Mining stories

patnor1011

I started with 4 vega and one rx480 it was working like charm for 3 months. Then I swapped rx480 with vega and had 5 of them working. It was working perfectly for another month. I tried to add 6th and no matter of what I did it would not budge. It was mining for like minute then I got fractals and system crashed so I settled for 5 vegas and sixth is sitting in a box.
I started to get these random crashes and restarts and first thought it is due to temperature as they mostly happen when room temp exceeds 18 degrees.
PSU could not be an issue as it is new 1600W EVGA which is overkill for 5-6 vega cards anyway.
I suspected there may be some problem with mobo so I ordered a new kit (mobo, CPU, ram) as my rig used an older mobo with 1150 socket and DDR3 ram and what was supposed to be easy thing turned to a nightmare when I damaged CPU slot when unpacking.
I found exact motherboard I do use on my rig so I bought it hope to get it home sometime next week.

I do not have that big of a problem with restarts as my system is set in a way that if it restart then it start miner and mining monitoring program itself only sometimes it hangs in a way that I need to do it manually. What concerns me is that cards may suffer when the system crashes often. I used to have one restart say every 2 days and now it restarts like 10x a day.

unkel

Welcome to the world of mining fun / pain

I've had awful problems hardware and software related. Instability and actual physical issues like burnt cables.

patnor1011

Yep that sounds like my life. Always dollar short and a day late. I actually need to change my post. My hash monitor program is logging events and to my surprise I have found that it does not restart 10x a day but approximately 40x a day which is a tad too high. I am going to shut it all off for a few days till new motherboard come. I will be losing some cool coins but it seems safer than waiting for disaster. I am mining newish coin which looks promising but it will have to wait till I can bring my rig back on track.

Dr Bolouswki

Almost every problem I have had seems to be power, temp or riser related. So all eventually get sorted, just requires a lot of troubleshooting.

unkel

Yeah that was my experience too until recently. The most instability I have had was on my best hardware though. 13gpu dedicated mining mobo and AX1200i with just 6 cards. Melted a bloody molex and lots of other instabilities

My most stable rig is my good old previous PC with a 4th gen i5 and Z97 mobo. 5 cards running super fast and stable with just a 860W Seasonic. You really can't tell in this game what's going to happen

Interesting developments in the last few months with Anorak's mining pool and Phoenix miner software. I've moved to both.

And BTW lots of risers I replaced because I had spares (in the troubleshooting process), tested them later and every single one of them was fine. They were not a problem.

drunkmonkey

Anyone know if I'd be up to anything with 2 x GTX 1070's have an alienware laptop and thinking of picking up a graphics amplifier and putting the 2 cards to work on it..

patnor1011

A little follow up on my "problems".
I have found the culprit. It was not riser, mobo or card...
Somehow my config file for OverdrivenTool got corrupted and numbers changed so after weeks of trying it seems that something I took for granted was actually cause of it all.
Vegas requires a lot of fine tuning if you want to squeeze the maximum out of them and even slight change can cause a lot of problems. After few days of fine tuning after I spot strange values in my config everything now works perfectly. No restart or any hiccup last 2 weeks. I actually am getting 11.2 kH/s on cryptonight and even quite a high number on cryptonight heavy - 8.7 kH/s.

Dr Bolouswki

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Anyone know if I'd be up to anything with 2 x GTX 1070's have an alienware laptop and thinking of picking up a graphics amplifier and putting the 2 cards to work on it..

Try the ETHlargement Pill form OhGODacompany

Does 50 Mh's per card (1080, but I believe 1070 version is coming/out)

As long as you have sufficient power for the cards and it connects via PCI bus, you should be laughing. However, you could also just pick up a cheap 2nd hand m-atx board with ram and cpu and a 600W PSU - probably cost you significantly less than an expansion box. (Certainly less than €200).

wannabecraig

Have 3 x RX570, what SW would you guys recommend for ETH?
Currently getting 26Mhs per card. Can get it higher but consumes too much electricity
I'm currently using claymore 11.2.

unkel

Use W10 instead of Linux (if you weren't already), BIOS flash the GPUs (higher hashrate), underclock core voltage and core speed while overclocking memory (this uses less power overall than leaving things default). Use Phoenix instead of Claymore (cheaper and faster) and use a pool like Anorak over Nanopool / Ethpool (cheaper and more community spirit)

Happy mining

wannabecraig

unkel wrote: »

Use W10 instead of Linux (if you weren't already), BIOS flash the GPUs (higher hashrate), underclock core voltage and core speed while overclocking memory (this uses less power overall than leaving things default). Use Phoenix instead of Claymore (cheaper and faster) and use a pool like Anorak over Nanopool / Ethpool (cheaper and more community spirit)

Happy mining

Running Win 10
Have flashed GPU BIOS
Am clocking but still find hard to keep power consumption down, will work more on it.
Am looking at Phoenix atm, will let you know.

Thanks

unkel

What's stock cvddc , cclock and mclock and what settings are you using?

I've 3 of these tiny RX570 4GB Pulse cards (stock 1244 cclock and 1750 mclock) and these are happily hashing at 30Mh/s (-cvddc 860 -cclock 1150 -mclock 2000) completely stable and they're pretty light on electricity use

And what ever way you overclock, the extra hash is always worth more than the extra electricity it costs (but of course the aim is to use as little as possible, while maintaining the highest stable clock possible)

wannabecraig

unkel wrote: »

What's stock cvddc , cclock and mclock and what settings are you using?

I've 3 of these tiny RX570 4GB Pulse cards (stock 1244 cclock and 1750 mclock) and these are happily hashing at 30Mh/s (-cvddc 860 -cclock 1150 -mclock 2000) completely stable and they're pretty light on electricity use

And what ever way you overclock, the extra hash is always worth more than the extra electricity it costs (but of course the aim is to use as little as possible, while maintaining the highest stable clock possible)

Is this in the actual config file? I've not altered that at all.
I flashed the BIOS with a config' I found on anorak.

unkel

You add it to the config / bat file

If you didn't specify voltage / speeds in the configuration, how did you overclock? Using some software like afterburner? Or did you not overclock at all? And how much power is your rig taking from the wall?

wannabecraig

unkel wrote: »

You add it to the config / bat file

If you didn't specify voltage / speeds in the configuration, how did you overclock? Using some software like afterburner? Or did you not overclock at all? And how much power is your rig taking from the wall?

HI,

Used afterburner to overclock.

Mem clock is set to 1990
Core is 1244
Power limit is 0%

unkel

What are the defaults? You can check with gpu-z. Also try Phoenix miner. You could be unlucky with the actual cards you have, but I would expect them to run at a good bit more than 26Mh/s. What power is your rig taking at the wall and what PSU do you have?

wannabecraig

Defaults are

Mem clock 1750
Core is 1244

Tried Phoenix last night without any config edit, only picked up 2 cards and was hashing at 26MH/s

It's taking about 420KWh on a 650w PSU

Dr Bolouswki

570's should work happily on
Core 1150mhz/850mv
Mem 2200/900mv

You can experiment with these limits for individual cards +/- 50 for all values. More speed usually needs more juice. The way to do it is push Mem speeds until you start to get gpu memory errors (use HWInfo) then pull it back 25(or 50) mhz from that point. Then REDUCE core gpu speed until you start to see hashrate change downwards. Stick with that then start to reduce mv on core, followed by mv on memory. Let it run for a while between settings, but as I said, the values at the start are pretty safe and should see you (with a memory timings modded bios) get 30-31Mhz at about 110w per card, stable at 60C.

Check out the bios and overclocking guide on mining.help

nxbyveromdwjpg

I took the plunge and I've an order en route from Bitmain.

The place I'll be setting up though has no wired internet, I am thinking about getting a 4G dongle and was wondering will I be able to plug the Antminers in using one of these or similar ?

Also do I need a separate ethernet port for each machine, would I be better off getting a hub or some sort? If so, any recommendations?

Dr Bolouswki

I read in multiple guides for PC based mining (not asics) that wireless does not work, although I don't know any more than that. The internet is full of people being wrong, and I could easily be one of them

Assuming the power you are using is wired into a house that does have wired broadband, you should get yourself a couple of these

stick one beside your current router and connect an ethernet cable to it and stick a switch on the mining room end. You need 1 port for your connection from the tplink plug - then you have 15 free for the miners (1 each)

Make sure your current router has sufficient capability for giving out multiple addresses to devices. Virgin hub 3 for instance is limited to 16 - so if theres lots of tablets, phones laptops in your house you should be explore further.

You also want to make sure that you have sufficient power for the miners, that you are not drawing millions of amps over a single extension lead or whatever - ask the boys on the electricity forum once you know your setup.

nxbyveromdwjpg

Dr Bolouswki wrote: »

I read in multiple guides for PC based mining (not asics) that wireless does not work, although I don't know any more than that. The internet is full of people being wrong, and I could easily be one of them

Assuming the power you are using is wired into a house that does have wired broadband, you should get yourself a couple of these

stick one beside your current router and connect an ethernet cable to it and stick a switch on the mining room end. You need 1 port for your connection from the tplink plug - then you have 15 free for the miners (1 each)

Make sure your current router has sufficient capability for giving out multiple addresses to devices. Virgin hub 3 for instance is limited to 16 - so if theres lots of tablets, phones laptops in your house you should be explore further.

You also want to make sure that you have sufficient power for the miners, that you are not drawing millions of amps over a single extension lead or whatever - ask the boys on the electricity forum once you know your setup.

Thanks for the reply. There's no wired internet at all unfortunately. I am thinking about something like this now, basically something that will take a sim card to receive 4G and then output it through ethernet. I'd then connect your switch to that, and away I go? Or even a bog standard dongle, a USB to Ethernet converter and then to the switch ?

Would this work?

For the power - there's 6 wall sockets there, on which I want to run 4x Antminer S9's and 2x GPU rigs. So basically a wall socket each. Am I alright here?

unkel

Wireless charging on a Windows 10 mining rig works just fine with a €10 wifi dongle, provided the rig is not too far from the router. Mining only uses about 1mbps bandwith, which is low. None of the Linux based miners come with built in wifi support, so you'd have to configure that yourself.

Wall sockets are 13A, or about 3kW. That's not a problem for a 1.5kW Antminer or a 1kW GPU rig. I hope you don't have electric showers in the house though, that might send your total house demand over the edge (if someone plugs in a kettle / has dishwasher on or iron or a few of these at the same time)

Dr Bolouswki

Camille Large Tablecloth wrote: »

For the power - there's 6 wall sockets there, on which I want to run 4x Antminer S9's and 2x GPU rigs. So basically a wall socket each. Am I alright here?

It depends. Basically, if you divide your wattage by your voltage, you get the amp draw. So a 1000w draw of your average GPU based system, using the Irish standard of 240v gives you 1000/240= 4.17amps. Most irish households work off a 63amp fuse, so basically the whole house can pull at the same time, 63 amps. However, this is usually broken down into circuits, which each have a limit. Your plugs circuit might work of 20 amps, your cooker might work of 15 amps etc.

So basically, if your six wall sockets all work off the same 20 amp circuit (and nothing else runs on that circuit) you can pull about 5x1000w loads. So you basically need to check what your circuits can deliver and how they are split.

It's not something to get wrong as at best you get tripped fuses, at worst it overheats the wiring and you get a fire.

unkel

Aye. My car charges at 7.2kW, so about the same as all those miners put together. But it has its own 40A circuit with its own RCBO in the consumer unit and 6mm2 core cable was used for the install (by a certified and very experienced RECI installer). A lot less to worry there. With 7-8kW in miners in my house (in the same room), I would want a sparks to have a look at it to see if it's ok

wannabecraig

So I updated my version of windows by mistake, cards all dropped for 11MH/s
Rolled back and can now only get 15MH/s.

Can you let me know which GPU driver versions you guys are using?

I don't think the GPU bios will have changed but need to look at that.
Anything else that could have caused this?

wannabecraig

So I updated my version of windows by mistake, cards all dropped for 11MH/s
Rolled back and can now only get 15MH/s.

Can you let me know which GPU driver versions you guys are using?

I don't think the GPU bios will have changed but need to look at that.
Anything else that could have caused this?

Edit, fixed and running at 25MH/s again now.
So not I just need the config sorted.

Set Defaults back on Afterburner.
This is my start minder file


setx GPU_FORCE_64BIT_PTR 0
setx GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT 100

"

REM IMPORTANT: Replace the ETH address with your own ETH wallet address in the -wal option (Rig001 is the name of the rig)
PhoenixMiner.exe -pool eth-eu1.nanopool.org:9999 -pool2 ssl://eth-eu1.nanopool.org:9999 -wal 0xe898915BEFb6575F818938666Ec16A2465d6XXX
pause

-cvddc 860
-cclock 1150
-mclock 2000

"

Still at 25MH/s

wannabecraig

Dr Bolouswki wrote: »

570's should work happily on
Core 1150mhz/850mv
Mem 2200/900mv

Check out the bios and overclocking guide on mining.help

Where are you setting these values? In the BIOS?

Dr Bolouswki

No - only changes I make to bios are memory straps.

I use overdriveNtool rather than afterburner - you can turn off throttled states in that and also set the core/mem and voltages directly.

Read the guide @ mining.help. It's very straightforward. You will have 31Mh/s per card easy.

wannabecraig

Update:

Followed the page through but ran into issues.
DDU just shows up as a white screen, can't see the things shown in the pics on that page (Using TeamViewer so might be that)
Radeon software settings page also doesn't show correctly, so can't adjust that, might be TV also.

Used the win10-64bit-radeon-software-adrenalin-edition-18.5.2 drivers as suggested.

Rate dropped down to ~16Mh/s on all cards.

Personally I think it's a driver issue so going to remove and install the ones that had it running at 26Mh/s and see if that makes a diff'.

Dr Bolouswki

16mhs = graphics mode.

I would generally recommend blockchain drivers as it defaults to compute for all cards.

DDU needs to be done in safe mode to avoid issues.

Anytime you reinstall a driver, wait a LONG time before thinking things have hung etc. Use the rightclick option on your pc in device manager and click "scan for new hardware" however, it can take 5-10 minutes to finally recognise all 6 cards and install the drivers for them. Be patient.

Use HWinfo in summary mode to see see if the cards are seen by your PC.

Reboot when you change settings in overdriventool - it usually will not apply the settings correctly until it reboots. Just stick your overdrive startup file shortcut into run/shellstartup to re-apply/reset overclocks on reboot.

Seriously. I have not found an RX570 that does not happily deliver 31 Mh/s.