10 Rigs down, many solutions to go.
It's the New Year, and Voltron is feeling renewed! After being plagued with a number of problems at the end of the year, I was able to isolate a number of issues and cook up a solution for them.
This was the easiest to solve, but some of you out there may not be aware. Focus on the "Chip", not the "brand". Right now, I focus on the Nvidia GTX 1070 GPU, but it doesn't matter what color it is, how much they charge you, or even how many fans it has. The chip is all you need, so buy the cheapest one! Don't get suckered into buying something super expensive that performs as well as the cheaper brand (PNY and Gigabyte are usually the cheapest).
I ran into a frequent case of the "Kernel Panic's" in December and it was very frustrating. However, I realized that the solution was not the USB, SSD, Motherboard, GPU, Risers, or anything else. In fact, it was much more simple. It was the ISO file (yes, I feel stupid). Apparently, it wasn't downloaded correctly and the ISO file was corrupted before I could even use it. If you are having Kernel Panic issues on boot, make sure you downloaded the FULL ISO File (Ethos was about 7.8 GB).
Gold power supplies are fairly loud, but my Platinum one's are nice and quiet. If you want less noise, buy better power supplies.
I experienced a voltage spike with a couple of my GPUs on Rig #10, which started causing it to reboot every 10 minutes or so (very annoying). Instead of 6 GPUs, I'm running only 4 on #10 and all has been peachy ever since. A 1200 watt power supply is already working pretty hard with 6 GPUs, so don't be afraid to use less and build an extra rig if the same problem arises for you.
Other than that, Voltron is rolling into 2018 with 10 Rigs and ready to grow quickly once more electricity is locked up.
Tie-wraps are the way to go for attaching PCI-E risers to anything, that's all I use anymore. It definitely reduces the amount of problems.
Totally agree, and they are inexpensive!