System hangs after 10mins of Mining

[ltpimp]

Hey guys,

So I went out of got a new GPU and PSU for my miner, chucked them in and installed drivers. After running GUIMiner -scrypt (Litecoin) for about 10mins the system would just black screen and become unresponsive. Any idea's on what could be causing the problem? Also sometimes when opening up Firefox when mining the page would have little squares up near the URL bar etc.

System: AMD phenom II x4 945
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-970A-D3 (Rv 1.0)
PSU: (New) ThermalTake Smart 750w bronze
GPUs: Gigabyte HD 7950 (New)
GPU: MSI HD 6870

Using Catalyst 13.4 as drivers.
When the system does work before it crashes I get massive fluctuations in core clock, voltage etc.

I have tried switching PCI-E slots and it yields no difference. I have also tried the HD 7950 in another system that has a Silverstone Strider 850w, Once the mining starts the system becomes almost unusable and the same issues with loading a web browser occur (Little squares around the page)

I have also tried Catalyst 13.5 and it gets the same results.

Thank you for your time.

EDIT:
Picture of the small square problem

 

[novaranger]

Are you overclocking your Video card at all?

If you are underclock it some until the issue resolves itself

try lowering the GPU temperatures(Put a fan on it), i never let mine about 72'C and i pull about 500Khps per GPU overclocked tones(air cooled)(350 khps stock).

Even if you haven't overclocked anything still try underclocking your Engine and Memory clocks.

Looking at the Mobo you have for your system i'm thinking its possible that may be the issue since the video card of PCI Express 3.0 while your Mobo is Pci Express 2.0.

I'm really jsut throwing Ideas out there, i personally never have problems with my system.

 

[ltpimp]

Are you overclocking your Video card at all?

If you are underclock it some until the issue resolves itself

try lowering the GPU temperatures(Put a fan on it), i never let mine about 72'C and i pull about 500Khps per GPU overclocked tones(air cooled)(350 khps stock).

Even if you haven't overclocked anything still try underclocking your Engine and Memory clocks.

Looking at the Mobo you have for your system i'm thinking its possible that may be the issue since the video card of PCI Express 3.0 while your Mobo is Pci Express 2.0.

I'm really jsut throwing Ideas out there, i personally never have problems with my system.

Thanks for the reply.

Since the card is a day old everything is stock I have yet to do any overclocking. Also from what I understand PCI-E 3 is backwards compatible.

But yea, I will give undervolting a crack and see how it all goes. Cheers.

Edit: Nothing Same problems

 

[novaranger]

Are you overclocking your Video card at all?

If you are underclock it some until the issue resolves itself

try lowering the GPU temperatures(Put a fan on it), i never let mine about 72'C and i pull about 500Khps per GPU overclocked tones(air cooled)(350 khps stock).

Even if you haven't overclocked anything still try underclocking your Engine and Memory clocks.

Looking at the Mobo you have for your system i'm thinking its possible that may be the issue since the video card of PCI Express 3.0 while your Mobo is Pci Express 2.0.

I'm really jsut throwing Ideas out there, i personally never have problems with my system.

Thanks for the reply.

Since the card is a day old everything is stock I have yet to do any overclocking. Also from what I understand PCI-E 3 is backwards compatible.

But yea, I will give undervolting a crack and see how it all goes. Cheers.

Edit: Nothing Same problems

Ok, try the newest drivers and if that does no good try the 13.1 drivers. If that does nothing It's possible you have a defective card.

I just now noticed that your running with 2 video cards that are over 1 Generation apart(kinda a big no no), please remove the 6870 and reply if the issue is still there, same with the 7950 remove it and get back.

Also an issue i've noticed with the AMD Catalyst drivers is 13.4 seems to dislike multi-card setups so that may be the issue all, poorly codded drivers

 

[ltpimp]

Hmm, Interesting. I had just a few days a 6870 and 5770 running ride by side fine for a good 6months.

Tried the 7950 in my main rig and get the same artifacting etc when mining is started, so I guess perhaps the card is stuffed.

Well thank you for the help man. I will give old drivers a crack if not then I will send it for replacement.

Thanks again.

 

[TenPc]

Hmm, Interesting. I had just a few days a 6870 and 5770 running ride by side fine for a good 6months.
Tried the 7950 in my main rig and get the same artifacting etc when mining is started, so I guess perhaps the card is stuffed.
Well thank you for the help man. I will give old drivers a crack if not then I will send it for replacement.
Thanks again.

Artifacting is a problem that is difficult to pinpoint however, I find that older games do prefer older hardware, check the PC requirements of the software you use and games you play, you may have to set compatibility mode.

The older drivers do seem to work a charm, mostly. Any old drivers should be uninstalled. Considering that you've had a plethora of video cards, you should uninstall those ones (drivers and utilities) prior to installing the drivers for your current video card. Do a shut down in between cards to clear out any memory.


Edit - What the heck is "mining"?

 

[ltpimp]

Edit - What the heck is "mining"?

Litecoin mining

But I found the solution, It was a simple fact of the program I was using was just buggy and unsupportive of my current set up.

Changing the software from GUIminer to CGminer and now everything has been stable for a day and a bit.

Thank you everyone for your time.

 

[TenPc]

I looked up Wiki to see what "mining" was really all about and even they don't give a good description. It's all gibberish to me.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Litecoin

I'm glad you found your soution, it was going to be my next reply as I thought the mining was an application or software (or game) that might have been unsuited to the OS. I'll choose you as Best Answer when the option arrives considering that you found your own answer.

 

[Ghoul21]

Keep in mind that if your overclocking with CGminer you can still run into the same problems you had with GUIminer, as they both can use CGminer as the underlying mining engine.

Do a wiki search and you can find optimal settings for you card using CGminer.

http://bitcoinblogging.com

 

[TenPc]

Thanks BigMack70 for the information about "mining".
It still seems rather a pointless exercise to do those calculations with the video card vram unless it is actually using the video card for some purpose.

"Also sometimes when opening up Firefox when mining the page would have little squares up near the URL bar etc."
Little squares might imply that the resolution has dropped to less than 800 x 600.

I would have assumed that you couldn't run any other applications when "mining"...

 

[burtb]

I looked up Wiki to see what "mining" was really all about and even they don't give a good description. It's all gibberish to me.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Litecoin

I'm glad you found your soution, it was going to be my next reply as I thought the mining was an application or software (or game) that might have been unsuited to the OS. I'll choose you as Best Answer when the option arrives considering that you found your own answer.

a good explanation of why crypto-currencies use hashing algorithms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx9zgZCMqXE
How Bitcoin Works Under the Hood

GPU's are better than CPU's for running hashing algorithms.
FPGA's and ASIC's are even faster, execpt crypto-currencies using "scrypt" (Like LiteCoin) need large amounts of memory (on the FPGA) to solve the cryptographic puzzle (in fact, the whole point of "scrypt" was to prevent FPGA and Asic designs from pushing out miners who could only afford GPU's. )