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Rolf Mining , Zcash , Zen GPU pricing got a little crazy this year for a few months, and I took a break from building new GPU mining rigs because they were too expensive. I also run masternodes and stake different cryptocurrencies to participate in other crypto generating activities. And as long as the cryptocurrency has good prospects, if you hold it for a long time it might go up in value 5x, 10x, or even x. This has happened in the past, and will happen in the future. This is a list of what to buy and how to set it up to get you mining quickly.
Equipment list — Links are to Amazon or Parallel Mining product page. Buy from wherever you can get the best deal! The idea is to get a basic computer built, troubleshoot any potential issues, install the operating system and application, then build the rest of the machine.
If it does boot, configure the BIOS, connect an Ethernet cable to the network that can get to the internet, and reboot. Make the power come on whenever power is applied to the board.
Here is a set of pictures for BIOS settings for a similar motherboard. This is a purpose built version of Linux that is optimized for GPU mining. It works really well, better than running Windows or Ubuntu for mining. You can, of course, use the same hardware build and run Windows or Linux and mine with it, but I recommend using a purpose built operating system.
What I really like about EthosDistro is how it has settings for adjusting power, fans, core clock speed, and memory clock speed. You can also set up a single configuration file on a webserver, and by changing one file on your miner, have it go to that configuration file on boot, pull its config, and start mining. After setting the BIOS, connecting Ethernet, and rebooting, EthosDistro boots to a screen that is more user-friendly than just a command line:.
This shows one GPU is successfully mining Ethereum. There are a few important pieces or information you need from this screen. It is mining to the EthosDistro address. That needs to be changed. The system is designed to download a file from a website and run. When the system boots, it will copy whatever file is referenced in remote. For just a single miner, edit the local. Put this at the beginning of the local.
I like to keep the configurations for multiple mining pools in the file, commented out with the symbol. That way if I want to change what I am mining I can just alter the configuration without looking everything up again.
Before you start mining, you definitely want to have a wallet address of your own to mine to, which in this configuration is set by the proxywallet configuration item. For any Bitcoin based cryptocurrencies, like ZEC and ZEN, I actually prefer to mine to a software wallet, then transfer to a hardware wallet every week or two.
If you mine to a hardware wallet or exchange, change your pool settings so it only deposits once a day. More than once a day deposit into a hardware wallet or exchange can cause issues. And perform maintenance on your hardware wallet! I like to plug them in one at a time then reboot, so I can figure out if I have a bad riser or card. The most common problem you will probably have is bad risers.
I always order extra so I can quickly swap out a bad riser. There are two main sources of documentation for EthosDistro. The first is the local. A working example of the pool. I had to read it through about 10 times before I understood how to change the settings to make it work. The second source of documentation is the EthosDistro Knowledge Base. If you have more than one GPU miner, or want to be able to make changes remotely, you can create a text file and post it on a web server.
The example above is a portion of my web server based configuration file. A fuller one is below:. Put just the url, nothing else, in the file. The first time I did this I left in two comment lines, then the url, and it did not work.
There are many different ways to host a text file on a webserver, but that is beyond the scope of this article. With your copy of EthosDistro, you get a web panel with realtime statistics for every miner at your location. This is a portion of the GPU miner panel I am running at my medium size mining location:.
Those issues are due to bad risers — I got a bad batch from a different supplier I tried. With this batch, the bad risers run for hours, then stop. It makes troubleshooting tedious and slow. As soon as I get some better ones, I am going to be a lot happier. In the example configuration above, I included three tuning settings. How you set them depends on what you want to accomplish. I prefer a mix of maximum hash rate with moderate power usage. Others try to maximize the hash per watt.
I found that setting the maximum power to watts worked the best. After that, I worked to increase the memory speed as much as possible. When operating, ethosdistro will turn the GPU processor speed down to keep the card within power limits. I usually put my miners on one cryptocurrency and leave it there for a month or two.
Since prefer to mine and hold, I like to mine a cryptocurrency that has less competition. Some people are not able to mine and hold, and instead must mine and sell the rewards that they mine. I still like to make sure that I am mining one of the more profitable coins, so as long as it is close to the most profitable, I am fine with that.
These are the settings:. All five equihash coins are fairly similar in profitability. Nicehash is an interesting option also — if you point your GPU miner at it you will get paid in Bitcoin. For mining and holding, you should do your research and determine which ones you think have the longest term potential to increase in usefulness, value, and price. Assuming everything stays the same system hash rate for each coin, price, etc.
Now, to double-check the Whattomine calculator against reality, you have to check your mining pool. The hashrate for the 27 miners I have mining ZEC right now has averaged about Profitability, however, is a constantly moving target.
If it is a cryptocurrency you believe in, mine it, hold it, and sell some when the price spikes higher to help offset your costs. I like GPU miners. They are straighforward to build, flexible, and profitable. For most people just getting into mining, I tell them that it is great to have grand plans, but that they should start mining with just one miner first, because it is a learning experience.
After they run out of room at their house or apartment, then they can look at getting more and putting them into a place that has more electricity and cooling. Jon Boyer October 3, 3: I just shared this with my partner. Rolf October 3, 4: Nice thing about GPU rigs is you can get everything you need in a week, and start mining right away.
CC December 17, I probably have sooo many questions but first I just want to say thank you for sharing all your valuable experience and knowledge. You are helping lots or people and helping the industry a lot in the process. Motherboards are msi z None of the rigs are performing at the hashrate I was told they could achieve.
Do you have any settings suggestions? Can you give me some good guidelines or direct me where to find them? Also, I need to add additional ventilation before the warm weather hits and I wondered if you might share the info on your filtered intake fan as well as your exhaust fan? Brian October 3, 4: Rolf — I appreciate your articles and videos. I hope to have my first miner up in my home in about a week as parts come in. I have two quick questions: What is your set up for running GPU miners at V?
It likes higher voltage, because there is less current. It does not really save much money. Thomas Wood October 6, Rolf October 16, 4: I go back and forth on that.