FAQ.md

Frequently Asked Questions

You asked a lot of questions to me. Here is a collection of the most common.

I am a complete Linux n00b. Should I use your ISO image?

No. You should be able to safely use Linux.

I am an absolute Windows fanboy. Should I use your ISO image?

No. Stay with your favorite operating system. And please also do not send me e-mails how much better your Windows is.

I miss this and that. Can you add it?

No. I published the ISO image to make the start easier for you. But I do not take away all your work.

Does the ISO image work with AMD cards?

No. Only NVIDIA with CUDA.

Does the ISO image work in the GTX 1080?

Yes. NVIDIA driver 381.22 is installed.

Can I mix cards?

Yes. You can combine any NVIDIA cards to a mining rig. You have to adjust the nvidia-overclock.sh script. But you should do that anyway.

Do I need an HDMI dongle?

NO. Fake monitors are configured by software.

I get less MH/s with your ISO image.

Then you're doing something wrong. Many users reported similar or better MH/s values.

My connected monitor stays black. Why?

The ISO image is optimized for operation with no monitor (headless). The setup script creates fake monitors. As soon as the X server is started, there is no longer any real output. If you want to work with the monitor and keyboard after restarting, you can get a console with the key combination Crtl + Alt + F1.

Overclocking does not work. Why?

It is extremely important that the X server is running on each of your NVIDIA cards.

The output of nvidia-smi must look something like this:

prospector@mine ~ $ nvidia-smi
Sat Jul  8 20:24:29 2017
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 381.22                 Driver Version: 381.22                    |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  GeForce GTX 106...  On   | 0000:01:00.0      On |                  N/A |
| 70%   64C    P2    70W /  70W |   2207MiB /  6072MiB |    100%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
|   1  GeForce GTX 106...  On   | 0000:07:00.0      On |                  N/A |
| 70%   56C    P2    70W /  70W |   2206MiB /  6072MiB |    100%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

Display 0 must be an NVIDIA card! Set this in your mainboard settings. Disable to be safe all other graphics cards. The output of lspci should look like this. Only NVIDIA cards:

prospector@mine ~ $ lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 1c03 (rev a1)
07:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 1c03 (rev a1)

How do I get information about my cards?

Check the settings:

prospector@mine ~ $ nvidia-smi --format=csv --query-gpu=name,power.draw,fan.speed,temperature.gpu,clocks.video,clocks.mem
name, power.draw [W], fan.speed [%], temperature.gpu, clocks.current.video [MHz], clocks.current.memory [MHz]
GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, 68.54 W, 70 %, 62, 1202 MHz, 4404 MHz
GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, 70.50 W, 70 %, 55, 1354 MHz, 4404 MHz

Check which cards have been detected:

prospector@mine ~ $ lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 1c03 (rev a1)
07:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 1c03 (rev a1)

Can I use the GitHub Issues for discussion?

No Please not. Search for a forum. Reddit is a good place for it. If you have Linux questions, Google it and then you can ask questions at Stack Overflow. Everything better places than here. I will not participate in discussions. The issue can be closed at any time by me.

Can I customize the script?

Yes. Configure everything to your needs.