Having finished the frame build at the weekend I was really excited to install the CPU and GPU's and get the mining rig up and off the ground. Unfortunately, I have hit so many snags and errors along the way that I have completely ran the build off schedule! The list of problems included but was not limited to:
Installation of Windows 10
This was the first mistake. I accidentally clicked "Install Windows 10 Professional (x86)" instead of "(x64)". This meant that I had in fact installed the 32-bit windows OS instead of the 64-bit version - meaning that when I did eventually get the system running, none of my mining applications would start! Only one thing for it after this, format the SSD and install again!
Hidden post screen / bios options on ASRock Mobo
For some reason, I was completely unable to get the system to post when installing more than one graphics card. I was really stuck and not sure what to do as I literally had no display. In a feat of desperation, I started mashing buttons on the keyboard and found that pressing "Tab" actually got the system to boot up! From this and a bit of digging online I found that the mobo posts with a boot screen warning users to plug in molex power to the mobo itself when it detects more than one GPU. Sadly, this wasn't showing on my system, so I had to pray and hope that by pressing "N" in the black screen stage of booting up, I would dismiss the message and everything would boot up normally from then on. Thankfully, it did!
Driver Installation
This was more of an issue caused by the fact I was setting up the rig at my parents' where the download speed is genuinely 0.4 Mbps... I ended up rigging up an old cd drive I had and installing the gpu drivers using that. Though even the disk drive wasn't without problems! Autoplay categorically would not function meaning that I had to go into the files on the disk and find the W10 setup.exe and run that. Not the worst thing in the world to rectify, but just another niggly problem which required time and effort to get through during the much-longer-than-anticipated setup time of this system.
Faulty PCIE Power cable
This one really got me miffed. I have pictured the problem below. Basically, one of the cables which feeds across from the main pcie power to the other cable on the GPU side of the cable hadn't been inserted or had pulled out from the plastic plug during shipping. I managed to fix it through use of an electical tester to identify which cables fed which pins and bearing back the correct wire and soldering and finishing the two cables together. This was really not something I was expecting from a brand new power supply so shame on you Corsair.
Two dead(or virtually doa) PCIE Risers
After FINALLY getting everything working "properly" I ran my miners... Two of the cards were on a tiny fraction of their counterparts - literally 1%-5% of the other ones in the system. After a lot of error checking and swapping in and out of components I found it was the risers which were at fault. I have pictured one below which is quite clearly gubbed - the capacitors have obviously popped or leaked or it has suffered some serious corrosion. Either way, two of the risers are faulty and are being sent back and replaced.
To summarise then, I currently have the rig running on 4 cards while I await the final two risers. However there will be no major design changes from now until that time, so I thought I would update with the finished product for everyone to see and also log a bit of the issues which I encountered along the way!
(Image: A big box of goodies arrived on monday)
(Image: The first of six 1060's which were installed. They are quite pretty.)
Installing the Processor...
Don't forget thermal paste after this!
(Image: The loose wire which didnt connect into the PSU plug. I had to solder this onto one of the other cables in the nest you see behind it. I made sure I was joining onto the correct cable using an electrical continuity tester.)
(Image: The busted capacitors (on the left) and tainted circuitry on one of the risers. I was sad I didn't spot this out of the box and also pretty annoyed as I have never had any issues with the other 16 or so of this specific brand which I have ordered in the past.)
(Image: All cards installed and some glamour shots!)
(Image: I am a little bit of a cable management fiend. Even when it comes to rigs!)
All told, I think it turned out pretty well compared to what I set out to do:
3D Model Plan
Compared with final product!
For anyone just joining me on this post, the rig was assembled using the following components and is initially intended to add to my other nvidia cards which are all currently mining Zen Cash.
Parts list recap:
CPU: Intel Pentium G3240, 3.1GHz - MOUNTED
RAM: 8GB Crucial DDR3, 1600Mhz - MOUNTED
Mobo: ASRock H81 Pro BTC - MOUNTED
PSU: 850watt Corsair RM850i - MOUNTED
Disk: 120gb Sandisk SSD - MOUNTED
PCIE Risers: Powered 1x to 16x - Elegiant - MOUNTED - 2 Defective, replacements on the way
GPU: 3GB Palit Nvidia GTX 1060's - MOUNTED
The last things on my to do list are simply to plug and play the last two pcie risers when they arrive tomorrow. For that purpose then, I will be bringing this little project log to a close with this post as there wont be too much to see. I will post the numbers and stats which I am achieving, along with more juicy pics, under a separate title either tomorrow or over the weekend so stay tuned if you would like to see any of that. I just started a new job today so things have been extremely hectic for me in real life, hence the sporadic posting, but I thought you guys might appreciate where I got with the machine and give a little conclusion to the story of the build!
As always, if you have any questions or feedback do let me know, I'm always eager to chat!
