Building Cheap Miners : My "Secret"

[Juggar]

Found a good deal on ebay for some cpu miners..

2.1Kh/s ready to go for $300 at 420w cpu tdp -- There's like 100Kh/s worth of cpu miners available..

Trying to decide if I should tell you guys about it or pull the trigger myself  

Buy however many you want then share, haha =)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Poweredge-M910-4x-E7-8867L-2-13ghz-40-Cores-NoRam-NoDrives-iDrac-Ent/292429091293?hash=item441621d1dd:g:VxcAAOSwHytZ5O7H

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Poweredge-M910-4x-E7-4830-2-13ghz-32-Cores-NoRam-NoDrives-iDrac-Ent/372215521352?hash=item56a9c62048:g:VxcAAOSwHytZ5O7H

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-PowerEdge-M910-Blade-4-E7-4820-2-146GB-15K-SAS-PERC-H200-16GB-Ram/142680465944?hash=item21386b2218:g:T6gAAOSwPe1T6S2H

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-PowerEdge-M910-Blade-2-E7-2870-2-4GHz-2-73GB-15K-SAS-PERC-H200-32GB-Ram/131328725093?hash=item1e93cd5065:g:T6gAAOSwPe1T6S2H

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Poweredge-M1000E-Enclosure-2x-CMC-1x-KVM-6x-PSU-9x-Fans/372137533840?epid=23003928070&hash=item56a5202190:g:qhAAAOSwU4FaDKK2

One of those sellers also has 32 m910's without cpus (or 2 cpus only, hard to understand the guy, he was on mobile).

I went and found the $230 one on my own with only the TDP information you provided. God damn lol that googlefu.

Its a blade so it cant run standalone.... youd have to buy an enclosure as well, so thats going to put a LOT of people off.

[1715615977]

1715615977

[senseless]

I went and found the $230 one on my own with only the TDP information you provided. God damn lol that googlefu.

Ya, i was tossed on it because it's a blade as well. But, at that price...

I'm more in need of systems with PCIE 3.0 slots. But, if I had 5MW of power I didn't know what to do with...

[jakkwb]

I got my $150 server up to 660hr, but at 300w....gonna see if I can fit a GPU in it.

[jakkwb]

Not very efficient. Oh well, it was a fun experiment.

[tadeus1]

Its probably worth it only if you have PCIE slots and put few GPUS in parallel in the same machine.
As a supplemental mining

[sundownz]

MY LATEST UPDATE:





Got my new electrical panel all installed -- the electricians did an awesome job on it.

So far I have 12 of the Dell R815 servers running... 24 more of those to go & alot of cable organization on the back side (haha).

Then I will be putting together as many additional HP Z400s as I have GPUs for right now... B&H cancelled almost my entire back-order of 1080Tis from December when the cards finally came into stock last week so that has left me a bit shy on cards that I planned for (they delivered 2 out of 18 pcs... after 5 weeks of waiting). I should be able to get another ~18 systems online, though, with the cards I stocked up on in November / December.

[PharmEcis]

3 phase power?

Were you able to pickup that pallet of z400s?

[ZenMonke]

Then I will be putting together as many additional HP Z400s as I have GPUs for right now... B&H cancelled almost my entire back-order of 1080Tis from December when the cards finally came into stock last week so that has left me a bit shy on cards that I planned for (they delivered 2 out of 18 pcs... after 5 weeks of waiting). I should be able to get another ~18 systems online, though, with the cards I stocked up on in November / December.

Any idea why B&H cancelled your back order?

[PharmEcis]

Any idea why B&H cancelled your back order?

The inability to stomach a loss, aka greed. 

[sundownz]

Then I will be putting together as many additional HP Z400s as I have GPUs for right now... B&H cancelled almost my entire back-order of 1080Tis from December when the cards finally came into stock last week so that has left me a bit shy on cards that I planned for (they delivered 2 out of 18 pcs... after 5 weeks of waiting). I should be able to get another ~18 systems online, though, with the cards I stocked up on in November / December.

Any idea why B&H cancelled your back order?

They made a lot of claims... such as MSI cancelling part of their order, MSI making the limits, etc, etc.

IMHO it's all BS... and they didn't want to give me the price.

[sundownz]

3 phase power?

Were you able to pickup that pallet of z400s?

I didn't end up going after it as I can't get enough GPUs to justify it. Just been snapping up the cheapest Z400s on e-bay.

But yes it is 3-phase 240v coming in broken out to 120v circuits.

[nsummy]

MY LATEST UPDATE:





Got my new electrical panel all installed -- the electricians did an awesome job on it.

So far I have 12 of the Dell R815 servers running... 24 more of those to go & alot of cable organization on the back side (haha).

Then I will be putting together as many additional HP Z400s as I have GPUs for right now... B&H cancelled almost my entire back-order of 1080Tis from December when the cards finally came into stock last week so that has left me a bit shy on cards that I planned for (they delivered 2 out of 18 pcs... after 5 weeks of waiting). I should be able to get another ~18 systems online, though, with the cards I stocked up on in November / December.

I'm installing a main lug in my basement to bring in 240v for my antminer a3.  I just popped open my main breaker for the first time and I can say without a doubt I wish the electrician who did the initial wiring would have made it as organized as yours did hahaha.

Also, why are you using shelving instead of racks?  Seems like some racks and pdus would take up much less room.

[PharmEcis]

I didn't end up going after it as I can't get enough GPUs to justify it. Just been snapping up the cheapest Z400s on e-bay.

But yes it is 3-phase 240v coming in broken out to 120v circuits.

I think the entire pallet went for like $4,300 or so which is like $123 per unit and you don't know condition so probably not worth it anyways.

May I ask why only 120v circuits?  If you are deploying new, why didn't you run 240v circuits to the machines for higher density with lower amp draw?  From what I can see, it looks like you had them add a 200a panel but then put in like 30 20a circuits with six of them being tandem (cheater) breakers.  That's a total possible draw of 720a breaker wise but only in a 200a panel?

I've been deploying 20a 240v circuits and I terminate them with 2 15a 120v (each outlet getting a separate hot from the 240v circuit) and one L6-20R 20a 240v receptacles.  I then plug in a 16a 240v PDU that then powers all the big iron at 240v and allows me to have misc 120v items powered through the same circuit but through the 120v receptacles.  

If you are pulling 800w on the servers in yescrypt, at 120v that's getting close to 7a.  Technically that means 2 servers per breaker if you want to stay around 80% of line limit as 3 servers at full tilt should technically just about trip the breaker.  If it was 240, you could technically be powering 5 servers per breaker and be just over 80% load on the 20a circuit.

I'm sure you know all this, just curious as to the rationale behind the decision.  If you ever get a chance to respond to my PM, it would be appreciated!  Obviously you've been busy!

[PharmEcis]

I'm installing a main lug in my basement to bring in 240v for my antminer a3.  I just popped open my main breaker for the first time and I can say without a doubt I wish the electrician who did the initial wiring would have made it as organized as yours did hahaha.

Also, why are you using shelving instead of racks?  Seems like some racks and pdus would take up much less room.

Probably cost.  From the looks of the pictures, he has lots and lots of empty space in his warehouse.  Those shelving units are probably around $100 a piece or so.  Way cheaper than even used racks.

I'm using similar racks because I had a ton of them from my prior business.

[senseless]

I'm installing a main lug in my basement to bring in 240v for my antminer a3.  I just popped open my main breaker for the first time and I can say without a doubt I wish the electrician who did the initial wiring would have made it as organized as yours did hahaha.

Also, why are you using shelving instead of racks?  Seems like some racks and pdus would take up much less room.

Probably cost.  From the looks of the pictures, he has lots and lots of empty space in his warehouse.  Those shelving units are probably around $100 a piece or so.  Way cheaper than even used racks.

I'm using similar racks because I had a ton of them from my prior business.

You can get 42U frames on ebay for $100. I'm going that route.

[FallNAngel]

I'm installing a main lug in my basement to bring in 240v for my antminer a3.  I just popped open my main breaker for the first time and I can say without a doubt I wish the electrician who did the initial wiring would have made it as organized as yours did hahaha.

Also, why are you using shelving instead of racks?  Seems like some racks and pdus would take up much less room.

Probably cost.  From the looks of the pictures, he has lots and lots of empty space in his warehouse.  Those shelving units are probably around $100 a piece or so.  Way cheaper than even used racks.

I'm using similar racks because I had a ton of them from my prior business.

You can get 42U frames on ebay for $100. I'm going that route.

Keep in mind though, you'll need rack mount kits for those servers.  If the servers don't come with them, you won't be able to drop the servers into the rack.

[Firefox Italy]

Awesome job... Just one question.. Do you have air conditioning in this place? I think I will be necessary. The wood panels do not help..

[zabidin2]

Putting server in rack will safe space. So you can adding more server. Is it loud if you running cpuminer software with full load (mean use all threads available)? I'm trying cpu miner on supermicro. Lucky they have setting low speed fan so i can use all threads on each core in server. Right now test with 2 x Xeon E5-2683 v4.

[PharmEcis]

Have 2 HP Proliant DL385 G7's everything is working perfect except I cannot for the life of my figure out have to get them to
connect to the network. Lan or Wan just trying to run an OS from a thumbdrive to mine with the CPU's no luck with anything
Ubuntu or any of the standard ones. Been through every bios setting, anyone have any idea why I can not get this thing on
the network, I am sure it is something simple and stupid, have years of experience with computer, linux and trouble shooting
but right now I am out of ideas. Any help is appreciated.

Are you plugged into the iLo port or an actual network port?  If you noticed there are FIVE Ethernet jacks on the back of the server.  iLo port is also Ethernet but it will not get you on the network.  It is access to the subsystem that runs before the server actually boots an OS which gives you full control for monitoring, remote deployment etc.  Looking from the back, you should be plugged into the furthest network jack to the right, labeled #1.

Also, that box is going to pull more wattage than produce hash.  Only 61xx series Opterons with no AES in that box.

[PharmEcis]

After killing myself for the last 24 hours troubleshooting 2 r815's I picked up, I have learned a thing or two.

If the cover is not on the box, it will not produce full power.  Board will limit CPU power evident by power drawn at plug and performance in hash.  I chased my tail for quite a bit yesterday and today until I figured it out.  I got the servers Friday and only had enough memory on hand to get 2 cpu's running in one box.  I saw appropriate hash numbers on it.  Since I got 2 different speed CPUs for testings on the boxes, I tried the other set in dual mode and also saw the appropriate numbers.  I then noticed the 50 memory sticks I ordered had arrived yesterday afternoon and rushed to get the boxes fully up and running.  Since I had so many issues with memory population with the 1GB UDIMMS and even various 2GB RDIMMS I have, I had left the covers off and then could not figure out WhyTF in 4 cpu configs, I was down on power by 500H/s.  They are also very picky about the memory that goes in them.  Memory that works fine on other boxes comes up as failures on the r815s.

You must populate 16 DIMM slots.  If they aren't all the same size, you will have an annoying F1 key to push everything the box boots, I have not found a way around that yet.  The box will boot with 8 sticks but multiple threads will not have hwloc bind memory so performance will be garbage.

You will also get a slightly higher hash rate (100H/s or so) by disabling the gui and running from CLI only.

These things run great off 16GB usb flash drives.  

le sigh...