nVidia RTX 3070 ETH overclock in Ubuntu20.04: nvidia-settings -a GPUGraphicsClockOffset/GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset not working

Question

I am using Ubuntu 20.04 with 2 RTX 3070 GPUs, which I want to use for ETH mining, on an ASUS B250 Mining Expert motherboard. I have installed all needed software on a new Ubuntu 20.04 installation like this:

sudo -i
apt install nvidia-driver-460
nvidia-xconfig -a --cool-bits=28
reboot

• I checked my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and coolbits = 28 was written in all 3 GPUs, which is OK.

• I tested nvidia-smi Undervoltage/Powerlimit (pl) for all GPUs, using:

  nvidia-smi -pl 120
  

  and it also works, since mining with T-Rex the power limit is seen, which is OK.

• I tested nvidia-serttings fan for all GPUs like this:

  nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/GPUFanControlState=1
  nvidia-settings -a [fan:0]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=50
  

  and it also works. The fans start at once running faster.

• When I open the NVIDIA X Server Settings app, I can manually change under each GPU's PowerMizer option the values for Graphics Clock Offset and Memory Transfer Rate Offset. After pressing Enter the value becomes active. When mining with T-Rex, the Hash-Rate goes up, which is OK.

So everything works fine, but I want to do all the above in an automated way using a shell script, which I have tried.

BUT: Overclocking is not running with these commands from the terminal. Even the prompt answer is Attribute ... assigned ... as you can see below:

$ nvidia-settings -a GPUGraphicsClockOffset[3]=-500
Attribute 'GPUGraphicsClockOffset' (katzminer-desktop:0.0) assigned to value -500.
Attribute 'GPUGraphicsClockOffset' (katzminer-desktop:0.1) assigned to value -500.
Attribute 'GPUGraphicsClockOffset' (katzminer-desktop:0[gpu:0]) assigned to value -500.
Attribute 'GPUGraphicsClockOffset' (katzminer-desktop:0[gpu:1]) assigned to value -500.

$ nvidia-settings -a GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset[3]=2200
Attribute 'GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset' (katzminer-desktop:0.0) assigned to value 2200.
Attribute 'GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset' (katzminer-desktop:0.1) assigned to value 2200.
Attribute 'GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset' (katzminer-desktop:0[gpu:0]) assigned to value 2200.
Attribute 'GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset' (katzminer-desktop:0[gpu:1]) assigned to value 2200.

When I check the NVIDIA X Server Settings app, under each GPU's PowerMizer option, the value for GPUGraphicsClockOffset and GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset is still 0.

What am I doing wrong?

I also tried for each GPU without success:

nvidia-setttings -c :0 -a '[gpu:0]/GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset[3]=2200'
nvidia-settings -c :0 -a '[gpu:0]/GPUGraphicsClockOffset[3]=-500'

Do I need to use sudo before nvidia-settings?

Or do I need to set persistency mode before like this:

nvidia-smi --persistence-mode=1

Do I have to set PowerMizer-Mode too?

Is my installation of the NVIDIA drivers correct ? Because in a forum I also saw that users install the NVIDIA drivers this way:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ubuntu-drivers-common
sudo apt install nvidia-driver-460 
sudo reboot

All help is much appreciated.

Answer 1

After a lot of struggle I found a way to make this work and created a repo.

You can find the complete working script below and also in GitHub:

#!/bin/sh
README
Before proceeding make sure that you set your coolbits to 31
Open a terminal and do
$ sudo nvidia-xconfig -a --cool-bits=31 --allow-empty-initial-configuration
To be able to set the power limit you need to enable sudo commands without password
Do
$ sudo visudo
And then at the end of the file add the following while changing username to your user
Note the tabs after username as otherwise it won't work
username        ALL = (ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/nvidia-persistenced
username        ALL = (ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/nvidia-smi
Reboot the system now and continue setting the OC limits
=========================== Define OC limts ===========================================
Fans speed is in %
POWER_LIMIT=150
FANS_SPEED=65
GPU_OFFSET=200
Memory offset has to be the actual desired amount.
MEMORY_OFFSET=1300
========================================================================================
It is advisable not to change anything below this line if you don't know what you are doing
SET='/usr/bin/nvidia-settings'
#Set Power Limit
sudo nvidia-smi -pl $POWER_LIMIT
Set power persistence mode to ON so your power limit setting can persist even no UI app is running
${SET} -a [gpu:0]/GpuPowerMizerMode=1
Set fan target level
${SET} -a [gpu:0]/GPUFanControlState=1
${SET} -a [fan:0]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=$FANS_SPEED
${SET} -a [fan:1]/GPUTargetFanSpeed=$FANS_SPEED
Set clocks speeds
${SET} -a [gpu:0]/GPUGraphicsClockOffsetAllPerformanceLevels=$GPU_OFFSET
ACTUAL_MEMORY_OFFSET=$(( MEMORY_OFFSET*2 ))
${SET} -a [gpu:0]/GPUMemoryTransferRateOffsetAllPerformanceLevels=$ACTUAL_MEMORY_OFFSET
#Send notification
notify-send "OC Done: Fans = $FANS_SPEED% | GPU=$GPU_OFFSET | Memory=$MEMORY_OFFSET" -t 4000 -i messagebox_info

Short answer to your question is that there are apparently new properties that you can use. Use GPUGraphicsClockOffsetAllPerformanceLevels and GPUMemoryTransferRateOffsetAllPerformanceLevels instead to make it work.

In theory the [3] in GPUGraphicsClockOffset[3] is the performance level and if you do GPUGraphicsClockOffset[n] for each n as performance level then you should be able to also make it work but I haven't tried that yet.