Bitcoin GPU-based Mining Machines good for BOINC / SETI?

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Profile Keith Myers Special Project $250 donor
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Message 1998463 - Posted: 16 Jun 2019, 21:51:06 UTC - in response to Message 1998458.  

The Intel Tuning Support Plan has been inactive and unavailable now for a month at least since I never looked at it once I purchased the plan. When the cpu died I wanted to look at the contract online since I never had any paperwork on the contract to review. I have been unable to access my account since all I ever saw was "site under construction" error message. I logged a complaint with Intel Support when my first cpu died that had the contract and I wanted to claim the insurance. That was not possible since the website and even the Intel Tuning Support Plan department staff was unavailable.
All I ever got was the runaround to call Corporate and that got me nowhere and a phone bill waiting on hold for 2 hours with some British accented woman proclaiming" you are number one in the queue, continue to hold" over and over again. Heck, the Support staff couldn't even give the correct number to Corporate the first time.

I had to RMA the cpu through the normal cpu warranty support channel. I was told it was covered by the normal Intel 3 year warranty. I received my RMA chip and put it in but and it died in less than a week.

I called again to Intel Support to ask for another cpu for the failed RMA cpu but was then told I had already received the one replacement cpu I was allowed under my Intel Tuning Support Plan. If I wanted another cpu I would have to pay retail. So the contract was as worthless as all the typical extended warranty plans that are foisted on unknowing consumers.

I just looked and the Intel Tuning Support Plan website is finally back online. So you can now access your account. Whoopeee.
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Message 1998468 - Posted: 16 Jun 2019, 22:06:54 UTC - in response to Message 1998462.  
Last modified: 16 Jun 2019, 22:47:42 UTC

CPUs will not fry.

But they do just quit working for no apparent reason. I just have had two i7-6850K cpus go bad in the past two weeks. Temps were never higher than 60° C.


That is a bummer. I have some Haswells that keep rocking away with moderate OCs. I push them hard on PrimeGrid with the LLR apps.

I admit the first cpu was pushed to 4.25Ghz @1.26V all core running Seti since I built the machine. I was overclocking and why I bought the PTTP. Lasted 14 months.

I thought I would go easier on the RMA cpu and only clocked to 4 Ghz but with everything on Auto. Died in less than a week. Seti cpu work isn't that hard, mostly all the cpu has to do is shovel data to the 4 gpus.
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Message 1998543 - Posted: 17 Jun 2019, 13:54:54 UTC

So what are the "best" Bitcoin Mining Motherboards for Seti?

I know Tbar has been having excellent luck with his Intel-based MB (upto 14 gpus currently). (what make model is it again)?

And I am having good luck with a AMD-based MB from Biostar (9).

And Ian&SteveC is running a non-Bitcoin MB with a high gpu count (10 or 11)

Anyone and/or thing else?

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Message 1999246 - Posted: 22 Jun 2019, 23:42:36 UTC

Those last couple of tweaks went quite a ways, all the way to #4. Everything has been working so well I haven't bothered to change anything. It appears if I just add a couple more 1070s it will run down the next couple of targets. Interesting, it seems running at 50% CPU per task seems just as fast as running at 100%. Nice, considering that's about the best an 8 core CPU can do with 14 GPUs. With all the priority settings removed there isn't any screen lag either. This will work ;-)
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Message 1999256 - Posted: 23 Jun 2019, 0:36:54 UTC - in response to Message 1999246.  

Those last couple of tweaks went quite a ways, all the way to #4. Everything has been working so well I haven't bothered to change anything. It appears if I just add a couple more 1070s it will run down the next couple of targets. Interesting, it seems running at 50% CPU per task seems just as fast as running at 100%. Nice, considering that's about the best an 8 core CPU can do with 14 GPUs. With all the priority settings removed there isn't any screen lag either. This will work ;-)


And it is still going up presumably even before you add those 1070's. :)
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Message 1999939 - Posted: 27 Jun 2019, 14:06:23 UTC

Have had mixed success expanding older motherboards to house more GPUs. Not sure if the problem is windows, the power supply, motherboard or the 4-in-1 adapter. My DIY watt meter shows 100 - 200 watts under ratings on 750 and 850 power supplies respectively.

I am thinking that the risers may not get enough power from the SATA or 4 pin Molex.

Windows does not seem to like 4 NVidia. I have a pair of ATI (0n motherboard risers) and three NVidia on a 4-in-1 risers but I cant put a remaining gtx1060 on either the 4-in-1 or the remaining slot on the motherboard even with 200 watts to spare. Device manager loses an existing gtx1060 in addition to the new one. I assume this is driver related. System crunches SETI just fine with 5 boards.

The Ubuntu system with the 750 watt supply has 5 RX560 which get all power form the riser. Putting an RX570 on that causes stability problem and I assume the problem is power even though there are 100 watts to spare.

Looking for ideas.
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Message 1999987 - Posted: 27 Jun 2019, 21:06:34 UTC - in response to Message 1999939.  
Last modified: 27 Jun 2019, 21:08:37 UTC


Looking for ideas.


I have tinkered with "several" different motherboards. If the MB won't boot you will need to reduce the # of gpus till it does. Then confirm that the upper "4G" address space in the Pcie settings is enabled.
Then run the Boinc Manager to confirm everything seems to be running.
Shutdown, add a gpu, boot. If it is not booting it is more than likely that your MB will not run more than the previous # of gpus.

I have had MB's that only run 4 gpus even though they had 6 slots. I have had 5 slot motherboards that ran 7 gpu's reliably and would boot up to 9 gpus but not run them reliably. I have had 6 slot MB's that will boot and run 9 gpus (but not 10) reliably.

I don't have experience with Windows with running a lot of gpus. I think I read a driver limit for Nvidia under Windows was 8 in a Mining machine article. But if the MB won't boot, then you have exceeded the available Pcie resources.

My Intel MB's come out and tell me I have exceeded my pcie resources. My AMD motherboards just don't boot (and often reset the bios to default).
When the AMD does that reset, it can't boot because it has just toggled all the stuff that allows more than 3 gpus to run, off.

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Message 2000027 - Posted: 28 Jun 2019, 1:34:02 UTC - in response to Message 1999939.  

Have had mixed success expanding older motherboards to house more GPUs. Not sure if the problem is windows, the power supply, motherboard or the 4-in-1 adapter. My DIY watt meter shows 100 - 200 watts under ratings on 750 and 850 power supplies respectively.

I am thinking that the risers may not get enough power from the SATA or 4 pin Molex.

Windows does not seem to like 4 NVidia. I have a pair of ATI (0n motherboard risers) and three NVidia on a 4-in-1 risers but I cant put a remaining gtx1060 on either the 4-in-1 or the remaining slot on the motherboard even with 200 watts to spare. Device manager loses an existing gtx1060 in addition to the new one. I assume this is driver related. System crunches SETI just fine with 5 boards.

The Ubuntu system with the 750 watt supply has 5 RX560 which get all power form the riser. Putting an RX570 on that causes stability problem and I assume the problem is power even though there are 100 watts to spare.

Looking for ideas.
I've had experience with a few different boards using different nVidia GPUs running Ubuntu and MacOS. The CUDA Special App also works in MacOS from Yosemite up to High Sierra. Based on My experience, the most problems are associated with the Power Connections. It should be noted the ASUS Mining boards with the most connections uses Three separate Power Supplies divided into Three Separate groups of 6-7 GPUs per group. This should be a hint. I can confirm, if you connect a USB cable to group #B, then you better connect the power connections to the #B Power Supply. Otherwise, you will probably have a dropped GPU at some point. I'm currently running 14 GPUs on My board, using One 1000 watt & Two 750 watt Power Supplies.



I've a more normal 6 Slot Gigabyte board that also seems sensitive to Power Connections. I have run Six 1060s on this board without any trouble, but, running a mix of lower end cards seems to be more troublesome. After some time running 5 GPUs, I found the only way it will work is to use a Different Power cable to Power the Aux Connections on Two 950s. Using a splitter, any splitter, on the same cable will result in a Lost 950. Using a Single cable with Two connections also doesn't work, use a different cable for each 950 and it works. Yes, I've tried Three different Power Supplies, and Different Everything... the only thing that works is a different cable to the Aux connections. I suspect oddities such as this are common with some boards using the USB Mining connections. I've considered replacing the Gigabyte with another ASUS Mining board, however, the Gigabyte will run MacOS, the Mining board won't. The Gigabyte is currently a triple boot system with Windows 8.1 also installed, but, Windows Won't run the CUDA Special App while the others will.
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Message 2001324 - Posted: 6 Jul 2019, 14:56:16 UTC

So far all is well running 14 GPUs, in fact, all of my machines seem to have been sedated. Even the Hackintosh isn't rebooting anymore.
Of course, there could be a thunderstorm in the next hour, resulting in a power outage, which fries everything... but for now all is well.
There are a few sales around, and one of the Mining cases has suffered a drastic price drop, with an open box being even cheaper. I ordered the open box for $60, and will give it a try,
https://www.newegg.com/black-rosewill-r2030001-0118/p/N82E16811147284 I plan on mounting 6 gpus in the box and leaving the top off.
The high-flow fans cost as much as the box, oh well, my box fan will have trouble hitting those 6 gpus mounted in the box, and at some point I may cut a hole in the side and install the top.
Seems to be a problem with exit holes on that box, including Monitor cable exit holes. I have a dremel.... and it was only $60....

After that, I may even try a 6th or even a 7th card in the Hackintosh since it's running fine with 5 cards now. The ASUS Z170-WS board has 5 pcie slots and 2 M2 slots, I have ordered another M2 converter....
Right now I'm just passing time, waiting to see if the GPU prices on eBay drop in the next week or so before buying any 'new' gpus.
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Message 2001401 - Posted: 6 Jul 2019, 22:24:22 UTC - in response to Message 2001324.  

So far all is well running 14 GPUs, in fact, all of my machines seem to have been sedated. Even the Hackintosh isn't rebooting anymore.
Of course, there could be a thunderstorm in the next hour, resulting in a power outage, which fries everything... but for now all is well.
There are a few sales around, and one of the Mining cases has suffered a drastic price drop, with an open box being even cheaper. I ordered the open box for $60, and will give it a try,
https://www.newegg.com/black-rosewill-r2030001-0118/p/N82E16811147284 I plan on mounting 6 gpus in the box and leaving the top off.
The high-flow fans cost as much as the box, oh well, my box fan will have trouble hitting those 6 gpus mounted in the box, and at some point I may cut a hole in the side and install the top.
Seems to be a problem with exit holes on that box, including Monitor cable exit holes. I have a dremel.... and it was only $60....

After that, I may even try a 6th or even a 7th card in the Hackintosh since it's running fine with 5 cards now. The ASUS Z170-WS board has 5 pcie slots and 2 M2 slots, I have ordered another M2 converter....
Right now I'm just passing time, waiting to see if the GPU prices on eBay drop in the next week or so before buying any 'new' gpus.


Awesome, loving the results you are achieving. Good job, and thanks for sharing your experience.
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Message 2001404 - Posted: 6 Jul 2019, 22:28:01 UTC - in response to Message 2001324.  

So far all is well running 14 GPUs, in fact, all of my machines seem to have been sedated. Even the Hackintosh isn't rebooting anymore.
Of course, there could be a thunderstorm in the next hour, resulting in a power outage, which fries everything... but for now all is well.
There are a few sales around, and one of the Mining cases has suffered a drastic price drop, with an open box being even cheaper. I ordered the open box for $60, and will give it a try,
https://www.newegg.com/black-rosewill-r2030001-0118/p/N82E16811147284 I plan on mounting 6 gpus in the box and leaving the top off.
The high-flow fans cost as much as the box, oh well, my box fan will have trouble hitting those 6 gpus mounted in the box, and at some point I may cut a hole in the side and install the top.
Seems to be a problem with exit holes on that box, including Monitor cable exit holes. I have a dremel.... and it was only $60....

After that, I may even try a 6th or even a 7th card in the Hackintosh since it's running fine with 5 cards now. The ASUS Z170-WS board has 5 pcie slots and 2 M2 slots, I have ordered another M2 converter....
Right now I'm just passing time, waiting to see if the GPU prices on eBay drop in the next week or so before buying any 'new' gpus.


+1
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Message 2003044 - Posted: 17 Jul 2019, 18:50:14 UTC

If geting extender or adapter for 24 pin ATX then be sure NOT TO GET 18 GAUGE WIRE!!!

It may work fine with a pair of gpus but the more you put on, the worse it can get



The motherboard is salvable but I will have to solder wires under the board to make up for the damaged pins.
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Message 2003049 - Posted: 17 Jul 2019, 19:10:14 UTC - in response to Message 2003044.  

If geting extender or adapter for 24 pin ATX then be sure NOT TO GET 18 GAUGE WIRE!!!

It may work fine with a pair of gpus but the more you put on, the worse it can get

The motherboard is salvable but I will have to solder wires under the board to make up for the damaged pins.

Ouch! I wish more people had a basic understanding of electrical principles so these type of events didn't happen so often.
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Message 2003160 - Posted: 18 Jul 2019, 17:54:47 UTC

The box seems to be working fine with six GPUs. Right now I have a Gigabyte Z270P-D3 board installed and it can only run 6 GPUs.



I did modify the case so you could mount a GPU in the first slot on the board by cutting a hole in the case so the DVI connection was accessible. With the faceplate removed it's a perfect fit and the case can now hold 9 GPUs. With 6 lower-end GPUs, and five 120mm fans, the temps are running in the low to mid 60s even with the top on. I ordered a 12 slot board, but it was the wrong board in the open box and is being returned. Strange the box and board serial numbers match but the box says Intel 1151 12 slot and the board is AM4 6 slot. Must have come from the manufacture that way, I wonder how many of those are around. It might be a while to get the 9 GPUs working in the case.
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Message 2003170 - Posted: 18 Jul 2019, 19:10:13 UTC

TBar, you certainly are a good pitchman for the mining rig method for Seti crunching. Congratz on all the good examples of a well designed multi-gpu solution. Very encouraged by your successes. That Rosewill case is a great buy it seems other than having to spring for the cooling fans. Good fans are not cheap as I found out when I needed to outfit my twin 360mm radiators.
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Message 2003177 - Posted: 18 Jul 2019, 20:17:57 UTC

Well, the multi-GPU setup is the cheapest way to increase SETI production, and they do need increased production. It can be inexpensive, especially if you already have basic equipment, ie, GPUs that can run the CUDA Special App. Most of the boards use Intel 6th or 7th generation CPUs and an i5 will work just fine up to around 11 GPUs, after that the times start dropping with each added GPU. The only non-standard part is the board, and those are usually less than $100. You can get a 6th series i5 on eBay right now for a little over $100. It appears the case has gone up, but is still under $100. The case is nice, 6 GPUs with air cooling running around 60-65c in an enclosed case. I just put two 750 Ti in a 'normal' case and the top one runs up to 80c even with the fans set to max, it is a little warm in here.
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Message 2003307 - Posted: 19 Jul 2019, 19:53:41 UTC

Apologies in advance if this has already been discussed somewhere. I have a 2Pac BM1384 asic miner which is useless for mining crypto currency now the maths are so hard. Can i incorporate it into my Boinc Seti at home setup for a little additional processing power?

Could some kind soul please walk me through the process using either glove puppets or maybe an informal PowerPoint presentation of the steps required.

Thanks for any help received.
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Message 2003308 - Posted: 19 Jul 2019, 20:03:02 UTC - in response to Message 2003307.  
Last modified: 19 Jul 2019, 20:08:15 UTC

Unfortunately not as far as anyone knows. Because these miners are ASIC, they are using custom chips designed only for mining so can't perform easily as general-purpose computers. For example, mining hashing (as far as I am familiar with) is completely integer bitwise based, whereas SETI@Home requires at least single-precision floating point and other projects ie MilkyWay require double-precision.

They would at minimum require a custom-written client to take advantage of their unique architecture, if this were even possible.
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Message 2003312 - Posted: 19 Jul 2019, 20:32:53 UTC - in response to Message 2003307.  

Apologies in advance if this has already been discussed somewhere. I have a 2Pac BM1384 asic miner which is useless for mining crypto currency now the maths are so hard. Can i incorporate it into my Boinc Seti at home setup for a little additional processing power?

Could some kind soul please walk me through the process using either glove puppets or maybe an informal PowerPoint presentation of the steps required.

Thanks for any help received.


Like Kevvy said, you won’t be able to use that machine. Probably never will, unless someone figures out how to find Signals in SETI data by only performing SHA 256 hashing lol.

Your device(s) can only do one operation. SHA256 hashing. It can do it fast. But it’s the only thing it can do.

The title of the thread seems a little misleading. It’s more referring to GPU-based cryptocurrency mining rigs, not specifically Bitcoin ASICS, which is what you have.
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Message 2004258 - Posted: 25 Jul 2019, 20:50:13 UTC

Well https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=6813106

Is really smoking along at 587,198.22 RAC. And incidentally 3rd place on the Leaderboard :)

Congrats, Tbar.

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Message boards : Number crunching : Bitcoin GPU-based Mining Machines good for BOINC / SETI?


 
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