Powering your PCI-E Risers - How are you doing it? Lets talk about it!

Ericjh801

Looking to see how everyone is powering them. There are so many different PCI-E risers with different connections and so many horror stories of fires from various ones. Post a picture, describe it, give your thoughts, lets get a discussion going about how everyone is currently running their risers, how long they've had them online and if they've had any issues.

My setup(s). Each rig has dual 750W PSU's. 8 GPU's (RX 580's under volt to 950mv). I'm currently powering 2 risers with one SATA string connected to a PCI-E adapter to each card. I'm not fond of this setup but it's working. There are not enough separate strings to run separate cards. I've checked the cables often and doesn't seem like they are hot/etc. I'd like to change to something else but what that something else is, i'm not sure yet.

Let's hear what others are doing.

lablett

If you have the money then go with a 1:1 ratio; In that each card it's own PCI-E power cable and each riser has it's own sata/molex cable. I went for dual Corsair ax860i as you can achieve this ratio with 8 cards. I have had four major problems and these were 1)One rig kept shutting down and there was a bad connection somewhere. 2)A cable burnt out, but the rig shit down and the card died in the end. 3) I fried one card as I put the PCI riser PCB in the wrong way round. 4)I had too many fans plugged into the first PSU, which created a tripping loop, and freed the M/B.

As you can see moving from 1 PSU does come with some dangers but personally I think it greatly reduces the risk of load/fire/breaking-more-than-one-card.

Funny enough, I have just moved to smaller rigs(5 cards in an EATX case) and they only require 1 PSU but I can't dual mine now.

All good fun!

Ericjh801

I'm using dual PSU's on all my system, but they do not have enough strings to put 1 for each SATA connector per PCI-E board. So far so good though as the cables don't even appear to be warm. I've had zero things burn out and it's been about 2 months. I do not dual mine anymore so that probably helps.

asusrig

Ericjh801 said:

Looking to see how everyone is powering them. There are so many different PCI-E risers with different connections and so many horror stories of fires from various ones. Post a picture, describe it, give your thoughts, lets get a discussion going about how everyone is currently running their risers, how long they've had them online and if they've had any issues.

My setup(s). Each rig has dual 750W PSU's. 8 GPU's (RX 580's under volt to 950mv). I'm currently powering 2 risers with one SATA string connected to a PCI-E adapter to each card. I'm not fond of this setup but it's working. There are not enough separate strings to run separate cards. I've checked the cables often and doesn't seem like they are hot/etc. I'd like to change to something else but what that something else is, i'm not sure yet.

Let's hear what others are doing.

Mine is similar to yours. One SATA power cable is powering two risers. So far I don't have any problems. My rigs have 13 GPUs (7x1070ti and 6xrx580) and I have four PSU supplies per rig: 1000 and 750 watt for each brand of GPU, so 2x1000 watt and 2x750 watt.

Actually the first rig I built has 1x1600 watts and 1x1000 watt which is overkill for seven 1070 ti cards. But at the time I was not sure how much power was needed. All the power supplies are gold rated EVGA and come with good quality cables.

I found problems using a molex cable from a Corsair PSU I had with the EVGA PSUs. Would not work properly with case fans or powering riser cards. Not sure if it was just the cable that had an issue but I spoke with someone at Micro Center that recommended never to mix cables and PSUs from different brands. So you want to stick with EVGA cables when using EVGA PSUs and same for Corsair etc.

I am using two different types of risers: Victony and Lesofod

Victony:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074NX9B8V/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Lesofod:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076MP4M8W/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I like the Lesofod risers more but did have a problem initially getting them to work with either the molex or PCIE power connections built into the card. The Lesofod has three power options and I opted for SATA which worked.

The Victony cards work but some of the batches I received do not have onboard LED. A few of the connectors that plug into the MB had some kind of glue substance on them that had to be cleaned off with alcohol before they would work. And lastly my biggest complaint is the rubber pads are coming off on the bottom of all the Victory riser cards overtime. They just end up falling onto the PSU or MB below them. That sucks. I'll collect them overtime and store them in a freezer bag. No use trying to glue them back on.

The Lesofod risers don't have this problem so if I had to do it over would order only that brand.

But only time will tell which one is more reliable but so far they have all been running well.

Ericjh801

I'm glad to hear someone else is running it similar to mine, gives me a little more ease of mind. I have those foam things fall off too on the ones I bought. I just tossed them as the manuf says they are used to protect something in the manuf process/etc. So far so good is how I look at it too. Just bought my first ASIC machine today and it will be here in a week (Antminer A3 for siacoin) so that will be an adventure too.

jetpack

I like using say a 750w and then a 1200w server supply on each 8 card rig. Always running 220v. Server supply is only used to power the cards 6 or 8 pin. Always liked the molex risers. Dont see using a sata to molex a good idea, those tiny pins for sata dont seem to handle loads or heat. YOU WILL always run into a fluke where a bad connection (poor contact surface area) creates heat from the reduced contact material thus your running too much electricity through a small connection and it will fry or burn up eventually promise. Inspect everything. Connectors will sometimes have poor crimped on terminals or loose and its not embracing the wires right and those will cause heat and melt.

Ericjh801

Yeah that's not a terrible idea with the server PS. It's something i'll have to look into. Right now i'm running 240v so no issues there for power. Installed new smoke detectors today that link through the rest of the house, that way if there is an issue i'll know about it before the whole thing burns down.

jetpack

They are pretty cool and designed for datacenters so expected to run 24/7 unlike a consumer pc unit. I like to always point out if you have a 1000w psu really its best to only use 600w, your really going to tax and overheat the poor guy or cause a early failure. You also get max efficiency with most PSU at 50% load. That is heat related so the power supply says cooler.. if your running it at 95% your going to have heat and it takes more amps and will actually cost you more in electrical. Sounds like a total pain in the ass but if you plan on using 1000w, you should have 2000w worth of juice.

Yea for safety just use metal frames with little plastic or fuel in the area..(carpet, close to a wall, wood table etc all bad planning) Imagine your rig catches on fire.. prepare the area ha. There is not much to burn so should go out fast. Keep anything flammable away from the rig. Kinda the point of computer cases honestly, keeps things suppressed to prevent any larger fire happening and keeps fuels away from the heat/flame.

Ericjh801

Yeah i'm using wooden frames haha. Might change the setup in the future, we will see how things play out. I'm going to semi fire proof what I can around the rigs, it's a separate room attached to my garage so that would keep it contained for the most part.

cjclm7

I also use dual PSU all rigs.
USB risers of several types (Molex, Sata and 6 pin).
Found 6 pin to be more robust but still need use 6pin to Sata adapter.
The ones with Sata I found them to be not robust, Sata connection at riser is fragile (one detached).
For future buys I will go for those with 6pin connection or Molex since with Molex connector you do not need adapters. Also because I have lots PSU's molex power cables not being used.
I try to connect each riser with a single power cable but have several Sata power cable feeding 2 riser.

Ericjh801

I think a lot of people are in the same boat with 2 per chain unless you get specific power supplies or server ones.

cjclm7 said:

I also use dual PSU all rigs.
USB risers of several types (Molex, Sata and 6 pin).
Found 6 pin to be more robust but still need use 6pin to Sata adapter.
The ones with Sata I found them to be not robust, Sata connection at riser is fragile (one detached).
For future buys I will go for those with 6pin connection or Molex since with Molex connector you do not need adapters. Also because I have lots PSU's molex power cables not being used.
I try to connect each riser with a single power cable but have several Sata power cable feeding 2 riser.

asusrig

cjclm7 said:

I also use dual PSU all rigs.
USB risers of several types (Molex, Sata and 6 pin).
Found 6 pin to be more robust but still need use 6pin to Sata adapter.
The ones with Sata I found them to be not robust, Sata connection at riser is fragile (one detached).
For future buys I will go for those with 6pin connection or Molex since with Molex connector you do not need adapters. Also because I have lots PSU's molex power cables not being used.
I try to connect each riser with a single power cable but have several Sata power cable feeding 2 riser.

Some of my risers are powered directly via SATA. There are no SATA to Molex connections to those risers. The connections are very secure and you need to use force to get them out.

Another batch of risers have Molex connections. A Molex to SATA cable is used, however the Molex end plugs into the Riser. The SATA end plugs into a normal SATA cable from EVGA. So for no issues with these either and those connections are not coming loose. You need to use a lot of force to unplug them.

Ericjh801

yeah all of mine are sata to PCI-E adapters which so far have worked pretty well.

Milkmoney

I tried to get away with putting 3 on a chain and got SMOKED! I know better than to do that and still did it! I was like who he hell is BBQ at 2am?

Ericjh801

LOL. Did it start a fire or did the machine shut off after it happened? That's what i'm worried about. My first rig I had 4 on a chain and it ran fine but learned quickly from others that it was not a good idea

Milkmoney

Lucky that I was up messing around and was able to pull the plug. I won't do that again! The cable is now permanently melted & fused to the power supply. I save it as a reminder safety 1st !

jetpack

Milkmoney said:

I tried to get away with putting 3 on a chain and got SMOKED! I know better than to do that and still did it! I was like who he hell is BBQ at 2am?

lol thats so funny. We all like to test the boundaries sometimes! I ran a psu at like 100% load and it was hot as hell.. started smelling like burning pcb, solder resin like electronics and beewwww rig shut down. I opened it up and seen what looked like a dime sized ceramic cap charred to hell n cracked. It was a thermal load cap or something... I found another on another pcb and soldered it in... then put that psu into my work computer.. still works... some of the yellow wires are brown and crack if you move them too much lolz