Ethereum GPU mining?

[DrMrLordX]

3) I'm in the process of diving into a 3 rig-system I'm building. Are there any suggestions or recommendations (circa march 2017) regarding Win10 vs Linux vs EthOS ? Claymore vs Genoil ?

I posted a writeup in the ZEC mining thread for mining Zcash which is basically the same for mining ETH, just use Claymore's Ethereum + Decred miner instead of his Zcash miner:

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/zcash-zec-gpu-mining.2490229/page-5#post-38558544

Ignore the bit about fglrx-updates and instead use AMDGPU/AMDGPU-Pro. In fact, read this:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/838925/how-to-install-amdgpu-pro-drivers-in-16-10/839059

You might be better off using 16.04 with kernel 4.4 unless AMDGPU-Pro has been updated to work with the newer kernel versions.

Also I'm not sure if the

aticonfig

commands work with AMDGPU-Pro the way they did under the old catalyst driver, so you'll have to do research on that to create your own clockspeed-setting commands.

Or you can just mine with stock settings.

As far as hardware goes, I scraped up some old AM2+ hardware that had a ton of PCIe slots and focused on 4-card systems. Some folks go whole-hog with 6-card systems. I find that some boards are just not stable with more than 4 cards, and getting 4 to work can be a challenge. You will want powered riser cables and a "case"/rack for your hardware.

You need to go through an exchange, like poloniex.com or kraken.com . You basically need to sell your eth for $. You can then transfer it from your exchange account to a bank account. Be aware of transfer fees though, especially through your bank. Some banks can charge $20+ for wire transfers. I don't know about paypal.

Poloniex does not allow USD <-> ETH exchange; in fact, you can't get USD selling anything on Poloniex. You can get USDT but that is not the same thing.

 

[Hitman928]

Poloniex does not allow USD <-> ETH exchange; in fact, you can't get USD selling anything on Poloniex. You can get USDT but that is not the same thing.

Good to know, I pretty much use kraken and only briefly used Poloniex for when I was dual mining.

 

[thepaleobiker]

Good to know, I pretty much use kraken and only briefly used Poloniex for when I was dual mining.

There's so many exchanges - Poloniex, Kraken, etc but there's also some alternative options such as using Coinbase to get USD to BTC/ETH and then using Coinbase to interface with Polonix/other exchanges.

gatehub.net is another one I find interesting. I heard less than satisfactory things about some of the European based exchanges.

 

[Jose Castillo]

i finally got 4 cards running fine using 4 risers and disabling usb3 front panel, thanks

 

[thepaleobiker]

I posted a writeup in the ZEC mining thread for mining Zcash which is basically the same for mining ETH, just use Claymore's Ethereum + Decred miner instead of his Zcash miner:

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/zcash-zec-gpu-mining.2490229/page-5#post-38558544

Ignore the bit about fglrx-updates and instead use AMDGPU/AMDGPU-Pro. In fact, read this:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/838925/how-to-install-amdgpu-pro-drivers-in-16-10/839059

You might be better off using 16.04 with kernel 4.4 unless AMDGPU-Pro has been updated to work with the newer kernel versions.

Also I'm not sure if the

aticonfig

commands work with AMDGPU-Pro the way they did under the old catalyst driver, so you'll have to do research on that to create your own clockspeed-setting commands.

Or you can just mine with stock settings.

As far as hardware goes, I scraped up some old AM2+ hardware that had a ton of PCIe slots and focused on 4-card systems. Some folks go whole-hog with 6-card systems. I find that some boards are just not stable with more than 4 cards, and getting 4 to work can be a challenge. You will want powered riser cables and a "case"/rack for your hardware.



Poloniex does not allow USD <-> ETH exchange; in fact, you can't get USD selling anything on Poloniex. You can get USDT but that is not the same thing.

I got the parts in today to build a simple wooden cage /case 🙂 . The PC components are on their way (I've 3 new RX 480s ready to go)

Biostar recently launched a 6 PCIe "BTC" labelled motherboard on Intel's B250 Chipset. I'm pairing it up with a Celeron G3930 ($39) and 4GB RAM. I think it should work fine, but if there are any pitfalls I need to look out for, please let me know!

I am planning to put one GPU on the main PCIe x16, and the other 2 via RISERS. Latest AMD Crimson drivers. I'll use Win10 Pro (I've a key lying around)

 

[thepaleobiker]

i finally got 4 cards running fine using 4 risers and disabling usb3 front panel, thanks

Mining ETH ?

 

[DrMrLordX]

Biostar recently launched a 6 PCIe "BTC" labelled motherboard on Intel's B250 Chipset. I'm pairing it up with a Celeron G3930 ($39) and 4GB RAM. I think it should work fine, but if there are any pitfalls I need to look out for, please let me know!

Read reviews/posts on mining forums about the board. I am aware that they've launched some BTC-aimed motherboards in the past which are favored by some miners. Others have complained that the boards are . . . quirky.

My experience with using non-BTC designed boards is that you start getting strange hardware detection behavior in both Linux and Windows once you fill up slots. On one of my Linux machines, I have 4 290s and a PCIe NIC. Once I installed the NIC, I was no longer able to successfully set or read clockspeeds of the 290 with aticonfig under Linux, though it mines just fine (weird). So I am guessing that the board could handle 5 video cards.

I'm not sure that you'll like having one card plugged directly into the 16x slot, though it shouldn't make any negative difference.

Windows mining isn't a terrible idea, btw. A lot of people do it. Claymore was releasing only to Windows for ZEC for awhile there, and I think he still releases his Windows client updates earlier than he releases updates to Linux. Just be aware that you will have to do some hacking to stop automatic reboots from updates.

 

[suklee]

Built a few rigs - with 6 cards connected I see this BSOD on boot: attempted execute of noexecute memory

5 cards: hasn't crashed
6 cards: BSOD on start up - can't even boot into Windows

I'm really hoping this is not a PSU issue.

Rig specs:

Intel G3260
AsRock H81 BTC Pro 2.0
4GB DDR3-1600
120GB SSD
6x Sapphire RX470 Nitro with 6-pin PCI-e powered USB risers
Corsair RM1000i
Windows 10 OEM

Any ideas?

PS. Same issue being discussed at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1825977.msg18179525#msg18179525. OP has the same issue on AsRock H81 Pro BTC as well as Biostar TB85

 

[Shmee]

Weird. Mb update bios? Also, try memtest/check smart, just to be sure.

 

[suklee]

Weird. Mb update bios? Also, try memtest/check smart, just to be sure.

Yep, most up to date BIOS according to website (from 2014!). I'll try a 1200W PSU to see if that helps at all

Ordered some Biostar TB85s too so I hope I don't run into the same issue!

 

[Feld]

Yep, most up to date BIOS according to website (from 2014!). I'll try a 1200W PSU to see if that helps at all

Ordered some Biostar TB85s too so I hope I don't run into the same issue!

Sure sounds like a likely PSU issue. Have you ruled out the graphics cards and risers?

 

[suklee]

Sure sounds like a likely PSU issue. Have you ruled out the graphics cards and risers?

Hmm, for some reason three of the four rigs now work with 6 cards. Did I reverse-jinx myself?

Each RX470 doing ~24.5 Mh/s = ~147Mh per rig

Edit:
rig 2 still has the BSOD with 6th card attached

rig 6 won't POST with single GPU connected via primary PCI-e slot - onboard HDMI is ok, as soon as I plug it into the GPU there is no signal. As if it's still sending the video feed via onboard HDMI port - possible short somewhere?

 

[n0x1ous]

Built a few rigs - with 6 cards connected I see this BSOD on boot: attempted execute of noexecute memory

5 cards: hasn't crashed
6 cards: BSOD on start up - can't even boot into Windows

I'm really hoping this is not a PSU issue.

Rig specs:

Intel G3260
AsRock H81 BTC Pro 2.0
4GB DDR3-1600
120GB SSD
6x Sapphire RX470 Nitro with 6-pin PCI-e powered USB risers
Corsair RM1000i
Windows 10 OEM

Any ideas?

PS. Same issue being discussed at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1825977.msg18179525#msg18179525. OP has the same issue on AsRock H81 Pro BTC as well as Biostar TB85

I had the same issue and same bsod with h97 anniversary and 6 480s. Tried everything from swapping cards to risers etc etc. it ended up being the latest 17.x relive drivers. Reverted to 16.12.1 and smooth sailing

 

[Elfear]

I had issues getting 6 cards to work on the H97 Anniversary edition too. Sometimes I could get it to boot and load the miner, sometimes it would get in a boot loop, and other times I could get into Windows but the miner wouldn't recognize the cards. Finally working well now (knock on wood) but I really don't know what finally did the trick.

 

[Madpacket]

I have a four 6 card rigs, two rigs are running in H97's with Celerons, the other boards are Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5 running Semprons. No issues with Windows 10 and quality risers + quality power supplies. The trick is to add one card at a time, let Windows recognize it and then reboot. Make sure the card shows up in device manager and then rinse & repeat until all 6 show up properly. If one riser or slot gives you problems, try moving them around. I also have several 5 card socket 1151 AsRock rigs (forget the model #'s, but they were cheap - under $100 CAD after rebate). These boards gave me some issues until I disabled a number of things in the BIOS. I encourage disabling all onboard features that are unnecessary for the continued operation for mining. Oh and stick to 16.2.x series drivers if you can. I don't run any drivers newer than October / November of 2016.

 

[Jose Castillo]

Hi guys, one of my nitro+ 470 gpu died on me after several month of use without problems, the card seems to be receiving power cause it got on the leds, but it wont be detected on windows and the fans are off, any suggestion?

Is it ok to rma to sapphire?

 

[DrMrLordX]

Did you have it overclocked? Hell even if you did Sapphire might honor the warranty.

 

[Jose Castillo]

Yeah, i did overclocked it and modified the bios, the videocard never passed 68°c and fans never passed 60% dont know why it died

 

[ozzy702]

Hi guys, one of my nitro+ 470 gpu died on me after several month of use without problems, the card seems to be receiving power cause it got on the leds, but it wont be detected on windows and the fans are off, any suggestion?

Is it ok to rma to sapphire?

Same issue. I just received the replacement 470 nitro+ back from sapphire. They didn't ask any questions but I was using the stock ROM with just the memory OC.

 

[Madpacket]

One thing to keep in mind WRT card dying and warranty repair. Don't feel bad or think your card was damaged by a "known good mining BIOS". These BIOS's simply undervolt the GPU core and set tighter memory timings. In theory, your card should run much cooler than with a stock BIOS (unless manually undervolted) which should prolong the life the of the card. The idea is to get the best performance per watt and as a side-effect this means fewer watts being generated by the card and therefore less heat. For the handful of cards I have continually mining, I've only had one card die and that was a card that didn't have its BIOS flashed (Gigabyte Geforce 1070). None of my cool running 24/7/365 29Mh flashed 480's have died, but if one did I wouldn't think twice about RMA'ing it even with a flashed BIOS. The company has the right to refuse the RMA as flashing the BIOS usually voids a warranty so there's some element of risk of wasting your money to send the card in for repair if they deny it.

 

[Jose Castillo]

One thing to keep in mind WRT card dying and warranty repair. Don't feel bad or think your card was damaged by a "known good mining BIOS". These BIOS's simply undervolt the GPU core and tighten memory timings. In theory your card should run much cooler than with a stock BIOS (unless manually undervolted) which should prolong the life the of the card. The idea is to get the best performance per watt and as a side-effect this means fewer watts being generated by the card and therefore less heat. For the handful of cards I have continually mining, I've only had one card die and that was a card that didn't have its BIOS flashed (Gigabyte Geforce 1070). None of my cool running 24/7/365 29Mh flashed 480's have died, but if one did I wouldn't think twice about RMA'ing it even with a flashed BIOS. The company has the right to refuse the RMA as flashing the BIOS usually voids a warranty so there's some element of risk of wasting your money to send the card in for repair off if they deny it.

Amazon has taken it back for 83% of the cost, so it wasnt a bad deal and i ordered the nitro version (without +)

 

[IEC]

RX480 reference cards are still my favorite for mining. With the proper undervolt and memory OC they are very efficient and the blower fans are extremely reliable. It's getting close to the one year mark for some of my RX480s...

 

[Mercennarius]

Agreed...RX480s are excellent mining cards

 

[IEC]

us1.ethermine.org:4444 is dead for me as of a little over 2 hours ago.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Why? DDoS?