Bitcoin Forum

Hey everyone.  I've been lurking for a while and finally gave into the mining bug.  I have parts coming to build a 6 GPU dedicated mining rig, and being a newbie, I have a few questions.  First I'll outline the parts I've ordered and if you see problems, I'd like to hear about them.

6x  Sapphire Tri-X R9 290 OC
1x  ASRock H81 Pro BTC Motherboard
1x  Intel Pentium Dual-Core G3220
1x  8GB Kingston HyperX Blu RAM
1x  EVGA SuperNOVA 1300G2 1300W Power Supply
1x  Corsair RM Series 850W Power Supply decided to upgrade
1x  Seasonic X-1050 1050W Power Supply
1x  Dual PSU Adapter Cable
4x  Powered 1x to 16x Riser Cables
2x  Powered USB Riser Cables
1x  Power Switch

Now for the questions:

1.  Power Supplies
Does anyone see any issues with my power supply selection?  I've been trying to get a good idea of the actual power draw of these cards.  I've seen everything from <225W (Tom's Hardware (link) (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-and-290x,3728-4.html)) to over 300W.  The guys at Bits be Trippin' just posted a video (link) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfqfEpanpig) with 6 280X Toxic cards that were pulling enough for them to install 2x1000W + 1x600W.  So now I'm nervous that I won't have enough power supply.  My plan is to install one card at a time using the 1300W PSU until I hit about 1000W on the KillAWatt, then install the second PSU and continue adding cards to the 850W 1050W while checking loads on both PSUs.  Seem logical?  Does anyone with a similar build have hard data to share regarding what their power draw is?

2.  Riser Cables
In the Bits Be Trippin' build linked above (1:30), they recommend using the 2 4-pin molex connectors and leaving all the powered risers disconnected from power.  Thoughts?  Lastly, as shown in my build list, I didn't order a 16x to 16x riser.  Was that a mistake?  Is it necessary to have one?

3.  Operating System
This probably belongs in a separate post, but I'll ask here anyway.  What operating system is preferred for this type of build?  I found this thread (link (https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=12414.0)), but it doesn't really offer any solid answer.  I have no Linux experience, but am not afraid of learning.  I've been leaning towards Litecoin BAMT v1.5 or SMOS v1.3 (with auto-donate disabled).  It seems a lot of people are using Win 8.1.  What are the pros and cons of the different OS options?  My end goal is to be able to access and control the rig while I'm away from home and outside of my local network.  I assume Logmein or TeamViewer would work with Win 8.1, but I'm not sure how to accomplish this with a Linux based OS.  This will be a dedicated mining machine with no need for NAS etc.  I just want a stable work horse that doesn't need to be babysat.

4.  Mining Software
It seems like cgminer is the common choice.  On the surface it seems like sgminer would be the better option for me.  Thoughts?

5.  Mining Pools
I haven't seen anyone try this, so I assume there is a good reason.  As everyone knows, there are several options for coin switching pools with profitability algorithms.  Which is best?  That is very fuzzy.  Why not do a side-by-side comparison with a multi-gpu rig and point each card to a different pool for a few weeks?  Then at the end of the test report the difference in profitability?
Edit:  I see this is being done already. (link) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=456564.0)

I apologize for the long post and numerous questions.  Thanks in advance for the advice!!  I'm still waiting on a few parts to show up, but will post pics as I make some progress.

2150W of combined power should be sufficient, but you will need to take into consideration your home electrical capability. Powered risers is unnecessary and x16 to x16 would not make any difference. In Windows you can use CGWatcher and CGRemote, as well as have the rig function as a server such as NAS or FTP. Found higher hashrate with SGMiner in conjunction with optimized .CL and .BIN. There are many multipool comparisons people have done.

Thanks.  Are you running this same card?  What kind of hash rates are you getting?  As for electrical, I'm installing this system in my basement near the panel and am adding two additional 20A breakers to feed it.

Sgminer is a fork of cgminer, and is actively being developed specifically for scrypt mining. cgminer is more well known, but no longer supports scrypt, so people are stuck using an old 3.7.2 version.

As long as those PSU's can actually push that much power than you should be fine.

I have the same PSU and Mobo combo.. Had some issues with the EVGA not firing the BTC-81 if I connected the Molex to the mobo. I'd test this right away when you get your CPU and ram installed. I am RMA'ing the PSU so just a heads up it may just be a defective unit i've been dealing with.

As far as risers go, you only need 1X regular risers.. The Molex takes care of the rest unless you want to add 1-2 powered 1x risers just to be safe. PSU #1 should power the mobo, cpu, molex and up to 3 GPU's. GPU 4,5,6 should be powered by a second 1000-1200w PSU. This setup will give you both breathing room and the ability to expand/adjust if you are able to drop voltages on the cards.

I'm not sure I follow exactly. I'm hoping someone has actual load data on these cards in action.

I think Tom's Hardware is pretty optimistic so I've increased what they say up to 300W for my estimations. I was expecting to run the 850W with 2 GPUs plus board load. I'm thinking that should be 300*2+150=750W (750/850=88% load). Then the 4 cards on the 1300W would be 4*300=1200W (1200/1300=92% load). Am I on the right track?

I have made some rigs with same cards.
But my motherboard only recognize 5 of them.
And I have this problem on all my rigs, so it isn't a card problem.
I have 2 power supply bequiet 1200W.

An idea for install the card number 6  ? ???

What OS are you running? Here is a thread that has helped some Windows users.
https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=11761.0

hi,

6x r9 290 will take @stock voltage and non OC 2100W. (incl board, cpu and memory)

I use the asrock h61 pro btc without powered riser.

I have no problems. The Board is build for using x1 riser without molex.

Operating system is Win 8 (easy to setup and you can use afterburner)

cgminer and cgwatcher

Thanks for the input. I may be running the PSUs pretty hard according to your data. What advantages are there from using afterburner? Under volting I assume? I'm leaning towards trying out litecoin BAMT first. I like the idea of ditching the hdd.

i tried bamt because of win 7 is supporting only 4 gpu's.

But BAMT dit only activate the card connected to the monitor. All the other cards did not work. And unfortunatly you cant use a dummy plug.

I cant solve this problem. Maybe you have more luck or experience with linux.

Please post your experience.

In the end i use win 8 and its fine.

I use afterburner for undervolting.

I don't have any Linux experience yet, but there is a wealth of information available here. I'll try it first and leave Win 8.1 as my backup plan.
Your problem seems odd since BAMT was made to run headless. Did you try running with with no monitors plugged in and ssh in?

no.

i only tried bamt with monitor.

I've only used BAMT with from two to five cards. Never had an issue not recognizing cards. Only once but it was because the motherboard didn't support running cards in all five slots. What motherboard are you using? BAMT works great in my opinion, I've got the rigs down in a corner in my basement so it's nice not always having to go down there to administer them.. Plus I can log in from my iphone or work computer, etc.

I'm also pretty sure that BAMT doesn't come with drivers for the R9 cards, I installed those drivers before I tried using my 280x cards on it.

As for OP, go with two 1200w PSUs or a 1300 + 1000. The psu combination you have may work fine but if all things peak out at the same time you could run into issues. Better to have more and not need it than the other way around  ;)

Thanks.  If my cards will ever show up, I'll be able to start testing things out.  I prefer to keep PSU load under 90%.  If run steady above that point, I'll upgrade the 850W.

Which version of BAMT are you running that isn't compatible with R9 cards?  It was my understanding that the last 3 versions of litecoin BAMT were somewhat optimized for R9 cards.  V1.5 includes the latest version of Catalyst.

Also, how do you remote into BAMT from work?  That is one piece of the puzzle I haven't looked into yet that I want to incorporate.

Well I got nervous today and decided to go ahead and return the 850W PSU and buy a 1050W Seasonic. That should be plenty of overhead.

New plan:
1300W SuperNOVA will power motherboard, CPU, RAM, and three Tri-X 290 GPUs
3*300W+150W=1050W
1050W/1300W=81%

1050W Seasonic will power remaining three GPUs
3*300W=900W
900W/1050W=86%

I'll update the original post to reflect this.

Seriously, 6 R9 290X in one board is overkill and expensive to build by the time you add in all the power supplies.
These 290's are extremely power hungry and heat up like crazy. Even if you manage to get it up and running stable (unlikely), it will be super heated and probably break down or have issues within months.

Just do some cost analysis for yourself, using a standard cheap Asus or AsRock mobo which sells under $69 and can ran 4 GPUs is a much better option in my experience. Saves you money, troubles, headache, time fiddling around and most importantly, has been proven by many to run stable over extended periods.

My 3 GPUs setups have been running smooth for over a year now. And I'm very certain that it's cheaper per Mhash than building 6 GPU rigs for the same cards, no matter what card you use, be it R9 280x, or 290 series.

Yes I'm new at this and I may eat my words later, but I really disagree.

Everything I've read about these tri-x cards show they run very cool. Totally different animal in comparison to reference coolers.

Secondly, I view the "rig" as an overhead expense. (Motherboard, CPU, and ram)
Think of it from a business perspective. The GPUs are called workers  ;). If I want to run a business, I have to first by a building to put workers. Profitability per building for three workers is not as good as 6 workers in the same building. And the manager is key to any successful business.

I'd tend to agree with the ecoinomist about running fewer cards on one rig and more rigs. My five card (280x) are a pain in the ass as compared to my three card 7950 rig. The three card rig has run problem free for a long while now whereas the five card rig there is always some issue I'm looking into. I understand your point and a lot of people run six card rigs but with as cheap as mobos, ram and cpu's are, it's really not a big deal to run more rigs with fewer cards... I'm pretty sure it's more cost effective to but I haven't done a spreadsheet yet to prove it!

I'm actually using SMOS which as someone pointed out is set up for the R9 cards out of the box. Just have to make sure you edit the crontab to turn off the auto donating. Otherwise it's been really rock solid for me.

And as far as SSH'ing in from work I just set up port forwarding on my wireless router so I can hit the rig from the outside world.

Good luck, get a bottle of asprin cuz you'll need it for all the headaches you're about to endure!

You may be right. I may have bitten off more than I can chew. Time will tell.

Besides, if it were easy, everybody would be doing it right? ;)

I run 6 290s on the H81.  Solid as a rock for about a month but it does get hot :)  I have 4 MSI cards and 2 of the ones you ordered.  The MSI cards perform better then the trixs.  As far as PSU I went with 2 1050s from corsair and they have room to spare.  In the way of OS I jump around depending on what Coin is most profitable.  Right now posting this from win 8.1 on a SSD.  I have let Bamt 1.3 and 1.5 run over a week straight no problems.  SMOS for some reason has never booted all the way on this machine.  I recommend pick the winner alt coin, let her rip and not fooling with it.

Thanks for the positive feedback. Do you mind sharing your hash rates and settings?

Don't go with what the graphics cards usually draw. You will be hashing, so peak loads is what you will be needing to look at. A list of peak loads can be found here: http://forum-en.msi.com/faq/article/power-requirements-for-graphics-cards

Multiple the A (Ampere) with the V (Volts) to get the W (watts).

In your case, the 290 hogs up 31 Amperes through the 12 Volt rails. So at peak load, it would consume 31 x 12 = 372 Watts each.

Also Don't forget to allocate some power for the motherboard, RAM and HDD... about 150 Watts should be fine.

Most decent PSU are 80% efficiency. That means you will draw up 1200W from the wall if you are using a 1000W PSU. You ca use that as a rough calculation to estimate your electricity costs.

I'm not arguing, but 2400W seems pretty high to me. Vleroybrown is running off of 2100W. Do either of you have actual kill-a-watt readings to share?

At peak usage I  have a draw from one outlet on the wall of 1250 watts into a power strip that has the box fan, monitors, router, and 3 cards 2msi +1trix.  I only have the one outlet reading but the other plug only has 3 cards and cpu/motherboard so I think it is less.  Stable hashrate for scrypt I have gotten in the 6 gpu setup is 880kh per card.  If I pull the trixs off and run them solo/dual in another box, I have have had them upto 910 but didn't run this long so I don't know if that was stable.   Last week or so I have been running asic resistant and the hash rate is different.  My configs are different on each setup since linux is OCd in the config and on windows 8.1 I use TRIXX.  The thread count sweet spot is the 24550 with 2 threads per gpu. This is what my sloppy ass setup looks like right now https://i.imgur.com/05dHsjg.jpg

I finally got enough parts in to start assembly on the mining rig last night.  I’ve got the motherboard and GPUs installed.  Next I need to get all the power hooked up.

I have one 1050W power supply coming today but the 1300W PSU from Amazon still hasn’t shipped.  I hope to be able to start it up tonight and see if I can get two or three GPUs online.

Here are some photos.
Full gallery here
http://imgur.com/a/7H9nG#0

https://i.imgur.com/CVcrGgg.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/92vHOp2.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/KwsslQ7.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/q8qf5IJ.jpg

Well I guess I have a lot more learning to do.  I plugged two cards into the MB and got them up to 700 kh/s with some settings I found.  Usually I have a pretty good knack for picking up new things quickly, but Linux was beating me last night.  I didn't have much time yesterday evening to mess around with it much, but it left me feeling like a moron.  I couldn't even figure out how to set the correct time in the task bar.  More importantly, I can't figure out how to get sgminer to run instead of cgminer.  At least the weekend is coming.  Hopefully I'll make more progress. 

Are you using BAMT or SMOS or something else? Don't feel bad, Linux takes a bit to get used to if you're not already using it. No worries after a few headaches you'll get it working. If you're using SMOS go to the upgrades page and he has sgminer listed with some instructions, it was pretty easy to get going and I'm no linux expert.

Upgrades page:
http://www.smos-linux.org/upgrades/

I made some headway last weekend.  I gave up on Linux after being unsuccessful with BAMT and SMOS.  I installed Windows 8.1 and was mining in 30 minutes.  Amazon still hasn't shipped my 1300W PSU so I'm currently only running 5 GPUs with an 850W and 1050W.  Out of the box they were all running around 860 kh/s.  I've spent the last couple evenings tuning and things are looking promising.  
Things I learned along the way that seem to have helped:
1. Use Catalyst 13.12.  The 14.2 beta drivers were very unstable.
2. Don't bother with Trixx.  Install MSI Afterburner and use the settings shown on this post (link). (http://www.overclock.net/t/1437876/290-and-290x-litecoin-mining-performance/1650#post_21648437)
3.  I don't know if this helped or not, but I'm currently running with the bios switch toggled up (toward the end with DVI ports)

I think I can push them a little harder, but am currently limited by power.  The 1050W is essentially maxed out, so I have the engines turned down on some.  Here is my screen after 6 hours of mining.  I would have had a longer run time, except the power blinked last night and for some reason it didn't autostart like it should have.

https://i.imgur.com/ztwYg4Y.png

Here are my current settings.

MMMMM. The sweet smell of a brand new mining rig running at full capacity.

What 's the vcc?

This is incorrect! Hashing does not use peak power consumption. Please use Kill A Watt metter and my 280x's undervolted use about 235-250 watts while hashing. If you plan 300 for each 290= 1800w and 250 for mobo = 2050w. Maybe give some more headroom above that if you want but I doubt you will need it especially if you are not overclocking your CPU.

I haven't touched voltages.

How is the noise of the rig?
when fans over 70%
at those clock speeds how much the fan % go normally?

I have the rig installed in my basement, so noise was never a big concern.  According to a decibel meter app it is currently 63-68 dB holding the phone about 1.5 feet away.  The screenshot below was taken with fans at
https://i.imgur.com/njlz3YNl.png?1

Good news!  I got an email from Amazon today that says my 1300W PSU should arrive on Monday.  I'll finally get that 6th card mining and be able to tune harder.  As you can see below, the 1050W PSU has been overloaded for the last week.  My goal is a stable 945kh per card.  I'm also planning on trying out Stilt's BIOS soon.

https://i.imgur.com/RtFQmVYl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/oYYHAEql.jpg?1

Looks nice!  My plan was to buy something almost identical to yours.  For 2 rigs:

GPU
R9 290 (x12)....6 per rig

MOBO
ASRock H81 Pro BTC (x2)

CPU
Intel Pen G3220 Haswell LGA 1150 Dualcore (x2)

PSU
Silverstone 1000W 80+ Gold (x2)
1300W 80+ Gold PSU (x2)
Dual PSU Adapter Cable (x2)

MEMORY
Kingston 4GB DDR3 1333 (x2)

SSD/HDD
SanDisk 32GB (x2)

OS
MS Windows 8.1 64 bit OEM (x2)

MISC
PCIe 1x to 16x Riser (x2)
Linksys Wireless USB Adp (x2)
Mining Case (x2)
~$8,000

For hopefully around 10-11 Mh (using wafflepool hopefully it pays for itself in 5-9 months).

How do you think this looks?  Am I missing anything?  Is it better to go with 3 or 4 GPUs per mobo...or is going with 6 per mobo alright?

I'm unsure of what kind of mining case I should get.  And would I need to plug in one rig into one wall outlet and another rig to another outlet I take it?  I was worried that perhaps one rig with 6 GPUs would be too much power for my apartment outlets.

Thanks for any input.   :)

I built my case from about $20 worth of stuff from Lowes. The rest of your list looks good. As for power, mine is currently pulling about 15 amps so I have it on two separate breakers. I'll get new amp readings once I get number 6 running. I recommend getting a couple $20 killawatts for setting things up.

As for ROI, altcoins have taken a big dive. I was originally planning on a 3-4 month ROI, but now I'm not sure how long it will take. $8k will take a while at current rates.

Hey guys

6 cards are coming my way tomorrow and I still do not know one key information.

I would like to buy 3x 850w power supplies, but I do not know how to connect them when all 6 cards will be on one motherboard. Can you give me a hint?
Do I just connect one power supply to motherboard and with 2cards, second power supply just with another two cards,third power supply to last two cards?

In that case, how do I turn the additional power supplies on, when the computer is starting up?


thanks
M.

To add multiple PSUs, you'll need one of these for each additional PSU. I'm using 2 power supplies so I only needed one adapter. You would need two adapters to run 3.
I am using this one:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00DL3L2J6/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1394485633&sr=8-2

Many people are using this one:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B009P98Q8U

Or you can go cheap and use this method:
http://www.overclock.net/t/14455/multiple-power-supply-guide

I'm pretty frustrated at the moment. I finally received the 1300W PSU and installed it. When I went to power on, I would only get a single click out of the PSUs. It wouldn't boot to bios or anything. I started removing components and even with just ATX 24-pin and 8-pin CPU it won't boot. Cleared CMOS nothing. I'm guessing the motherboard has failed or CPU. Any ideas? It had been running pretty good for the last while. It had a few hangs in Windows that required a hard reset.

Ram reseat the ram.  Also remove sticks to check if one has failed.  Other than tht it must be ur motherboard.. never heard of a bad cpu.

You will get better performance from your cards if you revert the display to Windows basic high contrast, So the GPU's don't have to waste processing power on windows 7-8 themes which will make one or two of your cards hash slower.

Have you tried this bios
https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=12830.390
and  -I 22 --thread-concurrency 32768 -w 256
I get better hash rate with it but occasional driver crashs.

btw:Are you running your rigs on win 8.1 or 7?

I'm pretty sure the motherboard is toast, especially after reading all the bad reviews it has.

So I'm thinking of getting one of these.  Any preferences?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128592
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128681

Yesterday I bought 4x Sapphire 290 TRI-x after few tests with basic core and mem clocks I ended up with 700kh/s.

So I have decided to test your shared configuration,which ended up with very nice 900-910 kh/s :D

I had to delete these rows in config:
"xintensity" : "0,0,0,0,0",
"rawintensity" : "0,0,0,0,0",

and had to lower gpu-engine to 1020. In case I leave it at 1040, temperature rocket sky to 85, which is too high for me in long term.

So I want to say BIG THANK YOU.  Thank you dloganbill for sharing your tips..

Sending greetings from Czech republic.

  

Well I installed a replacement motherboard today and I still just get a click from the power supplies. The CPU fan doesn't budge. Should I get another CPU of are there any other tricks I should try? I've tested other sticks of RAM and three different PSUs. I've tried booting with just the 8 pin CPU power and ATX plugged in. It's really frustrating because it was mining fine and I shut it down to install a new larger PSU and it hasn't booted up since.

Bummer, tht really is a shitty situation man.  CPUs almost never fail especially since you weren't overclocking, the motherboard or PSU is almost 100X more likely to.  One of my other miners wouldn't boot with the PSU daisychained So I was only able to get one card installed on tht one. Good luck with figuring out what it is

I did some more multimeter testing on the PSUs. The 1300W tested fine last week when it arrived, but last night I tested it again and heard a pop followed by the unmistakable smell of charred PCB. So I have an RMA started with EVGA. The 1050W Seasonic now shows 12.75V which from what I've read is out of spec, so I'm planning to call Seasonic tomorrow. The 850W Corsair still tested perfect. I tried it on the new MB and it booted to uefi. I then installed the hard drive, but kept getting Windows errors during the boot up so I'm assuming that it was fried by the faulty 1300w PSU. I guess to look at things "glass half full", I didn't miss out on huge profits last week. Hope things improve soon.