Bitcoin Forum

New to this part of the forum but been around the btc section for a while. Ive only ever used asics on and off as a home hobby miner as noise/heat and electricty consumption are a factor for me.

Im interested in setting up a small expandable rig to mine ETH alone. Having never really dealt in any indepth computer building etc im totally lost in regards to how and where to start. I know what bits are and can plug them in but other than that its a mystery  :D im eager to learn though and generally quick to grasp things. From what i understand there are a few different OS i could use but for simplicity i would like to stick with windows.

Basically what bits do i need to buy to get started (one card for now just to dip my toe in) and how the hell do you build it all lol.

Thanks for any help you guys can give me.

P.s. Im based in the UK so if hardware suggestions could be that region specific it would be a great help.

Just buy a GPU and put inside your PC (assuming you aren't using a laptop or Mac) and go from there. If you like what you are doing then buy more GPUs and you'll need risers for more than > 2 GPUs.

You need a graphics card good for mining eth, motherboard, processor, power supply, hard drive and RAM. Google and the instructions included when you buy the parts will instruct you on how to build it.

Thats the trouble i use a laptop and my old tower pc is ancient.

Thats exactly why im here, ive googled and there is so much information and opinions on which gpus and other equipment. Always found the knowledge here to be better than random searches on google.

what specs are the tower pc?

Its 10+ years old, its got an amd athlon 2.8ghz(?) single core cpu, no idea on graphics card. The psu is 500w and before the 80+ ratings came into affect.

Other equipment doesn't matter as much as the graphics card. Opinions about graphics cards mean nothing, the hash-rate is the only thing that matters and that is fact. The RX480/580 is probably the best value for money card vs hash-rate you can get at the moment.

If you can find, get RX 470, 480, 570 or 580. AMD is however insanely hard to find in stock. If you can't, try to get your hands on GTX 1060 or 1070. When it comes to Nvidia, I recommend GTX 1060 over all others. They hash at about 19 out of the box, 22 or so overclocked, some people have pushed them to 23-24. 1070 is at about 30-32 but costs twice as much. 1080 is not good for Ether mining and 1080Ti is too expensive and hashes about 36 overclocked. Fury X and 980Ti hash alright but draw a lot of power, not worth it unless you have free electricity (or very cheap electricity).
Your computer is old, there's a chance you will have to buy new PSU. Not sure about that, since we don't know what PSU you have and it also depends on what card you buy (6 pin, 8 pin, 6+8 pin connectors etc).

To be honest i would start from scratch anyway. With the resale market, if things didnt work out for whatever reason i could always sell the parts on. So i would rather have newer gear just incase. So the list so far is:-

GPU:- RX470,480,570,580
SSD:- what size?
Mobo & RAM:- any one more suited to ether mining?
PSU:- i have a fanless 520w platinum ATX and a HP1200 with sidehack breakout board
CPU:- obviously to fit the mobo but are any better than others?
Peripherals:- ive got an old lcd screen with a multipin plug (used to fit in the blue monitor port) and a isb mouse and keyboard combo laying around.

Is this a decent start? Obviously no gpu on there as thh 570 is out of stock and they dont list a 470-480.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x86/gt_addict/A59754C8-F277-4238-B8DB-C5E212239938_zpsr5xkmkcq.png (http://s185.photobucket.com/user/gt_addict/media/A59754C8-F277-4238-B8DB-C5E212239938_zpsr5xkmkcq.png.html)

Or would an msi Z170A M5 gaming mobo be better?

What is the exact model of your motherboard you got now? Your 10 year old ancient PC might work as long as it has PCIe 2.0 slot.

Here arw a couple of photos. The machine was running WinXP if thats any help:-

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x86/gt_addict/Mobile%20Uploads/3890BA43-8E78-4931-90B0-FB82CFF73A9D_zps75zcgrt1.jpg (http://s185.photobucket.com/user/gt_addict/media/Mobile%20Uploads/3890BA43-8E78-4931-90B0-FB82CFF73A9D_zps75zcgrt1.jpg.html)

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x86/gt_addict/Mobile%20Uploads/9101DB99-6FE2-4E26-A964-ECECC151B42C_zpssf6yuuni.jpg (http://s185.photobucket.com/user/gt_addict/media/Mobile%20Uploads/9101DB99-6FE2-4E26-A964-ECECC151B42C_zpssf6yuuni.jpg.html)

You might be able to run up to 3 GPUs there. You will need 2 risers however.

It might work. Don't know if its PCIe 2.0 however. I remember I had issues with newer GPUs with motherboards that were PCIe 1.0

If it doesn't work then just buy another motherboard+cpu+ram.

Just got to see if new gpu drivers would work on xp now then. Thanks for taking the time to reply. It seems this section of the forum has alot more posts and things get pushed onto the second page alot quicker than anything ive experienced in the btc section.

Edit: Would a used RX 470-480 be worth a try? Or is there something cheaper but still able to do some sort of mining of ETH (like a 450-460) just so i can learn a bit before spending more on newer gear?

You might need to install Win 7 or Ubuntu. Pretty sure WinXP won't support the drivers.

Used RX470-480 are impossible to find now since they are the best mining cards at the moment.

You need to either find some used GPUs on Craigslist (might be difficult these days) or buy some NVIDIA's.

If your power is cheap try to find some 7950/7970/280x second hand.

You do not need to purchase the deepcool cpu fan, the intel i3 processor is sold together with an intel fan

I thought i would come wirh one but its been years since ive built anything like this so thought id chuck that in there just incase.

The intel processor shown in thew item list will come with a cpu fan, below is photo of the open box the processor is placed at the top rectangular space http://www.funkykit.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/IMG_2792.jpg


Below is an intel cpu that`s being sold without a fan
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61kSwHZSPIL._SL1000_.jpg

So im looking at getting new gear for a mining rig rather than trying to find out what my okd pc can run....or not as the case may be.

This is a really noob question but ive got to ask. How do i install win10? I understand ill need an SSD but is that sata or usb?

You don't need SSD, any old harddrive will do. As long as its SATA it will work.

How do i get windows onto the drive in the first place as the rig wont have an optical drive for a windows boot disc.

Then you can use a USB stick.

Download Windows, put the image on a bootable USB stick and install like that. Search the web for instructions.

Gotcha, thanks for taking the time to hunour a total amateur like me adaseb  :)