Check my spec's

[dmckiwi]

Hi Guys, I put this in the alt section but not replies so hoping some one here might be able to answer it.

I'm looking at possibly setting up a mining rig for alt coins, I've got some friends who are mining and I've been looking at the new asic miners but have also been doing some figures on what it would cost me to build something now and looking for some feedback on spec's.

As most the mobo's and gpu's recommended are all out of stock I've been pricing up on what I can get via local suppliers and what I've seen in the forums, current list which can change is, (all of the below I can get right now)

ASUS R9290-4GD5 4GB DDR5 PCIE Graphics Card (x2 or x3)
Gigabyte F2A88X-D3H ATX DDR3 FM2+
AMD A4-5300 Dual Core 3.4GHz 2MB Cache Socket FM2 65W
SilverStone Silverstone Strider Plus 1000W Modular ActivePFC ATX 80plus Silver PSU

Do those items sound like a reasonable setup, would 4gb of RAM be enough and how many powered risers should I run with that mobo, or do I need to bother if I only use 2x GPU's? I can get some better mobo's that are also recommended but at over twice the price and from what I've read sounds like the above should be fine but any recommendations are appreciated.

I can run it in our server room at work so its temperature controlled so just planning on a basic case with a few fans which I hope should be plenty to keep them under control.

Let me know if there is a better setup I should be considering otherwise I think its worth the investment as I should be able to get it to

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[repairguy]

Your setup looks good enough.  You will need a powered riser for each card beyond the first, and I would use a non powered one on the first card just to have the room to spread them out a little. 4gb of system ram will be plenty.  You may need an additional power supply depending on how many cards you end up running.

[dmckiwi]

I was pretty sure from what I've read I was ok but good to know. I've ordered the parts and picking them up soon to do the build, I'm putting it in a Raven RV04 case as the plastic crate through better for airflow isn't really an option in the server room but the RV04 should flow well enough with only 2x GPU's in the case, I will look at adding a 3rd GPU later once I'm happy everything is working as required and will obviously need a riser to space them out then but with only 2x GPU's to start can I just run them off the mobo?

[mattopia]

I might have gone with a larger power supply for 3x cards.  2x is fine.

[Illusmare]

I might have gone with a larger power supply for 3x cards.  2x is fine.

Yea for 3 cards that 1000W is too low. Think the R9 290 uses 300W at full load (I also got the Asus R9 290).

[dmckiwi]

Yeh I was going with 3x to start with but thought it would be better (not to mention cheaper) to go with 2x 290 for now and see how it goes, the cost of upgrading the PSU to a 1200w and a 3rd card increased the build cost quite a bit so decided 2x 290's would be enough for what I'm trying to achieve for now and if it works out ok I can reassess if I want to invest more.

Will I be ok to run 2x 290 on that mobo without risers to start? Been a long time since I built any PC's so don't want to burn anything out.

[mattopia]

Will I be ok to run 2x 290 on that mobo without risers to start? Been a long time since I built any PC's so don't want to burn anything out.

Should be.  Use the 2 PCI-e 16x slots the furthest away from each other to maximize the space in-between.

[hyphenated]

If this is sitting in your businesses server room be aware of a couple of things (spoil-sport alert):

  You are using (say) 36 kW/hr a day of company power (multiplied by a large capital factor if it is UPS protected).

  You are increasing the aircon cooling load by the same amount

  You are throwing a couple of workplace health & safety violations into the mix (unapproved electrical leads, trip hazards, fire risk et al)

  You *will* be in breach of MIS regulations (approved software, internet usage, equipment etc)

  You may be opening up holes in company firewalls.

  Unless you take some trouble it will look 'untidy' (which means more noticeable).


So be prepared for the wrath of higher management to descend upon you the next time someone makes an unscheduled visit - unless it's a small company and the owner/directors are 'in'.

Ironically if you hid it in a rack you might have less grief, but it still boils down to using company resources for personal gain.

Management tend to go ballistic if their multi-million clean-room facility is cluttered up with open-rig miners (or fan heaters, I suspect  )

[dmckiwi]

I'm one of the owners 

[drakoin]

check out our power saving thread, might save you a lot on your electricity bills:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=395004.msg4500529#msg4500529

and perhaps even when buying your PSUs / get more GPUs into one rig, PSUs mentioned here:
#56 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=395004.msg4559626#msg4559626
#61 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=395004.msg4563597#msg4563597


---
 P.S.: Let's spread the word, imagine the altcoin network starts saving 1/4, 1/3 or even 1/2 of electricity.

[dmckiwi]

I'll check the links, for the moment I've just set it up in a decent size gaming case and want to get it working 100% first but will probably look at adding more GPU's later. I'm a bit stuck on the config file at the moment though as I can put in the pool and user details manually and cgminer connects but I can't get it to start with the config file as it tells me I need to add a pool, I copied the details from Multipool and used the settings others have put up for the r9 290 but it won't start?

My config is below and as far as I can tell it all correct yet cgminer fails when trying to us it?

{
"pools" : [
{
"url" : "http://pool1.us.multipool.us:7777", "user" : "XXXXX.1",
"pass" : "x"
}
],
“intensity” : “20′′,
“vectors” : “1′′,
“worksize” : “256′′,
“lookup-gap” : “2′′, “thread-concurrency” : “32765′′, “gpu-engine” : “1000′′,
“gpu-fan” : “40-100′′, “gpu-memclock” : “1350′′, “gpu-powertune” : “20′′, “temp-cutoff” : “99′′, “temp-overheat” : “95′′, “temp-target” : “90′′,
“api-port” : “4028′′, “expiry” : “120′′, “failover-only” : true, “gpu-threads” : “1′′,
“log” : “5′′,
“queue” : “1′′, “scan-time” : “60′′, “temp-hysteresis” : “3′′,
“scrypt” : true,
“kernel” : “scrypt”, “kernel-path” : “/usr/local/bin” }

[drakoin]

Code:

“20′′

"20"

http://jsonlint.com  http://www.jsoneditoronline.org   

Tip me: [42] 4J4s9jBJTL71CQtHuTLgJ6sv5HbhtTrJYx   BTC 1EyyjBMMHjMfx6M3Ngu4sn5M4QJ6HAtWFG   [DGB] DJsRVr56TRHNQYbKymm9QMxeL588o6g58V  [DOGE] DLE2HhboCsx5JbeLhRAGW7TQJze41dCgiK   [EAC] eaoPAMndxjTkvvFUUq5SuSxMVg6KGoEQYW   [LTC] LQt3Wky3b1v7xEaatVYw25n22hujKMa2yq  [NOBL] 9oeXJaWjd1Yv1zJ4XwhnKqmVcUNQ9RBR3M   [PRT] PnKS4C8euVMzN4YZXEkYwyUXxpdGugsmQm   [QRK] QhfXtCetfQE6pnup59MW45au65vcMZYK88
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[dmckiwi]

Code:

“20′′

"20"

http://jsonlint.com  http://www.jsoneditoronline.org   

Tip me: [42] 4J4s9jBJTL71CQtHuTLgJ6sv5HbhtTrJYx   BTC 1EyyjBMMHjMfx6M3Ngu4sn5M4QJ6HAtWFG   [DGB] DJsRVr56TRHNQYbKymm9QMxeL588o6g58V  [DOGE] DLE2HhboCsx5JbeLhRAGW7TQJze41dCgiK   [EAC] eaoPAMndxjTkvvFUUq5SuSxMVg6KGoEQYW   [LTC] LQt3Wky3b1v7xEaatVYw25n22hujKMa2yq  [NOBL] 9oeXJaWjd1Yv1zJ4XwhnKqmVcUNQ9RBR3M   [PRT] PnKS4C8euVMzN4YZXEkYwyUXxpdGugsmQm   [QRK] QhfXtCetfQE6pnup59MW45au65vcMZYK88
 [SOC] SPMbzJ3m2AZNXzJ4Vm84U2bPmDcGTpw2Wb   [VTC] Vx2iYor2ir1Pq9QTALs7TRdE5kmW9aABD6

Thanks for that, will try it tomorrow.

[dmckiwi]

No more JSON error 

I can only guess it had something to do with copying it from my laptop to the PC remotely as it tested fine on my machine but failed on the PC, after rewriting a few lines on the PC it didn't come up with a JSON error anymore. Still doesn't find the pool in my conf file, it works when I then manually type it in but for some reason it won't work directly from the conf file automatically. More forums to read I guess to try and work out whats going on there, atleast I'm making more than with Xubuntu as I never could get that to recognise the temp control on that.

[drakoin]

No more JSON error 

I can only guess it had something to do with copying it from my laptop to the PC remotely as it tested fine on my machine but failed on the PC, after rewriting a few lines on the PC it didn't come up with a JSON error anymore. Still doesn't find the pool in my conf file, it works when I then manually type it in but for some reason it won't work directly from the conf file automatically. More forums to read I guess to try and work out whats going on there, atleast I'm making more than with Xubuntu as I never could get that to recognise the temp control on that.

also TABs caused problems once.

[dmckiwi]

Once I loaded the conf into the JSON site and edited it there that sorted that issue, it took a bit of messing around with settings but got it's launching and running but it fails after a few minutes but I think thats a driver issue, ran out of time last night to try and sort it but even though its working if I open the AMD catalyst it's saying the 2 R9's are disabled so somethings still screwed up as I have 13.12 and 2.7 installed and the command line they seem to be recognised. Getting pretty close now at least.

[drakoin]

it fails after a few minutes

How exactly. Which fail?
Catalyst crash?
cgminer crash?
BSOD?

Today when I had an unstable system it was VERY useful to have hwinfo64 do a log file, so later I could see which card was the culprit. I raised the voltage on that a bit, and all was fine.

but I think thats a driver issue, ran out of time last night to try and sort it but even though its working if I open the AMD catalyst it's saying the 2 R9's are disabled so somethings still screwed up as I have 13.12 and 2.7 installed and the command line they seem to be recognised. Getting pretty close now at least.

It's weird how often I needed to reinstall the Catalyst after hardware changes.
Try completely uninstall, reinstall.

GL !

[dmckiwi]

Yeh I did uninstall and reinstall but I've been swamped at work so not had a chance to spend any more time on it, I'll spend sometime over the weekend troubleshooting it and fingers crossed will work it out.

[dmckiwi]

I've got it running stable but had to crank the intensity and TC way down, anything above 13 and 8192 either won't launch or gives me heaps of HW errors, seems like plenty of people say 4gb of RAM is fine but a few also say you can't get over 8192 until they put 8GB of RAM, will let it run at that for now even though its only getting low 500k and try putting more RAM in it next week to see if that helps.

[lunas]

check your motherboard for a bios update my asus a88x-pro  i was told that all of them out of the box have really old bios and cant support the 2133 ddr3 ram perhaps yours is similar...