The World’s Saddest Little Mining Rig

I love the idea of mining bitcoins. In fact, that's what originally brought me into cryptocurrency. Ever since I first learned about the SETI program, I always wondered why we couldn’t use our computers to make money. Then bitcoin came around and suddenly this was a possibility. I tried it a little bit shortly after bitcoin was created but, due lack of a decent computer and the birth of ASIC miners, I became disheartened and lost interest. Earlier this year, I got pulled back in when I discovered that it was possible to mine and make a profit using just GPUs. I was thrilled at the idea and after some discouragement from my wife, managed to convince myself to build a little rig.

Now I haven’t gone all in on my mining rig. For me, it’s more of an experiment and hobby than a business. I would like to get more of my money into crypto but for now I’m quite happy keeping my day job. Yes, my mining rig is making money but it will be at least a year before I ever start to see any actual profit and by that time, the difficulty will probably be at a point where I barely cover the costs.

I’m not a computer wizard by any stretch. I’ve built a few computers before but never really attempted much optimizing or overclocking, which is fairly important when it comes to mining. Every extra little bit of power you can milk out of the system will help to increase your profits. To help simplify this process I started doing some research on mining setups and how other people were handling this task. Eventually, I stumbled upon a free Linux operating system that very simply handles everything a starting miner might struggle with, nvOC Mining OS. The beauty of this OS is that you can install it on a 16GB flash drive so you don’t even need to buy a harddrive for the mining rig. Being on the flash drive also allows you to start configuring your mining before you turn it on for the first time. Running Linux might sound a little intimidating but if you have everything configured before you first turn it on, you don’t ever have to touch anything on the rig. Pretty awesome for a beginner like me.

Ok, now let's get to my sad little rig. I decided to just start off small and order myself two GeForce GTX 1070’s plus all the other required equipment:

1x H110 Pro BTC+ motherboard
2x PCI-E Risers
1x ATX power cord
2x GeForce GTX 1070
1x Intel G4400 Processor
1x 750W power supply
1x 4GB DDR4 RAM
1x 32GB Flash Drive

I was trying to keep costs down since I wasn’t super confident I would even be able to get everything operational. Besides all computer parts, I needed something to use as a case. While walking through Home Depot I spotted a small storage rack that I thought would work. So I grabbed that, along with a pack of felt to use as a buffer between the computer parts and the rack as well as a pack of small zipties. With all the necessary supplies, I was ready to get building. I had a few issues with getting the risers set up properly as they were something I’d never used before. But once I realized that the key to using them was to plug everything into the matching socket… everything began working for me. As I’m sure you noticed in the pictures, I have a fairly interesting monitor (and dog). An old TV was the only thing I could find with an HDMI plug, so it became my mining monitor by default.

the cursed pci-e risers

I was now officially a bitcoin miner! Okay I wasn't going to be mining bitcoin with this setup but it just sounds so much more believable than Ethereum miner. My next task, now that I was operational, was overclocking. Thankfully overclocking was built right into the nvOC operating system. I tinkered with the settings a bit and after crashing my rig once, had everything reasonably optimized.

the rig hashing away

Initially I was mining Ethereum but have since switched to ZenCash. I typically make between $3-4 USD per day which I’ve been using to buy other cryptocurrencies and making all-around bad investments. But that’s not the point. I really enjoy having my miner. I had fun setting it up and it’s really cool to be able to check in on it and see all my pennies rolling in. I’ve ordered two more 1070’s which will hopefully be here soon.

I’d be happy to answer any questions anyone has about starting mining or helping to point you in the right direction if you're interested in starting your own mining journey.

Love,
bwar