How to build a mining rig? It can be tricky, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing, and it can cost quite a bit of money if you don’t do it right the first time around. To help, here are 10 tips to building your own mining rig, specifically designed to help you get the most out of your mining operations without breaking the bank or eating up more power than needed.
10 Tips on How to Build a Mining Rig
1) The most important rule
Buy quality parts and don’t cheap out! If you spend $5,000 dollars on your mining rig but only get $2,000 worth of mining out of it, then you’ve wasted all that money. Most miners now accept payment in Bitcoin or Ethereum cryptocurrencies.
These are decentralized currencies not controlled by any single authority. Because they can’t be counterfeited and aren’t controlled by banks or governments, their value has risen steadily as more people have adopted them as money.
At current exchange rates (December 2017), 1 Bitcoin is worth about $11,500 USD and 1 Ether is worth about $625 USD. This creates an interesting situation for miners because most pay electricity costs in fiat currency such as U.S.
2) Check if your GPU is compatible
There are two main things you need to check when choosing your GPU: does it have enough memory and is it power efficient? While most current ASICs can mine Ethereum, many older GPUs can’t, so ensure your card supports DAG files.
The easiest way to check if your GPU is compatible is via an online database like CryptoCompare’s Hardware for mining section or by using Google. To compare power efficiency of different cards, use CoinWarz’s profitability calculator or DigiWorth’s calculator. Also note that newer cards may come out that offer better bang for buck – always do your research before buying!
3) Buy all the necessary parts
One of the first steps in building your mining rig is to acquire all of your parts. If you already have some of them, great! But if not, you’ll want to pick up what you don’t have and make sure they are compatible with each other before getting started.
Check prices and compare different sellers before deciding on where best to purchase. This can save you time in building your rig later on, which can be crucial when you’re eager for results!
Next, you’ll want to check what type of video card(s) are compatible with your motherboard. Some motherboards support multiple video cards, while others do not. Certain chipsets also require specific types of video cards in order to function properly.
So if you want your mining rig to run efficiently, it is important that you have enough slots for all of your cards and that they are compatible with each other.
4) Download drivers and BIOS
When you build your mining rig, you’ll need to make sure you have all of your hardware drivers downloaded and installed. This means having BIOS drivers for your motherboard and GPU or video card drivers.
If you’re building several mining rigs with multiple GPUs, that can be quite a bit of work! Make sure everything is ready to go in advance, so it’s less stressful when building out your rigs. Also, if you’re looking for reference, check out some of our past guides: GUIDE 1 , GUIDE 2 .
You’ll also need to get your BIOS flashed and drivers installed if you’re planning on building mining rigs with multiple GPUs. Although you can theoretically do it with one GPU, doing so is risky. If you’re going to be building multiple mining rigs, make sure you get your drivers and BIOS updated before beginning. Check out our previous guides for reference: GUIDE 1 , GUIDE 2 .
5) Get a stable power supply
A stable power supply is an essential starting point for any mining rig. Depending on how much you’re planning to invest in your mining rig, you may want one that is able to handle more substantial loads. Smaller rigs with low power needs can usually get away with something as small as a couple of desktop computer power supplies in parallel,
but bigger rigs will need larger and more advanced power supplies. Make sure that your chosen power supply doesn’t produce excess heat; otherwise, it could make assembling and maintaining your new rig difficult. The last thing you want is a burnt-out mining rig because of faulty wiring or excessive heat production!
6) Check for component compatibility
The first thing you need to do when deciding how to build a mining rig is check whether all of your components are compatible with each other. You don’t want two video cards that won’t work well together, or two processors that will bottleneck each other, and so forth.
The easiest way to do that is just search YouTube for tutorials on building various types of mining rigs; most will show you exactly what parts they used and why, as well as which ones are incompatible with others.
For example, I searched for Corsair Hydro Series H110i Noobs Mistakes and found a couple videos featuring Corsair’s 240mm radiator liquid cooler in action with AMD’s Threadripper 1950X processor.
7) Install Windows/Linux
Even if you’re familiar with Linux, it’s useful to install Windows first because your graphics card drivers will be pre-installed and ready to go. You can also use an inexpensive USB keyboard/mouse adapter, rather than going out and buying an entire new set of peripherals just for mining.
Another key factor in successful mining is having reliable power. Most miners recommend having at least two dedicated circuit breakers per rig, and installing a separate circuit just for your mining hardware. It’s also worth investing in quality surge protectors—and keeping them plugged in, even when not actively mining.
If you live in an area prone to blackouts or brownouts, it’s also advisable to install uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) alongside your generators. Be sure that if you go down that route, you can still power up quickly after a short outage with minimal effort.
Running your equipment off generators for long periods of time can eventually cause damage or wear and tear issues with both the equipment and generator itself.
8) Configure BIOS settings
A good mining rig is built with stability in mind. Before you get started, it’s important to set up BIOS settings on your motherboard so that they fit your needs and work with your equipment. Just know that overclocking isn’t recommended for cryptocurrency mining due to increased risk of overheating and causing damage—so don’t crank up any of these settings beyond their default value. Here are some BIOS settings you should tweak before getting started
9) Configure OS settings (Windows/Linux)
To mine bitcoin, Ethereum, or other cryptocurrencies you’ll need to set up your computer’s operating system (OS) so that it acts like a cryptocurrency wallet and can interface with an online mining pool. There are three primary ways to do this: Windows, Linux, and ethOS. Windows is considered more user-friendly for new miners; however, ethOS is available with both AMD/Nvidia-based GPUs and Intel processors.
For Windows, see our guide to installing and setting up Windows. For Linux, I recommend going with ethOS, as it’s highly optimized for mining. It’s also what we used in our guide to building an Ethereum mining rig.
10) Use Linux after setup
Even after you’ve built your mining rig, make sure you use Linux for future builds. It’s far easier than using Windows, and it has all of the basic tools built in. With Windows, there are more steps and potential problems that can occur.
The best solution is to just stick with Linux. If you do want to keep your mining rig running Windows so that it’s accessible from other computers or devices, check out remote desktop software like TeamViewer or LogMeIn Hamachi. You’ll be able to control your mining machine as if you were sitting right in front of it—even though it’s across town!
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Conclusion
If you have ever wanted to mine cryptocurrency, here are 10 tips for building your own rig. We do not recommend that you build a mining rig unless you are certain it is legal in your country of residence. If you do not know how long it will take for payback,
or if you cannot afford downtime while you learn to manage a crypto-mining rig, then we highly recommend researching cloud mining as an alternative option. Cloud mining is essentially using someone else’s hardware to mine cryptocurrencies
usually in exchange for profit sharing and/or future payments based on performance/utility. Cloud mining is an effective way to get started without much initial investment required and without having to worry about building and managing your own infrastructure.
10 Tips on How to Build a Mining Rig
