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In your experience;

What is the average life of a dedicated mining rig that is on 24/7?

Which components are likely to fail first, and roughly when?

Thank you

Fans


Every else usually gets outdated and replaced before it dies.

Thank you

I know every piece of hardware is different as in one might die tomorrow, one might never die, however: do you have a rough time before I may run into those issues?

Fans.. 2 years of 24/7 at 70% and bye bye!!

First they rattle, then they stop.

Thank you

i like to set them at 50% at most, it's better to create a proper cooling system than just pushing fans at 100% like many do

All the parts have life time in hours.

The fans have life time differing 15.000 hours to 36.000 hours.

The risers must be must be replaced, the life time is 500 days at average.

Motherboards lasts nearly 2 years.

The GPUs also have 2 years time if overclocked.

No problem with CPUs and/or rams so far.

noctua industrial is declared at over 150k hours of mtbf

The motherboard last more than 3 years in my case. The longest GPU lasted about 3 years too. They are still working well.

Bad (cheap) power supplies. They often damage mobos too.

Fans can actually last much longer if you get the correct type of bearing for the orientation you need them for. I am using Scythe Gentle Typhoon fans for my regular 24/7 machine. The rated lifetime for Gentle Typhoon is 350k hours.

Do you mean they fail first or last longest? In my experience quality fans last long. The only components that last longer are power cables.

i think fluctuate power supply is the main reason to get damage of mobo in the starting because with problem of electricity everything get lost . here the main problem of only electricity .

The lifespan of the graphics cards can actually be longer than in a gamer PC if they are in constant environment and at constant operating temperatures.

Only the fans can wear faster because of continous operation.

As long as you are monitoring temperatures of your chips,
the fans and power supply should be the first thing to wear out.
If you have any points where there is bad soldering on a device that may wear out but can be repaired,
as long as you aren't letting the temperatures get so hot it damages the hardware.

Thank you very much for the information guys. I was aiming off for 2 years, good to know they might last a bit longer =)

Got some 280x's still going for almost 3 years 24/7 temp 80 degrees 70% fan. Fans did stiffen up after about 2 years... I just spray some wd40 in them carefully when it happens and they are good as new again!

Ps. Wd40 is not recommended I belive machine oil is but... I've not had any problems so far... just made sure I didn't use too much so it would leak or get it on the gpu board.

Also... no problems with mobo... I always stick to decent corsair psu's... like to think decent psu helps

I just buy replacement fans off eBay and can disassemble the card, perform the replacement and reassemble the card in about ~10 minutes after some practice.

I've managed to dissasemble windforce fan thx to this post:
http://cryptomining-blog.com/tag/gpu-fan-repair/

It is actually very simple, just helped myself with little flat screwdriver. The thing is that you need to put it just 1-2mm inside the fan because walls of the rotor case that pops out is that thin.
It turned out that there was some piece of dirt there, i removed it and fan almost like new, just became noisy.

WD40 sticks dust, it can make opposite job in a long term unless fans are working in perfectly clean conditions.

WD is not good for high temperature operation. You need some grease like those used in the bike or car.

You are right about this but its pretty hard to do this because the most miners are bad cooled and due to that do not life long to be honest.
Only the big miner company's with real fans and cooling chambers can really accomplish this.

If that's so much, then that it isn't a problem to consider, because if you ROI in more than 1 year, there's questions about your maths to be asked.

While it is true all hardware will have some type of "life expectancy" or MTBF, I think your estimates are rather on the low end.

I agree with others that GPU cooling fans are probably the number one thing to go, but replacing these are fairly easy and economical with many exact-fit replacements available on eBay. The GPU's themselves keep running as long as they are cooled properly.

Risers, should last indefinitely, if there are issues with these it would be because of either physical damage or running too much current through them.

I have dedicated mining motherboards running since March 2013, and even have a few recycled ones (from personal builds) I am using from even earlier.

Of course, I like to perform routine maintenance on all of my rigs at least twice per year. This means taking the rig out of production, disassembling it and perform a thorough cleaning of all the components. This involves vacuuming and using canned air to clean heat-sinks and other hard to reach areas, re-seating all cables and components (except for CPU), and oiling and/or replacing any fans that are in need of more serious attention.

I don't mess with the CPU itself as risk of damaging pins is greater than any benefit. I might reapply some heat-sink compound between the CPU and the cooler, but once a CPU is socketed in a MB and running properly it is best to leave it alone. These two components are "Married forever" so to speak.

I think the other secret is to use some sort of quality surge suppression before the power supply to help  minimize surges (especially in the Summer with T-Storms) and to ensure there is adequate ventilation around each rig. Except for physical damage, the other two leading causes of component failure is from heat and or electrical surges/shorts. By using quality risers, keeping rigs well ventilated and ensuring clean power goes a long way to getting long life out of your equipment.

For me this strategy paid off well, as while I sold off most of my GPUs from the Scrypt mining days, i had kept all the motherboards and most of my power supplies. So when Eth started to take off, I only had to pull my old components out of storage and buy new more efficient GPUs. For the most part, I only had to ROI on the GPUs as everything else had already been paid off from before. \

One last thing in keeping with this is spend the few extra $$ on a quality power supply. I read so many threads of people using these cheap power supplies and cringe. I have several 1000 watt Corsair units that again are 3-4 years old and in many cases still under warranty. Buying quality here not only leads to a more reliable and longer lasting PS, but also ensures the rest of your system lasts longer as well since clean stable power is key to everything else. Also, when buying a PS, size it appropriately, don't run 840 watts 24/7 out of a unit rated at 850 watts. While the better brands will handle it, I usually go with the 80% rule, which is the same as NEC for power circuits, and size my Power Supplies accordingly. So a 1000 watt unit I would only pull 800 watts from it when mining.

Depends with the quality of your hardware and settngs on gpu, like fans on 100%, overclocked etc

That is right. It mainly depends on the temperature of the GPU and the whole system. If it is too high, it has short life.

In regards to the fan being on 100% - you do know that you can use warranty if fan die or start to act out while warranty is still valid , i did it many times, and few time was
given brand new gpu's in exchange for the ones that had dying fans.. The main this is that you return original bios and dont mess around the card removing security stickers on screws etc.

That being said; i have some gpu's that are mining 6 years now (yes , 6 years !!) and also had cards that died/were fried within just a few months (fu?.ing 7950 xfx's DD's), so quality does matter the most imho.

What card do you mine whose age is 6 years. The earliest card I mine is the AMD 7970, which is 3 years old.

The cards in question are 5850's. They don't bring barely any profit, but it's hard for me to let them go just like that, knowing how much they earned me over the years.
Interesting fackt is that none of the 58xx series died on me (ofc i dont count fan replacements), guess they made them of quality.

If you do have  budget on investing on a proper ventilation or  cooling system then you should do it  in able to last  even more on your miners. But  in my situation   , fans are  the first to worn out   for about 2 years depends on what % did you set out if the  ventilation is  good then you could lessen fan speed.

Regarding fans...don't run them at 100%

Set a custom fan curve and let the software do it's job to maintain a temp that will allow for long life.  These fans we have now can reach sometimes 4000 rpms and bearings spinning at that speed will not last long.  Some people are misinformed and think if they can run a gpu a few c lower that it will last longer, the reality is as long as you have good temps the only thing you will do is reduce fan life.  Of course when that heat wave hits let the fans spool up to keep the gpu happy.

there is a trade off too, it is not only the speed that can reduce a fan's life, the temperature in the bearing reduces the fan's life too, you may run it at low speed but the gpu temp might shorten the fan bearing life..

the most important thing is always find a way to cool your room..get creative  ;)

There is definitely a balance to find, I just cringe when I hear people ramping them up to 100% with no regard to the temp they are running.

If you have a garage or shop to place them that would be the best.  Since temps have dropped out here my rigs are mining in a 60f shop and they are loving it.

Dust and heat is what killing everything ... PSU , VGA , CPU , FANS ...
If you are running your rig in dusty environment, and not cleaning them regularly included Motherboard/PSU/VGA/CPU Fan ...you rig lifetime maybe 1-2 years or less ...
If the same rig is running in the Air conditioned Datacenter , Server room with dust collector system , in a "virtually dusty free environment " it will be ok for another 5-8 years or more .

as for dust, i'm not that paranoid in removing dust, as long as they do not get thick enough to block cooler air flow and potentially conduct electricity when the air tends to becomes humid or when the accumulated dust tends to absorb water in the air..speaking of humidity, the air in my mining area is drier than any parts of where i live, there is a time when it rained and the water that came inside the window, about a cup in quantity quickly evaporated...i even dry clothes and stuff in my mining room, the temps even helps me defrost and ferment foods LOL  :D .. thinking about drying foods too hmmm.. dried a few nuts successfully lately.

i use this

https://s10.postimg.org/68i8v2my1/blower.jpg

to remove dust without turning off the miners, just by holding gpu's and stuff with my other hand before i blow some air to them..majority of the dust is sucked by the exhaust fan and thrown outside

Don't overclock the gpu
don't over tax the Psu
Don't max the fans

Two or more years is possible.

I had a mobo from 2012 and a gpu from 2012.

 Grease is too thick. Standard motor oil works pretty well though, and is designed to handle MUCH higher temperatures than any computer (in working condition) will ever see.

 On the other hand, any fan in bad enough shape to NEED to be relubricated isn't very long for this world as a working item. Relube is an EMERGENCY SHORT TERM measure intended to get you by 'till you can REPLACE the bad fan with a good new fan.

 Avoid sleeve bearing fans (this SPECIFICALLY includes stuff like "rifle" "hydro" "permalube" etc) - they do NOT live up to their claimed MTBF due to failure in the seals intended to keep the lube in, and VERY rarely last even a year in 24/7 high-temp environments.
 Stick with ball bearing - which can run for YEARS with no lube at all if you keep the dust and grime out of the bearings.

 This is why I generally stick with Sapphire or Gigabyte cards - they come with Ball Bearing fans across the board AFAIK.
 (Might be true for some other brands, definitely NOT true for HIS).

compressor oil is better, the oil that is used in car aircon compressor, it is not as thick as motor oil. got my 280x's with 90mm high speed fans zip tied to them..those fans are lubed with compressor oil, and i sealed them with a black sticky tar/asphalt like stuff i bought at an aircon/refrigeration shop..those fans are doing really well, summer has passed and they have not given up and no oil leaks.

regarding HIS, i just bought a couple of this RX 480 IceQ X2 Roaring OC 8GB, didn't know about their fans being inferior, got samsung memory though.

oh  here is the greatest heatsink/fan cooler I have ever used.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835242030

remember  it never goes bad,  I used 140mm four pin pwm fans

the card's were hd7970 and they stay at  50c in silence.

I would not mind making a rig of these

 THe HIS Ice-Q models with a blower are ball bearing and tend to last.
 HIS has a bad habit of using sleeve bearing fans on non-blower models though from what little I've seen of them - might depend on the specific model though.

i'm thinking if the fans failed  before the 2 year warranty ends, we can get the gpu replaced  ;D ,the problem with the blower type for me is the way it is designed, you cannot easily replace the fan if it failed..the non-blower design is quite easy to modify, just remove the plastic frame and you can strap a couple of 90mm PWM fans and you are good to go.

the reason i used PWM fans instead of oiling the original stock sapphire 280x fan is because it is wobbling when it is failing and there are times it reaches the gpu heat sink and makes noise.

maybe we should make a new thread about making home based swamp cooling tachniques, parts/materials etc. so home based miners can add more gpus/rigs to their setup..aside from reaching max current in our homes electrical circuit we also are reaching max temperature too..i'm still researching on it and substituting parts that are not available here..i am preparing for summer.

I ended up sticking some 60mm x 25mm Delta fans on my "fan died" HIS HD 7750 cards - they were left-over from CPU cooler days, I KNEW they blew plenty of air and had GOOD bearings.

 Turns out the cards run about 20c COOLER now, despite no shroud or any fancy mount directing the airflow - but they DID get quite a bit noisier.
 Thank goodness none of them were the 8000RPM screamers....


 The IceQ HD7870 has been a nice solid cool-running card, only issue with it is the fan sticks out so far it's a 2.5 space card.



 Don't get me started on reaching "max safe power limits" on my current place. Got everything traced out, and figured, and I'm going to have to shut down the A2 88Mh/s cause I don't have enough power for all 5 of my A2 units, and it's the lowest income generator I have left right now.

in your case you have maxed out your safe power limits..for me (and i believe there are others like me) it is the temperature that is maxing out..i think i can squeeze 10-20 amps more, my upgrade is gradual so every increase in amps i can observe everything needed to be looked at..this is the cooler part of the year but when summer comes, i think i have to shut down or under perform my cards to reach desired temps unless my swamp cooler (still being designed) is a success.

I've already got my swamp cooler in the house, just not hooked up.

 Unfortunately, I'll have to shut down SOMETHING to power it when I need it.



 On a side note - I had quite a few of my DNet machines (the Distributed net client isn't mining as such, but puts very similar loads on a system for the same reasons) last ballpark 20 years before I finally retired most of the oldest ones when I moved this summer. The primary issue I ever had with those was FANS dying (and often causing overheat-related other dead parts), followed by motherboards dying.

you are really at the edge of your max safe power there..swamp cooler power consumption is only limited to the pump and the fans, well for my mining room i think the fan that blow air to the cards and and the exhaust fan is enough to move air around my mining room..

pumps that is 1/2 hp might be an overkill already to what i'm designing, and 1/2 hp is just ~ 400 watts. (240v here)

you might want to try my solution to my fans, this material can seal (with or without cover) where you pour the lubricant oil. my fans lasted more than half the summer here and still running 24/7

this is better compared to (3m double tape-the gray one, silicon sealant, other tapes) in sealing and work-ability of the material, purchased from an aircon/refrigeration shop. don't know the name of this, i just said the black sticky stuff..i just seen this being used by a technician for sealing holes where tubes had passes thru..these are very good at staying put and handling heat. in any case it is better to wash clean with alcohol the areas from oil and maybe a little bit of roughening the surface with a sand paper before sticking this material.

tip: use masking tape or re use the fan sticker and cover this black-sticky stuff after the work is done.

https://s10.postimg.org/vjiyfde5l/IMAG0035.jpg

and i use this oil..

http://www.ariazone.com/product_oil_aa1.php

it is a bit expensive but this is just leftover so i'm saved from buying, there are other cheaper compressor oils out there and i believe they are better than standard motor oil.

My cooler is supposed to be a 1/4 HP but it draws about 500 watts at high setting (actual measured figure, higher for a fractional second when the fan motor starts up), I suspect it's actually a 1/3 HP. Electric motors are usually highly efficient, but they are NOT 100% efficient (1 HP = appx 750 watts at 100% efficiency).

 If I was willing to run every circuit at 100% of breaker limit, I'd have enough power - but the house is old enough I'm actually targeting 75% to be safe, *AND* I have to worry about the total draw on the main breaker being the REAL hard limit here.


 I AM thinking about breaking down some of the parts out of my cooler and using them on my existing fans to make impromptu evaps, it would save noticeable power.
 I'm hoping to be out of this place before I actually NEED the evep though - 6 month lease and I figure that last couple weeks to a month of that for actually moving....

generally electric motors starting power is x3 when starting up, so if a motor is 500w expect 1500w starting power, gradually it will settle to 500w..

if you know your wire type like if its THHN or TW etc., you know the max ampacity of the wire, the weak points are the areas where the wires are cut and connected, i simply touch them and feel the temperature if it is heating up and i make sure everything is tightly connected. copper don't deteriorate, unless corroded by other elements.

for me 75 - 80% of the breaker limit is my target too..my breaker is 10 amps lower than my mains wire (max safe) ampacity though. well using 95-100% or maybe at least 90% of breaker limit will cook your breaker and you will experience occasional breaker trip.

I'm only seeing about a 2x kick. It varies depending on the motor startup circuit, load, type of motor, etc.

 You'd have to SEE the wiring setup on this place to believe it though - the actual wire used is decent, the boxes and breakers are QO but the actual INSTALLATION is a massive code issue - I suspect the wiring was all done before code was adopted here.

 Ever seen an OUTDOOR breaker box on a house, using an INDOOR panel? At least that's the neighbor's box, and whoever installed it used silicone sealer around all of the openings, but GAH.....

 Overall, I'm most worried about the use of bloody spices (they DID use the insulated screw-on connector type stuff that USED to be valid under the code but does tend to have issues at times) and the breakers overheat-derating too much come summertime (but I'm planning to be OUT of here by then, and I'm VERY well aware of required derating for higher temps).


 I was, in the past, a union-trained Journeyman Electrician, bonded and licensed for a few years (in another state, but NEC is NEC). Code hasn't changed a TON since then, other than to adopt some "best practices" recommendation type stuff that is now required (like seperate ground wire, which was only a recommendation 'till the 1996 revision), but this stuff is scary in some ways.

i'm sorry the x3 was an allowance, i just got very used to it...like in using a transformer or AVR for motors a x3 is usually the rule of the thumb.

the panel box here are indoors, seen those outdoor stuff during my my days of researching. silicon sealant is wear and tear resistant, i bet that panel box would give-in to rust before that silicon sealant breaks or leaks.

so you are an electrician...i'm not, don't loose me on terminologies lol, don't know NEC and the Code. i do have electricity related minor subjects when in college, watched and learned from an electrician too...but i study and practice for personal use only, i even setup electrical cabling for my mom's boarding house and office (residential level only), my dad's farm, and a little electrical fixing on my friends homes.

in 1996 there it was recommended there to use a separate ground wire? here in 2016 we still have 2 wires a 240v and the other is the ground LOL.. i agree there is an element of being "scary" but the important thing is that i understand electricity and its behavior..i did a few live wire splicing in my lifetime in involving #10, #8 and #6 AWG..the sweat, adrenaline and concentration phew!

The "seperate ground wire" was a recomendation BEFORE the 1996 NEC revision, it became a requirement after that.

 I'm not currently an electrician - let the license and bonding expire years back when I went into other work - but I keep up on the changes when I can.

 I DO strongly recommend that you DO NOT DO ELECTRICAL WIRING unless it's inspected afterwards by a trained electrician that DOES know the code for where you are at - amateurs make way too many mistakes that can cause shorts, fires, and overloads through ignorance.

i perfectly understand, i would advice that too to myself if i were in your position..i have 10 years experience doing this electrical stuff and i always make sure that there will be no possibility of shorts and overloads besides there is always a protection (breakers) with lines i install, i know the materials used and how to use them, i measure current, voltage and observe..i even setup last year a 10kva generator, switches, panels and, breakers at my parents house. the genset is an old heavy duty 2 cylinder kirloskar, it was fun reconditioning it with truck parts.

i know there are really good electricians, but from where i live there are electricians (the ones i encountered most) that are lazy and sloppy at their work..better do it my self.