Gauging interest around some custom hardware and cabling for GPU rigs

[sidehack]

For those of you who don't know me (which is expected, since I don't altcoins in general), I have built a small business around supporting the mining community and like finding ways to help home and small-scale miners get an edge against the takeover of industrial operations, including affordable power hardware and hosting. These days a lot of small-scale miners are running GPU rigs, so it's probably time I made good on some projects that have been rolling around for a while to help you guys out.

I work a lot with server PSUs and breakout boards. I also make cables. I have recently expanded my cable-making abilities to do things faster and with wider variety. I can now make 6+2 cables, PCIe splitters, and 4-Molex which I hear are useful for GPU powered risers. It is my assumption that, if someone wanted to run a GPU rig off a server PSU, it'd be handy to have cables with 6-pin on one end and 6+2 on the other to power cards directly without adapters. It'd probably be handy to have a 6-pin to EPS 8-pin native cable for motherboard 12V power.

I am also working on a small board which would draw power from 6-pin jacks and fan out into three 4-Molex cables for plugging into powered risers, integrating a 5V converter and with entirely modular cabling.

I might, if there is enough demand, develop a small picoPSU-style board with 5V and 3.3V converters (probably 12-15A each) that takes in power from 6-pins and attaches directly to ATX24 connector for main motherboard power.

If there's something y'all GPU guys think needs to be done or something else that would make things easier for you, let me know and I'll see what I can do. If any of this interests you, hit me up and we can talk numbers.

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[philipma1957]

I have done a lot of deals with sidehack in the btc threads.

I have been active with btc eth and etc.

It is good to see you post here.

I will try to figure out what I could use.

R9 390 gpus need 8 pin

So a six pin to six + two pin  cable would work.

i have a lot of servers in house I would love to,adapt,one to run a pc

[thesmokingman]

I would say a package to power 6 risers, hard drive, CPU and MB would be and immediate sell for me and most likely others wanting to use server psu's. I have 30+ of the DPS-2000 PSUs and would prefer to use those for my rigs if possible. Can you PM me a ballpark price for x6 of these "kits"

[PovertyByte]

You mentioned PCIe splitters?


I've seen cards where an extra power connector is added even though the TDP does not even surpass a single 8-pin + PCIe demands. This makes those cards unfavorable since they would require more wires and result in needing more PSU units in a rig. And it is a shame to pass up a card with extra power phases

I think it would be usefull.

[MarkAz]

I've been buying cables from sidehack and they're top notch - MUCH better than anything else you can find elsewhere.  Plus it gives you the opportunity to really clean up the internal wiring - here's some of my latest machines running some of sidehack's work:

[philipma1957]

mark you have a plug in one card it is an hdmi socket.  What does that plug do?  is it just a dummy plug?  I am asking because how do you see the cards on a screen to adjust them.

Nice clean build.  I wish my gear looked that way.

I have had a lot of gear from sidehack  it works well.



I have  spare  dps-2500 units   which are a step above  dps-2000 units.

I would love to use one or two of them.

It looks to me like you have a dps-2000 running your build.

[MarkAz]

mark you have a plug in one card it is an hdmi socket.  What does that plug do?  is it just a dummy plug?  I am asking because how do you see the cards on a screen to adjust them.

Correct - whichever card is designated the primary video card, I put a dummy plug in it to ensure that Windows boots smoothly (some of the ASRock's had problems, so it's worth the $20 to not have any).  I run TightVNC on it, so I just remote in with that and do anything I need - works like a champ, although I really don't do a whole lot of tweaking once the machine is up and running.

Nice clean build.  I wish my gear looked that way.

I have had a lot of gear from sidehack  it works well.

Thanks!  I always enjoy designing and tweaking the cases - plus with the GPU side of things, if you spend the time to nail the case, it just makes everything a whole lot easier in the long run.  The cost of the case is obviously more than the light weight ones on here, but it's also ensures that 100% of the fan airflow is used for cooling, which is important to me.  I also like having things mounted securely - this case could fall off the rack and I doubt anything would happen to it.

This is currently my v3 rev of the case - and I'm just finalizing the v4 to incorporate some of the things that Sidehack mentioned above.  The reason the build is coming together as cleanly as it is, is all thanks to cables that Sidehack has made for me.

I have  spare  dps-2500 units   which are a step above  dps-2000 units.

I would love to use one or two of them.

It looks to me like you have a dps-2000 running your build.

Yeah, I have about 100x DPS-2000BB's lying around, so I use them like candy.    Right now I'm just using the one cooled by the fans - you'd be surprised how well that works, but the PSU does get warm.  I use Optimizer's breakout board for it (the best one I've used), and I'm looking forward to getting his 4k boards when they're available - that will probably be the final update I make as part of the v4 rev of the case.  While It's far more power per case than I need, he says he's tested it without active cooling at 2k and it works great - so that way I would get redundancy AND even better temperature performance.

Never played with the 2500's, but assuming they're the same as the 2000's but just with an extra 500w, they'd be an excellent supply to use.  Right now my heaviest power 6 GPU system is close to 1800w, and really I don't see things ever going much beyond that.  2000w still gives me a bit of headroom (especially considering these are server grade PSU's), but 2500w would be ideal...

And the next one I build will be for the GPU's I just bought from you, so you know they're going to a good home...

[eretron]

How do you power the 24 pin socket on the motherboard with that PSU.

I have 1 not used for the btc antminers so it would be great if that could power my next rig.

Thanks

[ComputerGenie]

How do you power the 24 pin socket on the motherboard with that PSU...

[MarkAz]

How do you power the 24 pin socket on the motherboard with that PSU.

I have 1 not used for the btc antminers so it would be great if that could power my next rig.

Here's the exact one that I use:

http://amzn.to/2b1KiAG

The important thing to consider is that this only powers the MB and SSD, not the riser boards - you'll also need a 6-pin PCIe to 8-pin ATX plug on the MB.  For the risers, Sidehack is making a board which I think will be awesome for them, basically giving several +12/+5 molex plugs that can easily handle the load of even demanding cards like the RX 480 (demanding on the molex side).

Using a server-PSU and a setup with a bunch of Sidehack's cables is the way to go - no comparison to some consumer-grade PSU with poor AWG wires.

[Newwsr]

Connecting DPS- 2000BB in GPU ?

What did use?

[MarkAz]

Connecting DPS- 2000BB in GPU ?

What did use?

In my build I used GPU riser boards - but those need molex power, and sidehack made custom cables for me to take care of it (that's what he's talking about in this post).  The 6-pin's are just your run of the mill 6-pin PCIe cables, but I had him make much shorter ones since in my build the GPU's are close to the PSU.  Finally, he also makes a 6-pin PCIe cable to 8-pin PCIe - the reality is he's using 16 AWG cable, and Optimizer's DPS-2000BB breakout can easily support the load, we're talking more about the connector max amp load instead of the ATX standard max amp load.

So in the end you have a safer (high quality cables, known power limitations), cleaner (correct length cables), cheaper (server PSU+breakout much less than commercial) and more efficient (server PSU typically platinum at least) setup - just buy the parts from Sidehack already, you won't be disappointed! 

[rockyforever]

@sidehack

I would be interested in these boards! I have hosted miners and done business with sidehack and can vouch for his services and products.

[rockyforever]

Connecting DPS- 2000BB in GPU ?

What did use?

In my build I used GPU riser boards - but those need molex power, and sidehack made custom cables for me to take care of it (that's what he's talking about in this post).  The 6-pin's are just your run of the mill 6-pin PCIe cables, but I had him make much shorter ones since in my build the GPU's are close to the PSU.  Finally, he also makes a 6-pin PCIe cable to 8-pin PCIe - the reality is he's using 16 AWG cable, and Optimizer's DPS-2000BB breakout can easily support the load, we're talking more about the connector max amp load instead of the ATX standard max amp load.

So in the end you have a safer (high quality cables, known power limitations), cleaner (correct length cables), cheaper (server PSU+breakout much less than commercial) and more efficient (server PSU typically platinum at least) setup - just buy the parts from Sidehack already, you won't be disappointed! 

Are you able to elaborate on your set-up a bit more? Is that a custom case? Prices for each set-up and whatnot. Very clean and fancy looking!

[sidehack]

I don't have anything for the DPS2000 right now, but I have an HP Common Slot board (which has PSUs from about 500 to 1500W Platinum) with 12 PCIe jacks.

All I have for GPU-rig-specific hardware right now is cables. The 4-Molex conversion boards are still in prototype. MarkAz specifically requested ATX24 conversion boards so he might get dibs on that depending on how everything works out, but I'll try and build 'em one way or another.

[arielbit]

I've been buying cables from sidehack and they're top notch - MUCH better than anything else you can find elsewhere.  Plus it gives you the opportunity to really clean up the internal wiring - here's some of my latest machines running some of sidehack's work:

where is the molex for powered riser getting its power? from the breakout board?

[MarkAz]

where is the molex for powered riser getting its power? from the breakout board?

Right now the power comes from the 12v supply of the breakout from the PSU, and from the 5v step-down converter to the right of the PSU.  It's kind of a clunky setup, and Sidehack is working on a board which will take the 12v from the breakout and break it out to the 12v and 5v that the molex needs - it should be great and really clean things up.

[arielbit]

where is the molex for powered riser getting its power? from the breakout board?

Right now the power comes from the 12v supply of the breakout from the PSU, and from the 5v step-down converter to the right of the PSU.  It's kind of a clunky setup, and Sidehack is working on a board which will take the 12v from the breakout and break it out to the 12v and 5v that the molex needs - it should be great and really clean things up.

great, waiting to see that new breakout with 5v, that step down complicates things and adds to expenses. just harness the 5v from the PSU.

as for the motherboard/cpu power, I'd rather use some surplus good quality, low power psu to supply the hdd, and some fans. they can be bought less than half the price of 24pin Pico ATX switch you posted up thread.

[MarkAz]

great, waiting to see that new breakout with 5v, that step down complicates things and adds to expenses. just harness the 5v from the PSU.

as for the motherboard/cpu power, I'd rather use some surplus good quality, low power psu to supply the hdd, and some fans. they can be bought less than half the price of 24pin Pico ATX switch you posted up thread.

Actually, it's still a stepdown - it's just all integrated and sized appropriately.  In order to have it compatible with any of the server PSU's, it basically needs to be 12v.  Really I wanted something that would make it dead simple to run the risers and clean up the cable mess, and sidehack already had a design in the works that met this need.

The problem you have with mixing and matching PSU's is that you could introduce all sorts of issue related to voltage mismatches - it's really why I wanted to have a single solution anyway.  Ultimately if sidehack does make the kind of miner equivalent of the pico ATX, it's really geared to be high quality and reliable at a good price, probably not the cheapest solution.  That's where my interests are - what's the point of jeopardizing $2k worth of hardware just to save $10 or $20 bucks - I want my base system to be rock solid, so as I swap out cards, I never need to mess with it.

[arielbit]

great, waiting to see that new breakout with 5v, that step down complicates things and adds to expenses. just harness the 5v from the PSU.

as for the motherboard/cpu power, I'd rather use some surplus good quality, low power psu to supply the hdd, and some fans. they can be bought less than half the price of 24pin Pico ATX switch you posted up thread.

Actually, it's still a stepdown - it's just all integrated and sized appropriately.  In order to have it compatible with any of the server PSU's, it basically needs to be 12v.  Really I wanted something that would make it dead simple to run the risers and clean up the cable mess, and sidehack already had a design in the works that met this need.

The problem you have with mixing and matching PSU's is that you could introduce all sorts of issue related to voltage mismatches - it's really why I wanted to have a single solution anyway.  Ultimately if sidehack does make the kind of miner equivalent of the pico ATX, it's really geared to be high quality and reliable at a good price, probably not the cheapest solution.  That's where my interests are - what's the point of jeopardizing $2k worth of hardware just to save $10 or $20 bucks - I want my base system to be rock solid, so as I swap out cards, I never need to mess with it.

a stepdown? i didn't know dps2000 dont have 5v

voltage mismatch? i haven't encountered that for 2 and 1/2  years wiith gpu mining.

it's not that i'm just about saving a few bucks, its about component (pico atx, stepdown) availability in my location too..i know someone in the US where the dps2000 with breakout and wires  can be shipped, and before the year ends it will be sent to me (to my country)

in my mind, for troubleshooting power, 1st psu is all about booting the os and dps2000 is all about the gpus. thats it (assuming the new breakout will cater for the 5v for the molex)

the all in one dps2000 solution is still not all in one in my mind in troubleshooting power, it is basically 3, the pico atx, stepdown, and the psu itself.

EDIT: i googled dps2000 only have 0.1A for 5v so a stepdown is necessary