never2sleep INTRO! (Questions, Rigs, Cards, m18x?)

[never2sleep]

Hey guys, first time poster to the forums, so take it easy on me!

I found out about bitcoins about 6 months ago, but I did not have the funds to buy the hardware necessary to set myself up for GPU mining. Since getting my financial aid check, I dropped the entire amount on a nice 'lil setup for myself. 

I spent a total of $1600 on 2 complete desktop setups and a 43" samsung HDTV/monitor
Setup #1 has a   550W power supply and 1 Radeon 6970 GPU
Setup #2 has an 850W power supply and 1 Radeon 5970 GPU

I bought both of these towers on Craigslist, and the 43" hdtv came with it. (as well as wireless keyboard/mouse)

How did I do in terms of value, bang for the buck? I feel like I managed a pretty good deal, but need to add more GPU cards to Setup #2. Any reccomendations on which card would go best/nicely with the 5970?

Currently I am using GUIminer on both machines, I couldn't figure out how to use Phoenix miner and/or write the correct .BAT script necessary for these setups.

I am ONLY averaging approximately 900mh/s and am using Slush's pool, which has had a recent string of bad luck.

Is using GUI miner the reason for such low mh/s? I am hesitant to overclock since it usually causes the GPU to crash and I know that can't be good for the card in the long run.

Would like to hear some advice from some mining professionals out there, since I am only a broke college kid starting my entrepreneural career.

I have known about the Darknet for some time now, but spent my first 12 hour browsing session yesterday! Lot of disturbing information, loved every minute of it. (minus all the CP, staying far away from that)

OKAY now I know this is a long post, but it is an introductory of sorts!

I am interested in acquiring an Alienware m18x notebook laptop with dual Radeon 6990m GPU's.
How does this laptop stack up as far as hashrate/second for dual GPU Bitcoin mining?

I KNOW it is not cost effective for Bitcoin earnings potential, but my goal is to buy the m18x before a SHTF type of scenario. (When I would be absolutely unable to move heavy desktop towers for the purpose of mining)

It's big, heavy, top of the line, and ASSUMING I am able escape said zombie apocolypse in my area and make it safely to a location with (possible) internet, I could at least resume casual mining on a machine that is portable enough to at least put in a backpack.

Questions? Thoughts? Concerns?

I am new to the forum, and I would like to introduce myself as a fully contributing BTC member, I have plans to get involved with e-commerce and trade, and I have faith in Bitcoin as the best decentralized anonymous way of conducting said business.

Let it be said that I am new to this whole process, and I represent a younger generation of BTC miners, so please no bashing.

- never2sleep

[jake262144]

Two rigs, each with a single GPU?
That's a mind-boggingly dumb setup, just ludicrous.


Put that 6970 together with the 5970 in a single rig.
Does the mobo have enough pcie slots for three cards? Sell the superfluous tower with that weak 550W PSU and use the funds you get to get another decent card (aim for a 5970).
A single tower with 3 good GPUs makes a whole damned lot more sense then your current setup.

If the mobo won't support 3 GPUs, make the slots you have matter: purchase another 5970 card and run the 5970 tandem.


What make and model are those PSUs? A crappy PSU might fry the whole rig, kill your family, and burn your house down to cinders... well, maybe nothing that drastic but you get the picture, right?
A PSU is what makes or breaks a mining rig.


Two towers and a TV/monitor... not overly bad, considering that you can sell the parts you won't need.
To build a great dedicated mining rig you need an excellent psu, as many good AMD cards as that PSU can power, a motherboard to connect them all, 2 gigs of RAM, and virtually any cheap CPU.
Even hard drives are optional since they can be supplanted with much cheaper and less energy consuming flash drives.

Fans... you're gonna need lots of them humming and buzzing fans to provide enough airflow to cool the rig down.
GPUs have a nasty tendency of dying when overheated for extended periods of time.


Alienware and a SHTF scenario... no comments.
Hd6990 mobile being equipped with measly 1120 stream processors (as opposed to 3072 SPs in a normal hd6990 or 3200 in a hd5970), how do YOU think it will compare to the normal cards? Mind you, the core speed is also significantly lower.

As to the disappointing hash rate, perhaps instead of the darknet you should visit these forums more often?
Try mining support, hardware, and miners - a whole repository of knowledge here.

[edalbkrad]

you could have saved yourself some cash with a single rig.
sell the 2nd rig and just put the 5970 in your first rig and change the psu to a quality 800 watts like thermaltake or corsair.

You can still game with the 6970 while the 5970 is mining

[never2sleep]

I don't actually currently use either of the two computers for gaming. Both towers have 8gb RAM. I was strongly considering selling the smaller unit and throwing the 6970 in with the 5970 since it has been setup to run with 3 PCI slots. Both towers are complete units, but the 850W has a slightly nicer processor and is able to support more hardware...

I didn't know if keeping both towers would be a good idea, depending on how hard/how $$$ it would be to replace the PSU and PCI setup, but since it is much smaller selling it seems pretty cost productive.

I am still curious though about the m18x if anyone knows how many hash's it produces with those dual 6990m gpu's?? I've heard it is comparable to one Radeon 6970 in a desktop unit..

Most likely will heed your advice, sell the smaller rig and try and pickup another 5970.

Does anyone have tips for the .bat file I should be running to get phoenix miner to work? My 5970 is producing just under 600 mhash/s with GUIminer and that's significantly lower than shown on the bitcoin mining comparison guide on wiki..

I have an older 2006 MBP for school and DotA needs, but that's about all the gaming I do.

[edalbkrad]

you can try the flags/settings of other 5970 owners here https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison
some of them get up to 800 mhash/s

as for the alienware laptop, there is a chance of it overheating if you run it 24/7 so maybe only do it a few hours per day.

ps
seriously you have a 6970, try crysis instead of dota

[never2sleep]

Thank you all for your comments/advice!

I decided to go ahead and throw my 6970 in with the 5970's current setup.

Got it setup and running tonight, currently get about 950 mhash/s total.

Hopefully I can sell this other tower for a nice price