gcminer with ATIRADEON HD3600 on ubuntu 12.04 64bit headless won't detect GPU

Question

I am following this guide: http://rdmsnippets.com/2013/03/20/bitcoin-mining-with-ubuntu-12-04-tls-and-cgminer/

But it won't work on my server (Specification's are in the Subject-field)

I get this error:

koen@gorgabal-Server:~/bitcoinmining$ ./cgminer/cgminer -n
 [2013-06-23 15:03:51] CL Platform 0 vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.                    
 [2013-06-23 15:03:51] CL Platform 0 name: AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing                    
 [2013-06-23 15:03:51] CL Platform 0 version: OpenCL 1.2 AMD-APP (1113.2)                    
 [2013-06-23 15:03:51] Error -1: Getting Device IDs (num)                    
 [2013-06-23 15:03:51] clDevicesNum returned error, no GPUs usable                    
 [2013-06-23 15:03:51] 0 GPU devices max detected                    
koen@gorgabal-Server:~/bitcoinmining$ sudo aticonfig --lsa
* 0. 01:00.0 ATI Radeon HD 3600 Series

* - Default adapter

I can't switch to windows because of several reasons, does anybody have an idea of what I am doing wrong?

Thanks in advance! ps: I have used linux for several years now, so I know my way around. This is a fresh server installation.

Answer 1

OpenCL is not supported on 3xxx series cards. Although it's not completely impossible to mine on a card that old it will be very difficult. Also, a card that old will produce less than 1 MH/s which will only be fractions of bitcoins. I wouldn't waste my time fighting the Radeon 3600.

If you are serious about mining check out the 5xxx and 7xxx series cards. Or better yet, look into ASICs.

Answer 2

I was myself unable to run completely headless. For some reason the ATI driver needs an XServer running.

Once you have an XServer running you still need to tell cgminer where to find it, setting the DISPLAY env variable takes care of this:

export DISPLAY=0.0

this though only takes care of the first ATI card. A little trick is not to specify the second part of the identifier:

export DISPLAY=0

this should let you at least find all the cards. Next you need to configure your XServer to make use of all present cards:

DISPLAY=0 aticonfig --initial --adapter=all -f

Notice that prefixing commands with the env-variable setting works as well. Next you restart the XServer and test that it works:

DISPLAY=0 aticonfig --adapter=all --od-gt

This should give you the temperatures for all cards you have installed. From there, you should be able to start cgminer and it should detect the cards:

DISPLAY=0 ./cgminer/cgminer -n