ZCash/ZEC GPU mining

[Madpacket]

are you seeing a couple Sol better per card with the 6 480's rigs even with that G18xx celeron?

I was concerned about desktop usability when i remote in if i left the intensity setting higher than default.

Yes so far seems faster with Claymore 4.0 and intensity set to "2" on my G1840's. The CPU is fully maxed out but I still have no real issues using TeamViewer to control them. It's laggy sure but easy enough to work with.

 

[thilanliyan]

Anyone using BIOS modded memory straps on 480s?
Any long term damage I should be worried about?

 

[lienad216]

Sadly Claymore has decided he won't do any more Linux clients because he's having problems protecting his binaries from decompliation on that OS. Or so it is said. So I may have to look at other miners for Linux or move to Win7 or something. Alas.

If its windows 10 licenses you lack, running an Insider build (at least a somewhat stable build) or updating to 1607 build and just not "activating" seems to work alright. So far the desktop I did that on is not giving me any problems.

If its the updates... the group policy edit for updates seems to be working fine for me. It bugs me every other day with a dialog about there being updates, but it doesn't update by itself.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Yeah the haswell Celeron's are a little slow but I still run them with "-i 2". My i3-6100 rig is much faster / more consistent though.

True. I might have to cut back on the CPU mining too.

And that is ok, because with Claymore 4 I am at twice the sol I started with pre Claymore. My 390x is 100! 280x is 67.

 

[RussianSensation]

Doesn't the Kill-A-Watt only measure the input 120/220V power?

Right now I am running my Hawaii rig so that the power at Kill-a-Watt doesn't exceed 900W (or if using 89% efficiency); that's 801W at the PSU level. When this PSU was 4 years old, it could handle 1125W per Kill-a-Watt. 4.5 years of constant use at 900-1000W has finally worn it out. Pretty good for a non-server grade PSU, but it's clear this PSU is going to need to be replaced before its warranty period runs out.

True. I might have to cut back on the CPU mining too.

And that is ok, because with Claymore 4 I am at twice the sol I started with pre Claymore. My 390x is 100! 280x is 67.

Yup, this is key since hashing productivity increases continue to make ZEC mining extremely competitive compared to Ethereum, but in turn it makes Ethereum more profitable for ETH miners. At this pace we only need ZEC mining to stay strong for 3 months and nearly everyone whose GPUs haven't been paid off yet from Ethereum mining should get there. AMD needs to release 250W Vega ASAP. If Vega is about 2X faster mining ZEC than RX 480 is, it would be a nice upgrade in late January, while getting a "free/heavily subsidized" $600 card after selling the RX 480(s) and cashing in the profits from older Tahiti/Hawaii/Polaris 10 cards. Guaranteed sales for AMD more or less.

 

[Madpacket]

Anyone using BIOS modded memory straps on 480s?
Any long term damage I should be worried about?

I flashed over 30 Rx480's. No issues mining for a few months now. I used the Boysie 29Mh low power ROM for all reference and Sapphire aftermarket cards. I still have to mod my MSI Gaming X cards but I'll do that myself modifying the stock ROM straps just to be safe.

Yes it's worth it.

 

[Madpacket]

True. I might have to cut back on the CPU mining too.

And that is ok, because with Claymore 4 I am at twice the sol I started with pre Claymore. My 390x is 100! 280x is 67.

Yeah I'm glad I kept 8 390's instead of selling them all. These cards are champs for ZEC mining. Even the old 7970 / 280X are doing great from what I've seen.

I also cut back on CPU mining. Not really worth it unless you have a Core i7..

 

[IntelUser2000]

Yup, this is key since hashing productivity increases continue to make ZEC mining extremely competitive compared to Ethereum, but in turn it makes Ethereum more profitable for ETH miners.

I am noticing that unless I sell ZEC as soon as it is mined, since I am losing overall value of held ZEC coins, my balance isn't increasing. Also, the hashrate increase provided by the Claymore miner soon decreased back to non-improved profit levels, because its a popular miner. While increasing power use.

 

[DrMrLordX]

If its windows 10 licenses you lack, running an Insider build (at least a somewhat stable build) or updating to 1607 build and just not "activating" seems to work alright. So far the desktop I did that on is not giving me any problems.

If its the updates... the group policy edit for updates seems to be working fine for me. It bugs me every other day with a dialog about there being updates, but it doesn't update by itself.

Interesting suggestion. I already run Insider builds on my main PC (livin life on the edge!) so it wouldn't be too hard for me to do that.

I am noticing that unless I sell ZEC as soon as it is mined, since I am losing overall value of held ZEC coins, my balance isn't increasing. Also, the hashrate increase provided by the Claymore miner soon decreased back to non-improved profit levels, because its a popular miner. While increasing power use.

I'm still doin already profit-wise, though ZEC is dropping again which makes things a bit dicey. I am definitely not holding coins any longer than necessary.

 

[thilanliyan]

I flashed over 30 Rx480's. No issues mining for a few months now. I used the Boysie 29Mh low power ROM for all reference and Sapphire aftermarket cards. I still have to mod my MSI Gaming X cards but I'll do that myself modifying the stock ROM straps just to be safe.

Yes it's worth it.

Thanks, I'll give it a shot.
Once flashed, what core/mem speeds are you running at?
What kind of power use do they have?

 

[lienad216]

Interesting suggestion. I already run Insider builds on my main PC (livin life on the edge!) so it wouldn't be too hard for me to do that.

I'm still doin already profit-wise, though ZEC is dropping again which makes things a bit dicey. I am definitely not holding coins any longer than necessary.

If you need the stability and can manage to grab a copy of an older insider build, its possible to set it to the normal 1607 redstone build by turning off insider updates temporarily (before it manages to download/install the updates) and then opting out of insider once 1607 is installed. Tedious process but I think its worth the peace of mind...

In an ideal world I'd mine ZEC and sell when the rallies happen but I dotn have the nerve for it

Thanks, I'll give it a shot.
Once flashed, what core/mem speeds are you running at?
What kind of power use do they have?

I'm concerned about returning it though. I assume, since they're optimized, you wouldn't really want to run games on them... So, supposing I do flash, how do I get back, say if I want to sell the card. Or, is there any danger of bricking the card?

 

[poofyhairguy]

Interesting suggestion. I already run Insider builds on my main PC (livin life on the edge!) so it wouldn't be too hard for me to do that.

I have been converting my Linux boxes to good old unactivated Windows 7 for the new claymore.

Works fine.

I'm still doin already profit-wise, though ZEC is dropping again which makes things a bit dicey. I am definitely not holding coins any longer than necessary.

That is why the new Claymore is nice, keeps you a little ahead of the curve. I have been experimenting with CPU mining with low thread counts to counter the need for CPU with 2 intensity. There is a balance in there somewhere.

 

[Madpacket]

Thanks, I'll give it a shot.
Once flashed, what core/mem speeds are you running at?
What kind of power use do they have?

Core / Mem: I just leave the defaults set by the Boysie ROM. I believe it sets the speeds to 1095 Core / 2080 mem. The default voltages is a little generous (for stability purposes) so what I recommend doing after flashing is to use WattTool 0.92 and adjusting the core/mem votlages to drop down lower. Most of my reference cards are stable mining ZEC or Ether at 875 - 930mv GPU core and 900 - 925mv on the memory. The nice thing about WattTool is it easily lets you set for multiple cards unlike Wattman which is just junk in comparison. At these settings GPU-Z is reporing between 60 - 70W on the cores and it's easy to keep the temperatures in the mid 60's with sane RPM fan limits (under 3000).

I'm concerned about returning it though. I assume, since they're optimized, you wouldn't really want to run games on them... So, supposing I do flash, how do I get back, say if I want to sell the card. Or, is there any danger of bricking the card?

Right if you flash them you want to use them primarily for mining. There's nothing stopping you from gaming on them but I'm not sure how much the performance would suffer. If you really want a card to do both and are skittish about flashing then make sure you get a card with dual BIOS switches so you can flip back and forth when needed. The Sapphire Nitro cards are good for this. Alternatively you can simply adjust the profiles using WattTool, maybe try that first as it would take less time to using it than flipping BIOS's and rebooting.

As for warranty just make sure you backup your original BIOS correctly. Use ATIWinflash and backup the full 512KB file (as GPU-Z only reads 256KB) just to be safe. It's easy enough to restore the original BIOS. I've already had to do this with a Nitro card due to faulty fans and RMA'd the card without issues.
You're not doing any harm to the card by using the modded BIOS. In fact I would argue you're doing less harm long term as the cards mine faster with less energy required.

 

[DrMrLordX]

SilentArmy has released v5 of their miner which boasts Sol rates close to Claymore 4.0 for Linux. I haven't had time to check it out myself, but you Linux heads may want to have a look-see. If I have success with it I'll update my Linux Quick n' Dirty instructions to feature SilentArmy's v5 instead of Claymore 1.1 since Claymore won't update for Linux anymore anyway.

Ooops, looks like I won't be migrating those Linux boxes to Windows after all . . .

As an added bonus, those of you who are having problems with high CPU usage on Claymore's miner with -i 2 will find that the new SilentArmy code reduces CPU usages significantly. This change may find its way into future Claymore releases.

 

[poofyhairguy]

SilentArmy has released v5 of their miner which boasts Sol rates close to Claymore 4.0 for Linux. I haven't had time to check it out myself, but you Linux heads may want to have a look-see. If I have success with it I'll update my Linux Quick n' Dirty instructions to feature SilentArmy's v5 instead of Claymore 1.1 since Claymore won't update for Linux anymore anyway.

Ooops, looks like I won't be migrating those Linux boxes to Windows after all . . .

As an added bonus, those of you who are having problems with high CPU usage on Claymore's miner with -i 2 will find that the new SilentArmy code reduces CPU usages significantly. This change may find its way into future Claymore releases.

Nice! I have a Core2Quad that can't keep up with Claymore.

 

[Kozlow]

Sadly Claymore has decided he won't do any more Linux clients because he's having problems protecting his binaries from decompliation on that OS. Or so it is said. So I may have to look at other miners for Linux or move to Win7 or something. Alas.

You can buy Windows 7 COA's pretty cheap on Ebay, for under $10.00 you can get Pro version.

Then you can still upgrade to Windows 10 here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/acc...459594)(TnL5HPStwNw-0FBZfNm6YPFXNhiu3o52rA)()

 

[DrMrLordX]

Holy moly, the SilentArmy v5 is real. It looks like my best Linux box went from ~190 Sols/S on Claymore 1.1 to maybe 330 Sols/S using SilentArmy v5. So um I'll update the Linux how-to post here in a few minutes unless something blows up or goes horribly wrong.

 

[Madpacket]

What are people using for Geforce cards?

My RMA 1070 card should be shipped back this week from Gigabyte.

 

[Accord99]

What are people using for Geforce cards?

I'm able to use a self-compiled SilentArmy executable for Windows. With a GTX 1080 I can reach about 70 sol/s with a bit of tuning at 50% TDP. Like in ETH, the 1080 is limited by the GDDR5X.

 

[Madpacket]

I'm able to use a self-compiled SilentArmy executable for Windows. With a GTX 1080 I can reach about 70 sol/s with a bit of tuning at 50% TDP. Like in ETH, the 1080 is limited by the GDDR5X.

Awesome, 70 Sol/s is 470/480 territory. Not bad I bet considering the power consumption. Any chance you can share out the executable?

 

[Madpacket]

Holy moly, the SilentArmy v5 is real. It looks like my best Linux box went from ~190 Sols/S on Claymore 1.1 to maybe 330 Sols/S using SilentArmy v5. So um I'll update the Linux how-to post here in a few minutes unless something blows up or goes horribly wrong.

That's a huge improvement. How many cards do you have again?

 

[DrMrLordX]

Right now I have 10 cards mining.

The Win10 box (ZEC1) has an 820/1175 290 (it's kind of a rehab card, it runs hot) and a 900/1175 390 (that's my MSI that went thermally-ballistic awhile back, so I have to be careful with it). They run Claymore 4.0 for ~152 Sols/S. I used to run 3 cards in this rig back when I had my 7700k, no problem, but for some reason with my 7870k the machine locks up hard at boot with memory errors with three video cards. Maybe I should try it with the 270 in here, but right now I just don't feel like messing with it, and see ZEC4 below anyway.

Linux box ZEC3 has . . . a Sapphire 290 Tri-X that's at 950/1175, an XFX 390 at 1060/1175, an XFX 390 at 1075/1175, and an old reference-cooler 290 of I-forget-what-brand at 1075/1175. That machine is at ~330 Sols/S running SilentArmy v5.

Linux box ZEC4 is kind of a basket case since it likes to lock up if I run my GPU clockspeeds up there, and I'll be damned if I know why (might be PSU but I'm not sure). So it's on efficiency duty. It has a pair of Sapphire Vapor-X 290s and a Powercolor 390 all at 900/1175. It also has my R9 270 reference card at stock. It's doing ~260 Sols/S also running SilentArmy v5. I have a Gigabyte 290 reference card lying around doing nothing that I can't use in this machine because 4 Hawaiis = locks up shortly after starting mining, but only in this rig.

Overall it's a ragtag mess of used equipment with peculiar behavior, but it gets the job done. For now. There's also a completely-dead Sapphire reference 290 in a box over in the corner and I have no idea what I'm going to do with it (it'll boot, but it causes constant driver crashes under Windows; in Linux it won't fully boot).

 

[Madpacket]

Right now I have 10 cards mining.

The Win10 box (ZEC1) has an 820/1175 290 (it's kind of a rehab card, it runs hot) and a 900/1175 390 (that's my MSI that went thermally-ballistic awhile back, so I have to be careful with it). They run Claymore 4.0 for ~152 Sols/S. I used to run 3 cards in this rig back when I had my 7700k, no problem, but for some reason with my 7870k the machine locks up hard at boot with memory errors with three video cards. Maybe I should try it with the 270 in here, but right now I just don't feel like messing with it, and see ZEC4 below anyway.

Linux box ZEC3 has . . . a Sapphire 290 Tri-X that's at 950/1175, an XFX 390 at 1060/1175, an XFX 390 at 1075/1175, and an old reference-cooler 290 of I-forget-what-brand at 1075/1175. That machine is at ~330 Sols/S running SilentArmy v5.

Linux box ZEC4 is kind of a basket case since it likes to lock up if I run my GPU clockspeeds up there, and I'll be damned if I know why (might be PSU but I'm not sure). So it's on efficiency duty. It has a pair of Sapphire Vapor-X 290s and a Powercolor 390 all at 900/1175. It also has my R9 270 reference card at stock. It's doing ~260 Sols/S also running SilentArmy v5. I have a Gigabyte 290 reference card lying around doing nothing that I can't use in this machine because 4 Hawaiis = locks up shortly after starting mining, but only in this rig.

Overall it's a ragtag mess of used equipment with peculiar behavior, but it gets the job done. For now. There's also a completely-dead Sapphire reference 290 in a box over in the corner and I have no idea what I'm going to do with it (it'll boot, but it causes constant driver crashes under Windows; in Linux it won't fully boot).

Thanks for the detailed response. Looks like you're making the best of some temperamental gear. I had one 4x390 rig go south on me recently after one of the buggy Claymore ZEC releases. After a crash/reboot now only 3 out of 4 cards work or are recognized. It's outsourced so can locally troubleshoot for a bit. So far I've been lucky for the most part for the amount of hardware used for mining. I think using quality power supplies along with supplying clean power is key. That as well as keeping the cards at 75C or less and VRM's cool.

 

[Madpacket]

Looking like XMR is taking off while ZEC keeps sliding down. Might be a good time to pick up a small handful with the new release looking good and Jaxx support coming shortly.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I can attest to the need to keep cards below 75C. That has messed up more than one of my cards. And things are guaranteed to get dicey when you mine on old AM2/AM2+ boards. Heh heh. Finally got a Phenom I after all these years . . .

XMR has been bouncing up and down lately. Monero is a darknet darling right now. Whatever other altcoin gets the darknet's attention is going to take away from ZEC's appeal.