Building Cheap Miners : My "Secret" - page 32.

sundownz

hero member

Activity: 714

Merit: 512

Quote from: Amstellodamois on January 20, 2018, 08:18:33 AM

Thanks again for an inspiring post

Quote from: SQ1 on January 20, 2018, 01:10:14 AM

I think I may be picking one of these up as well. Please let us know how it goes setting this up. You have definitely inspired a lot of folks, including me!

You're welcome! This forum is where I do most of my learning so I want to return the favor.

Amstellodamois

newbie

Activity: 182

Merit: 0

Quote from: sundownz on January 19, 2018, 09:04:33 PM

I want to scale up my ITNS mining & can't get ANY more GPUs... No problem for the miner who want's to get creative...

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.28512807

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/mining-with-opteron-servers.14956/

I found in the above thread(s) that a QUAD-CPU Opteron server (6300 series) can do ~2000 H/S in Cryptonight...so I got a little excited.

---------

https://www.ebay.com/itm/PowerEdge-R815-4x-Opteron-6380-64C-2-5GHz-16GB-H710-Trays-Rails-Monero-Crypto/173105716450?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

Just bought 9 of these... that came out to $7551.91 total shipped for 18,000 H/S (that is conservative... one poster says 2200 for 4x 6378 chips... that would be nearly 20,000 H/S).

A typical RX570 will do ~600 H/S so that is equal to 30 pcs RX570 which would have cost $6870 *before* prices went totally nuts... and then you need the rest of the system as well for the Rx570s. Just need an SSD + LINUX to get these servers rolling so almost no extra money.

So... I figure up front I'm about even with the RX570s... just gonna use a bit more power (OPTERON 6380 is a 115-watt Chip... so probably 600-watts Per 2000 H/S... really not all that bad).

Thanks again for an inspiring post

mobomofo

jr. member

Activity: 88

Merit: 4

Quote from: Calatravo on January 18, 2018, 05:20:33 PM

Quote from: spinx on January 17, 2018, 10:59:22 AM

Quote from: nsummy on January 17, 2018, 10:49:36 AM

Quote from: Amstellodamois on January 17, 2018, 08:59:54 AM

So, the conclusion of all the benchmarks I've read is: find an architecture that uses an AMD CPU Cheesy

Yes and no. If you are talking about modern desktop processors, Ryzen wins out, the main reason being because it includes the SHA instruction set. Probably the Epycs on the server side too, but they have barely released those to the market. If you are interested in making a run at mining cryptonight the best bet is to find an old server on ebay with multiple xeon chips in it (The HP DL580 G7 was mentioned earlier in the thread). The rub with the Ryzen chips are that the motherboards are expensive.

My HP DL580 G7 with 4 x E7-8837 does about 1600H/s on cryptonight.

how much power from the wall? thx Wink

My R810s with 4x XEON E7-4870 2.4ghz decacores run slightly over 1.33kh/s mining ETN on cryptonight and pull just under 700 watts (685w or so at 78 F) unless I turn the AC off and the fans spin on high. I picked up these boxes with 4 processors ea for $700ea so it was a pretty good deal.

mobomofo

jr. member

Activity: 88

Merit: 4

Quote from: CryptoCruncher on December 22, 2017, 12:34:26 PM

Just found a source for T7500's @ $125... I see a single mention someone earlier in the thread; just wondering has anyone had success turning a T7500 into a mining rig? They seem to be close to the T5500 in design...

I run them (T7500s). You can fit 3x GPUs directly on the board or use risers for better heat dissipation. There are 2x 6pin and 1x 8pin GPU power cables inside in the 1100w silver 80+ PSU.

Also, I run a pair of X5670s (and some x5680s in one) and when running the -t 18 switch on cpuminer and pick up 200h/s on ETN and keep the processors below 80% (extra $1+ a day). Ive tried using risers and breakout boards to get more than 3 GPUS and you cannot. I was able to get 4 for a short while, but it was too unstable and 5 would lock the system up the minute the miner was launched. I tried both the cheap 4 lane cards and the expensive 8 lane ones. Even thought the chipset has 40 PCIE lanes and the board has 36 usable, I can only get 3 cards to run reliably. I have used RX560, RX570/580 & 1070ti's in these.

I started with T7500's as they are a great computer for the money and have a bunch of them, but have quickly moved to new mining builds using dedicated mining boards. The T7500 with XEONS will take on modern i7s anyday if gaming or cad is your deal, but as a mining rig its a little limited for my taste... Mostly because they are server size boxes. I can fit 38 GPUs on a rolling 3" wide bakers rack but only 5 (ie 15gpus) of T7500s.

SQ1

newbie

Activity: 8

Merit: 0

I think I may be picking one of these up as well. Please let us know how it goes setting this up. You have definitely inspired a lot of folks, including me!

sundownz

hero member

Activity: 714

Merit: 512

I want to scale up my ITNS mining & can't get ANY more GPUs... No problem for the miner who want's to get creative...

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.28512807

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/mining-with-opteron-servers.14956/

I found in the above thread(s) that a QUAD-CPU Opteron server (6300 series) can do ~2000 H/S in Cryptonight...so I got a little excited.

---------

https://www.ebay.com/itm/PowerEdge-R815-4x-Opteron-6380-64C-2-5GHz-16GB-H710-Trays-Rails-Monero-Crypto/173105716450?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

Just bought 9 of these... that came out to $7551.91 total shipped for 18,000 H/S (that is conservative... one poster says 2200 for 4x 6378 chips... that would be nearly 20,000 H/S).

A typical RX570 will do ~600 H/S so that is equal to 30 pcs RX570 which would have cost $6870 *before* prices went totally nuts... and then you need the rest of the system as well for the Rx570s. Just need an SSD + LINUX to get these servers rolling so almost no extra money.

So... I figure up front I'm about even with the RX570s... just gonna use a bit more power (OPTERON 6380 is a 115-watt Chip... so probably 600-watts Per 2000 H/S... really not all that bad).

VyprBTC

full member

Activity: 350

Merit: 100

Quote from: nsummy on January 19, 2018, 07:16:41 PM

Quote from: VyprBTC on January 19, 2018, 06:32:11 PM

Quote from: nsummy on January 19, 2018, 12:18:07 PM

Quote from: greyday on January 18, 2018, 03:06:57 AM

Quote from: VyprBTC on January 18, 2018, 02:33:06 AM

Quote from: greyday on January 18, 2018, 12:28:19 AM

nsummy I am WAY jealous of those numbers. But for around $310 total and drawing 43W for 360h/s, I'm content enough (though if I buy any more, I would hold out for the i7s for SURE).

Yeah those numbers are nice. I can't get those on windows, it will bounce to 550, then rapidly just drop down to 250. Very weird.

I also tried installing linux but it was an epic fail. I have no clue how to deploy xmr-stak on linux. I'm sure someone would have gotten a laugh seeing me trying to navigate through it all knowing zero about linux lol.

Ah well.

Try commenting out the memory thing (I posted about it previously, can't remember it this second but it's one of the steps suggested in the guide). That solved that same problem for mine.

EDIT TO ADD: here it is: this may be a linux or Iris specific thing, but (at least on the i5) doing the suggested change to sudo vi /etc/security/limits.conf dropped my start from 359 to 320, and eventually my hashrate dropped to 180. Commenting it out brought everything back to 359 and stable, so I suggest testing it if you want, but it doesn't seem necessary (if you are still getting locked RAM messages, I was able to get rid of them by sudo running the miner, but I don't think they had an effect on hashrate)

I'm going to try out your suggestion. VyperBTC and I have been exchanging a few messages and we are both experiencing the same issue with hashrate dropping. It starts out fine, but eventually it will drop to the upper 200s. At first I thought maybe the processor was too hot and throttling, but restarting the miner fixes it so I don't think that is the issue.

I've tried it but it didn't help unfortunately. I'm not sure how it would effect performance programming a script to close out and sudo start the xmr-stak every 15-30min. That's not getting to the root of the issue, it's just a bandage to get around the actual issue of why the hell is it happening lol

Well at least my problem isn't happening every 15 minutes. More like letting it run for 15 hours then it happens

Actually though I just thought of something. Did you ever go into the bios and enable turbo mode? I think without that, the processor does actually throttle and that might explain why it happens so quickly for you.

No i didn't - the only thing i did was enable power on if power loss. I'll change that and see if it helps, thanks!

nsummy

full member

Activity: 1179

Merit: 131

Quote from: VyprBTC on January 19, 2018, 06:32:11 PM

Quote from: nsummy on January 19, 2018, 12:18:07 PM

Quote from: greyday on January 18, 2018, 03:06:57 AM

Quote from: VyprBTC on January 18, 2018, 02:33:06 AM

Quote from: greyday on January 18, 2018, 12:28:19 AM

nsummy I am WAY jealous of those numbers. But for around $310 total and drawing 43W for 360h/s, I'm content enough (though if I buy any more, I would hold out for the i7s for SURE).

Yeah those numbers are nice. I can't get those on windows, it will bounce to 550, then rapidly just drop down to 250. Very weird.

I also tried installing linux but it was an epic fail. I have no clue how to deploy xmr-stak on linux. I'm sure someone would have gotten a laugh seeing me trying to navigate through it all knowing zero about linux lol.

Ah well.

Try commenting out the memory thing (I posted about it previously, can't remember it this second but it's one of the steps suggested in the guide). That solved that same problem for mine.

EDIT TO ADD: here it is: this may be a linux or Iris specific thing, but (at least on the i5) doing the suggested change to sudo vi /etc/security/limits.conf dropped my start from 359 to 320, and eventually my hashrate dropped to 180. Commenting it out brought everything back to 359 and stable, so I suggest testing it if you want, but it doesn't seem necessary (if you are still getting locked RAM messages, I was able to get rid of them by sudo running the miner, but I don't think they had an effect on hashrate)

I'm going to try out your suggestion. VyperBTC and I have been exchanging a few messages and we are both experiencing the same issue with hashrate dropping. It starts out fine, but eventually it will drop to the upper 200s. At first I thought maybe the processor was too hot and throttling, but restarting the miner fixes it so I don't think that is the issue.

I've tried it but it didn't help unfortunately. I'm not sure how it would effect performance programming a script to close out and sudo start the xmr-stak every 15-30min. That's not getting to the root of the issue, it's just a bandage to get around the actual issue of why the hell is it happening lol

Well at least my problem isn't happening every 15 minutes. More like letting it run for 15 hours then it happens

Actually though I just thought of something. Did you ever go into the bios and enable turbo mode? I think without that, the processor does actually throttle and that might explain why it happens so quickly for you.

VyprBTC

full member

Activity: 350

Merit: 100

Quote from: nsummy on January 19, 2018, 12:18:07 PM

Quote from: greyday on January 18, 2018, 03:06:57 AM

Quote from: VyprBTC on January 18, 2018, 02:33:06 AM

Quote from: greyday on January 18, 2018, 12:28:19 AM

nsummy I am WAY jealous of those numbers. But for around $310 total and drawing 43W for 360h/s, I'm content enough (though if I buy any more, I would hold out for the i7s for SURE).

Yeah those numbers are nice. I can't get those on windows, it will bounce to 550, then rapidly just drop down to 250. Very weird.

I also tried installing linux but it was an epic fail. I have no clue how to deploy xmr-stak on linux. I'm sure someone would have gotten a laugh seeing me trying to navigate through it all knowing zero about linux lol.

Ah well.

Try commenting out the memory thing (I posted about it previously, can't remember it this second but it's one of the steps suggested in the guide). That solved that same problem for mine.

EDIT TO ADD: here it is: this may be a linux or Iris specific thing, but (at least on the i5) doing the suggested change to sudo vi /etc/security/limits.conf dropped my start from 359 to 320, and eventually my hashrate dropped to 180. Commenting it out brought everything back to 359 and stable, so I suggest testing it if you want, but it doesn't seem necessary (if you are still getting locked RAM messages, I was able to get rid of them by sudo running the miner, but I don't think they had an effect on hashrate)

I'm going to try out your suggestion. VyperBTC and I have been exchanging a few messages and we are both experiencing the same issue with hashrate dropping. It starts out fine, but eventually it will drop to the upper 200s. At first I thought maybe the processor was too hot and throttling, but restarting the miner fixes it so I don't think that is the issue.

I've tried it but it didn't help unfortunately. I'm not sure how it would effect performance programming a script to close out and sudo start the xmr-stak every 15-30min. That's not getting to the root of the issue, it's just a bandage to get around the actual issue of why the hell is it happening lol

spinx

full member

Activity: 139

Merit: 100

Quote from: PharmEcis on January 18, 2018, 06:55:16 PM

Spinx,

I tried to send you a PM but you don't accept them from noobs like me. Cheesy

I'm hoping you might be able to give me some advice. I'm having some problems getting my DL580 to boot w/ the 8837 chips installed. I fired her up and let her sit for 20 minutes but while on, it never booted. I also didn't get any error codes on the LCD indicator on the board, just 00. Did you have to do anything special to get the CPUs to work? I've read about some incompatibility problems based on board revisions etc. I've also read something about updating the CPLD.

Any advice you have would be great.

Thanks!

Hi, i didn't really do anything special, just reset the bios to default settings, switched the cpus and booted. I can check board revision, bios version etc tomorrow when i'll have time to indulge myself in the mining operation

spinx

full member

Activity: 139

Merit: 100

Quote from: Calatravo on January 18, 2018, 05:20:33 PM

Quote from: spinx on January 17, 2018, 10:59:22 AM

Quote from: nsummy on January 17, 2018, 10:49:36 AM

Quote from: Amstellodamois on January 17, 2018, 08:59:54 AM

So, the conclusion of all the benchmarks I've read is: find an architecture that uses an AMD CPU Cheesy

Yes and no. If you are talking about modern desktop processors, Ryzen wins out, the main reason being because it includes the SHA instruction set. Probably the Epycs on the server side too, but they have barely released those to the market. If you are interested in making a run at mining cryptonight the best bet is to find an old server on ebay with multiple xeon chips in it (The HP DL580 G7 was mentioned earlier in the thread). The rub with the Ryzen chips are that the motherboards are expensive.

My HP DL580 G7 with 4 x E7-8837 does about 1600H/s on cryptonight.

how much power from the wall? thx Wink

I can measure this tomorrow, i guess around 800W, not sure tho.

nsummy

full member

Activity: 1179

Merit: 131

Quote from: greyday on January 18, 2018, 03:06:57 AM

Quote from: VyprBTC on January 18, 2018, 02:33:06 AM

Quote from: greyday on January 18, 2018, 12:28:19 AM

nsummy I am WAY jealous of those numbers. But for around $310 total and drawing 43W for 360h/s, I'm content enough (though if I buy any more, I would hold out for the i7s for SURE).

Yeah those numbers are nice. I can't get those on windows, it will bounce to 550, then rapidly just drop down to 250. Very weird.

I also tried installing linux but it was an epic fail. I have no clue how to deploy xmr-stak on linux. I'm sure someone would have gotten a laugh seeing me trying to navigate through it all knowing zero about linux lol.

Ah well.

Try commenting out the memory thing (I posted about it previously, can't remember it this second but it's one of the steps suggested in the guide). That solved that same problem for mine.

EDIT TO ADD: here it is: this may be a linux or Iris specific thing, but (at least on the i5) doing the suggested change to sudo vi /etc/security/limits.conf dropped my start from 359 to 320, and eventually my hashrate dropped to 180. Commenting it out brought everything back to 359 and stable, so I suggest testing it if you want, but it doesn't seem necessary (if you are still getting locked RAM messages, I was able to get rid of them by sudo running the miner, but I don't think they had an effect on hashrate)

I'm going to try out your suggestion. VyperBTC and I have been exchanging a few messages and we are both experiencing the same issue with hashrate dropping. It starts out fine, but eventually it will drop to the upper 200s. At first I thought maybe the processor was too hot and throttling, but restarting the miner fixes it so I don't think that is the issue.

PharmEcis

jr. member

Activity: 176

Merit: 1

Spinx,

I tried to send you a PM but you don't accept them from noobs like me. Cheesy

I'm hoping you might be able to give me some advice. I'm having some problems getting my DL580 to boot w/ the 8837 chips installed. I fired her up and let her sit for 20 minutes but while on, it never booted. I also didn't get any error codes on the LCD indicator on the board, just 00. Did you have to do anything special to get the CPUs to work? I've read about some incompatibility problems based on board revisions etc. I've also read something about updating the CPLD.

Any advice you have would be great.

Thanks!

Calatravo

newbie

Activity: 65

Merit: 0

Quote from: spinx on January 17, 2018, 10:59:22 AM

Quote from: nsummy on January 17, 2018, 10:49:36 AM

Quote from: Amstellodamois on January 17, 2018, 08:59:54 AM

So, the conclusion of all the benchmarks I've read is: find an architecture that uses an AMD CPU Cheesy

Yes and no. If you are talking about modern desktop processors, Ryzen wins out, the main reason being because it includes the SHA instruction set. Probably the Epycs on the server side too, but they have barely released those to the market. If you are interested in making a run at mining cryptonight the best bet is to find an old server on ebay with multiple xeon chips in it (The HP DL580 G7 was mentioned earlier in the thread). The rub with the Ryzen chips are that the motherboards are expensive.

My HP DL580 G7 with 4 x E7-8837 does about 1600H/s on cryptonight.

how much power from the wall? thx Wink

sundownz

hero member

Activity: 714

Merit: 512

Quote from: Amstellodamois on January 18, 2018, 12:51:32 PM

They're not gonna like you in the summer...

We'll move them back out to the other areas in the summer ;-)

But yes it was HOT in there in the summer.

Juggar

member

Activity: 242

Merit: 11

Quote from: Amstellodamois on January 18, 2018, 09:07:24 AM

Quote from: nsummy on January 15, 2018, 01:08:33 PM

Quote from: VyprBTC on January 14, 2018, 06:56:23 PM

Quote from: Amstellodamois on January 14, 2018, 06:44:20 PM

Quote from: PharmEcis on January 14, 2018, 05:12:50 PM

Quote from: Amstellodamois on January 14, 2018, 04:50:56 PM

http://www.ebay.fr/itm/PC-Gigabyte-Brix-GB-BSi7HA-6500-Intel-Core-i7-6500U-2x-2-50GHz-GB-BSi7HA-6500/152714522870?hash=item238e7eb0f6:g:SW0AAOSw8-xZ2AHF

Minimal since it has no GPU assist w/ only Intel HD video and not Iris Pro w/ 128mb of RAM.

Thanks! Is there something in the product number that says "Iris Pro thingy"?

i7's that have Iris are
5950HQ
5850HQ
5750HQ
5755C
5775R

i5's that have Iris are
5675C
5675R
5575R

There is more to the list than this
There are a bunch of Skylake processors with them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylake_(microarchitecture)#Mainstream_and_high-end_desktop_processors
Along with Haswell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haswell_(microarchitecture)#Desktop_processors

Additionally some of the Xeon E3 V4 processors have it: https://www.anandtech.com/show/9532/the-intel-broadwell-xeon-e3-v4-review-95w-65w-35w-1285-1285l-1265

I couldn't find any CPU that would work on an ATX mother board, am I mistaken?

Yeah you are mistaken. There are plenty aval that will work on any Z97 or H97 mobo provided the BIOS is up to date and supports those CPU's per manufacturer.

If one had like 50 Z97/H97 mobos, they could make a killing. Unfortunately you need mobo, ram, HDD/flash drive and PSU. But I can still stomp that $250 Brix deal into the dust with what ive found.

Amstellodamois

newbie

Activity: 182

Merit: 0

They're not gonna like you in the summer...

sundownz

hero member

Activity: 714

Merit: 512

Since I have all this heat being generated... we "sealed" off this portion of the warehouse to keep it in the area for the winter.

Surrounding areas can be ~10-20 degrees and it'll stay 60-70 degrees in here simply with the plastic we hung. May consider a permanent wall & adding additional heat extraction (for the summer).

We moved some of our employees into the corner opposite the computers so they aren't so cold this winter =)

Amstellodamois

newbie

Activity: 182

Merit: 0

Quote from: nsummy on January 15, 2018, 01:08:33 PM

Quote from: VyprBTC on January 14, 2018, 06:56:23 PM

Quote from: Amstellodamois on January 14, 2018, 06:44:20 PM

Quote from: PharmEcis on January 14, 2018, 05:12:50 PM

Quote from: Amstellodamois on January 14, 2018, 04:50:56 PM

http://www.ebay.fr/itm/PC-Gigabyte-Brix-GB-BSi7HA-6500-Intel-Core-i7-6500U-2x-2-50GHz-GB-BSi7HA-6500/152714522870?hash=item238e7eb0f6:g:SW0AAOSw8-xZ2AHF

Minimal since it has no GPU assist w/ only Intel HD video and not Iris Pro w/ 128mb of RAM.

Thanks! Is there something in the product number that says "Iris Pro thingy"?

i7's that have Iris are
5950HQ
5850HQ
5750HQ
5755C
5775R

i5's that have Iris are
5675C
5675R
5575R

There is more to the list than this
There are a bunch of Skylake processors with them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylake_(microarchitecture)#Mainstream_and_high-end_desktop_processors
Along with Haswell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haswell_(microarchitecture)#Desktop_processors

Additionally some of the Xeon E3 V4 processors have it: https://www.anandtech.com/show/9532/the-intel-broadwell-xeon-e3-v4-review-95w-65w-35w-1285-1285l-1265

I couldn't find any CPU that would work on an ATX mother board, am I mistaken?

And the cheapest mini PC I could find on eBay was over 400€ used.

That $250 newegg thing was a steal!

EDIT : If you're in the UK, you might want to follow this auction.

greyday

member

Activity: 434

Merit: 52

Quote from: VyprBTC on January 18, 2018, 02:33:06 AM

Quote from: greyday on January 18, 2018, 12:28:19 AM

nsummy I am WAY jealous of those numbers. But for around $310 total and drawing 43W for 360h/s, I'm content enough (though if I buy any more, I would hold out for the i7s for SURE).

Yeah those numbers are nice. I can't get those on windows, it will bounce to 550, then rapidly just drop down to 250. Very weird.

I also tried installing linux but it was an epic fail. I have no clue how to deploy xmr-stak on linux. I'm sure someone would have gotten a laugh seeing me trying to navigate through it all knowing zero about linux lol.

Ah well.

Try commenting out the memory thing (I posted about it previously, can't remember it this second but it's one of the steps suggested in the guide). That solved that same problem for mine.

EDIT TO ADD: here it is: this may be a linux or Iris specific thing, but (at least on the i5) doing the suggested change to sudo vi /etc/security/limits.conf dropped my start from 359 to 320, and eventually my hashrate dropped to 180. Commenting it out brought everything back to 359 and stable, so I suggest testing it if you want, but it doesn't seem necessary (if you are still getting locked RAM messages, I was able to get rid of them by sudo running the miner, but I don't think they had an effect on hashrate)

Topic: Building Cheap Miners : My "Secret" - page 32. (Read 60235 times)