Topic: Z170 Motherboard for mining with at least 4 gpus - any success stories? (Read 10777 times)

The result is yes, my 4x GPU (3GB Gigabyte GTX 1060 Gaming G1) setup on Gigabyte GA-Z170-Gaming K3 has worked!

1) I have upgraded the BIOS to latest version currently available - F22.

2) I installed Win10Pro x64 in UEFI mode (it was incorrectly installed initially - a hint from my observations: when you remove all logical partitions from the drive, and when installing in UEFI mode, and when the system allocates space for the installation - it creates at least 3 additional logical volumes / partitions. If booted up/installed in any other mode, the system creates only two such partitions! If you see that only two partitions on the hard disk were created before the Windows installation, then you booted up incorrectly, not in UEFI mode). For booting up from USB drive into UEFI mode, I went to the BIOS, in the section where you can save its settings - the BIOS shows the devices connected to the motherboard in the Boot Override section, and among all the options chose where the word UEFI is present.

3) before booting into Windows, I went to BIOS and disconnected EVERYTHING that I do not use, like SATA ports where nothing is connected and all other ports like serial, audio panel, onboard graphics, etc. In M.I.T. section of BIOS I tuned PCI to Gen 2, but works in Gen 1 mode too.

4) after all these settings and installation of Windows - I connected ONLY one GPU (3GB Gigabyte GTX 1060 Gaming G1) with the riser to the slot PCIe x1 which is closest to the CPU (in BIOS I've set this port to be recognized as the first), immediately updated the chipset driver (downloaded from the manufacturer's website), and the latest nVidia driver. After that, I connected 3 other GPUs.

5) But then only 3 out of 4 GPUs were recognized. Therefore, I can not further reliably say that this was the solution, but I connected another, fifth GPU (Gigabyte GTX 1060 Windforce 2 3GB) through a new riser to an open slot PCIe x1, loaded the system, and it detected this fifth card. In the system was defined as the fourth in the list of adapters. Using the GPU-Z utility, I checked each card using the Lookup function to see which card was allocated at number 4 - when clicking Lookup in GPU-Z, the browser opens with the photo of the card that you are detecting/looking up, so after checking each one in turn, I immediately realized that it was the fifth new GPU that was detected. Next step, I decided this way - I will disconnect only the GPU from the old riser that was not detected (I left the PCI x1 adapter in that slot), and I will swap it with the new fifth card, which was detected on a new riser with a PCIe x1 adapter. Another detail - for this new riser I used a different power source - the SATA to MOLEX adapter (the previous riser, where GPU was not detected, was powered directly from the EVGA Supernova 650W G2 80+ Gold Modular) via a modular cable with 3 MOLEX connectors).The fifth GPU - I have put it back in the box.

6) rebooted the system - and YES I have had all 4x Gigabyte GTX 1060 Gaming G1 3GB working.

7) The old riser with a PCIe x1 adapter (where GPU was not previously recognized) I have pulled it out during another reboot.

Hi Guys,
im planing building a rig with 5 Gigabyte rx580 aours 4 gb
i want to use a Gigabyte ga-z160 gaming k3 Motherboard:
http://www.rakuten.de/produkt/gigabyte-ga-z170-gaming-k3-eu-mainboard-1840810105.html?sclid=p_idealo_DE_1840810105_SOMMER-12&portaldv=6&cid=idealo&cc=SOMMER-12
or this one:
https://www.notebooksbilliger.de/msi+z270+a+pro/?nbb=pla.google_&wt_cc2=912-0001_Hardware_294994&gclid=CjwKEAjwse7JBRCJ576SqoD7lCkSJABF-bKuHsQ47PDw1b0bbbZgpP8lBh86Ea3sDMk7CZuGQASulxoCLczw_wcB

do you think this motherboard will be fine for my rig?

Did you had to do anything special? or just enabled 4G/crypto mining bios option in Settings?

"Should Work" unfortunately isnt how this works at all. All motherboards with 6 PCIe slots "Should Work" but they dont.
I would recommend only buying what other people have confirmed already to be working with 6 cards.

Any these should work too right? I can get any of these for the same price of the z270a, thanks for the replies
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/Z270-SLI-PLUS.html#productSpecification-section
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/Z270-KRAIT-GAMING.html#productSpecification-section
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/Z270-GAMING-PRO-CARBON.html#productSpecification-section
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/PRIME-Z270-A/specifications/

Asus Z270-p also works with 6 cards with the latest bios. I've read posts that It can go to 10 cards with extension boards under Linux but haven't tried that personally, but that does make this my go to board for all future builds.

Sure.  It is the MSI z270A Pro.  Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MR31OZ8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I have not tried 7, there is only 6 slots on this one.

exactly what brand of z270? could you link it? have you tried 7 gpus? thanks

I have a z270A running 6x Rx480s

new motherboard bios for MSI on May 1, 2017 enabled me to do this solidly.

Haven't read the thread but I have had 7gpu working on my MSI z170a gaming pro carbon (currently running 6gpu on it since 1 card or riser was giving issues after few hours of mining)

Has anyone managed to get this board to do 5 cards with 17.4.3/4?  I have tried almost everything to get it to work.   I had 5 cards working at one point -- reboot and back to 4 -- reboot 4 times to get the 5th back.  It has something to do with the board having 2 x16 slots I believe.

hi everybody,

I am getting mad to successfully setup a 6x GPU mining rig...I have been experimenting with
3 motherboards but I never managed to have more than 4 GPUs working.
I would go with the "traditional" Asrock motherboards that work flawlessy but they are not easy to find at the moment.

I see some of you managed to setup 6x GPUs on Gigabyte Z170-Gaming K3 and Gigabyte Z170A Gaming Pro Carbon.

@racminer and @IojkinKot
can you please confirm this?

@deadsix
did you try with one of those motherboards?

Thanks!

 Too bad that MB has been out of production for years.

Are you sure guys? I would want to try the Gigabyte Z170 Gaming K3 if all of you can get 6 RX 470/480 cards working on it. Also, on the MSI Carbon, you said you can get 6 RX 480 working. Can you please test if 7 work too?

Ok now the story is a success 

by setting TOLUD to 3Gb instead of Auto,  6 gpu's  Rx480 and/or R9 380 work fine on the MSI Z170A pro carbone motherboard (with 12 Gb ram)

 

ASrock H170A-X1 work fine with 5 GPUs - rx480 8G
Gigabyte Z170 gaming k3 work fine with 6 GPUs - rx470 8G

Exactly!

It's so frustrating and I don't know if I can do anything to make it work with more than 4 gpus,
I have the new MSI Z170A-PRO (bought it 2 weeks ago) and couldn't manage to run more than 4 x sapphire 390X nitro

I mean its the latest consumer intel chipset with the latest 1151 socket but it's garbage for mining, any mobo that can't handle more than 4 gpus nowadays is a garbage in my book as one guy has said.

btw any success stories running 4+ gpus?

Hey Phil did you finally put your Z170GT7's in PC Cases(towers) like you were planning to?


This is great news, Ill try to source those Gigabyte boards now.

Almost a success story with the MSI Z170A pro carbon

Hi

I would like to  share  my own experience with MSI Z170A pro carbone motherboard. First of all and in order to get it to accept USB 3.0 Powered PCI-E 1x -16x Risers, I have to mod the bios and set all PCIe lanes to gen1 (all 20 of them, I did this because I was unable to find which PCI socket goes with which pci lane).
Under window 10, I have succeeded in getting 4 GPU's to work fine (Rx480, R9 380 or R7 370). But I have not succeeded to run more than 4 x Rx480 gpus nor more than 4 x R9 380 gpus, I get the famous message "not sufficient resources ... code 12".

!!!!! However, 7 x R7 370 have worked just  fine with no issues whatsoever !!!!

1) I don't think that the problem is a pci lanes assignment Chipset issue as is often reported, since 7x R7 370 has worked fine.
2) I don't think it is a IRQ issue as often reported also, because each R7 370 have had it own IRQ assigned.
3) I think that the problem is Memory Resource Assignment. By examining the control panel, I noticed that the R7 370 reserves much less memory and I/O port resources than the Rx480 or the R9 380.

Is it a driver issue?  Is it possible to mod the driver in order to delete unneeded resources.

Does the  chipset has anything to do with  memory and i/o port assignment ??

In any case, the news here is that the MSI Z170A pro carbone works perfectly with 7 x  Asus Strix R7 370 4Gb

I managed to get 5 GPU running on Asrock Z170 Pro4s. I updated BIOS to 7.0 and set all PCIe to GEN1 in BIOS. This is not a stable fix ... after restart windows no longer shows 5 need to fiddle with BIOS again(usually I set back to Gen3 save/restart go back in BIOS set to gen1(this usually does the trick))

Since  updating BIOS a few weeks ago Asrock has released a newer version of the BIOS, maybe it will fix this restart bug I'm running into.