Building a rig but at-odds regarding the components.

[Third Way]

I would love to start out mining at home, I am unemployed and have been for a while. Looking for a way to get into the BTC market is a seeming god send here.

I am not exactly the most computer literate person so I already say here, I'm sorry if this is not correct board for posting. I'm a bit cash-strapped but can pull through as I have as always, you may not know but the human body can take a lot of punishment or achieve great things, even yours. But I digress.

And here I admit, I'm a little dumb but can manage around a computer, building one and setting it up is a no problem for me. I have some older components, perhaps no older than 3 years old and would like to know if I could use this to build a new albeit cheap machine but with good motherboard, GPUs and power supply. Knowing I want a new motherboard that can take 2 cards I assume I need a new PSU as well.

I have some RAM it's DDR2 I just don't know what the number of pins that it has, some HDDs, cd drive and old PSU with heat sink.

Say a $750for pieces including shipping investment for a rig dedicated to mining (and yes I have taken into account the mining getting harder and harder and at home miner phased out soon) would it still be profitable for me to make a machine based on my funds?

What could you tell me fellow BTC'ers?

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[Third Way]

Any recommendations as to which components I could get to build such a rig?

[Creepster]

Here's a list of gpus:

http://golubev.com/gpuest.htm

I was myself thinking about getting some old ps3's and mining with some preconfigured linux live cd's - Should be able to find some ps3's with dead gpu's but the cells working - the whole other-os thing makes it tricky though.

[Third Way]

Here's a list of gpus:

http://golubev.com/gpuest.htm

I was myself thinking about getting some old ps3's and mining with some preconfigured linux live cd's - Should be able to find some ps3's with dead gpu's but the cells working - the whole other-os thing makes it tricky though.

Thanks for that man.

But what about mobos and power requirement? My biggest need is a new power supply. And if I did buy everything through new egg, it comes with the chords, right? How do I even know the model of motherboard that I'm using? because I cannot get that machine running since the PSU is dead although the hardware is not old.

[drgr33n]

I done it on the cheap buying bits from ebay.  the one thing I did get wrong was how important a good power supply is. I bought 3 from ebay ranging from £35 to £50 and they all sucked and blew up in about 3 days So I went out and got a xfx 750w power supply and so far so good.

heres the list of parts I bought.

ATI radeon 5870 @ £120
ATI radeon 5830 xxx @ £83
Asrock ALIVEXFIRE mobo @ £35
AMD Athlon 7850BE proc @ £35
xfx 750w power supply @ £85

I had some old ram dimms so saved about £20 on that.

total = £358

With this setup I'm hashing around 700Mhs what earns me around 3BTC a day at todays difficulty. I've run this miner for around a month and have payed for the computer give or take a few quid.

[Third Way]

I done it on the cheap buying bits from ebay.  the one thing I did get wrong was how important a good power supply is. I bought 3 from ebay ranging from £35 to £50 and they all sucked and blew up in about 3 days So I went out and got a xfx 750w power supply and so far so good.

heres the list of parts I bought.

ATI radeon 5870 @ £120
ATI radeon 5830 xxx @ £83
Asrock ALIVEXFIRE mobo @ £35
AMD Athlon 7850BE proc @ £35
xfx 750w power supply @ £85

I had some old ram dimms so saved about £20 on that.

total = £358

With this setup I'm hashing around 700Mhs what earns me around 3BTC a day at todays difficulty. I've run this miner for around a month and have payed for the computer give or take a few quid.

Wow man thanks a LOT. But I have but one wee question. How can I know if a mobo thas 2 video card slots? I read them on newegg but on video I only see the slot is pci-e

[bittrader]

Third Way, you may have seen this already, but if not, then definitely check it out: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

The main column of interest is the Mhash/s column. The higher the number, the faster you'll mine bitcoins. ("Mhash/s" is that number of millions of hashes per second that can be tested.)

The other important number can be found here: http://blockexplorer.com/q/hashestowin

That is the average number of hashes that you'll have to try before successfully mining some bitcoins. Note that the number isn't constant (it goes up every so often as more people start mining).

To calculate how many bitcoins you'll mine, take the hashestowin number and divide by the number of hashes you'll try per second. That'll give you the number of seconds it'll take you on average to get 50 bitcoins. For example, if you have a top-of-the-line computer with a single ATI 6990, you'll be doing somewhere around 750,000,000 hashes per second (per the wiki link). The current hashestowin is 1048471149936089. So divide 1048471149936089 / 750000000 ~= 1397962.

Then convert 1397962 seconds to days: 1397962 / 60 / 60 / 24 ~= 16 days. Each time you win, you get 50 bitcoins. So you could expect 50 bitcoins per 16 days or so.

[bittrader]

Wow man thanks a LOT. But I have but one wee question. How can I know if a mobo thas 2 video card slots? I read them on newegg but on video I only see the slot is pci-e

Here's the kind of thing to look for:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130574

Check the Details tab. Notice that it says "PCI Express 2.0 x16        2", which indicates that there are two pci-e slots.

And if it just says "PCI Express 2.0 x16" without mentioning how many, then that almost certainly means there's only one slot.

[smooth]

Wow man thanks a LOT. But I have but one wee question. How can I know if a mobo thas 2 video card slots? I read them on newegg but on video I only see the slot is pci-e

Here's the kind of thing to look for:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130574

Check the Details tab. Notice that it says "PCI Express 2.0 x16        2", which indicates that there are two pci-e slots.

And if it just says "PCI Express 2.0 x16" without mentioning how many, then that almost certainly means there's only one slot.

Note that you CAN use x1 slots (and they work just as well for mining) but you need to use some kind of adapter/and or mod the hardware.  Not for everyone bit it can give you some more (cheaper) options for MBs.