I was just reading this thread
..and I came across this post:
I am fortunate enough to have a shop with space for me to setup my mining rigs. So far I've just gone with the open "bench" setup to save on costs and to make cooling easy.
In the photo you can see the bench with three rigs (a mix of 5870, 5970 and one older 5840) on the floor is the Bitcoin solo server running in -server mode, which also has 2 5870's. There are a couple of other machines in my office with 5870's elsewhere. I am at 3.8G/hash and adding about 1/g/hash per week buying up cheap used cards via craigslist.
I am working on building a good Ubuntu Live ATI ISO file today in an attempt to eliminate all of the hard drives by using USB thumb drives, that'll save on electricity as well as hardware costs going forward.
http://www.eskimo.com/~dan/rig.jpg
I don't want to hijack the thread with a million noob questions (and I am a noob - started learning about Bitcoin "yesterday"), but I am very curious about a lot of things. I have thee questions from reading the post above. If anyone can answer them, I'll be very appreciative - as I really love the idea of getting into mining. I know it's a tough business, from what I have read online, but it just sounds so cool, the fact that it's tough doesn't turn me off. I can't get past the cool factor
Questions:
1). In a setup such as the one in the picture, can you just keep plugging video cards (or asic cards) into 1 computer? Will that computer overheat or crash or what ever? Or, is all the work done by the "rigs"/"cards", and the completed work pretty much just seamlessly flows through the computer into the laptop? The reason I am asking this, is because I like the idea of simply buying up a heap of video cards and lining them all up, but surely there's a limit? Can anyone give me their 2 cents on this?
2). I am thinking of buying this card. What do I do with it? Do I just plug it into my laptop with USB? Or des it go into expansion ports in a PC? Don't PC's have like just a couple/few of those ports? I can't figure out what it is by looking at the picture. Can I buy a special "box" that is suited to simply plugging a heap of those cards in? Or can I just hook them all up to a laptop via a heap of usb cables and a hub?
3). If you like (as wih the other thread, above), can you please show a picture of your "rig", but specifically explain all the "meaty" info like:
- How much did it cost?
- How old is it?
- Does it use a lot of power?
- How many Bitcoins does it mine?
- What mistakes did you make? What would you do differently? what do you WISH you had done?
I am really interested discussion relating to all of the above. Basically, I envision my apartment turning into a heap of rigs, shelves and wires - and me being very proud of it, as visitors look at it - almost looking afraid, while I smile and proudly announce: "Cool, huh?". But I need to get my head around what mining rigs are, what cards are, how they work together, how to join them together, how many computers I need, etc.
Note: I have been researching pretty heavily since yestgerday afternoon. I have studied the history. I know that it all started out using CPU's and then people realized that graphics cards are 100 times faster, and then machines were made to do the job in a dedicated fashion (asics) and now there are gigahash rigs and even terrahash rigs etc. I get all that. But I am not clued on on the specific of how all that stuff plugs into computers. So that's what I would like to learn about in tbis thread - as pertaining to how many Bitcoins can be made.
In short, I a just looking for your 2 cents, from what you have learned - in order to provide me with direction. How can your experiences help me? A noob.
..and I came across this post:
I'm curious to see some pictures of those mining rigs. Share your pictures of your rig and then details of build and mhash/sec. Let's get a frame of reference up here with some visuals. I will use this first post as a place holder and take a picture of my own rig later today.
I am fortunate enough to have a shop with space for me to setup my mining rigs. So far I've just gone with the open "bench" setup to save on costs and to make cooling easy.
In the photo you can see the bench with three rigs (a mix of 5870, 5970 and one older 5840) on the floor is the Bitcoin solo server running in -server mode, which also has 2 5870's. There are a couple of other machines in my office with 5870's elsewhere. I am at 3.8G/hash and adding about 1/g/hash per week buying up cheap used cards via craigslist.
I am working on building a good Ubuntu Live ATI ISO file today in an attempt to eliminate all of the hard drives by using USB thumb drives, that'll save on electricity as well as hardware costs going forward.
http://www.eskimo.com/~dan/rig.jpg
I don't want to hijack the thread with a million noob questions (and I am a noob - started learning about Bitcoin "yesterday"), but I am very curious about a lot of things. I have thee questions from reading the post above. If anyone can answer them, I'll be very appreciative - as I really love the idea of getting into mining. I know it's a tough business, from what I have read online, but it just sounds so cool, the fact that it's tough doesn't turn me off. I can't get past the cool factor
Questions:
1). In a setup such as the one in the picture, can you just keep plugging video cards (or asic cards) into 1 computer? Will that computer overheat or crash or what ever? Or, is all the work done by the "rigs"/"cards", and the completed work pretty much just seamlessly flows through the computer into the laptop? The reason I am asking this, is because I like the idea of simply buying up a heap of video cards and lining them all up, but surely there's a limit? Can anyone give me their 2 cents on this?
2). I am thinking of buying this card. What do I do with it? Do I just plug it into my laptop with USB? Or des it go into expansion ports in a PC? Don't PC's have like just a couple/few of those ports? I can't figure out what it is by looking at the picture. Can I buy a special "box" that is suited to simply plugging a heap of those cards in? Or can I just hook them all up to a laptop via a heap of usb cables and a hub?
3). If you like (as wih the other thread, above), can you please show a picture of your "rig", but specifically explain all the "meaty" info like:
- How much did it cost?
- How old is it?
- Does it use a lot of power?
- How many Bitcoins does it mine?
- What mistakes did you make? What would you do differently? what do you WISH you had done?
I am really interested discussion relating to all of the above. Basically, I envision my apartment turning into a heap of rigs, shelves and wires - and me being very proud of it, as visitors look at it - almost looking afraid, while I smile and proudly announce: "Cool, huh?". But I need to get my head around what mining rigs are, what cards are, how they work together, how to join them together, how many computers I need, etc.
Note: I have been researching pretty heavily since yestgerday afternoon. I have studied the history. I know that it all started out using CPU's and then people realized that graphics cards are 100 times faster, and then machines were made to do the job in a dedicated fashion (asics) and now there are gigahash rigs and even terrahash rigs etc. I get all that. But I am not clued on on the specific of how all that stuff plugs into computers. So that's what I would like to learn about in tbis thread - as pertaining to how many Bitcoins can be made.
In short, I a just looking for your 2 cents, from what you have learned - in order to provide me with direction. How can your experiences help me? A noob.