI SDK version 2.6.831.4

Current cgminer settings are:
  cgminer --scrypt --intensity 13 --worksize 256 --thread-concurrency 8192 -g 2 --lookup-gap 2 --auto-gpu

Using this configuration the system is stable and according to GPU shark
  -The GPU temps are around: 70-80 degrees
  -Fan speeds are around 80-85%
  -GPU: 945.0Mhz
  -Mem: 1375.0Mhz
  -VDDC: 1.170V
  -GPU Usage: 99.0%

Unfortunately our KH/s rates seem to be pretty low. They are getting about ~490-510KH/s per card.

I'd appreciate any help on getting our KH/s rates up to the theoretical 700Kh/s that we should be getting.

Thanks
legendary
Activity: 1526
Merit: 1002
Waves | 3PHMaGNeTJfqFfD4xuctgKdoxLX188QM8na
743 Khash/s, Gigabyte 7970

Code:
start /D "C:\cgminer" cgminer.exe --scrypt -o stratum+tcp://fc.altpool.com:3333 -u MaGNeT.1 -p x --thread-concurrency 8192 -I 13 --lookup-gap 2 --worksize 256 -g 2 -d 0 -d 1 --gpu-memclock 1500,1500 --shaders 2048 --gpu-engine 1080,1080 --gpu-fan 70,70
legendary
Activity: 2688
Merit: 1240
Quote
Seriously? You really should have a clue before you attempt to flash a GPU.
I never flashed a gpu.

EDIT : Ok I flash with this bios http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/129658/Sapphire.HD7970.3072.120926.html

I have 670Kh/s with gpu:1050MHZ mem 1500MHZ
Quote
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
cgminer.exe --scrypt -o xxx -u xxx -p xxx  --thread-concurrency 11264 -I 13 -w 256 -g 2 --no-submit-stale

Thank you Smiley

Same here, works fine on my XFX cards.. had to reflash them all, now they're working...  Angry
member
Activity: 84
Merit: 10
My completely headless miner does 740khs on all cards. Gigabyte Windforce 3 OC 7970 (GV-R797OC-3GD) rev 2.1 volt locked cards here @ 1060/1460.

cgminer 2.11.4 --scrypt --lookup-gap 2 -I 13 -w 256 -g 2 --thread-concurrency 8192
Catalyst 13.1

Yeah! the same here (750@1080/1500). Love this card!!!
newbie
Activity: 47
Merit: 0
can i load msi/gigabyte bios on my HIS cards?
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
Quote
You should still sell them. My VaporX 7950 gets 660 kh/s and uses 140 W less than my Powercolor 7970 which gets 760 kh/s.

Now I get 720Kh/s with the new bios on the vapor x 7970 ghz edition.

At what price and power percentage over the VaporX 7950?

Edit: I'm selling the 7970 because it isn't worth the extra cost, power and noise. I also have a Powercolor 7950 which only gets 550 because it overheats and has shitty RAM which isn't stable at 1500 MHz. I'm selling that too. And buying 7 more VaporX 7950s. The moral of the story: don't use 7970s.
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
Quote
Gets the device ID of the card
The device ID of the card is given by the atiflash tool ?
Seriously? You really should have a clue before you attempt to flash a GPU.

690+kh/s last night! I was ready to sell these cards 2 days ago, now I love them.


You should still sell them. My VaporX 7950 gets 660 kh/s and uses 140 W less than my Powercolor 7970 which gets 760 kh/s.
newbie
Activity: 47
Merit: 0
If anyone could help i'd love it. I currently have HIS 7970 iceq x2 cards and they're not even hitting 600kh/s with decent overclock and the settings listed in this thread. Anyone have these cards?
member
Activity: 101
Merit: 10
Quote
Gets the device ID of the card
The device ID of the card is given by the atiflash tool ?
Seriously? You really should have a clue before you attempt to flash a GPU.

690+kh/s last night! I was ready to sell these cards 2 days ago, now I love them.
member
Activity: 101
Merit: 10
Here is the solution for the 7970 Ghz card. Mine is a Sapphire 7970 Vapor.

Flash with this bios  http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/127156/GigabyteHD7970.3072.120905.html
635 kh/s @ 900/1580 -I 13 -w 256 -g 2 TC 11200
Thanks to asmzx for this fix.

Flashing 7970 is a breeze, I'll tell you the steps I took to get it working.

Flash Sapphire 7970 Vapor:

Download Rufus http://rufus.akeo.ie/  or create a bootable USB drive

Get ATIFlash http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2230/ATIFlash_4.07.html

Copy ATIFlash and the bios to the USB drive

To boot from your USB, just press F8 after you power on your computer and it should bring up the boot menu, if not keep resetting until you get it.
Select your USB from there and it should boot you to DOS/ATIFlash.

Code:
atiflash.exe -i

Gets the device ID of the card

Code:
atiflash.exe -f -p 0 new.bin

Use the number you got from the first step instead of 0 if it is different. Also change the name to whatever you named your BIOS.
For me, I named my BIOS "new.bin". Wait until it is successful and then reboot.

That's it, enjoy 630+ speeds without melting your card!

LTC  Ld19ZpNDcnTKQr1b8K1dWSwRXPd6zSxPkN
newbie
Activity: 37
Merit: 0
I have a Reference XFX card (925/1375)

If I let cgminer compile the kernel at default clocks, and then apply overclock, it reaches ~700kh/s

If I let cgminer compile the kernel overclocked, it won't go past ~500kh/s, with same settings/clocks

so I guess those ghz editions have to be downclocked to default speeds at first, and then overclocked after cgminer compiled the kernel

I ran a diff on both compiled kernels, and found binary differences.
member
Activity: 91
Merit: 10
Hey guys i just started mining and was mining BTC, but want to switch to LTC. While mining BTC i get 1.35ghs with 2x7970 MSI Radeon OC'ed. However i just tried to mine LTC but im not getting speeds that i want.

This is my config and setup:


any ideas why i'm only getting 300 on one and 500 on the other? i tried all the settings listed above and khs does not change at all. Am i missing something?

Thanks
sr. member
Activity: 490
Merit: 254
About Catalyst version ....
12.1 (stable driver) in minng consums all my CPU power to 100% and lowers GPU power.
13.3 Beta - consumes about 17% o my cpu - that why i am using Beta Catalyst drivers Smiley


Hmm, I haven't updated my drivers yet, still on 12.1 drivers and my CPU is only at 1%.

From what I been reading, I don't think I would get any noticeable difference in performance, so will leave it alone for now.
legendary
Activity: 2660
Merit: 1096
Simplemining.net Admin
About Catalyst version ....
12.1 (stable driver) in minng consums all my CPU power to 100% and lowers GPU power.
13.3 Beta - consumes about 17% o my cpu - that why i am using Beta Catalyst drivers Smiley
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