My journey into the crypto currency mining!

[headsex]

So, As a newbie I'm required to make a substantial post. I've decided my best approach would be to give some details about my last 2 weeks in the crypto mining world in order to maybe help other newbies.

Going into this, I have not done it alone. I've also had 3 other friends do it. Between us, we have a total 22 - 7970/280x video cards. But, for the purpose of this, i'm going to talk about my own rig.

My rig consists of the following ->
MB: AsRock 990FX-Extreme3
CPU: AMD FX-4130 BE 3.8Ghz
Mem: 8GB Corsair PC3-12800 kit
PSU: 1500watt ToughPower Thermaltake 80+
HDD: Sandisk 64gb SSD
Video Cards: 4x Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X OC

Reasons i choice the above equipment? MB/CPU combo was as cheap as possible, with having 4x PCIE slots (3-16x, 1-1x), so i could run the 4 cards via riser cables.

Total cost i've spent is $2399.98AU on this rig.

Choice of operating system was simple.. Linux. Having solid experience in the operating system was a clear choice. Plus, no operating system cost was required to be paid.

I went with Xubuntu 12.04LTS based on a google guide i saw. I tried the latest 13.x version, however, i found it hung once it got to the desktop. Also note to others, The installation for xubuntu fails to load if you have more than once video card installed. Once the amd driver is installed, you can then install all video cards.

In choice of miner, I use CGminer. initially with 2 video cards, i was getting average of 710kh/s per card with a engine speed of 1030mhz and 0% Powertune . After a few days once i proved it was stable, Ive put a 3rd card in(once it arrived in stock). Currently running stable, however, i've got 2 additional fans assisting airflow. Maximum temp i get on the hottest card is 73C.

In terms of mining, i've tried a number of things. Some were good, some were bad. Some were lucky, and some were unlucky.

Initially i tried to mine litecoins, i was getting just under 1coin a day on 2 cards.

During this process i discovered 2 multiple auto switching pools.. Initially Alternatecoin, resulted in approx 0.015 to 0.0022 btc a day, which wasn't bad, as the difficulty of LTC was rising, I found alternate coin a good alternative.

I then looked at alternate coins. Tried, Franko, and Sex coins. Franko wasn't bad, converted better than mining straight litecoins. And then I mined Sexcoins. As the pool i was using had server overload issues, i never knew how many coins i had as statistics were delayed by like 9 hours. The next morning i saw i had ~3800SXC, although they would have exchanged well, I hung onto them.. "Shrug", no real reason why. I then build a private pool using MPOS, between my friends and I, I believe we had 8 cards total operating at the time between us, and we resulted in a good amount of SXC which exchanged better than mining straight LTC

I then got onto Middlecoin, its pool hash rate was massive in comparison to alternatecoin, and for some reason i had difficulty connecting to alternatecoin at times, and now it 100% did not work, looking at the website, looks like most people jumped ship also.

I found with middlecoin i was getting good results, more btc per 24hour period than i did with alternate coin. remember i was still only using 2 cards at this stage.

As I started mining SXC before the price rocketed, I had exchanged ~4500sexcoins when the price rocketed up. I was lucky to have so many coins before it got popular and all the big pools jumped on board. I continued mining sex coins, but now with 3 cards, as i found in a 24 hour period it was still worth my while mining, and exchanging to litecoins, than putting my efforts into litecoins as it yielded more litecoins in exchange.

I have now jumped back onto middlecoin. And quite happy i did. A few hours ago, i was just paid 0.069BTC for ~24 hour period.

In terms of recovering my initially purchase costs of the hardware i purchased on the 2nd of December. I have over 1 BTC in my Bitcoin Wallet, this was mainly due to the SXC exchanged when i did. In saying this, the first week I was only operating on 2 Video cards, the last week 3, and to get the 4th running, I'm awaiting my riser cables.

So if i based the initial purchase as 3 video cards, I'd say in the next week or two, i'd have recovered the costs. I cant wait for my video riser cables to arrive so i can get the 4th video card running.

Next thing to do on the list also, is Bios mod on the 280x video cards, so i can drop the voltage, and power usage. One of my friends successfully did this today, and his power consumption has dropped nearly 100 Watts based on 2 cards. So its something that's going to happen sooner than later.

Also I will now have to research the best way to get my balance back into AUD$, Any tips from any other Aussies?

[tdubbs]

I'd say that counts for a pretty substantial post, thanks for sharing.

I think I started around the same time and went down a similar path. I thought I'd just be mining litecoin and fell into various alt coins, then settled on middlecoin as well for an auto-switching pool. I like the simplicity of that pool and it feels like you're essentially mining bitcoin, just indirectly.

The only thing I'd add regarding my setup is that I initially went with 3 x Gigabyte 7970 cards but sadly came to the conclusion that since they were more recent models, I can't get the hashrate of earlier models (~750) and only ended up with ~550. It has to do with the most recent BIOS those cards have and you can't flash back to earlier versions, I've tried several. Luckily I ordered from Amazon and they're great about returns so they're going back and I'm replacing them with 4 x 270x. Not as good as yours but with 4 of them I'll get a better hashrate overall than my crippled 7970's.

If I could give some tips to anyone just looking into building their first rig:

1. Before pulling the trigger on a card, search the forums for that model for a while, see if anyone is reporting lower than advertised hashrates due to BIOS versions, etc.
2. Buying from Amazon is great, they take returns easily with no fuss.
3. Before buying a new model on Amazon, check the new/used listings. I found that Amazon themselves will list "factory deals" for items which are essentially new but just opened. Of course you may feel more comfortable going new but I saved about $100 per card initially going that route.

[headsex]

That is interesting regarding your gigabyte 7970's, My friends got the same cards with great results. What bios firmware is it your running? I'll double check what he has.

Running under windows or linux? (not that it matters). What config settings have you got for your miner?

[NickPortland]

Thanks that was very informative.

I'm happy your investment is paying off.

Please keep up posted, as I'm looking into building a similar rig, but probably with just 2x 280x.

[hinrg]

I have had great results with my Gigabyte 7970's out of my 10 cards they are the best performers even better then R9 280's but they do run a little warmer and use a little more power.

GPU Status Temp Fan KH/s (5s | avg) A R HW Invalid Last Work
0 Alive 66°C 95% 740 | 740  10769 133 0 1.22% 2014-01-04 11:31:58
1 Alive 66°C 95% 740 | 740  10783 130 0 1.19% 2014-01-04 11:31:47
2 Alive 60°C 95% 740 | 740  10850 116 0 1.06% 2014-01-04 11:31:37
3 Alive 72°C 95% 740 | 740  10549 117 0 1.1% 2014-01-04 11:31:58

[mcgullen]

Thanks for the information.

I thought GPU mining is no longer profitable given the prevalence of ASIC miners nowadays? Maybe I am wrong.

[hinrg]

This is true with SHA256 mining i.e Bitcoin mining but for Scrypt mining you can only use GPU for the moment.

[hinrg]

The only thing I'd add regarding my setup is that I initially went with 3 x Gigabyte 7970 cards but sadly came to the conclusion that since they were more recent models, I can't get the hashrate of earlier models (~750) and only ended up with ~550. It has to do with the most recent BIOS those cards have and you can't flash back to earlier versions, I've tried several. Luckily I ordered from Amazon and they're great about returns so they're going back and I'm replacing them with 4 x 270x. Not as good as yours but with 4 of them I'll get a better hashrate overall than my crippled 7970's

What version bios you using?  Is it possible to mod the bios you having using something like VBE7???