[pics inside] custom built 8-card rack

[haploid23]

the top left corner of the motherboard has an offset mounting hole that is not above the frame, so i was not able to screw in some standoffs for this hole. instead, i just drilled a hole in the frame for a rivet, washer, and small black rubber piece to support the motherboard's top left corner. the motherboard doesn't actually screw down in the area, it just rests on top of this rubber disk


i cut a steel bar and added it to the bottom of the frame to support the front end of the PSU. after all the computer hardware is installed, everything will now be on top of the frame, so i can just lift it all up and move it if i have to. nothing rests on the ground anymore. i also drilled some holes for the two PSUs to screw into the frame


drilled some holes for a 2.5" hard drive


the two PSU's mounted and screwed in


you can see the 2.5" hard drive mounted behind one of the rear "legs". all the ugly blue labeling stickers were taken off at this point


the 2.5" hard drive i used is a 1000rpm WD velociraptor. yeah i know... it's overkill but it was a spare drive i had at the time


PSU, motherboard, and hard drive mounted


a view from the other side





@ stellan0r: i just saw pics of your rack. it's going to look like a beast with 12 cards mounted on top. how many PSU are you going to put on the bottom?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7216.msg453266#msg453266

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[PiGames]

This rig looks amazing.
I'd love to put together something like this but I think I'd get to much grief from the 'woman'
I finally upgrade my machine (3 cards) but guided it as upgrading for my games. I run the thing 24/7, it's loud as hell and literally looks like an old server box ( newegg IWIN gaming tower it's huge).
Maybe I'll try to put something like this together.

When it's all build you should def update with some specs (watt draw/ total m(g)hash/ heat , yadda yadda) definitely looks like a fun project

[BTC_Junkie]

Love watching this, keep the updates coming!

[mikeo]

@haploid23,

I hope you have planned well regarding the electrical supply. Sounds like you may live in an apartment. If so, I'd be concerned about available circuits to support the power draw from a 6xGPU rig. Just saying.

[stellan0r]

@haploid23,

I hope you have planned well regarding the electrical supply. Sounds like you may live in an apartment. If so, I'd be concerned about available circuits to support the power draw from a 6xGPU rig. Just saying.

LOL where do you live?

[stellan0r]

@ stellan0r: i just saw pics of your rack. it's going to look like a beast with 12 cards mounted on top. how many PSU are you going to put on the bottom?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7216.msg453266#msg453266

Thanks!
I will replace my corsair GS800 and HX850 with two Enermax MaxRevo 1500 PSU's for best efficiency (>90%!). (also I need only 2.4 kW for 12 GPUs, not 3 kW.)

I probably have to reduce the setup to 10-11 cards, as I made the same mistake with the height of the CPU cooler. Also it's low profile, the pci-e riser cable blocks the fan. Maybe I can fix that with some cable binder. If I want to spend that much money, I will solve that problem with a Corsair Hydro Series H70 Water Cooling System.

[Inedible]

As per the pics in the other thread of my two frame rigs, I'm pulling around 2kW from the wall. This is in England, and our 240V supply and typical 13W fused sockets *theoretically* should allow a 3kW load on one cable. However, older properties and poor cable choice may make this marginal - extension cabling must be nice fat stuff... my 10A old extension cable was very hot to the touch after a few hours supplying my rigs... I changed it as soon as I did the calculations, and the house hasn't burnt down yet.

You should be able to get 3.1kW on one FUSE (in the plug in the UK). In a modern home, the cabling for a double socket will accept up to 26A.

You shouldn't be able to cause damage to wiring in the walls as these will be protected at your fusebox.

[stellan0r]

Hey catfish, yes I am from Germany But I am everything but an engineer, this was my very first approach to work with metal ever.

I start with the last things you mentioned, the heat:

I plan on putting this outside on my balcony (which is pretty well protected already against the weather and only open to the upper front), with a rain/snow/direct sun proof enclosure that will have enough openings (also protected against weather with these http://www.ventilator-shop.com/zubehor-fur-die-ventilatoren/rohrkrummers/rohrkrummer-90/ and some fine mesh against dust and insects) for enough fans. I will drill as many 108mm holes (with a Starrett holesaw - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Starrett-Sh0414-Speed-Steel-Holesaw/dp/B0002JT6X6/ref=sr_1_2?s=diy&ie=UTF8&qid=1313349705&sr=1-2 into the enclosure as necessary and mount 120mm fans on the inside, in push pull order (from the back and side-bottom it will push air in, on the front and top front where the gpu's blast their hot air I will mount them to pull air out).

Anyway, the amount of GPU's in my rig will be determined by "how the market goes" in the next months

IF the market does what I want it to do, I will put some money into a powerful watercooling system. This is pretty expensive, as the basics cost about 150 Euro in quality parts + 60-100 Euro per GPU.. But it would cool the system and I could even put it back inside without having a terrible noise pollution but an efficient space heater (and in the end it will have wheels, so I can just shut them down, pull the plug, move it somewhere else, plug it back and so on)

Power is not a problem here, I have a 16A (3.6kW) fuse available to nearly 100% just for the rig (for whatever reason the smallest room in my apt. with the least power consumption has it's own fuse, where my living room with all the stuff shares the fuse with the floor where I put the vacuum cleaner in o.O). My building is pretty new and has good cabling, though.

In my frame is some torsion, this is simply because I didn't do exact measurements in the beginning with the first bars I put together - if I would have to build another one, I would know better what to do in which order, and I would take my time to make the edges more smooth. But I just wanted to put this thing together
I would also use a mix of wood (for the outer structure that does not come in contact with any hardware) and metal then, because the wood is easier to work with and the metal would be only used for parts that need to carry the computer stuff.

Pre-drilled lengths of metal would be nice to have, anyway  

But as soon as I get this one http://www.proxxon.com/eng/html/27100.php (for my drill stand) accuracy in drilling the holes will not be a problem anymore  

[haploid23]

This rig looks amazing.
...

When it's all build you should def update with some specs (watt draw/ total m(g)hash/ heat , yadda yadda) definitely looks like a fun project

thanks! yup, will do. hardware specs, speed, and temps will all be posted once it's finished

I hope you have planned well regarding the electrical supply. Sounds like you may live in an apartment. If so, I'd be concerned about available circuits to support the power draw from a 6xGPU rig. Just saying.

lol why do you think i live in an apartment? hard wood floors, big tile kitchens, backyard, etc... don't think an apartment has that  . i'm at my house for the summer, but i will however move back to my apartment when school starts, although this rig will stay at the house. the room that i host all these miners has a 15amp breaker, i'm able to put 2 full miners with 4 GPU's each, i tried adding a 3rd one and trips the circuit breaker. i guess this 7-GPU rig will be the only one in the room, all other miners will be moved somewhere else.

I probably have to reduce the setup to 10-11 cards, as I made the same mistake with the height of the CPU cooler. Also it's low profile, the pci-e riser cable blocks the fan. Maybe I can fix that with some cable binder. If I want to spend that much money, I will solve that problem with a Corsair Hydro Series H70 Water Cooling System.

hmm you didn't learn from my mistake huh? i also made the mistake of the making the the bars that support the GPUs too low, so some of the pci-e extender cables hits the CPU fan. i posted about it and took pics. you should also get a similar low profile cooler like i did. not only is it very low profile (1U), the fan is also totally encased so you don't have to worry about any cables getting caught in it.

man... you and catfish sure typed a lot haha

[plastic.elastic]

This rig looks amazing.
...

When it's all build you should def update with some specs (watt draw/ total m(g)hash/ heat , yadda yadda) definitely looks like a fun project

thanks! yup, will do. hardware specs, speed, and temps will all be posted once it's finished

I hope you have planned well regarding the electrical supply. Sounds like you may live in an apartment. If so, I'd be concerned about available circuits to support the power draw from a 6xGPU rig. Just saying.

lol why do you think i live in an apartment? hard wood floors, big tile kitchens, backyard, etc... don't think an apartment has that  . i'm at my house for the summer, but i will however move back to my apartment when school starts, although this rig will stay at the house. the room that i host all these miners has a 15amp breaker, i'm able to put 2 full miners with 4 GPU's each, i tried adding a 3rd one and trips the circuit breaker. i guess this 7-GPU rig will be the only one in the room, all other miners will be moved somewhere else.

I probably have to reduce the setup to 10-11 cards, as I made the same mistake with the height of the CPU cooler. Also it's low profile, the pci-e riser cable blocks the fan. Maybe I can fix that with some cable binder. If I want to spend that much money, I will solve that problem with a Corsair Hydro Series H70 Water Cooling System.

hmm you didn't learn from my mistake huh? i also made the mistake of the making the the bars that support the GPUs too low, so some of the pci-e extender cables hits the CPU fan. i posted about it and took pics. you should also get a similar low profile cooler like i did. not only is it very low profile (1U), the fan is also totally encased so you don't have to worry about any cables getting caught in it.

man... you and catfish sure typed a lot haha

Hi OP,

please update on the power consumption and how you distribute the power to the cards.

I know you can use an adapter to turn on the second PSU, but from what that means the second PSU would have no load on other rails (3.3v and 5v ) correct? Is that not recommended tho? Let me know if you have know other way

Also it would be great if we can pull all the 12v wires from the PSU to power the cards (atx connector, eps, p4 12v, molex). Are there any online store we can get these common connectores? (male one)

[mikeo]

@haploid23,

I hope you have planned well regarding the electrical supply. Sounds like you may live in an apartment. If so, I'd be concerned about available circuits to support the power draw from a 6xGPU rig. Just saying.

LOL where do you live?

Santa Fe, New Mexico. I've got a 100ft wiring run on a 15amp circuit and when I added my miner to that circuit with another gaming rig, printer, couple of routers and a switch I had the dreaded VD! Yes, voltage drop down to ~105 volts which resulted in a very unstable mining platform.

[stellan0r]

Scheiße - I've just ended up replacing my sorry excuse of a drill for a proper German one - a Bosch... the last one wasn't straight and the drill bit would wiggle round in a small circle. The Bosch drill is obviously so much better quality, I'm looking forward to using it. I don't know how to use rivets though, that's the next step as it'd really tidy up my aluminium frame designs. Did you learn from someone else (if this was your first attempt at metalwork), or do you know a good website with practical instruction on the best way to do riveting (i.e. steel rivets in aluminium)?

(and there goes a week's worth of mining... luckily the Bosch drill was half price!)

I got a small Bosch IXO for as an electric srewdriver, lots of power for such a small tool

About the metal work, it was simply learning by doing and looking at the pictures of the OP. A handy guide for using a riveting tool is this:

http://www.hansonrivet.com/w13.htm

take a look at my pictures to see what type of tool I am using. Then use steel rivets, with 3 or 4mm diameter. You need to drill a hole for those that is 0.1mm bigger than the rivet, so you need a 3.1 or 4.1 mm drill. also don't forget to look at the length of the rivet, mine are for materials of 1-3mm, 3-6mm or 6-9mm thickness (choose appropriate to the thickness of the material you want to put together (and if you have to put two 1.5mm thick alu bars together, use a 1-3mm rivet, not a 3-6mm long!)

[haploid23]

Hi OP,

please update on the power consumption and how you distribute the power to the cards.

I know you can use an adapter to turn on the second PSU, but from what that means the second PSU would have no load on other rails (3.3v and 5v ) correct? Is that not recommended tho? Let me know if you have know other way

Also it would be great if we can pull all the 12v wires from the PSU to power the cards (atx connector, eps, p4 12v, molex). Are there any online store we can get these common connectores? (male one)

ya i'll update all that info once it's finished and finalized. but for now, i have 5x 5870 on there just to test it. i have a seasonic 750w and a cougar 700w PSU, the seasonic 750w powers the motherboard's main 24pin and CPU power, as well as 3 GPUs. the cougar PSU powers the addition 6-pin power connector on the motherboard for the extra pci-e juice, as well as GPUs. i'm not sure if there are adapters for the CPU power cable to 6-pin pci-e cable. using the CPU power cable to power the video cards is good utilization of excess 12v line, assuming that the PSU is multi rail. if there's no adapters, you can just connect all the yellow wires together i believe

Santa Fe, New Mexico. I've got a 100ft wiring run on a 15amp circuit and when I added my miner to that circuit with another gaming rig, printer, couple of routers and a switch I had the dreaded VD! Yes, voltage drop down to ~105 volts which resulted in a very unstable mining platform.

my kill-a-watt meter says my voltage drops down to about 115v off the wall. what's an acceptable AC voltage so that it doesn't go unstable?

[BkkCoins]

my kill-a-watt meter says my voltage drops down to about 115v off the wall. what's an acceptable AC voltage so that it doesn't go unstable?

Many of the better PSU have specs on input voltage from 90-240 VAC. I'd expect that means they can work fine down to 90V input. Switching supplies are not so sensitive to input voltage when designed to work with a usable range.

Of course, power is power, so a lower input voltage means a higher current draw. For a long line you're much better off with 240 VAC as the current loss will be less. And of course thicker cable makes a big difference.

[plastic.elastic]

Hi OP,

please update on the power consumption and how you distribute the power to the cards.

I know you can use an adapter to turn on the second PSU, but from what that means the second PSU would have no load on other rails (3.3v and 5v ) correct? Is that not recommended tho? Let me know if you have know other way

Also it would be great if we can pull all the 12v wires from the PSU to power the cards (atx connector, eps, p4 12v, molex). Are there any online store we can get these common connectores? (male one)

ya i'll update all that info once it's finished and finalized. but for now, i have 5x 5870 on there just to test it. i have a seasonic 750w and a cougar 700w PSU, the seasonic 750w powers the motherboard's main 24pin and CPU power, as well as 3 GPUs. the cougar PSU powers the addition 6-pin power connector on the motherboard for the extra pci-e juice, as well as GPUs. i'm not sure if there are adapters for the CPU power cable to 6-pin pci-e cable. using the CPU power cable to power the video cards is good utilization of excess 12v line, assuming that the PSU is multi rail. if there's no adapters, you can just connect all the yellow wires together i believe

Dont be confused, my concern has nothing to do with single rail or multi rails. Lots of ppl thought with single rail PSU, they can plug as many devices as they want. Thats asking for a failure.

My concern is because i dont know a store that sell connectors so i can better redesign the power distribution. So far only 4pin molex connectors are common, all other connectors are very rare,

[plastic.elastic]

my kill-a-watt meter says my voltage drops down to about 115v off the wall. what's an acceptable AC voltage so that it doesn't go unstable?

Many of the better PSU have specs on input voltage from 90-240 VAC. I'd expect that means they can work fine down to 90V input. Switching supplies are not so sensitive to input voltage when designed to work with a usable range.

Of course, power is power, so a lower input voltage means a higher current draw. For a long line you're much better off with 240 VAC as the current loss will be less. And of course thicker cable makes a big difference.

You wouldnt want the voltage drop below 100v, or your PSU will be overheated = toasted.

[plastic.elastic]

I know you can use an adapter to turn on the second PSU, but from what that means the second PSU would have no load on other rails (3.3v and 5v ) correct? Is that not recommended tho? Let me know if you have know other way

Also it would be great if we can pull all the 12v wires from the PSU to power the cards (atx connector, eps, p4 12v, molex). Are there any online store we can get these common connectores? (male one)

Plastic - I found this blog post helpful when investigating my questions about why some GPUs aren't recognised when plugged into x1 slots with extenders. His GPGPU rig has four 5970s, sucking down well over 1000W via two 560W PSUs, and since the smaller server-grade PSUs aren't targeted at the 'extreme gamer' community, they didn't come with loads of PCIe power cables. So he contrived a methodology to convert any PSU's output wiring into multiple PCIe power cables for graphics cards. May be just what you're looking for?

Thanks but that didnt asnwer my question AT ALL.

Hint, my question is the sentence with a question mark!

[BkkCoins]

I'm sure digikey.com will have those connectors but trying to find it will be hard without a part # or at least a manufacturer.

It may help to find a PCI Express spec page that indicates a mfr. part# first.

Googling: pci express power connector turns up some,

Also it turns up this spec which gives you the part# for digikey.

... seems digikey doesn't carry that series but mouser does and they should be easy to order from.

31 cents each.

[newunit16]

I run two PSU's. 530w and 620w (around that) to power 4x 5830's. Pulls about 720w from the wall.

Yes, it is not a good idea to run the PSU without the 5v rails loaded. The second PSU wouldnt even boot without putting a load on the 5v. SOO, I plugged it into the hard drive:) Problem solved.

For about 10-15$ you can get a handy 2xPSU adapter from frozenCPU. Yeah, its dead simple to splice, but why splice and lower the "resale" or "re-use" value?

You could also use some heavy resistors on the 5v rail. This is what they do when they're making a CPU PSU into a bench PSU. (See sandbar resistor)

[plastic.elastic]

I'm sure digikey.com will have those connectors but trying to find it will be hard without a part # or at least a manufacturer.

It may help to find a PCI Express spec page that indicates a mfr. part# first.

Googling: pci express power connector turns up some,

Also it turns up this spec which gives you the part# for digikey.

... seems digikey doesn't carry that series but mouser does and they should be easy to order from.

31 cents each.

I have searched and gosh, the damn connector is sure not easy to go. You will have to get those square pins as well...

I think i will stick with my original plan, which is using the 4pin molex connectors, essentially turns the PSU to modular and buy molex to pci-r connectors as needed. More resistance = less efficient but probably cheapest and easier to do.