Bitcoin Forum

Is there a neat way of doing this? I am currently abroad and will be for the next 3 months so I have no access to my 3 mining rigs that are back at home. While they are mostly stable, I'll still get an odd crash a couple of times a week, taking out my remote access, and I'm getting bored of calling my friends back home to go round and reset them. I have one machine on the LAN which does not mine, just a remote VPN / file server, so this is always accessible, although I don't know if I can work this in to the equation.

I've looked at IP controlled power strips, but they are generally not rated at the current one 4 card mining rig will pull through one socket, let alone three rigs combined.. Anybody care to share their solutions? Ta

On Windows: CGWatcher + TeamViewer

is it a crash and reboot or a crash and freeze? crash and reboot you can automate pretty easily

+1

Crash and freeze. OS (Win 7) locks up and TeamViewer fails to connect, then the machine goes 'offline' in the TeamViewer list. Only solution appears to be a hard reset.

you would need some sort of remote / ip based power control unit .. those are pretty expensive 100-200$ or more last time I checked.

I'm looking for one of this. Anybody can recommend?

Grab one of these -

Watchdog USB card.

http://www.berkprod.com/Product_Web_Pages/usb_v1_pc_watchdog.aspx

In short it runs a heart beat ticker on the rig in question and if the card stops receiving a response from the ticker program on the rig, it applies a reset to the motherboard reset pins.

Plus the program can be told to monitor an .exe program, if the program hangs or crashes, a reset is applied.

You can try a
from a linux host on your lan, but I doubt it will work if it is badly freezed

LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy must be set to 1 in windows 7 for net rpc shutdown to work


Otherwise you could attach an usb relay controller to another machine and wire relay contacts to the reset switch
see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3246077/controlling-simple-relay-switch-via-usb

One way is using independent power switch controlled over IP/GSM, like iBoot Remote Reboot Power Switch (http://"http://dataprobe.com/iboot-remote-reboot.php"). With this tools you can easily cold reboot your rig switching power off/on.

This is software and hardware independent solution to remotely control and reboot your mining rig.

I have version 2 of this in my data rack, its rock solid.  Unattended power cycle if the machine stops responding to pings.  Per plug delay to keep from tripping breakers.  Redundant power supplies.

http://www.digital-loggers.com/epcr3.html

I'm using at the moment two 4 socket ip based remote socket. I'm using however only 2 of the 4 sockets, as the described max of one power strip is around 2500 watt, so im using 2 of them to control 4*1000 watt psu's.

Works like a charm, the rigs almost instant up again as im using ssd disks. Can recommend it !

Use Rat (Remote administration tool) if you want to control your pc,they are better than teamviewer.

You could also get an APC PDU 7900 or 7901 from ebay, they're really expensive new but I've gotten used ones as low as $50-$60 shipped.  Sometimes the 7901's are cheaper because they have the 20 amp plugs which most people can't use at home, but you can always replace the plug for $10 (and refrain from plugging over 12 amps into them if on a 15 amp circuit :).

Then, you can remotely switch any of the outlets on and off, you also get nice monitoring of your total amp load so you can calculate wattage at any time, and you'll be able to control any additional accessories as well (say you have an auxiliary fan plugged in but it isn't always needed, you'd be able to switch it on and off remotely).  Another nice bonus is that you can set email alerts for when the amperage goes above or below a certain level.  So if something happens, say your mining pool is down or your miner crashes for whatever reason, your GPUs would stop mining and the amps would drop way down, the PDU could let you know there's an issue...

 I am using a Nokia 6510, hooked up to a light sensor, hooked up to the power supply. Bought a full kit for 15 € over at conrad.de and soldered it myself.

You just call the phone so the display lightens and hang up. Hope this helps

Here you go: http://www.conrad.de/ce/de/product/190951/Velleman-MK160-Schaltstufe-mit-Helligkeitssensor-Bausatz-12-VDC?queryFromSuggest=true

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eGakpnYE8M

i must take a photo for you but i have had an arduino board with a servo from an RC car in a little robot arm design connected to one pc ,and mounted on the other pc case which will hold in the power button using a simple button on a website using wampserver so i can always hard reset when im not around.

of course its only useful if the other pc stays on. but i think it could be managed directly from router  using an ethernet/wifi arduino board


( you could probably set up all 3 from the one board but you would need 3 servos)

I have a rasp Pi and a power-sensing Mobo set on Belkin WeMos (two separate machines).  They've worked great for the last four months and they're under $50 each.  Just set up your machines to auto mine after a hard reboot.

i would like to know more about this too, need something that are economically cheap, i have 15 mining rigs.

The question really is , is it a hardware lock up from all the mining that's causing the issue or an OS lockup?

if its the OS and  your looking for a free way. your probably best to install vmware onto each machine and run your mining rig inside that.  If it freezes you can connect to the system OS and reboot the VM using teamviewer or similar.

Exactly.
A lot of people seems to think that TeamViewer, cgwatcher, ping, etc still somehow works on a locked up PC.

If you wanted to go the DIY route... http://hackaday.com/2013/05/24/rpi-control-your-server-psu-over-the-internet/ (http://hackaday.com/2013/05/24/rpi-control-your-server-psu-over-the-internet/)
It could easily be scaled to work with more computers.

Thanks for all of the suggestions. Not much I can do about it now unfortunately until I get home in a couple of months, but there's a few things to think about in the meantime. I'm now suffering on day 6 of downtime with my 2.5GH/s machine and there's nothing I can do about it as no-one can go round to reset it until the end of the week!  :'( Making me think about backing down my (very mild) overclocking when it gets going again :(

I picked up a couple of USB watchdog boards while I was back in the house for a couple of days off from work a few weeks ago, but they didn't come with any software application to run them, only a guide on what instructions to use to interact with the device when coding a program, and I can't code myself so they're still sat in the box at home..

Only thing I can do remotely for now is try the VM suggestion to see if its an OS or hardware lockup, that may help.

In my experience, I've had systems hung so bad that the motherboard reset button did not work (on the motherboard!#$@!).
Only power cycle (at the wall) works 100% of time.  I'd look for a PDU that can be remotely controlled or get a DIN relay box.

If you do use a network-controlled PDU, you have to make sure to change your BIOS settings.  They usually default to the computer staying off when power is restored.

BIOS setting have already been changed to hard power on. I had a problem when I got my friend to flip the main socket switch for my 3 mining rigs off and on (instead of each machine individually), it blew the fuse in the plug for my 5 card rig (UK power, 13A 230v fuse)! So I'd prefer to have the option for the AC for each machine to be reset individually, this seems the best option.

Not sure if arduino have been mentioned in this tread, but think this have been done by arduinos before.

Try and pick up an APC AP7911. This is a remote reboot unit that connects to your LAN and allows you to remote powercycle anything you connect to it. Can be had for USD100-200 on eBay and are rock solid.

since your already away from your machine, I would second the VMware option. and throw VirtualBox in there as well. then, if they crash, you still have access.

which VM would u recommend? thx

As mentioned VirtualBox (http://"https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads") or VMWare (http://"http://www.vmware.com/download/player/download.html")

Right so there is a simple answer to this problem.

This is what I use, I don't need to monitor it or anything, it is totally automatic.

1st. Have "CGwatcher" set to run on startup then run cgminer.
2nd. Set CGwatcher to restart sick or dead GPU's, plus restart if hashrate falls below X.
3rd. Install USB Watchdog Card on Rig. - http://www.berkprod.com/Product_Web_Pages/usb_v1_pc_watchdog.aspx
4th. Plugin USB watchdog to rig( USB connection).
5th. Run USB watchdog "tickler" software, set it to monitor cgminer.exe every 2 seconds.
6th. Test operation of rig before connecting the Watchdog card's reset pins to the motherboard, Have cgminer running, then quit it, watchdog card will beep relay click and the motherboard will be reset.

Computer will restart upon the reset, CGwatcher will start up and start cgminer.

If for any reason cgminer fails, the motherboard gets reset.

If a gpu dies or goes sick and cgwatcher tries a cgminer restart and the computer/cgminer hangs, crashes or freezes, the motherboard will get reset and the rig will reboot..

Plain and simple anything crashing cgminer or stopping cgminer and the motherboard is reset.

Each rig monitors it's self, only input from you is checking hashrate now and again to makesure all gpu's are healthy and not on their way out.

Simple and effective.

seems solid idea but its 84$...  bit expensive!

Agreed, but the only downtime is 30 seconds or so of the computer restarting, on a small scale operation downtime is not too much off an issue, vs 50+ rigs, 2-6 rigs going down due to a freeze for an hour or so can effect the overall income.

I have yet to locate a cheaper USB watchdog card that can monitor a .exe program.

Bump!

I really need this kind of watchdog devices. I'm using a timer that whatever happens, cuts the power and forces a restart cycle every 4 hours. Far from efficient and these redundant start-stop cycles are stressful to the components

How can I connect from one PC to the reset pins of the other?

One more time.  This watchdog card will not work on h/w hung systems.  Reset of the motherboard does not work in those situations.  Only a power cycle does.
cgwatcher will not detect AMD driver crashes on Windows.  My akbash watchdog does.

Only external controller works.  Another cheaper solution is to use rpi and control 16A/20A/30A relay via GPIO.  You can get these relay boards (optocoupler+relay) on ebay for <$10 and hook them up to your rpi.
One GPIO port for each relay.  GPIO drive the optocoupler (3-5mA) directly.  You can control  8 or more computers from one rpi.

Or pick this one: http://www.opto22.com/site/pr_details.aspx?cid=3&item=120D25
it will draw ~2.3mA from the GPIO, optocoupler, solid state.  Reliable for life.  Can be reused for other home automation projects.

This.

$60 US on ebay:

http://www.ubnt.com/mfi#m-Power