Pictures of your mining rigs!

[The-Real-Link]

  Ok I'll post now that things are completed here.  Time to go down the rabbit hole - sorry for the photo spam on the post btw .  

  So, mining?!  Sure!  "Let's go!" I said.  Had some funds set aside I knew I could put into this.  The plan, like any, was brilliant!  Now, on the other hand, I'm not quite geeky enough to do headless Linux miners or crate+cardboard machine setups so alas, for me a case, Windows, and GUIminer will have to do.  Not quite as cost-effective but it's what I know I could do.  Since I'm an Evangelion fan, I wanted to compliment my main rig with others (miners) named after angels so thought it'd be fun at any rate.  

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  Ramiel Build:

  Thought I'd start things off right with a 4-way card system (since my main GPUs have always been Nvidia).  Budget allowed for a quad setup of 6770s being efficient.  

  Parts:
  AMD Athlon X3
  ASUS generic DVD Burner
  A WD Raptor 150GB I had as a backup drive that I could wipe and use.
  Hyper 212 Cooler
  2x4GB Corsair Vegeance RAM
  4x HIS 6770s
  Corsair 500R Black (best mid tower I could find with side fans for cooling and enough expansion slots at a good price with good quality build).
  LEPA G900 PSU
  2x 140mm Aerocool Shark Blue Fans
  6x 120mm Aerocool Shark Blue Fans
  1x 120mm black (leftover) Corsair fan
  1x 200mm Cooler Master Side Fan
  Cyberpower 900w UPS Backup
  Acer 18.5" LCD (just a basic budget monitor)
  Cheapo Pixxo KB/Mouse Combo
  Rosewill USB wireless adapter
  Windows 7 Pro x64  

  Mistake #1

  Had an ASUS Sabertooth that didn't accept 3 cards.  It was a good board but only after trying the layout, I realized it didn't work...  Whoops.  Replaced with a Gigabyte UD7.

  Everything was progressing well

  But then...
  Mistake #2

  Seeing as how I've not worked with this case before (and board), Gigabyte puts their supplimentary power connector at an odd right angle to the mainboard (and on a board as large as the UD7, it literally is a quarter inch from the 500R's case slant).  Just a heads up that if you use this combo, the connector CAN NOT be connected without cutting the case.

  4 hours later (I have limited tools available, alas, and that case steel powdercoat was surprisingly very tough to punch through).  

  

  

  After a few warm-up tests though, the singular side fan was swapped to the two 140mm fans for more air flow.

  Mistake #3
  TEMPS.  OH MY THE TEMPS!

  I don't have screenshots or photos of them but the midde cards simply could not keep up at 100% fan - these simple cards at only ~110w I thought wouldn't dump that much heat but no... upper 80s C was normal.  Time to revise things again.

  

  Good news now is that the temps are under control, the cards have airflow and things are stable.  Sliders are maxed in AB (though with the OC boost they seem to crash past 1,000mhz pretty quick).  But really, for a system costing far above $1k now, I can't be happy with only 600MH now can I?

  Post below for part 2 so as to not spam with one large entry...

  

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[The-Real-Link]

  Ramiel Part 2!

  Nope, had to fix this problem.  Thankfully my favorite etailer had a solution on sale for the time.  Yay for twin 5970s!

  5970s *do* clear the cages in a 500R, albeit barely.
  

  After a lot of testing and burning in, I found clocks where the cards and temps would be to my liking.  Any higher core and the stock voltage was not enough.  I also did various tests with my KAW and Overvolt to see how high the cards could go.  Found out though that even though they could get to 900+core, the heat and fans simply was too high and the system went from ~700 watts to 1,000.  Enough of a power increase that with efficiency factored in, I could not push the PSU any higher I think.  Obviously they were backed down to what the image below shows and it's been running great since.
  

  

  Finally as can be seen, I ripped out the drive cages to help the airflow.  It's dropped temps by a couple degrees overall.  The HDD has foam sticky pads on the bottom to keep it proped off the case floor.
  

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

  

  Thanks for letting me share my building experience and what I'd hope is a pretty clean (IMO) mining rig.  It may not be the most efficient in terms of price but I'm happy with the challenge it presented and feel the investment will pay back eventually.  Currently getting ~1.5GH/sec with it.  The only heads up is that with pets and so much case airflow, that the system would need practically a blow-out every week for the dust it'd gather.

[The-Real-Link]

  Sachiel System

  Primary changes are the following:

  Lepa G900 to Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1200w (thought was to do tri-card systems).
  Gigabyte UD7 (bought UD3's on accident but it'll now work out for the better I've learned).
  HDDs > Intel 40GB SSDs.  Really, the price now is almost the same with HDDs being at increased prices with the flooding.
  RAM 2x 4GB Corsair > 2x2GB Kingston generics.  Don't really need 8GB for mining.
  AMD Quad Core Athlon IIs (the 3 core was at 100% so thought quad would help.  Guess it's just a bug though).
  Windows 7 Home x64

  Just a heads up again that the UD3 for whatever reason has *no* additional PCIe power requirement.  I asked Gigabyte techs about this concern and they said the board is Rev. 1.1 and has enough power delivery built in to where this is not necessary.  Thus, no conflict with the 500R panels.

  

  This rig has 2 5970s total - just never shot it again once it was all together.  Hashing is the same as the other.

  

[The-Real-Link]

  Israfel System:

  More of the same, except red ^_^

  Time to do my duty to lend to the laughter of this thread.  At this point I'm running out of places (and to a lesser extent, power) to put these around at home.  Thus:

    Thanks Dog Crate!

  

  At this point after extended discussions, it was considered best for me to move the operation off-site.

  Systems are now at a climate controlled facility with power-use included with the rent

  

  

  

  

  Power was a dedicated 20A (which these systems easily made the breaker angry)... so I had them install another 20.  Electrician was AWESOME though and gave me 2-20s!  The room is now wired for 60A so I have room to expand if the coolling keeps up.

  Temps of all systems are generally mid-to-upper-60s at 70-75% fan.

[Red Emerald]

... Lots of Images ...

So that looks really clean, but I'm curious as to why you even bothered with cases?  Seems like they just trap heat and get in the way when you want to do any maintenance.

[The-Real-Link]

... Lots of Images ...

So that looks really clean, but I'm curious as to why you even bothered with cases?  Seems like they just trap heat and get in the way when you want to do any maintenance.

Thanks.  You know I'll be honest.  Thought running a system without a case would A. be more at risk for issues with exposed parts.  B. Thought that cooling the cards would be less efficient since fans would have to be placed / tied on / etc. to force air-cool the cards.  C. Don't really have any place that I'd consder safe  at home where I could leave bare components run without issues.  D.  Again, pets and stuff.  E.  I guess it kinda scared me really.  I mean I can see otherwise that plenty of people have done it in this thread without issue but I've not tried it.  F.  I also run a computer business so these rigs can be donated / repurposed / etc. should mining tank.  I'm sure the average person would buy a clean system but it could be parted-out if necessary.

In terms of maintenence, there really isn't any now (finally).  Uptime so far is upwards of 10 days at a time barring Windows updates (haven't had a single BSOD with all 3 systems at all).  Temps and systems are rock solid and are remotely managed.  At the CC facility, they gather what, a fifth or sixth of the dust as fast as at home?  Probably could let them run for 2 months there before even a single cleaning.

[The-Real-Link]

  Melchior (aka the original) system:

  Repurposed this one for mining as well instead of folding.  Two 5970s as well.

  Bottom card is one of two GTX 580s with an AXP.

 

 

[rjk]

You paid for a windows license? I don't even

[allinvain]

Why not linux

[The-Real-Link]

Why not linux

Never used Linux before.  Yes, paid for my Windows licenses, sorry.  Rather not try to crack 7 and again it's the case of legitly using these systems for business purposes other than mining potentially that I want to look out for.

[rjk]

Why not linux

Never used Linux before.  Yes, paid for my Windows licenses, sorry.  Rather not try to crack 7 and again it's the case of legitly using these systems for business purposes other than mining potentially that I want to look out for.

Sorry, I didn't imply that you ought to crack Windows, but rather that Linux would be more ideal

Of course if you use them for gaming occasionally, then Windows might make sense. Dual booting is also a possibility.

[The-Real-Link]

Why not linux

Never used Linux before.  Yes, paid for my Windows licenses, sorry.  Rather not try to crack 7 and again it's the case of legitly using these systems for business purposes other than mining potentially that I want to look out for.

Sorry, I didn't imply that you ought to crack Windows, but rather that Linux would be more ideal

Of course if you use them for gaming occasionally, then Windows might make sense. Dual booting is also a possibility.

Oh, fair enough .  True.  Could game on them or dual boot perhaps.   Thanks for the suggestions.

[fizzisist]

Love your photos, The-Real-Link. What kind of camera do you have? Clearly no cell phone pics for you!

[Electricbees]

Love your photos, The-Real-Link. What kind of camera do you have? Clearly no cell phone pics for you!

Agreed! This picture really makes me wish I still had my acrylic panel cases... Deadly red glow to keep the family awake at night.
It's a clean machine, and it looks pretty rad.

[BinaryMage]

Agreed! This picture really makes me wish I still had my acrylic panel cases... Deadly red glow to keep the family awake at night.
It's a clean machine, and it looks pretty rad.

Heh. Cases are for the rich. All of my computers except one server and my laptop are parts screwed/taped/glued/otherwise attached to wood/scrap metal frames. I wish I had some nice cases.   

[Electricbees]

Agreed! This picture really makes me wish I still had my acrylic panel cases... Deadly red glow to keep the family awake at night.
It's a clean machine, and it looks pretty rad.

Heh. Cases are for the rich. All of my computers except one server and my laptop are parts screwed/taped/glued/otherwise attached to wood/scrap metal frames. I wish I had some nice cases.   

A friend of mine has his gaming computer screwed down to an old school lunch-tray he found...
Cases are indeed for the rich.

[The-Real-Link]

Love your photos, The-Real-Link. What kind of camera do you have? Clearly no cell phone pics for you!

Thanks very much

Canon 5D Mark II + some L lenses.  Not rich - just carefully appropriate what limited funds I do have toward things that sadly, tend to cost a lot of money haha.  

No I do do wedding photography though so that does help pay for the toys.

Thanks for the comment on the red glow too.  Before I swapped my push/pulls to H80s, I had lots of red glowing there (the AIO waterblocks do make me slightly miffed that I lose the aesthetics though).



Here's how it used to be:

[P4man]

@ The-Real-Link
I can somewhat understand why someone would want to use cases..  while it costs money and increases temps, it definitely improves Feng Shui and makes moving things around a bit easier. But why on earth would you equip every machine with a keyboard and monitor? And a HDD?

Even if you are new to linux, you really want to check out BAMT:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=28967.0

[The-Real-Link]

@ The-Real-Link
I can somewhat understand why someone would want to use cases..  while it costs money and increases temps, it definitely improves Feng Shui and makes moving things around a bit easier. But why on earth would you equip every machine with a keyboard and monitor? And a HDD?

Even if you are new to linux, you really want to check out BAMT:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=28967.0

Heard BAMT is pretty neat so may look into that.  Even though all the systems are together now, you have to keep in mind I built one at a time and I couldn't guarantee they'd be near each other in the early stages so I'd have to monitor each one on it's own and to set up the OS and such.  Again, complete rigs that could be used for things outside of mining.  Guess I'm also a bit of a tidy person...not neat freak - just tidy .  The monitors aren't super expensive though so no biggie.  Maybe in the future if I do more rigs I'll have just the systems but again if they're used in different places at once or by anyone outside of us techies here, they'd probaby like a monitor IMO.

[DeathAndTaxes]

@ The-Real-Link
I can somewhat understand why someone would want to use cases..  while it costs money and increases temps, it definitely improves Feng Shui and makes moving things around a bit easier. But why on earth would you equip every machine with a keyboard and monitor? And a HDD?

Even if you are new to linux, you really want to check out BAMT:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=28967.0

Heard BAMT is pretty neat so may look into that.  Even though all the systems are together now, you have to keep in mind I built one at a time and I couldn't guarantee they'd be near each other in the early stages so I'd have to monitor each one on it's own and to set up the OS and such.  Again, complete rigs that could be used for things outside of mining.  Guess I'm also a bit of a tidy person...not neat freak - just tidy .  The monitors aren't super expensive though so no biggie.  Maybe in the future if I do more rigs I'll have just the systems but again if they're used in different places at once or by anyone outside of us techies here, they'd probaby like a monitor IMO.

Couldn't you just buy a monitor, keyboard, mouse, extra ram, aftermarket CPU cooler, etc if/when it is no longer used as a rig?  Still they look very nice.

While the monitors may be "cheap". Cheap" monitor, case, keyboard, mouse, aftermarket CPU cooler, extra RAM, higher end CPU, HDD, etc = lot of non-hashing cost.  Could have built 4 3x5970 rigs for that price.  That is why they are called "rigs"



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