Author

Topic: Multiple GPUs over/underclocking issue (Read 1125 times)

newbie
Activity: 29
Merit: 0
August 05, 2011, 03:43:58 AM
#18
have you tried sapphire trixx ? works for me with 2 GPUs, but I don't have a 3rd to try it out for you.

Tried it just now with no luck. I will illustrate on screenshots:

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/7906/trixx1.jpg

http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/5017/trixx2.jpg

So even though Trixx shows 960/300, the reality is 960/1450  Undecided
newbie
Activity: 29
Merit: 0
August 05, 2011, 02:47:07 AM
#17
czebrda,

Are the cards in use when you adjust the clocks?  In other words -- try starting the miners first and then adjusting the clocks.  See what happens...  ATI has a power saving feature in their drivers that disables video cards that aren't in use (basically, the cards are in standby).  While they are in this mode, the clock rate cannot be changed.  On my windows box with 3x 6970's, I can't adjust the clock rate of my 3rd card unless it's already mining (or unless you disable the power saving feature altogether with a registry hack.  Can't remember the ATI acronym though.  Starts with an O.  If it turns out to be your problem, I'll hunt down the registry hack again.

Which of the cards (if any) are crossfired?

Yes, I am aware of this issue and it is true that these cards have three clock settings in their BIOS - one for idle, one for normal (e.g. windows desktop) and one for high performance (e.g. playing games or mining). So the mining has always been in progress when I tried these tweak apps, even though for some reason on the screenshot it shows Load: 0% for all cards. When I run clocktweak -r it shows the load correctly though.
The thing is, that ATI Tray Tools can give me 960/300 on the first two cards for all these regimes (idle/norm/HP), so the clocks stay there all the time no matter if u're mining or not. That's why I wonder why no other app can do the same.
None of the cards is crossfired, I use VGA dummy plugs.
newbie
Activity: 29
Merit: 0
August 05, 2011, 02:35:38 AM
#16
I know the MSI tool is popular and I've also found one called AMDOverdriveCtrl that looks promising.

Hoobie7

Tried and it doesn't work. I mean it works like the others - overclocking no problem, underclocking memory while overclocking GPU not possible...
newbie
Activity: 29
Merit: 0
August 05, 2011, 02:33:52 AM
#15
I'm just curious - how much power do you use with 4 x 6970 when mining?

I don't have a wattmeter, but I use 2 PSUs - 850W + 650W
newbie
Activity: 29
Merit: 0
August 05, 2011, 02:32:56 AM
#14
I had this same issue and tried a lot of things. What seems to work, more than half the time after a restart, is to load Trixx and bring the clocks down as far as it will let you. Close Trixx and open Afterburner. Then the 300 minimum is gone. I can get the memory clocks to zero on my 6970s and 6950s.

As for Tray Tools, I personally think it doesn't work well - at least not on my rig.
-Mr.Btc

ATI Tray Tools is actually the only sw that works for me so far. But only on the first 2 GPUs :\
newbie
Activity: 29
Merit: 0
August 05, 2011, 02:31:40 AM
#13
Which manufacturer is it?

It's Gigabyte GV-R697OC2-2GD
newbie
Activity: 14
Merit: 0
August 04, 2011, 08:58:03 PM
#12
have you tried sapphire trixx ? works for me with 2 GPUs, but I don't have a 3rd to try it out for you.
newbie
Activity: 34
Merit: 0
August 04, 2011, 08:55:28 PM
#11
I have not heard about this registry hack or the power saving hook in ATI. Interesting... Very interesting! If you stumble on more details I'd also like to know about them.
Thanks!
Mr.Bitcoin
hero member
Activity: 642
Merit: 500
August 04, 2011, 07:07:38 PM
#10
czebrda,

Are the cards in use when you adjust the clocks?  In other words -- try starting the miners first and then adjusting the clocks.  See what happens...  ATI has a power saving feature in their drivers that disables video cards that aren't in use (basically, the cards are in standby).  While they are in this mode, the clock rate cannot be changed.  On my windows box with 3x 6970's, I can't adjust the clock rate of my 3rd card unless it's already mining (or unless you disable the power saving feature altogether with a registry hack.  Can't remember the ATI acronym though.  Starts with an O.  If it turns out to be your problem, I'll hunt down the registry hack again.

Which of the cards (if any) are crossfired?
newbie
Activity: 6
Merit: 0
August 04, 2011, 06:57:53 PM
#9
I know the MSI tool is popular and I've also found one called AMDOverdriveCtrl that looks promising.

Hoobie7
newbie
Activity: 34
Merit: 0
August 04, 2011, 06:02:48 PM
#8
Well, I have 3x 6970s and 1x 6950 and the kill-a-watt its plugged into reads 1050 watts at full hashing. My PSU is an ABS Majesty 1100 Watts so Its mostly maxed out.
-Mr.Btc
newbie
Activity: 11
Merit: 0
August 04, 2011, 02:01:58 PM
#7
I'm just curious - how much power do you use with 4 x 6970 when mining?
newbie
Activity: 34
Merit: 0
August 04, 2011, 10:33:05 AM
#6
I had this same issue and tried a lot of things. What seems to work, more than half the time after a restart, is to load Trixx and bring the clocks down as far as it will let you. Close Trixx and open Afterburner. Then the 300 minimum is gone. I can get the memory clocks to zero on my 6970s and 6950s.

As for Tray Tools, I personally think it doesn't work well - at least not on my rig.
-Mr.Btc
newbie
Activity: 42
Merit: 0
August 04, 2011, 09:41:43 AM
#5
Which manufacturer is it?
newbie
Activity: 29
Merit: 0
August 04, 2011, 09:24:23 AM
#4
Thanks a lot for the tips, but here is what happens when I overclock with either of these utilities:
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/6513/clocktweak.jpg

They say, that they did the overclocking, but afterburner says differently. When I run GPU-Z, on the first tab are the values to which I'm trying to over/underclock (960/300) and on the second tab (Sensors) it says the same as in afterburner (960/1375 for GPU #3 for example). According to changes in temperatures it is obvious, that the values from afterburner are real.
Any thought on this behavior?  Undecided
newbie
Activity: 14
Merit: 0
August 04, 2011, 07:50:46 AM
#3
Hmmm...
newbie
Activity: 29
Merit: 0
August 04, 2011, 05:27:59 AM
#1
I have 4x6970 rig and my problem is, that with ATI Tray Tools (ATT) I can only over/under clock first two cards when I tick the "applly to both GPUs".
What I need to achieve is to overclock the GPU as much as possible (~1000 MHz) and underclock the memory as much as possible (~300 MHZ) on all cards.
I haven't been able to find any other software that could downclock the memory to 300 MHz while overclocking GPU, so in this ATT is just perfect.
In afterburner or ATI Overdrive for example I can overclock all of the cards very nicely, but the memory clock is somewhat linked to the GPU clock (if the GPU clock is under 850 MHz it lets the mem clock to 725 MHz, if the GPU is more than 850 MHz the lowest mem clock I can set is 1375 MHz).
So my question is: Is there any way to apply this overclocking profile in ATT to ALL of my cards, not just 2 of them? Or is there any other software that can downclock the memory on my cards in the same way that ATT does?
PS: Modding BIOS in RBE and the flashing with ATIFlash is giving me a BSOD, so that is not an option.
Thanks for any help.
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