Monthly Archives: January 2014

distributing hashing power to different pools

Some ideas to spread hashing power from one GPU to multiple pools.
– cgminer has the option to use the a different config file (-c option for config file) and one instance of cgminer can be started for each video card (using the -d option for device).
– One session of cgminer can be set up to load-balance to multiple pools based on percentage. See this post.

I would like to have separate display for each pool’s hash rate as well.

 

Components for future coin mining rigs

For smaller builds (4 cards and under) I will go with Gigabyte GA-970A-D3 ($90)

For larger builds (6 cards) I will go with a Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 ($150) ($140 at NCIX until 15Jan2014)

Either build will get a Sempron 145 CPU ($45) and some cheap 4 Gig ram stick ($50)

GPU selection will be dictated by whatever good deals I can find. Preferred GPU is R9 290 (non x).

PSU selection is another thing since there are so many options and configurations. Some top brands talked about here.
XFX 750W is a well priced one at $90
Calculate PSU needed by using this online calculator. It was pretty close when I calculated my 4 GPU (r9 280x) mining rig running at full load. I was drawing from the wall 1030W and the calculator came up with  943*1.1 (1.1 is for 80Gold PSU) = 1037W.
According to the PSU calc online, a R9 280x sucks 218W, a R9 290 draws 230W and a R9 290x draws 280W.
The CPU (Sempron 145) and MoBo draw 68W at 50% load (lowest CPU utilization available in the calc). In reality it’s probably a little lower since the CPU is barely used.

 

ESXi 5.5… should I upgrade from 5.1?

With version 5.5 of ESXi , the traditional vCenter tool does not allow for the full management of a VM (version 10 VM) which brings all the new upgrades to the VM.

You need to use the licensed vSphere Web Client to fully manage the VMs. vSphere Web Client only has a 60 day free period and for a home user, this kind of breaks the whole free ESXi server sandbox…

http://www.tinkertry.com/best-parts-of-vmwares-esxi-5-5-free-hypervisor-rely-on-vcenter-which-isnt-free-uh-oh/