# Two different GPU's one ATI and one NVIDIA for litecoin mining



## kagaos

Hi all,

I was just curious about mining with two different GPU's. One (NVIDIA) is my primary and is, generally, the more powerful of the two. I use it to mine litecoin and (unrelated) have a few ASIC miners for bitcoin.
I recently did a total rebuild for my parents and now have their old set up at my disposal, however I formatted the HD and it no longer has an OS on it. I don't really feel like paying the extra $$ to install windows on it, nor do I have a case for the system either.
My thought was, I have two PCI slots for GPU's and could just take their ATI card and install it as a secondary miner for litecoin. Albeit, traditionally and to my understanding, dual PCI is meant to bridge two alike GPU's for increased graphics performance and will not work with dissimilar cards.
So, my question is, could I install the ATI GPU alongside my NVIDIA and use it as an additional, independent miner or would that simply not fly with my intel system?

Let me know if any additional information is needed.

Thanks for your help in advance!

- kagaos

P.S. I could install a free linux OS to their old system, but I am not sure which one to use or whether or not that works with traditional mining software like cudaminer...any help on that would also be appreciated.


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## billbartuska

Your issue is trying to run ATI and Nvidia video drivers at the same time.
Iffy at best.


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## AlphaC

Many people mine on Linux LiveUSB...

case isn't an issue if you just grab a milk crate


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## kagaos

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *billbartuska*
> 
> Your issue is trying to run ATI and Nvidia video drivers at the same time.
> Iffy at best.


That's what I was afraid of....how iffy is that? Could I run two OS's at the same time to counter act that issue? Like my main OS with NVIDIA and ATI on a virtual OS?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AlphaC*
> 
> Many people mine on Linux LiveUSB...
> 
> case isn't an issue if you just grab a milk crate


I could easily create some sort of housing for the mainboard to prevent shorting. Do you recommend a particular free linux distro that would make it easy to mine with cuda miner or similar?


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## kagaos

Bump


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## cam51037

I'm just about to try this, put my 7950 in with my GTX 670.

Last time I did it with my GTX 670 and 7850, and had no problem. I don't know what people here are all scared about, it worked fine for me for [email protected] and mining as well.


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## kagaos

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cam51037*
> 
> I'm just about to try this, put my 7950 in with my GTX 670.
> 
> Last time I did it with my GTX 670 and 7850, and had no problem. I don't know what people here are all scared about, it worked fine for me for [email protected] and mining as well.


Could you report how this worked for you?

Is there something I have to do in BIOS to make it work or just kind of plug and play?


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## Stuuut

I helped somebody out that was kinda doing the same he had an GTX780 and a R9-290 and wanted to use only the R9-290
So in your case i would think the best thing to do is install CGMiner and CUDAMiner (which i have no idea how it works, sorry)

Now when setting up CGMiner for your R9-290 along with the usual stuff you put in the batch file you also put -d 1. The -d command forces CGMiner to only use one GPU where 0 is your primary card and 1 is your second card.

Hope this helps


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## kagaos

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Stuuut*
> 
> I helped somebody out that was kinda doing the same he had an GTX780 and a R9-290 and wanted to use only the R9-290
> So in your case i would think the best thing to do is install CGMiner and CUDAMiner (which i have no idea how it works, sorry)
> 
> Now when setting up CGMiner for your R9-290 along with the usual stuff you put in the batch file you also put -d 1. The -d command forces CGMiner to only use one GPU where 0 is your primary card and 1 is your second card.
> 
> Hope this helps


Well, my thought with having a second GPU was so that I could get both of them to mine litecoin at the same time. I just wanted my GTX570 to not only mine but also display, where my other ATI card would do nothing but mining. As far as the mining goes, I am sure I can figure that part out. I guess my question lies in whether or not it is possible to have two completely different GPU's in the same system without causing problems.
So, where I need help is with the following:
1) Can I have two different GPU's (one NVIDIA and another ATI) in the same rig?
2) If so, will there be problems with having two completely different display drivers?
3) If there is no major issue with having an ATI and NVIDIA card in the same rig, how does one go about setting up a secondary GPU?
a) Can I just plug it into my second PCI slot and load windows/appropriate drivers?
b) Do I need to configure BIOS before booting into windows and if so, what needs to be changed?

Thanks for your help!


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## Stuuut

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *kagaos*
> 
> Well, my thought with having a second GPU was so that I could get both of them to mine litecoin at the same time. I just wanted my GTX570 to not only mine but also display, where my other ATI card would do nothing but mining. As far as the mining goes, I am sure I can figure that part out. I guess my question lies in whether or not it is possible to have two completely different GPU's in the same system without causing problems.
> So, where I need help is with the following:
> 1) Can I have two different GPU's (one NVIDIA and another ATI) in the same rig?
> 2) If so, will there be problems with having two completely different display drivers?
> 3) If there is no major issue with having an ATI and NVIDIA card in the same rig, how does one go about setting up a secondary GPU?
> a) Can I just plug it into my second PCI slot and load windows/appropriate drivers?
> b) Do I need to configure BIOS before booting into windows and if so, what needs to be changed?
> 
> Thanks for your help!


Well first let me say i myself havnt used 2 different cards in the same system but the person i helped yesterday had no problem running 2 different cards a GTX780 and a r9-290.
1) Yes you can
2) Nope don't think so you just need to set it up so one is for your display
3) Install drivers i guess

Anyways you can mine with both cards but you can only mine AMD with CGMiner so you need to get CudaMiner for your NV card so you would need to run 2 programs to mine with thoes cards and as i said before for CGMiner you use -d to specify which card it should be using.


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## cam51037

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *kagaos*
> 
> Could you report how this worked for you?
> 
> Is there something I have to do in BIOS to make it work or just kind of plug and play?


It was plug and play for me. Here's how I did it.

My system began with my GTX 670 in the PCI-E closest to the CPU, all drivers were installed for NVIDIA already.

1) Put 7950 in my machine

2) Windows wanted me to restart my system, I guess to figure out that it's had a hardware change, so I restarted

3) Installed AMD drivers

4) For Windows to see the card, I plugged it into another monitor. Another way is too use a dummy plug: http://www.overclock.net/t/384733/the-30-second-dummy-plug <- I personally haven't used this method yet, but I'm trying it tonight on a 6950 so wish me luck!

And then from there I just ran GUIMiner and selected the 7950 and it worked great. I'm trying to get CGMiner to work with it, and to disable the GTX 670 before it even starts, but I'm still working with that.


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## Stuuut

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cam51037*
> 
> It was plug and play for me. Here's how I did it.
> 
> My system began with my GTX 670 in the PCI-E closest to the CPU, all drivers were installed for NVIDIA already.
> 
> 1) Put 7950 in my machine
> 2) Windows wanted me to restart my system, I guess to figure out that it's had a hardware change, so I restarted
> 3) Installed AMD drivers
> 4) For Windows to see the card, I plugged it into another monitor. Another way is too use a dummy plug: http://www.overclock.net/t/384733/the-30-second-dummy-plug <- I personally haven't used this method yet, but I'm trying it tonight on a 6950 so wish me luck!
> 
> And then from there I just ran GUIMiner and selected the 7950 and it worked great. I'm trying to get CGMiner to work with it, and to disable the GTX 670 before it even starts, but I'm still working with that.


Try putting -d 1 in your batchfile that will force it to only mine with the 2nd GPU your AMD card


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## cam51037

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Stuuut*
> 
> Try putting -d 1 in your batchfile that will force it to only mine with the 2nd GPU your AMD card


I tried to do that, but whenever CGMiner started it would crash my NVIDIA drivers, so obviously they don't play nice together. Oh well, about a week and this card should be paid for, then I can sell it for hopefully a profit or whatever, and have made some money with it too.


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## TerrorX

I'm going to attempt doing this once I get my landline interwebz hooked up on the 6th. I'm aware windows 7 allows for multiple video drivers to be installed to allow for multi card multi brand set ups and that they are considered separate cards and will not work together. That is ok since I want to use my 9800gtx+oc as my main GPU for display and gaming and I want my Sapphire HD4850 to mine BTC solely. My question is can have both cards running to each their own display simultaneously ie; not one at a time. I know with no display hooked to a GPU it goes into idle which is why there are dummy plugs. I don't have nor want to get dummy plugs since I have more than enough displays to just use those. So can I do what I am suggesting? Don't mean to thread jack I felt it was relative to the topic and would have been chastised for asking on my own thread..


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## TerrorX

Actually I think my question was answered a week ago and I just misinterpreted what cam5 said.


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## denial_

Well, in my case, my 6850 didn't wanted to mine at all. I am using GUIminer-scrypt on Win8.1 and I started to wondering if I'll have to try on another OS. The only time I saw it mining, is when it crashed the Nvidia driver already installed







.

However, reading this thread reminded me of the many things I've red reacently about multi screen setup. So I tried to put my second screen on the AMD card: no luck, not working but it extends the desktop just like if it were on one card. Then removed the second screen: it worked!

Now I can mine and use the computer for my everyday application, but I'll have to stop mining to use a second screen, sucks but until I mine enought to buy the missing part to finalize the dedicated rig







.


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## TopicClocker

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *denial_*
> 
> Well, in my case, my 6850 didn't wanted to mine at all. I am using GUIminer-scrypt on Win8.1 and I started to wondering if I'll have to try on another OS. The only time I saw it mining, is when it crashed the Nvidia driver already installed
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .
> 
> However, reading this thread reminded me of the many things I've red reacently about multi screen setup. So I tried to put my second screen on the AMD card: no luck, not working but it extends the desktop just like if it were on one card. Then removed the second screen: it worked!
> 
> Now I can mine and use the computer for my everyday application, but I'll have to stop mining to use a second screen, sucks but until I mine enought to buy the missing part to finalize the dedicated rig
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .


Are the cards running high powered? wouldn't cards that consume alot be losing more money than you can profit from litecoin mining or is it still profitable?


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## denial_

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TopicClocker*
> 
> Are the cards running high powered? wouldn't cards that consume alot be losing more money than you can profit from litecoin mining or is it still profitable?


Well I'm not mining for long enought to say about the 6850, but I have a 5870 running in another computer and since electricity is quite cheap here (and given the fact that I have to heat my appartment anyway), it seems to be profitable for me. But it's too soon to say for sure. Difficulty is about to go up too.


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## ./Cy4n1d3\.

I"m going to see what I can do with a GTX 770 for my gaming and a HD 5770 just for mining.









Edit: I'm using just one monitor, so I plugged my GTX 770 into my HDMI port, and I plugged my 5770 into my DVI port. My monitor is on the HDMI channel, so it's recieving the video from my nvidia card.


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## mav2000

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *./Cy4n1d3\.*
> 
> I"m going to see what I can do with a GTX 770 for my gaming and a HD 5770 just for mining.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Edit: I'm using just one monitor, so I plugged my GTX 770 into my HDMI port, and I plugged my 5770 into my DVI port. My monitor is on the HDMI channel, so it's recieving the video from my nvidia card.


So basically both the cards are connected to the same monitor...and mining on it works?


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## ./Cy4n1d3\.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *mav2000*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *./Cy4n1d3\.*
> 
> I"m going to see what I can do with a GTX 770 for my gaming and a HD 5770 just for mining.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Edit: I'm using just one monitor, so I plugged my GTX 770 into my HDMI port, and I plugged my 5770 into my DVI port. My monitor is on the HDMI channel, so it's recieving the video from my nvidia card.
> 
> 
> 
> So basically both the cards are connected to the same monitor...and mining on it works?
Click to expand...

Yeah,,, but it tries to run in dual monitor mode, and I have to constantly put windows in single mode.


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## denial_

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *./Cy4n1d3\.*
> 
> Yeah,,, but it tries to run in dual monitor mode, and I have to constantly put windows in single mode.


And you can't mine on the 5770 if it's not connected to a monitor?


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## esqueue

I tried it with my 650 ti and r9 290x. the Nvidia 650 ti for normal use while the 290x for mining. Funny because all I did was plug my nvidia card in the second pcie slot and booted. Nvidia was already there. all I did was plug the cables to the 650 ti and all is good.

I did run into an odd issue. When nothing is plugged into the 290x no program can detect it and you can't set it's speed or anything. Even cgminer fails to set it's speed. The way around this is to plug anything that it believes is a monitor into it. It detects my Onkyo receiver as a monitor. I then either run cgminer with the bat file or set my clock and mem settings via after burner. After I disconnect my receiver and connect it back to the 650ti the 290x gets a slight speed boost as it is no longer displaying anything at all.

this may be confusing so ask questions if you need clarification.


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## denial_

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *esqueue*
> 
> I tried it with my 650 ti and r9 290x. the Nvidia 650 ti for normal use while the 290x for mining. Funny because all I did was plug my nvidia card in the second pcie slot and booted. Nvidia was already there. all I did was plug the cables to the 650 ti and all is good.
> 
> I did run into an odd issue. When nothing is plugged into the 290x no program can detect it and you can't set it's speed or anything. Even cgminer fails to set it's speed. The way around this is to plug anything that it believes is a monitor into it. It detects my Onkyo receiver as a monitor. I then either run cgminer with the bat file or set my clock and mem settings via after burner. After I disconnect my receiver and connect it back to the 650ti the 290x gets a slight speed boost as it is no longer displaying anything at all.
> 
> this may be confusing so ask questions if you need clarification.


I was having a similar issue. My GTX 760 is plugged on the first PCI-e 16x an my R9 270x on the second one. Everything went smoothly when I installed the 270x, no hardware or software problems and ready to mine after 15min without having anything plugged in the 270X.

However, I was no longer able to change, or even see the clock speed and temps of any of the cards







. But I just plugged a monitor on it and HWMonitor can see it now, and I can change the clock in Afterburner







.

So now it's tweak time, undervolt and hopefully lower noise level







. So thank you esqueue


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## esqueue

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *denial_*
> 
> However, I was no longer able to change, or even see the clock speed and temps of any of the cards.......... So thank you esqueue


I also figured out after posting that, AIDA64 extreme can monitor the second card after everything is disconnected. You still can't tweak it but you can monitor it's temps.

And you're welcome.


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