AMD Display Driver Update for R9 290X on BAMT Litecoin miner
BAMT (Big-A-Miner-Thing) Litecoin miner provides an easy way for the setup of a USB bootable mining rig on Linux operating system. However, due to the limitation on drivers, there is no support on the latest graphics cards. In this guide, we will guide you on how to update the drivers for R9 290X.
Note: This tutorial is for advanced user, and we assume that you would have known some basic Linux command and will be familiar with the shell Terminal.
Download
AMD Catalyst™ 13.11 Beta V9.4 driver
amd-catalyst-13.11-beta-v9.4-linux-x86.x86_64.run.zip
http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/latest-linux-beta-driver.aspx
APP-SDK 2.9
AMD-APP-SDK-v2.9-lnx32.tgz
http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/heterogeneous-computing/amd-accelerated-parallel-processing-app-sdk/downloads/
ADL_SDK_6.0
ADL_SDK_6.0.zip
http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/graphics-development/display-library-adl-sdk/
Step 1: Uninstall the current driver
apt-get update
/usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh --force
coldreboot
Step 2: Install the newest catalyst driver to /tmp/
Note: If you install it to /home/user/ you will get this error :
………….. Extraction failed.
Signal caught, cleaning up
Because your BAMT disk is full. So I choose to use in /tmp
Copy the amd-catalyst-13.11-beta-v9.4-linux-x86.x86_64.run.zip to /tmp first
cd /tmp
unzip amd-catalyst-13.11-beta-v9.4-linux-x86.x86_64.run.zip
chmod +x amd-catalyst-13.11-beta-v9.4-linux-x86.x86_64.run
./amd-catalyst-13.11-beta-v9.4-linux-x86.x86_64.run --force
aticonfig --adapter=all --initial
coldreboot
Step 3: Install AMD APP SDK v2.9
cd /tmp
tar xfvz AMD-APP-SDK-v2.9-lnx32.tgz
chmod +x Install-AMD-APP.sh
./Install-AMD-APP.sh
Step 4: Extract the ADL SDK 6.0
cd /tmp
unzip ADL_SDK_6.0.zip
Step 5: Update cgminer to 3.7.2
ln -sf /opt/AMDAPP/include/CL /usr/include
ln -sf /opt/AMDAPP/lib/x86/* /usr/lib/
ldconfig
cd /opt/miners
mv cgminer cgminer_backup
wget http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/3.7/cgminer-3.7.2.tar.bz2
tar -jvxf cgminer-3.7.2.tar.bz2
mv cgminer-3.7.2 cgminer
If you want to use the old ADL_SDK 5.0
cp /opt/miners/cgminer_backup/ADL_SDK/* /opt/miners/cgminer/ADL_SDK/
If you want to use the new ADL_SDK 6.0
cp /tmp/include/* /opt/miners/cgminer/ADL_SDK/
cd cgminer
CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -march=native -I /opt/AMDAPP/include/" LDFLAGS="-L/opt/AMDAPP/lib/x86" ./configure --enable-scrypt --enable-opencl
make
You will see a screen with these messages if you have updated successfully :
------------------------------------------------------------------------
cgminer 3.7.2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Configuration Options Summary:
libcurl(GBT+getwork).: Enabled: -lcurl
curses.TUI………..: FOUND: -lncurses
OpenCL……………: FOUND. GPU mining support enabled
scrypt……………: Enabled
ADL………………: SDK found, GPU monitoring support enabled
Avalon.ASICs………: Disabled
BFL.ASICs…………: Disabled
KnC.ASICs…………: Disabled
BitForce.FPGAs…….: Disabled
BitFury.ASICs……..: Disabled
Hashfast.ASICs…….: Disabled
Icarus.ASICs/FPGAs…: Disabled
Klondike.ASICs…….: Disabled
ModMiner.FPGAs…….: Disabled
Compilation…………: make (or gmake)
CPPFLAGS………….:
CFLAGS……………: -O2 -Wall -march=native -I /opt/AMDAPP/include/
LDFLAGS…………..: -L/opt/AMDAPP/lib/x86 -lpthread
LDADD…………….: -ldl -lcurl compat/jansson-2.5/src/.libs/libjansson.a -lpthread -L/opt/AMDAPP/lib/x86 -lOpenCL -lm -lrt
Installation………..: make install (as root if needed, with ‘su’ or ‘sudo’)
prefix……………: /usr/local
Step 5: Verify that CGMiner is working properly
export DISPLAY=:0
export GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS=1
export GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT=100
./cgminer -n
When you see the message below, it means that your updating process has been successful :
[2013-12-06 21:27:57] CL Platform 0 vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
[2013-12-06 21:27:57] CL Platform 0 name: AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing
[2013-12-06 21:27:57] CL Platform 0 version: OpenCL 1.2 AMD-APP (1348.4)
[2013-12-06 21:27:57] Platform 0 devices: 1
[2013-12-06 21:27:57] 0 Tahiti
[2013-12-06 21:27:57] 1 GPU devices max detected
If you want to read more on setting up BAMT distro for Litecoin mining, here’s the tutorial : Litecoin BAMT version 1.1 – Easy USB Linux mining distro.
Thank you for the article, it is very helpful since I will build a litecoin mining rig very soon and would rather do it on linux.
However, I have a question or two:
Is the performace of modified 290 BAMT setup comparable with windows setup?
If 69x kH/s from the screenshot are for 290 then I would guess not at the moment?
With proper tweaking, R9 290 can reach a minimum of 850MHash/sec (900MHash/sec with around 5% variance). I’m still yet to set up the 290 and 290X cards for BAMT. So the image that you see is actually R9 280X and i’ve tweaked it to around 700MHash. 720MHash is possible but i’d rather have a lower temp. Would have to undervolt it and run the test again.
I prefer the BAMT and Linux setup as i’m using a USB bootable for my rig. So it’s a matter of preference actually. If you are getting good results in Windows, you can try tweaking the config from there.
I just wanted to be clear, that this entire post is misleading and incorrect. The steps provided do not work, the /tmp directory clears itself after reboot, and you have it rebooting several times. You should try again and adjust this post, because you have users downloading ADL_SDK 6.0, but you provide zero steps to utilize the files you indicate are necessary. It’s pretty shoddy.
Thanks for the heads up. I will look into it and update accordingly. Sorry for the inconvenience and frustrations.
After you uninstall the current driver (Step 1), and then coldreboot, I just get a black screen. If I try and do this with just built in VGA and no cards attached, it still results in black screen. You cannot do the second step without the cards installed anyway. Frustrating. Maybe it’s the mobo?..Gigabyte GA-z87-d3hp and 2 x Sapphire 280x GPUs?…Just trying to get BAMT working
You try the Ctrl+Alt+F1 to switch to the terminal before the GUI screen. You can install the new driver from the terminal itself.
No, that doesn’t work either. Reset CMOS to get to BIOS and set the screen to load from the VGA on board driver, but after starting straight into the black screen with the flashing cursor at top left. The 2 GPUs have nothing attached to them.
Okay. That should be your terminal screen. Continue your steps from there. If it still fails, you can try to SSH into the mining rig and install from your other computer. That’s how i do it anyway, coz my mining rigs are usually headless.
Thanks for that…remotely administering it now…followed your instructions to the letter..after upgrade of cgminer I didn’t get any errors but then I didn’t get that screen of info you listed either. When booting up now, I get the same as I had before when trying various drivers etc…Failed to load X Server..and no GPUs detected.. running “sudo aticonfig –adapter=all –odgt” gets ERROR – X needs to be running to perform AMD Overdrive(TM) commands. I am pretty sure other people have this problem, depending on mixture of hardware used..
after unistall and reboot, the bamt dont boot, what i can do?
What Linux version are you running with this?
this is probably the best written article I’ve ever read on updating to the newest version of cgminer and amd support – thanks