Bitcoin Forum

I'm a little concerned about leaving my pc on hashing away 24/7 ! has anyone run into any problems ?!

cheers onis

http://www.bitcoinminingaccidents.com/?cat=7

well that's just someone being dumb ! i mean major card failure resulting in a fire etc ?!

I'm not a miner, but if i were i'd likely oil cool it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJdUhtD1zns

Removes the heat, the noice and the dust.

Most CPU and GPU have failsafes that shut them off at a cretin temperature. Maybe a really really cheap PSU ran at 500% load since the eighties would cause a fire, but I doubt anything would if hardware is installed properly.

Turn your PC off, remove your CPU cooler, and turn your PC back on. Watch what happens.

Fail safe in action.

Don't worry about fires, it won't happen. Your PC will shut down WAY before that happens, whether you are CPU or GPU mining.

thank you for the peace of mind.......... ;D

(but should a fire occur i will bill you for the damage (in bitcoins of course))  :P

no fires, longest I've mined is 15 hours straight.

Me have no fires.  :D

No fires here..

I highly doubt it would ever set on fire unless there was an electrical problem

About the only thing that goes kaboom is if you either don't cool your cpu or gpu properly (usually because the fan dies), or if you overload components like your power supply. Good power supplies shut down when overloaded, cheap ones will go until something breaks, usually a diode in the rectifier burns. Here's an example of a Thermaltake 750w power supply: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Thermaltake-TR2-RX-750-W-Power-Supply-Review/902/7 (http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Thermaltake-TR2-RX-750-W-Power-Supply-Review/902/7). When they actually test it with 750 watts it burns out, another one did the same thing. If you explore that site, you see a lot of power supplies are blatant Chinese lies, they can't deliver the advertised power without dropping voltage, shutting down, or burning out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd266kl0rs0

If you're thinking about starting to mine now... WHY?   That ship has sailed into the sunset.

Most likely cause of fire related issues mining is if you use a dubious (or worse) power supply.  Cheap power supplies are cheap for a reason, and are well known to have parts fail inside.  Sometimes that means they just die, other times you get a nice loud POW.
The vast majority of power supplies have fuses that will prevent a fire, but not all.

Never cheap out on your power supply, no matter how tempting it might be.

Not a fire, but I updated Catalyst drivers while mining.  I wasn't paying attention and noticed after a few minutes, "Hey, my fan sure is quie....oh crap!".  My GPU was up to 105c.  MSI Afterburner was unresponsive to changing fan settings.  I stopped my miner and rebooted and all was well again.  I'll admit I did panic a bit.  Luckily the card is still rock solid for me.

aye my fan failed (had something stuck in it). pc powered down at 115c tbh I thought the card would of been broke. but its still hashing away

lol i been fine just dealing with all the heat my rads dump into my room i did blow a psu last year from the load my 5970 and 5870 draw but it waset from bit mining.

No fires but I did have a funky smell after a 2 day session.  I underclocked both of my cards afterwards and set my fan to 100%.  The demons have been exorcised since.

I've all but stopped mining now since the pros have taken over.  I just solo mine with my idle CPU now for the same reason I play blackjack.

bitcoinminingaccidents  :o

I am loving this... bitcoin everything! When these recent flood of bitcoin websites thin out and a few strong ones persist I think we will see a rise in price due to utility.

Back on subject, water cooling FTW.

heck yea water cooling owns lol to bad it has to dump the heat into my room it raises my temp like 20-25f in here running a 5970@900/600 1.162 and a 5870@1000/600 1.212

Short answer "YES"

I had a server (Dell2650) with an expansion card running a GPU.  The power connection from the motherboard to the card caused it to over heat slowly and burned the fibreglass board and plastic connections.  Filled the house with smoke and the family was very unimpressed.  Took a week for the smell to clear.

I was thinking about this last night and came to the conclusion that it would be very difficult for a major fire.
Most likly thing to happen would be the PSU/GFX/CPU goes pop then the computer turns off.

If it does turn into a fire then its sealed inside the metal case and there isnt exactly that much fuel inside there for the fire to consume so it would burn out quickly.

I haven't turned one of my very old computers off for more than 2 years and its still working fine ;D  (even though its not mining but used as a server) but imo well cooled mining computer shouldn't have problems and if it heats too much it will shut down automaticaly.

So I could leave my computer running 24/7 and nothing bad would happen? I tend to turn it off when I go out of the house cos I'm paranoid.

Just check the temps arent too high and the fans arnt getting blocked or making screatching sounds like they are going to fail and it should be all good. Had mine on 3 days so far.

Improper cooling WILL increase your mining costs!  ;D
Air cooling is fine as long as you have some AC running close to the rig...

While new to bitcoin, I am not new to folding for other projects... Have never had a fire, ever, on any PC/Rack/laptop... ever.

I have had 1 machine shutdown due to CPU cooler failure (still worked once CPU cooler replaced)... and 1 that smoked some (Power Supply Failure) then died gracefully....

If your machine is not built from knockoff equipment you picked up in pieces in shady booths in Hong Kong you should be ok. :D

 

no fires. But for some reason my heating bill is going down

Well make sure you have enough airflow in your computer case. Intake outtake fans are necessary.

Hardly ! Mining still makes money. If it pays for my rig that's all i can ask.....ive folded for years and made nothing from it...in fact a loss because I've been paying the electricity bill!!!


Loving all the replies can't wait to start mining next week  8)

4 machines running, no fires :)

They were already running 24/7 anyway... so this didn't make that much of a difference :)

Great, now I'm paranoid :P


Catch me on News at 10, 'The Great Bitcoin Disaster of 2011'

No one ever said mining was safe, no matter whether virtual or in real life.

I've fried CPUs, and GPUs by having a poorly secured cooler or a broken fan on the cooler.  I've heard there is a failsafe on ATI cards, but I wouldn't personally try it.  But you'd definitely get a fried card before you got a fire, unless your power supply was faulty, which can happen but it's rare.

I had a fan on one of my 5830's that was clogged up with a cable, without me realizing it.  It stayed under 95c by clocking down to 300/150 until it cooled a bit, then clocking back up to 600/300, then back down, all automatically.  I was wondering why my hash rate was so low with that particular card.  :P  But basically, the card will still survive just fine even with a non-functioning fan.  I'd say the only risk is if the heatsink itself becomes detached from the card, but if that happens without you realizing it, there's probably other issues with your computer that you need to work on anyway.  :P

A few years ago I had an AMD processor catch fire.. It can happen, more likely it'll be a problem with the power supply, but as long as you have a smoke alarm and insurance, you'll be fine :)

Faulty hardware can and sometimes does catch fire. Keep an extinguisher handy.

pics or it didn't happen

Not sure how a CPU, even without a heatsink can start a fire. there's nothing flammable near the CPU, and you'll need crazy high temperatures (for a CPU) for a fire to start.

+1 unless there was that much dust in the cooler and on the mobo.

Considering I'm using a CPU miner on a Macbook I haven't generated much at all.

So nope, no fires!

hardly worth the effort isnt it ?!?! lol

Uh, AC WILL increase your mining costs!

my hot zone high was 49degC and generally sits at 42degC and i am still stable!
no fires, no problems, just good setup.

I was thinking about this again too.  I had a computer where the flames exited the case.  Sure it was a spectacular bang, but if there had been anything flammable above the computer at the time it would have gone up in flames too.  :)