MrLithium's blog

Sunday, March 03, 2013

Unlocking Radeon 6950 to 6970

I was successful in Unlocking my Radeon 6950 to 6970 with just a bios flash! (simpler than it may sound).
My card was a Radeon 6950 2GB XFX HD-695A-CNFC ver 2.

Followed the instructions at:
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159
It did give the the error: Could not erase ROM
So I followed the part that says Run atiwinflash -unlockrom 0
Followed by atiwinflash -f -p 0 bios.bin where bios.bin is the path and filename of the HD 6970 BIOS you downloaded.

I actually didn't think it was this simple but it was, thanks to this site. Remember not all cards can be flashed, but luckily mine was able to be, and many are also. Good luck. I might be able to help if you post a comment.

OpenCL hassles. ATI OpenCL driver bug detected, skipping OpenCL detection.

I just had so many problems with OpenCL and the AMD Catalyst 13.1 drivers. Under Windows 7 x64.
When I installed Catalyst 13.2 beta 7 everything worked fine because it installed the AMD APP SDK Runtime. My problems started when I downgraded to Catalyst 13.1 .

Not sure what went wrong but these were the symptoms:
1) Could not mine bitcoins (Device detection flat out failed, not even showing any available devices)
Reaper.exe would show no Devices and quit out without any error message.
CGminer would show no devices and quit out without any error message.
GUIminer would attempt to start but quit out without any error message.
2) GPU-Z would start and say "ATI OpenCL driver bug detected, skipping OpenCL detection. Uninstall the AMDStream SDK/Open CL driver to re-enable this functionality."

THE FIX:
1. Uninstall any AMD Stream SDK you have right now.
2. Delete amdocl.dll and opencl.dll from C:\windows\system32 and C:\windows\Syswow64.
3. Reinstall the AMD Stream SDK you have. Does not matter which one (I think)
4. Check to make sure the amdocl.dll and opencl.dll files you just deleted have not come back.
5. Check in C:\Program Files (x86)\AMD APP\bin\x86 and C:\Program Files (x86)\AMD APP\bin\x86_64 to make sure the files are there in that location instead. This is where they should be.
6. Try using GPU-z to see if there is a tickmark next to OpenCL. If there is, all should be well, and you can continue to use Reaper/CGminer/GUIMiner to mine bitcoins/litecoins/etc. Or any OpenCL program for that matter.
7. For some reason I had to delete the kernel files that reaper/cgminer had generated such as litecoin-reaperv13.Cayman-256-5760-2.bin but I am not sure that this was due to OpenCL because I tried unlocking my Radeon 6950 GPU to a 6970 (and succeeded, link here) So it may have just been that the number of shaders or something was wrong.

Good luck!

Stuff that didn't work
Removing the entire video drivers, reinstalling, even using Driver Sweeper. But Driver Sweeper doesn't know about OpenCL.
So I decided to just uninstall the AMD Stream SDK from the ATI Catalyst Install Manager in Add/Remove Programs. This fixed the GPU-Z errors but now GPU-Z had no check-mark next to OpenCL. The programs above had the exact same behavior. I tried installing old catalyst drivers, reinstalling new drivers, even downloading the developer version of the AMD-APP-SDK-v2.8-Windows-64 . They would all proceed to install files to C:\Program Files (x86)\AMD APP\bin\x86 and C:\Program Files (x86)\AMD APP\bin\x86_64.
This is where the OpenCL files are supposed to be located. I did a search for OpenCL and found some files in C:\windows\system32 and C:\windows\Syswow64.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Bitcoin Mining Hardware Comparison 7850 7950 5870 5830

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

Click the Link for Sortable Tables and Readable Column Headers

genBTC's Card Comparison Spreadsheet

I will continue to work on this chart, and it is a work in progress.
Created February 25th 2013, Updated February 25th 2013

Columns listed are:

Model !! MH/s #1 !! MH/s #2 !! Record Hashrate !! Common Hashrate !! TDP(W) !! Measured(W) !! Shaders !! Core Clock !! Max Clock !! Comments !! Newegg($USD) !! Ebay Price($USD) !! MSRP ($USD) !! Cheap Price ($USD)

Model	MH/s #1	MH/s #2	Record Hashrate	Common Hashrate	TDP(W)	Measured(W)	Shaders	Core Clock	Max Clock	Comments	Newegg($USD)	Ebay Price($USD)	MSRP ($USD)	Cheap Price ($USD)
5770	212.83			200	108							$178?	$159	$ 50
5830	302	220	302	275	175		1120	800 MHz				$105	$239	$ 65
5850	346.16	270		331	151	160	1440	725 MHz				$101	$259	$ 90
5870	393	420		370	188	213	1600	850 MHz				$165	$379	$125
5970	704	700	746	700	294	325	3200	725 MHz		Dual 5870s		$248	$599	$269
6750	167.59			170	86		720	725 MHz				$ 67	$109
6770	196.67			200	108		800	900 MHz				$ 84	$135
6850	213.7			250	127	121	960	775 MHz				$104	$179
6870	278.31			300	150	141	1120	900 MHz				$124	$239
6950	369	350		360	200		1408	800 MHz				$171	$299
6970	397	400		400	250		1536	880 MHz				$172	$369
6990	772	700		750	375		3072	830 MHz		Dual 6970s		$372	$699
7750	123	200		125	55		512	800 MHz	900		$ 89	$ 93	$109
7770		250		200	80		640	1000 MHz	1120		$119	$ 98	$159
7850		375		300	130		1024	860 MHz			$169	$177	$249
7870				400	175		1280	1000 MHz			$229	$227	$349
7950		450		500	200		1792	850 MHz			$299	$307	$449
7970	685	600		600	250	271	2048	925 MHz	1100		$399	$391	$549
7990				1100	555	541	4096	925 MHz		Dual 7970s	$899	$777	$999

MH/s #1 taken from Joseph Woodrell's chart directly below this one.
MH/s #2 taken from https://bitclockers.com/calc
Record Hashrate & Common Hashrate - If you want your Hashrates added in the chart, please send a message to genBTC on this site.
TDP, Shaders, Core Clock comes from http://www.hwcompare.com/ & Amd.com to Verify
Max Clock means max STOCK clockspeed, ie: cards that come factory overclocked. Data acquired by scanning whats available on newegg.
Newegg Price was taken from the LOWEST priced card on 2/25/2013 @ 8 PM EST, REBATES DISREGARDED
Ebay Price taken from http://cgi5.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?SellHub3 and questionable prices marked with a ?
MSRP may be removed from this chart, as I'm not sure it serves any purpose.
Cheap Price = Used price. Sourced from All over the internet as if I had to buy the card today.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Bitcoin

For Bitcoin to work as a currency, its value against USD has to keep rising since there's so much less of it. In a perfect world, one Satoshi might equal one US mil (1/10th cent)

If that ever happened, 1 BTC would equal 100,000 USD

It won't ever get that high, but that example shows you why it has to increase to work

From now until some time in 2016, the block reward is 25 BTC. One block is solved on average every 10 minutes. Every 2016 blocks, the network self-adjusts block difficulty based on the current network hashrate to keep this average intact.

The 25 coin difficulty was pre-built in. Every 210,000 (?) blocks, the block reward halves, until it eventually goes to 0 once 21 million coins exist.

So was difficulty but the difficulty didn't react quickly enough for fpga's hence why we will have an ASIC armageddon if they are real, because the diff adjust will not let the system spiral out of control but wasn't resistant or quick enough to combat exponential hashrate increases so it went all bonkers.

So, for the next few years, 25 BTC is mined every 10 minutes. That ends up being 1,134,000 BTC/year

So it doesn't matter what the network hashrate is, that's the maximum BTC to be divided up annually among all the miners.

Network hashrate matters for time it takes to get to the next drop, just not directly related

So Butterfly Labs has done almost 20,000 pre-orders, and they're bound to do a few hundred more orders once they actually ship. Now let's imagine that they're the ONLY company on the market, and that every GPU miner just ups and quits once the network is saturated with ASICs.

Let's also imagine that those 20,000 BFL ASICs hash at equal speeds.

That would mean that each miner could only get 65.7 BTC of the 1,314,000 BTC available per year.

Now, the problem with that example is that every ASIC isn't equally powered, and they're NOT the only company on the market, and a lot of GPU miners are actually in it for the network philosophy and not just for the money.

Anyway, you see the ASIC dilemma.... in an ideal situation, each ASIC is going to bring you 65 BTC/year. But it's probably not going to be an ideal situation.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Bitcoin rates

Bitcoins are becoming more and more popular.
The following is a short list of where you can buy bitcoins and what fees you can expect to be charged to receive your BTC currency from USD.

Compiled @ 2/15/2013

Bitcoin Rates!

__________________________________________________
AurumXchange
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=****!****-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Perfect Money
Liberty Reserve
MtGox
VouchX
CosmicPay Exchanges FROM CosmicPay require us to obtain payment approval (usually within 1 business day).

@ Exchange Rate of 0.0359
11 BTC
=$306.41 (@ rate of 1 BTC will cost $27.86 MtGox USD)

__________________________________________________
MtGox
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=****!****-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
AurumXchange =
E-Currencies:
Liberty Reserve (Instant funding - NO FEE)
PerfectMoney (INSTANT funding - 1% FEE)
Pecunix (INSTANT funding - NO FEE)
HD-Money (INSTANT funding - NO FEE)
VouchX Vouchers (INSTANT funding - NO FEE)
CosmicPay (INSTANT funding - NO FEE)
C-Gold (INSTANT funding - 5% FEE)
SolidTrustPay (WITHIN 1 to 2 business days - 8% FEE)

Banking and other payment methods:
International Wire Transfer in USD (WITHIN 1 to 2 business days - NO FEE)
CASH deposit at 10,000 locations in the USA (WITHIN 1 hour - at 3.75% fee!)

Bitinstant - Payments generally clear within 1 minute and
- Fees vary on average between 0.25% and 1.00% based on the amount being sent and various market factors.
Dwolla - Verified Only
Bank Transfer - not recommended, minimum 1000 yen fee + intermediary bank fees (mentions something about ~$50 USD cost)
Liberty Reserve ------ Not working ???
OKPay / CashU/ Liqpay - 1% Fee

__________________________________________________
BitStamp
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=****!****-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
International bank transfer deposits carry 0.1% deposit fee on our side (minimum fee = $15) and take 2 - 5 business days to credit. All other currencies will be converted to USD, free of charge.

__________________________________________________
CoinBase
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=****!****-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Buy 11 BTC at $27.30 USD each.

Subtotal $300.30
Coinbase fee $ 3.00 (1% Fee)
Bank fee $ 0.15 (15 cent fee)
Total = $303.45

__________________________________________________
BitFloor
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=****!****-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
$303 Deposit / 11 BTC = 27.54~ MAX price
$3.80 LocalTill Fee
=$306.80

__________________________________________________
BitInstant
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=****!****-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Major Bank partners via Trustcash.
Cash Deposit 3.99% Fee @ Local Locations via ZipZap.
==========================================
ZipZap Coupon to MtGox
$300.0 USD $288.03 USD 3.99%

Exchanges (MtGox,Bitstamp, BTC-E)
==========================================
Bistamp Coupon to MtGox
$300.0 USD $297.33 USD 0.89%
MtGox Coupon to MtGox
$300.0 USD $297.33 USD 0.89%
Dwolla to MtGox
$300.0 USD $294.03 USD 1.99%
BTC-E Coupon to MtGox
$300.0 USD $297.33 USD 0.89%
VouchX Coupon to MtGox
$300.0 USD $297.33 USD 0.89%

VirWox
---------------

VouchX
------------------

__________________________________________________
EXCHANGES
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=****!****-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
One exchange (Bitcoin-Central, owned by Paymium)
VouchX vouchers can also be redeemed natively at four new exchanges:
- Bitme.com
- Vircurex.com
- Icbit.se
- Bitcoin-24.com