GPU Mining Zcash and Ethereum with EthosDistro and AMD RX470 on 6 GPU Rig
Latest version of my guide to building and operating a mining rig is here, How to Build a 6 Rig GPU Miner for Zcash and Ethereum with Nvidia GTX 1070 and EthosDistro posted Oct 1, 2017 on Steemit.
Things change fast in the GPU mining world! Last week I finished building 10 mining rigs, each with 6 RX470 or RX480 GPU’s on them. At the urging of one of my readers (thanks Zij!) I decided to give EthosDistro a try.
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…but there are a few tricky things in the initial setup to get past. The support from the EthosDistro team is fast and accurate, and it appears they have technical people manning the IRC, so they give nice and direct answers to questions 🙂
What I really like about EthosDistro is how it has settings for adjusting power, fans, core clock speed, and memory clock speed. This allows for overclocking and (I think) undervolting, although I have not tried either of those yet. 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 bootup and start mining. It even checks the file every few minutes while running, so it’s possible to reboot the miner to have it accept new settings.
Finally, if you pay for your copy of EthosDistro, you get a web panel with realtime statistics for every miner at your location. This is a copy of mine from the 10 miners I just put together at my medium size mining location:
And here is the link to the current page http://a127f5.ethosdistro.com/. You can probably see that one of my miners is not running. I talk about that further below.
The price for EthosDistro is very reasonable, especially compared to the rest of the rig – $39 for a 16GB SSD with the system already installed, or $29 for a digital download with the digital promo code. That price is a no-brainer, and paying it keeps the system going.
The AMD RX470 and RX480 have come down so much in price, I was able to buy them for $170 and $180 each on Newegg when they go on sale. Ordering from Newegg, I don’t pay sales taxes, which is a bonus. So this is kind of a low priced build.
Bill of Materials
Equipment list – Links are to Newegg or Amazon or Parallel Mining product page
- Motherboard, processor, and memory used in this build:
- Motherboard – BIOSTAR TB85 LGA 1150 Intel B85 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Motherboards – Intel
- Processor – Intel Celeron G1820 Processor 2.7GHz 5.0GT/s 2MB LGA 1150 CPU BX80646G1820
- Memory – Kingston HyperX FURY 8GB Kit (2x4GB) 1600MHz DDR3 CL10 DIMM – Black (HX316C10FBK2/8)
- SSD – EthosDistro 16GB with operating system and application pre-installed.
- Case – ParallelMiner BAREBONE – ALL ALUMINIUM 6.1 GPU OPEN AIR MINING CASE
- Power Supply – Antec High Current Pro 1300W ATX12V/EPS12V Power Supply HCP-1300 Platinum 94% efficient
- PCI-E Risers – ITHOO USB3.0 PCI EXPRESS 1X TO 16X EXTENDER RISER CARD ADAPTER W/ 24″ CABLE from parallel miner – Qty 6
- GPU’s – I recommend RX470 or RX480 from XFX, Sapphire, or MSI. Purchase qty 6:
- RX470 on Newegg – see what’s on sale. Rebate is only for 1 card, not all you buy!
- RX480 on Newegg
- AMD is coming out with RX570 and RX580 soon…but I would not wait for it.
- ATX power switch – PC Case Red Green LED Lamp ATX Power Supply Reset HDD Switch Lead 20″ – (optional)
- Case screws:
- Motherboard to case – PC Mounting Computer Screws M3 x 1/4-Inches Long – qty 50 – $2
- Risers and GPU’s to case – Maxmoral 200pcs Toothed Hex 6/32 SCREW 6 – 32 Computer – qty 200
Total Cost for Bill of Materials: ~$1700
Alternate Motherboards, processor, and memory using newer processors and chipsets (currently untested by me). You may have trouble finding stock of the older motherboards. You should be able to use motherboard with the B250 chipset as long as there are 6 PCI-E ports and only one long one is X16 with the other at X4:
- Biostar TB250 motherboard
- Asrock B250 Gaming K4 motherboard
- Intel Celeron in the LGA 1151 processor
- Kingston HyperX FURY Black 8GB Kit (2x4GB) 2133MHz DDR4 Non-ECC CL14 DIMM Desktop Memory
Build Instructions
I always forget something when I build the machine. Here’s some basic instructions for the most efficient order of operations. 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.
Hardware Build
- Assemble the Case
- Put the CPU, CPU fan, and memory on the motherboard. Plug in the CPU fan.
- Attach the ATX power switches and LED’s to the power header.
- Plug the SATA cable into the motherboard.
- Put the motherboard in the case and screw it in with the smaller screws.
- Attach the Antec power supply to the right side of the case. Use the screws that came in the box. Attach power cables from the Antec power supply to the Motherboard, CPU power, SSD.
- Screw in one of the PCI-E Riser cards, plug it into the PCI-E slot closest to the processor, and plug in power from the power supply.
- Put a GPU into the PCI-E riser card, screw it into the case, and attach PCI-E power cable to it.
- Attach a keyboard to the motherboard and HDMI monitor to the GPU card.
- Plug the power cord into the Antec power supply, turn on the power switch.
- Press the ATX power button. The machine should boot.
If it doesn’t boot, this is the time to do basic troubleshooting. Don’t add any more graphics cards until you get at least one working.
If it does boot, set up the BIOS, connect an ethernet cable to the network that can get to the internet, and reboot.
BIOS Settings
First off, there are some EthosDistro Video Guides. I have not watched them, so let me know if you like them.
There are instructions on the EthosDistro website on what BIOS settings are going to work the best for mining. These are the same BIOS settings that should be used for any 6-GPU mining rig. These are the settings:
- set VTd INTEL VIRTUALIZATION to DISABLE.
- set ONBOARD AUDIO/SOUND (AZALIA) to DISABLE.
- set IEEE1394 to DISABLE.
- set PCI-E SUBSYSTEM/LANES to x8/x4/x4
- set ONBOARD GRAPHICS to DISABLE.
- set PCI-E GENERATION to GEN2.
- I also like to set PCI bus speeds to 96 instead of 32.
Seems kind of cryptic unless you have been messing around with PC’s for a while. I took some pictures this time as I changed the BIOS settings, and put these in a separate post called BIOS Settings for GPU Miners on Intel Motherboards.
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. I assume it is mining to the EthosDistro address. That needs to be changed. I recommend not using this screen for making changes, and instead using SSH from your PC. Here are some options for SSH on different operating systems:
- Linux – use the command line
- Mac – use the command line
- PC – use the Bash command line, or download and use Putty
If you don’t know the first thing about Linux…you need to learn at least the basics. Get started here.
Now get the miner working with all 6 GPU’s. I like to plug them in one at a time and reboot every time, so I can figure out if I have a bad riser or card…but sometimes I just go for it and plug the other 5 cards in and see what happens. This is what it looks like as you are doing that:
and
Setting up EthosDistro to Mine for You
The screen shows the IP address. SSH to the IP address like so:
ssh [email protected] (enter password live)
The system is designed to download a file from a website and run. If you don’t want it do that, edit remote.conf with nano or vim, and make it a blank file.
Then edit the local.conf file with nano or vim to configure the miner to work for you. Here is an example configuration for mining Ethereum. Put this at the beginning of the local.conf file:
maxgputemp 85 stratumproxy enabled proxywallet 0x0bdC4F12fB57d3acA9C3cF72B7AA2789A20d27f2 proxypool1 pool-usa.ethosdistro.com:5001 proxypool2 pool-eu.ethosdistro.com:5001 flags --cl-global-work 8192 --farm-recheck 200 globalfan 85 # uncomment the powertune 7 setting for AMD RX470 and RX480 GPU's #powertune 7
Here is what I configured to start mining Zclassic to my own Zclassic mining pools to my own Zclassic address on RX470 or RX480’s.
globalminer claymore-zcash maxgputemp 85 stratumproxy enabled proxywallet t1J17KZKuVEekb5hWxLvZJnVqiVu3PaH3Ts proxypool1 stratum+tls://zpool.blockoperations.com:3033 proxypool2 stratum+tls://zpool2.blockoperations.com:3032 flags --cl-global-work 8192 --farm-recheck 200 globalfan 85 autoreboot 12 # uncomment the powertune 7 setting for AMD RX470 and RX480 GPU's powertune 7
I mine Zclassic right now because of the Zen launch that is coming up, but that’s a different story. You probably want to get yourself a Zcash wallet or a Zcash deposit address on Poloniex or a hardware wallet and mine to that wallet address on Flypool or a similar mining pool.
You can do the same thing with Ethereum or Monero. Just do everyone a favor, and 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 into a hardware wallet or exchange can cause issues. And perform maintenance on your hardware wallet!
EthosDistro Documentation
There are two main sources of documentation for EthosDistro. The first is the local.conf file. A working example of the pool.txt for ethereum is posted online, with all the comments and examples. The pool.txt and local.conf file documentation is dense, so it takes a few times reading it through to figure it out. 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. How to do that is beyond the scope of this article. But if you do create a text configuration file and post it on a web server, it looks like this: blockoperations.com/ethos/ethos_block.txt
globalminer claymore-zcash maxgputemp 85 stratumproxy enabled proxywallet t1J17KZKuVEekb5hWxLvZJnVqiVu3PaH3Ts proxypool1 stratum+tls://zpool.blockoperations.com:3033 proxypool2 stratum+tls://zpool2.blockoperations.com:3032 flags --cl-global-work 8192 --farm-recheck 200 globalfan 85 autoreboot 12 #powertune 7 claymore-zcash=proxywallet t1J17KZKuVEekb5hWxLvZJnVqiVu3PaH3Ts claymore-zcash=proxypool1 stratum+tls://zpool.blockoperations.com:3033 claymore-zcash=proxypool2 stratum+tls://zpool2.blockoperations.com:3032 # individual miner configs #miner e73874 optiminer-zcash reb 675c1b 2 reb e3bf30 2 pwr 675c1b 20 20 20 20 20 20 pwr e3bf30 7 7 7 7 7 7
That link is the actual configuration file I am using at my smaller location. This allows for individual setting for multiple miners. The reb is for rebooting remotely, and the pwr settings are for the power. The 675c1b is the name of a miner that has AMD R9 Nano’s and the e3bf30 is the name of a miner with RX480’s.
After you create that web file, put that url into the remote.conf file on the mining rig. 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. My remote.conf file looks like this:
https://blockoperations.com/ethos/ethos_block.txt
Undocumented EthosDisto Information
Just like with all software, there is a lag between what the current users are doing and the documentation. Here are some things I found out in the last week:
- Don’t mix and match GPU’s on a mining rig. EthosDistro does not like that and will not boot nicely.
- AMD RX470 and 480 cards should have their powertune set to 7, not 4.
- Optiminer does not play nicely with EthosDistro. My rigs would shut down daily using Optiminer. I switched to Claymore and they have stayed up and running. Not what I expected, but hey, whatever.
- There is a big focus on preventing thermal overheat of the GPU’s. I like that. I hate having to send GPU’s back for warranty repair.
I’m sure there is more to find out. But so far, now that I figured out how to set up the remote configuration, things are running well.
Converting to EthosDistro
I have about 20 GPU mining rigs I am going to convert over to EthosDistro. These rigs already have SSD’s. To convert these over, I downloaded the ethosdistro distribution, put it on a USB, then copied it to a machine running ubuntu Linux. From there I used the dd command to write the operating system onto the SSD. There is a description of the process here, and this is the Windows process:
Writing ethOS to SSD on Windows
NOTE: ethOS should only be written to a 16gb+ SSD (not an HDD or USB drive).
Download and unzip the downloaded file with 7-zip, it will extract into approximately a 7.5gb image.
Use Raw Copy Tool (available at http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/ ).
Plug in the destination SSD to the sata power cable first, then to the sata data cable. Raw Copy Tool will recognize the drive and allow you to clone the ethOS iso onto the drive, sector for sector.
Problems we ran into building 10 GPU miners
These things don’t just go together and run. I had the help of my business partner Chris to put these 10 machines together, and my son Grant to troubleshoot and fix the hardware. Here is the list:
- System would not boot. Bent pins on motherboard processor socket. We bent them back, and the system booted.
- System would not boot. Removed and re-seated processor and memory. Started working. (3 systems like this)
- System would not boot. Motherboard power cable was not fully plugged into power supply. Fixed it, and it booted.
- System shut down after running for a day. Gave lots of strange messages on boot. Reformatted SSD with new copy of EthosDistro, worked for a day, same problem again. Replaced SSD with new one, ran fine.
- Currently, one system won’t boot. I’m out of town, so I don’t know what the problem is. I suspect another SSD issue. Ordering more SSD’s.
- One thing I did not have problems with? Every single riser worked and every single GPU worked. Very happy about that.
Be careful with those motherboards – it sucks when you have to throw away a motherboard because the pins are bent!
Here they are running on the shelf. I bought the larger shelves at Home Depot this time, and they fit perfectly. This picture only shows 5 – I’ll take another one soon that shows 10:
April 12, 2017 @ 9:20 am
Any recommendations on another MOBO? I can not seem to locate the BIOSTAR TB85 at a good price.
April 15, 2017 @ 6:30 pm
only the two recommendations I made above in alternate motherboards
April 27, 2017 @ 3:35 pm
Hey Dan, I just ordered the ASRock Fatal1ty B250 GAMING K4 LGA from NewEgg.
April 27, 2017 @ 4:33 pm
Cool, my rigs ended up with the intel B250 pro4. Limited to 5 gpus per rig, but so far so good.
April 27, 2017 @ 4:46 pm
I like that board. I was able to get 6 GPU’s running on the Fatal1ty B250 Gaming K4 by turning off audio, serial port, CPU virtualization, and VT-D, while leaving all PCI-E lanes on Auto and setting TOLUD to 3.5.
May 16, 2017 @ 4:42 am
Hello Rolf,
Did you overclock the GPUs after these setting?
I am using the same setting with yours for my 6 GPUs(rx470) rig and already update the bios but when I executed Claymore’s miner(9.3) I bumped into “stuck in device driver” error after overclocked my GPUs, I’m using 16.9.2 driver for my flashed cards and OS is win10. Virtual memory is more than 16GB.
I don’t know how to solve this problem 🙁
May 10, 2017 @ 10:06 am
Use msi z97 gaming 5 or whatever of the 4gen gaming series. You can run 7 gpus on these boards. Also no need to have a monitor hooked up to them to boot. Will start automatically. Unlike some of the btc mobos.
April 12, 2017 @ 10:44 pm
ethOS videos are very much beginner videos.
April 15, 2017 @ 6:31 pm
thanks – fortunately the ethosdistro guys are helpful on the IRC for the more advanced stuff
April 14, 2017 @ 6:54 am
Great work and info. I have a question that most do not talk about anywhere. What is your set as far as where you send your bitcoin to, and how then are you transferring that bitcoin to your bank account or where are you having it transferred to so that you can be able to pay for your electric bill and your other expenses from your mining profits?
April 15, 2017 @ 6:33 pm
sometimes I transfer the altcoin to an exchange, trade it for Bitcoin, then trade the Bitcoin for USD, and transfer the USD to my bank account to pay for electricity.
Most of the time I try to buy stuff in bulk using Bitcoin, then sell it on Amazon or Ebay.
Other times I put more dollars into my mining business, increasing the equity of the LLC, and just keep stocking up on cryptocurrencies, then use the dollars to pay for electric and rent.
May 10, 2017 @ 10:10 am
Get a paypal debit card. Go set up a coin base account and you can sell your btc. Eth, ltc for usd. Immediately to your paypal. Then it is just like a debit card i found this to be the easiest method.
April 17, 2017 @ 6:30 pm
Just curious, what do you get for a hash rate on each of your rigs that you built in this blog post?
April 20, 2017 @ 8:18 am
For the build with 6 RX480 GPU’s about 1790 H/s and with the RX470 about 1610 H/s
May 19, 2017 @ 3:49 am
Thank you for this, it’s very useful. Im confused with the hash rate. Did you mean 1.79 Th/s with the 6 RX480 and 1.61 Th/s with the 6 RX470? if it is, isn’t a little lower for this investment?
Thank you
May 29, 2017 @ 6:03 pm
He’s referring to ZEC Hash rates in his post. I’m building a 6 GPU using Asus RX 580 8GB and they make about 300-304 H/s each so it would be 1812 H/s on a 6 GPU rig. (All tests done in EthOS Distro).
I’m testing these cards in a dual setup right now at 608-609 H/s average so that’s the expected output * as many of the same card you’d use here.
Ethereum is less impressive it seems at 23-24 Mh/s using ethminer, and 24-25 Mh/s using Claymore 9.4 – with or without dual mining Pascal/Sia -dcri 10 or 20 at either 500Mh/s or 1000Mh/s respectively (run hotter and use more power but I don’t have a meter to compare it).
Single Eth mining using Claymore is not that different it seems though I probably have to work on making some more tweaks.
June 20, 2017 @ 3:35 pm
This is good info, thanks Paul! May i ask, do use your standard electricity utilities or do you have a dedicated/ spearate/ business registered thing to supply your rig?
July 9, 2017 @ 5:48 pm
No Problemo 🙂 Thanks to Rolf I got a small warehouse to run some rigs and ASICs at 🙂 I was mining at home but the rates here in Cali are already too high…wasn’t liking Tier 3 (.31) for more than a month hehe (I expected it at least having mined in the past with some Zeus Miners).
April 21, 2017 @ 9:40 am
Was wondering what would be the smartest thing to do right now.
Setup a RX470/RX480 Rig for mining Ethereum/Zcash
or
Setup a R9 FURY rig for Zcash.
Considering the future.
April 24, 2017 @ 4:25 pm
I like using lower power. I think the Rx470 or Rx570 are good cards to use.
April 21, 2017 @ 8:13 pm
what you think about xfx rx 480 rs 8gb or msi armor rx 480 8gb ?
April 24, 2017 @ 4:26 pm
They are good cards. I prefer using MSI, XFX, and sapphire cards. I find the MSI cards tend to use less power, but I don’t know how that affects things long term.
May 10, 2017 @ 10:13 am
Rx480 msi I think stay the coolest and are the quietest not the armor ones but the red ones you seriously can’t even tell if they are on. Stay away from the founder edition cards xfx are pretty quiet and so are the power color red devils.
May 10, 2017 @ 10:47 am
thanks! That’s good advice!
April 27, 2017 @ 1:51 pm
Hi Rolf,
I just completed my rig and tried to get mining using ethos. For some reason when I try to edit the local.conf file the changes are not saved. I place wallet address next to proxywallet, save it and restart the miner. When I look at the local.conf file immediately after restart my wallet address is there however if i come back an hour later I see a different wallet. I execute the putconf && restart-proxy after which I thought saves it properly but no luck. I have tried to make the changes under both the ethos login and root.
Do you have any idea why my changes may not be saving?
April 27, 2017 @ 1:58 pm
Remote file is overriding the local file. You have to delete contents of the remote.conf file
May 6, 2017 @ 12:43 am
Hi Rolf,
For the cards you recommend RX470 or RX480 from XFX, Sapphire, or MSI.
Are they 4gb or 6 gb? is there any difference on choosing one of this cards for mining?
May 6, 2017 @ 3:25 pm
Those are hard to get now. I am currently buying RX570-4G cards.
May 7, 2017 @ 12:06 pm
Hi Rolf,
I have two questions:
How many Watts does a rig with 6 GPU’s use?
What is the temperature of the GPU’s?
May 9, 2017 @ 5:32 pm
A 6-gpu rig usually uses around 900 or 1000 watts of power. The GPU’s get pretty hot, usually 65-80 degrees C depending on ambient air temp and the flow of hot air away from the GPU’s
May 8, 2017 @ 11:43 pm
Your guide is awesome!!
I’ve been struggling with some decent setup guides using only Linux .. and it seems this is it.
I noticed you have a rack of rigs in one of the pictures – what are you doing for power? (Is this at a home or office?)
I currently have 6 480s on order.. but they don’t seem to be processing, I might cancel and try to find something else – but most of the recommended cards for mining are sold out, sold in limited supply, or priced high. I noticed your post about the RX570-4G .. what numbers have you seen on those that look appealing?
May 9, 2017 @ 5:34 pm
Thank you! Glad you find the linux guides useful. It took a while to find a recipe that worked so I wanted to share it.
In my next batch I am going to probably order 570-4G for equihash mining and 580-8G for ethereum and ethereum classic mining.
I like buying used R9 Nano for equihash mining but they get so hot so fast I’m hoping a next generation replacement comes out but in a 14 nm process instead of the Nano’s 28 nm process.
May 9, 2017 @ 7:00 pm
Seems my order of 480s failed. (How do you order graphics cards in bulk? Amazon and newegg both limit my orders).
I changed to 5 1070’s (wouldn’t mind six, but order limit of 5 – may get a 6th later if everything works).
I’ve heard that Nvidia has much better support for Linux regarding over/underclocking cards. I’m hoping I can configure everything relatively easily with just Linux and start mining.
What do you use as power buttons for your motherboards?
Sorry for all the questions – I swear I have PC building experience.. but an open rig, no case, 2 power supplies.. all of these are new to me.
And thanks again for the feedback!
May 10, 2017 @ 10:39 am
power buttons is #7 in the bill of materials above. But it is optional because you can just use a flathead screwdriver to short the two power pins to start the PC the first time. Then after that you use the power switch on the power supply to start it, as long as you did the BIOS setup properly.
I order from Newegg usually. I may start to buy from an out of state reseller, so I don’t have to pay state sales tax, depending on how prices go. But I really like buying GPU’s from Newegg, and usually get what they have on sale. Sometimes that limits me to 5 of one kind, and that’s ok.
May 10, 2017 @ 10:17 am
I have a question i have 8 rigs with 50 gpus 40 rx470/480 and the rest r9390. I have a hashrate of 1140 on ethereum with the difficulty as of today I probably make 1.2 eth a day. Would I make more mining for zcash?
May 10, 2017 @ 10:42 am
That’s a good question. It depends on when you sell your ethereum and your zcash. If you mine it then turn around and sell it or trade it for BTC, then you can look at coinwarz.com and see what’s most profitable.
But if you mine it and hold on to it, then you need to ask yourself:
1. Which one is more volatile? Can I sell when it goes high with limit orders?
2. Which one is going to go up more long term? What are the use cases, who is going to use it, and why?
3. What is its market cap now, and every year for the next 10-20?
My theory is the more people that are involved with a cryptocurrency, the more its price goes up over time. But I don’t really have an answer for your question.
May 10, 2017 @ 2:30 pm
You’ve been very helpful, thank you!
Any thoughts on pimp OS?
May 10, 2017 @ 10:28 pm
not really – I’ve heard it’s good but I have not tried it. I like ethosdistro for now.
May 11, 2017 @ 9:44 pm
Hands down the most comprehensive, informative, and helpful site on this subject I have come across. Thanks for all your work Rolf. As 1 dude just getting my feet wet; this is an invaluable resource to have.
May 12, 2017 @ 11:03 pm
Thanks Matthew! That makes me happy to hear 🙂
May 12, 2017 @ 11:55 am
How do you feel about the AM200 Ethereum miner?
May 12, 2017 @ 11:02 pm
Too expensive for what you get. You could build your own for $1700. And when it breaks, sending it back for repair is going to be expensive. With your own GPU miner, you can just swap out the bad part and either buy a new one or get a warranty RMA and get the part fixed.
May 12, 2017 @ 7:35 pm
Hello,
I was wondering if you would advise me to go for EthOS or Linux + claymore for my 1st mining rig ?
Thanks
May 12, 2017 @ 11:00 pm
If it is your very first one and you are going to have a screen attached to it you might want to start with Windows. It is very easy to use. I find that managing many mining rigs is difficult with Windows, which is why I prefer to use a version of Linux.
If you are going to build a mining rig and just let it run with no screen and keyboard attached, I would recommend you use EthOS.
May 12, 2017 @ 11:58 pm
And on the performance sides ? Will I get more performance on Linux or ethOS ?
May 12, 2017 @ 11:04 pm
My plan is to start with one, if I’m happy and the numbers on the financial side are ok I’ll expand to more rigs.
You means with Linux i can manage several rigs from one screen only ?
May 13, 2017 @ 12:33 am
I just brought my first rig up today with three cards. I have three more coming next week. I built my machine from Rolf’s list above but I think my mobo is different. I’m quite happy with it and plan on building more rigs.
I would suggest to start with Linux. You can manage multiple Linux machines using one windows machine by using programs such as Putty to SSH into them. If you’re unfamiliar with Linux I would urge you to dive into how-to videos and Google searches. Also print out a Linux command cheat sheet and tape it close by. I’m fortunate that I have 25 years of Corporate IT experience so Linux is easy for me but I know for most it’s not.
I would suggest you stay away from a windows machine and order the ethos SSD from the list above since it’s extremely easy for a beginner to get up and mining right away. It’s also less expensive. All you need to know is how to open up conf files and make changes.
If you are really eager and computer savvy, I would suggest downloading vmware vmplayer and install a non-gui linux distro and play around with it.
May 13, 2017 @ 12:58 am
But if I’m taking the ethOS, I’ll have to plug a screen & keyboard to make some modifications or i can do it through an interface (online ?) ?
May 13, 2017 @ 2:16 am
Either way will work. Obviously you will need to plug directly into the motherboard to make the BIOS changes. I would also make the BIOS changes before plugging any video cards in. Follow Rolf’s BIOS change instructions and you shouldn’t have any problems. Once you have the rig running and ethOS sees all of your video cards, you can remove the monitor/keyboard if you like. I suggest first you retrieve the IP of the rig before unplugging. At the ethOS command prompt you type: ifconfig This is similar to windows ipconfig. From your windows computer run a program like Putty and type in your rig’s IP. From there you can make any changes to the conf files.
May 13, 2017 @ 2:28 am
Ok thanks man for your help, do you have an email or somewhere where i can contact you, if it’s ok for you ?
May 12, 2017 @ 11:25 pm
Know of any decent discord channels for talking about mining rigs?
I found one useful one – but it is specific to zcash.
I found a few crytpocurrency generic channels .. but they rarely talk mining rigs.
thanks!
6 GPU Mining Rig AMD RX580 Intel LGA 1151 for Ethereum and Zcash - Block Operations
May 16, 2017 @ 8:12 am
[…] GPU Mining Zcash and Ethereum with EthosDistro and AMD RX470 on 6 GPU Rig […]
May 17, 2017 @ 3:11 pm
Awesome blog! I am curious, can you explain how you manage your power requirements? I am looking to setup a small mining operation and am wondering about utility cost? For example, did you have to install extra power to handle all those machines? How do you find a good rate for power?
May 17, 2017 @ 4:45 pm
I just for the Rx470, they say the power it use won’t go above 150W… 150*6=900W.
And i think a PSU use less power when it’s not at his full power, so 1300W is a good one and you also need 6 wires, one for each cars if I’m correct.
May 22, 2017 @ 9:02 pm
I rented an office and get commercial power. The prices depend on where you are located, fortunately I am in a low cost location.
For my larger site the power company brought in a 500KVA transformer just for me.
June 4, 2017 @ 3:04 pm
Rolf,
Thanks for the info. This is certainly an awesome blog. I am working torwards setting up 50 rigs at an office location. Currently there is a 180KVA Transformer on side. I am told that it should handle the rigs. My question is do I need a 10A outlet run for each rig? Or should I get 30A Outlets and use a PDU to handle each 3-4 rigs? I’m just curious how the electrical power should be run? I figure a 6GPU rig running RX570’s should not draw more than 1000w or about 9a right?
June 24, 2017 @ 6:20 pm
That’s a matter of style, I guess. I like using 30 amp outlets and PDU’s because I like the flexibility. I can connect 3-4 Antminer S9 using 1500 W each, or 10 Antminer L3+ using 500W each.
If GPU miners using 12 cards using 2000W is what is standard in the future, I could power 2-3 of them off a 30A circuit.
Anything above 30 amps gets expensive.
But you could also do more 10 amp circuits. It is just not what I prefer.
May 19, 2017 @ 5:33 pm
Question on ROI/obsolescence . I recently set up an Rx480 (x6) rig mining ethereum. i will pay off the rig in 6-7 months (or sooner if the price keeps rising ;). Bottom line question: will these 480’s be obsolete in a year? Or can i expect years of GPU mining from my investment? I am looking to dive in with 8-10 rigs but don’t want to spend all that money only to have them become obsolete in a year or so. thoughts?
May 22, 2017 @ 9:03 pm
They will be good until the majority of people are using GPU’s on the 10nm or 7nm process, which is probably 3-4 years from now.
May 20, 2017 @ 11:27 am
I am running 4 RX 570’s off a Intel b250 pro 4. One card is always a little slower in hash rate. Have you ever experienced this?
May 22, 2017 @ 9:04 pm
Do you have a screen plugged in to one of the cards? Is that the card that is slower?
Sometimes some of the chips are better than others, and the bad ones overheat quicker.
May 20, 2017 @ 8:13 pm
Subscribed. Good stuff. Would like to get into and wondering if there are any 10+ GPU rigs. There is a place called btc mining store that has this for $2700 which seems like a no brainer with 20 rx480s.
“Miner RX480 – Custom Ethereum Zcash Mining Rigs – Hash Rate 500 MH/s at 2,500 Watt”
May 22, 2017 @ 9:04 pm
I’d recommend starting with a 6 GPU rig. That’s difficult enough to get working. I would not even attempt 10 GPU rig, because I like to have stable systems that run without a problem.
May 22, 2017 @ 11:09 pm
This is by far the best blog on mining! Thank you! Question – how many 6 – 480 rigs can you have on a cable broadband? in other words, do I need to worry about running out of broadband? I am looking to run 15-20 rigs in one location on the same internet broadband connection.
May 22, 2017 @ 11:27 pm
Thank you!
It uses very little bandwidth. The biggest performance difference is in the latency to the mining pool. The lower the latency (you can do a basic test with a ping) the better.
May 23, 2017 @ 8:43 pm
Again, many thanks for your help. Question on PSUs. With good PSUs in short supply, what are your thoughts on using 2 – 650watt PSUs together instead of 1 – 1300watt PSU? Is this possible?
June 24, 2017 @ 6:20 pm
I think that would be fine. Just make sure you get the kind where you can tie them together so the DC power levels are the same.
May 25, 2017 @ 2:31 pm
Thank you for all your help. you are God sent to the fellow miners.
Quick question. 4 gpu’s RX 480 work perfectly and then I add the 5th GPU, the device manager and GPU-z display them all. but 3 of them display different set of drivers and then only 2 of the gpu function and the rest 3 are showing error messages.
But when I pull out the 5th GPU, everything is fine and back to normal with my hashrate for the 4 gpu’s. Hope I made sense.
May 28, 2017 @ 7:09 am
Have you set the Mobo BIOS to enable ‘4G’ That’s what made my rig go weird with the next card going in.
May 28, 2017 @ 6:43 am
Hi,
Thanks for the blog!
With your RX570s – are you setting the BIOS only in EthOS conf files? Or are you flashing the BIOS too?
For Ethereum, I have seen loads of people getting 27MH/s out of these cards. But always on Windows 10.
I can play with clocks in the conf file and get to 22.5MH/s stable-ish, or leave totally as-is out the box at 21.
I’m not sure if I need to flash the BIOS and set configuration or what?
Plus, I have no idea how stable it actually is – the 5MH/s runs out pretty fast if they go down a lot!
Cheers!
May 28, 2017 @ 9:17 am
Hi,
First can I say how brilliant your site is and thank you for sharing all the info.
I am setting up a 6 GPU rig with gigabyte 580s. I’m running them on Linux, either on ethereum or zcash. I’m wondering what your advice is on flashing the bios and generally tweaking voltage and clocks. I think the only way to undervolt is by using Polaris on Windows and it’s important to me to use as little power as possible. Or is it sufficient to just use ethOS?
Many thanks
June 24, 2017 @ 6:23 pm
I think using Polaris on windows and copying the 1750 timing to 2000 is good.
What I do then is use ethosdistro to set the core and memory frequencies to their default (I get that by using gethelp in ethosdistro and going to the web page for help on that box) then lowering the powertune to 6 or 5 or 4.
If you have many of the same types of GPU’s you can pay someone to create you a custom ROM that will work even better.
May 29, 2017 @ 6:41 pm
Thanks Rolf for an awesome resource to us n00bs 🙂
If I was looking for Industrial space – What is keen to look for as far as power? I am not super familiar with electrical things, so I’ve been trying to read up more on it.
If I have 100 Amps to a small space, I can have up to 12000 Watts total power…really more like 9600 Watts of continuous power draw? I am looking at hooking up some 10 miners @ 800 Watts each so that’s 8000 Watts of power. Plus a couple of GPU rigs (12 RX 580’s using 2 x 1300W Antecs you recommended). Not sure what total draw that is…but I’m darn near capacity there for a 100 Amp service it seems. That’s not counting lights, computer, fan, or anything else really!
So my questions are (Being on very slim starting capital mostly spent on miners already!):
* Who brings in more power if I need it? Is that the local power company, the building folks I lease it from (depending on contract), or my own paid electrician?
* Who brings in (and pays for) the 30 AMP breakers, and plugs to the walls (like the tripplite 30 amp PDU uses)?
* What can I look for to lower my own costs when selecting a warehouse space that has existing power?
* 3-Phase power = good or bad? I know i need appropriate PDU depending on single or three phase but which is preferred (Assuming minimal growth)?
Thank you for being so awesome and helpful 🙂
June 24, 2017 @ 6:26 pm
Sorry it took me awhile to answer this….been a little busy lately.
Basically, the power company will bring another transformer to the outside of the building for you for not very much money. I got a new 500KVA transformer installed for $8000
But you have to pay for everything else, and the farther away the power company transformer is from your electric panels, the more expensive it will be. If you look at my youtube videos you’ll see that at my larger space it is literally 10 feet from the transformer to my panel. It is very expensive to go much farther than that.
3 phase power is fine. The electricians will make single phase power for your 30 amp connections at the panel.
June 30, 2017 @ 2:07 pm
Ahh this is great info – I was looking at 3 phase PDUs which are REALLY expensive. I would rather have some single phase PDU’s and build out from that.
With regards to the panel – I might be SOL because i’m a middle unit perhaps (or it will cost a fortune). I’m working with 200 AMPs right now, so it’s going to be enough to start off with 🙂
Thank you for your help Rolf and for sharing your knowledge!
June 3, 2017 @ 1:12 pm
where do you get those open air case frame
June 7, 2017 @ 8:18 pm
He has a link on there http://www.parallelminer.com/product-category/open-air-mining/open-air-frame/
Price went up though because of the mining craze!
June 11, 2017 @ 10:33 pm
Rolf, did you 250 Asrock Gaming 4k running out 6GPU`s at Windows 10.64?
I`m facing a problem, every time I put the last GPU it block and jam everything. Sometimes I even have to clean up the CMOS. Does de setting that you mention about audio and VT-d works for that issue too?
Thank you
June 22, 2017 @ 12:08 pm
Use Linux man – much easier and stable for multi-GPU (EthOS is great and worth the money). Sorry dunno about the Windows as I wouldn’t use it for mining 😉
June 22, 2017 @ 12:10 pm
Thank you. But I found a way to make that happen.
June 15, 2017 @ 1:01 pm
This might be a noob question but I am trying to build a 6 GPU EthOS miner. Everytime I boot EthOS and mining starts the computer eventually freezes and has to be power cycled. Have you experienced something like this before? It happens even with just one GPU plugged directly into the closest x16 lane. I’m at my wits end trying to fix this – any help would be appreciated.
Thanks!
June 24, 2017 @ 6:28 pm
I had that happen on one system where the main CPU overheated. The CPU fan was loose.
Sometimes it helps to reseat the CPU, fan, memory, and power connections to make sure they are tight.
June 20, 2017 @ 4:10 pm
Would you recommend setting up a business if one was to get a 6+ rig set up? 2 reasons I ask, one is my concern of the amount of electricity i’d be using and whether power suppliers would start to question it at all if the account is just a residential standard one? (not sure if anyone in US or UK has encountered this?) And, also, future proofing oneself/tax relief benefits when one eventally decides to cash out.
Very thorough how to guide here btw, thanks!
June 24, 2017 @ 6:31 pm
For running many rigs I think it is helpful to set up as a business. I have a blog post and video where I discuss that:
https://blockoperations.com/planning-your-bitcoin-mining-operation/
https://youtu.be/94CHE065R88
June 22, 2017 @ 5:52 am
I must say you have hi quality posts here. Your posts should go viral.
You need initial boost only. How to get massive traffic?
Search for: Murgrabia’s tools go viral
June 24, 2017 @ 6:36 pm
I have bricked a GPU by messing with the timing. Can’t get it to show up on windows or ethos. In fact, it won’t let the system even load. Just black screen, no start up screen, or even boot screen. Any suggestions on how to get it back to the point were i can reload the old bios?
June 24, 2017 @ 7:17 pm
If you can create a boot USB that will let you boot to a command line and update the BIOS to the stock you should be able to recover it. Here is a guide that might help
https://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/13807/guide-tutorial-xmr-eth-how-to-mod-polaris-bios-amd-rx-470-570-480-580-mining
June 24, 2017 @ 8:26 pm
You’re an amazing resource. Thanks so much. I will take a look and see if that can fix it.
July 23, 2017 @ 2:36 pm
Hello, I’m running a RX580 8GB Nitro+ LE with Ethos and trying to set up dual mining with Eth and ZCash. Would you have any experience doing this to get it to work? Thanks!
August 9, 2017 @ 10:01 pm
Thanks so much for the helpful into you have posted here, it has helped so much.
Trying to get some help: I feel I have gotten everything up and running properly on a 5 card rig (rx470) with eth os, local.conf file has my zcash wallet addr and flypool’s addr and i reboot and it is still all there. My question is when should I see numbers change as far as:
hash: 0
miner_hashes: 00.00 00.00 00.00 00.00 00.00
Does it take awhile, just leave it up and running and when the mining pool throws some work my way.. or should i be seeing something change there in a couple mins?
August 10, 2017 @ 5:13 am
Update to the latest version of Claymore-Zcash on Ethosdistro by following the instructions here: http://ethosdistro.com/kb/#adding-claymore-zcash
Check the miner status by following the logs.
SSH into the machine, type
And see if there are any errors
August 10, 2017 @ 11:30 am
Man I am just stuck right here, so close to the damn finish line. Do I need to set up the custom panel parameters? I don’t quite get that, so you need to do that in the local.conf file? More toward the middle or bottom I suppose?
August 11, 2017 @ 3:35 pm
I have not yet set up custom panel parameters. I just use the default panel listed on the monitor
August 11, 2017 @ 10:21 pm
I don’t know what I was doing wrong with my local.conf that was preventing me from mining zcash (will try a different pool later, see if that was the problem) but got it working when I set it to mine ethereum with nano pool, just using the default parameters. Thanks for the replies, and once again for all the great info you post.
September 17, 2017 @ 5:10 am
You ROCK! No questions. Thank you!
September 24, 2017 @ 2:11 pm
Agree! He`s the man!
AMD RX 470 – Site Title
November 4, 2017 @ 10:48 am
[…] Overview] – 6&5 GPU rig power consumption (signle vs dual mining) <== youtube video GPU Mining Zcash and Ethereum with EthosDistro and AMD RX470 on 6 GPU Rig Underclocking/undervolting the RX 470 with […]
February 1, 2018 @ 12:41 am
Hi Rolf,
Thanks for sharing such valuable and detailed information. Would you mind sharing the details of the filtered intake and exhaust fans you have used in your facility?
How Ro Buy Ethereum – Crypto Exchange Reviews
April 8, 2018 @ 10:20 am
[…] GPU Mining Zcash and Ethereum with EthosDistro and. – Latest version of my guide to building and operating a mining rig is here, How to Build a 6 Rig GPU Miner for Zcash and Ethereum with Nvidia GTX 1070 and EthosDistro posted Oct 1, 2017 on Steemit. […]