Building Cheap Miners : My "Secret"

[spinx]

Tried reading through the whole thread...but it's really long

Has anyone found any "cheap" 4U+ rack mount systems that can run 4-7 cards internally?

The HP DL580 G7 can be found for less than 500$: https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/v2/getpdf.aspx/c04123267.pdf?ver=19+

+ 591205-001 HP DL580 G7 PCI EXPRESS RISER CARD

+ https://www.ebay.com/itm/10pin-to-6-6pin-Power-Adapter-Cable-for-HP-ProLiant-DL580-G7-and-GPU-50cm/141964325336

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[MinersRus]

The only problem you will have is that a lot of the things you want to sell, won't.  I've had cartridges on Ebay for months now at the CHEAPEST price of all listed, and I've sold ZERO.  

Well I do know the 320 GB (80x 4GB) PC3-10600R memory that I got in those five DL580's will sell.

[PharmEcis]

The only problem you will have is that a lot of the things you want to sell, won't.  I've had cartridges on Ebay for months now at the CHEAPEST price of all listed, and I've sold ZERO.   

Well I do know the 320 GB (80x 4GB) PC3-10660R memory that I got in those five DL580's will sell.

Memory will be the first to go.  Resellers will send you lowball offers. 

[4thKor]

Just found this thread. I've got two DL580 G7's with E7-4870's. I'm currently mining with 30 GPU's on standard mobo's. Never could get GPU's to work in these. Is it still profitable to set these up and eliminate the "small" rigs? I am currently running ZEC, but would switch out to something else if profitability is there. Would definitely want to swap CPU's to 8837's.

[spinx]

Just found this thread. I've got two DL580 G7's with E7-4870's. I'm currently mining with 30 GPU's on standard mobo's. Never could get GPU's to work in these. Is it still profitable to set these up and eliminate the "small" rigs? I am currently running ZEC, but would switch out to something else if profitability is there. Would definitely want to swap CPU's to 8837's.

It all depends i would say. The DL580's are power-hoggers. What is nice is H/s per $ on the initial costs, but running them worth profit requires cheap electricity since there is a lot of overhead power drain on these systems. If your electricity is not cheap, i wouldn't mind moving my cards from the standard mobos. Perhaps you could take 1-2 PSU's from them switch to, since they are 90-95% platinum rated. Then you need breakout boards.

[MinersRus]

Just found this thread. I've got two DL580 G7's with E7-4870's. I'm currently mining with 30 GPU's on standard mobo's. Never could get GPU's to work in these. Is it still profitable to set these up and eliminate the "small" rigs? I am currently running ZEC, but would switch out to something else if profitability is there. Would definitely want to swap CPU's to 8837's.

It all depends i would say. The DL580's are power-hoggers. What is nice is H/s per $ on the initial costs, but running them worth profit requires cheap electricity since there is a lot of overhead power drain on these systems. If your electricity is not cheap, i wouldn't mind moving my cards from the standard mobos. Perhaps you could take 1-2 PSU's from them switch to, since they are 90-95% platinum rated. Then you need breakout boards.

The power supplies that came with my five HP DL580 G7's are only Silver Rated. Efficiency ( % ) is 87% at 120 VAC and 89% at 240 VAC.

The following is found in the "HP Common Slot Power Supplies QuickSpecs - DA - 14209 Worldwide — Version 1 — March 6, 2012" PDF that I found somewhere on the internet. It is the only manual that had the exact part number match 490594-001 and 498152-001 for the HP DL580 G7 Power Supplies.

HP 1200W Common Slot Silver Hot Plug Power
Supply Kit (500172-B21)
HP's Generic Part Number 490594-001
HP's Spares Part Number 498152-001
Input Voltage Range ( V rms ) 100-240
Frequency Range (Nominal) ( Hz ) 50 / 60
Nominal Input Voltage ( Vrms ) 100 120 200 208 220 230 240
Maximum Rated Output Wattage Rating 800 900 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200
Nominal Input Current ( A rms ) 9.7 9.0 7.0 6.8 6.4 6.1 5.9
Maximum Rated Input Wattage Rating ( Watts ) 930 1034 1348 1348 1348 1348 1348
Maximum Rated VA ( Volt-Amp ) 970 1079 1406 1406 1406 1406 1406
Efficiency ( % ) 86 87 89 89 89 89 89
Power Factor 0.97
Leakage Current ( mA ) 0.42 0.50 0.83 0.87 0.92 0.96 1.00
Maximum Inrush Current ( A peak ) 30
Maximum Inrush Current duration ( mS ) 20
Maximum British Thermal Unit Rating ( BTU-Hr ) 3174 3530 4600 4600 4600 4600 4600

[spinx]

I had 748287-B21's : https://www.hpe.com/us/en/product-catalog/servers/power-supplies/pip.hpe-1200w-common-slot-platinum-hot-plug-power-supply-kit.6458603.html

[MinersRus]

I had 748287-B21's : https://www.hpe.com/us/en/product-catalog/servers/power-supplies/pip.hpe-1200w-common-slot-platinum-hot-plug-power-supply-kit.6458603.html

Interesting.

My HP DL580 G7's which came with either quad X7560 or quad E7-4850 processors only had the Silver rated power supplies. I wonder if the power supplies were an option when originally ordered or if the better ones (Gold/Platinum) came with the more expensive systems.

[MinersRus]

Just found this thread. I've got two DL580 G7's with E7-4870's. I'm currently mining with 30 GPU's on standard mobo's. Never could get GPU's to work in these. Is it still profitable to set these up and eliminate the "small" rigs? I am currently running ZEC, but would switch out to something else if profitability is there. Would definitely want to swap CPU's to 8837's.

It all depends i would say. The DL580's are power-hoggers. What is nice is H/s per $ on the initial costs, but running them worth profit requires cheap electricity since there is a lot of overhead power drain on these systems.

One easy way to save power on the DL580 G7's is only run with the minimum number of memory cartridges. Each cartridge uses 30 watts.
Also mining doesn't really need much in the amount of memory.

This is from a PM on the subject of saving power:

I have now gotten three DL580 G7's up and running with HiveOS. I am always looking for ways to save power on the DL580's and this is a way to save an addition 90 watts per system with very little hit to the processor hash rate.

From my previous post(s) I have found that each memory cartridge uses 30 watts. So the first thing I did was to remove four of the eight cartridges and have only one per processor. That saved 120 watts per system.

With further thought, since XMR-Stak running on processor cores should only use the internal L3 cache, what if I only had one cartridge on processor 0. The other processors if they need to get to memory would hop from processor to processor.

Doing that XMR Stak only took a 1-2% hit to hash rate from 1618 to 1587 on one DL580 and 1617 to 1599 on another. Booting up the DL580 with only one cartridge is fine as is booting HiveOS. The only thing you will see in the when XMR-Stak starts up that it will say "hwloc can't bind memory" but as seen above it really doesn't effect hash rates much at all.

One physical issue I need to address is that without memory cartridges installed the metal flap closes the vent to the front which does restrict air flow. I either need to remove those flaps or install a wooden spacer bar that would hold them open.

Follow-up:

I have a solution for holding open the flaps.

I am using one of these small clips for each flap that I want to force open:

https://www.amazon.com/Staples-Metal-Binder-Clips-10667-CC/dp/B01LYTURRW

When they are attached holding the flap open flip down the metal loop on the inside of the case and on the metal loop on the outside squeeze it to remove it. Keep at least one metal loop if you want to easily remove the clip again. The metal shield over the memory and CPUs attaches fine with these clips installed and the whole processor/memory assembly fits into the unit without issue.

I now have three openings for air, one into the single memory cartridge and the other three in front of processors 2, 3 and 4.

Another solution:

I ended up using a 2" wide piece of cardboard cut the width of the proc/mem case with 3 slots the flaps to keep them open, I also ended up with one slot open per CPU.

Final Follow-up:

In case the cardboard doesn't last I need to point out a few updates to my solution. I have only one memory cartridge installed in the top slot (I'll call it #1). The other three flaps I have open is #2, #5 and #7. The clips are also positioned to the left end of the flaps that way they don't block the 4 metal tabs on the top plate so that it can cleanly be installed. The reason I do flap #2 and not #3 is if I did #3 it does not allow the front handle to close properly. Even with not doing #3 the handle will close but not latch unless you give the blue latch some downward pressure.

Also I feel comfortable in that the clips will stay in place because of their strength and that the top metal plate holds them down.

[dhouse]

Yes some people here do have very large budgets but their ideas like using the HP Z400, or the HP DL580 G7's with Xeon E7-8837's, or the Dell R815's with AMD 6200/6300 Opterons are very good ideas in how to build a farm at a much lower cost. My primary GPUs that I mine with are GTX 750's (Nvidia Maxwell) that I buy for less than $40.

Whoa how are 750's profitable? I guess at that low price it would make sense, but seems like it would take forever for ROI just the computer costs.

edit: don't mean to challenge or disagree, i am actually very intrigued by low cost mining options and just curious how you make it profitable.

I have 37 GTX 750's installed in my various systems. On Monero using XMR-Stak they hash 230 H/s on average. Low of 220 H/s high of 250 H/s if they can overclock.

That gives me 8510 H/s for just those 37 GTX 750's.

They use about 38 watts each while mining. Power usage is 1406 watts internally. With 85% efficient power supplies that means 1654 watts at the wall.

Monero Mining Profitability for the above cards
https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/xmr?HashingPower=8510&HashingUnit=H%2Fs&PowerConsumption=1654&CostPerkWh=0.071&MiningPoolFee=1

Yearly I will mine about 24 XMR with a profit of about $4500 after power costs on those 37 GTX 750's.

Also realize that the systems I purchased, like the HP DL580 G7's that have 11 PCIe slots, are also mining on the processors which adds 1560 H/s to each system.


-------------------------------


If you just look at a single GTX 750 purchased at $38.50 (current eBay price) and use these numbers:

220 H/s - lowest that they do
38 watts = 44.7 watts at the wall
7.1 cents per KWh - my rate
No mining fee - I set donation level to 0.0% in XMR-Stak
1% Pool Fee

https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/xmr?HashingPower=220&HashingUnit=H%2Fs&PowerConsumption=44.7&CostPerkWh=0.071&MiningPoolFee=1

Shows a profit of $115 yearly so at $38.50 each one is paid for in four months.

-------------------------------

On the subject of ROI on computer costs here is a breakdown on the three HP DL580 G7's with 20 GTX 750's running in them.

Costs: HP DL580 G7 one at $330, two at $487 for a total of $1304. Twenty GTX 750's at an average cost of $40 totals an additional $800 for a Grand Total of $2104.

There are some other miscellaneous costs (Mining rack, 60GB SSD drives, Power Cables, Xeon E7-8837's) but these will be offset by selling the extra 1200 Watt Power supplies, 192 GB of PC3-10600R Memory, Xeon Processors and Memory Cartridges that came with the DL580's that are not needed. Selling these will actually lower my overall cost.

These three systems are on the Free HiveOS mining Monero at a rate of 9.34 KH/s using 2.49 KW at the wall.

https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/xmr?HashingPower=9340&HashingUnit=H%2Fs&PowerConsumption=2490&CostPerkWh=0.071&MiningPoolFee=1

That results in a profit of $4631 yearly so these systems will be paid for in 5.5 months. I have been mining with them for about a month so 4.5 more months to pure profit.

whoa that is awesome  thanks!!

[senseless]

I'm quite interested in this if you decide you want to sell your software.

I've reached out to you a couple of times thinking you might have some interest in being pitched. But I don't plan on releasing any firmwares or selling devices.

Damn... must be in my PMs... I almost never look there. Will check it =)

I'm considering possibly building boards to take the profit out of it for bittware. I'm unhappy that they're going to screw the community. See sig.

[MinersRus]

For those interested in mining with GTX 750's here is an eBay link to what I am currently purchasing.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ZOTAC-NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-750-1-GB-GTX750-1GD5-Video-Card-128bit-DVI-HDMI-VGA/142732559955

These GTX 750's are Zotac branded, have the full double wide bracket (easier to attach to mining frames) and can be easily overclocked. I am getting around 245 H/s at 38.5 watts on these.

Another good thing is that these need no additional power cables as they get all their power from the PCIe slot. With the power draw being so low you can use risers that are powered with SATA to 6-pin cables.

[4thKor]

For those interested in mining with GTX 750's here is an eBay link to what I am currently purchasing.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ZOTAC-NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-750-1-GB-GTX750-1GD5-Video-Card-128bit-DVI-HDMI-VGA/142732559955

These GTX 750's are Zotac branded, have the full double wide bracket (easier to attach to mining frames) and can be easily overclocked. I am getting around 245 H/s at 38.5 watts on these.

Another good thing is that these need no additional power cables as they get all their power from the PCIe slot. With the power draw being so low you can use risers that are powered with SATA to 6-pin cables.

Would you mind posting a pic showing how you've set these up? I'm assuming you've mounted a mining case on top of the chassis. I've got one PCIe expansion card that I can use. The other system doesn't have one, but if I can set the first one up it shouldn't be a big deal to find another board.

And do you think Linux Mint would work for an O/S?

The 750's are definitely cheap enough, but I'm also wondering about using 770's and 950's, of which I have several of sitting here collecting dust. Power usage on the 770's may be way out of line though.

[MinersRus]

For those interested in mining with GTX 750's here is an eBay link to what I am currently purchasing.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ZOTAC-NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-750-1-GB-GTX750-1GD5-Video-Card-128bit-DVI-HDMI-VGA/142732559955

These GTX 750's are Zotac branded, have the full double wide bracket (easier to attach to mining frames) and can be easily overclocked. I am getting around 245 H/s at 38.5 watts on these.

Another good thing is that these need no additional power cables as they get all their power from the PCIe slot. With the power draw being so low you can use risers that are powered with SATA to 6-pin cables.

Would you mind posting a pic showing how you've set these up? I'm assuming you've mounted a mining case on top of the chassis. I've got one PCIe expansion card that I can use. The other system doesn't have one, but if I can set the first one up it shouldn't be a big deal to find another board.

Here are the pictures: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1U33Y79vH8k2JRHRRzP2ftPNUTMvhkk2m

This is the rack I am using: Whitmor 4 Tier Floor Shoe Rack - 20 Pair - Storage Organizer
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005KC6DY0/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I haven't done this but if you need the rack shorter in width you should be able to use a hack-saw and shorten the metal horizontal rods.

And do you think Linux Mint would work for an O/S?

If you want simple, quick and free mining then I would recommend HiveOS (free for up to three rigs): https://hiveos.farm

In the pictures you see two of my HP DL580 G7's with 8x GTX 750's (2 in case, 6 on mining rack) that are each mining 3.35 KH/s on HiveOS.

On my other Servers I have gone with Ubuntu but it is royal pain-in-the-butt to get it installed and configured properly. You will also have to compile XMR-Stak.

The 750's are definitely cheap enough, but I'm also wondering about using 770's and 950's, of which I have several of sitting here collecting dust. Power usage on the 770's may be way out of line though.

The 770 do give more H/s but as you mentioned it uses a lot more power:
http://monerobenchmarks.info - enter gtx 770 in the search box

The GTX 950 seems to do a little better than the GTX 750 at a slight more power usage. So that would be a good choice since they are free as in unused gathering dust.

[MinersRus]

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.

Thanks for this tip.

I got my feet wet and installed Ubuntu on a Dell R815 (4x Opteron 6234's). Then did all the updates, configurations and XMR-Stak Compile and it produces about 1560 H/s on the four processors and another 240 H/s on the single GTX 750 for a total of 1800 H/s.

On the second R815 with the exact same configuration I was only getting an initial 1200 H/s on the processors which dropped to 1050 H/s in a few hours. On this system the front display was orange and it was saying "system is powered but cover is off" or some such words. That reminded me of your post on the hash rate drop with the cover off.

The cover was on the system so I looked at the intrusion switch on Riser 2 and it turns out that the post on the switch was broken off so it was always telling the system that the cover was off even though it wasn't. I fixed it with a tie-down keeping the switch always pressed.

Front display is now blue and processor hashes are now steady at about 1560 H/s.

[sundownz]

Finally got some air-flow in the mining area of my warehouse.

5x 24" fans feeding in through existing openings... and 1x 42" fan feeding out through what used to be a window.

I may end up adding another 42" exhaust fan but I will have to knock out some block for that one.

[Surfer123]

Hi guys,

I have an HP XW4600 that I'm trying to use as the basis for a 3 GPU mining rig. I have purchased an EVGA Supernova G3 750W PSU as the power supply. https://www.newegg.com/global/nz/Product/Product.aspx?

The PSU plugs into the motherboard correctly but the computer flashes a red light and gives a "beep, beep" when I press the on button. After doing a bit of research it looks like the HP motherboard uses proprietary power and isn't compatible with ATX power. Does anyone have any tips or has successfully got an ATX power supply to work with the HP proprietary motherboard?

[sundownz]

Hi guys,

I have an HP XW4600 that I'm trying to use as the basis for a 3 GPU mining rig. I have purchased an EVGA Supernova G3 750W PSU as the power supply. https://www.newegg.com/global/nz/Product/Product.aspx?

The PSU plugs into the motherboard correctly but the computer flashes a red light and gives a "beep, beep" when I press the on button. After doing a bit of research it looks like the HP motherboard uses proprietary power and isn't compatible with ATX power. Does anyone have any tips or has successfully got an ATX power supply to work with the HP proprietary motherboard?

Absolutely -- that is the entire concept of this thread =)

Initially I was making my own adapters (see post #1) -- then adapters became readily available:

https://www.moddiy.com/products/ATX-to-HP-Z400-24%252dPin-Non%252dStandard-ATX-Pinout-Main-Power-Adapter-Cable.html

[MinersRus]

Hi guys,

I have an HP XW4600 that I'm trying to use as the basis for a 3 GPU mining rig. I have purchased an EVGA Supernova G3 750W PSU as the power supply. https://www.newegg.com/global/nz/Product/Product.aspx?

The PSU plugs into the motherboard correctly but the computer flashes a red light and gives a "beep, beep" when I press the on button. After doing a bit of research it looks like the HP motherboard uses proprietary power and isn't compatible with ATX power. Does anyone have any tips or has successfully got an ATX power supply to work with the HP proprietary motherboard?

I hope you didn't do permanent damage to either the HP XW4600 motherboard or the EVGA Supernova G3 750W power supply.

This link shows the differences between a standard ATX power supply and the proprietary HP power supply.

https://forum.level1techs.com/t/modding-a-desktop-psu-need-smart-peoples-help/98703

By attaching the EVGA Supernova G3 750W power supply to the HP XW4600 motherboard and Powering ON this is what happened:

You essentially shorted the +12, +5 and +3.3 power from the EVGA Supernova G3 750W power supply together because the HP XW4600 motherboard expects +12 Volts on pins 12 and 23. The ATX power supply has +3.3 on pin 12 and + 5 volts on pin 23.

Also the -5 volt line of the  EVGA Supernova G3 750W power supply was shorted to ground because pin 20 on the motherboard is ground whereas pin 20 of the EVGA Supernova G3 750W power supply is -5 volts.

You need to test the HP XW4600 motherboard with it's original power supply to see if it still functions.

You also need to test the EVGA Supernova G3 750W power supply in some standard system that is compatible with an ATX power supply to verify that it also functions properly.

If they test out okay then buy the above mentioned cable to use the EVGA Supernova G3 750W power supply with the HP XW4600 motherboard.

[MinersRus]

Finally got some air-flow in the mining area of my warehouse.

5x 24" fans feeding in through existing openings... and 1x 42" fan feeding out through what used to be a window.

I may end up adding another 42" exhaust fan but I will have to knock out some block for that one.

I am garage mining here in the Dallas area and am interested in the ambient temperatures your miners are seeing at the high peak of the day. That usually is around 5-6 PM.

I have a full house attic fan in the garage that exhausts the heat from the garage ceiling into the attic which has ridge vents for the attic heat to escape. Currently the garage door is opened about 4" to let in cooler air. That cooler air is getting hot now that summer is approaching such that at the peak of the day I am seeing 95 degrees at the intake to the R815 servers. They seem to be running okay but of course the fans are spinning very fast.

If possible could you supply the ambient temperatures at your rigs that are in the hottest area at the high peak of the day.

I have on order four WindeeVents that I will put into the garage door so I can keep it closed yet have air intakes. https://windeevent.com.