How to Fix Ethminer Not-Working Issues on 2GB GPUs

23 Mar
2016

ethminer-2gb-vram-error

It seems that owners of video cards with 2GB of video memory has started having issues mining Ethereum (ETH). People are reporting that their cards are not being able to properly allocate the DAG file needed for mining with Ethminer even though it is still well below 2GB in size (a little over 1.3 GB at the moment). The error people with 2GB VRAM GPUs trying to mine Ethereum are getting is the following:

Creating one big buffer for the DAG
Allocating/mapping single buffer failed with: clCreateBuffer(-61). GPU can’t allocate the DAG in a single chunk. Bailing.
clEnqueueWriteBuffer(-38)

There are numerous suggestions on how some people were able to resolve the problem and make their 2GB VRAM video cards able to mine again Ethereum without more problems, but it seems that now all of them work for everyone and in all cases. We have tried different suggestions and have experimented, until we have found out a working solution that works fine on an AMD Radeon R9 285 GPU with 2GB of video memory, so you might want to try and see if it will work for you as well. Try executing the following commands in Windows before running ethminer and see if it will help:

setx GPU_FORCE_64BIT_PTR 0
setx GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT 100

Some people are reporting that they only need to do “setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100” and things work fine after that with their 2GB GPUs, but we were not able to make things work only with that variable. So do try and report what works and what does not for you, setting all of the four environment variable listed above did the trick for us. Restarting the computer after applying the environment variable listed above may be required for some users to make them work properly. Using 14.x drivers seems to provide the best success rate for most people, so if you are using newer 15.x drivers and still having issues, you might try going back to 14.x.

Linux users might try this as well, however you need to replace the setx with export and add = before the value you want to set, so the above list of commands needed for Linux users mining Ethereum should look like this:

export GPU_FORCE_64BIT_PTR=0
export GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE=100
export GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS=1
export GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT=100
export GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT=100

Do note that we have not tested if this fixes the issue for Linux users, we can confirm that it worked for us under Windows, so if you test on Linux mining rigs with 2GB video memory GPUs please write in the comments if it helped you or not.






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44 Responses to How to Fix Ethminer Not-Working Issues on 2GB GPUs

Dmitry

March 23rd, 2016 at 15:59

Wich version of the catalyst did you use during your experiments? For me – now it’s working with 14.7 rc3 and not working with 15.12. And even now according to output of ethminer –list-devices only about 1.7GB could be allocadet in one chunk.
With 15.12 it’s only 1.3, slightly less than current DAG, but was enougth for previous.

admin

March 23rd, 2016 at 16:35

Works with older 14.x drivers, have not tested it with 15.x or newer.

Makaron

March 23rd, 2016 at 16:59

Thanks Dmitry! That solved the problem for me.
I’m using 14.12 driver and everything is ok

fog51

March 23rd, 2016 at 20:29

i think problem in driver version. i tried catalyst 15.12 and it work well/ sorry for my bad english

Yordanov

March 23rd, 2016 at 20:43

15.12 dosen`t work with 2 GB cards

Phuck270X

March 23rd, 2016 at 20:58

Still not working on R9 270X with 8GB RAM and catalyst 15.11
I’ll check with other driver versions

admin

March 23rd, 2016 at 21:08

You can try with 14.x drivers.

Yordanov

March 23rd, 2016 at 21:50

I try 14.12 and 14.7 rc3 and drivers crash and still not working.I`m with R9 270X with 8GB RAM on win 8.1

Dmitry

March 23rd, 2016 at 22:07

Right now i’m on 14.7 rc3 with my gigabyte r9 270x (8 cards) and 1 asus r9 270 on 3 farms. 2 farms have 2gb RAM and 4 cards each. And i’m checking different miners (ethminer, ethminer-cuda with ocl and eth itself). And all working fine All farms are on windows 7 x64. AFAIR i had some problems with 14.x about month ago, but now all working just fine. What is your error message?

TheFrog

March 23rd, 2016 at 22:09

Yordanov
8 GB System RAM is not the same as Video RAM on you GPU.
can it be you have 1 GB VRAM in your 270x (get gpu-z and check).

Phuck270X

March 23rd, 2016 at 22:43

First of all, thanks for your tips and fast answers.
I’ve got it working on my 270X with catalyst 14.9
i’ve also tried using stock drivers (13.6) which resulted in a 1/3 loss of performance
the error persisted with either 15.11 and 15.12 drivers
I’m using win7 with 8gb memory

Dmitry

March 23rd, 2016 at 23:44

So, in conclusion. To get 2gb amd cards work on windows we need following:
1. Windows 7
2. Catalyst 14.x
3. All commands from this post.

gustavo

March 24th, 2016 at 02:13

por favor alguem ajuda com esse problema compatilhe uma solucao

thorthehammer

March 24th, 2016 at 15:25

I had this crap happen to me with my 4GB 380s too. I deleted the ethash folder contents and was good to go.

As an aside, I have trouble with one rig (4 380s) that ethminer locks up every now and then and requires a power reset. I can access it remotely but can’t shut the zombie ethminer down. It only has 4GB system RAM, would adding more help?

BitLeafClover

March 24th, 2016 at 20:00

I executed these commands and now I’m returning the following after running the batch file. Anyone else have and resolve this?

JSON-RPC problem. Probably couldn’t connect. Retrying in 1…
miner 01:40:10:main Getting work package…
X 01:41:04:main Failed to submit hashrate…
X 01:41:04:main Dynamic exception type: class jsonrpc::JsonRpcExeption
std::exception::what: Exception -32003 : Client connector error: libcurl error: 28 -> Operation timed out

FoxWare

March 24th, 2016 at 20:36

I installed R9 290 and R9 380. The above-described methods have not helped . Helped only installation on Win7 AMD 15.7.1 drivers

techtot

March 24th, 2016 at 23:56

Going back to 14.x drivers worked. Stay away from new drivers unless you have more than 3GB

Ke Wan

March 25th, 2016 at 17:43

R9 370 2g
it’ error,i try it!

Ke Wan

March 25th, 2016 at 18:29

r9 370 2g, use 14.7 RC3 driver, but the device chang to ” HD 7800″!

display error” Creating one big buffer for the DAG
Loading single big chunk kernels
Mapping one big chunk.
Allocating/mapping single buffer failed with: clEnqueueWriteBuffer(-4). GPU can’t allocate the DAG in a single chunk. Bailing.
clEnqueueWriteBuffer(-38) ” ,
why?

gustavo

March 26th, 2016 at 03:19

nothing works not I hope to return to using qt miner or ethminer
I r9 270x 2gb win 7 64bit 1gb ram stopped work last week

Please if anyone knows the correct configuration repair please inform

thorthehammer

March 26th, 2016 at 04:26

I didn’t know you could run it with just 1GB RAM. Did you try adding more?

Alejandro

March 28th, 2016 at 08:46

l put the commands and l go back to catalysis 14.7 rc3 but l cant mine l have 2 XFX R9 380 2 1gb on windows 7, l have the same problem on windows 7 and l format to windows 10

Lorey

March 28th, 2016 at 18:53

Can somebody please post how to go back to older drivers (14.x)? After the update to 15 I have this problem

andrii

March 28th, 2016 at 20:31

http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/embedded/previous?os=windows

gayton

March 28th, 2016 at 21:02

Running 270X cards, ati 14.7, tried the above, still have the issues. Worked fine on nicehash for the last month

andrii

March 29th, 2016 at 00:08

Asus R7 370 2Gb (driv 16.3) win7
work only with add this to bat file

setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
SET GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT=100

before get error:
Allocating/mapping single buffer failed with: clCreateBuffer(-61). GPU can’t all
ocate the DAG in a single chunk. Bailing.
clEnqueueWriteBuffer(-38)

M14YEN

March 29th, 2016 at 23:45

@andrii Genius, I removed all the other setx… lines i’d been trying and added yours and now my r9 380 2gb is working fine again (win10 with AMD 16.1.1)

Pine

March 31st, 2016 at 01:59

Nothing works!
R7 260X 2GB.

None of the above setx combinations work in win7 with 14x,15x and even 16x.

Pop Adrian

March 31st, 2016 at 07:54

5x 270x working on windows 10 with catalyst 15.* with the comands above

CryptoYeti

March 31st, 2016 at 10:23

The environmental command that does the trick for the 2GB cards is the setx GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT 100 , as this sets the maximum amount of memory a single process can use, such as the DAG file. In all likelyhood it will be required to use both of these variables:

setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT 100

as if the global maximum were to be lower that the single, the process would also fail.

So the complete list of environmental variable to set (5) includes:

Windows:

setx GPU_FORCE_64BIT_PTR 0
setx GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT 100

Linux:

export GPU_FORCE_64BIT_PTR=0
export GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE=100
export GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS=1
export GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT=100
export GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT=100

M14YEN

April 2nd, 2016 at 14:26

@Cryptoyeti I find that I still have to drop the x on the GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC setting as instructed by andrii

setx GPU_FORCE_64BIT_PTR 0
setx GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
set GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT 100

Necro

April 12th, 2016 at 11:45

I got it to work on 14.7 amd drivers (win10, R9 270) BUT:
When it mines on nicehash servers, it just infinitely mines at like double my actual hashrate, without submitting any shares (as in i had it running for 3 hours and not one share – usually around 0.05shares/s)

this is retarded. 2 weeks of trying very combo of everything mentioned here and no success on ETHMINER (qtminer works, but slow and only on miningpoolhub).

Switched to nicehash’s app thing and just mining away at x11.

Studart

June 3rd, 2016 at 23:47

Guys, I have a GTX 750 ti and even with the commands it doesn’t work. Does anyone have the same card and could solve the issue???

J

June 13th, 2016 at 05:00

I have a Sapphire Radeon 5450HD (2GB) and I tried everything but I still get that error message. Google wasn’t able to help me solving this issue. Anyone here?

wereduck

July 4th, 2016 at 13:10

On OS X 10.11, MacBook Pro 2012, “geth gpubench” crashes the system.
I’ve set all the env variables.

The 2 videocards are reported as:
* Intel HD Graphics 4000, VRAM (Dynamic, Max): 1536 MB
* NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M, VRAM (Total): 1024 MB

Both crash.

Can my hardware ever run geth on GPU?

admin

July 4th, 2016 at 17:54

No, you need a GPU with at least 2GB video memory.

joyrex

November 1st, 2016 at 14:32

Hi,
I have a problems with my miners

6 x Sapphire Radeon RX 480 8 Gb
16Gb RAM
Asrock pro BTC and Asrock B85 anniversary
PSU 1x 835w for motherboard and molex and 1x 1200 w for 6 cards
16800 – 60000 Mb virtual memory
-20% volts
max 65C
All other is by default

GPU_FORCE_64BIT_PTR 0
setx GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
setx GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT 100

EthDcrMiner64.exe -epool eu1.ethermine.org:4444 -ewal address.RX480_5 -epsw x -eworker RX480_5 -esm 1 -allpools 1 -lidag 3 -r 20

i try this

setx GPU_FORCE_64BIT_PTR 0
setx GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT 100

But in both cases there is an error message that miner stop working.
Do you have an idea why is not stable.

Al

December 30th, 2016 at 00:46

I have fixed DAG error onyl after full uninstall AMD Drivers in Add/remove panel. Then i made a custom install of 14.1beta – Display Driver only (no Catalyst Control, etc).
I have checked this solution twice – after installation of full set of AMD Drivers 14.12 and newer – got the same error. So install good Display Driver only will do the trick.

Remi

December 30th, 2016 at 23:47

There is a much easier thing to do to overcome this issue: just don’t load the DAG !

ethminer.exe –opencl –opencl-platform 0 -S yourpool:yourport -O yourBTCadress.youRig:yourPswd –api-port yourApiPort –opencl-devices 0 1 2 3

I see lot’s of people with the clCreateBuffer(-61) and keep trying to launch ethminer with the ‘–dag-load-mode singlekeep 1’ parameter (which comes by default with NiceHash miner ;) )

Hope it’s can help for people still stuck with that issue

Ciao

Note: I run myself ethminer with 2GB AMD card with 16.x AMD driver: No problem !

otaku

January 2nd, 2017 at 17:08

Hi Remi,

I’ve tried your command line but it don’t work …
I use ethminer genoil 1.1.7 with 15.12 AMD driver
Could your write the correct command to skip the DAG to load ?

alexela

June 21st, 2017 at 23:54

hey
didnt work for me
have r9 380 2gb on win10 8rb ram
still getting buffer error

bad_panda

July 9th, 2017 at 10:05

Привет, помогите новичку, попробовал помайнить Asus R7 370 2Gb ETH и DCR делаю это первый раз. При запуске майнинга пишет GPU 0, error -38 – cannot write buffer for DAG
OpenCL error – cannot allocate big buffer for DAG. Подскажи пожалуйста , как исправить
Вот батник, логин и пароль заменяю своим
EthDcrMiner64.exe -epool eu2.ethermine.org:4444 -ewal 0x191774be0b2a32ea6813090acd8c68bb976718e0. -epsw x -dpool stratum+tcp://dcr.suprnova.cc:3252 -dwal x -dpsw x

diego

March 18th, 2018 at 12:00

doesnt work anymore with newer version of ethminer with rx 460 2gb

admin

March 18th, 2018 at 14:14

GPUs with 2GB no longer work for Ethereum mining due to the size of the DAG surpassing that size already.

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