Ethereum GPU mining?

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Hi-Fi Man

Senior member
Oct 19, 2013
601
120
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Mined awhile ago in the past but didn't have the hardware to make it worth it. So question is since I don't pay for electricity right now (and won't be for awhile) should I start mining?

What should I know that's different from mining bitcoin?
 

sm625

Diamond Member
May 6, 2011
8,172
137
106
https://www.eastshore.xyz/shop/ethereum-miner-geass-198mh-asic-miner-for-ether-mining/

ethereum-miner-198MH.jpg


Hopefully this will lighten the demand for GPUs.
 

Feld

Senior member
Aug 6, 2015
287
95
101
you should be fine with just the 3 SATA power cables and double up one of them. Use wattman in radeon settings driver to undervolt. I've heard not to use direct molex on the riser cards as they dont deliver enough voltage
I'm running a rig with 4 GPUs, one of which is a Sapphire 470 aftermarket. All 4 cards are connected to powered risers with molex cables. It's rock solid stable.
 

n0x1ous

Platinum Member
Sep 9, 2010
2,572
248
106
I'm running a rig with 4 GPUs, one of which is a Sapphire 470 aftermarket. All 4 cards are connected to powered risers with molex cables. It's rock solid stable.
Sata to molex or straight molex to molex from the PSU?
 

IEC

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jun 10, 2004
14,323
4,904
136
Always ask yourself this: If the allegedly functional ASIC mines so great, then why is the seller in such a rush to sell it instead of saving it for themselves?

Probably a scam and/or it'll be obsolete by the time you get one (see: Butterfly Labs)
 

EightySix Four

Diamond Member
Jul 17, 2004
5,121
49
91
Ethereum's algorithm needs a ton of memory bandwidth specifically to minimize the impact of ASIC miners, if it is real, it probably has a very interesting/unique memory setup.
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
Hopefully this will lighten the demand for GPUs.

It shows the pre-order price is $399 (down), with the "rest payment" of $1,800 USD. Alternatively, once Full Payment is selected in the toggle option menu, the full price becomes $2,199 USD. The RX 480s can be resold for a decent amount of $ in 2017 or during any time should ethereum fail during the next 12 months. If mining fails, that $2,200 USD specialized part is worth close to $0.
 

Feld

Senior member
Aug 6, 2015
287
95
101
Sata to molex or straight molex to molex from the PSU?
Straight molex from the PSU to molex on the riser.

Perhaps the power draw from the socket is lower for some aftermarket cards than it is for reference cards?
 

Madpacket

Platinum Member
Nov 15, 2005
2,068
326
126
Well I did a bunch more reading today on these modified BIOS's which can really boost the 470/480's. Being the chicken I am I ordered 4x non reference Sapphire 480's as they have dual BIOS capabilities. I'll give them a flash when they arrive ;)

That being said some of the 4GB 470's with Hynix memory seem to be hitting around 28Mh with a modified BIOS albeit at higher power consumption compared to the 480's. But 4GB 470's are a good $100.00 less than the 8GB 480's. I think long term DAG growth and better resale value may still keep the 8GB 480's as the most desirable cards still but could be wrong.

Also my ITX Gigabyte 1070 arrived tonight. Just fired it up for a quick test and noticed it has Micron memory which I'm not hearing too many good things about. Runs super quiet under load though. The coil whine is louder than the fan at 50% speeds on an open bench but thankfully it's nowhere near as bad as the Radeon Nano's are. Can't really hear the card more than a few feet away (it'll be used for my HTPC).

Hopefully I find a guide or something for 1070 mining. Supposedly they need WDDM 2.1 and the Anniversary update for Windows 10 if using Claymore. That update is running over night so I'll have some benchmarks hopefully by tomorrow evening. I'll be happy with 28Mh. The card boosted to 1800+MHz playing GTAV and never throttled which seems pretty decent for such a tiny card. Kept temps juat under 65C as well.

Fun stuff!
 
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Madpacket

Platinum Member
Nov 15, 2005
2,068
326
126
It shows the pre-order price is $399 (down), with the "rest payment" of $1,800 USD. Alternatively, once Full Payment is selected in the toggle option menu, the full price becomes $2,199 USD. The RX 480s can be resold for a decent amount of $ in 2017 or during any time should ethereum fail during the next 12 months. If mining fails, that $2,200 USD specialized part is worth close to $0.

I looked into it a bit. I doesn't exactly scream SCAM like some of the others that have come and gone but still looks pretty shady to me. Money back if they miss delivery deadline but the deadline advertised has already passed? Also no deposit money back. They don't even mention if it's an ASIC. I suspect if it's real they're using some sort of FPGA setup given the hashrates and power usage isn't that much better than a proper 480 mining rig. It looks like they're pulling an Alpha litecoin scam. String people along for the deposit money and never actually deliver a product.
 

suklee

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,585
10
81
you should be fine with just the 3 SATA power cables and double up one of them. Use wattman in radeon settings driver to undervolt. I've heard not to use direct molex on the riser cards as they dont deliver enough voltage

I'm pretty sure it's the other way around no? If possible, you want to be using Molex->Molex direct from PSU into the risers, rather than SATA -> Molex power adapters like these.


Sata-M_Power_to_Molex_4pin_Female_Cable_7_Inch.jpg
 
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DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,583
10,785
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Brave, stupid, often the same thing.



I was under the impression that was fixed in the driver updates?

It depends on the card, but I'm not 100% sure they'll ever be able to fix that with drivers, at least not with the reference cards. Undervolting is obviously your friend for any cards that have to share a SATA cable.

As far as that ASIC miner is concerned . . . it's only a matter of time before someone figures out something. Hopefully Vitalik and company are ready to go to PoS soon and nuke the ASIC miners before they even get started.
 

n0x1ous

Platinum Member
Sep 9, 2010
2,572
248
106
I'm pretty sure it's the other way around no? If possible, you want to be using Molex->Molex direct from PSU into the risers, rather than SATA -> Molex power adapters like these.


Sata-M_Power_to_Molex_4pin_Female_Cable_7_Inch.jpg

These are what most of the risers come with. I think sata is on 12v rail vs 3.3 or 5v for molex and that is the reason. Could be wrong though
 

Jose Castillo

Member
Sep 12, 2016
43
3
41
Guys im having some problems getting windows 10 detecting my 4 asus 470 :( it only detects 3 no matter what i do

Besides that im having some problems too with the hashrate, 1 of the 3 cards its getting really low hashrate, any suggestion?

I hadnt touched anything on any cards (bios, voltages or anything)

Im using lastest version of claymore (7.0)

https://www.mediafire.com/?1z0bm9n3uvajrxe

https://www.mediafire.com/?22evbb4cmjle4o8

Im running this on a Gigabyte AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gbps USB 3.0 ATX AM3+ Socket DDR3 1600 + AMD FX 4-Core Black Edition FX-4300 with EVGA 1000GQ, 80+ GOLD 1000W, Semi Modular, EVGA ECO Mode, 5 Year Warranty, Power Supply 210-GQ-1000-V1

I really appreciate it any suggestion
 

EightySix Four

Diamond Member
Jul 17, 2004
5,121
49
91
Guys im having some problems getting windows 10 detecting my 4 asus 470 :( it only detects 3 no matter what i do

Besides that im having some problems too with the hashrate, 1 of the 3 cards its getting really low hashrate, any suggestion?

I hadnt touched anything on any cards (bios, voltages or anything)

Im using lastest version of claymore (7.0)

https://www.mediafire.com/?1z0bm9n3uvajrxe

https://www.mediafire.com/?22evbb4cmjle4o8

Im running this on a Gigabyte AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gbps USB 3.0 ATX AM3+ Socket DDR3 1600 + AMD FX 4-Core Black Edition FX-4300 with EVGA 1000GQ, 80+ GOLD 1000W, Semi Modular, EVGA ECO Mode, 5 Year Warranty, Power Supply 210-GQ-1000-V1

I really appreciate it any suggestion

Does the AMD control panel show four cards?

Does the Device Manager show four cards?

Can you try mining in ETH only mode and see what happens to your hashrate?
 

Jose Castillo

Member
Sep 12, 2016
43
3
41
Does the AMD control panel show four cards?

Does the Device Manager show four cards?

Can you try mining in ETH only mode and see what happens to your hashrate?

device manager only sees 3 cards, every fan/led is on buy the mobo wont detect the 4th card, any suggestion maybe a bad riser?
 

Jose Castillo

Member
Sep 12, 2016
43
3
41
Ok mining with 3 cards, cant get my mobo detect the 4th card, which app do you recommend to modify voltage without bios mod?
 
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Madpacket

Platinum Member
Nov 15, 2005
2,068
326
126
Ok mining with 3 cards, cant get my mobo detect the 4th card, which app do you recommend to modify voltage without bios mod?

Try uninstalling your drivers with DDU and reinstalling the latest driver version. If that doesn't work try musical chairs with the PCI extenders, sometimes just swapping cards help them show up. Check your BIOS and make sure nothing else is taking up PCIe resources. Check device manager and see how many cards are listed under displays. If you have one card listed with a yellow exclamation mark check the error code (probably IRQ conflict). I have one board that I had to change a setting (sorry the name I forget), basically disable the on board PCIe mSATA port for all five cards to show up.

Just some ideas, good luck.

Low hashrates are usually caused by overly aggressive memory speed settings. Supposedly AMD added some advanced logic that counts the number of memory related errors over a set period of time, if the number of errors exceeds a certain threshold the card will throttle your memory down automatically instead of just crashing. Try backing off on your memory speeds a tad and see if your hash rates stabilize. Alternatively increased the voltage to your memory and up the fan speeds to compensate for increased heat.
 
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Neurodog

Senior member
Jan 11, 2000
926
22
81
To fellow Canadians;

I've been following this tread for a while and I've accumulated a few hundred ETH and was thinking of cashing some to cover the cost of the hardware. Has anyone investigated how this all works with CRA?
Do we need a business to be able to claim electricity and stuff?
 

Jose Castillo

Member
Sep 12, 2016
43
3
41
Try uninstalling your drivers with DDU and reinstalling the latest driver version. If that doesn't work try musical chairs with the PCI extenders, sometimes just swapping cards help them show up. Check your BIOS and make sure nothing else is taking up PCIe resources. Check device manager and see how many cards are listed under displays. If you have one card listed with a yellow exclamation mark check the error code (probably IRQ conflict). I have one board that I had to change a setting (sorry the name I forget), basically disable the on board PCIe mSATA port for all five cards to show up.

Just some ideas, good luck.

Low hashrates are usually caused by overly aggressive memory speed settings. Supposedly AMD added some advanced logic that counts the number of memory related errors over a set period of time, if the number of errors exceeds a certain threshold the card will throttle your memory down automatically instead of just crashing. Try backing off on your memory speeds a tad and see if your hash rates stabilize. Alternatively increased the voltage to your memory and up the fan speeds to compensate for increased heat.

will do that tomorrow, thanks for the suggestion
 

daxzy

Senior member
Dec 22, 2013
393
77
101
Ethereum's algorithm needs a ton of memory bandwidth specifically to minimize the impact of ASIC miners, if it is real, it probably has a very interesting/unique memory setup.

I would assume that if it's just a static algorithm, then ASIC's will eventually just take over. GDDR5/X is pretty cheap.
 

Madpacket

Platinum Member
Nov 15, 2005
2,068
326
126
To fellow Canadians;

I've been following this tread for a while and I've accumulated a few hundred ETH and was thinking of cashing some to cover the cost of the hardware. Has anyone investigated how this all works with CRA?
Do we need a business to be able to claim electricity and stuff?


A few hundred is a small amount. I wouldn't bother with the CRA (unless you plan on claiming all hardware costs, electricity, cooling, etc. You better be incorporated and have a good chartered accountant as well). Don't give them a reason to audit you unless you're confident and fully prepared.

Instead I would just convert your Ether to Bitcoin at shapeshift.io and use a BTC ATM to cash out. Or use Localbitcoins and sell to desperate crypto locker folks for a slight premium. Only take cash and use a blue light to check the money carefully for fake bills. Never sell more than a couple coins at once. Use a hardware wallet with a small number of funds for any local meet ups. If you feel you still made a good profit donate what you would have paid in taxes anonymously to your charity of choice.

Good luck.
 

Madpacket

Platinum Member
Nov 15, 2005
2,068
326
126
I would assume that if it's just a static algorithm, then ASIC's will eventually just take over. GDDR5/X is pretty cheap.

The DAG isn't a static algorithm, it'll be pointless to buy one of these units even if they're magically somehow real (doubtful). There's more money in mining then selling hardware at the moment so any company who had the R&D to build one would be mining themselves (just like Butterflylabs and many other companies followed suit) instead of immediatley selling.

This is 99% just another preorder scam where you never get back the preorder funds. Unless I see real working units reviewed by creditable independent people I wouldn't sweat it. Besides for the money they're asking you could build a 6x470 mining rig for less and be very close in performance to these magical units that will be useless after PoS arrives or the difficulty bomb (whichever comes first).