Topic: Random lockups/freezes on mining rig. 0.1 BTC bounty for a fix - page 2. (Read 3243 times)

disable catalyst control center and install MSI afterburner instead.  CCC causes many headaches and has been known to cause the type of problems you are talking about.


If that works 13E5sY63tZutcgPtZbPdppZoTfgt2N2YnT

Actually, I have had situations where a usb device can indeed lock up the whole machine, on both linux and windows...  I'd be leaning towards that.  If you have a gaming wireless adapter (i.e. receive wireless and convert to wired) or a wireless repeater with wired ports on it, you might try one of those to rule out the USB adapters.

Thanks man, but I guess an usb adapter is not able to freeze a machine like this. What's more I had them working fine on 2 Intel / Asus systems (Desktop and Laptop)

It is the entire machine. I need to power cycle it to come back (with Always On after power failure on the BIOS). However, now that you mention it, I'm not sure if it locks up without being mining. When I come back I will leave it 24h powered on without doing anything. That can help in troubleshooting, but obviously defeats the purpose.

To make matters worse, the store where I purchased the components have a strict policy. They are *this* close to lose my further investment.

Well a google search shows that people had/have issue with both of them, althought most people having issue with Ralink 2870 chipset was using linux.

When you say lockup/freeze, is it the entire machine or just the mining software?

I'm not using ethernet, but 2 wifi usb adapters. One is a generic dongle with Ralink 2870 chipset. The other is an Alfa AWUS036H

Try updating your ethernet drivers, my bfgminer stops working each time the network screws up

I already did that too.

Maybe you have a bad GPU. Test each one individually.

Thanks, I had tried it already. I also tried one core per unit, i.e. triple. They are also downclocked to 800 Mhz. With dual I managed 2 hours of continuous operation and then a lockup.

Can you suggest me the cheapest (even used) CPU that works with these motherboards?

That said, one should not be forced to tweak for stability the default bios settings or any setting. Slow or lacking features, sure, but not unstable.

Drop the CPU to 2 cores. Read up that the 990 needs further tweaking due to the wider ranger of unlockable cpus.

Be certain that I keep my word and give away the 0.1 BTC if a solution is found. That's nothing compared with how wasteful this have been and the peace of mind I lost

Edit: Another lockup just happened... 

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/256282-30-gigabyte-ep45t-ud3p-random-freeze

So, I have a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3, an AMD FX-6100 CPU, a XFX 850W PSU and 1x4 GB Kingston Value Ram with currently mining with a 7970, a 6950 and a 7870

I can't get around random lockups and freezes.

At least this was attempted:

- I switched the PSU by a Corsair 650 (using just 1 card), the RAM by 2x2GB Gskill Ripjaws and the motherboard from an Asrock 970 Extreme4.
- I've disabled every single feature on the motherboard not useful for mining: Sata, firewire, sound, power saving states, turbo core and others. Likewise on Windows.
- Underclocked to down to half the speed and/or overvolted by 5 to 10% every component on the bios. I relaxed timings on RAM and ran passes of memtest86 without errors.
- I ended up modding the BIOS of the 3 videocards, however the rig locks up even if the GPU cores are down at 500 Mhz.
- I removed the hard-drive and I'm booting from an USB pen. I tested Win7 32 or 64 bits. I used one GPU at a time and switched slots.
- I've read threads online of people complaining about lockups and freezes on this platform.
- It gives me the impression that the rig locks up when left on it's own. I don't remember it even locking up once while interacting with it.
- I updated the bios of the motherboards and even used a suggested bios by someone from Asrock.
- With the autoruns.exe utility, I disabled un-needed device drivers. I test with and without MB drivers installed.
- I've read plenty of threads. For example http://forums.tweaktown.com/asrock/50970-asrock-970-extreme4-fx-8350-unstable-stock-settings-8.html and even http://www.overclock.net/t/1140459/bulldozer-overclocking-guide-performance-scaling-charts-max-ocs-ln2-results-coming
- Temperatures are fine and ventilation is good. GPUs below 60ºC and everything else below 40ºC, even down to 10. I've checked all temperature sensors available via software. Fans are working fine. The CPU cooler has Artic MX-4 thermal paste applied.

I'm pretty sure that experimented more stuff than this. The point is that I need to do something substantially different to fix this crap.
Could someone advise on how to solve this? Thanks.


Edit: I will leave for a few days to be with my family. Please keep replying to this thread, even if I cannot post from there.

Edit2: I can send 0.1 BTC to an escrow if you like. However the machine has to be stable mining 24/7 for at least a week