Bitcoin Forum

Hi guys,

I plan to set up mining rigs for my family members in their respective homes. As my family members are not familiar with crypto mining, they will rely on me completely from setting up, monitoring to trouble shooting the rigs for them. Hence, I would like to know your advise whether what I have in mind at the moment would serve as the best solution in terms of mining rig budgeting, mining rig stability and GPU hashing optimization, centralized remote monitoring, resetting and troubleshooting for all the rigs in different locations while serving ONE primary objective - Because I'm a working man, I do not wish to have the rigs crash often to prevent frequent visits to physical site so that it's problem free for a long time.

Mining Rig Hardware Consideration

I intend to build about 6 - 8 rigs with 2 rigs each for each household ie, 3 to 4 different physical locations. In order to save some costs and also due to new GPU is always shortage of supply, I intend to source some parts that are used and some new for these rigs.

1. GPU - Any used/new RX580 8GB cards that are readily available for sale. Because getting new GPUs is a problem, is it advisable that maybe I can mix and match used and new GPUs with the same form factor? Eg, I buy 3 used (easier to obtain) and 3 new RX580 8GB GPU card for a rig but they are of different brands. I know that even for the same form factor they would have their own subtle differences as well e.g overclocked and non overclocked or even slight different in core/memory speed. How will this effect the stability of the rig in the long run by doing so?

2. Motherboard - Good idea to buy it used? I think mining motherboards are quite resilient so there shouldn't be any problem if I were to buy them used, right?

3. RAM - Will buy used item. They normally last a lifetime.

4. PSU - Good idea to buy it used? Maybe the PSU for the GPUs I will get a new unit while for the motherboard i will get it used.

5. PCIe Risers - New

6. SSD - Will buy used item.


Operating Systems

1. Rig OS - Windows 10 (It's just that I'm more familiar with it than Linux)

2. Mining OS - Simplemining. Are there any other windows based mining OS I can use besides simplemining? It has to be easy to use and configure with minimal tinkering. I'm not the trial and error hobbyist type.


GPU Hashing and Power Savings Optimization (Overclocking core speed and undervolting the cards)

1. If I were to get different brands with the same form factor (ie different brands of RX580s), do I have to overclock/undervolt each and single GPU manually or can I just randomly optimize one card and use that single optimized settings for all the other cards with the same form factor to maximize the hashrate and minimize power usage?

2. Is it way much faster to optimize any GPU cards that I intend to use by BIOS flashing i.e. strapping existing optimized performance timing parameters (from other users) via Polaris BIOS editor rather than tweaking it myself via MSI afterburner software? My objective here is to save time and effort to get ANY type of GPU that I buy optimized and stable in the shortest amount of time (rather than trial and error like doing as a hobby because I work and don't have the time to tinker around with it). Apart from what I have in mind here, are there any better ideas how I can quickly just get a reference setting for any type of GPU cards to get it optimized in terms of higher hash / power consumption / stability within minutes and not going through with overnight stability tests?

3. I may not have the same type of mining motherboards, RAM, PSUs, SSDs for all the 6 - 8 rigs that I intend to build if I decide to get some of the parts as used items. Is this a good idea/worth it to save money on initial investment vs keeping track of so many different brands and models on the different rigs? Or should I just buy all of them new with the same make and models to save me the pain of troubleshooting in case I bought some unreliable used parts.

4. Also, if I have an already optimized card in one motherboard and if I were to switch that optimized card into another motherboard, will the card maintain it's optimized performance or will it experience a drop in overall performance? In another word, are the performance of the tweaked GPUs independent of the different types of motherboards and parts used for building the rig?

5. I know that different coin algorithms will use more of different resources within the GPU ie If mining ethereum, monero, etc it will be GPU memory intensive while other crypto algorithms are GPU clock speed intensive. So, if I want to mine different coins from time to time, do I also have to change the GPU settings each time to ensure the GPU hashrate is optimized for the different coin I intend to mine?

Overall Stability Issues:

Now, because of the mere fact that I'm doing this alone, I want it to be as painless for me in terms of getting the rigs as stable as possible with a combination of GPU tweaking and used/new parts used for rig procurement. This means I do not want to run the rigs too hard in order to prolong the life of the optimized GPUs as much as possible and not to have the rig crash often so that it's problem free for a long time.

What would you do differently if you were me from what I have suggested above?


Centralized Remote Monitoring, Auto Restart, and Troubleshooting

1. Remote Monitoring and troubleshooting - VNC or Teamviewer is better for tweaking rig system remotely in case of problems?

2. Handphone app (Android/IOS) - Which software would your recommend to use for keeping track of all the rig conditions ie GPU Usage graphs, temps, clock graphs, power draw graphs, online status per GPU, and total Up time, with a down time notification of when a GPU fails or if a system crashes by any means? It is better to show family members on a user friendly GUI handphone app rather than accessing the mining rig software.

3. How to streamline autorestart when during power outage/disruption, GPU hang, system stop or crash.

4. How to remote hard boot on/off.


Thanks all for your inputs. Cheers and have a good weekend!

Since the physical locations are all in different areas for you and you also work. You might as well get an Antminer or some other ASIC.
Those are generally "set it and forget it".

You can try and getting those "Wifi cold power cycle" switches but they don't always work. And GPUs they tend to crash from time to time sometimes freezing the entire system.

Trust me, I've tried something similiar in the past but the headache of the freezes and you having to drive over there wasn't worth it.

Yea I tend to agree I've been on vacation for about 2 months now (been monitoring my own gpu rigs via teamviewer) 1 rig is not working and I had to have my dad or a friend go over to my house and physically turn the computer on a few times. I have 3 ASICs and those never went down once in 2 months :)

be prepared to be going from house to house constantly to restart or setup again when the miner crashes. lots of hassle in store i think

This will be a good plan for your family honestly this is also my plan to build mining rig for my family and some family members so that they can earn bitcoin and save it for a long time that they can use in the future or to make a profit..
My opinion hardware that i think you can make a good profit i think GTX 1080  TI / gtx 1050ti will be good choice and get fast hashrate or getting low power consumption .
I have already 1 rig here in my house actually not a rig i just bought 2 gpu for my old cpu and  its still running fine so if i bought a new  GPU i can mine with good hashrate speed with GTX 1080ti ..
Remoting their pc will be also a good idea..  to monitor their activity and get stats of every rig.. you don't need to go in their home to setup it..     

1. I have considered Antminer or ASIC. However, each model tends to get obsolete fast especially mining for Bitcoin ie. cannot maintain profitability over the long run and needs to be upgraded very often. So, what would you do after the fact when the machine(s) gets obsolete for Bitcoin mining? Do you then use it to mine other coins with similar algorithm or you would just link it to nicehash?

2. Why do you recommend that I buy those "Wifi cold power cycle" switches? If their rigs are LAN wired to the router, I don't need any wifi power cycling, right?

3. What was the reason(s) that cause the freezes on your end? Did you put in any remote monitoring/resetting to your rig so you don't have to physically be there? 

That's the reason why I try to mitigate that as much as possible by setting up rig autorestart procedures for power outages and using vnc/teamviewer for remote rig troubleshooting. What do you think?

1. Antminer or ASIC gets obsolete fast. See my previous answer to adaseb. What would you do when your running costs overtakes the value of Bitcoin you mine?

2. You could set auto restart on BIOS and what was the reason of the rig not working even when you have teamviewer available to remote troubleshoot when your system crashed?

The Nvidia cards you recommended are not good for mining in terms of overall cost effectiveness and computational power especially for eth.

i don't recommend an autorestart ,power may return unstable sometimes for seconds but it may hurt your PSU.

What are your thoughts on my following intentions detailed earlier at the start of thread? Anyone?

1. Hardware - To buy some used GPUs to mix with new ones of the same form factor and other computer parts to reduce costs especially parts that are not directly used for hashing (eg motherboard, RAM, PSU, SSDs).

2. GPU hashing and power saving optimization - If a mixture of different brands of the same form factor (eg all are 580s but of different brands), do I still have to tweak each of the cards invidually or I can just optimize one and then copy the parameters to the other cards to get the same performance. (see question below as well)

3. If I were to build about 8 rigs, then it would be at least 8 x 6 = 48 cards to tweak. Now, if I'm able to get existing parameters to optimize any card either for BIOS flashing or using software like MSI afterburner, which method should I use to get all the cards (new + used) optimized and stable in minutes rather than having to manually tune them up individually?

Sometimes you can't remotely restart a rig. Sometimes a GPU can crash and it can completely freeze up.

Only way is to cut the power and turn it on again.

Then sometimes when you restore power it might freeze on the BIOS boot due to improper shutdown, or Windows start-up repair can start ( you can disable this ), or HD can get corrupted due to improper shutdown and will need to be re-imaged.

Hence that's why Antminers are better for this purpose. Yes they might get obsolete but so will GPUs eventually. Every month there are like a million GPUs produced that are going into mining. And you can resell them to gamers but they are also overpriced at the moment, especially the Nvidia GPUs.

Another issue is you need to inspect your gear from time to time to make sure nothing started to melt. Especially the riser +12V wires. If you use modular PSUs you also need to periodically inspect the connection between the PSU and PCIe cables due to bad contacts. You also need to inspect the extention cables that are plugged into the wall, sometimes they might start to melt due to bad contact.

Another issue is with the heat. Depending where you live, since winter is coming the temp can vary during the night and day. At night you might need to close the windows almost fully so the house doesn't freeze, during the day you might have to open the window up so the room doesn't get too hot.

Regarding your "USED GPUs", keep in mind that we are in a mining boom. Most USED GPUs are overpriced and cost pretty much the exact same as retail. Only time when you can get a good deal on GPUs is at the end of the mining boom, but  then you don't need them.