Problems booting ASRock H81 Pro BTC. No POST, 9 out of 10 starts

I am using those:

They look fine at first glance, but the soderings are not that good. Maybe I try resodering them.
I am using a default molex connector from the PSU to power them, as the power cable on the raiser is a bit wonky.

I connected all raisers to PSU1, as well as the first 3 GPUs with 6pin. The 2nd PSU is connected to the other 3 cards and the PS_ON# signal of the mainboard.

Well if resodering fails, I’ll have to get new ones. :persevere: Chinese crap!

Not that it should make any difference but which version are those risers you have ?

I will check if I can find a version note on the raisers when I get home after work. :slight_smile:

ASROCK H81 Pro BTC, supposed to work with 6 GPUs.

PCI Gen was set to 1, also tried Gen2 before I went to bed, but the driver fails there aswell.
I have not seen any PCI settings regarding the x16, x8 or x4 speed.

I*ll check the DDU later today.

Have been trying Ubuntu, but the amdgpu-pro driver fails to install due to driver signature verification or other funny stuff.

well I am uploading a Ubuntu guide though I may cancel it and upload it while I sleep now as its been taking hours, guess my VPN connection sucks right now… that might help you with ubuntu installation and AMDGPU-PRO

otherwise yeah try DDU to totally get rid of all the stuff… i read the normal amd/ati driver remover sucks… it seems as though a computer gets used to the GPUs in it, and if some are moved or added, they stop getting recognized, so I have had this a few times happen to me and had to DDU and reinstall… might be connected to your problem, not sure

if you need new risers I can get you good ones, never had a problem with them, never even got one bad one that didnt work.

Yeah the raisers I have are those:

The PCB shows Ver.03 on them. The solderings are just crap. Which ones can you get?

Still no luck.

I disassambled the yesterday, and startet testing each raiser with one GPU in the main PCIE slot.
13 out of 15 are working. So that’s fine.

Also tried a fresh installation of Windows 10.
I installed it with one GPU with raiser in the main PCIE slot. Installation of latest AMD driver 16.11.2 HOTFIX works. Also mining with that card is ok. 40 - 41 Sol/s with claymores miner.

Then I added another card with raiser in a random slot.
Windows starts to install the card, but the driver fails to start (Code 31).

After that I installed a fresh copy of Ubuntu 16.04 with only one card again. And without sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade I installed the latest amdgpu-pro driver. This works aswell. After adding another card Ubuntu refuses to boot.

This is SO fishy. I also tried to downgrade the BIOS to an earlier version. The ASRock H81 Pro BTC refuses to boot sometimes with more than 1 RX470 installed so downgrading seemed to be an option. But no success with that ether. :pensive:

This afternoon I’ll use another mainboard. It has just 3 PCIE slots, but I have to figure out what’s going on.

Okay, now I tested the other board I have.

It is a ASRock Z77 Extreme4 with 2 PCIE x16 slots, and 2 PCIE x1 slots.
Now here is what I found!

Latest BETA drivers install without problems.
1 GPU with raiser in the first PCIE x16, 1 GPU with raiser in a x1 slot: The miner crashes the driver.
1 GPU with raiser in the first PCIE x16, 1 GPU with raiser in the second PCIE x16 slot: The miner works!!!

What the actual F* ? :weary:

Why won’t the RX470 work in a small PCIE x1 slot??

try Ver.4.0 or 5.0,6.0

Version 4, 5 or 6?
What did you think about, the raiser version?

I’ve been mining with 2 H81 Pro BTC boards few months as well. But now I’ve got 2 more such boards - and yes, there are some issues with boot. If I set internal video as a primary, it usually boots well but there are some problems with some miners (temperature readings are for internal video, not for PCI-e cards under Windows). If I set as a primary the PCI-e card, it does not boot often if no monitor connected (and/or USB wireless keyboard I use for tuning).

I still have not figured out what’s the shit. But these 2 new boards are NEW REVISION, and I guess, there is something wrong with them. I’ve read similar reports from other users that these new boards do not boot, but ASRock support said them it boots well and showed a video of that (I can make same).

I don’t know what to do, maybe I need a DVI monitor emulators to tell primary cards they have monitor connected. Do not know yet, and no solution. It is unstable, sometimes it boots, sometimes not. Sometimes it makes 5 low tone sounds before normal beep and boot. But usually it just beeps once and either boots or not. Tired of it. And two new boards are the same - not a defect of a single unit.

And yes, once I saw: when board did not boot, it stayed with ASRock label and did nothing. There was no keyboard connected. I inserted USB keyboard dongle (wireless). And it went to boot.

After I changed the raiser from Ver 03 to Ver 04, It works. I don’t know why. Just try.

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Guys, I am making progress!

I got 2 cards up and running yesterday. I have not been this far before. :grin:

The biggest success I had now was caused by a clean BIOS reset. I have a card in the PCIE x16 slot directly, and one card with raiser in the x1 slot closest to the CPU. Then I made a BIOS reset. When I turned the rig on, it pops alive for 1 second and turns off again for 5 seconds. Then it starts automatically for another 5 seconds just to turn off again. But then the rig starts and boots up!

Both cards get recognized by Windows and the drivers work. Mining also goes well. Have been mining stable on 2 cards for 6 hours now.

I tried to add a third card in the x1 slot furthest from the CPU, but the Mainboard refuses to boot. After a bios reset it starts without problems after doing its on off on off on routine.

But windows did not load the driver for the third card. I became suspicious of the raisers again. I tested all raisers a few days ago, with a single card in the x16 slot and just tested if the machine starts. I did not make a mining test.

So yesterday I checked the 6 raisers for this rig again. One GPU directly in the x16 slot, and one card with raiser again in the x1 slot closest to the GPU. Only one raiser out of 6 did its job. The other 5 raisers ether crash the driver when I start the miner, do not view the GPU to Windows at all, pop out an Code 43 or a Code 12 in the device manager.

For comparison I tested the one raiser known to work again, but this time it also spit out a code 12. After a clean reboot of Windows it worked again.

So today I will do some more extensive tests with the raisers. I hope I can get at least 6 raisers to work.

But this BIOS reset trick helped!

Thanks to all of you for mental support here! :smiley:

When you update the bios or do a CMOS reset (take out battery or with jumper) the PC will reboot a few times to get the correct setting for CPU/RAM (very normal behavior).

Good luck, it’s usually something stupid that happens and you find out, then it magically works :stuck_out_tongue:

Yeah that’s what I said to my girlfriend yesterday.

“Well it is working now, somehow. Don’t ask me why. :two_hearts:

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That’s great - glad you worked it out, I know how frustrating hardware issues on mining rigs can be.

Oh yes, indeed.

I was fighting with the rig for 10 days straight. And as the raisers passed my first initial test, I did not suspect them to be “broken”. The BIOS reset solved the boot up problem, so that was out of the way.

Just one raiser is working properly, and I found a second one that is working sometimes, wehn I tilt the USB cable. So I have been mining zcash last night with about 200 Sol/s with 3 cards. YAY :tada:

That perfect chinese soldering job. :bread:

I am aware of that not all pins need to be connected. It is a x1 port.
But still, atleast the first few pins should be connected to the PCB. :joy:

My GPUs are not detected on PCIE slots for the Version 2 (R 2.0) of the ASROCK H81 PRO BTC, seems this second version is not working very well. I bought two of these motherboards and they both exhibit the same problem. I have tried many different GPUs that I know work well.

I have set up a bunch of rigs before but this is a strange problem I’ve never encountered. This version of the H81 PRO BTC boards is just bad I guess.