How to Build an Ethereum Mining Rig

This guide is to help people with little to no experience build an Ethereum mining rig. I’ve personally built several rigs, and the most frustrating part was figuring out what were the best parts to purchase. My goal for this post is to give you the most up to date, highest quality information regarding the equipment needed to create your first mining rig.

Also, I really encourage you guys to ask me questions if you need any help. This is an exciting time for cryptocurrency and I’m really passionate about getting people onboard!

Disclaimer: The amount of money that this rig will generate is based on the price of cryptocurrency and the mining difficulty which is continually rising. Ethereum is eventually going to enable a new system called Proof of Stake that will make mining less profitable. This setup will still be able to mine other profitable coins. This guide is intended to help people, but this setup might not be best for people with high electricity costs, or people who are looking for a quick return on investment. Just like any investment, building a mining rig can be risky, and you are not guaranteed to make all of your money back. Please don’t invest any money that you aren’t willing to lose.

1. Purchasing Mining Equipment

The mining equipment is going to consist of a variety of computer parts. Just like a normal computer, you are going to need a motherboard, cpu, ram, power supply, and most importantly video cards. Video cards, also known as GPUs, are the key component to mining. We are going to use the power of the GPUs to solve the algorithmns that the cryptocurrencies are using to process transactions.

Video Cards

Essentially, you are going to have to choose between two different types of GPUs. That would be AMD and NVIDIA. Both of them have their advantages and disadvantages.

At one time, AMD GPUs were the best choice for mining. This is because they produced quite a bit of hash power for a relatively low price. The only issue is that now that mining has become so popular, they are constantly sold out or overpriced. That’s why I chose Nvidia cards for my rig.

Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080Ti’s

• They are in stock.
• They will have a high resale value since there aren’t many people using them for mining.
• They have a higher hashing power.
• They can mine coins other than Ethereum at a high hashing power.

Nvidia Geforce GTX 1070

• They are in stock.
• They are Power Efficient!
• They have a higher hashing power.
• They can mine coins other than Ethereum at a high hashing power

Another important thing to consider is that these cards have a high hash power for many other coins besides Ethereum. This means that these cards will remain profitable even if Ethereum Mining becomes too competitive. I purchased these cards because I know that I plan on mining for a long time, and that buying the right equipment would make it more profitable.

Parts List:

• 6 x Video Cards/GPUs
  • EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC GAMING ACX 3.0 Black Edition, 8GB GDDR5, LED, DX12 OSD Support (PXOC) 08G-P4-5173-KR
  • EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC Black Edition GAMING, 11GB GDDR5X, iCX Cooler & LED, Optimized Airflow Design, Interlaced Pin Fin Graphics Card 11G-P4-6393-KR
• 1 x MSI Pro Solution Intel Z170A LGA 1151 DDR4 USB 3.1 ATX Motherboard (Z170A SLI Plus)
• 1 x Intel Celeron G3900 Dual-core (2 Core) 2.80 GHz Processor
• 1 x Crucial 4GB Single DDR4
• 1 x Kingston Digital 60GB SSDNow V300 SATA 3 2.5 (7mm height) Solid State Drive
• 3 x EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2, 80+ GOLD 750W
• 1 x MintCell 6-Pack PCIe VER 006 PCI-E 16x to 1x Powered Riser Adapter Card w/ 60cm USB 3.0 Extension Cable & MOLEX to SATA Power Cable – GPU Riser Adapter
• 1 x Open Air Case Mining Frame

Motherboard

Whichever motherboard that you use, you are going to have to make sure it can support for all of the GPUs that you are going to install. Remember to choose the correct cpu and ram for whichever motherboard that you pick.

Ram

Mining doesn’t typically require that much ram. I’d recommend getting two 4GB sticks of ram just to be safe. They aren’t that expensive so it doesn’t hurt to get more. You’ll need a lot of ram if you plan on maximizing profits by Hosting for the SIA platform along with mining. There are usually two different types of ram.

CPU

Mining rigs don’t require a lot of cpu power since the GPUs are doing all of the work. You can get away with purchasing the cheapest CPU, which should usually run you between $50-100.

Power Supply (PSU)

The power supply is an important component in your rig. It has to be able to supply enough watts to power all of your video cards. The  NVIDIA 1080 TIs will typically require 250 watts each. After you under clock the them, the power consumption should drop to 150 watts. To be safe, I still recommend purchasing more power supplies than necessary for three reasons.

1. It’s not a good idea to run the maximum load on one power supply,
2. Two VGA power cables will be needed for each card (Each power supply has 4 VGA Power Ports)
3. You might want to add more video cards to your setup.

For my rigs, I purchased three  EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2, 80+ GOLD 750W PSUs.

Risers

Risers are cables that will allow you to place your video card a few feet away from your motherboard. This is an essential component. Without it, you won’t be able to fit all of your video cards on your motherboard. Even if you could fit them, you still want extra space, so that they have ventilation. Risers are constantly selling out, so I’d make sure to some extra in case you have any dead ones.

The risers that we are going to use are probably some of the highest quality in the industry: MintCell 6-Pack PCIe VER 006 PCI-E 16x to 1x Powered Riser Adapter Card w/ 60cm USB 3.0 Extension Cable & MOLEX to SATA Power Cable – GPU Riser Adapter

Hard Drive

The hard drive just has to be big enough to hold the installation of windows or linux. We are going to purchase a 60GB solid state drive for this rig.

2. Setting up the Mining Rig

Quick Install Guide:

1. Un-package all of the components
2. Install Cpu, Heatsink, and Fan onto Motherboard
3. Install Ram
4. Plug in Sata Hard Drive
5. Hookup Power Supply to Motherboard and Hard Drive

The next section will explain onto hookup the video cards to the rig.

Connecting the Video Cards

The video cards should be sitting in something secure that has plenty of ventilation. We recommend that you purchase an Open Air Mining Frame off of Amazon.

Connecting the Risers

Connecting the risers should be self explanatory. One thing to remember is that the little 1x PCI Express cards can be placed in the 16x PCI Express Slot (the big PCI slots). If you by any chance purchases a riser with a sata to molex adapter, make sure to replace it with a direct molex connection. The sata to molex adapters have been known to set fire.

Connecting the Video Cards to the Power Supply

Depending on which video cards you have purchased, you are probably going to need to run a power cable from the power supply to the video cards.

Installing Drivers

At this point, I’m assuming that you’ve already installed Windows on your mining rig. For this article, we are going to use Windows since it’s simple to setup and maintain.

The simplest way to install the drivers is to download the Geforce Experience program from the Geforce website. This will automatically download the latest drivers, which for me, has been sufficient for mining.

Underclocking the NVIDIA 1080 TIs

An important part of making the NVIDIA 1080 TIs efficient is under clocking them so that they use less power, while still getting a high hash rate. You want to download and install MSI AfterBurner. After you have installed Afterburner, you want to drop the “Power Limit” down to 60 and then hit the check mark so that the settings are applied to cards. Here is a screenshot of my Afterburner settings:

3. Installing the Mining Programs

There are a variety of mining programs for each cryptocurrency. The mining programs have to be compatible with either AMD or NVIDIA depending on which one you are using.

Awesome Miner

To simplify this process, we are going to install a program called Awesome Miner. This program is going to download all of the popular miners, and will automatically use whichever one is compatible with your video card and the coin you are mining.

Profit Switching

We are going to use the profit switching feature of Awesome Miner. I personally keep all of my rigs on profit switching all of the time.

When mining cryptocurrencies, it is best to mine in a pool. A pool is a group of miners who combine their hash power together so that they are more likely to earn rewards from mining. You could mine alone, but chances are you would not earn cryptocurrency consistently.

There are three different pools that utilize profit switching: ZPool, NiceHash, and MiningPoolHub. I’ve personally tried NiceHash and Mining Pool Hub. In my opinion, Mining Pool Hub is more profitable, and it gives you more control over what you mine.

NiceHash is good if you want to just put your rigs on autopilot. Plus they payout in Bitcoin, which will save you time and energy converting your coins into it if you choose to do so.

Setting up Profit Switching

For this example, we are going to use Mining Pool Hub.

1. Go to their website and setup an account.
2. Login to your new account and go to the “Hub Workers” page.
3. Input the name of your worker on the fields to the left (This is simply a name for your rig. If you choose to have multiple rigs, this will be helpful to specify which coin each one mines.)
4. Go to Awesome Miner and click on “New miner”.
5. Hit next and choose “Managed Profit Miner”.
6. On the next page make sure that under “Profit Switching Profile” you have selected NVIDIA.
7. Click next and finish the installation.
8. Now open up “Options”.
9. Once you are in “Options” go to “Profit Switching”.
10. You should see an option for “Mining Pool Hub”. Check this option and input your username and worker name like so: “username.workername” (the username is listed under “worker login” on the “Hub Workers” page)
11. After you hit OK, you can clock on your newly setup profit miner and click “Start” at the top toolbar.

You are now in business!

The coins that you mine can be automatically converted to whatever coin that you like using the “Auto Exchange” feature on Mining Pool Hub (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Zcash, etc…)

Here is a screenshot showing the revenue that my Ethereum Mining Rig is generating as of (July 5, 2017):

4. Setting up Remote Access

If you are like me, and you don’t have physical access to your rig because they are at a different location, then you are going to need to access it remotely. To do this, you can install the program TeamViewer, and setup unattended access. Once you have unattended access setup, you can remotely connect your rig from anywhere using your pc or smartphone, even if it restarts.

There are WiFi smart outlets that can be installed so that you can remotely turn off power to your rig if it ever freezes. If you install this along with TeamViewer, you will almost never have to physically access your rig to keep it up and running.

5. Configuring Rig to Autostart Miner

In case you need to restart your rig, you are going to want it to start mining again automatically. This is useful if you are using a wifi smart plug to perform remote restarts.

Disable the Windows 10 Login Screen

On Windows 10, you are usually brought to a login screen when you start the computer. The first thing we are going to do is disable this login screen.

1. Click start or hit the windows key on the keyboard.
2. Go to the search window and type in “netplwiz” – without the quotations
3. Click Netplwiz – it should appear as a search result
4. The User Accounts windows should appear. Click on your username and then uncheck the box that says “Users must enter a user name and password to use the computer.”
5. You will be prompted to type in the user account’s password, type this is and you should be good to go!

Give it a test restart to make sure that it was configured properly. Now, when you restart, or turn on the computer, it should bypass the login screen.

Configuring Awesome Miner to Autostart

You can easily configure Awesome Miner to autostart through the program.

1. Open up Awesome Miner
2. Go to “Options” up at the top.
3. The autostart options should be the first few under the general tab.
4. Click on “Autostart when Windows starts”
5. Goto Managed Miners on the menu to the left.
6. Find your Profit Miner, click on it, then click edit
7. Check the box that says “Autostart Miner”
8. Click Ok on both boxes and everything should be set.

Great! Now your rig is autonomous! Give your rig a restart and make sure that everything is working properly.

In Recap

Congratulations! You have taken the first step to becoming a crypto millionaire! All you have to do now is sit back and collect your coin. Occasionally you might need to fix something on your rig or restart it, but most likely it will run smoothly most of the time.

If you need any help at all, please comment or send me an email at nick@wealthyroads.com. I’d be happy to help you guys/gals with whatever you need!

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