Optimizing my miner. Beginner looking for a few tips

josh5901josh5901 Member Posts: 38
edited July 2017 in Mining
Hello all. New to the forums here. I just built my first mining rig
*MSI z270 SLI Plus
*Celeron dual core(G39xx series)-does the job
*8gb of ballistix gddr4
*120gb SSD
*6, Zotac GTX 1060 6GB(has Samsung memory, fyi)
*Latest win10
*MSI Afterburner
* 384.94 driver(latest)
* *Claymore: Latest version. Single mining ether right now under ethermine.us pool

So i'm looking for ideal settings. Everything seems smooth now that i found the bad riser(Completely AWFUL quality control on these, btw).

My settings in afterburner:
Power: 70
Core: 0
Mem: 450(trying for 500 currently)
MH/s: 135.25

I messed with core boosting and saw ZERO increase in my performance. I don't want to ruin longevity for an extra 5 Mh/s so at those settings not a single card is over 60C, nice and cool. Heat kills things lol. Being a clinical engineer for years i may not know software or how to program but i do know P=I*E and the "tailspin" of heat/resistance. So i want the cards to last but i want it to be optimized. I did a test and i'm drawing 515 watts which im quite happy with.

Is there anything i'm missing here? Can anyone please spot where i could make improvements? I had her up to 600 at 75% power doing over 138 for a good 6 hours and heat still wasn't an issue, nothing past 65C. I pay 10C/KwH so not too bad on electricity costs.


Another question: Eth is not going to be soluble for small miners like myself. That day is coming very very soon. What would be my best bet after i move on from mining eth(next month perhaps)? Dual mine zcash and eth? Just zcash?
I'm willing to take losses, money isn't too big an issue. Mining a coin that's cheap now that has a future is what we're all shooting for, not some measly $200 a month in profit.

Thank you all in advance for looking over my setup and if i forgot anything please, do let me know and i'll fire back an answer asap.

Thanks,
Josh

Comments

  • josh5901josh5901 Member Posts: 38
    UPDATE: Starting to see funny errors like i did when 1 riser went bad.
    "failure to get fan speed/temp"
    Ran fine for several hours at above settings, now giving me hiccups and reboots with those errors at same settings. Upped my power to 75. Testing now.
    I know for sure a riser was the problem the first time. Mainly causing freeze errors, then these errors in red on claymore. Can't remember but KUfail.............gpu5(43210) etc" I'd have to pull the log and post it up.
    New set of rev 07 risers on the way. I should be able to easily hold 500 mem clock at 70% power. Something is wrong here
  • PalladanPalladan Member Posts: 24
    Hey,

    I'm relatively new like yourself and been doing a lot of research to check my efficiency and how to profit the most.

    From what I can tell is that the core clock doesn't actually affect your hashrate as much as the mem clock does. In fact the bios I have loaded onto my 480 reduces core clock and power and increases the timings. Head over to TechPowerUp and check what they suggest is the optimal for the 1060's you've got and check the memory make on the boards before you do.

    As for the dodgy Riser. I've read many threads on these as well. It does seem like build quality is not that amazing on the cheaper cards so get decent ones basically.

    For the Coin, it could be anything in the future. Some are suggesting dual mining with zcash, or sticking with eth and watching the difficulty and price to make an educated guess on whats most profitable. If you would rather fire and forget then maybe nicehash is the way to go where you rent out your hash power to them and they'll mine whats best and pay you in BTC.

  • josh5901josh5901 Member Posts: 38
    UPDATE:
    solid 143.5Mh/s with 6, 6gb Zotac 1060s FYI all zotac 1060 minis run Samsung memory. Very useful
    Settings in msi afterburner for all interested(any other questions, just ask!)

    Power: 65% (pulls ~500 watts at full tilt boogy)
    Temp: 70C (Not one card exceeds 58C. EVER)
    Core: 50 (this one is the key to my personal success in stability)
    Mem: 750(!!)

    Everything humming along perfectly.

    **Just got m.2 to pcie adapters today. Will have a FOR SURE answer on whether or not the MSI Z270 SLI PLUS will or will not run 8 GPUS. No one has posted on this SPECIFIC z270. I've looked for weeks lol.
    ***Any questions at all please ask, now that i have learned perhaps i can share info or help others. That's what forums are for, right?
  • weitauweitau Member Posts: 4
    Wow, you're getting nearly 24 Mh/s on those cards! I've only been able to get 22 with Mem 650 on my Gigabyte 1060 cards.

    So the answer was the new version 7 risers, or adding +50 to Core? Also the rig pulls 500w - is that at the wall? What power supply are you using?
  • josh5901josh5901 Member Posts: 38
    Weitau: Using a raidmax vampire 1,000 watt. The adapters were NOT the difference. The big thing was adding 50 to core. THAT stabilized it. Zotac 1060s are nice, man. They handle OC'ing like a champ but are very finnicky about your core/power settings.

    **I CAN CONFIRM: The SLI PLUS Z270 specifically does NOT SUPPORT m.2 TO PCIE!!! This really sucks but hey, i was dumb enough to not just buy the h110 mobo and well, that's what i get for jumping the gun a little too early lol. I am going to settle for 6 gpus for now. Maybe after the big ethereum update in november i will buy 2 to 4 more gpus and the asrock h110. We shall see
  • josh5901josh5901 Member Posts: 38
    edited September 2017
    weitau said:

    Wow, you're getting nearly 24 Mh/s on those cards! I've only been able to get 22 with Mem 650 on my Gigabyte 1060 cards.

    So the answer was the new version 7 risers, or adding +50 to Core? Also the rig pulls 500w - is that at the wall? What power supply are you using?


    This rig is just a headache. Taking stuff apart(testing new m.2 adapters) resulted in a lot of "run-in" time, i guess you'd call it. Meaning, I had to start it back at like 500 mem and let it run hours, then bump to 675 to run for more hours. If i didn't, and i did NOT at first, i'd come up with crashes/reboots. It makes NO SENSE bro! I do know that if i slowly "ramp up" in clocking it becomes stable and will hold just fine for as long as it has power. So far. My latest run-in i am attempting to achieve 800 on mem clock boost. I adjusted core to 60 BUT i kept power at 65% so temps are identical and wattage(at wall of course) will be identical.
    So far i'm at 2 hours and she's hashing at 145.3. I don't think one could expect much more from ANY 6gb gtx 1060. That's extremely impressive.

    *Today I am pulling the trigger on it. Buying 2 more Zotac 6gb 1060 minis(exact same as what i have), 2 more pcie cables, and the ASROCK h110 pro btc+ motherboard. I figure i can safely achieve 180+. Total cost in the rig will be $3,150. That part sucks, lol, but i still see a future in mining. Even eth is very profitable still and PoS isn't coming until Q4 2018. Plenty of others to mine if the difficulty goes too high. Ubiq and Lbry look very very appealing to me. For the long HOLD, that is.
    I can update you if you'd like and if you have any questions feel free to ask. She may be dead in 10 minutes at +800 Mem but i will try, so long as temps stay in check all is well and the gpus/power supply will last a good long time

    **5 hours and running strong at over 145Mh/s. Temps still in the same and very low, power still set at 65%. Only changes were Core: 60, up from 50 and Memory: 800
    I think, and hope, this is the secret sauce cause if i can get my avg effective hashrate in the 140s this thing is going to be really really awesome.
    Post edited by josh5901 on
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