Mining Motherboards

I have seen those around, they would work great with small cards like 1060's and I think I may do my next rig with one. 8x1060's would be a very low power draw rig and wouldn't produce too much heat. It would also nearly match my 8 card 280X based rig in hash rate pretty easily. I have also been sent a breakout board from the USA to test with a small form factor server PSU I have, if that works. This would be a really good cheap rig for selling to people who have solar power on low payment feedback tariffs.
 
Archaea said:
A friend sent me this one. I’m risk adverse enough not to try it.
But 8 full size x16 slots and no risers and built in CPU and heatsink are nice.
Click to expand...
There seem to be at least two versions, one obvious difference: ATX vs noATX.

Both priced about the same. $230 if it doesn't fall off the free-to-fail donkeycart
with useless "delivered to carrier" tracking, +$20DHL to assure that someone
accountable and professional expedites delivery. Every needless day your shit
wanders around Shenzhen is another day it could be lost, stolen, smashed, or
eaten by a Grue...

I never got my Onda, while plenty of others did. Of course ALI buyer protection
is precisely timed to expire before you are allowed to make a claim which will be
ignored or given the runaround. Again, not the seller's fault I chose free shipping.
Far as I can tell, all my items shipped on time. Next time, I will know better...

Not about weather you can save a few bucks by waiting an extra week or two.
About wether you will waste two months never knowing for sure your money
was wasted and now you need to start over.

HTB16EB4XAKWBuNjy1zjq6AOypXab.jpg
HTB1VZQLosnI8KJjSsziq6z8QpXaK.jpg
 
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I have 1 rig running the Onda board with 8x 1070Ti's of an 1200 watt ATX PSU:

miner07_1_7_18.JPG


Since the GPU's on the Onda are not powered through the mobo (other than what is consumed through the PCIe slot), I would not hesitate to run 1080Ti's on it, except that a full length card't won't fit in PCIe slot 1 due to the location of the ATX power connector.

Another one is running the Colorful board with 8x 1060's running off a 1200 watt server PSU: (In the below pic I was running a 2400W Delta server PSU temporarily)

miner08_1_7_18.JPG


Since the GPU's a feed from the mobo, I would not run anything bigger than 1060's on it. Also, the slot spacing is a lot closer than on the Onda.

And I have the Octominer mobo on order, which is the same board shown in the previous post from what I can tell:

https://octominer.com/shop/octominer_b8plus/

Also also ordered the case from Octominer:

https://octominer.com/shop/octomine...7x-delta-fans-dhl-shipping-included-in-price/

Everything shipped a few days ago, so it should be here soon. I'll probably run 1070Ti's on it, although I might try 1080Ti's if/when I can pick some up at near MSRP. Might just wait until Volta hits.
 
That Octominer looks interesting. I'm just getting into mining but it looks like a good option since you don't have to deal with risers.
 
Dealing with risers isn't a problem so much as a solution, if you get the right ones.
Hot GPU cards, especially AMD, packed too closely together can be much worse.
Its also cheaper to burn out one riser than a whole motherboard. You can screw
them down to a piece of scrapwood at any spacing the situation might require.

And then the matter of Celeron, ugh. I could understand minimizing this cost as a
dead weight back in the day when CPU mining was unprofitable. But that was like,
sOo five attoseconds ago...

Almost jumped on this to replace my noshow motherboard, but Ryzen3 1200 on
an openbox B350 with -$30 microcenter bundle, add maybe a 4way PCIe switch.
This leaves plenty of money to get some high current risers. And 250~300 bonus
hashes of Cryptonight from this CPU.

Not counting memory, since neither comes with any...

If you really don't mind close packing and severe power delivery limitations, there
are 4way risers with full length slots. You could snag a pair for a lot less than any
of these mining motherboards. I'm not saying this way doesn't come with problems.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/XT-XINTE-PCI-E-Adapter-Card-1-to-4-1X-to-16X-Riser-Mining-Card-Connector/32828008473.html

-edit-

To my extreme horror, the only riser on Ali maybe anywhere worth a shit,
"SIPOLAR v007c" seems to have pulled all its adds and no longer offers.
Still some overpriced on Amazon, but this will not do. And I was all down
for another dozen at least, specially since they sometimes offer free DHL...
 
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KD5ZXG said:
Dealing with risers isn't a problem so much as a solution, if you get the right ones.
Hot GPU cards, especially AMD, packed too closely together can be much worse.
Its also cheaper to burn out one riser than a whole motherboard. You can screw
them down to a piece of scrapwood at any spacing the situation might require.

And then the matter of Celeron, ugh. I could understand minimizing this cost as a
dead weight back in the day when CPU mining was unprofitable. But that was like,
sOo five attoseconds ago...
Click to expand...

I don't disagree with anything you're saying. In fact, out of my 12 rigs, only 2 are currently using those 8 PCIe slot boards with my 3rd being that Octominer one.

If you're running Windows, I agree that Celeron's suck, especially with 7+ high end GPUs. Running Ubuntu it is less of an issue, but with 8 cards, I'd still go with at least a G4400. I run G4600's in all my big rigs.

My main rigs all use risers and out of about 70, only 2 had issues. I build my rigs 36" wide which give enough spacing to run 9 1080Ti's with no additional cooling. Like this:

miner03_1_7_18.jpg


The reason I'm gravitating towards dedicated mining motherboards, is that I'll be building a dedicated mining room/shed/building before it gets warm, and I'll have a single center cold isle, with hot isles behind them. Those open rigs will be somewhat of a challenge to create the proper airflow for.

The killer mining motherboard for me would be 36" wide and have 8 slots, leaving plenty of space between GPUs, be powered via a handful of 6-pin PCIe connectors that would only power the CPU and PCIe slots. The GPU's themselves would be powered directly from the PSU.

I know of at least one case where a Colorful mobo has burned out from running 1070Ti's.
 
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Can you show me link for the PSU. What other parts you need for the PSU in terms of breakout board and pci-cables, splitter?
 
parallelminer.com is a good place to look for the break-out boards. That is also where I picked up my Delta 2400W server PSUs. Unfortunately it looks like the are not getting more in.

The break-out boards with with most HP common rail server PSUs. I have picked up some 1200W Platinum ones from eBay for around $80, that work fine with the parallelminer breakout boards.

If the motherboard has a 24-pin ATX power connector, you'll need a pico (takes a 12V input and provides all the voltages needed to feed a standard ATX mobo. It also has a 4-pin power for the CPU and Sata power for a SSD). I picked up a 5-pack of those on eBay for $65 (from China).
 
I got the Biostra b250 btc pro. Looks good. So far only be able to boot with 5gpu, but probably it is due to hiveOS old build. Will test with new version tomorrow for 7 GPU.
 
Here's my Octominer board and chassis after being loaded:

miner13-20.JPG


miner13-21.JPG


That one card with the red rectangle around it is not compatible with this mining board. Works great in the other rigs I have tried it in.

Temps are very low given the air flow those 7 Delta 150 CFM fans provide:

octotempswithlid.JPG


In fact, the only GPU fans that are spinning, are the Founder's cards since they are "sealed".
 
Hey man. Quick question. how you like the PSU? Does it have motherboard 24 pin and 8pin plugs?
 
That $169 Octominer 2,200 watt PSU? If so, I like it fine now that I got it working on 240V. Did not work for me at 120V, despite being rated for both.

It only has 10 6-pin PCIe power connectors. That works fine for the Octominer mobo, since it just needs 2 6-pin connectors to work. If you want to use it with a regular mobo, you need a $25 PICO that takes 12V in (from one of those PCIe connectors) and plugs into the 24-pin ATX plug on the mobo and also provides a 4-pin for CPU aux power and typically also has a SATA power connector. They are typically rated for 160-180 watts, which is plenty for most mobos.
 
That Octominer case is sweet.

Not quite $275 sweet, but sweet nonetheless.
 
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Update with the 8xGPU microATX board.
I have it all running fine with 7 GPU's exept the whole system seems to freeze up every 4H pretty much on the clock. And today that time has come down to 1H. I'm pretty sure its related to using the GPU in the first USB port to run the X server. As I am quite sure that disabling the GPU1 in the mining software is stoping it from crashing. The IGFX was refusing to work at first, but I may try another USB stick and install a new linux on the IGFX and see. But I was getting garbled pictures and the system would lock up and eventually restart.

Does anyone know if the claymore miner can be run without XOrg installed? That seems like the optimal solution as I have it set to auto login and I ssh to it to run claymore miner. it does not have a monitor.
 
Just purchased gigabyte b250 fintech to replace 2 asrock h81 b250 pro r2.0 boards. Hope it goes well!
 
Kingkau said:
Just purchased gigabyte b250 fintech to replace 2 asrock h81 b250 pro r2.0 boards. Hope it goes well!
Click to expand...

Great board, its been solid for me with 12 GPU's going on 10 days now.

There was one weirdness I experienced where leaving the default "Mining Mode" enabled in the BIOS makes it ignore bootable devices. Meaning both the SSD and bootable USB3 flash drive I had attached would not be seen both at powerup or when pressing the F9 key for Boot Menu. The Boot Menu would just show a blank box. All mining mode really does is Enables 4G Encoding and sets default graphics to iGPU -- two things I always set manually anyway. Once I disabled mining mode and manually enabled 4G encoding and iGPU, then both the USB3 flash drive and SSD appeared in the boot menu and booted fine and I could install the OS.
 
In a comparison between the Asus and the Gigabyte is there a clear winner? I maxed out my x58 board that I was testing with so it's time to get a real board.
 
odditory

I saw in the other thread this:

My experience has been this: With 12 x 1080 Ti, Windows 10 build 1709 (I did de-bloat it with MSMG Toolkit), DDR4-2133 4GB memory, 250GB SATA SSD w/ 136GB Swapfile, and with an i7-7700k that I installed temporarily, both the Asus B250 Mining Expert and more recently the Gigabyte GA-B250-FinTech gave me smooth, perfect operation - totally bulletproof, no crashing, nothing. Afterburner would load minimized at start-up and send Power/Clock/Mem/Fan settings to all 12 cards, then Nicehash 2.0.10.0 would load and start mining.

Once I was done with burn-in testing a few days, I swapped the 7700k for G3930 - and it was a total lagfest in terms of UI responsiveness and programs choking and loading slowly, because the CPU simply couldn't keep up. Afterburner would take 2 extra minutes to load at startup and send settings to the cards, excavator would lag.

Are your GPUs all the same model and vendor? I purchased G4400 and 8gb ram stick to go with the Gigabyte FinTech so hopefully it wont lag like the G3930.
 
BassTek said:
In a comparison between the Asus and the Gigabyte is there a clear winner? I maxed out my x58 board that I was testing with so it's time to get a real board.
Click to expand...
I don't have experience with the Gigabyte board, but I have an ASUS B250 mining expert in my 6x 1080 TI 4U server mount build and it has been rock solid. I especially like during boot-up how you can see a status of the pci-e ports. That green or red indicator helped me troubleshoot a bad riser very quickly.
 
Kingkau said:
Are your GPUs all the same model and vendor? I purchased G4400 and 8gb ram stick to go with the Gigabyte FinTech so hopefully it wont lag like the G3930.
Click to expand...

All GPU's are same make/model, yes, but irrelevant to any issues I mentioned. For all intents and purposes the GA-B250-Fintech has been flawless. Even with a G3930 and 4GB memory installed right now, mining performance and uptime has been solid, and per-GPU hashrates are identical to a 9-GPU Asus Z270-AR Prime rig with same CPU/Memory/GPU's/OS version.

Today I'm going to try adding another 4GB for a total of 8GB just for curiosity's sake - to see if it makes any diff with Win10 chunking while a G3930 is installed. I have my doubts though since the 7700k made all the lagginess disappear completely. An extra 4GB memory might pick up some slack however.

I might also swap in my Skylake G4400 just for kicks. But I think longterm I'm going to feel more comfortable with a real quadcore for as close as I can get to $100. This is probably splitting hairs anyway since this particular rig has $12k of GPU's and I'm sweating an extra $60 for a better CPU. Sometimes I'm just completely idiotic.
 
odditory said:
This is probably splitting hairs anyway since this particular rig has $12k of GPU's and I'm sweating an extra $60 for a better CPU. Sometimes I'm just completely idiotic.
Click to expand...

I do this regarding everything in my life. Computer, car parts, work equipment, food, even rebuilding my house after a flood. :banghead:
 
odditory said:
Just got it today. I like that it's smaller than the Asus B250 with the same amount of usable 1080Ti slots (12). Minor nitpicks, no M.2 slot, and no HDMI so I'll have to see if DVI dummy plugs are a thing. Cannot allow Windows to bind the desktop to GPU1 rather than IGP in the absence of a connected display.

Still need to test 12 GPUs on it but assuming it succeeds then the Asus B250 is going back and this will prob be my new defacto board for my 8+ GPU builds.

View attachment 52833
Click to expand...

In case anyone is interested in the Gigabyte B250-FINTECH, I just posted a pair of them in the for sale forum:

https://hardforum.com/threads/fs-2x-gigabyte-b250-fintech-mining-motherboards.1962064/
 
I currently have 3 different kinds. The Onda, Colorful and Octominer.

I'm looking to get some 2nd gen Onda's that drops the ATX power connector in favor of all 6-pin Molex connectors so that I can use server PSU's without PICOs. It is also not as deep as the 1st gen that features 4 extra 1x PCIe slots in the rear that are pretty worthless when running anything other than shorty cards int he 8 main slots.

Colorful has very tight spacing but features 6-pin power only. Works great with 1060's but I don't know that I would put anything larger on it. I also heard that the traces might not be able to handle high power cards since they are being powered from the mobo directly (although you could also power them directly from the PSU).

Octominer is pretty nice, but I have not been able to get it to work with my SRR (simple rig resetter). Spacing is similar to the Onda.
 
pclausen said:
I currently have 3 different kinds. The Onda, Colorful and Octominer.

I'm looking to get some 2nd gen Onda's that drops the ATX power connector in favor of all 6-pin Molex connectors so that I can use server PSU's without PICOs. It is also not as deep as the 1st gen that features 4 extra 1x PCIe slots in the rear that are pretty worthless when running anything other than shorty cards int he 8 main slots.

Colorful has very tight spacing but features 6-pin power only. Works great with 1060's but I don't know that I would put anything larger on it. I also heard that the traces might not be able to handle high power cards since they are being powered from the mobo directly (although you could also power them directly from the PSU).

Octominer is pretty nice, but I have not been able to get it to work with my SRR (simple rig resetter). Spacing is similar to the Onda.
Click to expand...

I kinda figured you were looking at the Ondas but wasn't sure if you had experience with them as they seem mix bag.
 
Refitting all 6 of my rigs to Onda D8P D4s this weekend.

The case is similiar to the Octominer case w/ 3 120s behind the GPUs and 4 120s up front.

Totally expecting better temps across the board, as well as looking very much forward to junking all the damn risers and crap.
 
Seventh of eight things I ordered from Ali on 11/11 finally showed up 7 months later.
The 220V power meter. And of course, they sent me the 115V version...

Still waiting on my Onda. How obsolete and waterlogged might it be by the time my
assigned mule (who shall rermain nameless) finishes the long swim?
 
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KD5ZXG said:
Seventh of eight things I ordered from Ali on 11/11 finally showed up 7 months later.
The 220V power meter. And of course, they sent me the 115V version...

Still waiting on my Onda. How obsolete and waterlogged might it be by the time my
assigned mule (who shall rermain nameless) finishes the long swim?
Click to expand...

That is impressive
 
Got them Shenzhen donkey cart blues...

93as334.jpg

1412508280064_wps_10_No_amount_of_flogging_was.jpg

800.png


AP: Animal rights groups say, agents are seeking to feed China's insatiable appetite for a gelatin they call
ejiao (pronounced "uh-jee-ow"), made from stewed donkey skins that purports to provide health benefits.

Farmers raise hundreds of donkeys in metal-roofed dirt paddocks surrounding the town. Most donkeys at
three farms The Associated Press visited were tagged with the initials of the Dong'e Ejiao Corporation
Limited, or DEEJ, the nation's largest producer of donkey gelatin.

Article goes on: have now even resorted to thievin' foreign donkadonks from herds in Kenya. China's
domestic donkey shortage has gone so wrong, middle pic wasn't even a real donkey. An emaciated
horse had to stand-in. Stand, damn you, STAND! Hauled Shenzhen Safari Park tourists uphill for the
12th and final time that day (sadly for real). Rumours speak of a donkey shortage in Fort Worth now.
Can't no more shop for my delicious daily ejiao fix there either.

Not saying for absolute sure what happened to my Onda, but you do the math...
I place full blame on my local post office. Cause with no meaningful tracking to
anywhere within or beyond Shenzhen, that's where Aliexpress sais it must be.
 
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WTF? Everything man. Clearly, everything. Perhaps readers here didn't deserve to be
donkzee'd over it. Was just googlin' for a humorous pic of the "Shenzhen donkey cart"
when I suddenly hit this huge wall of shame too incredible not to share. No clue such
a problem as the donkey cart actually existed. Thought I had totally made that part up.
Then the reality was like, "Well damn, that explains a few things..."

Just my luck, I also ordered ebike parts from a warehouse in Missouri, or thought I did.
Then find out from BBB that company has no warehouse and simply aggregates orders
from other suppliers (with none of that tracking visible to you) to later ship from Missouri.
If you are lucky and it all comes together at some untold future date, or perhaps never.
No warehouse in Missouri. Take your guess where half that stuff must be coming from.

"In Stock" and "5-8 days shipping" complete lies. Phone and polite email not answered.
Two weeks out and no tracking number or even an automated follow up explaining the
delay. Still occasional credible reports of people eventually get stuff, though many don't.
Those that manage to contact and panic cancel end up with no refund.

Maybe that's why. Was not just my Onda experience, or China Post. Just sick of paying
into black hole systems where no information ever escapes. Are they legit or not? You
have no way to know but STFU, try not to get on anyone's wrong side, and wait. Yes, I
have been plenty frustrated with my wallet bled dry by all these great foreign shopping
wins. And now the same mushroom treatment even at home.

Don't be fooled by fake US warehouses, or donkzee'd by China Post free shipping.
I still have no complaint against any Chinese sellers, except swapping one thing for
another like advertized specs don't matter. For delivery: Hong Kong DHL still rules.
My network admin ordered some ASIC miners to be shipped via Fedex-IE, and his
experience with that delivery method was pretty awful as well.
 
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KD5ZXG said:
WTF? Everything man. Clearly, everything. Perhaps readers here didn't deserve to be
donkzee'd over it. Was just googlin' for a humorous pic of the "Shenzhen donkey cart"
when I suddenly hit this huge wall of shame too incredible not to share. No clue such
a problem as the donkey cart actually existed. Thought I had totally made that part up.
Then the reality was like, "Well damn, that explains a few things..."

Just my luck, I also ordered ebike parts from a warehouse in Missouri, or thought I did.
Then find out from BBB that company has no warehouse and simply aggregates orders
from other suppliers (with none of that tracking visible to you) to later ship from Missouri.
If you are lucky and it all comes together at some untold future date, or perhaps never.
No warehouse in Missouri. Take your guess where half that stuff must be coming from.

"In Stock" and "5-8 days shipping" complete lies. Phone and polite email not answered.
Two weeks out and no tracking number or even an automated follow up explaining the
delay. Still occasional credible reports of people eventually get stuff, though many don't.
Those that manage to contact and panic cancel end up with no refund.

Maybe that's why. Was not just my Onda experience, or China Post. Just sick of paying
into black hole systems where no information ever escapes. Are they legit or not? You
have no way to know but STFU, try not to get on anyone's wrong side, and wait. Yes, I
have been plenty frustrated with my wallet bled dry by all these great foreign shopping
wins. And now the same mushroom treatment even at home.

Don't be fooled by fake US warehouses, or donkzee'd by China Post free shipping.
I still have no complaint against any Chinese sellers, except swapping one thing for
another like advertized specs don't matter. For delivery: Hong Kong DHL still rules.
My network admin ordered some ASIC miners to be shipped via Fedex-IE, and his
experience with that delivery method was pretty awful as well.
Click to expand...
Wow, cool roleplaying of whatever the fuck, bro. Keep us updated.
 
So uh... I got my 6 Onda boards from Amazon on 3 day shipping.

Here.
 
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I'm surprised you didn't go for the version 2.0 ones like these.

Not only do they eliminate the 24 pin ATX connector, they are slimmer and have a DDR3 SO-DIMM slot so the RAM is a lot cheaper.
 
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I do have plans to utilize those extra 4 pcie spots on next hardware refresh.

Basically, all cards ill be aiming for will be mini-size....and from my rough poc'ing, I should be able to fit in all 12.
 
I always go through ebay for my chinese crap buying. If it makes it 30 days without showing up I file for my money back right away. My favorite is when a month after getting my money back the item shows up. Absolutely nothing should tie my money up for 3+ months.
 
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