Dedicated Crypto Mining Open Compute server build.

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Klee

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Jun 2, 2016
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Since Fed-Ex shows that the two Open Compute servers that I have ordered Friday will be dropped off tomorrow I'm going to start this build thread tonight.

I’m posting it in the new “Cryptocurrency Mining and Markets” forum not the “DIY Server and Workstation Builds” forum or the “Great Deals: Potential Deal: 2 x Dual 2011 nodes @$199, Quanta Openrack” because it is not a typical server or workstation build and its more suited here because that it is for one specific task…..cpu mining.

I was actually planning the generic open case 6 gpu miner. With the limited availability of Amd Rx 580 and Rx570 gpu’s and the cost I would have been looking at I decided to try something different.

If I had decided to still go the gpu route this is a price breakdown of a 6 gpu miner, prices via Newegg or Ebay new unless noted.

6 x Rx570’s [$200.00 each] $1200.00

1x Cheap case [ Cheapest on on ebay, basically just an aluminum angle frame riveted together with wood cross bars to mount the motherboard] $75.00

1x EGVA 1300w G2 power supply $259.99

6x PCI-e risers $50.00

1x Power switch $5.00

1x 4 gig DDr3 Ram [used] $12.00

1x Biostar TB85 socket 1150 mb [Already purchased] $79.00

1x Intel Celeron G1840 LGA1150 cpu w/ fan $45.00

1x 16gig SSD [used] $15.00

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total $1749.99

Shipping or taxes not included nor is an operating system included in the price. Also it is assumed a monitor, keyboard and mouse are already on hand for the 6 gpu rig and the OC servers.

The RX570’s are super hard to get now, also the mining motherboard I have is no longer being manufactured and the prices are now way over $100.00 now.

There are newer mining motherboards based on newer chipsets but are more expensive, so it would be real easy to end up spending a couple hundred more than what I listed or a couple of hundred dollars less if you can find better deals or more used parts.

Modded Rx570 gpu’s would probably mine Monero ~625 H/s stable each so about ~3700 H/s .

Thats about 2.12 H/s per dollar.

The prices to build a dedicated GPU miner plus the tinkering/moding, oh and modding a gpu bios takes a lot of trial and error and lots of testing and even then the stability is a lot of times very hard to attain even with identical video cards.

So that caused me to rethink things and after I found a 250v 20A electrical socket in a almost idea place I immediately thought of those Open Compute servers listed on Ebay, Wiwynn and Quanta.

The main differences is that the Wiwynn in new in the box with everything except cpu’s, ram and hard drive and the Quanta is used, about $50.00 cheaper, and takes V2 cpu’s already, has a newer bios available and I think lets you run Windows 8 or 10 but its seems to be a bit of a hit or miss with what they come with.

I chose the Wiwynn mainly because its brand new, I have had great luck being given used motherboards but really horrible luck with buying used boards.

And if I want to try to get a V2 or even an ES cpu running on it I feel pretty comfortable that I could mod the motherboard bios to allow that.

So cost breakdown, very preliminary because I will try things and once I am happy with what ever combo I end up with [ ram, cpu’s ect] i’ll post a more accurate cost breakdown.
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EDIT: Final prices.

2x Wiwynn open compute server $380.00 NEW
4x E5-2660 V1 cpu’s $207.92 (best price found but the seller only had 4) USED
4x E5-2660 V1 cpu’s $230.80 USED
8 Gb of DDR 8500 8x1 Gb sticks $17.50 USED
4x used hard drives that I already had $00.00 USED
1x New HP PDU $10.00 NEW
2x Power cords to reach unused 250V a/c outlet $20.00 NEW
*not including shipping

Total $866.22 gives 3480 H/s
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I plan on running a “Master Node” with the video card, usb card, keyboard and monitor with probibly more ram than the headless nodes until I come up with a final setup that I will run in all nodes. I expect to be able to just install Ubuntu server using the Master node and just move them over to the other nodes.

Two nodes of E5-2660’s should have a hash rate of ~1680 H/s

Two nodes of E5-2650’s should hash about ~ 1500 h/s

About ~3180 H/s with 4x 2660 and 4x 2650 cpu’s, but I'm not %100 set on the 4x 2650’s in the second node.

So with the above number its about 3.3 H/s per dollar with two OC servers running cpu’s only vs 2.12 H/s per dollar on the 6 gpu build.



Will be fun!!

Oh and will start to post pics tomorrow.
 
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Marsh

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Not purchased yet but best price is $43.00ea and I need to determine which is the better price/performance between the 2660’s and the 2650’s
My experiment confirm that E5-2660 is the sweet spot between E5-2650 (less hashrate ) and E5-2670 (power hungry)

I might can get away with two 1 gig sticks of ram per cpu
I had good luck buying 1gb DDR3 UDIMM on ebay which nobody wants it for the price of $1 per stick.
The UDIMM work on my SuperMicro boards ,ASUS boards, Tyan boards.
If you are running Linux, 1-2gb ram is plenty for dedicated miner.

Why the big hard disk?
 

Klee

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Jun 2, 2016
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My experiment confirm that E5-2660 is the sweet spot between E5-2650 (less hashrate ) and E5-2670 (power hungry)



I had good luck buying 1gb DDR3 UDIMM on ebay which nobody wants it for the price of $1 per stick.
The UDIMM work on my SuperMicro boards ,ASUS boards, Tyan boards.
If you are running Linux, 1-2gb ram is plenty for dedicated miner.

Why the big hard disk?

I already ordered four 2660's so I might just get 4 more.

Yea Ram is the biggest question and could save a decent amount of money. I went with the 8x1 gigs because they were decently priced and kind of what i'm looking for.

Oh and the 32 gig DDR3 from Natex will end up in something else, just would be nice in the master node until it I turn it into just another node without gui or video card after I determin what the final config will be on all of them.

Thanks for the tip on the cheap udimm, may have to order some to try out.

The three WD Blacks? I already have them and they are just sitting on a shelf and decently speedy for hard disks. But I might go with small SSD's if I can find a deal.

I might change some things, actually probably will change things depending on how things work out.
 

nitrobass24

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What is your H/s per $ when you factor in the cost of the electricity to run the units comparatively?
 
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Klee

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What is your H/s per $ when you factor in the cost of the electricity to run the units comparatively?

I do not know yet, for the 6 gpu rig from what I have seen others post online they are anywhere from ~980 watts on the low end to ~1200 on the high end depending on what coin they are mining.

To be honest the way the price is increasing on Monero and the cost of two open compute servers being at about %60 of the 6 gpu rig i'm thinking less and less about the electricity cost even if its a bit more it should be more profitable.

From what I have seen with Gpu rigs they have nowhere near the stability or uptime as a server because they are really just cobbled togeather instead of being designed to run 24/7 for years and years.

Gpu miners are kind of fiddly and require lots of care to keep running, a server just will run and run as long as the software is of decent quality.

My main rig with the two RX480's required LOTS of experimentation to increase the hashrate and sometimes still need to be fiddled with, but of course its a lot less than it used to be.

Oh and a server is a lot less of a fire hazard than a gpu miner........thinking of burned risers, burned pci-e power cables, burned adapter cables, and over taxed and overheating power supplys.
 
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Jeggs101

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Dec 29, 2010
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@Klee I'm excited for this except for one part. What's up with no pics?

Why do GPU miners require care?

I know the crypto forum is new. As a community (or a dictator @Patrick) we should decide if these kinds of posts go in crypto forum or if they go in DIY build forum.
 

4004

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Why do GPU miners require care?
Speaking from experience. One video card may be at a threshold, the next identical model is not. In efforts to reduce power or keep the cards cool, I can and do change the defaults. You can be the source of the failure, that is part of optimizing your setup for hash rate vs power / longevity of the components.

The tweaked miner will run for hours or days, the driver (AMD in my case) apparently crashes, brining the mining to a halt. Was it my changes to the defaults, a cosmic ray, OS bug or another point of failure?

Bottom line (it seems), leaving all the settings at the default seems to keep the miner running for the longest period of time (least care). Leaving everything at Auto/Auto and allowing the cards to reach 90C (the default max for AMD wattman, FYI) feels irresponsible.
 

Klee

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It has begun..............

EDIT: After starting to give the first one a good look I realized there was a LOT of thought put into these things.

 
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Klee

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Got them both in , one has a broken off power supply latch knob. No big deal and too small of a deal to bother trying to ship it back and get another one.


Now this is the first time I have looked at an oc server upclose.

Anybody have a pdf manual one one of these things?

One question is about the pci-e riser, there are two jumpers one labeled "CFGGN1" and the other "CFGGN2" I assume its to config the riser to accept either gen 1 or gen 2 pci-e cards but do they both need to be jumperd or do I only jumper the generation I need?

Once I get the power delivery configured I will play around with them, I have PCI-e 1 t0 PCI-e 3 gen cards to try.

Anyone try a newer card without the riser?
 
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Klee

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@Klee I like the build.

@Jeggs101 I can see why this might be better in the DIY server build forum.
If you need to move it on over I have no issue with that.

I just thought it would be a better fit in the "Cryptocurrency Mining and Market" forum since its very specific to cryptocoin cpu mining usage.

But it might get more exposure in the DIY server forum.
 

Klee

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Installed two video cards for now, one SSD and 1 WD black drive. Also the cheap 8x 1 gig DDR Hynix ecc ram came in today and I put all the sticks into the second node.

Except for cpu's, pci-e usb card and power deliver the first one is ready to run.

Edit: Just tracked the first 4 cpu's and the 32 GB DDR 4x 8gb ram and I should have them tomorrow.

 
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Klee

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I received the 4 E5-2660's that I ordered from ebay and the ram from Natex.

And a tree fell down in my backyard so I'll be wielding a chainsaw this weekend.
 

Klee

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Mounted the 4 cpu's, heat-sinks and ram on the first server.
 

Klee

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23Hrs and 30 min later, is it alive?

Not yet, I need to get a connector plug to connect to the 250 v extension cable for test purposes.

Was going to go to Lowe's tonight.

EDIT: Went to Lowe's and purchased some 10/3 power cord, yea overkill for 20A because they were out of 12/3 and I bought 33 FT so I will have plenty, and three 250v connectors, two male and one female.

Now to cut an end of a p/c cord and then swap on the new male connector and I should be able to boot.

EDIT: Changed the end on the pc power cord, used a new one from a EVGA 1000W power supply that stamped to be rated to 300 v. To make sure I dug out an old atx power supply and manually switched it to the 230 v position and used my antminer power supply switch and it powered on and the fan was spinning and did not burst into flames. :D

Its just a temporary setup while I configure them.
 
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Klee

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The first node is working.

No this is not where it will end up, this is just an old desk that I use as a workbench.


Fixing to play in the bios.

 
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Klee

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Installing Ubuntu 16.04.02 via usb dvd drive on the first node, did not feel like making a install flash drive right now.

So far the server is pretty quiet, but its not even closed to being stressed.
 

Klee

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First node running. 870 H/s not to bad.

So once they are all up and running I should get 870x4= 3480 H/s for all four nodes.



After I start xmr-stak-cpu temps climb up to ~82c then the fans ramp up and get pretty loud then the temps stabilize to what the pics show and the fans spin down a lot and are reasonably quiet.

I'll let it run for the rest of the day to see how it does.

Then install docker and try one of the Docker images out.
 
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Patrick

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@Klee what is the power consumption on those nodes? That is only slightly slower than the dual E5-2628L V4.