Building Cheap Miners : My "Secret"

[Storx]

I contacted the company that refurbishes them, he told me if it has the 875watt psu, then its the OEM one it came with from the factory, if it has the lower 550watt units, then its been replaced during the refurbished process, because that is all dell will replace them with currently... I have a new PSU coming in the mail today anyways that i ordered as a backup just to have on hand at all times to minimize downtime.. kinda glad i did... ill just jumper it and run it for the 4 GPU's ill run off the pc...

Question, the 875 said it comes with 2 x 8 pins and 2 x 6 pins, is this true?

I went ahead and ordered from china 250 x 6+2 connectors w/pins and 50 x 4pin molex so i can build my own cables in the future using high quality wire.. been running the amazon risers for 2 weeks now on my other rig and i noticed it had turned off on me when i got home and when i looked into it one of the sata power connections for the riser melted... probably cheap or loose connection... i wrapped all connections with electrical tape to ensure they stay tight.. but guess still just cheap cause the melting is on the back end of the sata connection that came with the riser...

[lexele]

Question, the 875 said it comes with 2 x 8 pins and 2 x 6 pins, is this true?

yes but no ;-)

as I stated before the 8 pins are not PEG connectors, there motherboard cpu connectors.
One is used by the motherboard. The other can be used with an adapter.

[Storx]

Question, the 875 said it comes with 2 x 8 pins and 2 x 6 pins, is this true?

yes but no ;-)

as I stated before the 8 pins are not PEG connectors, there motherboard cpu connectors.
One is used by the motherboard. The other can be used with an adapter.

Sorry i meant to say is the 2 x 8pins "Free" to be used, since mine doesnt have the same PSU, i didnt have one in front of me to know.. thinking of ordering another as i have 4 more GPU's coming......but you just answered what i was asking.. i forgot to add the free word to the statement... so now i kow if i get the 875w unit i will only have 1 8pin and 2 6pins... gonna just order another psu to run the GPU's tell i get adapters and connectors in... shipping from china is painfully slow when you have GPU's sitting on your workbench waiting to make money...

Random question: do you register all your GPU's online when you buy them for the warranty? ive never had to RMA a GPU to know how strict they are..

[sundownz]

I'd not touch those b stock cards with a 10 foot pole man...

a 1 year warranty on a $200+ card is the definition of gambling, plus the card was refurbished to begin with, so they have a history of problems ?

last time i bought used video cards in bulk from a supposedly reputable seller online all my cards died after six months of heavy mining, they barely paid for themsleves are are now sitting in the trash
and I only paid 125 per card.  Paying 350+ is maddness man

I will be sure to update the forum if I have any issues with these cards and/or if I have NO issues as well.

Although, direct from the MFG a B-Stock and/or Refurbished product should be pretty good.

Rolling the dice on this batch I suppose -- all my other cards have been new.

One card that I've used so far had a DOA fan. I've got an RMA and it's going smoothly so far.

Otherwise these cards look basically brand new.

[Storx]

Question for you, trying to gauge if i got a bad t5500, i booted it up ran it through the paces of updating everything... but god this computer has a painfully slow lag between the time i try to do something to the moment it computes it on the screen... simple things like pressing start menu and trying to type windows update to search for it has like a 3-10 second delay... ive never had a xeon pc or dell pc like this so im not sure what to expect...just seems very lagging and slow.. when i check task manager its always at 99% cpu it seems...

[sundownz]

Question for you, trying to gauge if i got a bad t5500, i booted it up ran it through the paces of updating everything... but god this computer has a painfully slow lag between the time i try to do something to the moment it computes it on the screen... simple things like pressing start menu and trying to type windows update to search for it has like a 3-10 second delay... ive never had a xeon pc or dell pc like this so im not sure what to expect...just seems very lagging and slow.. when i check task manager its always at 99% cpu it seems...

A few of the refurbs I've built up were super slow for a while until they finished updating -- high CPU & Hard Disk usage while it did that.

[Storx]

Question for you, trying to gauge if i got a bad t5500, i booted it up ran it through the paces of updating everything... but god this computer has a painfully slow lag between the time i try to do something to the moment it computes it on the screen... simple things like pressing start menu and trying to type windows update to search for it has like a 3-10 second delay... ive never had a xeon pc or dell pc like this so im not sure what to expect...just seems very lagging and slow.. when i check task manager its always at 99% cpu it seems...

A few of the refurbs I've built up were super slow for a while until they finished updating -- high CPU & Hard Disk usage while it did that.

hmm ok, well ive had it running for about 14hrs now letting it update or do its thing while i assemble a rig... the speed has not changed, i hope it gets better...

[lexele]

I have 3 t5500 under win7, no lag at all.

[Suicide_Rants]

I have even cheaper:
I bought several Dell T5500,100$ each. They have plenty of Ram, 4 PCIe and 875W PSU. The case comes with a HDD support plate where you can put a GC.
with some risers and adapters you're setup for less than 150$

Link to Dell T5500s? I can't seem to find the one you're talking about.

[lexele]

I have even cheaper:
I bought several Dell T5500,100$ each. They have plenty of Ram, 4 PCIe and 875W PSU. The case comes with a HDD support plate where you can put a GC.
with some risers and adapters you're setup for less than 150$

Link to Dell T5500s? I can't seem to find the one you're talking about.

https://www.ebay.fr/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313.TR11.TRC1.A0.H0.Xdell+t5500.TRS0&_nkw=dell+t5500&_sacat=0

[sundownz]

So here is some more info on my T5500 rig and how it is set up as of today :


* 4x Geforce 1060 Cards


* I have used several adapters.

-----

I ordered the following to replaces both SATA to 6-pin connections that I am doing right now :

https://www.moddiy.com/products/Bitcoin-Mining-CPU-8pin-TO-2-PCI%252dE-6%252b2pin-Splitter-Cable.html

This converts the 8-pin CPU plug to 2x PCI-E power plugs.

-----

In the mean-time... I tested with 3x 1060 cards for a few days (so only one SATA to 6-pin plug) and it was totally stable. So I put the 4th card in with another SATA to 6-pin plug (on a separate wire run from PSU).

The SATA to 6-pin MAY work... but I am a little concerned for the long-term. I am only doing that because the 8-pin to PCI-E plugs will take 1-2 weeks to arrive.

[sundownz]

Well some bad news.

The 4th PCI-E slot on the board appears to have failed during benchmarking on Nicehash (I walked off & it had rebooted when I came back).

Any card plugged into that slot is no longer recognized.

Looks like this will be a 3-card machine!

[Storx]

Well some bad news.

The 4th PCI-E slot on the board appears to have failed during benchmarking on Nicehash (I walked off & it had rebooted when I came back).

Any card plugged into that slot is no longer recognized.

Looks like this will be a 3-card machine!

I had this happen to me on my first 4 card machine (NON-t5500 build), it was the power to the riser was to low.. the channel all the risers were plugged into on the psu was maxed out dropping to low when everything powered up..... i commented about it on this forum site and bits be talking told me you can only power 2 risers max per sata power cable, anything more than that is a 50/50 chance.... so i moved 2 per cable and they all 4 were recognized.. it all came down to lack of power at the riser..

[sundownz]

Well some bad news.

The 4th PCI-E slot on the board appears to have failed during benchmarking on Nicehash (I walked off & it had rebooted when I came back).

Any card plugged into that slot is no longer recognized.

Looks like this will be a 3-card machine!

I had this happen to me on my first 4 card machine (NON-t5500 build), it was the power to the riser was to low.. the channel all the risers were plugged into on the psu was maxed out dropping to low when everything powered up..... i commented about it on this forum site and bits be talking told me you can only power 2 risers max per sata power cable, anything more than that is a 50/50 chance.... so i moved 2 per cable and they all 4 were recognized.. it all came down to lack of power at the riser..

I will try moving power plugs around, thanks =) Also I think I will wait until my PIC-E to 8-PIN CPU plug comes in so I am not putting so much load on the SATA plugs.

[Kernel75]

Ciao!
This my very first message on this board and I'm a noob in mining but I'm quite used to computer hardware and software.

At my office we have a Dell Precision T7500 that had a couple of Tesla M2050 and as soon as I thought about using 4 to 5 years old workstation to build a mining rig I found this thread.
I read it from the beginning three times and then I decided to order my Dell Precision T5500 this morning from an ebay seller in Germany (I am in Italy).

Looking at the spec sheet ( http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/precn/en/dell_precision_t5500_specsheet.pdf ) I read:  two PCIe x16 Gen 2 graphics slots up to 150W each.
Considering that GTX 1060 is rated @120W I was wondering if I could connect two GTX1060 straight into their slots without using additional power connectors that would be available for additional cards (a third one could be connected to the first PCIe slot with any riser; a second one could be connected to the PCIe slot between the two GPU slots if I could find a very very flat riser cable).

Will I bake everything with this approach?

Thanks,
Roberto

[vapourminer]

Looking at the spec sheet ( http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/precn/en/dell_precision_t5500_specsheet.pdf ) I read:  two PCIe x16 Gen 2 graphics slots up to 150W each.
Considering that GTX 1060 is rated @120W I was wondering if I could connect two GTX1060 straight into their slots without using additional power connectors that would be available for additional cards (a third one could be connected to the first PCIe slot with any riser; a second one could be connected to the PCIe slot between the two GPU slots if I could find a very very flat riser cable).

no matter how much a pcie slot can deliver if a card has a PEG connector it will need to be plugged in. the way cards are designed it powers different parts of the card with the pcie and peg connector.

[lexele]

Well some bad news.

The 4th PCI-E slot on the board appears to have failed during benchmarking on Nicehash (I walked off & it had rebooted when I came back).

Any card plugged into that slot is no longer recognized.

Looks like this will be a 3-card machine!

I'm surprised it did run at all... you expect a bit too much from the sata connectors :-D
You probably burned the riser (witch I did with a rx 470 on my t5500).

My 8 pin to Pcie PEG arrived yesterday, I tested them right away with a R9 290x.... they give enough power for ETH, but  dual mining it rebooted after pushing dcri to 28.

Although, I power 2x480 dual mining without problems out of the same connector it's running for >12h now.

[Storx]

Well T5500 Rig 1 lasted a whole 2 weeks nearly mining lol... woke up today to a dead rig when checking on the status... went out restarted it, booted up with a 1 and 4 code flashing on the front panel... i let it run while going to do an errand, came back home to it dead again with same code... called newegg they are RMAing it... thankfully i have my spare coming on Saturday, i had this odd feeling that i should keep one on standbye  a few days ago.. so i ordered one of the 180 versions with the newer cpu and more memory... was only a few bucks more... gonna keep restarting this thing over and over tell i get the spare in tomorrow in the mail...

T5500 rig 2 and 3 are still going strong... that first one was the one that was dog slow from the start... knew something was wrong when i got the other 2 in and they were worlds faster than the first one..

[sundownz]

Well some bad news.

The 4th PCI-E slot on the board appears to have failed during benchmarking on Nicehash (I walked off & it had rebooted when I came back).

Any card plugged into that slot is no longer recognized.

Looks like this will be a 3-card machine!

I had this happen to me on my first 4 card machine (NON-t5500 build), it was the power to the riser was to low.. the channel all the risers were plugged into on the psu was maxed out dropping to low when everything powered up..... i commented about it on this forum site and bits be talking told me you can only power 2 risers max per sata power cable, anything more than that is a 50/50 chance.... so i moved 2 per cable and they all 4 were recognized.. it all came down to lack of power at the riser..

I will try moving power plugs around, thanks =) Also I think I will wait until my PIC-E to 8-PIN CPU plug comes in so I am not putting so much load on the SATA plugs.

You were correct Storx.

My adapted came in FINALLY & I was able to switch the load over to the 8-PIN CPU plug and the 4th GPU works again.

So I will have three of these T5500s in my farm as of now.

If thinking pick back up in the mining world I'll add more since I got enough connectors for more.

[sundownz]

Here is the final setup... each Riser is powered from a different "string" of wires from the power supply.

I am using both factory 6-pin plugs to two GPUs.

Then I am using the 8-pin CPU plug for the other two GPUs.