Ethereum Mining Rig

After weeks of planning and acquiring all the necessary hardware, I finally completed assembling my first Ethereum mining rig. This is no walk in the park. Everything I learnt about building a gaming PC rig was upturned. I had to un-learn and re-learn a lot on what it took to build a PC. Building a computer system with 5 graphics cards for a highly specific purpose of mining Ethereum requires a different set of skills. So how do I get from building gaming PCs for leisure to building mining rigs to make some cash?

I first learned about cryptocurrency about a month ago. I received chatter on social media and on the news online about the rise of cryptocurrency. Of course, the whole concept of cryptocurrency isn’t new. Bitcoin has been around for quite some time. But it remained a very obscure notion to a lay person. Mine block chains and get rewarded for it in a form of electronic currency? Sounds puzzling.

Nonetheless, I soldiered on and read as much about cryptocurrency as I can. I watched various YouTube videos on what block chains are, how it works, how it is applied and the potential usefulness in the future. Along the way, I was surprised that there are several dozen forms of cryptocurrency floating around online! It comes in weird and futuristic sounding names, promising miners and holders of these digital currencies of a surging value in the near future when its use becomes widespread and mainstream. However, as I wrote this entry, the most popular and valuable (in terms of market capitalisation) are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Zcash, Dash, Litecoin and a just couple of others.

From then on, I was intensely curious as to how to build one. Again, I scoured the internet and read up on how to build a multi-GPU PC system. And when I said multi-GPU PCs, I am referring to 6 to 8 GPUs in a single system.

It actually sounds pretty straightforward. You are simply building a PC without a case, (since you can hardly find a PC case large enough to fit all 6 or 8 GPU inside) buy a bunch of GPUs, a compatible motherboard, the cheapest CPU, RAM and SSD you can find. The only difference is that you need to buy a bunch of GPU risers, which allows you to connect your GPU indirectly from the motherboard’s PCI-E slots. This way, you can slot more GPU within the PCI-E slots without cramping the motherboard’s real estate. Oh, and don’t forget a simple on-off switch that connects to the switch jumpers on the motherboard to switch your computer on and off.

Getting the GPUs was challenging! There was a massive shortage of GPU everywhere. I mean it, literally, everywhere. At the moment I was prepared to get all the hardware, it seemed that everyone else was doing it as well. I wasn’t the only crazy one to invest 2.7K on a new PC that does nothing but mine for crypto coins. But eventually, I did get those darn GPUs. It took a while, as all my GPU were on pre-order status and I had to wait for it to arrive. But I finally got 4 units of GTX 1060 mining GPU and 1 unit of an ordinary GTX 1060 GPU for general purpose use. The reason why I got just 1 ordinary unit of GTX 1060 was for video output capabilities. This is essential as I need to see what I’m doing with my PC, especially the first step of any PC building step after hardware assembly: OS installation. As for the rest of the GPUs, I got the mining GPU, cheaper and slightly more power efficient. It doesn’t have any video output at the back of the GPU, which resulted in some cost savings (but at the expense of resale value, as it only exist to serve one function: mine for coins)

I had difficulties with the driver installations as well. I didn’t fully realise that there is actually a certain version of graphics drivers that the mining GPU and the OS were able to recognise each other. I was close to giving up as I was at my wit’s end to figure out why Windows 10 couldn’t recognise the mining GPU, despite the fact that the mining GPU is basically a stripped down version of a Nvidia GTX1060 GPU. Zotac and Biostar weren’t helpful in providing information or FAQ about the correct driver installed.

But worked it did and it worked wonders. I was already familiar setting up the ethereum mining software (Claymore miner, mining block chains in a pool from Nanopool) by testing it on my gaming rig and letting my GTX 1070 churn through the cryptographic algorithm, solving complex puzzles. But the speed and productivity of a single 1070 pale in comparison to having a herd of 5 1060s working in tandem. My hash rate shot up through the roof after I got my mining rig running.

Now everything is in order and quietly humming away in another room. The whole set up can make the room pretty warm though since you have using the GPU to work hard and mine the block chains. The rig is going to run 24/7, maximising my return. I am pretty confident nothing will go wrong, at least for the foreseeable future. The whole set up looks crude, since it’s an open setup, with all the cables exposed and crisscrossing each other. Cost saving was a major deciding factor when it comes to building this mining rig, so I wasn’t keen on spending any more money to make the whole set up look neat (specialised case, rigs, frames to neatly hold the GPUs together).

I am still closely monitoring the situation now that it has been up and running for 24 hours. But looking at the Claymore console for ethereum mining, it seems everything is going really smoothly.