Introduce yourself :)

[bitcoinbit]

hi, noob here looking at what bitcoin investments are on offer... any advise would be welcome

[Aahzman]

Howdy! Friend made me aware of BTC last night, and I am utterly fascinated by this concept!

Bought a couple BTC to get seeded, and then started pool mining using my laptop GPU...pathetic 8.6Mhash.  I expect I'll get a little better out of the ATI 6770 in my gaming rig, but still nothing to write home about.

I recently got my hands on an HP DL785 G5 server that has 11 PCIe slots...assuming I can power the thing without blowing circuit breakers in my apartment (thank god all my utilities are included), what'd produce higher Mhash: 11 x Nvidia 8400 GS 1GB cards, or 5 x ATI 5750 1Gb cards, which will (after shipping) end up costing about the same...

Anyhow, happy to be part of something so cool and innovative!

Rob

[ntz]

hello 

[RoboCoder]

Howdy! Friend made me aware of BTC last night, and I am utterly fascinated by this concept!

Bought a couple BTC to get seeded, and then started pool mining using my laptop GPU...pathetic 8.6Mhash.  I expect I'll get a little better out of the ATI 6770 in my gaming rig, but still nothing to write home about.

I recently got my hands on an HP DL785 G5 server that has 11 PCIe slots...assuming I can power the thing without blowing circuit breakers in my apartment (thank god all my utilities are included), what'd produce higher Mhash: 11 x Nvidia 8400 GS 1GB cards, or 5 x ATI 5750 1Gb cards, which will (after shipping) end up costing about the same...

Anyhow, happy to be part of something so cool and innovative!

Rob

Using your laptop to mine is a really good way to shorten it's life.

As for the server.  Most (if not all) GPU cards that support OpenCL will require an x16 slot - so i would first check how many of those that are in the server.  Then of course, most server power supplies are not big enough to support that one CPU anyway.  For example an AMD 7970 GPU requires a 2 pcie power adapters, 1 is 75Watts, one is 150 Watts.  So without any overclocking - you are looking a about 225 watt draw per card.  So you will need to look at that.

Also, good mining gpu's will take 2 slots of space so at best you can get in 5 physically if all slots were x16.  and that would be with no air gap to speak of between them - watercooling would be a solution in this case.  And then without hacked drivers, 4 GPU's would be the most.

So given all requirements met - 4 GPU's.  This is kind of an overkill machine for this purpose. 

Also, don't mine with NVidia cards - use AMD - that hash rate on NVidia is horrible compared to the AMD Radeon's. 

Here is a good general card comparison guide (a little dated) but really good starting point:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

Check out this thread for a good discussion on building a mining rig:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=9036.0

Hope this helps...

RoboCoder

[Aahzman]

hrm. i'll have to check, but the server has 6 power supply slots, 3 are currently occupied with 750W power supplies. I could probably dig up 3 more power supplies to get the full 4500W power capacity.  That would likely let me fill it up with as many cards as i could physically stuff in there.

So, i found the wiki that had the long list of video cards/asics/fpga/cpu's and how many Mhash they produce, and yeah, the low end nvidia's do seem to suck a lot compared to the similarly priced ATI's. So it looks like that $60 5750 at geeks.com is the way to go.  Hrm. 4 of those 5750s without hacked drivers...and depending on the ordering of the x16 slots, i would probably be able to space them out so there was an air gap between them. the server case has 3 massive front-pull fans and 3 massive rear exhaust fans...so cooling shouldn't be an issue... the only hiccup i can see is i haven't been able to find what revision of PCIe the server has...dunno if that matters....

the 6770 in my gaming rig should do well, for now, and I can run one more off my current 750W power supply in that for around 400+ Mhash/s.

Thanks for the tips!

[RoboCoder]

hrm. i'll have to check, but the server has 6 power supply slots, 3 are currently occupied with 750W power supplies. I could probably dig up 3 more power supplies to get the full 4500W power capacity.  That would likely let me fill it up with as many cards as i could physically stuff in there.

I would point out that the power supplies wattage "may" not be cumulative - ie.  they may be redundant and for all intents and purposes in parallel so you may only have 750 - not familiar with this particular server model so cannot tell you for sure.  That being said - stripping out unneccssary loads like extra hard drives or switching to ssd or even booting straight from flash drive, you can probably mine 2-3 good cards IF you don't overclock.

As for the GPU's i have found that the 7950s and 7970's tend to run cooler with no special cooling arrangements than the 5xxx series, although i have a single 6970 in a spare dell precision WS box running overclocked without any added fans - also they seem to be less flakey that 5xxx (ie. less prone to odd crashes - actually none of the 12 i am running have locked up or caused a problem in the last 45 days..)

RoboCoder

[Aahzman]

I work for HP, but in Enterprise Storage Arrays, i'll have to harass one of my server-savvy brethren about how the power supplies stack up...i think the second set of three are necessary if you upgrade the server to 8 CPUs... it's pretty basic. only 4 CPUs, 2 x 1GB DDR2 per CPU, and a pair of 146GB 2.5" drives...has nothing installed in any of the PCIe slots... so not a lot of extraneous wattage usage inside the sucker.

and i went down and looked at it, they're 1200W power supplies, first 3 aggregate, 2nd three are just for redundancy. so at 120V input voltage, the 1200W PSU's deliver about 900W each, for 2700W total available. no problem whatsoever on power. just a matter of what video cards it'll let me stick in there. :-)

[RoboCoder]

and i went down and looked at it, they're 1200W power supplies, first 3 aggregate, 2nd three are just for redundancy. so at 120V input voltage, the 1200W PSU's deliver about 900W each, for 2700W total available. no problem whatsoever on power. just a matter of what video cards it'll let me stick in there. :-)

Wow.  Not bad - I agree - it *should* be a case of what physically can fit.  Do the power supplies have the 6 and 8 pin pcie connectors?  each GPU (depending on type) will need at least 1 if not 2.  for example a 7970 uses a 6pin and an 8pin connector. 

And i would expect that a server case that size should have HV airfans (esp with 4 cpu's) so you might actually get livable temps with 4 or 5 stock 7xxx cards...


THis particular server appears to cost a significant chunk of change...  If you were paying full (or even refurb) prices, mining would not be cost effective i would think..  but i assume since you work there you might be getting, what, design test models?  I have picked up several of the those (in the intel brand) before for good prices (although not for mining).

[Aahzman]

yeah, it's a discontinued model from about 2-3 years ago, G5 (we just launched Gen8 servers), been written off and marked for disposal, so nobody's gonna care if i want to break my back haulign it home.

I'll have to look inside and see if there are extra PCIe power connectors, i wasn't looking for them earlier....that could hose me, and restrict me to lower end cards that don't need extra power leads....

[RoboCoder]

And they would be REALLY low end.  not more than 20-30 MH/s with the cards that use the standard power connectors.

Not to worry on the connectors - if you dont have them (and you may not because it is a server) - they make converters like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812400034

Just be aware of how many modulo connectors you do have and how many you will need.   Also, if you can get specs on the power supplies you also want to see how the power connectors are connected internally - ie.  how many "rails" there are because internally in the power supply you want to balance the power draw across however many internal rails there are to prevent popping a fuse or blowing a cap or something like that.  That being said a 7U server with that kind of P/S upgrade capability should be able to be worked so it could support 4 cards.  I assume you can get additional or higher capacity PS'es through channels if need be?

Its seems like it should be simple to do this doesnt it - but nothing ever seems to be as simple in practice - I still think you may have a great starting point - but it will still take a bit of rigging to get it just right...

I sympathize with you on all that - i just finished building a new SQL Server for my datacenter and it wasn't as simple to arrange things the way i wanted as it could or should have been.

I don't suppose you want to send ME one of those to play with... 

[Aahzman]

Ahahaha well, we do have a demo program..check with your HP account rep. :-)

[RoboCoder]

Let me know how it goes - i would mind seeing pix of how you end up rigging it..

[hfpaul]

Hi all,

I'm Paul, and have heard about Bitcoin for quite awhile, but never really thought much about it. What finally pulled me in was reading an article about mining and realizing how similar it is in spirit to previous distributed computing efforts, like SETI@Home. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool geek and have loaded up distributed computing clients on entire farms of computing hardware in the past, just for something to play with.

My first thought was, "Wait a tick... I can do this!" I tend to be something of an obsessive researcher, and have spent the last month reading just about everything Bitcoin-related I could find. I bought a handful of coins, found a mining pool, started playing with different mining software, and made a couple of small purchases with BTC.

I think I've mined all of $0.50 so far, but I decided to take the plunge and gear up for the "ASIC revolution". It's a no-brainer for me... it's a new toy to play with, so even if I lose every penny, I'll still be glad I gave it a shot!

As I've gotten involved, I've found that I'm almost more fascinated by watching this small global economy grow and develop in real time. The unregulated marketplace is a colorful place: scammers, suckers, legitimate businesses, and everything in between, all trying to make their mark on this new economy. Isn't it interesting how, no matter which of those is your angle, it's in everyone's best interest to keep the BTC economy healthy and thriving?

Anyway, I digress. I'm just saying hello, and happy to be a part of the community. Looking forward to chatting with... well... most of you.

Cheers!

[that1guy]

Hey all,
I been looking for one last reason to start assembling a computer cluster, and looks like I found it

I guess when I'm not rendering 3D models or simulating physics, I'll be mining bitcoins.  Yay!  Now I'll have minimal idle time

[0k4m1]

Hello, I'm On Nom! :3

[ChuckBarris]

I work for HP, but in Enterprise Storage Arrays,

Ahahaha well, we do have a demo program..check with your HP account rep. :-)

Ahahaha!  whew...good one.   

Working @ HP is a pretty good gig, right?

[SecondVariety]

please do so! and get a post
don't be so negative, the 5-post-4-hour-rule is there for a reason: to get rid of the trolls. NOT to piss newcomers off.

relax take it easy and smile.

Mod note:
If you see anyone spamming this thread, please report it. Spam will result in an immediate ban.

Post One.  Have seven 7970's and one 5850 mining for a total of 44xx mhash/s.  No fancy open air setups.  Just 4 machines which will eventually be sold to friends after the difficulty is halved this winter.  Mainbox is GTX 670 SC quad-sli, for gaming.  Currently Borderlands 2 and Black Mesa.

[aura.flux]

Hi, folks, I am new!

[noregister]

I heard about silkroad on reddit, started looking into it because it sounded interesting, and then I started reading into bitcoin. I'm interested in speculation and eager to see whether or not the bitcoin will be successful.

[UberNeck]

I'm UberNeck. Professionally, I do front-end web work specializing a few content management systems. I was first introduced to BTC through Tor and have since taken an interest in cryptocurrency. I comment under a different name on the reddit sub, but I'm jumping into this forum, as well.