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Barely useable 290x when mining

N

nuttcase21

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 3, 2012
Messages
129
So I just got my first 290x up and running, came from a gtx680, and it's damn near unusable while it's mining. Card is on water and when I start cgminer, which it only mines at 675khs btw no matter what I try, you can hardly use the computer. I understand that the card is working overtime to mine, but I should atleast be able to search files and what not while it's doing so. My 680 could mine and let you use the desktop and whatnot without any indication it was hashing. Temps on the 290x are in the 49 degree C range fully loaded and it's only got a modest OC on it. Think I have a dud or is this something to expect. As a side note, as soon as I installed the card and 13.25 drivers when I try and right click the desktop to creat a new folder it takes like 60 seconds for the menu to pop up, regardless of whether I'm mining or not. Weird... Running win 7 64, latest cgminer and the card on the quiet bios.
 
This is normal. When the GPU is fully utilized for compute it's slow to display. It really depends on what you're running and GPU utilization level percentage. Use GPU-Z to monitor. My Nvidia was slow to display when maxed out on top of being only a fraction in performance for compute as compared to AMD.
 
Probably because the Nvidia card wasn't stressed as much and had lower performance.
 
You should post in the crypto forum, but it sounds like you don't have the right core/mem settings, and are also using a high intensity (this causes the desktop lag). If the timings aren't right you'll get a low hash rate no matter how high the intensity. Once you figure out the timings, drop the intensity to like 17/18 while using the computer and it should be fine.
 
My 680 was maxed out to the limit, clocked at 1241gpu and 7500 mem, 100% gpu load in gpu-z hashing at 410khs, the 290x fluctuates up and down all over the place and is worse to display all on factory clocks. Drivers are 13.12 sorry.
 
nuttcase21 said:
My 680 was maxed out to the limit, clocked at 1241gpu and 7500 mem, 100% gpu load in gpu-z hashing at 410khs, the 290x fluctuates up and down all over the place and is worse to display all on factory clocks. Drivers are 13.12 sorry.
Click to expand...

The intensity is what matters the most for useable vs not. You can have a low intensity (13) and still 100% gpu load, or go high intensity (19/20) and have major mouse / everything lag.
 
nuttcase21 said:
My 680 was maxed out to the limit, clocked at 1241gpu and 7500 mem, 100% gpu load in gpu-z hashing at 410khs, the 290x fluctuates up and down all over the place and is worse to display all on factory clocks. Drivers are 13.12 sorry.
Click to expand...

100% load doesn't really mean anything. There are huge differences. Furmark 100% load vs BF4 100% load for example.
 
DracoNB said:
The intensity is what matters the most for useable vs not. You can have a low intensity (13) and still 100% gpu load, or go high intensity (19/20) and have major mouse / everything lag.
Click to expand...

Bingo!

Intensity is a big deal when mining.

Another reason people like the R9 280x cards is because since they run at 13 intensity, even as a primary display card you get 750kh and a totally usable computer except for gaming & movie playing (obviously) .
 
My intensity is up to 22, haha. Maybe that's the culprit right there. I've tried all sorts of combinations so far and haven't found the sweet spot just yet. I'm starting to think I may have a bum card too. Appreciate the help guys, I'll post over in the crypto section now.
 
Tips:

Use SGminer, and use xIntensity (i think mine is set to 195 which is roughly 19.1 in regular intensity"

Close MSI Afterburner ( this caused huge lag for me at first, for some reason when Afterburner was open, my hash rate would drop to the 600s and there would be crazy lag)
 
The Mac said:
i think 18 is concidered optimum for the 290s
Click to expand...

I lose nearly 10% of my hashrate at 18.

xIntensity is a better option it lets you set the value much more precisely.

the way xIntensity is calculated is like so:

2^intensity = threads

threads/shaders = xIntensity

so @ 20 we have


2 ^ 20 = 1048576

1048576 / 2816 = 372


2 ^ 19 = 524288

524288 / 2816 = 186.18181.....


mine are set at 195 and they give me nearly the hashrate of 20 with the reject rate of 19 (.5-1.5% average)

and my desktop is still useable :p
 
Reference 290x here
Running cgminer 3.7.3 helps a little if you set xintensity instead of intensity I'm averaging about 1.02 Mhs and hardly any rejects (just some stales).
 
I've been trying to flash stilts bios's and everything crashes at the recommended 22 intensity. I've since dropped it down to 13 and kept his TC and a recommendations but no luck getting above 675khs so far and that was on a slight overclock. I've been rolling through his bios's trying to find the sweet spot but still can't seem to find anything stable. This is why I'm thinking I might have a bum card. Anything over 15 intensity and it just plain crashes. I'm out having a few beers for steak and bj day with the girlfriend but when I get home I'm gonna try a few more bios's and see where I get. As a hint I've started from the highest voltage ones and been working down with no success.
 
Justintoxicated said:
Reference 290x here
Running cgminer 3.7.3 helps a little if you set xintensity instead of intensity I'm averaging about 1.02 Mhs and hardly any rejects (just some stales).
Click to expand...

You're running one 290x and getting 1.02 Mhs? I'm running 4 cards and getting 3.2. What are your settings, if you don't mind sharing?
 
nuttcase21 said:
I've been trying to flash stilts bios's and everything crashes at the recommended 22 intensity. I've since dropped it down to 13 and kept his TC and a recommendations but no luck getting above 675khs so far and that was on a slight overclock. I've been rolling through his bios's trying to find the sweet spot but still can't seem to find anything stable. This is why I'm thinking I might have a bum card. Anything over 15 intensity and it just plain crashes. I'm out having a few beers for steak and bj day with the girlfriend but when I get home I'm gonna try a few more bios's and see where I get. As a hint I've started from the highest voltage ones and been working down with no success.
Click to expand...

You should list all of your settings.

Also 13 is very low for a 290(x), you should use 17 or so while using the computer, and 18+ when not.
 
how do I list all my settings? here's my batch file:
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
cgminer.exe --scrypt -o stratum+tcp://us.ltcrabbit.com:3334 -u furion450.nuttcase21 -p password -I 17 --thread-concurrency 32768 -w 256

this batch file was taken from stilts thread with his bios's, beside the pool and user info of course. I've toned it down to 17 intensity from his recommended 22 because it would just crash the driver.
 
nuttcase21 said:
how do I list all my settings? here's my batch file:
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
cgminer.exe --scrypt -o stratum+tcp://us.ltcrabbit.com:3334 -u furion450.nuttcase21 -p password -I 17 --thread-concurrency 32768 -w 256

this batch file was taken from stilts thread with his bios's, beside the pool and user info of course. I've toned it down to 17 intensity from his recommended 22 because it would just crash the driver.
Click to expand...

try:

-g 1 -w 512 --lookup-gap 2 --thread-concurrency 30592 --I 17 --gpu-engine 1040 --gpu-memclock 1500 --gpu-powertune 20

or

--lookup-gap 2 -g 1 -I 17 -w 256 --thread-concurrency 32765 --gpu-engine 1025 --gpu-memclock 1500

and then bump the intensity up when you aren't using the machine to get an extra boost.

Might want to look at this thread for some more:

http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoinmining/comments/1rurj5/what_are_your_r9_290_and_290x_settings/

and single out the 290x ones from the 290s.
 
not matter what bios I'm on, I can't get it to run cgminer at anything more than 14 intensity. I used your first example above but turned the mem clocks down to 1350 to start and nothing. it crashes the display driver instantly. I think I have a dud card.
 
card will only hash on the stock quiet bios. when I change over to the other bios, albeit stilts or the fast stock one, it won't hash. now on the stock quiet bios the highest intensity I can get is 13 without it failing after 10 minutes or so. it mined all last night with only .3% rejects and a steady 585khs at 1070/1375 gpu/mem clocks. I go up any higher on the mem and it starts to lose khs so it looks like that's the sweet spot. gonna try your 2nd example above right now.
 
with the thread concurrency in there it'll only hash at like 25khs. I remove it and it jumps to 585khs, that's for both examples above.
 
I have no idea then sorry... it sounds like you are using two gpu threads, which you only want to do with low intensity, but the two lines I put have it set to single.

Does your card work fine in 3d mark / other test programs?
 
its set to single thread. I'm testing it in other programs right now. will report back shortly.
 
I will be the first one to tell you there is no magic setting for all the cards out there.

Each card is different and must be tweaked on your own. Going to the wiki page and getting the settings from the highest K/hash is not the best way to go about things. Also overclocking the card to higher levels doesn't always merit a hash rate increase. Most miners will undervolt the card and run at or near stock settings.

if you wish to use your pc while you mining then you will have to lower the intensity and give up some hash performance.

I mine around 970 k/hash on my 290 under water and unlocked to a 290x. My Wu is over 875.

There are plenty of guides floating around on the net on how to tweak your cards, so I won't waste my time trying to explain it here. I will say if your card is water cooled, then setting up CGminer to work is more involved. You have to go into the c file and change the _gpu fanspeed function to return a false value. Or use the command line -T (will run in text mode)
 
Last edited:
JMCB said:
You're running one 290x and getting 1.02 Mhs? I'm running 4 cards and getting 3.2. What are your settings, if you don't mind sharing?
Click to expand...

Code: 
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100 
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
cgminer.exe --scrypt -o stratum+tcp://coinotron.com:3334 -u Justintoxicated.worker1 -p 123456789 -w 256 --xintensity 400 -g 1 --thread-concurrency 32768 --temp-overheat 85 --temp-cutoff 95 --gpu-memclock 1500 --gpu-engine 1030 --gpu-powertune 20

Boosting voltage with MSI afterburner to help with stability. Every now and then when I launch cgminer my PC hangs up / black screen :( It's usually stable once it is going though, no real rejects for the most part other than stales. (I think one time it black screened over the last month so maybe I can play a little more still). Since I don't have a dedicated rig it's a bit annoying to black screen when launching the miner...
Being under water keeps the temps down, on my crappy elpida memory card.

I'm using stilts bios as well. (I have to flip the switch and reboot to game, which is what I purchased the card for)

ebduncan said:
There are plenty of guides floating around on the net on how to tweak your cards, so I won't waste my time trying to explain it here. I will say if your card is water cooled, then setting up CGminer to work is more involved. You have to go into the c file and change the _gpu fanspeed function to return a false value. Or use the command line -T (will run in text mode)
Click to expand...

My card is watercooled and I have not done this. What exactly does not changing this setting do? Is that why I get blackscreens sometimes?
 
Last edited:
My card is watercooled and I have not done this. What exactly does not changing this setting do? Is that why I get blackscreens sometimes?
Click to expand...

well its odd that you have gotten it to run at all and show display. Do you have another graphics card in your system as well?

the watercooling bug is dude to there is no fan speed being reported. Since CGminer cannot detect the fan speed it doesn't display the normal screen and doesn't work properly. Adding the -T command at the end of your config file makes CGminer run in text mode and fixes the problem. Or you can manually edit the code for CGminer, to have a fake return value for fan speed always. Alternatively you can get a fan adpater for the header on the card, and plug in some random fan to it and not have a problem as well.
 
ebduncan said:
if you read, you don't need the -T command unless your water cooled. And 755 is low.
Click to expand...

If you read my first post my card is under water. And the only bios that's stable to mine for me is the PT1 bios I found on the weminecrypto site. None of the stilt bios's work at all for me without crashing. I did try the -T argument and it crashed on me as well. Had to lower my clock back down to get it to work. I seriously think I have a bad card or my memory timings are so out of wack that any sort of load on them and it dies.
 
My Sapphire Tri-X 290x only goes up to 933 Kh/s and I haven't been able to push it higher. I wish I knew how to make it hit 1 Mh/s tho :(
 
I'm finally up to 870khs and on the stock asus bios nonetheless. I've tried everything I can find to boost me higher and it's just not possible. Some just don't hash as well as others I guess.
 
update!

I'm officially over 1 mh/s now. switched over to stilts v32 bios and started from the bottom slowly working my way up. I'm at 1065 core and 1400 mem with power at 50% and I'm getting a constant and stable 1.024mh/s with around .9% rejections and 0 HW errors. I found that I was having trouble using the beta version of afterburner. so I reverted back to the latest non beta version and things are more stable. here's my settings:
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
start /high cgminer --scrypt -o stratum+tcp://us2.ltcrabbit.com:3334 -u xxx -p xxx -g 1 -w 256 -I 20 -v 1 --lookup-gap 2 --thread-concurrency 24700 --gpu-powertune 50 --gpu-engine 950 --gpu-memclock 1250

I start cgminer up with AB open and then once it's running I bump the core and memory clocks up. setting the clocks in the batch file causes the driver to crash everytime so I use AB and change it afterwards. works fine that way.
 
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