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Topic: MSI Z77A-G45: 7 PCI-E slots for only $115. Question is, will they all work? - page 3. (Read 28304 times)

member
Activity: 79
Merit: 10
Tried a tutorials suggestion to use catalyst windows 8 + 13.1 and then install 12.6 display drivers but it used a GD55 motherboard so I'm not sure if that was the difference. As of right now both 13.1 from techpowerup and 13.1 from amd's site to 12.6 driver method both return clDevicesNum returned error, no GPUs usable no matter what gpu amount I choose to try and utilize in cgminer. If I disconnect 1 card and reinstall the drivers the machine runs great with 5 but I was really hoping to try my Lepa 1600s with 6 gpu's underclocked a little(would depend on how much weather I stayed with 6 or went back to 5).

Only thing I can think of now is the diagram above may be flawed by accident and or I setup the presence short wrong for this configuration? I went with the x1 presence short vs x16....is that the same as you used ssateneth?
zvs
legendary
Activity: 1680
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https://web.archive.org/web/*/nogleg.com
wtf, 9 month old thread bump

i had 7 gpus running with catalyst 11.12
member
Activity: 79
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No luck with windows 8. I am gonna go back to windows 7 and give it another try with the techpowerup drivers.
full member
Activity: 128
Merit: 100
member
Activity: 79
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Ok I reformatted and installed techpowerup's 13.1 drivers. I tried with and without hdmi audio drivers and this was the result both times:


C:\Users\Chris\Desktop\cgminer-3.2.0-windows>cgminer -T
 [2013-08-05 10:40:31] Started cgminer 3.2.0
 [2013-08-05 10:40:31] Loaded configuration file cgminer.conf

 [2013-08-05 10:40:32] clDevicesNum returned error, no GPUs usable

 [2013-08-05 10:40:32] No devices detected!
 [2013-08-05 10:40:32] Waiting for USB hotplug devices or press q to quit

 [2013-08-05 10:40:32] Too many values passed to set temp cutoff


 Yet all 6 GPU's show under display adapters without errors.


 
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Activity: 79
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Well tried techpowerup's 13.1 drivers and code 43 went away but cgminer and kbsync (I think is the name) keep crashing now. Updated the conf file so all should be well and rebooted a few times. I'm reformatting now...


 Thanks, at least that's some progress.
member
Activity: 79
Merit: 10
I have the Z77A-G45 V2 with a G1610 (20 PCIe lanes) with x1 to x16risers 4 powered 2 non and have followed the diagram posted by ssateneth but have had little luck. I have 5 gpu's running and 6 show but the last is giving code 43 which is usually a bus issue. I have everything disabled possible except USB (bios shows no specifics on USB 3.0 just usb) and PCI 3.0 on auto and disabled so I'm not sure what else can be done. I'm running windows 8 with several different drivers tried. I figure if 5 are showing the drivers can be the issue I wouldn't think.

Crazy solution - download the 13.1 driver from teckpowerup.com (they use a different driver for some odd reason) and make sure you use null VGA adapters on all cards, then it will work. Better reinstall windows or make damn sure you uninstall catalyst first though (using their tool - but I'm not convinced it works properly).

 Thanks I had seen that solution and tried it in the past but never had any luck. I also want to say I increased the clock bus clock from 32 to 64, 96 ect with no luck although this worked on my 99FXA G65 with 5 GPUs.

 As for removing AMD drivers I've become and expert at it and long since realized doing it by hand is ideal until I find time to write an app.
sr. member
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That's the issue right there.  You need to use an Ivy Bridge CPU with PCIe 3.0 support.  Otherwise the second PCIe slot is disabled or won't work correctly.  Though the PCIe x1 slots should work fine.  Maybe MSI didn't provide enough PLX switches to compensate the bandwidth from the CPU.  I guess that is why you have to fork out more $$ for an expensive board like a Z77A-GD80 which does support it.

Well even with the 2nd PCIe slot not working properly and one of the PCIex1 slots disabled, there are still 5 slots, but I could not get 5 GPUs recognized no matter which slot combinations i tried.  I spent an entire day trying to get this board to run 5 cars.  Would not want to buy a $199 Ivy Bridge to test this board further.

You could buy Ivy Bridge Celeron G1610 for $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116889

or I3 3220 Ivy Bridge for $120

I myself was able to run 7 GPUs (3x5970 and 1x5830) from similar motherboard: MSI Z77A-GD65 with Win 7 Home 32-bit

legendary
Activity: 1064
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I have the Z77A-G45 V2 with a G1610 (20 PCIe lanes) with x1 to x16risers 4 powered 2 non and have followed the diagram posted by ssateneth but have had little luck. I have 5 gpu's running and 6 show but the last is giving code 43 which is usually a bus issue. I have everything disabled possible except USB (bios shows no specifics on USB 3.0 just usb) and PCI 3.0 on auto and disabled so I'm not sure what else can be done. I'm running windows 8 with several different drivers tried. I figure if 5 are showing the drivers can be the issue I wouldn't think.

Crazy solution - download the 13.1 driver from teckpowerup.com (they use a different driver for some odd reason) and make sure you use null VGA adapters on all cards, then it will work. Better reinstall windows or make damn sure you uninstall catalyst first though (using their tool - but I'm not convinced it works properly).
sr. member
Activity: 294
Merit: 250
what's pcie presence short???
member
Activity: 79
Merit: 10
I have the Z77A-G45 V2 with a G1610 (20 PCIe lanes) with x1 to x16risers 4 powered 2 non and have followed the diagram posted by ssateneth but have had little luck. I have 5 gpu's running and 6 show but the last is giving code 43 which is usually a bus issue. I have everything disabled possible except USB (bios shows no specifics on USB 3.0 just usb) and PCI 3.0 on auto and disabled so I'm not sure what else can be done. I'm running windows 8 with several different drivers tried. I figure if 5 are showing the drivers can be the issue I wouldn't think.
sr. member
Activity: 462
Merit: 250
Free World
I have the G55 and I can only get linux detect 5 gpus.. Sad

out of topic...

Can anybody confirm?

Does this mobo detects 6gpu out of the box?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130649

member
Activity: 115
Merit: 10
It may not be 7 slots, but I'm happy with 6. I'm not about to return it (and the cpu) for a 20% restocking fee, plus it was a big pain in the butt setting it all up. Probably overpaid a little for 6 slots, but the CPU, board, and hard drive only consume about 25 watts at the wall on an 80plus gold PSU, which means better overall mhash/j

Plus I like MSI's board layout. I got an x79 Big Bang XPower II in my main PC. The only nuance is the silly chipset and mosfet heatsinks.

Also, FWIW, the Celeron G440 only consumes 5 watts when idle, and 9 watts under load with linpack. I have not extensively tested the ondie GPU, but hwinfo64 claimed the GPU package was only taking in 0.064 watts when I was getting baseline power consumption with no video cards installed.

what ati drivers are you using?
i have the same mainboard and it only sees 4 with pcie-1x raisers without anything shorted.
i used all green marked slots but in win7 x64 i can see 5 cards with one card that has an error
legendary
Activity: 1344
Merit: 1004
It may not be 7 slots, but I'm happy with 6. I'm not about to return it (and the cpu) for a 20% restocking fee, plus it was a big pain in the butt setting it all up. Probably overpaid a little for 6 slots, but the CPU, board, and hard drive only consume about 25 watts at the wall on an 80plus gold PSU, which means better overall mhash/j

Plus I like MSI's board layout. I got an x79 Big Bang XPower II in my main PC. The only nuance is the silly chipset and mosfet heatsinks.

Also, FWIW, the Celeron G440 only consumes 5 watts when idle, and 9 watts under load with linpack. I have not extensively tested the ondie GPU, but hwinfo64 claimed the GPU package was only taking in 0.064 watts when I was getting baseline power consumption with no video cards installed.
newbie
Activity: 39
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legendary
Activity: 1344
Merit: 1004
Update2: Got a 6th slot working with the assistance of a presence short. #7 proves difficult. I'm hoping it's just a bad riser or bad short, but each 1x slot above a 16x seems to work.
Edit: I put in a ticket with MSI a few days ago, this might be relevant. Here was the response. Very bad english, but the important part is at the end.
Quote
Ok, this is what I could find on the PCIE slots 2x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots 1x PCIe 2.0 x16 slot PCI_E7 supports up to PCIe x4 speed 4x PCIe 2.0 x1 slots When PCI_E4 is installed, PCI_E3 will be not function.

Necroedit: old pictures removed.
legendary
Activity: 1344
Merit: 1004
Update: Got 5 slots working so far without the assistance of a PCI-E presence short. This is with all slots populated with a GPU via a 1x > 1x riser.

420
hero member
Activity: 756
Merit: 500
Well I got it in the mail 2 days ago. Yesterday's time was mostly spent making a wooden frame to mount the motherboard and video cards on as well as a place for the hard drive and power supply to lay. Like my other rigs, the motherboard will be "upside down" (the CPU is closer to the ground than the PCI-E slots. This means the graphics cards themselves are right-side up). I've been having a couple problems with my hard drives not being reliable, but I think I finally got a keeper. Anyways, the 3 slots closest to the CPU are populated so far with 5850's. None of them need the PCI-E presence pin shorted. I'll have to steal some 5870's from one of my dedicated rigs to attempt to populate the remaining slots.

Fun fact: With an 80plus gold PSU, a G440 CPU, 1 2GB stick of Crucial RAM, and 1 500GB 7200RPM hard drive, this only consumes a meager 25 watts of power, verified by a kill-a-watt. Amazing how efficient newer technology is! :O

sweet. almost went for that cpu but stuck with the g530 for more versatility. disabled the 2nd core and went down to 1.6ghz
legendary
Activity: 1344
Merit: 1004
Well I got it in the mail 2 days ago. Yesterday's time was mostly spent making a wooden frame to mount the motherboard and video cards on as well as a place for the hard drive and power supply to lay. Like my other rigs, the motherboard will be "upside down" (the CPU is closer to the ground than the PCI-E slots. This means the graphics cards themselves are right-side up). I've been having a couple problems with my hard drives not being reliable, but I think I finally got a keeper. Anyways, the 3 slots closest to the CPU are populated so far with 5850's. None of them need the PCI-E presence pin shorted. I'll have to steal some 5870's from one of my dedicated rigs to attempt to populate the remaining slots.

Fun fact: With an 80plus gold PSU, a G440 CPU, 1 2GB stick of Crucial RAM, and 1 500GB 7200RPM hard drive, this only consumes a meager 25 watts of power, verified by a kill-a-watt. Amazing how efficient newer technology is! :O
420
hero member
Activity: 756
Merit: 500
EVGA nForce 790i SLI Ultra board, Intel Celeron 420, 2x2GB RAM, PC Power & Cooling 1KW-SR, 3 reference 5970, 2 reference 5870. Uses about 1040W AC power. PSU Efficiency is pretty low at around 83%, so about 2.61 MHash/Joule.

Win7 x64, Driver 11.12, SDK 2.1. BIOS flashed on each card except 7/8 (new 5970, still breaking it in finding max clocks before I flash). Memory @ 150-160, core speed is specified in the miner window, all voltage is 0.95v except where denoted with a plus (+) sign after the core speed, then it is 1v. I use Phoenix 2 miner, and these arguments are constant between all GPU's. kernel = phatk2, AGGRESSION = 14, VECTORS = true, BFI_INT = true, WORKSIZE = 128. The numbers in the tray in the lower right is the amperage on each volterra programmable voltage regulator. Red is GPU1, orange is GPU2, etc. It helps me notice easier if a GPU is "sick" and adjust frequency to be more stable. And no, I won't use CGMiner. Tongue

What is the benefit of flashing the card BIOS, do you mean firmware?

how many mhash per 5970 and have you tried the memory clock at 1/3 of clock? that increased mhash significantly for me

Please make a separate thread if you need anymore info. It's getting offtopic; I just wanted to make a thread about the MSI Z77A-G45 motherboard.

Could you join my thread with the answers to my questions:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/how-to-get-over-2ghash-with-3x5970s-barely-ocd-cgminer-97336
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