Bitcoin Forum

I was just assembling my first mining rig today and things didn't go well. First off, power supply is a corsair 950W and cards are x3 XFX 5830. First question: Is that enough for these cards? CPU is sempron 145, SSD drive, no optical drives.

I hooked everything up, turned it on and noticed that a) nothing showed up on monitor b) power kindda went out. On/off behavior was looking kindda strange and not steady (went off after a while, wouldn't come on for a while etc). Then one of the cards made a popping noise and some sparks shot out. I removed all the cards, put one back in and system seems to behave normally in regards with staying on but there's still nothing on the screen. I tried various output configurations for the monitor (DVI/DVI to VGA/HDMI on my tv)

So how messed up is my equipment right now? Any chance power supply was faulty? or was it just not enough and voltage instability messed something up?

I had to return one of my xfx 5830s because it would prevent any motherboard from starting up properly--nothing would show on the screen, even if a different card were hooked to the monitor.  The fan would spin though.

I don't know about your power but that seems like a lot, 950.  Definitely try all of the cards solo in case one is dead, though it sounds like you have worse problems.  :(  And I'm not sure if you should keep using that power supply.  I've heard of faulty ones frying everything they're plugged into.  But hopefully someone who knows more will say something.

What's a typical PSU wattage that's suitable for x3 5830? Anyone?

I don't have an exact answer but maybe this info will help.

My 'standard' 1.2+ GH/s rig configuration is:

CPU: AMD Sempron 140
Board: MSI 890FXA-GD70
Memory: 1x2GB DDR3 (whatever speed; doesn't matter)
GPU's: 4x5830's clocked to 960/300
PSU: Corsair 950W

Standard draw with Kill-A-Watt per rig is 650W, even with the 5830's OC'ed to 960/300.

There's actually head-room to add one more 5830 for 5x5830's with the Corsair 950 if I used PCIe extenders.

Hope this helps.

I use an 8GB USB flash drive to run Ubuntu 11.04 headless using Catalyst 11.6 and phoenix 1.50.

Cheers,
Kermee

How do you fit them all in the board? (PCI extenders?) Also do you have any cooling issues?

spark shooting out is never good :(

this site should help you with your psu requirement calculations:

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

I've been there before, but I can't figure out how to plugin x3 graphic cards.

Run it for 1 card, then run it for 2 card in Xfire mode, take the difference that's the extra power the 2nd card uses now add that difference to the numbers for the 2card in Xfire, and you have the approximate usage for 3 cards

They're not in a case. No extra fans on them but I am using spacers on them (Styrofoam peanuts from Newegg packaging). No cooling issues other than there's AC running in the room to 72F.


Cheers,
Kermee