My Mining Rig Build Project

[Jordan]

The Idea

Thought I would document my progress in building a mining rig here and publish the results, issues, and profitability here.

Now is a good time to get into mining because it's very profitable. I was investing in crypto before, but it would be much nicer to invest into a rig and invest purely the currency I mine. It's relatively low risk if you choose the right components because you can sell those components (or use them for gaming yourself) if mining difficulty goes up too much (that's why I'm going with used 1070s as opposed to incredibly inflated AMD cards).

The idea is to build the PC, and then add GTX 1070s slowly as I can find them used and at a good price. Starting with 1, 2 cards and building to 6. Would like to document the building process, along with how I will solve cooling issues. I'm aware cooling will be extremely difficult, but I have some unique ideas of how to cool the rig.

 

Money Spent So Far

$430 on used ASUS GTX 1070

$547.77 on Computer

$2300 on 5x new EVGA GTX 1070

$135 on 4U server case designed for Graphics cards and mining

----------------------------

$3412.77 Total

 

Current Setup

ASUS Strix B250 Gaming LGA1151 Motherboard

Intel Celeron G3900 CPU

Sandisk 120GB SSD

6 PCI-E Riser Adapter Cards

EVGA 1200W Power Supply 80+ GOLD Fully Modular

4GB Corsair DDR4 2133 

ASUS GTX 1070 STRIX OC 8GB 

5x EVGA GTX 1070 FTW 8GB

4U Server case

 

 

Money Made

Total Mined: ~$398.06

Total Made ( $3412.77 (Total Investment) - 1127.46 (Total Mined)): -$2413.71

*note: electricity costs have been negligible considering I live in mountains and it heats our whole apartment (do not have to turn on heater even in negative temps) - I may calculate how much I've spent later, but I haven't been keeping track on the thread, it's been about $50 per 30 days of 24/7 mining. 

 

First Payout 7/7/2016: $3.50 (.00151468 BTC) 

Second Payout: $27.66 (0.01174760 BTC) 

Third Payout: $62.72 (.01485410 BTC)

Fourth Payout: $44.18 (.01172882 BTC)

ZEC PAYOUT: $28.74 (0.1158 ZEC)

ZEC PAYOUT: $231.26 (1.02 ZEC)

ZEC Payout: $330 (1 ZEC)

ETH Payout: $57 (.16 ETH)

Winminer Payouts: $214

Updates

July 7th 2017:

Purchased ASUS GTX 1070 STRIX 8GB Overclocked - $430

I haven't built the rig yet, so I just threw the 1070 into my personal gaming rig and am mining from there. Not doing any advanced configurations or anything, just running NiceHash to make some money until I build the rig. Hoping I can get some cheap components on amazon prime day.

Will be reinstalling my 980ti along side the 1070 later today. 

 

July 7th 2017 Update 2:

Installed my 980ti and an extra case fan. Hopefully I can bare the heat.

I'm very happy with $5-6/day just using Nicehash with no modifications to any settings at al

Update July 18th, 2017

Didn't get to run the mine as much as I'd like due to heat issues. I plan on custom making heat management system by using spot cooler window vents attached to a custom case. Hoping for something like the picture below. Only issue is it delays my progress for about a month because I don't move into my new place until the 15th.

Regardless of my low time, here was my payout, around $27:

 

Update August 1st, 2017

Haven't mined a single thing since my last update. Bought the computer components today.

Going to figure out how I want to build the rig and the case. I was thinking of using a large subwoofer enclosure. A subwoofer enclosure is designed to keep the noise down which is important as I plan to have this rig in my personal room. Just ideas going through my head.

Parts ordered today:

• ASUS Strix B250 Gaming LGA1151 Motherboard
• Intel Celeron G3900 CPU
• Sandisk 120GB SSD
• 6 PCI-E Riser Adapter Cards
• EVGA 1200W Power Supply 80+ GOLD Fully Modular
• 4GB Corsair DDR4 2133 

Grand total was $547.77. Very excited to get the parts.

Update August 7th

Third post in a row, not sure if people are interested but I'm going to keep this updated just for my own record keeping. Received all of my parts today.

Also got 5 EVGA Geforce 1070 FTW's for $460 each. Was pretty happy with thte price and they're brand new. Adds $2300 to the price.

Here is a picture of all the parts together. Now just waiting on a 4U server case (designed to hold graphics cards) I bought for $135 shipped. Can't wait to start the build.

 

 

Update August 10th

Well today I did the build. Pretty easy build, took pictures along the way. 

Here's the rig emptied out with just mother board installed.

Installed Windows 10 on the SSD and then removed it to give me room for installing the graphics cards. 

First graphics card in. Ran the PCI extender and power wires under the metal bar and installed the graphics cards. This particular case was made for graphics cards and it was very easy to install them. This got harder each graphics card, but ended up fine.

Here's all 5 EVGA cards in. No cable management or power wires yet, but cool to see the 5 identical cards lined up before the out of place one is added.

Got all 6 in and did some tests.

Mounted the SSD. Will be right next to the 6th graphics card.

Everything in and all cables ran. Had to run the power cables underneat the bar and over the graphics cards to keep some level of cable management . Not trying to win any awards here and haven't actually cable managed, but it still came out quite organized.

Had to re-install this fan mount in the middle. I don't have any fans that fit this piece yet (and with the wires I can't mount any fans yet either). But I want to get 5 fans installed on this piece and two on the back of the case as well. 

The case has no slots for front case fans so I used some leftover fans and zip tied them to the support bar for the graphics cards. Came out really sturdy, very happy with the result. 

A little more cable management and it's looking much better. Time to configure windows, and tune the computer to be profitable for mining. The hard part

Here are some pictures of it lit up at night. 

Update August 27th 2017

 

Got some parts today for the custom cooling!

Dryer vent window insert:

 

 

Hooked it up to the back of the computer and put a fan inside the case to blow the air into the tubing.

 

Got it installed, added a booster fan to the tubing to help push the air out. 

 

 

It's finished. Only problem is the motherboard has a dead PCIE slot and I can only run 5 of the 6 graphics cards. I'm waiting on the new motherboard to come in.

 

I used insulation tape to cover all holes/creases so that all of the air is pushed through the exhaust. There is a lot of pressure coming out of the exhaust and it's just spewing hot air out the back. It works! Little heat in my room due to the server. I will test overnight and see how hot it gets. Noise is low. Very happy with the result. I'm only pushing $10/day with no overclock but I have been able to push it to $12/day with an overclock. Will see how reliable/consistant I can make that. Let the attempt at an ROI begin. 

 

September 9th, 2017

Payout of  0.01485393 BTC or $62.72 USD.

 

September 15th 2017

Payout of .01172882 BTC or 44.18 USD.

 

 

Update September 29th 2017

 

Update Finally Got The Overclock Working! Going to see how long before it crashes but current rates:

185.2 Mh/s ETH

1854 Mh/s SIA

 

This is about $272.05/mo

 

Decided to test out Zcash to see if I would make better money.

Got 2590 hash on Zcash.

 

This is about $304.57/mo

 

Zcash mining it is.

 

Update Oct 3rd

Now that I'm mining ZEC payouts are a lot quicker. I have received 10 pays totaling .1158 in a little under 3.5 days of mining. This is $28.74. From now on I think I'll do monthly updates on my profit per month unless I change anything crazy. Unfortunately mining returns slowed down but this is still more than I would be making with SIA + ETH. If I had an uptime of 24/7 I would make a bit more, but I have about a 90-95% uptime. It's actually difficult to achieve 100% up time between automatic reboots, unexpected crashes, tuning & refinements, loss of power, fuse pops. I'm hoping to continue to iron out these issues as they come. 

 

November 1st Update

It's been exactly one month and I've been paid 1.1315 ZEC which is about $260 bucks at todays price. I had around 5-6 days accumulated downtime between power outages, heating issues and laziness. I have been actively investing in bitcoin though, rode the rise from $4700 to $6700. So made some good money  Finally got the rig steady the last 2 weeks, so next month should be a lot smoother. Knock on wood. 

Update December 4th

The first half of November I didn't calculate for because I was using my profits instantly on investments. Conservatively I made around .45 Zec. I then switched to hoarding my ZEC and stockpiled .5484 ZEC. About 1 ZEC and $330 profit if I were to sell today. Finally made the decision to switch to winminer and I must say I prefer it over nicehash. After getting windows re-installed and a slight underclock for power purposes I'm making $15-16/day and also mining on my personal comp when comp is idle. At this rate I'm looking at $450 a month and I'm stoked.

Got a random payout from eth that I never got a few months ago

ETH Payout: $57 (.16 ETH)

Update January 12th:

Update: Wasn't able to mine from December 20ish-Yesterday due to being away for holidays. Here were my WinMiner payouts. Done in LTC/ETH due to BTC fees. Total profit $342.4.

 

Now switched to mining VertCoin an average hashrate well above 210MH/s. Costs me 0 in pool fees due to decentralized miner. Looking at 3.5-4 VTC a day ($23+). Plan to hold these long term as I feel vertcoin is undervalued for what it is. Will continue to keep updated.

 

Edited January 12, 2018 by Jordan

[phony]

Why not get an Ant Miner? Isn't it much more efficient as they are made for mining?

[The Undefeated]

Good luck with your project!

 

[HeyImJamie]

Sounds cool, Gl!  

[Jordan]

5 minutes ago, phony said:

Why not get an Ant Miner? Isn't it much more efficient as they are made for mining?

Ant miner's are out of stock for two or three months at least and are going for 2-3x their price everywhere else.

Plus, if mining dies, you really can't resell an antminer. My method allows for a slower/cheaper build process where I can reinvest some profits into cards as I go along, and I just enjoy building PCs.

4 minutes ago, The Undefeated said:

Good luck with your project!

 

Thanks

3 minutes ago, HeyImJamie said:

Sounds cool, Gl!  

Thanks

 

[Spectre]

I think you should start mining litecoin instead, seems like the most potential coin atm.

[Saiyan]

another money making method ruined

 

oh well waking up with daily profit on ETH

[Jordan]

8 minutes ago, Isildur1 said:

I think you should start mining litecoin instead, seems like the most potential coin atm.

No way to tell what Litecoin or any coin will be in 2-3 months. 

That said, I would consider a L3+ with the September shipment if I get the funds. I only want to invest a certain % of my income into this. I would like to "diversify" though, and if I did decide to mine LTC with an L3+, it would be in addition to this ETH miner. 

[Spectre]

16 minutes ago, Jordan said:

No way to tell what Litecoin or any coin will be in 2-3 months. 

That said, I would consider a L3+ with the September shipment if I get the funds. I only want to invest a certain % of my income into this. I would like to "diversify" though, and if I did decide to mine LTC with an L3+, it would be in addition to this ETH miner. 

Nice man, Good luck!

[THS]

Was not aware mining was based on graphics cards.

[Viston]

Looks good, won't you get any overheating issues with standard fans?

[Sky]

10 minutes ago, THS said:

Was not aware mining was based on graphics cards.

it's middle ground.

[Jordan]

11 minutes ago, Visty said:

Looks good, won't you get any overheating issues with standard fans?

It shouldn't. Once the rig is set up, I plan to do something custom for cooling and push exhaust out of my window.

[Jordan]

July 7th 2017 Update 2:

Installed my 980ti and an extra case fan. Hopefully I can bare the heat.

I'm very happy with $5-6/day just using Nicehash with no modifications to any settings at all. It's very nice to have the 980ti to help make some of my money back.

[Fearsy]

Good luck