Topic: AC dangerous for mining farm? (Read 247 times)

mine is once a year too, maybe up to 2 times a year and i also make sure new thermal grease is applied before summer. he is too industrious or his environment temps are high so he guards it like a hawk.

My mining farms, which are in the garage, I dust off once a year. This is usually before the summer and I change the thermal paste.
There is not much dust and dirt even in the garage.
I sometimes sleep in the office next to my farms, and I do not feel discomfort from the noise, and the temperature is lowered by the air conditioner.

BINGO AC is for humans, GPUS operate just fine in a hot environment, so long as the cores themselves stay below 76C, but I always run below 70C, so my cards last forever. These days they cannot be replaced, so I care for them.

Like the guy here said, U can waste more money on the AC than on the GPU; U don't need to sleep with the mining rigs; If u can't handle the heat, then switch to HDD mining, if u must sleep with your miners, if your miners are in a closed room, then u don't need AC, so long as u have source of fresh air and exhaust and lots of fans in the closed space. However u must keep the closed space less than 45C as the cards run about 30C above ambient, lots of ways to 'cool' the closed space, some use heat-pumps with water running pumped into the ground & back and then put radiators in front of the fans.

I fabricate my own "Grow Tents" where I suck in clean air at the  bottom of the tent, and pull out hot air on top; The tents are in my outdoor motorcycle garage, largely because the use of tents allow me to have clean air ( i run cheap purifiers ), dust is the worst enemy of gpu mining, the bunny's kill components;

Even if u have an apartment with a balcony u can run a tall grow tent that contains a full rig shelf for 3-4 rigs, as long as the tent is well constructed an out of direct sunlight you can have clean, dry air <45C at 35C ambient. When I say grow tent I don't mean to buy one, U build them with 2x2 lumber and 5mil plastic, I double up the floors & roof, never seen water get in.

Just trying to cover ways to avoid AC, and run the rigs where they don't need AC, as IMHO AC is for humans, and I hate AC; But in the hot season I run very few computers or gpus indoors to avoid creating the heat, noise isn't bad, but 2+ gpus at 100watts is a lot of heat, 12 gpus is a ton of heat.

U can buy air-purifiers and air-dryers super cheap, but most important is to monitor temp & humidity daily.

The most important thing in GPU mining is cleaning the boards, weekly inspection and then tear down and full clean and reapply thermal-grease; When u see the dust bunny's; U will know when to clean besides inspection daily monitoring of gpu temp, if u see a few boards ( usually inner on rig ) climb 1-2C that means the airflow is blocked, clean immediately.

U need a air dryer either way, u buy a humidity box cost about $5 chinese, keep the humidity less than 45%, otherwise GPU's fry&die

U need an air purifier, otherwise dust accumulates on pwr regulator chips the dust-bunny hit critical mass & pop goes the gpu board

U need clean air, dry air;

AC in & of itself is just for your comfort, I run rigs outdoors in a tent in the garage so there is clean air, its 34C about 45C in the tent, but its 45% humidity cuz the heat gets rid of the water, I blow out the hot air from top.

The AC would only be for u, ur comfort the gpus' just need to be kept less than 70C, usually I find the differential is about 25C meaning if the space is 45C then the cards are 70c, if the cards get hotter, then u reduce the wattage on the cards "nvidia-smi -pl P -i N", keep reducing power until card is running cool.

What is dangerous for GPU rigs is moisture, u should have already bought a humidity tester, as you could already been in deep doodoo; AC or not u need to monitor, if u have a humidity problem then u need to BUY an air-dryer for your closed space.

AC is dangerous for your bills

The air conditioner dries the air. This means there will be no problems. Except for electrostatics   In dry air, you risk getting an electrical breakdown of your equipment. Therefore, the second component of success is a good grounding of the rigs. And do not touch the boards before you are discharged (on the case of the power supply unit, for example).

I installed the split system and paid $ 450 for it and the installation.
It is designed for a room of 35 square meters. It perfectly cools an office with an area of 40 square meters, which houses 3 mining farms. Outside the temperature is 30-35 degrees Celsius. You need to wait 3-4 hours for the air conditioner to cool down the office. I don't turn it off, and no problem. In ECO mode, consumption is 1 kilowatt / hour.

Just do not use a humidifier (those that requires water/ice to cool the room) since it adds water molecules to the air in your room.
Those can potentially increase the humidity to dangerous levels for electronics, except if it's dry in your area.

If you really have to, use AC instead.

Jugdging from the OP other thread, he most likely lives in a dorm. And pretty sure most dorms DO NOT allow window air conditioners ONLY portable/floor standing AC. Sure the window AC is better because its more efficient because it uses outside air to intake the car instead of the cool air that a portable AC uses, however most apartments/condos/dorms which are in a high level, don't allow you to use a window AC due to improper installation where the AC can fall out the window and kill someone.

Happened too many times and the insurance companies ordered the condo boards to not allow tenants any window ACs. These days you can only use a window AC if you own your own home and in that case you are better off getting some cheap split AC like Mr Cool for like $2K.

I have a mining farm in my office. The room is very hot and uncomfortable, so I use an air conditioner.
Use split systems, if you choose from household air conditioners, they are the best. Do not use mobile or floor standing air conditioners.
But current cooling is expensive, it is better to use ventilation.

I think unless you point your AC straight onto your rig, there won't be any water vapor going directly on your cards. Also even if there is some water vapor, as long as the rig is running the high heat will make the vapor evaporate anyways. This is similar to mining in the dead of winter. You can mine when its extremely cold and as long as your rigs are running. But if your rigs turn off for some reason, there will be condensation and frost which can damage some components.

However I agree with what the above posters have said, don't use an AC to cool your rigs. AC are generally more for human cooling, not computer equipment. GPUs can run hot. Just use a few fans and direct the heat out the window and direct cold air inside your place somehow. This is how most miners do it. No point in using AC.

I ran evaporative cooling with my mine from 2017-2019 when I lived in the mountains. Worked extremely well due to the dry climate and I never had issues due to the humidity in the room but I made sure I had good ventilation. I moved since then to a much hotter and humid climate. I'm using AC to cool my mine, on the absolute hottest days its probably costing me around $4/day to run since its summer. We would need to revisit late 2018 for my profits to go negative.

FYI the best cooling setup is just fans moving cool air from the outside in and hot air out if your climate and property can support it.

What's wrong with using fans with low watt power? AC can use roughly between 1000 watts to 1500 watts, not a good idea if you are paying for electricity unless you have free electricity, get some good fan 1 or 2 and point them to the rig 

Air conditioner is best cooling way if electricity cheap. using AC many years happy.
Dont know about humidifier.

Guy I'm wondering if it's safe to use air conditioner or air cooler aka humidifier in a mining farm because when im in one it feels like watery, since water is bad for electronic components won't it have a negative impact on the mining rigs?