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State of the Mining Rig: From Gamer to Miner
What is going on miners, have you ever wondered how to transition from gaming to mining? Has the thought crossed your mind whether you could mine on your gaming computer? If yes, then you’ve landed at the right place. Today, we’re delving into mining supplies you need to get started and upping your game from mining on a gaming computer to a dedicated mining rig.
A Step into Mining World
Beginning on your mining journey might seem overwhelming. Many questions around the right equipment, the potential heat, the sound, and not to mention the power consumed by the mining rig might be swirling in your head. One way to address the heat concern is by adding a box fan under the mining cards. This fan helps push the hot air away from the cards. Another hack is to use a box fan near a window to push the hot air outside.
Moving on to the Pros
There comes a point in a miner’s journey where they want to increase the scale of their operation. This urge stems from the desire to upgrade from mining on their gaming computer or home desktop computer. If we talk about gaming rigs, these machines are perfect for running high-intensity applications and games, but they might fall short if you decide to use them for mining. For instance, gaming rigs like mine, running the 2080 Super XC, are perfect for gaming but not ideal for mining, especially when there are other sources available for mining.
Hopping onto the Mining Rig Bandwagon
One way to transition from a gaming rig to a mining rig is by using a motherboard directly out of an old HP tower running something like a Pentium 4 in it. This setup, along with 4 gigs of memory, can be used as a test bench which can be transformed to mine Ethereum. This one slot setup can be optimized by using a PCI express card to support multiple cards using risers. In addition, the setup can be moved to a Vetta frame to increase its capacity.
The Mining Supplies Essentials: What do you need?
Once you’ve decided to make the leap from gaming to mining, a few essentials should be at your disposal in order to transition smoothly.
Tools and Maintenance Supplies
The first item is a voltage meter. I recommend the Kilowatt brand, which supports up to 1800 watts, and allows you to keep a check on how much power you’re drawing. In terms of tools, small screwdrivers are necessary, along with a magnetic dish for easy storage. For maintenance, pick up some arctic silver for your thermal paste to replace the one on all your pre-owned cards. Some additional items include zip ties, rubber bands, electronic wipes, and alcohol to maintain cleanliness.
The Hardware
A significant part of your mining rig hardware will be the GPU risers. These come in handy as you continue to increase your operations. Moreover, you’re going to need SATA drives. They’re cheap and get the job done. Power supplies complete the hardware section. It is recommended not to cheap out on the power supply.
Add-ons
As you continue to grow, cables such as 6 to 6 pin cables and USB A to A cables will be required for your risers and PCI adapter cards. Keep these on hand, any delays in obtaining these can slow down your mining operation.
Final Words
Starting a mining rig from scratch, especially if it’s your first time, can be daunting. Remember, you don’t have to break the bank to get these essentials and set up your mining rig. It’s all about being prepared and having the essential supplies on hand. Don’t let the lack of supplies hinder your startup enthusiasm.
Most importantly, let us not overlook the power consumption. Mining is power-intensive, and ensuring you have the necessary electrical throughput to support your mining operations is key to the entire process.
In conclusion, the transition from a gamer to a miner is a rewarding journey, filled with learning experiences and practical knowledge about the mining universe. Whether you’re transitioning or starting fresh, the key is to be patient, understand the process, and most importantly, enjoy it!
What are some must have items as a miner you MUST have on hand? Also how long have you been mining?
I've been mining ravencoin for 2 weeks on my gtx 970 getting 4.13mh
started mining in June of 2020
Nice video but my main problem for mining is overpriced GPU. I have basic knowledge, I have enough money but with this prices of GPU it's not worth to invest.
Out of interest how much does the mightmouse miner make per month?
My problem currently is that i have enough spare hardware for building at least 6 GPUs mining rigs lol
How did i end in this situation? Well, since i started mining around march 2020, i bought couple of AMD B450 and Gigabyte H110 motherboards, couple of AMD Athlon and INTEL Pentium CPUs, lot of budget stick of RAM, ridiculous amount of HP PSU servers, lot of breakout boards and cables, ton of risers and SSDs Things were so cheap until Autumn last year. Hoping i would have been able to buy GPUs later down on the road but i overestimated the ability of most countries to handle COVID-19, so i didn't pull out the trigger when i should have, instead i even sold all my Polaris 4GB GPUs and keep exclusively my AMD NAVI (first generation) cards.
Well, we all know what happens since you started mining in January 2021, the GPU market went apes and i honestly refuse to buy a single GPUs at more than double the MRSP, hopefully i got my ROI since a while now, selling very few of my cryptos and hoping to be able to expand even if the market crashes later down on the road and even if i have to pay my electricity with all the crypto i mined so far. We all have to deal with the reality of the market around us after all.
Happy midweek my brother and keep on mining <3
Bro your inspiring me to do YouTube.
Thermal pads and a spare psu
5:22 I think that 3060 has a great idea 💡 Hehe! Great video as always 🙂
The space ac systems work great when you use a grow tent! I use 4ft x 4ft grow tents with the space ac inside and ducting the hot air out the top with a 8in ducting vent fan.
Started November 21,
Most important thing 240, 30amp power and PDUs
Just started mining 2 months ago and wish I got into it when I bought my radeon 7. I bought 2 new 1660 supers last week for $400 each I know way overpriced but I know they are gonna pay themselves off in a few months
Miner since 2013, but not continuous.
awesome vid like always
Danke für das Video und den Einblick, das kommt mir schon bekannt vor.
Man I just need a 1660 ti 😭 it's OFS all over…
Since january…
M8, my jaw dropped when you said that you started in January. Very inspirational. Cheers
Someone makes some hangers that hold a 120mm fan under the units. Holds 2 cards with one clip and the fan below the 2 cards. Saw them on Facebook marketplace
thanks for the video
Hi, I’m a noob when it comes to mining, but your videos are great, very informative, thank you for putting out the content. So I have a Lenovo laptop with an AMD Radeon RX Vega mobile Gfx graphics card, is this a suitable machine to mine with?