Topic: Hard Reboot bad on hardware?? (Read 1627 times)

Are you sure heat isn't an issue and that you didn't over-overclock your cards?

If you're running linux, try the Smartcoin miner adminstration system.  Smartcoin can reboot the computer in the case it detects a lockup condition (hard locked GPU, locked up miner software, etc). It also supports failover so you wouldn't have to worry if a pool goes down.  If you set the computer to automatically boot after power failure, and have smartcoin to start at bootup, then you're all set!

Unless the OS locks up

scheduled reboot in the O-S would work as well.

you should find out what's causing the problem instead of running away and power cycling it. is it because you have 4 or more GPU's on a motherboard? right now i'm having this problem, and i suspect the PSU not being able to handle the power load or the motherboard has too much current running through all the pci-e slots

+1 - if your miners are unstable, you've got some other problems.  You'd be better served working out those bugs than working around them.

Tell us more about your OS and hardware, any overclocks you're doing, etc. Perhaps we can help spot the problem.

With that in mind, I'd be more concerned that whatever is causing the lockups might lead to more damage then cutting the power would.

I have two 20A circuits...for four rigs, which I think should be good enough, although I have my computers lock up nor than other people, I usually get one stuck each day...=(...the light timers are nice rated for 1000w 15amp, so one per rig is good

Yes,

Back in the day the power switch on the PSU was what you used to turn your PC on or off - essentially cutting power every time you did so.  The components handled it fine then, and modern hardware is considerably more resilient.

Unless the light timer is really badly designed, can't handle your power draw, or for some reason introduces big voltage spikes or sags, it will not harm your solid-state hardware.  HDDs, optical drives, or any other logic device with moving parts is a different story - you don't have any of these in your rig, so nothing to worry about.  If you did, you'd just want to make sure they were parked before cycling power.

Over a very long time, frequently cycling the power will cause wear, mostly on your PSU - eventually a capacitor will give up the ghost and pop.  Your machines will probably be retired long before that's anything to worry about.

A decent digital voltmeter will tell you if you're getting voltage spike/sag when the timer pops on.  If that's ok, then just use good surge suppressors on your rigs, don't overload your circuits, and you've got nothing to worry about.

With the 3.6GH in your sig, you've got more to worry about in your power panel box than in your PCs - I just broke the 3GH wall my self and I know I'm pulling a considerable amount of power (killed a 15A surge protector!).  If your rigs are not on their own isolated 20A+ circuits, it's a good idea to make that happen before going with this plan.

Physical damage most likely will not occur, however that doesn't make it a good idea. My first thought is that a standard light timer could never handle the current that your machines are pulling. If any of your machines load the block chain, a hard reboot could corrupt it and cause issues.

You don't mention what OS your running, but it should support some way of scheduling a reboot.

I would send a reboot command across the network from a control node instead of a light timer but you're not going to hurt then either way.

Anyone with real hardware knowledge?

If you have an android phone you could take some manual control over the process yourself. I've had good luck using an app titled pc monitor in combination with the miner status widget. the widget tells me when my hash rate drops below x(i set it to my average at the mining pool minus my smallest miners total) and can use pc monitor to send a remote reboot command to it.

I feel they can boot up in less than a minute, plus one minute power interrupt cycle, def would pay off, as long as its not killing the hardware

Should be just fine, though if you use persistence or write logs, etc, you can still hit interrupted writes.

I PXE boot personally, the only moving parts in my rigs are the fans, and no persistent data.  I have zero worry about flicking off the power switch on a whim

The power in my neighborhood sucks (north Denver metro area) - I've lost power momentarily about 8 times in the last two months - considering I'd need a whole bank of UPSs to keep these things on, this seemed like the best option.  USB boot will work equally well, and removes dependency on a boot/nfs server.

Unless your miners are really unstable for some reason, I'd power cycle as infrequently as possible since you'll loose hashing time during each reboot.  I guess you'll probably want to try to balance your reboot frequency against the possibility they could be down for a significant period of time.  My guess is the short twice-daily cycles will add up to far more time in the long run.

Linuxcoin on USB....could use pxe server booting if that's an issue

Over a long time, probably.

I'd be more worried about corrupting your harddisk if you're using one, interrupting writes by cutting the power = lost data.

Im going to be away from my miners for a month or two at a time, would using a light timer to restart them once or twice a day kill the hardware?