Hi 
guys I need help I am so tired first thanks for reading this , for the last two weeks I have been balancing between taking care of our 4 months daughter , Job and setting up my rig.
My rig consists of
4 GTX1070 ,
windows 7 ,
8 GB RAM ,
core i7 6700 ,
MS170A GAMING 5
Seasonic PSU of 1250W
At first I could not get the cards to read through the PCI USB connectors so I have two cards connected on the motherboard and two connected using the USB connectors making a total of 4 cards ,
I followed this guide Installation guide. during installation.
The issue I am facing is every time I start any miner software Nicehash , Claymore , EWBF´s Zcash miner for mining z.cash I get an error from the mining software for nicehash for example the mining machine freezes for hours.
Nothing moves no stats nothing , even the computer clock ,it freezes I have to restart it by unplugging the power cable.
This is the behavior of nicehash miner which when I restart I get a screen that shows broken windows operating system repair screen like this…
After restoring the operating system back , the clocking on the graphics cards gets lost and it’s the default setting for all the four cards that gets loaded it is set back to stock setting.
I also wish to add that I am using the ** MSI Afterburner for overclocking**.
For other mining software for example EWBF´s Zcash miner the computer follows the same pattern after mining for approximately 2 hours on stock settings before crashing and giving this screen below
and it doesn’t even to start mine on the cards if they are overclocked or undervolted. It gives the above screen
In all the situation I can’t mine with any available zcash mining applications for more than 2 hours before I get a blue screen , crashes the graphics or freezes the machine.
At first I thought the problem is the drivers so I updated to the latest drivers from nvidia site , this made things even worse I downgraded to and it performed better.
I also ruled out the possibility of a messed up graphics card as all the cards tested individually are doing great.
I also ruled out the chances that the power is not enough because if it weren’t enough I couldn’t mine for a while before the windows 7 crashes.Here is a screen shot of mining with nice hash and the power consumption per card.
Let me add that the above stats are from graphic cards that have default settings.
I am using the connectors below…
Thanks for taking the time to read this and looking forward to hearing all suggestions.
Is that windows 7 64b? running multiple(3 or more) GPU’s for mining requires a 64b windows o/s or linux
have you updated your bio’s to the latest version?
are you running the latest nvidia driver version?
IF you run the two gpu’s directly connected to the mobo, and only those two, no risers, does it run correctly( I would test for several hours)? if yes, switch those two cards with the other two, directly onto the mobo, to make sure it’s not a card issue and again test for several hours.
if all of that works, connect the 3rd gpu and run all three for several hours, add the 4th, test…
Yes it is windows 7 64bit I have the latest bios and the latest nvidia drivers , I have been running two graphic cards differently 6 hours each connected to the motherboard and they work perfectly even with over clock this are the settings for both niceharsh and EWBF´s Zcash miner on flypool
Check out this images.
You see in nicehash it give warning of changing windows graphics.
The below are my settings in MSI Afterburn
how to get power usage as in picture 1?
The miner gives the power usage.
If adding the third card works flawlessly, but the fourth card causes the issues AND the fourth card works fine on it’s own. Try using risers for all four cards. Using all 3 of your x16 slots. Also, you might have a bad riser, buy a few extras.
Make sure you’re spreading out your power connections to the cards and the risers with as many separate cables as possible. Turn off all BIOS power savings features. Check the specs on the PSU and make sure you’re not maxing out the available amps on the 12v rail (it shouldn’t be).
If they work fine for several hours without any overclocking, then it’s likely a power issue. Be sure to test each card, 2 at a time while overlcocked as well.
Its windows 7, I bet you have Aero enabled…
disable aero
Thank you I have already disabled aero,
I am back so after almost 8 hours straight of mining with only 2 GPUs I have not gotten any error unless this that occurred once.
But it was at miner level as it restarted itself and continued mining.
I gotta mention that my windows version is professional service pack 1 it’s not activated but it’s genuine and updated could this affect in any way…?
Thank you for replying.
First when I connect the motherboard HDMI port to a screen without any card on it , I don’t get any signal to the screen using the HDMI cable not even BIOS flashing on the screen .
I have to put a graphics card on the board and use the HDMI port on the Graphics card to get a signal on my screen
Second when I connect the riser on one card connect it to the motherboard and use the HDMI port on the card to get a signal to the machine it never displays anything not even BIOS flashing on the screen.However and this is the tricky part when I connect one graphics card on board and connect two card using the risers I get to see all the cards.
Now when I add a 4th card using the riser they all appear 4 cards but the fourth card shows a question mark.
So I solved this problem by having two cards on the boards and two cards using the risers.
NB:All the cards are tested on their own and they seem okay.
I will try spreading out the connections as you recommend later when I get home.
Today in the morning when I tried three card I got
Graphic cards driver crashes
The third card passes very little wattage
(Check my red marking on the images below)
The above happens when the cards are at stock settings.
Try with some other driver version. Do a clean install of drivers.
The next step is getting three gpu’s to work, and I agree with the fresh driver install. Download and run DDU in safe mode, then install the nvidia drivers again. Let it does its thing, when done drop the third card in and see how it performs.
The fourth card is probably a resource issue, disabling the I/o port and sound in the bio’s will resolve this.
As for it being Windows 7 Pro SP1 and unregistered, this is is probably not causing the issue
1 Like
Hi Guys ,
First thank you so much for the suggestions.I really appreciate it.
Here’s what I did
Updated the BIOS to the most recent version here V384.76
Spread out the power connections to the cards and the risers with separate cables each riser drawing power directly from the PSU with it’s own cable
Use DDU to unistall current driver version
Connected all the cards using Risers
The results were 
I saw all the cards under device manager but one card showed missing card drivers
So at least I can conclude that the risers are not messed up.;;though I order some new ones…
When I tried updating the drivers a blank screen came and the windows restarted to a restore point that didn’t have drivers (this was created during DDU uninstall)…
Disappointed I went to plan B to remove the card and try mining with 3 cards…
So with 3 GPUs here are the result 
First connection
Results:-
The computer froze for 30 min until you restart from the power socket to restart
With EWBF Miner the computer froze gave an error then a blue screen
After the above I get a blue screen.
So I decided since I have 3 *16 PCIE ports on the board I just connect all the cards directly on the board try mining from there…so my connection is as below…
I was able to successfully mine for 3-4 hours on with good numbers
Until this happened 
The above happens with EWBF’s miner and then the miner exits.
With nice hash the following happens : -
Excuse my image…!!
I managed to fix the errors by restarting my machine and lowering the overclock on the cards.
Currently still mining on the board…
Thank you again for your suggestions and and more so for reading this…
Do you have any link I could refer to in disabling I/o port and sound on BIOS…Thanks
Until you get everything stable and running I would not use any overclocking. As you can see it will and does cause issues when you are trouble shooting.
Sorry no I do not have any links that will tell you where it is. The Manufacture site will have the instruction booklet, it’s in the bio’s and each board is different. You just have to look around, each is labeled plainly, though may be buried deep in a section.
Also after 3 cards you may need to turn 4g on if that option is on your board.
Hi guys ,
As you all know I am still struggling with my MSI Z170A Gaming M5 with 4 GTX 1070 , so after days of research and contacting the motherboard seller , who told me to use a genuine windows OS and not to partition the hard drive , I took that advice installed a new operating system and same problems emerged check out this screenshots I took before the machine powered down by itself.
The above are 3 graphic cards not even 4.
Anymore suggestions…?
Hi ,
I am thinking as a last solution replacing the motherboard any recommendations…?
I eventually managed to get the cards to work but I had to change the motherboard I am using Biostar TB250-BTC It’s such a wonderful board.
guys I need help I am so tired first thanks for reading this , for the last two weeks I have been balancing between taking care of our 4 months daughter , Job and setting up my rig.
