Bitcoin Forum

I'm thinking about sinking some major money into mining.  Probably $15,000 to $20,000.  Not all up front but sliding into it pretty quickly.

I've got about three rigs up and running with ethereum but I have several issues I want input on.  I am setting aside a $40 bounty for the three top answers ($20 for the top, two $10 for the runner ups) paid in bitcoins.  I will be posting this in several places.

If there is a REALLY good answer I will offer an additional $80 (total of $100) for the top answer.  This is my research that may save me from making a big mistake. 

I live in the Midwest with temperature that hits 100f  / 38c for 3 to 4 consecutive months a year.  I want to run this operation in my garage.

Cooling.  This is by far my biggest concern.  I live in the Midwest with three months of 100f  / 38c per year.  I've dealt with this before with litecoin.  I don't want to have to air condition.  In my previous experience fans aren't adequate. 

Will this gpu be able to stay cool at the temps I've mentioned without air conditioning?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131676

If not … does anyone have experience using dialetric fluid / oil to submersible the cards in?  I'm going to have to cool the oil somehow right?  Is there a book way to do this?  (Drop sealed containers of ice in the vat, pump it thru an oil radiator?

Hardware.  As linked above I'm leaning towards the 390X to try to retain value a year from now.  I'm thinking of using this motherboard

http://www.amazon.com/ASRock-Motherboard-H81-PRO-BTC/dp/B00HEUIS2G

USB risers.  http://www.ebay.com/itm/Powered-PCI-E-Express-1X-To-16X-Extender-Riser-Card-With-60CM-USB-3-0-Cable-/301105921855?hash=item461b4fbf3f:g:oGMAAMXQuTNTMSBV 

Mining.  Has anyone developed a proprietary ether miner they are selling?  Has vertcoin or monero mining stayed profitable with a .09 kw electric rate between the litecoin dropout and today if you are able to get a good cooling (non ac) system in place?

Power.  I'm leaning towards this as my PSU.  http://holybitcoin.com/product/dps-2000bb-breakout-adapter-board/ (I know I'll have to install a fan for the PSU).  I'm fairly comfortable with the electric side of things until it gets to the PSU  (I understand amps, volts, watts, and required wire gauges.  Any warnings on running server PSUs?

The public eth miner is fine. It is already optimized. You want to get something other than 390x. Fury's would remain cooler mining eth. If not cool enough with box fans you could use the fury x. Will get 30 mh's. Fury only use less than or about 200 watts mining eth. Nano's probably won't have as good as resale value, and will get much hotter. Nano wouldn't perform as well on other algos either.

maybe sell your equipment  and try this site!!  Now you can rent eth rigs!!

http://www.miningrigrentals.com?ref=11814

The custom mineral oil  project:
Due to the risk of tank failure if the oil reaches temperatures above 50C, I do not recommend submerging overclocked or extremely hot hardware in this system.
There is a way of cooling oil with the use of pump and standart car radiator or turbo intercooler, but the amout of heet from miner would be a bit to much for it.

air conditioning project:
A good way could be building a small closet, box and use standart-portable aircoditioning device:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/LG-Electronics-8-000-BTU-Portable-Air-Conditioner-and-Dehumidifier-Function-with-Remote-LP0815WNR/205649871

38c is too much for any video card, you will burn your card, now at 20c in my house my 970 is sitting at 62 mining ethereum with 40% fan speed so your will reach 80 which is at limit already

also it's better if you buy nivida they stay more cool, the only exception is the nano fury from amd, but it is very pricy

the best psu seems to be the lupa 1600 but with low wattage cards, like the nano, you can try with 1kw/1.2kw from corsair

don't buy usb riser, buy normal riser less expensive and it is all you need if you combine them with asrcok h81 pro btc

 Speaking from Ionowhere.....

Power Color cards tend to be a bit marginal on cooling, but if you can manage to undervolt the card, or underclock it enough you should be OK.

I have not been real impressed with Lupa power supplies. I highly recommend Seasonic, and I've had good luck so far with the very few EVGA G2 1300s I've had powering a few of my miners the last few months.

 Mineral oil is NOT intended for use on computing gear. Not a good choice at all.

If you want to make good money mining ETH you should start mining yesterday. Difficulty is going up very quick, even quicker then BTC.

Buy GPUs tomorrow at your local microcentre and start mining on Tuesday. Forget this oil cooling, ETH mining won't be profitable by the time when temps reach 38 in your area.

difficult is the same about 1 tera was 800 giga before, an dnow is 800 again, the problem is the price, now not 0.03 anymore, but still overkill and profitable

No difficulty is going up everyday by like 5%

i see 800-1000g net hash it's not going up allt he time, i dunno what you're talking about, but the profit now is the same as before, so there is no reason for the diff to go up

Look at http://dwarfpool.com/eth

Difficulty in Billions. Its going up every day and going up very fast. Pretty soon all AMD gpus will be sold out on newegg.

this is strange, how the difficult work with thereum? it should be based on the nethash, and the net hash it's always on the same spot

Look at
http://etherscan.io/charts/difficulty

and

http://etherscan.io/charts/hashrate

They are both sky-rocketing. Hopefully we break 0.03 soon.

ah that is the average increase, but in reality it's not that much, we are still at 1k net hash, from previously 800-900, the increase is slow

.05674464 https://bitcoinchain.com/block_explorer/address/1JMMfWNx8htHQ9EnwGy3FXamrq8S69HU4g.  By far the most helpful.  Guy I bought the server breakout board who gave me advice that ultimately let me run my rigs off of just 12v breakout boards for server GPU's

.02801831 https://bitcoinchain.com/block_explorer/address/15aXoTvp3s33zERTVMGf75NuMsb87fCWeP - for GPUshack recommendation.  I spent hours setting up ubuntu for mining when I didn't need to if I'd paid more attention to ethos

Waiting on the last address.  Didn't feel like there were any killer guides that I could write for someone that I was looking for but still some really great info.

Difficulty can go up 4X and still be highly profitable for paid off GPU's at .08 kw electricity rates.

For what it's worth on the cooling I tried the mineral oil with an old GPU.  It WOULD work but the hassle is going to be a pain.  I got a REAL oil pump (new $500+) and a real oil radiator.  There's a part of me that wants to try it but I have a tough time dropping $1,500 on mineral oil that it would take to submerge all of these cards in multiple cattle tanks that will have no resale value. 

What I wound up with is a big 36" air evaporator fan that you find at big sporting events or a fair around the livestock ($2,500 new but I found it for $750).  My setup is in the garage and I plan on running this and sucking air into the attic with an attic fan that fits in my attic access.  We will see.

Let me just layout a really basic cooling idea that could work in a climate like that...but the big question is do you have hot AND dry summers...I mean low humidity.

If you do the most economical way to cool would be to use water blocks that use evaporation cooling.  The set up goes something like this...


1) Water block attached to each gpu

2) tubing from water block to a header.  There will be a hot side header and a cold side header.  So the in would be cool water and when it leaves warm water enters the hot header.

3)  A small cooling tower, you could build one yourself or buy one online.  A cooling tower has wash boards, sprayer nozzles, a fan on top, and a slump on the bottom with reserve water, also a float valve that refills the system when it gets low.  You will want a small soft water system to prevent corrosion throughout the cooling network.  Cooling towers work on the principle of evaporation and that is why dry weather is so important to get the best cooling.

4) circulation pumps due the the fact there will be alot of piping, you need a pump to keep the water flowing and supply pressure to the spay nozzles.

---------------------------

Alternatively you could use a  heat exchanger attached to a refrigeration system.  Thats basically the same system except the heat produced will be absorbed by refrigerant in a heat exchanger.  So refrigerant flows through one side of the heater changer, warm water on the other and the refrigerant absorbs the heat by this.


This was probably no help to you due to the complexity of it, but its completely possible and way better than traditional a/c.  I don't see any other way if you don't want to use a/c AND have it in a 100F environment.


EDIT: Mini FAQ

Q: How cool can I get the supply water?
A: Depends on ambient and humidity.  With 100F and 40% humidity you can get 79F, with same temp and 20% humidity you can get 69F.   Please note the efficiency of the tower will determine of close you can get to that web bulb.

Q: How much would a home built system like this cost
A: around 200 bucks if you build it yourself + water softener

Q:  Why not just use a traditional air heat exchanger?
A:  Ambient will be the lowest possible temp you can achieve, so by using evaporation effect you gain more performance. 

Q:  Highest possible supply water to get safe cooling?
A:  Do your homework and contact a water block manufacturer for design specs.