How to build a 6 GPU Ethereum Mining Rig: The Complete Guide
A Definitive Guide to Building a 6Gpu Mining Rig for Ethereum.
This guide would like to be the sum of all the guides unfortunately quite incomplete spread on the web in recent years. It will be divided into several sections that must be followed rigorously. Do not rush and double check each step of the guide to build a 6 gpu Mining Rig for Ethereum with maximum security before proceeding to the next chapter.
Part I — HARDWARE COMPONENTS
Don’t skimp on hardware components. In the face of saving a few Euros you could lose dozens of them in the mining phase.
Here are the highly recommended components personally tested in building the mining rig for ethereum:
- CPU: Intel Core i3–9100F
Excellent CPU that for a not too high price offers excellent performance and an adequate guarantee of stability.
- MSI Z370-A PRO
The motherboard is one of the few on the market that supports up to 6 GPUs (which is why you’ll have to connect the monitor to one of them). Great price for a granite product.
- 16x PCIe GPU RISER CABLES
These cables are essential to build a 6 GPU RIG and allow you to transform all the PCI slots of the motherboard into PCI 16x. We strongly recommend that you always purchase at least one spare to avoid unpleasant initial problems in the event that the items are defective. Possibly choose those with molex 4pin / Sata power supply since this type of connector is always in excess in the power supplies.
- 8GB DDR4 RAM
The minimum amount of RAM to run 6 GPUs of the RX580 / RX590 8GB level is 8GB. In this case it is preferable to use two 4GB banks with a frequency of 2133MHZ or higher. With only 4GB, the 6 GPUs will never all work efficiently.
- DISK
For a 6GPU RIG, a 120GB SSD is more than enough. Do not opt for smaller cuts because they could prove to be a bottleneck for the entire system.
- GPU
Recommended models are the RX 580 / RX 590 8GB and the NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB. Always buy 6 models all the same. Building RIGs with different video cards is possible and does not create operating problems. The difficulties would emerge in the BIOS flash and GPU Overclocking phase. Everything is possible but let’s avoid complicating our lives too much.
… And power supplies and cables to build the mining rig for Ethereum.
- POWER SUPPLIES
For a 6 GPU Rig you need 2 power supplies of at least 650w. It is always good to have excess power. To work synchronously, the 2 power supplies will need a PSU adapter that will allow them to be started together. By purchasing modular power supplies you will have fewer unnecessary cables to tie together but your spending budget will go up considerably.
- CAVETTERIA
Buy adapters from 6 to 8 poles pci-e male / female because not all power supplies are supplied with more than 1 8-pin cable. The molex 4pin / 8 pole pci-x male / male adapters will also be very useful. With little expense you will avoid finding yourself without useful connections.
- DETECTORS
Finally, add the purchase of a consumption detector and an intelligent wifi socket for remote control via mobile app.
PART II — ASSEMBLY RIG
After purchasing your components you will need a metal rig with dimensions of generally 50 × 28.4 × 22.6cm. If the place where you will place the rig is sufficiently ventilated, it will not be necessary to add other heat extraction fans.
You can always build one yourself, a thick plywood board and a few metal loops are enough to hold the GPUs in place.
PART III — CABLE CONNECTION and FIRST START-UP
Once your RIG has been set up, you will need to place the motherboard on the base (screwing it) and the power supplies connected to each other by the PSU adapter. The video cards must then be positioned in the riser slots and connected via USB cable (always supplied as standard) to the riser component housed in the PCI slots. Get at least one pair of 50cm long USB cables.
Then connect a video card via the 8pin PCI-E cable to a power supply. The connection of all the others will take place only after installing the AMD drivers. The video cards will be connected in the order of 3 for each power supply. In the meantime, you can connect the risers with 4pin molexes (or other solution you prefer), always in the order of 3 for each power supply.
After inserting the RAM and connecting / powering the SSD, all that remains is to turn on your RIG.
The first time you turn it on, you will need to immediately access the BIOS by pressing the DEL / DEL key. Once inside, select Advanced, PCI Subsystem settings and change these 2 parameters: PEGO move it to [GEN2] and PCI Latency Timer to [96 PCI]. Motherboard BIOS updates may show different entries.
Disable the onboard audio.
The third parameter, which concerns the enabling of 6 video cards, will be modified later.
PART IV — WINDOWS INSTALLATION 10
Get a USB key of at least 8GB, go to the site https://www.microsoft.com/it-it/software-download/windows10 and download the tool for creating installation media.
Follow the on-screen instructions for creating bootable media using a UBS stick. For the license you will have to do it later.
Once Windows 10 has been installed and started, it will be necessary to change a number of options that we will list below:
- Disable Windows Update. Press Windows + R and in the run window type services.msc. Pressing enter will open the service management window. Go down to Windows Update, select it and on the left side press “Stop the service”. Then right-click, select Properties and in the window that opens, under Startup type, choose Disabled.
This way, Windows Update will never update.
Update Windows only when cumulative packs are released. All this is to prevent the PC from making automatic updates and rebooting itself.
… And some tricks not to be forgotten in the Windows options.
- Increase the paging file. Open Settings and in the search box type System (also reachable from Control Panel). Select it and and in the next window, in the menu on the left, type in Advanced System Settings. In the box that will open, under Performance, choose Settings. In the Visual Effects menu, check “Adjust for best performance” while in the Advanced menu under Virtual Memory, press Change. In the next one, enable the custom dimensions that must have the following values: initial at 12,000, maximum at 18,000.
- Personalized energy saving settings. Go back to the Control Panel and select Hardware and Sound. Then choose Energy Saving Options and press left on “Create energy saving combination”. At the first item choose High Performance, on the next page, at Disable Screen and Computer Sleep, go to Never. Click on Create. Now select your new creation, click on Change Combination Settings and in the next window click on “Change advanced energy saving settings”. Edit the following items:
- Disabling hard drive to NEVER
- Suspend all on NEVER / Disabled / Disabled
- PCI Express with idle power management
- Maximum level of processor performance at 100%
When finished, restart your PC.
Lastly we have to disable the password request from Windows. Type Netplwiz in the search box in the Windows bar, run the command and in the window that appears, remove the check mark.
PART V — BUILDING A MINING RIG FOR ETHEREUM: DRIVER INSTALLATION
Currently there are 2 AMD drivers available for you to mine. The official Adrenalines, which you can find here:
https://www.amd.com/en/support
or the Blockchains that you can find here:
For Blockchain drivers, at the end of the installation, it will be necessary to apply the ATIMKDAG PATCHER patch. Download it, unpack it and click on the executable to activate it.
http://forums.computingondemand.com/files/file/46-amdati-pixel-clock-patcher/
Once the drivers are installed, restart your PC. After that, turn off everything, turn off the power and connect the other 5 video cards. When the PC is turned on, go back to the BIOS and under Advanced, select PCI Subsystem settings and enable the 6 video cards on the mainboard (the integrated GPU will no longer work).
Restart the PC and you will have to wait a few minutes for the installation of the other 5 video cards.
In case you have installed the Adrenalines, open AMD Setting and under Games-Settings change the type of calculation from Graphics to Processing. Do this and restart the software for each GPU.
If you want to switch from one type of driver to another, you will need a clean uninstall software. The most used is DDU which you can find at the following link:
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html
To use it, it will always be necessary to restart the PC in temporary mode. The simplest way is the following but many others are available: open Settings, select Reset and then Restart Now. On the screen that appears, select Troubleshooting → Advanced Options → Settings at startup and restart. The PC will restart in safe mode and you will select option 5. From safe mode you can use DDU to uninstall the drivers (select uninstall without restart) and delete the AMD folder. Then delete it from the trash as well. Restart and reinstall the drivers you want.
PART VI — BIOSMOD GPU
Install the following software:
GPU-Z available at the following link https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/ you will need it to see the type of memory of your GPU (Hynix, Samsung, Micron, etc …)
ATIFlash https://www.techpowerup.com/download/ati-atiflash/ will be used to save and edit bios directly from the Prompt
Unzip it and place it in the folder in C: Atiflash
With the latest versions of Windows 10, incompatibilities with AtiFlash may occur due to conflicts with AMD drivers.
Let’s start trading with Atiflash.
First go to the Atiflash folder, start the executable as administrator and in the window that appears, keep pressing Enter until it goes away
Press WIN + R and in the run window type CMD. The command prompt will open.
Type in succession: cd .. followed by enter until you reach C: \ and then cd Atiflash.
Type atiflash -i to see if the program sees all video cards.
Now first we need to make a bios backup for each video card.
Type atiflash -s 0 backup0.rom
As you may have noticed, atiflash numbers the video cards starting from zero.
Carry out this procedure up to video card number 5. Now that you have saved your Bios, all that remains is to flash the GPUs with a custom Bios or with those we have provided / will provide.
The procedure is as follows:
Type atiflash -p -f 0 bios.rom (and so on up to 5)
Wait and restart. It may be necessary to re-run the Atimkdag patch. Check and in case apply.
If the results are not satisfactory, after trying to mine you can move on to the next phase of GPU overclocking.
PARTE VII — MINING
E’ ora arrivato il momento di installare i software per il mining di Ethereum. Con il Rig GPU potrai minare altre cryptovalute che provvederemo a esplicare in altre guide. Qui ci concentreremo sulle basi per soddisfare anche chi e’ alle prime armi.
Per prima cosa crea la cartella C:\Program files\eth. All’interno create le cartella Wallet e Miner.
Ora installa i seguenti programmi:
Geth al seguente link: https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/wiki/geth e’ il software di comunicazione con la rete Ethereum
Ethminer https://github.com/ethereum-mining/ethminer che e’ a tutti gli effetti l’eseguibile che vi permettera’ di avviare il mining
Wallet https://github.com/ethereum/mist/releases che rappresenta il tuo portafoglio online di cryptovalute. Attenzione a salvare la tua chiave privata contenuta nella cartella C:\Utenti\VostroPC\Appdata\Roaming\Geth\Keystore
Installa Geth all’interno della cartella Eth, Ethminer all’interno della cartella Miner e l’Ethereum Wallet all’interno della cartella Wallet.
Accedi al Prompt dei comandi e posizionati nella cartella C.\Program files\Eth. Qui digita GETH ACCOUNT NEW e premi invio. Ti verra’ chiesto l’inserimento di una password(segnatevela!). Non vedrai il cursore muoversi ma starai comunque digitando.
PARTE VIII — COSTRUIRE UN MINING RIG PER ETHEREUM: L’AVVIO DEL RIG.
Cosi’ come siamo rimasti avvia il Wallet e inziera’ il download della blockchain(il tuo wallet verra’ identificato da un numero esadecimale a cui dovra’ essere sempre anteposto 0x). Sara’ un procedimento abbastanza lungo ma dovrai farlo solo una volta. Negli altri rig sara’ sufficiente copiare la chiave privata nella cartella Keystore(ovviamente prima di avviare il Wallet) per trovarti collegato alla Blockchain tramite la seguente procedura:
Per prima cosa avvia il wallet. Si colleghera’ alla blockchain e si aprira’ identico a quello del primo Rig. Entra nel prompt dei comandi e posizionati in c:\Program Files\Eth e digita GETH ACCOUNT UPDATE seguito da 0xVOSTROWALLET. Ti verra’ chiesta la password e ti troverai cosi’ collegato alla blockchain.
Ora per avviare il minaggio vero e proprio non restera’ che seguire questi passi. Apri Blocco Note e scrivi ethminer -G -F http://eth-eu.dwarfpool.COM:80/vostrowallet (G per AMD, U per NVDIA)
Copia il tutto nel prompt dei comandi posizionandoti nella cartella c:\Program Files\Eth\Miner
Il tuo impianto stara’ minando in una pool, in questo caso dwarfpool ma potrai sempre decidere di cambiare pool o crypto.
E con questo e’ tutto. Qui sotto il link al nostro canale Youtube con filmati e risultati di alcuni dei nostri RIG:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdE9TTHAOtyKxy59rALSprA
Prossimamente: Guida all’Overclock con OverdriveNtool e Guida al mining con Claymore!
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