April 18th, 2013 
CryptoBadger 
One of my finished plastic-crate mining rigs.
So you’re interested in mining cryptocurrency, but you’re not sure where to start? No problem, this guide is all you need to set up your own headless litecoin mining rig—even if you have absolutely no experience with this sort of thing.
First, let’s get the obvious question out of the way: why litecoins? After all, bitcoins are worth more, right? The simple answer is that at the time of this writing, litecoins are currently the most profitable cryptocurrency to mine when you take into account how much each coin is worth, and the time required to mine one. Rest assured that if the situation changes, and another cryptocurrency suddenly surpasses litecoin as the best mining option, the rig outlined in the guide should have no problem switching over to a new coin.
This guide will be broken into several parts, each focusing on a different aspect of building your first mining rig. First, let’s take a look at what you’ll need in terms of hardware to put a respectable miner together.
Build your own Litecoin Mining Rig, part 1: Hardware
4/06/2017: This guide is roughly three years old. Please don’t attempt to buy any of the hardware recommended here—it’s quite obsolete! If you’re looking for information about modern GPU mining, please click here for my updated 2017 guide on mining Ethereum.
Here is the list of hardware that I recommend:
| Motherboard | ASRock 970 Extreme4 |
$98 |
| Processor | AMD Sempron 145 |
$38 |
| Memory | 4GB G.SKILL DDR3 SDRAM (2 x 2GB) |
$46 |
| Power Supply | Seasonic 860w Platinum PSU |
$199 |
| GPUs | 3 x MSI Radeon HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 (Twin Frozr) |
$319 each |
| (optional) | 3 x PCI-E riser cable | $5 each |
| (for dummy plugs) | 68 ohm 1/2 watt resistors | $3 |
Update 11/26/2013: The Radeon 7950 video cards are sold out pretty much everywhere. They’re still the best option for mining if you can find them, but if you can’t, then the new Radeon R9 280X cards are likely your best option. They do consume a fair bit more power though, so you”ll want to upgrade your power supply as well (this 1250w Seasonic should support three 280X GPUs without problems). As for brands, I recommend these Sapphire, Gigabyte, and MSI 280X cards for now. I’ll be updating the rest of my guide at some point in the near future with optimal settings for the 280X, so stay tuned.
Update 12/01/2013: If you’re trying to put a rig together, you’ve probably noticed that the above video cards have become nearly impossible to find. I’ve received a few messages from folks that are having some good results using the R9 290 cards, although they’re a fair bit more expensive than the 280X. If you’re itching to build a rig ASAP and can’t find a 7950 or 280X, then you might consider the 290. It looks like all of the current 290 cards are using AMD’s reference cooling design at the moment, so brand probably doesn’t matter too much. Although given a choice, you usually can’t go wrong with Sapphire, Gigabyte, and MSI. Again, remember to pick up a fairly powerful PSU if you’re going to run 3 of these in a rig.
You will also need a USB stick (8GB or larger, this one is fine) if you’re using Linux as your OS, or a harddrive (a cheap SATA drive of any size will do) if you’re using Windows. I will cover setup on both Linux and Windows in the next sections of this guide, as well as the pros and cons of each.
The video cards may be difficult to find, as they’re popular and often sell out. You can substitute nearly any 7950-based GPU, but if you have a choice, go for the MSI or Sapphire cards. They’re not voltage-locked and will save you some electricity in the long run. I have the MSI card that I recommended in all of my rigs, but I’m told that this (and also this) Sapphire card is also a good choice.
The motherboard, CPU, and RAM are all relatively unimportant. The motherboard simply needs to have enough PCI-E slots to host your three GPUs (if the recommended board isn’t available, here is another, or if you can’t find either ASRock, this Gigabyte board is a good alternative). The CPU will essentially sit idle, as all of the actual mining is done by the GPUs. The Sempron 145 is an excellent choice here because it’s cheap and draws very little power (if the Sempron is unavailable, this one is also a fine choice). If you’re going with Linux, you can get away with even less than 4GB of RAM, but I’d stick to that as a realistic minimum on Windows.
The power supply is important, and you don’t want to skimp on it. The Seasonic that I’ve recommended is extremely solid and 93% efficient, which will help keep power consumption to a minimum. It’s also modular, which is really nice if you’re putting this together in a plastic crate like I recommend.
The PCI-E risers aren’t strictly necessary, as all 3 GPUs will fit on the motherboard without them. However, airflow will be extremely limited due to the close proximity of the cards, and I really don’t recommend setting them up that way long-term. The riser cables allow you to position the GPUs off of the motherboard in a more spaced-out fashion. I dropped the temperature of my GPUs by nearly 10 degrees Celcius by simply using risers to separate them. Availability and pricing on Amazon is constantly changing, so check eBay if you can’t find them.
Important: you may also need to create dummy plugs for each of your GPUs. Some operating systems will idle video cards that do not have an active monitor connection, which will obviously kill your mining performance. Dummy plugs “trick” your OS into thinking a monitor is connected, thus preventing attached GPUs from being idled. You just need a few resistors ($1-2 at Radio Shack if they’re not available at Amazon) and these instructions to create your own plugs.
So you’ve got nearly $1400 worth of hardware, but no place to put it, as I haven’t mentioned a case. I highly recommend against trying to cram 3 GPUs into a conventional PC case. A plastic crate or two works far better due to the tremendous heat that the video cards will give off. Added bonus: they’re cheap!
Here is what you’ll need to create a simple DIY plastic crate housing for your miner:
Plastic Crate (get 2 if you want a place for your PSU) |
$5 each |
| Plastic stand-offs | $4 |
| 6 x #4 3/8″ wood or metal screws | $1 |
| Brace to rest GPUs on (I used two of these) | $4 |
| a few cable ties (8″ or so) | $2 |
| power switch & LED (optional) | $6 |
You can get plastic crates in most home improvement stores if you don’t want to ship it from Amazon. I picked mine up at Lowe’s for under $5 each. You should be able to get everything else on the list at Lowe’s if you happen to have one near you, too. As far as tools go, you’ll need a drill and a knife capable of cutting into whatever plastic crate you buy.
Assembly Steps:
First, attach your CPU & heatsink/fan to your motherboard, and place your RAM into the memory slot(s). Then follow the general steps below to mount everything into your plastic crate.
Click the images for a close-up look at each step.
Place plastic standoffs on the bottom of your plastic crate, and rest your motherboard on top of them. Make sure that all of the essential ports are accessible (SATA, USB, keyboard, mouse, etc). Use your knife to cut away pieces of the crate if necessary so that all ports you plan to use are exposed. Then plug your riser cables into the PCI-E slots of your motherboard.
Place your brace (either the plastic guards that I recommended, or a cut yardstick, or whatever you have that works) so that it is sitting above the motherboard, high enough for your GPUs to rest on. Cut the brace so that an inch or two sticks out on either end of the crate.
Drill holes in your brace so that you can secure it with cable ties (see image). Do not simply rest the brace on the crate! An accidental bump can cause it to fall into the crate, along with ~$1000 worth of GPUs if you do that!
Connect each GPU to it’s corresponding riser cable, resting the bracket end on the lip of the crate and the other end on your brace.
Screw each GPU down into the lip of the crate. If you drill small pilot holes ahead of time (mark where to drill with a sharpie), this is much easier.
If you have a power switch and LED, mount them into one of the crate’s corners. I was pretty sloppy with mine, but it’s functional.
You’re done! Simply connect everything to your power supply and you should be ready to power your rig on for the first time. If you have a second crate, you can put your power supply in there (along with your harddrive if you’re using Windows), and stack it under your main crate to save some space.
In the next part of this guide, I’ll show you everything you need to do to start mining under Linux (and Windows will follow shortly after)!
Posted in 
Tags: 
Brilliant post, we have spent many hours reading over this guide and have successfully built many Litecoin miners using it. Thank you so much Cryptobadger for taking the time to write up this brilliant guide. I hope it helps other people out too.
I found that powered riser cables were very difficult to get hold of but we have managed to source them and we now sell them on our site http://www.litecoinminingparts.com for the lowest price on the internet. You can also get other parts needed for Litecoin mining.
Thanks again.
Tom
Hi! I want to make almost the same hardware but I want to have 4 cards R9 280x. Could anyone help me with power supply? Do I need 2 instead of one? Or better to buy one big? plz help
Don’t use 2 power supplies.
Just get one high quality power supply.
Based on the information provided here:
https://litecoin.info/Mining_hardware_comparison
The R9 280x consumes on average 300 watts.
300 X 4 = 1200 Watts + additional power needed to power the motherboard, memory, processor and hard drive.
I would suggest a 1400-1500 watt PSU.
Sure you could probably get away with less.
Here is one I found on Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817256054
Hi Vitalia!
Have you attempted undervolting the 280Xs? Might save you a 200W.
get 1600wat psu
hey Daniel I have asrock 970ex4mobo
with r9 280x sapphire dual x cards
mobo only reconizes 2 cards any help
Thanks for all the useful info.
Planning on building a few of these and have a few questions.
I have access to 1) sapphire r9 290 tri x OC cards for ~400 euro and 2) sapphire 7950 cards for 190 euro each. Which is the better investment in terms of hashrate,power use,cost of card and also ease of use/stability?
Could someone educate me or point me to relevant links regarding power.. ie im in ireland on 220v- is it safe to run 2 rigs with 4 cards ~1000 each rig off 1 power socket /extension cable?
also Im thinking ahead and want to know if there is a way of getting cgminer to auto switch between different multi pools in case one pool is down- or does it do this automatically ?
Here are a few remarks on the hardware choice :
– 7950 mine best at Intensity 20 but the PC is not usable for anything else while mining (lagging). On the contrary, the 280X mine best at intensity 13 and the PC stays usable for web surfing and light work (at least in windows 7 64 bits). Hence, the 280X is a good choice for a PC that must stay usable.
– in Windows 7 64 bits, I found that the main graphic card (in the upper 16x PCI-E slot) is never set to sleep by windows, even if no screen is connected. Hence, this main graphic card does not need a dummy plug.
– a single resistor (range 60-150 ohms) can be plugged and can be enough to act as a dummy plug. Search the net for “5 seconds dummy plug”.
– when building a rig from scratch, a 3 or 4 graphic cards-rig has the best ratio mining power/money invested, as it costs less than building 3 ou 4 one-graphic-card PCs. But, when you already have a PC with a strong enough power supply and at least 1 PCI-e slot, plugging-in a good graphic card (280X preferably) is the most money-effective investment, as you only spend this graphic-card! For example, I plugged a 280X graphic card in the PC of a friend who don’t understand much to computers. The deal was : I upgrade your PC (graphic card + windows 7 64 bits) at no cost for you, and i’ll give you half the benefits of the mining. It worked ! Yet, beware of not harming this friendship (be sure they understand and accept the deal), and also, beware of the noise (the PSU fan will turn faster). I set the mining of this card to conservative settings (900 Mhz and low GPU voltage) to keep the noise down. The PC is set up to automaticcaly start mining, and it is one of my workers, so this friend does not have to bother with settings nor pools, etc.
Thanks a lot, cryptobadger, your guides are the best on the net and helped me enormously.
hello, i want to know how to start mining ????
i m totally new. how to set all setting a -z coz in india no know any think about mining. i have 2 ATI270X with 750W PSU’s. OS is win 7
now what to do ?????
plz help me i really thank full for you.
ਕਦਮ 1. translate.google.com ਜਾਓ
ਕਦਮ 2. Cryptobadger.com ਤੱਕ ਕਾਪੀ ਕਰੋ ਪੇਸਟ ਗਾਈਡ
Can anyone tell me if one needs to “short” the PCI-1X slot on an ASRock 970 Extreme3 motherboard in order for cgminer to recognize an MSI 7950?
I’ve tried the sudo aticonfig –adapter=all –initial call and have rebooted, but I am unable to get my 3rd MSI 7950 to be recognized. (ubuntu 12.10, followed the instructions here to a tee, except I’m on an Extreme3 board instead of an Extreme4)
Did you manage to fix this?
I have the same problem.. 3rd PCI does not seem to work / be recognised. I have the ASRock 970 Extreme4 as in the guide..
first 2 PCI work fine.. 3rd on has power, but CGminer does not recognize any card i put in the third slot.
help?! 🙂
SAME PROBLEM
I WANT TO PUT 3 CARDS SAPPHIRE R9 280X DUAL X
MOBO ASROCK970EX4 LETS ONLY 2 CARDS WORK
HOW DO I FIX THIS?
here’s the presence hack/mod
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=102547.0
I PUT A 16X 16 POWERED RISER THEN INSTALLED GPU DRIVER GOT 3RD TO WORK…..BUT WHAT IS FRUSTRATING IS I HAVE 7 OTHER RIGS RUNNING 3 AND 4 CARDS WITH NO POWERED RISERS .ALL 970 EX 4MOBO’S…………THEY PURRR ALONG JUST FINE
SO COULD THIS BE A PROBLEM WITH BOARD
Hi Fred, I see you solved the problem with the 3rd card. I am curious; (1)did you begin with one or two rigs and add when you made enough from those to buy more.
(2) Where do you find room for 7 or 8 rigs and how do you keep them cool?
(3) What about the electric cost?
(4) I have just built my first rig, got it stabilized and moved it to my garage because the heat in my office was too much even with a fan pulling air in from an open window and outside temps. between 30 & 50. I have the same mobo, ASRock 970EX4 with 3 Sapphire HD7950 cards. One card always runs 8 to 10 degrees hotter than the other two and I have not been able to get the rig to run stable for very long with undervolting below 1.125. They run great at 1.169 which is stock setting. Has rates are 580 to 600 most of the time.
(5) On the 970EX4 mobo I thought the card closest to the CPU was #0 and then #1, #2, etc. moving to the end of the board but now I am not so sure because of the activity I see in Putty. What is your take on that?
I am starting on my second rig tomorrow.
Thanks, Edwardf
Hello, I have an odd problem in a rig which is a 280x & a 7950. The optimal settings for these 2 cards require “-g 2″ and “-g 1″ respectively but since cgminer doesn’t allow multiple card settings for GPUthreads, I can’t launch cgminer with a batch or config file. If I try launching cgminer with -d 0 or -d 1 to run each card individually, one of the cards hash rates will drop like a rock almost instantly and never recoup. Any ideas?? Has anyone successfully merged 7950 with 280x (or 7970) on the same rig where –gpu-threads are different for the two card types? Help!
You can run 2 instances of cgminer with no ill effects and I’m positive you can still use a batch file.
cgminer –scrypt -o host:port -u x -p x –worksize 256 –intensity 13 -g 2 –thread-concurrency 8192 –device=0
cgminer –scrypt -o host:port -u x -p x –worksize 256 –intensity 19 -g 1 –thread-concurrency 21712 –device=1
Not tested, but something like that should work.
That’s exactly what I’m doing, I made 2 batch files for each settings of cgminer and hardcoded it to bind to a specific card. When I run one batch file, it runs fine. When I run the other batch file (by itself), it runs fine. When I run both batch files (both running), the 280x card hash rate always drops like a rock to just 50-100k/sec. Clearly it runs fine individually, its when I run both that the 280x always drops.
It sounds like it could be something else as I’ve had that happen before…
It’s possible it could be the version of cgminer your using. Try another version or try drivers for the graphics cards.
GL
I’m using 3.7.2 of CGMiner which I’ve never had a problem with in the past. I’m on Xubuntu which is always figidity but I don’t want to use Windows for the license/HD requirements. The ATI drivers I’ve tried the latest Unix build and the Beta drivers, same result. Older versions of the drivers probably won’t work since the 280x is really new. I’m really at a loss here and looking like I have to split up the 280x/7950 pairing.
Are you using the SLI/crossfire cable to connect the graphics cards? If you are then try removing it.
Hi JL, nope, never used a crossfire cable to hookup my cards.
Reaper performance was much worse than CGMiner, I tried creating a different directory of cgminer for each GPU as well, same results. I added another card too now so I have 2x 280x and 1 7950. Running 280x by themselves work beautifully, running 7950 by itself works beautifully. Running both at the same time, the 280x’s will drop in hash rates by 90% and eventually become SICK and declared DEAD. I haven’t tried the Windows approach but that’s only because I don’t want to have to buy a license beyond the 90 day trial. The only other option I can think of is not mixing 7950/280x together but I don’t have that liberty as I have 1 7950 I need to put somewhere. Any other ideas other than Windows?
Thank you!
I ended up using settings for the 7950 which had -g 2 in it, but about 120kh/s below optimal that I should be getting if I had -g 1. This setup seems stable (the card does report as SICK/DEAD once in the past 2 days), but at least I can use all 3 cards this way. Looks like I’ll have to re-arrange the cards to be of the same type as this is a really bad setup to have.
If you could get your hands on a cheap Hard Drive you could try Windows 8.1 as a free trial for 90 days: (That may help as a temporary solution)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/hh699156.aspx
Otherwise you could TRY Reaper v13 Beta 4 for Scrypt mining (Don’t use 12 as it doesn’t have Litecoin support).
http://wiki.solidcoin.info/wiki/Reaper#Download
You will need to compile the source code on Linux.
I myself, haven’t had any *LUCK* using Xubuntu but other flavors have worked fine for me such as:
Linux Mint 13
I’ve also seen guides for Debian but you may want to avoid the extra hassle.
The only other thing I can think of is sometimes people tend to use the 2X4 pin molex to pci express and only plug one of the two molex in to the power supply. I know that’s a long shot of whats actually wrong. But this post may open up some other solutions\options to you.
Hi, the reaper advice is a great idea, I’ll give that a shot tonight. For Win 8.1, is there any OS limitations during the 90 days? Is it possible to put the download on a flash stick (to install from) and install to a HD as I’d hate to go buy a CD/DVD player for just that. Also is there the hard limit of 4 GPU’s in Win 8.1?
Thanks for your help, I appreciate it Vitalia!
Use the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool to put the ISO file on the flash drive. You can find the download tool here: (Yes, it says Windows 7 but it works with 8.1 too).
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool
There should be no limits on the OS. I’ve been using it the past 5 days mining 24 hours a day.
No idea on the hard limit for 4 GPU’s as I’ve always used 3 GPU’s MAX.
GL, I hope it works for you.
I was using 5 GPUs on 8. I have heard 8.1 has limitations though so you might want to just use 8 if possible.
i had the same problem. start the script that uses 2 threads first. then almost immediately start the second script before the first makes it into the main screen. play with the timing… it will work.
The motherboard you mentioned only has 3 PCI-E slots. If I wanted to add three more as time went by, which motherboard should I use. Is there another way to plug in an additional three graphics cards besides buying a second or different mobo?
Thanks
x1 to x16 powered risers will help… but beware of the additional power requirements, not only on your PSU, but on the mobo as well. E.g., I have the ASRock 990 Ex4… it has 3 PCI-e x16 slots and 2 PCI-e x1 slot. I’ve already ordered the x1-x16 riser and once it arrives, I’ll add the 4th card. By my calculations, my current PSU will be at 90% of it’s rated power. Here’s hoping.
If you want more cards there are a couple of mobos such as the ASRock 990 Ex9 that can accommodate. That board is currently about $200.
Hi
I have asrock970 extr4 mobo
I have 3 r9280x sapphire dual x cards
mobo only reconizes 2 cards any help
I found one motherboard with 6 PCI-Express slots:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128508
However, beyond 3-4 you’ll most likely be dealing with a heat problem and with 6 GPU’s the GPU’s may\will be too close to each other to effectively dissipate the heat (if they even fit at all).
Plus you’ll need one hell of a Power Supply and a box fan or some kind of Air Conditioning solution. There is no telling how effective the box fan will be at cooling the cards.
More issues:
Electrical outlet limitations? I’m not sure, but it’s good to think about all the problems that you may or may not run in to.
Hello, it’s Be Habba again. Before choosing your hardware, you’ll be interested in these statistics : the rate of return after sales (returns to After Sales Department) for faulty hardware. A french site publishes the rates from a big french online hardware vendor.
Although in french, it’s pretty easy to undestand (you can also use google translate) : the first series of numbers are the rates of return, by brand (lowest is better). For each brand, the second number, after the word “contre”, is the rate of the previous semester. Brands that are not listed are not sold by this vendor.
The numbers in the second part of the page are the worst models. For graphic cards, a third series of numbers give the rates by type of GPU, all brands and models together. For motherboard, the second series of numbers are specifically for “LGA 1155 Z77 Express”, while the worst models come in the third series of numbers.
Links :
motherboards : http://www.hardware.fr/articles/911-2/cartes-meres.html
PSU : http://www.hardware.fr/articles/911-3/alimentations.html
graphic cards http://www.hardware.fr/articles/911-5/cartes-graphiques.html
My conclusion are : as for motherboard, Gigabyte comes first ; AS rock comes last and the models extreme 3 have high return rates.
As for PSU, Fortron comes first and is a good choice. Be Quiet is second and a good choice too. The relatively high number for Seasonic is a surprise compared to their excellent reputation and might come from the fact that users use them “hard” (for mining, for example !). The bad numbers for Corsair come from the low end series (notably CX from wich 2 models trust 2 seats among the 5 worst rates by model).
For graphic cards, numbers for Sapphire are bad. Their models trust 6 out 8 worst numbers’ models. Note that 280X are not yet in the statistics.
Eventually, among SSD, OCZ sticks out for its bad results.
Personnaly, I wish I would have read this earlier !
1. If my main psu only can supply 860watt. Can i add another psu to support more vga?
2. does pcie raiser cable with molex better? since the vga card already received power from psu?
thanks
J
Hello all
I’m putting together a rig with the ASRock 970 Ex4 board and 4x Sapphire 7950s. I am trying to get a PSU for this and am having trouble getting the sizing right. Does anyone thing a 1000W PSU would be enough or should I go for a 1250W?
I am based in the UK and had my eye on the EVGA 1000W G2 as below. Would this be ok?
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-003-EA&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=2390
Thanks in advance..
ElsDrinker, You should probably go with a 1250 at least. EVGA 1300 if you can find one or Seasonic 1250. I have the same mobo and sapphire cards you have and with three cards running I am pulling 900W at the wall but do not have risers yet..so temps are problem and I have not ben able to undervolt the cards yet. When I tried to undervolt using the instructions here I got an error message so it did not work for me.
I about to order some AMD R9 280x cards from New Egg…I’ve got a ASRock 990FX Extreme board, and a Corsair HX1050 power supply. I was worried that the 1050 might not have enough zip for 4 cards, but I was thinking the R9 280x’s used a bit less than the AMD 7950’s. The Specifications really don’t tell me that.
Also, what’s the difference in the numerous variations of R9 280x cards? Should I get a 3.0 HDCP or a 3.0 to 16 (SOLD OUT). Will the first work OK?
thanks, Pat
Hah, no! They use MORE! If you undevolt you MAY be able to get 4 on 1050 but I highly doubt it.
Paul,
Any suggestions on the various versions of 7950’s and R9 280x cards?
Regarding the PSU – do you think I could just run the cards (with maybe two on risers) to another power supply?
Thanks – Pat
So somewhere on the post about 280 optimization I describe my setup. I was using 5x 280x (3 Sapphire, 2 GFX) on a LEPA 1650. It wasn’t enough to keep up 🙁 I had to cut to 4, and it’s been rock solid since. I know you can get those adapters that let you use 2 PSUs, I just haven’t gone that far yet to get the 5th back up and running.
Paul for what it’s worth I just bit the bullet and ordered 4 new Radeon HD 7950’s from Newegg…they have a special right now where they are throwing in free a 650 Watt PSU for each card ordered…looks like that might solve my problem. I’m so new at this I feel like I’m reading Arabic when I try to assemble this stuff. Thanks again
Pat, I wish had seen your post earlier about the radeon HD 7950’s from Newegg. I saw Sapphire HD 7950’s on eBay today for under $400 several going around $345..I just got another new one unopened Sapphire HD 7950 from eBay yesterday on “best offer” deal for $345. I finally received my risers today (from China) and just finished putting the rig back together in a crate. I have three Sapphire HD 7950 cards on unpowered risers and they are now pulling between 870W-880W at the wall. One strange thing- I switched the position of the cards so the one that was in the middle and running higher temps when they were mounted on the mobo is now on the outside and it is still running 10 degrees higher than the other two..
BTW, I could get the SApphire cards mounted in the same positions in the crate as CryptoBadger’s illustration because the Sapphire cards are deeper in length than the MSI cards so that the one near the CPU was sitting directly over the CPU fan and would not go down far enough to attach it in the front so I had to move all the cards over to the right a few inches resulting in a little less separattion for cooling..I will find a different type of container for my next rig which I have ordered a EVGA 1300W PSU for. I am now using a Seasonic 1250. These cards are pulling about 250W each so I could add a fourth card to this rig and still be under 1200W. To bad there is not enough room in this crate.
Edward,
thanks for the thoughts! I’m hoping I can use at least one of the 650 PSU’s that newegg was throwing in with the cards. I’m thinking I might just run two cards off risers on one of the 650’s, and two off the board. We have a Mircocenter here in KC and they were completely sold out of the 6 graphics cards that are generally recommended for mining. Thanks again for the information on the power draw…I’m learning as I go. Pat
Edwardf,
well – I got the machine up and running (using one cheap graphics card). I’m still waiting on the Radeons to show from NEWEGG. Loaded windows 7, will probably bite the bullet and look for a PSU of about 1250 or better. didn’t want to spend the extra bucks, but really don’t want to under-power it either, or brown out the components. This is was my first build and it took me close to 20 hours to get this far…been fun though. I read lots of forums, watch U-tube, read the books, etc. Next step is to download mining software and figure out what I don’t know after that. Thanks again for the advice!
Pat
Pat, Let me know how Win 7 works out for you. Is it 64 bit? I am running Xubuntu on my rig but I have a hard drive I am not using that has Win 7 32 bit installed that I could use if would work better. Or I could use that HDD and install Win 8 on it to use.
I had to alter the risers from unpowered to powered using a guide I received from ezpacer here on CryptoBadger.
http://forum.feathercoin.com/index.php?topic=2193.0
It took me several hours because I messed up on the first one and cut the wrong wire. After I repaired that it all went smoothly. I installed them on the cards today and I am running cooler now that the cards are off the mobo (still using a fan with a window open a little in my home office) plus I was able to increase overclocking a little to get a higher hash rate. I am running 3 Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 cards on a ASRock 970EX4 mobo with a Seasonic 1250 PSU. I am pulling around 915W at the wall on the Kill_A_Watt.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009MDBU/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Edward,
I’m running 64-bit Windows 7. My cards haven’t arrived yet, but when they do I’ll let you know how it goes. I have a 1300 Watt power supply on the way too since I figured I had to run all 4 cards – just hate to lose the hashing capability. Tonight I’m going to try to download the software for mining Litecoin. Got any suggestions which one? Also once up and running (hopefully by end of next week) I need to decide whether to join a pool or not. Any recommendations?
Thanks again and good luck mining! pat
I’m having a lot of trouble getting the catalyst drivers to work. I’ve tried both v13.12 and 13.11b, and in both cases, after installing fglrx, xubuntu freezes during startup on the flash screen. I’m using xubuntu 13.10 – do I need to use a legacy version / different version of the drivers? Running 2 7850s on a MSI 970A-G46.
I had the same video screen freeze ups after rebooting from installing the ATI drivers. In my case, I had uninstalled all fglrx drivers and build the ATI drivers from source. If you installed SSH before rebooting, you can at least SSH into your rig to be able to do the re-installation. Otherwise, try Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get a TTY prompt and login to the rig to re-install.
I have a msi 7zza G55
And will be using 4x radeon sapphire 280x gpus’s
I was looking at getting a seasonic x series x1250 1250 watter psu
Question
Should that be sufficient to power all those gpu’s and/or can I get away with a 850 with undervolting
Hi, great post, thanks!
For GPUs, how does the Radeon HD 7970 compare to the 7950? Would that be about the same? Or would I be better off with the 280X?
Well, I finally received 16x to 16x risers yesterday and last night I put my rig into a crate like Cryptobadger suggested, connected my 3 HD Sapphire HD7950 radeon cards, rebooted Xubuntu, and all went well for about 30 minutes then weird things began to happen. The terminal would not stay engaged with “cgm” and my cards would not register on the screen, so I got tired and quite until this morning. Tried it all again and the same thing, erratic terminal session and even the mouse I plugged into the miner no longer worked in Ubuntu…
So, I broke it all down and connected the cards back directly to the mobo and all is working (except the mouse in Ubuntu). Checked set up in mobo ( ASRock 970 EX4) setup and do not see a problem there. I am guessing I will have to get powered risers or convert these to powered using the tutorial that ezpacer told me about…
http://forum.feathercoin.com/index.php?topic=2193.0
I’ve had similar problems with the current Xubuntu. It doesn’t handle multiple cards/screens at all by default. It’s the way it’s built. If regular Ubuntu wasn’t such a memory hog, I would say, go ahead and use that. But, then you’re stuck with the living nightmare that is Unity. Barring that, you should still be able to find a copy of Ubuntu 10, which runs Gnome 2x. That’ll give you about the same footprint, and multiple screen/card support which is vastly superior out of the box. Hope that helps.
Sammy, I had a monitor, keyboard, and mouse connected to the first card on my rig when I first put it all together. While I was doing the installation of Xubuntu and completing the set up in CryptoBadger they all worked just fine. Even after I started mining the mouse still worked but now it only works when Xubuntu first boots and after cgminer starts the mouse freezes or moves around erratically. At this point I don’t really need the mouse since I can control the rig with SSH from my desktop. I do need to install a USB wifi receiver tomorrow so I can move the rig to my garage. I can connect a cd/dvd to my rig but it would be nice to be able to use the mouse to set up the wifi.
Would Ubuntu 10 with Gnome2x fit on a 16GB stick?
I get erratic behaviour with multiple video cards on Xubuntu, the best thing I could come up with was setup as much as you can with 1 card, then SSH into the server once you go to 2+ cards to do the rest.
PeerMedia,
I decided to alter the risers to make them powered risers using a technique ezpacer told me about at this forum site:
http://forum.feathercoin.com/index.php?topic=2193.0
It is not an easy job but I am persistant and when I reassembled the rig with 3 cards it is running just fine now. The only problem I am having with Xubuntu is I can not get a mouse to work properly using a monitor attached to the rig. When I first set up my rig 5 days ago, the mouse worked fine with the miner rig running and I used it to get into Xubuntu to do the set up, etc. before I changed over to my desktop with Putty.
Wow, that’s really impressive, I wouldn’t even attempt making a homebrewed powered riser. I am doing 3-4 GPU’s per rig, usually 2 unpowered and 1-2 powered risers, and everytime I always lose video feed when I add more than 1 GPU. I just do everything through SSH once the initial setup is done though.
PeerMedia,
I took a huge risk altering the risers but so far I think it worked out ok. I have one card that has been unstable at times so I need to check that riser by switching it to another card to see if it makes a difference. I have on order 3 powered risers to use for another rig. They have a two wire lead to the molex with a condenser attached. I have read that the condenser is just a sales gimmick and does not do anything plus they ofter burn out anyway. I will find out. The risers are getting to be expensive like most other mining hardware.
Somewhere I read that running one or two cards with power risers and the other ones without could case an unstable condition and even cause a brown out on some cards or the mobo. Have you had any problems?
Never a problem yet with 2 unpowered and 2 powered. I do this combination because the mobo I have is designed for gaming which should be able to handle 2 GPU’s in crossfire mode without problem, so beyond that, I wanted to offload power from the mobo. I see people doing 3 unpowered fine too but I didn’t want to push it.
i have a few questions and i hope someone can help me! i have no more then $1000 to build a mining rig, here is my idea on what to buy, can you tell me if this will work and how good it might be as this is my first time, ok heres what i want to buy (i will include links after every item…#1. Seasonic PLATINUM-860 ATX 860 Power Supply –LINK–( http://www.amazon.com/Seasonic-PLATINUM-860-ATX-Power-Supply/dp/B00608MP5E/ref=pd_ybh_12 )or a Corsair Professional Series HX 850 Watt ATX/EPS Modular 80 PLUS Gold (HX850) –LINK–( http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Professional-Series-Modular-HX850/dp/B0090I9W66/ref=pd_ybh_2 ),
#2. ASUS M5A97 R2.0 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard –LINK–( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008V9959O?tag=onsimobicomps-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B008V9959O&adid=04Z5PY7BC7P7WYJGFK6Q ), #3. i plan on getting atleast 2 of these.. ASUS R9270-DC2OC-2GD5 Graphics Cards –LINK– ( http://www.amazon.com/Asus-R9270-DC2OC-2GD5-ASUS-Graphics-Cards/dp/B00GWV0ZD8/ref=pd_ybh_3 ) or 2 Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 2GB DDR5 HDMI/DVI-I/DVI-D/DP PCI-Express Graphics Card (11200-07-20G) –LINK–( http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Radeon-PCI-Express-Graphics-11200-07-20G/dp/B008MJHSFG/ref=pd_ybh_10 )
#4. AMD Sempron 145 Processor (SDX145HBGMBOX) –LINK–( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0040BPHJO/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=onsimobicomps-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B0040BPHJO&adid=0BGKPJHCFR28XVSAKBXX )
#5. powered risers 2 of any kind?
#6. Kingston Hyper X Blu 4 GB 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 Desktop Memory (KHX1600C9D3B1/4G) –LINK–( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0057Q4AGW?tag=onsimobicomps-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B0057Q4AGW&adid=05ZC1M2MT1EENENPWGM8 )
#7. ADATA USA Premier Pro SP600 2.5-Inch 32 GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive ASP600S3-32GM-C –LINK–( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009SKB5HA/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=onsimobicomps-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B009SKB5HA&adid=1Z8N15NZ79NDYHWT3NY0 )
#8. Motherboard Power Switch (any kind)
#9. Windows 7 (64 bit)? or should i download Linux?
#10. usb dvd drive? (would i need one to download windows 7 or linux?)
#11. box fan, any keyboard, mouse, any moniter? plastic milk crate!
did i cover everything i will need and is what i listed good enough to mine litecoins or most altcoins with? thanks in advance for helping me with this guy! your answers are much appreciated!
You would not need risers with 2 7850s. Also your only going to get about 350Khs out of each card… better off getting a single 280x and save up for another one to add later. I run a rig with 4 7850s but I got em for $100 each black friday.
its ok that you deleted my post but could u atleast email me about my question?
Third GPU / PCI slot not working?
Hi.. I bought ALL the parts as listed above. (hope you got the Amazon affiliate commission ok 🙂 )
My problem is I can only get 2 of the 3 cards going. The 3rd PCI slot doesn’t recognize any of the cards (have swapped cards / risers around and all work in slots 1 and 2).
The card in that slot gets power (fan spin) but CGminer does not see it / card does not mine/ get hot.
Any ideas? Do i have a bad MOBO?
Can i run the car in another slot with a 1x to 16x riser?
thanks to anyone who can help.
PS – the ‘bad’ slot is the one that is closest to the edge of the board / furthest from the CPU.
do you have dummy vga plugs in the cards?
i managed to fix it.. i installed the driver for that card manually and it started working. It still the most unstable card and if i try to run it at the same settings as the others it gets SICK and dies within 20 minutes.
I’m undervolting to 0.970 – maybe that’s too much?
can anyone tell me if i need to run the setup disc that comes with msi hd 7950. the reason I ask is that no matter what i do, including lowering intensity down as low as 10 still gives me hw errors. i have adjusted my memory and engine to specs and i still get the hw errors. if i try to overclock it gets very unstable. Anybody?
Thanks
Tnm
BEST TO UNDER CLOCK FOR STABILITY 88 PERCENT
Dear,
This article is very interesting.
I want to know a few points from you.
1. How many Lite coins can be made from the above setup per month (approx.)?
2. How many working hours per day for this system?
2. How to exchange these currency?
Thanks and regards
Parthu
AMD commented on crypto currency at CES 2014… 🙂
http://m.imgur.com/a/37Oqn
CryotoBadger,
I took one computer programing course in college and got a C. Thanks to you I’ve got a 3x R290 linux rig mining happily away and made my first 100 bucks, many thank yous. I am going to change directions entirely now and hope to be called an idiot. My recent mining was of dogecoin as you likely know it forked. I had to re-synch my wallet. My understanding is, which I am hoping is wrong, that the synching process is dependent on the number of transactions in the ledger. It took me 2 hours to resynch. So if there were 1000 times more transactions would it have taken me 2000 hours to resynch? If so a down the road fork seems like a bit of an existential threat to coins like DOGE. Again I’m hoping I’m an idiot on this particular question, if not you and others in the community might wish to address this.
Hi,
Thanks for this guide, it’s been really helpful. Maybe a silly question, but in the hardware list you specify an 860W power supply, but the HD 7950 cards are rated at 500W each, so how is an 860W supply enough for a 1500W load ? Or do you not expect the cards to run at full load ?
Thanks
That’s just a recommendation by the manufacturer.
To keep this as short as possible.
First off the cards are optimized. They are under-volted to reduce power consumption.
A high quality PSU can supply more power then what they are rated for.
It’s possible a 1000 watt PSU can output 1100 watts.
Some power supplies are more efficient. I won’t go in to detail but the basic order of efficiency is:
Platinum
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Lastly, even if the cards are not optimized they will not “consume” 500 watts per card.
To know how much power is being drawn you can purchase a KILL A WATT.
Just wanted to first say thanks for the mining guide. It’s been an great resource to get me started mining. I don’t have the capital to buy new hardware yet as my mining must pay for my mining equipment. Currently I’ve got a radeon 5750,5770, and 5830 mining on two different machines. While both machines have efficient PSU’s I would like to consolidate this down to one mining rig. I noticed the MB in your guide is not significantly more expensive as hard to come by. Would it be a good idea especially for a mining rig to purchase something like the Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3?
I was looking at one of those for a 4 GPU setup as it seems much better able to handle the power loads of a multiGPU mining rig and isn’t much more expensive.
Do you have any suggestions for running mixed GPU setups? Alone I’ve been able to get 200Kh/s out of the 5770 at V0.958 in windows but when I put in the new machine running xubuntu with the 5750 I only get about 120Kh/s out of it which is within 1Kh/s of the 5750.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated!
I use the Gigabyte motherboard you mentioned for mining. So far, I’ve had no problems with it.
I also have another system using this motherboard which is solid:
ASUS M5A99X EVO R2.0
Easiest way to know if your hashrate is good is to compare it here:
https://litecoin.info/Mining_hardware_comparison
Are you using 4 GPU’s on the Gigabyte board?
I know the hashrate for the 5770 isn’t good as I ran it on a windows box before and got ~200Kh/s but I’m not sure why as I ran GUIminer on windows with the 5770 defaults which is what I mimicked on my xubuntu box. The only difference is the addition of the 5750 (and xubuntu of course)
I was limited to using only 3 because I was putting it in a HAF X computer case.
However it did seem like it was powering 2 7970’s and 1 7850 just fine.
My only complaint is the PCI express slots were a tad bit too close together. The reason this is worth mentioning is because if you put it in a milk crate the risers may limit you on spacing the GPU’s out.
I’m sure they do have risers that extend further than the ones I purchased so that may not be a problem.
Choosing a motherboard comes down to preference. I tend to prefer ASUS products but I’ve used Gigabyte and Asrock with no problems at all.
Get the asus… I had trouble with gigabyte and xubuntu…. someyhing to do with iommu wich is a legacy thing I dont understand
Thanks for the replies Vitalia and uberdag!
I will eventually plan on adding risers(when I get a 4th card) to the cards to space them out and however the plan currently is to put the two reference cooler cards(5830 & 5770) at each end of the 4 slots and put the more open cooler card (5750) up to the back of the bottom card(3rd slot). This should leave plenty of space for the reference cooler cards to get cool air into them. I will however make a note on my to-do list that I need to check for the length of the riser’s before purchasing them to ensure they are long enough.
The other reason I was leaning towards the Gigabyte board is I’m normally stuck with a machine for ~7 years due to finances(family comes before being a hardware junky) so typically when I put something together I need it to be able to last up to 10 years. Which is why the ultra durable boards appealed to me.
As for the IOMMU setting in the bios I was aware of that setting from my research and I have the same USB/PS2 peripheral issues on the supermicro board I’m using with the 57XX cards however that bios doesn’t have an IOMMU setting so I have to make sure and install ssh before I reboot after xubuntu install since it’s the only way I can access the machine. I’m not dead set on xubuntu over windows as my home PC runs win7x64 and I would be consolidating everything to one PC. Until I figure out why my 5770 runs 200Kh/s in GUIMiner-scrypt on windows and 117Kh/s in xubuntu with multiple versions of cgminer I’m not 100% on linux although I would prefer it for ease of management and reliability over windows any day.
Just a quick update that I installed win7 on a very old DFI lanparty SLI-DR board I haven’t been able to part with. Threw both the 5770 and 5750 in and without any other mods was getting 200Kh/s on the 5770 and 145Kh/s on the 5750 with guiminer scrypt. If I could have installed linux on it I would have however it doesn’t like the live usb at all I’m guessing because it’s ancient. Now off to section 3 to see how I can just use cgminer in windows so I can tune down the voltages as this old board leaves almost zero space between the cards.
[…] Option 1: Awesome guide from Cryptobadger. Includes step by step and pictures. Highly detailed with hardware setup, software setup for windows and linux, and optimization tips. […]
I have an EVGA 1300W Gold PSU and I keep getting random reboots (5 min – 60 min after launching cgminer) when running 4 GPU’s on a rig, according to my kill-a-watt meter, I’m only hitting 1130 watts which is roughly 86% of my GPU. Am I overloading the PSU or is there another reason as to whats going on?
Is the CPU fan running? What temperature is the CPU? If that’s fine, double check the connections to make sure they are secure.
Even though your power supply can handle 1300 watts try taking a GPU out. Does it still reboot with 3 GPU’s in instead of 4?
What are some of the last drivers you installed? What is the last program you installed?
You could also try to take out one of the sticks of RAM at a time.
Hi Vitalia! CPU fan is running, I don’t know how to check temp (Xubuntu based). I assume its fine since it’s just LTC mining and that’s not CPU intensive and there’s no GPU above the CPU (I keep that slot clear). 3/4 GPU’s work perfectly (while mining), I tried multiple combinations of all 3 GPU’s. I can boot with 4/4, just when I start mining that the PSU fails.
I only have 1 stick of 4GB RAM.
It isn’t a pretty with all the cables though, 6 cables connect to 6pin / 8pin directly to PSU (3 GPU’s). I then have 2 molex connectors for 2 powered risers that connect to the GPU. Lastly I have 4 SATA to 6pin/8pin for the final GPU. It uses every single connector I have, but the total wattage is 1140 according to my meter which is well below 1300W.
Thanks!
It sounds to me like the Power Supply is the problem.
I’m not saying the PSU is bad. But it could be that it’s not putting out the power it is rated for.
You could either downclock the 4 GPU’s a bit and try to bring the power consumption down by another 50-100 watts and perhaps it would stabilize.
Otherwise unfortunately you would have to get another PSU.
Looks like you’re right, I did buy another identical PSU for another rig and I tried swapping it out and its been running 4+ hours reliably so far. Looks like the problem is the PSU between 1000-1150W where it fails. Hopefully that qualifies for a RMA.
Do you have good settings for undervolting? I’ve read the post on the site here about undervolting but I’m very worried about undervolting and making the GPU unusable.
Thanks for your help, you’ve been really helpful on a lot of the posts here 🙂
Depends on what kind of card it is.
Who is the manufacturer that makes the card?
I also can’t remember if you were using the R9 280x or the 7950.
I have gigabyte 280x and sapphire 280x (OC edition). The 7950’s I have are XFX but they only have 1 BIOS (no bios switch) so I won’t even try on those ones. The 280x all have BIOS switches so those I’m more comfortable doing some undervolting on. When it comes to undervolting there isn’t that many sites or reviews listed by make/model so I’ve been hesitant on bricking these GPU’s.
Thanks again for your help Vitalia!
I just got my ASUS R9 280x and I have two profile settings. I didn’t have to change the BIOS because the voltage was already unlocked. A note that may be important is that CGMiner wasn’t displaying my voltage changes but they were in fact taking place.
*=suggested settings.
Profile 1 settings:
1.15 V.
1100 Core Clock.
1500 Memory Clock.
gets me around 760 khash\sec (-5 to -10%)
74 degrees.
*Aggressive settings: (Currently testing for stability)
1.2 V.
1150 Core Clock.
1800 Memory Clock.
gets me a steady 797-800 khash\sec.
79 degrees.
Stock settings: (unchanged)
1.175 V
1070 Core Clock.
1600 Memory Clock.
665 khash\sec.
If for some reason you need to under volt it below the stock settings it would be on a trial and error basis. For example I may drop the voltage to 1.1 V, 1050 Core Clock and 1500 Memory Clock. If I liked the khash rate I was getting I would then test for stability. If it failed I would up the voltage to 1.12 or 1.125 and test again.
The best result is when you can underclock the voltage while raising the Core Clock and Memory Clock.
For example, my PowerColor 7970 stock settings are:
1.175 V
955 Core Clock
1375 Memory Clock.
660 khash\sec.
While my optimized settings are:
1.125 V
1050 Core Clock
730 khash\sec.
1500 Memory Clock.
730 khash\sec.
An added benefit is I lower the GPU temeperature by 5 degrees or more and the fans don’t run as hard. It’s possible I even extend the life of the card but that’s speculative.
IMO undervolting has no negative consequences.
IMO it’s only speculative that overvolting the card will decrease it’s life expectancy. With in reason of course. You should stay in the safe voltage ranges for that particular card and if you overclock you should try to keep the GPU temperatures and VRAM temperatures as cool as possible.
Some very interesting numbers, I didn’t even consider overvolting in order to increase hash rates. How did you play with voltage without BIOS flashing, just changing VDDC through CGMiner even though it didn’t show a change, a change worked? How can you tell if a make/model is voltage locked/unlocked? I have a power meter so I can measure these changes directly at the wall. Thanks again!
I use MSI afterburner. In MSI afterburner you click on, “settings” and then tick, “unlock voltage control” under the general tab. I also tick, “force constant voltage” on the R9 cards.
Usually if it’s unlocked it will show the Core Voltage with a number in the green box. If it’s locked it will either show no numbers in this box or changing the numbers won’t seem to affect the card at all.
Lower voltage will almost always drop the temperature or hashrate so that’s how I knew the Core Voltage change worked.
First try to change these two with out changing the voltage:
–gpu-engine i.e. –gpu-engine 1100
–gpu-memclock i.e. –gpu-memclock 1500
And then if you need to adjust the voltage:
–gpu-vddc i.e. –gpu-vddc 1.2
CGMINER will warn you if you’re outside the safe voltage range.
The Core Clock, Memory Clock and even the Voltage can take precision.
For example, my friend set his GPU to 1030 Core Clock and 1500 on the Memory Clock and he was only mining at 660 khash on a 7970.
Putting the Core Clock up to 1050 moved his miner to 730 khash\sec.
At 1.1 V his card “soft” crashed. At 1.125 his card was stable.
Making a small change can make a big BIG difference.
Ahhh, I forget your windows based. I’m on Xubuntu / BAMT. With MSI Afterburner, are the changes you make software based or are they modding the GPU BIOS? In other words can I use a test PC with Windows & MSI AfterBurner and make the changes and they get retained if I move the GPU to a Unix based rig or would these changes be hardcoded to just Windows rigs?
Software based and it doesn’t modify the BIOS at all.
I wasn’t aware MSI afterburner can’t be used in Linux.
For Linux I think you can use:
AMDOverdriveCtrl
AMDOverdriveCtrl I get an odd error, cannot initialize AMD ADL even though its obviously installed since I’m mining.
I did find atitweak which I tried using, it shows the VDDC changed when I made the change, but when I’m mining, doing -s (status) shows the original VDDC. No temperature change or hash rate change while running either. Maybe its voltage locked after all?
I’ve frankly had it the Linux rig… I know it save $100 up front, but I’m an impatient guy. I also don’t have access to Terminal whenever I want. Windows allows me to use iTeleport where I can monitor the rigs anywhere I want on my iPhone. Sorry Xubuntu. It’s been real, but I’m out.
I’m actually feeling the same way about Windows, but with 4 GPU’s, I’m actually out of power connectors so I can’t hook up an external HD. I have 6 PCIe cables used for the first 3 GPU’s, and then 2 molex are used for my powered risers and the 4 SATA connectors convert to 2 PCIe for the last GPU. I’m officially out of power connectors on my rig so I have to stick to Linux 🙁
lol
That’s a prime reason why I stayed with the MSI 270… one 6pin PCI power plug each. And at $179 for 450kH/s, it’s quite the bargain. I’m stable at 1050mV, too so ~650W for 1800kH/s is nice. 🙂
I’m officially out of power connectors on my rig so I have to stick to Linux 🙁
That’s not entirely true PeerMedia…
You could just use a portable external hard drive.
It’s powered fully via the USB port.
Windows on an external USB? I read that the installer wouldn’t let you install to a removable HD. That would fix a lot of problems as I have 3-4 external HD’s I no longer use that would be perfect. Did you set up Windows on an external USB successfully? Did you have to do any kind of steps to bypass the installer or did it work without a problem?
Just crack open the old usb hds and zip tie the hd to the side of the crate. Use a sata connect and a power connect from power supply.
What I did cause coulnt get usb thumbs to work right
hellooooo there. I wanted to ask you if pairing a 7970 card with a 7950 would create any sort of problems to my mining. Thanks
Regards
No it will work fine. The cards will need different settings though:
cgminer or .BAT file for the 7970:
cgminer –scrypt -o stratum+tcp://pool.com:port -u worker.1 -p x –worksize 256 –intensity 13 -g 2 –thread-concurrency 8192 –failover-only -o stratum+tcp://backup_pool.com -u worker.1 -p x
cgminer .BAT file for the 7950:
cgminer –scrypt -o stratum+tcp://pool.com:port -u worker.1 -p x –worksize 256 –intensity 19 -g 1 –thread-concurrency 21712 –failover-only -o stratum+tcp://backup_pool.com -u worker.1 -p x
For the 7950 you need to run this command. This will allow you to use higher thread-concurrency.
Run this in command prompt:
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
If you really don’t feel comfortable with all these settings you could just cookie cut it with: [GUIMiner-scrypt]
Download here:
http://guiminer.org/guiminer-scrypt.html
You won’t have to run the setx command. And you can select a preset 7950 or 7970 settings from the drop down menu.
The only downside is that it won’t show the temperatures. But you can easily get past this by using MSI afterburner to monitor the temperatures.
Oops I forgot to put:
–device x at the end of those two cgminer\.BAT files where x is the device number.
e.g. –device 0 –device 1
I used this configuration of 7950/7970 on a same rig and the optimal settings of each card is GPUThreads=1 and GPUThreads=2 respectively. You can run separate CGMiners and bind them to specific cards which unfortunately didn’t work for me (the cards became SICK/DEAD within 2 hours). I ended up using GPUThreads=2 on both cards and finding less than optimal settings for the 7950 card and that worked for me. Its not ideal, but if you can’t get the two types of cards working on separate cgminers you can try the suggestion I made.