Question on PCI-E USB Powered Risers VER #

[Za1n]

I am looking at making a purchase of a dozen or so of these, and noticed they seem to have different versions as shown in the images below. My question is does this VER # have any difference on quality, as in VER 005 is later and perhaps better (or worse) than VER 003?

Looking at the USB Risers I currently have, most are the Ver 003, with even a few are Ver 002. I have one or two of each, out of dozens that are bad, so I am interested if anyone has any experience with this. Obviously looking to find the best quality ones I can get. The price seems to be mainly differentiate between the USB cable lengths more than the version of the board, so just looking for something I can key off of while making my selection.

Thanks!

[robertkedves]

You could buy the VER003 just to be sure, and maybe a couple of VER005s to test them.

I have VER003 and they are working excellent.

About VER005 what the producers are saying:
- high quality (what it means?)
- safer, more efficient and more practical (if is increasing the hashpowers is incredible, but i doubt it)
- graphic cards are more stable on power supply security (never had any problems with the older version)
- etc.

Let me know if you bought the ver005 .

Good luck,

[MarkAz]

I've run just about every riser version out there, and beyond the color of the PCB and the PCI slot locking connector, I've found that they all perform almost exactly the same.  The v3 you show there has that tantalizing 6-Pin PCIe though-hole on it, but PCIe doesn't provide 5v so it would never have worked anyway - so while they've made tweaks like that, nothing else seems to have changed to me.

Personally I like the black ones, but only because I like the way they look... And I also would highly recommend buying different cables - while the boards have worked flawlessly for me, the cables have proven to be unreliable.

[navydude]

Are you buying 2.0 or 3.0 usb cables for replacement?

[xxcsu]

Im using VER003 (green PCB) and VER006 (black PCB) for all my builds .

VER003 arrived with 24 inch blue USB cable
VER006 with 20 inch black USB cable

VER003 have a M193 G1084-33 voltage regulator
VER006 have a FS1084 voltage regulator

Both regulators have On-chip thermal shutdown protection( provides protection against any combination of overload and ambient temperature that would create excessive junction temperature )

In the past few months i had to replace only one riser ( VER 006 ) , i had no time to check what was the problem , maybe just a USB cable .

[MarkAz]

Are you buying 2.0 or 3.0 usb cables for replacement?

USB 3.0; these are the exact cables I use:

http://amzn.to/2dnlAeb

I use them in all my builds, and haven't had an issue yet - I use slightly longer than normal because of how I position the cards relative to the motherboard, but I'm sure they also have smaller ones from the same manufacturer:

[xxcsu]

Nice builds :-)
I see on the picture you have plugged display emulator, or dummy plug for all your graphics card .
May I ask ... in one setup why not just using one a display emulator connected to one card ? and leave the another 5 dummy plug free ? :-)

[MarkAz]

Nice builds :-)
I see on the picture you have plugged display emulator, or dummy plug for all your graphics card .
May I ask ... in one setup why not just using one a display emulator connected to one card ? and leave the another 5 dummy plug free ? :-)

heheh, they're not really needed, but without them I can't get the temps in OpenHardwareMonitor... Normally I could hook them up and then disable them in windows, but with the RX470 if you disable the display then ATI now disables the temp data (thanks for that), so I may end up going back to using them like everyone else. 

[Za1n]

Im using VER003 (green PCB) and VER006 (black PCB) for all my builds .

VER003 arrived with 24 inch blue USB cable
VER006 with 20 inch black USB cable

VER003 have a M193 G1084-33 voltage regulator
VER006 have a FS1084 voltage regulator

Both regulators have On-chip thermal shutdown protection( provides protection against any combination of overload and ambient temperature that would create excessive junction temperature )

In the past few months i had to replace only one riser ( VER 006 ) , i had no time to check what was the problem , maybe just a USB cable .

Thanks for the feedback, this is the type of information I was hoping for. I will look into the VER 006, as only so far have seen up to VER 005 boards.

[Za1n]

Are you buying 2.0 or 3.0 usb cables for replacement?

USB 3.0; these are the exact cables I use:

http://amzn.to/2dnlAeb

I use them in all my builds, and haven't had an issue yet - I use slightly longer than normal because of how I position the cards relative to the motherboard, but I'm sure they also have smaller ones from the same manufacturer:

Nice rig! Thanks for the information on the bad USB cables. It never occurred to me these might go bad, although now in hindsight it seems obvious. I will need to re-check my "bad" ones now with new cables.

I am also interested the HDMI dummy plugs you are using. Do you have a link or preferred vendor for those? Thanks!

[MarkAz]

Nice rig! Thanks for the information on the bad USB cables. It never occurred to me these might go bad, although now in hindsight it seems obvious. I will need to re-check my "bad" ones now with new cables.

I am also interested the HDMI dummy plugs you are using. Do you have a link or preferred vendor for those? Thanks!

I've used two different dummy plugs:

http://amzn.to/2doy7xV

and

http://www.ebay.com/itm/191567271934?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

TBH I really can't tell the difference between the two - I mostly use the eBay ones because if you buy 20 or more he'll do $11/each, but the Amazon one is Prime so if I f-up and need one I can get it from them fast.

On the USB cable side of things, I was lucky (?) that I had some early failures with the ones that they shipped with, but worked fine with quality cables.  The power cable looked like a bad idea from the start, so I didn't use those just because I knew some cards pull down some serious juice and I wanted miner-grade cables.  I purchase all my cables from sidehack here on the forum, and would recommend you consider them as well - his prices are great and the quality is exceptional.  People often overlook power cables, or think when they buy some high end gaming PSU or whatever that they're getting good cables, but they're not.  None of them are really designed to run 24x7 like a miner does, which is why I don't mess around with ones that weren't made for mining.

[MarkAz]

Check out this guys for sale post and the picture of the riser:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1622732.0

Pretty interesting, this is the first time I've actually seen one populated to make the 6-pin PCI connector work... I tried searching to find where to get these from, but no luck.  At the price he's listed them for it's not a cost effectively solution (with international shipping), especially considering the price of sidehacks new board:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1627191.0

[supersonic]

Check out this guys for sale post and the picture of the riser:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1622732.0

Pretty interesting, this is the first time I've actually seen one populated to make the 6-pin PCI connector work... I tried searching to find where to get these from, but no luck.  At the price he's listed them for it's not a cost effectively solution (with international shipping), especially considering the price of sidehacks new board:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1627191.0

yeah so i was searching for some time and found it actualy those are not so expensive, altho i dont think those will work straight with pci-e 12v as they power them via sata for 5 and 12v unless im wrong. Figure it out as You know better and let me know :>
there You go https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/PCI-E-1x-to-16x-mining_60509800570.html

[MarkAz]

yeah so i was searching for some time and found it actualy those are not so expensive, altho i dont think those will work straight with pci-e 12v as they power them via sata for 5 and 12v unless im wrong. Figure it out as You know better and let me know :>
there You go https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/PCI-E-1x-to-16x-mining_60509800570.html

Wow, I bow before your Google skills!    If you actually look at the board, you can see that they've actually populated a bunch of the unused spaces on the riser, so I think it's pretty safe to say that they're doing the 12v -> 5v stepdown on the riser.

I found a slightly different version that I liked a bit more and shot them an email to get some to do some testing with... I'm not certain that I like it better than sidehack's solution, but it's certainly worth evaluating.

[arielbit]

i'd like to add this to the equation..

it is better to use a version or a riser board with "holes" at the back of molex connector..because in case the molex socket get burned (already happened here), you can solder wires easily to a sata (male) or molex (female) socket adaptor.

in other words, that "holes" are directly connected to ground, 5v and 12v connections.

[supersonic]

yeah so i was searching for some time and found it actualy those are not so expensive, altho i dont think those will work straight with pci-e 12v as they power them via sata for 5 and 12v unless im wrong. Figure it out as You know better and let me know :>
there You go https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/PCI-E-1x-to-16x-mining_60509800570.html

Wow, I bow before your Google skills!    If you actually look at the board, you can see that they've actually populated a bunch of the unused spaces on the riser, so I think it's pretty safe to say that they're doing the 12v -> 5v stepdown on the riser.

I found a slightly different version that I liked a bit more and shot them an email to get some to do some testing with... I'm not certain that I like it better than sidehack's solution, but it's certainly worth evaluating.

Yeah i noticed those, but im green as for electronics so had no idea if it is actually for stepdown to 5v. Im checking all options including sidehacks boards but since im from EU i will check those risers too. Will wait for info about them and how it goes. I just bought bunch of dps-2000bb and looking for breakout boards aswell, not that easy in EU.

[Zorg33]

Wow, I was also looking for a riser with 12V -> 3.3V conversion.
BTW the common version with molex connector is also capable of 12V->3.3V stepdown theoretically. but I did not have time to try it.
The dissipated heat could be a problem there, escpecially with RX 470/480, because they can take 70W+ through the riser as we know (edit: blackout, sorry.).
So the dissipated heat can be a problem, because a normal riser takes about 0.5A from 5V and the IC gets to 45C degrees. So if it needs to dissipate 4 times that, then it can be a problem.

So we should find a photo where the used step down IC is identificable.
The common type has LM1084 iirc.

edit2: It seems to have some kind of switching regulator, which is much better for this application. I also asked for a quote on alibaba:)

[MarkAz]

Yeah, I've already ordered them so I'll have a some to play with in a few weeks, whenever they arrived.  I think they're coming DHL, but who really ever knows when ordering from over there. 

I'm still not sure that this is a better option than Sidehacks board - for me I tend to run out of PCIe on my breakouts, and I suspect his is cleaner in terms of power quality (and manufacture quality).

[BTC_ISTANBUL]

The capacitors are important.I do not see any difference between versions.I own all the versions and they work.

[MarkAz]

The capacitors are important.I do not see any difference between versions.I own all the versions and they work.

Take a look at the alibaba link above, these boards have different parts populated than any of the other risers I've seen, and they're power just off the 12v PCIe plug, not the 12v/5v molex plug - so there's a pretty big difference.