Topic: Windows 7 64 bit dual 5970 rig question (Read 7039 times)

hmm..changed my worksize to 256 and I noticed a very slight performance increase..hash rate is also more stable now.

lol didn't know there was a bounty..worry not; I do this out of the goodness of my heart..

hey btw, I think with the 5970 using WORKSIZE=128 may give you better performance. Also experiment with the FASTLOOP setting (turning it on to see if it helps)

If you got good cooling for those cards try clocking them to 850 Mhz - you'll get 350 Mhash/sec (that's with aggression set to 6..if you use 11 it will be even higher)

Totally beautiful. Finally I got all 4 cores to work properly. I cannot hardly understand it. I've used countless hours trying to make it work! But I never give up! And it pays in the end!

Now I have all 4 cores working just beautifully, giving between 325-330Mhash/s each at 800Mhz clock.

Here is the command for the 4th GPU:

phoenix -u http://[email protected]:[email protected]:8332 -k poclbm DEVICE=3 WORKSIZE=256 VECTORS AGGRESSION=11 -v BFI_INT

I fixed this remotely through software only (tightvnc connection).

I am running driver version 11.5 for the 5970 card (downloaded from ati page), and the ATI Stream SDK 2.4. I installed the driver first, then I installed the SDK after. I also went into ccc and unticked all boxes in the settings (sorry for the poor explanation, but I can't be bothered to fire up ccc again over the slow vnc connection to check which boxes I unticked.).

However I think it is the driver version and ATI Stream SDK version that fixed the problem. Once I saw that the GPU started working a little, I figured it was just a software problem. I thank everyone for trying to help me. And everything is now solved, alas nobody in particular helped me find the solution that worked, that I did find myself, so the bounty will be saved for now.

But if you are running a dual 5970 rig under windows 7, 64 bit, know it is possible to make it work, even without a crossfire cable. Hope this thread also helped somebody else but me!

Thanks again everybody, and have a great day! I am a happy man now!

allinvain: thanks for your suggestions, yes i do use phoenix as you see.

Yeah it's possible. I'm not using 11.4 either. I tried it on a recent miner and I had problems - driver crashes - so I went to 10.11.

Make sure you use the latest guiminer as it has support for the BFI_INT instruction. Another miner called Phoenix supports the same (it was the first to introduce it). Also keep an eye on a mining program called "hashkill"

Actually, this worked:


I will play some more and see if I can get a higher hash rate and make it run stable. Seems that perhaps the newest driver 11.5 have fixed some issues, because 11.4 would absolutely not work for me.

I also suspected it could be using the CPU! But the thing is that it isn't.


For my dual 5970 setup:

device 0, ie. gpu 3 is ok
device 1, ie. gpu 4 is ok
device 2, ie gpu 1 is ok
device 3, ie gpu 2 (hashing only with 11Mhash/s)

I tried to turn off the miners to see acitivty in MSI Afterburner for percentage of GPU used, and when I turned off miner on device 3, percentage use on gpu 2 went to 0. So i suspect it is not using the CPU, but the hashrate could lead you to believe it.

I will try guiminer now and post the results.


i decided to try poclbm to see which cores were available. I got this result:


I will try various miners and versions now and see if there is any difference.

Ok now that is odd. GPU 4 it seems is not really a GPU but instead the miner is using your CPU!!

Do you see 4 Cayman cores in guiminer (try guiminer as a test)?

I have a monitor connected to each card at the moment. GPU1, 2 and 3 working fine. But GPU 4 just working at 11Mhash/s. I can't try the crossfire cable right now, as this is a remote machine. Then I will have my partner attempt to put on crossfire cable later on. thanks for the input.

I don't think you need a monitor or a dummy cable for each card. If you use quad crossfire it should work just fine. The only time where you need a dummy plug is when you are NOT using crossfire/SLI. The reason being is that when the OS detects that no video load is on the card's connectors it shuts off the card. A dummy plug tricks the card into thinking it's got a monitor attached.

I will see if I can find the powertune slider. Now I have the 4th gpu working somewhat.

Installed latest drivers 11.5 and latest sdk 2.4, and the 4th gpu is now running at 11Mhash/s, still about 300Mhash/s less than it is supposed to do, but from a "dead" cpu to this it is progress. Also in the progress of getting ubuntu up and running and see if that will take care of things.

Thanks for all your input. And I've googled quite a lot. Just is not an expert on overclocking and hw in general.

The PSU is enough, i have the same one. If you guys would do the trouble on googling an review you would know that you can pull 1KW from this psu and still keep efficiency around 81%.
Why the f would you use an amd recomended psu list ? Corsais uses the best oems availble and are pretty much the best psu's to buy, that's why they cost a bit more.


To the op, open catalyst and search for a "powertune" slider, not sure if 5 series cards have that option but anyways slide that to the max. If it doesn't help then i suspect the vrm's are overheating.

Yes, I have a monitor connected to each card. Also tried to connect two monitors to the card with the GPU that does not work well. Same issue stil. Thanks for your reply!

are you connecting a monitor to each card ?
If not you may need a dummy vga plug in the ones without monitor

I attempted to fiddle around with Catalyst Control Center, as I've read that I might have some kind of crossfire issue since I can't use that 2nd gpu on the 2nd card of mine. I disabled "Enable Surface Format Optimization" from the Catalys A.I. box under Gaming -> 3D application Settings, and then both gpu's on my second card stopped working for mining.

But i reversed this change and the first gpu on card 2 worked for mining again.

So could it simply be a software issues? Some settings I have to make?

I currently run my dual 5970 rig with the following PSU:

PSU: CorsairHX-850 watt


As written earlier in this thread, one GPU will not work at all, it starts working for a few seconds, and then it just dies off. Apparently the card works fine (both gpu's) when it is run alone in the rig (other 5970 taken out). I wonder if my PSU is insufficient for my dual 5970 setup?

The motherboard is a Asus rampage III extreme socket-1366.

What are your opinions about putting in a stronger PSU with more watts, would it possibly solve the problem with the GPU that does not perform?

Ah, ok, thanks! I will see what I can make out of this!

Corsair HX-850, is not in the list of certified PSU for not only 5970, but totally to 5000 series.
http://support.amd.com/us/certified/power-supplies/Pages/listing.aspx?p=Corsair
http://support.amd.com/us/certified/power-supplies/Pages/details.aspx?item=498

You can email to Corsair itself & ask them.

Thank for you suggestions dishwara. I will get back to this thread once and if I get things sorted out.

Currently running with the following PSU: CorsairHX-850 watt

According to this thread, 850 watt should be enough:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/286977-10-which-dual-5970

But I am no expert in this subject.

I will try all the things suggested. Thanks.

It seems, you getting problem only if u run all the gpus, here 2*5970, thats 4 gpu.
I suspect the PSU, power supply not giving enough power.
For to run the above spec, u at least need, 300 for each card with out OC.
So in total u must have at least 300+300+250= 850 Watts without OC.
I recommend go for at least 2 * 750 W (Recommended by AMD, not cheap ones), which give 1500W, or 2*650 W, if money is problem, which give 1300 W, which enough to give power to all cards & cpu also. & also OC.



Instead of express install, go for custom & only install these 3 or 4.
many times VC++ grayed out.
ATI display driver, ATI catalyst install manager, APP 2.3 or SDK 2.1 & VC++

Vista drivers will work for win 7.
For 5000 series card, you must at least try 2.1 & 10.12 or less.

I run it at 800Mhz core clock and 925MHz Memory clock. And temps are good. Do you suggest any changes to these temps? For the 3 working gpu's this setup have been running stable for days at a time.