Topic: What is the average life of a mining rig? - page 2. (Read 4470 times)

Regarding fans...don't run them at 100%

Set a custom fan curve and let the software do it's job to maintain a temp that will allow for long life.  These fans we have now can reach sometimes 4000 rpms and bearings spinning at that speed will not last long.  Some people are misinformed and think if they can run a gpu a few c lower that it will last longer, the reality is as long as you have good temps the only thing you will do is reduce fan life.  Of course when that heat wave hits let the fans spool up to keep the gpu happy.

If you do have  budget on investing on a proper ventilation or  cooling system then you should do it  in able to last  even more on your miners. But  in my situation   , fans are  the first to worn out   for about 2 years depends on what % did you set out if the  ventilation is  good then you could lessen fan speed.

The cards in question are 5850's. They don't bring barely any profit, but it's hard for me to let them go just like that, knowing how much they earned me over the years.
Interesting fackt is that none of the 58xx series died on me (ofc i dont count fan replacements), guess they made them of quality.

What card do you mine whose age is 6 years. The earliest card I mine is the AMD 7970, which is 3 years old.

In regards to the fan being on 100% - you do know that you can use warranty if fan die or start to act out while warranty is still valid , i did it many times, and few time was
given brand new gpu's in exchange for the ones that had dying fans.. The main this is that you return original bios and dont mess around the card removing security stickers on screws etc.

That being said; i have some gpu's that are mining 6 years now (yes , 6 years !!) and also had cards that died/were fried within just a few months (fu?.ing 7950 xfx's DD's), so quality does matter the most imho.

That is right. It mainly depends on the temperature of the GPU and the whole system. If it is too high, it has short life.

Depends with the quality of your hardware and settngs on gpu, like fans on 100%, overclocked etc

While it is true all hardware will have some type of "life expectancy" or MTBF, I think your estimates are rather on the low end.

I agree with others that GPU cooling fans are probably the number one thing to go, but replacing these are fairly easy and economical with many exact-fit replacements available on eBay. The GPU's themselves keep running as long as they are cooled properly.

Risers, should last indefinitely, if there are issues with these it would be because of either physical damage or running too much current through them.

I have dedicated mining motherboards running since March 2013, and even have a few recycled ones (from personal builds) I am using from even earlier.

Of course, I like to perform routine maintenance on all of my rigs at least twice per year. This means taking the rig out of production, disassembling it and perform a thorough cleaning of all the components. This involves vacuuming and using canned air to clean heat-sinks and other hard to reach areas, re-seating all cables and components (except for CPU), and oiling and/or replacing any fans that are in need of more serious attention.

I don't mess with the CPU itself as risk of damaging pins is greater than any benefit. I might reapply some heat-sink compound between the CPU and the cooler, but once a CPU is socketed in a MB and running properly it is best to leave it alone. These two components are "Married forever" so to speak.

I think the other secret is to use some sort of quality surge suppression before the power supply to help  minimize surges (especially in the Summer with T-Storms) and to ensure there is adequate ventilation around each rig. Except for physical damage, the other two leading causes of component failure is from heat and or electrical surges/shorts. By using quality risers, keeping rigs well ventilated and ensuring clean power goes a long way to getting long life out of your equipment.

For me this strategy paid off well, as while I sold off most of my GPUs from the Scrypt mining days, i had kept all the motherboards and most of my power supplies. So when Eth started to take off, I only had to pull my old components out of storage and buy new more efficient GPUs. For the most part, I only had to ROI on the GPUs as everything else had already been paid off from before. \

One last thing in keeping with this is spend the few extra $$ on a quality power supply. I read so many threads of people using these cheap power supplies and cringe. I have several 1000 watt Corsair units that again are 3-4 years old and in many cases still under warranty. Buying quality here not only leads to a more reliable and longer lasting PS, but also ensures the rest of your system lasts longer as well since clean stable power is key to everything else. Also, when buying a PS, size it appropriately, don't run 840 watts 24/7 out of a unit rated at 850 watts. While the better brands will handle it, I usually go with the 80% rule, which is the same as NEC for power circuits, and size my Power Supplies accordingly. So a 1000 watt unit I would only pull 800 watts from it when mining.

If that's so much, then that it isn't a problem to consider, because if you ROI in more than 1 year, there's questions about your maths to be asked.

You are right about this but its pretty hard to do this because the most miners are bad cooled and due to that do not life long to be honest.
Only the big miner company's with real fans and cooling chambers can really accomplish this.

WD is not good for high temperature operation. You need some grease like those used in the bike or car.

I've managed to dissasemble windforce fan thx to this post:
http://cryptomining-blog.com/tag/gpu-fan-repair/

It is actually very simple, just helped myself with little flat screwdriver. The thing is that you need to put it just 1-2mm inside the fan because walls of the rotor case that pops out is that thin.
It turned out that there was some piece of dirt there, i removed it and fan almost like new, just became noisy.

WD40 sticks dust, it can make opposite job in a long term unless fans are working in perfectly clean conditions.

I just buy replacement fans off eBay and can disassemble the card, perform the replacement and reassemble the card in about ~10 minutes after some practice.

Also... no problems with mobo... I always stick to decent corsair psu's... like to think decent psu helps

Got some 280x's still going for almost 3 years 24/7 temp 80 degrees 70% fan. Fans did stiffen up after about 2 years... I just spray some wd40 in them carefully when it happens and they are good as new again!

Ps. Wd40 is not recommended I belive machine oil is but... I've not had any problems so far... just made sure I didn't use too much so it would leak or get it on the gpu board.

Thank you very much for the information guys. I was aiming off for 2 years, good to know they might last a bit longer =)

As long as you are monitoring temperatures of your chips,
the fans and power supply should be the first thing to wear out.
If you have any points where there is bad soldering on a device that may wear out but can be repaired,
as long as you aren't letting the temperatures get so hot it damages the hardware.

The lifespan of the graphics cards can actually be longer than in a gamer PC if they are in constant environment and at constant operating temperatures.

Only the fans can wear faster because of continous operation.

i think fluctuate power supply is the main reason to get damage of mobo in the starting because with problem of electricity everything get lost . here the main problem of only electricity .

Do you mean they fail first or last longest? In my experience quality fans last long. The only components that last longer are power cables.