raynix 筆記

Mining Ethereum with AMD 6600 XT on Ubuntu Linux

Warning: Ethereum(ETH) will migrate to PoS(Proof of Stake) algorithm in near future, maybe in a year. So jumping into ETH mining now might or might not be profitable. Also, I do I encourage crypto mining with renewable energy sources.

Prerequisite: A PC running on Ubuntu 20.04 with stable Internet connection

AMD RX 6600 XT is latest addition to the Big Navi product family. Below are the steps I managed to do ETH mining with a 6600 XT on Ubuntu 20.04.

Installing AMD Radeon Pro driver

The driver for 6600 XT can be downloaded here, and the official instructions for installing the pro driver is here. And the exact commands I used to install are below

# after the driver is downloaded, extract it with tar
$ tar -xvf amdgpu-pro-21.30-1290604-ubuntu-20.04.tar.xz
...
# install the pro version with OpenCL support
$ cd amdgpu-pro-21.30-1290604-ubuntu-20.04/
$ ./amdgpu-pro-install -y --opencl=rocr,legacy
# add current user to video and render group
$ sudo usermod -a -G video $LOGNAME
$ sudo usermod -a -G render $LOGNAME
# reboot to load the driver
$ sudo reboot
...
# install clinfo to check if OpenCL is enabled properly
$ sudo apt install clinfo
$ clinfo
...
Number of devices                                 1
  Device Name                                     gfx1032
...
# success!

Build rocm_smi_lib to set power limit, memory clock speed, etc

With nVidia’s Linux driver, there’s a bundled tool nvidia-smi to control the card’s power limit, etc. But that’s missing from AMD’s driver bundle. Thanks to Radeon Open Compute the rocm_smi_lib is here. It’s source code so I need to build it myself, but it’s quite straight forward.

# install dependencies 
$ sudo apt install cmake g++
# clone the github repo
$ git clone https://github.com/RadeonOpenCompute/rocm_smi_lib.git
# start the build
$ cd rocm_smi_lib/
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake ..
...
$ make
...
$ sudo make install
...
# set max power to 55W for the first card
$ /opt/rocm/bin/rocm-smi -d 0 --setpoweroverdrive 55
# check result
$ /opt/rocm/bin/rocm-smi
======================= ROCm System Management Interface =======================
================================= Concise Info =================================
GPU  Temp   AvgPwr  SCLK    MCLK     Fan     Perf  PwrCap  VRAM%  GPU%  
0    55.0c  54.0W   920Mhz  1000Mhz  22.75%  auto  55.0W    61%   99%   
================================================================================
============================= End of ROCm SMI Log ==============================

Install and Start TeamRed Miner

This is the most easy part but has to be done the last 🙂 The latest release can be downloaded here and commands to get the mining started are below

# in Downloads directory
$ tar xvf teamredminer-v0.8.4-linux.tgz
...
$ mv teamredminer-v0.8.4-linux ~/
$ cd ~/teamredminer-v0.8.4-linux/
# in start_eth.sh, replace the ETH wallet address to yours otherwise you will be mining for someone else :)
$ vim start_eth.sh
...
# start mining!
$ ./start_eth.sh
[2021-08-22 10:06:25] Pool asia1.ethermine.org received new job. (job_id: 0x65d72f5b396..., diff 1.000 / 4295 MH)
...

If this actually helped you, you’re welcome to support my blogging by running your mining rig with my wallet( 0x0016a5e2d5a32d40f89475218427d35798d05d8a ) for a few hours. Or maybe just click on an ad. which is much easier.

🙂

EDIT: It seemed when 2 6600 XT cards are plugged in only 1 of them becomes available to OpenCL.

EDIT2: Got 2 6600 XTs both mining!

admin

, ,
, , ,

5 responses to “Mining Ethereum with AMD 6600 XT on Ubuntu Linux”

    • No I didn’t need to change kernel parameters. Make sure you fully update your Ubuntu 20.04 before installing the driver.

  2. I installed a 6600 XT card on Ubuntu 20.04 serval days, and every time I got the bad result, that is , clinfo cann’t find any graphics card.

    Ubuntu 20.04.03
    driver: amdgpu-pro-21.30-1290604-ubuntu-20.04.tar.xz

    The installing commands are the same as you do.
    So I really don’t why ….

    • Have you added your user to video and render groups? I missed that once and clinfo found 0 card exactly like your case.