Building Cheap Miners : My "Secret"

[dudel42]

i ordered two of Dell Vostro 260 .... it has 4 pci express ports and it.s 100€

where in the EU can you find something like that?

[bubislav]

i ordered two of Dell Vostro 260 .... it has 4 pci express ports and it.s 100€

where in the EU can you find something like that?

there u go
https://www.ebay.de/sch/PC-Desktops-All-in-Ones/179/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=Dell+Vostro+260
i havent tested them yet but i will let you know how it goes once i receive them

[SQ1]

What hashrate are you guys getting on the X5660? I'm curious as I am just getting started with Intense Coins on XMRIG and am just looking for a sanity check that I have things running correctly.

[LilGigaByte]

Thank you for sharing such information!

[Dotem]

Hi all.  Long time lurker (BTC on Radeon 7950s long time. lol), first time poster.  I want to thank you all for the information in this thread.

Also, for those of you considering dual power supplies, I have used these to activate the second PS:

http://www.add2psu.com

No affiliation, blah, blah... just thought you might find them handy.

[mobomofo]

Sundownz thank you for the great info. But a quick question... have you ever tried using these in the 16x slots. I know you would need a second psu, but will this allow you to go further than 3 cards...in looking at dells specs, there are 40 pci lanes on the chipset, and with two 16x dedicated for video, I would assume all 32 video lanes in theory could be split in 1x intervals.  Just wondering your thoughts or experiences. I have several T7500s im looking to profit from and if i can build at least an 8 gpu rig (2 -4x risers) id be a happy camper.

[jakkwb]

So...Sundownz, being a business owner, are you able to use this equipment as a tax write-off? I am not sure where cryptocurrency stands in all of this.

[nsummy]

What hashrate are you guys getting on the X5660? I'm curious as I am just getting started with Intense Coins on XMRIG and am just looking for a sanity check that I have things running correctly.

I don't own one but according to this:  http://monerobenchmarks.info/list.php  it should be between 180-225 h/s per processor.  What is your hashrate and what miner are you using?

[lexele]

i ordered two of Dell Vostro 260 .... it has 4 pci express ports and it.s 100€

where in the EU can you find something like that?

there u go
https://www.ebay.de/sch/PC-Desktops-All-in-Ones/179/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=Dell+Vostro+260
i havent tested them yet but i will let you know how it goes once i receive them

Could be a good mining rig, Sad the PSU is so weak. I stick with the t5500

[johnyjohnb]

i ordered two of Dell Vostro 260 .... it has 4 pci express ports and it.s 100€

where in the EU can you find something like that?

there u go
https://www.ebay.de/sch/PC-Desktops-All-in-Ones/179/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=Dell+Vostro+260
i havent tested them yet but i will let you know how it goes once i receive them

Damn, these is a good idea. What cards are you going to put into them and how much can the PSU handle?

[jakkwb]

I am getting 180-187 with my six core 2.6ghz xeon. I have a 3.06 coming in today to try out.

[kumara]

Hey guys,

Figured I'd share since I've learned alot on these forums.

I came across a "trick" to build cheaper 3-4 GPU miners.

I've bought 9 of these workstations so far and am having fantastic results -- they are rock solid:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883284912&cm_re=HP_Z400-_-83-284-912-_-Product

It's hardly any more than just buying a full copy of Windows 10 to buy the whole system.

-----

In any event... there is a "secret" to these things... the power supply plug on the motherboard is "EPS" and an ATX supply will NOT work.

So what you do... is buy a PSU extension cable and modify it like so:

https://plus.google.com/photos/111388964237560787781/album/5362166283613539361/5366587361195860994

** -- This is NOT my data but it is what I found when doing my research.

-----

I have build 3 & 4 GPU rigs using PCI-E extenders with these systems -- I am using 750-watt Rosewill Quark PSUs for mine.

Total cost is quite low... and I can still use cheap PSUs to keep my initial cost down (I stay away from more than 4 GPUs... generally I just use 3 per system).

I plan to build up about 30 of these total over time. But I am tapped out on buying them for now so I figured I'd share the info.

-----

I've also found dirt cheap RAM for them... since they only come with 4 GB:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/132163798234?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Some of them have 6-slots for RAM and others have 4-slots so you can do from 8-12 GB per system with these cheap 2 GB sticks.

-----

One more thing... EVGA has good deals on B-Stock Geforce cards... I ordered some today:

https://www.evga.com/products/productlist.aspx?type=8&family=GeForce+10+Series+Family

You can use 4x 1060 or 3x 1070 with those HP systems & a 750-watt power supply no problems (the 750-watt QUARKS are on sale for $84.99 on Newegg right now too).

Thank you for starting this thread and many thanks to others here who have replied. I am looking to start cheaply to build a multi-gpu mining rig.

[PharmEcis]

Sundownz, my wallet would like to thank you for the more than $5k I've spent in the last 24 hours to start my own setup.  In many ways I feel like a big dummy.  Being an IT hardware guy all my life this is right up my alley and really, mining feels no different than running prime95 and submitting results... lol  I should have started this years ago when I was in my 5k sq ft automotive shop and had plenty of power.  I'd be a millionaire by now if I had.  I'm not a trader.  I'm too emotional so I do stupid things with the little bit I've tried.  However, mining is something tangible and I can definitely wrap my head around getting paid for work.

I dipped my toes in the mining pool finally this week and once I realized that with the hardware I already had (1080, 780 and a 7950) I was going to average $300/m... Well I went a little crazy buying things.  I've got 9 1060s and 3 1080s on the way! lol  

I bought a DL580 G7 w/ 4 cpus to setup as my first rack.  I'm comfortable in Linux so I figured I'd try to get the one machine up and off the ground to start.  It coming with 4x1200w PSU's made me feel it was good value for the $.  I want to CPU mine and also run 11 GPUs through it.

I've got lots of space and currently 400A of service.  If all goes well I'm thinking of burying containers in the ground and using geothermal cooling loops to keep the hardware cool as I'm in TX and it gets rather hot down here.

For the remote access stuff, Google's Chrome Remote Desktop is basically Windows RDP with a FAR nicer interface.  It lists all the PCs and tells you which ones are up or down and even last online time if a box goes down.  I was a hardcore Windows RDP user and I switched to the Chrome version.  All you have to do is run the Chrome RDP installer while you are logged into Chrome and then from anywhere in the world that PC would be accessible when you are logged into Chrome.

Thanks for all of your posts.  A lot of people don't want to share their secrets or how they are doing things so what you are doing really is helping out the average Joe!

[rs1x]

Sundownz, my wallet would like to thank you for the more than $5k I've spent in the last 24 hours to start my own setup.  In many ways I feel like a big dummy.  Being an IT hardware guy all my life this is right up my alley and really, mining feels no different than running prime95 and submitting results... lol  I should have started this years ago when I was in my 5k sq ft automotive shop and had plenty of power.  I'd be a millionaire by now if I had.  I'm not a trader.  I'm too emotional so I do stupid things with the little bit I've tried.  However, mining is something tangible and I can definitely wrap my head around getting paid for work.

I dipped my toes in the mining pool finally this week and once I realized that with the hardware I already had (1080, 780 and a 7950) I was going to average $300/m... Well I went a little crazy buying things.  I've got 9 1060s and 3 1080s on the way! lol  

I bought a DL580 G7 w/ 4 cpus to setup as my first rack.  I'm comfortable in Linux so I figured I'd try to get the one machine up and off the ground to start.  It coming with 4x1200w PSU's made me feel it was good value for the $.  I want to CPU mine and also run 11 GPUs through it.

I've got lots of space and currently 400A of service.  If all goes well I'm thinking of burying containers in the ground and using geothermal cooling loops to keep the hardware cool as I'm in TX and it gets rather hot down here.

For the remote access stuff, Google's Chrome Remote Desktop is basically Windows RDP with a FAR nicer interface.  It lists all the PCs and tells you which ones are up or down and even last online time if a box goes down.  I was a hardcore Windows RDP user and I switched to the Chrome version.  All you have to do is run the Chrome RDP installer while you are logged into Chrome and then from anywhere in the world that PC would be accessible when you are logged into Chrome.

Thanks for all of your posts.  A lot of people don't want to share their secrets or how they are doing things so what you are doing really is helping out the average Joe!

If you are comfortable with Linux you should check out SMOS.  It's very user friendly, you actually don't need to know linux at all and you need to worry about RDP or Chrome RDP.  You manage all rigs from a WEBUI.

[PharmEcis]

If you are comfortable with Linux you should check out SMOS.  It's very user friendly, you actually don't need to know linux at all and you need to worry about RDP or Chrome RDP.  You manage all rigs from a WEBUI.

Yeah moving to Linux, management was a key point.  Obviously, RDP or CRDP are primarily for Windows and since Sundownz is using W10pro, that was directed for him. 

[rs1x]

If you are comfortable with Linux you should check out SMOS.  It's very user friendly, you actually don't need to know linux at all and you need to worry about RDP or Chrome RDP.  You manage all rigs from a WEBUI.

Yeah moving to Linux, management was a key point.  Obviously, RDP or CRDP are primarily for Windows and since Sundownz is using W10pro, that was directed for him. 

gotcha - I was an all windows guy, all my rigs were windows because having teh RDP capability from my phone anywhere in teh world was important.  But ive been running into more stablity issues that probably could be from windows and or drivers.  So i switched over to linux where I dont have to worry about installing drivers.

there are a couple other cool linux distros here on the forum as well.  HIVE and the nvOC  .I've looked into them all and they seem just as user friendly.

[PharmEcis]

I'm not too worried about user friendly, I started using Linux when Redhat and Suse were the major players and Ubuntu wasn't even a twinkle in an eye yet... LOL  If you think Linux has a lack of drivers for certain things now...  

More importantly, with the DL580 G7 I bought, I'm more worried about running the OS off a pen drive than the 8x 10k SAS drives the box is coming with... Those are going straight up on Ebay for $10/.  Simply not worth the power draw.  The box I got came with 4x1200 PSU and 4x6c CPUs & 64GB RAM.  Plan is to pull 2 of the PSU's to power the GPUs with breakout boards and leave 2 in the box for a true redundant PSU setup.  My box didn't have the 2nd PCIe I/O board so I ordered one for 11 total GPUs on it.

Plan is to add a 2nd level to the open part of the DL580 chassis to house all the cards.  The box is big enough they should all fit above it. 

I want to mimic Sundownz strategy of using every cycle possible to generate income which is why I went for a 4 CPU setup to run the first miner.  If the CPUs can cover the cost of the electricity for all the "real" workers, that's a win!

What I desperately need to do is get the 50' antenna tower up so I can run my Mimosa equipment for my 750mbps backhaul to a location a mile away that actually has proper Internet.  I'm currently tethering off a 4G phone.  Thank God for AT&T Unlimited.  I blow through over 200GB a month and don't get throttled since network congestion in my area is non existent.  150ms average ping to mining servers though...

Here is to hoping that I didn't get on the bandwagon too late!

[VegasJeff]

I put in an order to get an HP z400 to build my first mining rig. I'm a big IT hardware guy too so I'm surprised I didn't find out about mining alt coins sooner. I did research Bitcoin a little bit back 4 years ago but when I found out you needed expensive ASIC's I figured it was too late. I also was big into distributed computing 7 or 8 years ago doing Seti@Home and Einstein@Home on BOINC on multiple computers. If only I would have found out about Bitcoin back then I would certainly be a multi-millionaire now. lol Better late than never I guess.

[nsummy]

Sundownz, my wallet would like to thank you for the more than $5k I've spent in the last 24 hours to start my own setup.  In many ways I feel like a big dummy.  Being an IT hardware guy all my life this is right up my alley and really, mining feels no different than running prime95 and submitting results... lol  I should have started this years ago when I was in my 5k sq ft automotive shop and had plenty of power.  I'd be a millionaire by now if I had.  I'm not a trader.  I'm too emotional so I do stupid things with the little bit I've tried.  However, mining is something tangible and I can definitely wrap my head around getting paid for work.

I dipped my toes in the mining pool finally this week and once I realized that with the hardware I already had (1080, 780 and a 7950) I was going to average $300/m... Well I went a little crazy buying things.  I've got 9 1060s and 3 1080s on the way! lol  

I bought a DL580 G7 w/ 4 cpus to setup as my first rack.  I'm comfortable in Linux so I figured I'd try to get the one machine up and off the ground to start.  It coming with 4x1200w PSU's made me feel it was good value for the $.  I want to CPU mine and also run 11 GPUs through it.

I've got lots of space and currently 400A of service.  If all goes well I'm thinking of burying containers in the ground and using geothermal cooling loops to keep the hardware cool as I'm in TX and it gets rather hot down here.

For the remote access stuff, Google's Chrome Remote Desktop is basically Windows RDP with a FAR nicer interface.  It lists all the PCs and tells you which ones are up or down and even last online time if a box goes down.  I was a hardcore Windows RDP user and I switched to the Chrome version.  All you have to do is run the Chrome RDP installer while you are logged into Chrome and then from anywhere in the world that PC would be accessible when you are logged into Chrome.

Thanks for all of your posts.  A lot of people don't want to share their secrets or how they are doing things so what you are doing really is helping out the average Joe!

You and me both.  I've worked in IT my whole life and I still fail to grasp how I didn't get into mining until last summer.    How much did you pay for your 1060s and 1080s?

[nsummy]

I suppose its my turn to contribute something.  If you are into Cryptonight mining, which it sounds like a few of you are, check out this Gigabyte mini-pc for $250:  https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856164036

You won't be adding any graphics cards (unless you are using eGPUS) but this thing will hash at 614 H/S.  You might be wondering how its possible to get that kind of performance out of a cpu with a 6 mb l3 cache.  The game changer is that this processor has an embedded Iris Pro GPU with a 128 MB L4 cache.  XMR-Stak recently included an optimization to take advantage of this cache space.  It should ROI itself in 2.5 months.  You have to provide your own ram and HD, but it does come with a wifi card so you could put this thing anywhere.