Topic: GPU MINING RIG taking fire (Read 10072 times)

Out of 30 years I've been messing with computers it never catch fire.  It smoked, shorted, or spark.  that's about it.  

THIS only happens when setting up through human error.  Once you have everything setup correctly it should not catch fire.

I tried to teach my nephew how to setup rigs. He is 23 but paid his sister to do his ecot ( home school) work. I doubt his IQ is above 80 after this experience.
He nearly burnt the house down 3 times. After the 3rd I just gave up on him.
I use usb powered risers. Not powered ribbons. I explained the SATA to Molex adapter are dangerous because SATA devices do not pull the amount of current a gpu riser will. Which is roughly 1/3 the total power the gpu will pull. Apparently, he has a hearing problem because he did connect a SATA to Molex adapter to a usb riser that held a reference rx480. This was his first rig he setup himself. His other 2 I had setup for him. He started the rig and walked away. I was in the other room working on mods. I smelled something burning and yelled " are you fuckers smoking pot again?" He quickly responded no. I rushed into the room with the rigs and manually shut off all power supplies.  Checked over the rig but the SATA to Molex was on the bottom of 3 rigs so I did not see it. I then explained we will start it up but this is no time for joking. So I will not be joking if there is trouble. Powering on the 3rd rig everything was fine until we started the miner. Not 30 seconds later I saw flames and yelled shut it off there is a fire. He looked and me and laughed. Pushing him out the way I pulled the plugs from the outlets. After inspecting I again explained again why SATA to Molex can not be used. He disagreed saying they would not send the adapter if it could not be used. Even though I had the adapter which was burnt in my hand.
   Few days later one of his other rigs shut down. After restating 2 of the rx480's were not working. Upon inspection, he had 2 rx480 on 1 pci-e dual connector from the power supply. The connector was pulling at leat 400 watts from 1 of the psu's pci-e slots. Well that is way too much for just 1 slot and melted the connector in the power supply. I attempted to explain there are 5 pci-e connectors on the 850 watt psu. So pulling half the total power from 1 connector is incorrect. After an argument, I gave up because in his mind you should be able to pull 850 watts from just 1 pc-ei connector if the psu is rated at 850. Which is so wrong I will not even get into it.
A few days later 3 of his rx470's would not power or show in windows. I had previously warned him to only connect 2 USB riser Molex to each of the PSU Molex ports. Again, I inspected and saw the 3 connected to just 1 Molex port.Again the psus molexd port was melted. Again an argument ensued. Out of fear of a fire I will no longer help him in any way.
So in short if you are a complete fucking idiot as he is YES you can and probably will burn down your house. Hopefully, the insurance company inspects and denies your claim since it was negligence and not accidental.

I have simple rules to avoid any chance of fires. Starting at the junction (fuse) box. I always use wiring that is rated to pull double the current I will be pulling. Since I only use more efficient 220 and never 110. So for 2 rigs I pull roughly 2000 watts. This is around 10 amps at 220. I use a 20 amp breaker. This technique is actually debatable because should a fire start it would be less likely to trip the breaker. However, I know what I am doing so I am not scared. lol.i then have a 20 amp or higher server strip with 4 connectors. Each pair of connector on the strip is rated at 15 amps but only pulls 5.never use more than 2 rx470 or 1 rx480 on a single pci-e from the psu. I never power more than 2 of the usb riser molex from 1 of the psu molex.

Miners were rushed to market, are designed to be run in data centers with constant temp, humidity, and Halon fire supression systems. We run them in barns full of horse crap (yes. yes) or in sealed rooms at over 50c and expect them to run forever. Small wonder they blow up.

Yup. In the day you would find a 15a auto fuse in each miner to protect the board. But that added another 5 cents to the design, which cuts into profits or makes miners go buy other gear so out it went....



Sure, however most miners pull 200 watts per molex. Or almost 20a. The results are funny.


Fires happen because safety is deemed to not be worth it. When your manufacturer is a company that can go out of business at a moment's notice and is protected by the Chinese/whatever government they can cut a lot of corners. And since mining is a perfect market (there is no advantage to a miner that is safer over one that is less safe in terms of hashes) and our odd desire to wring every hash out of a chunk of metal and the usual happens....

A properly engineered system does numbers so that fire cannot happen.

If a power supply is oversized (ie runs at 50% capacity), then safety features to avert fire are set too high.  This (and for better life expectancy) is why a power supply in engineer designed system is so much smaller.

Connectors have current numbers.  For example, those Molex connectors (that typically connect a PSU to the motherboard) can only carry 6 amps maximum.  Nylon connectors got longer as motherboards started consuming above 200 watts.  Many more Molex pins carry same voltages so that a power supply outputting maximum current would not come anywhere near to fire temperatures.

Same with capacitors.  A failing capacitor must trigger current foldback limiting or trip a fuse long before creating a fire.  But again, when the PSU is grossly oversized (as is typical with computer assembler designed systems), then foldback current limiting cannot protect from a potential fire.

Locate a source of that fire to first identify the human mistake that made fire possible.  Then install necessary corrections (ie a smaller PSU, inline fuses, etc) to avert future fire.  Solutions always require both steps.

Even a keyboard typically gets power from a motherboard that often includes a fuse or something similar such as an automatically resetting fuse.  Because things that cause fires only exist when a human makes a mistake. Every part is designed also so that fire cannot happen.

In one case, the kid says, "Dad, I cut something.  And it make a noise!"  That cutting was the keyboard cable.  A  motherboard fuse (to avert burning) was replaced with an automatically resetting type fuse.  Most computer assemblers would not even know that fuse exists let alone know why.  Averting fire is always part of every design. Fire occurs because a human made a mistake.

That is right. For the DC voltage of 12V or 1.5V, the dust does not make difference.

I love that picture Maxumark. I've also had a titan shoot fire out the vents when I plugged it in for testing (the capacitors on one of the DC-DC's shorted, which ignited all the filth and dust and crap in the miner which the fan happily blew though the box). I take all miners apart now and clean and test before powering. Did wake me up though.

Remember that heat in connectors increases resistance. Which results in more heat which results in the normal solution, melted connectors. Get a thermal IR temp thingie and check temps on your miners.

In that set up the wood wall was a plane between the input and exhaust sides so the air was forced thru the components and the hot air was exhausted with a 6500 CFM fan.

However I don"t roll like that anymore, I have learned a lot since then.
Here is my updated setup:
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/IoVhSWX.jpg)

notice the pics posted by Maxumark? they are the same, the PSUs are buried in the wall that inhibits proper exhaust of heat.

@ Westom.  Most ATX PSUs are designed with the specification of a typical load of about 50%. The 50% to 60% area is where you have the greatest efficiency and least stress. Also ATX PSUs are usually not designed for 24 HRS a day duty cycles.

Server PSUs are also designed with peak efficiency in the 50% to 60%, but can run higher with less decay in efficiency compared to a ATX psu, and are designed for a continuous duty cycle.  I do agree that at a 20% load or less you are placing more stress on a PSU and you have much lower efficiency.

I would like to point out that everything I am stating here is not "wild speculation justified be feelings - not facts"  It is actually based on facts. I have done extensive research and my statements about computer power supplies are based on the 80% certification and evaluation reports from Plug Load Solutions.

I measure and monitor the actual power consumption of test set ups, and then build multiples of the same set up over and over. I further have the ability to measure input feeds and per outlet power consumption.

This way I can run my equipment at the sweet spot (most efficient and lowest stress).

Since I treat mining as a business and power is my biggest expense, I monitor it closely. 
I also want to reduce the possibility of damage to equipment and down time, so maybe I do a little more research that the average person.

You can look up the specs on your own PSUs here:

https://www.plugloadsolutions.com/80PlusPowerSupplies.aspx

i don't know how those PSU's get their proper exhaust in your setup, a PSU even they are platinum or even titanium are still designed to release their heat to their surrounding...

anyway running them at ~60% can mitigate the lack of heat exhaust in your setup.

i'm speculating that the PSU that get burned may not have thermal protection (will shut off if it exceeds a certain temp)...since it doesn't have a proper exhaust, it just continued to run even the materials started to burn causing fire.   

Shit,, thats why i monitor my rigs 24/7

I think this thread is important and needs to be pined , ppl should know that mining is not a "set and forget" job

thx for sharing your experience guys !

good read & very good to know as i always tell miners to get a good brand of PSU, cables, do not share too much load on a single power point/outlet, best is to upgrade your current electrical wiring, a new DB for your farm, use good quality/brand of RCCB/ELCB/MCB, power points, especially cables !

Never ever overload !

improve cooling & exhaust

no messy cables (at best effort) depending on individuals

ALWAYS set a minimum of 20% or more allowance to the MAX load of PSU & all cables.

yes extinguisher is an excellent idea, constant monitoring, add on some fail safe such as miner stops mining when GPU exceeds certain temps.

remove easily combustible materials away from rig, room, farm or DC.

sounds serious but when a fire especially electrical fire, it can very dangerous not only to yourself, family, friends but your neighbors or the entire building.

some people i know was running their farm like a hero, it caused his entire apt floor including the top & bottom floors to have blackout. main cables all the way to the electrical room were all burned in the middle of the night.

well, better be safe than sorry.

happy mining to all  


not mine, just google & you will be able to see some rigs, asic miners or farms on fire, 1 of the popular ones is the farm in thailand. the pic below is posted somewhere here in bct, yeah it almost burned down his/her house if i'm not mistaken.

Many posts ago in this thread, discussed were functions that help prevent such damage such as current foldback limiting.  But when a PSU is grossly oversized, that protection function is compromised.  The PSU will simply pump out excessive current without triggering protection.

Power supply designs are why, for example, some supplies are under greatest stress when at 50% capacity. Under least stress when at 0% or 100% capacity.  To say more requires numeric specification unique to that PSU.  Without numbers, then the 60% capacity to keep it cool is only wild speculation justified by feelings - not facts.

Same applies to fans.  Too many fans create reliability problems.  Fans must be selected based upon power consumption, acceptable hardware temperatures, and CFM.  Those numbers designed for what must be a good room temperature for any computer - ie 100 degrees F.

Since most who assemble computers do not know how electricity works, then computer assemblers are told to buy a PSU double what is required.  Then help lines are not clogged teaching how electricity works.  Only way to know a power consumption number is measuring with tools that any layman or pre teen can use.  On-line calculators are mostly useless.

How about using PVC to mount mobo and racks from Amazon to host whole system?

Not to scare you guys, but I have now switched to gold and platinum rated ATX PSUs, and Platinum rated Server PSUs for ASIC's and GPU rigs.

I also run them at load of 60% of the rated capacity.  This keeps things cool and quiet.

Here is a picture from before I knew what I know now and was trying to save some money.





Wood is also not good. 

The heat/smoke detector can be. Helpful if and. Only if connected to a water injectors ,and if you do that this things can easily get a false alarm and will push water on your rigs while they are fine and working...trust me i have done this stuf...

This is a very good suggestion. I think I am going to look for something like this. or make it my self. Just in case things starts to burn.

Which brand was your PSU?

Remain in limits everything will be fine