Mining Damage. Pics welcomed.

[Fever]

Here's my list off the top of my head:

3x PCI-e ports across 2 boards
3x Sapphire 7950 Reference cards
1x Gigabyte WF3 7950
1x Powercolor AX7970
1x Powercolor PCS+7970
1x MSI 7970 Power Edition (Lightning)
1x Seasonic 1250w
1x Silverstone Strider 1500w

And quite a few fans across multiple cards.

That that about sums it up.

 

[Fever]

Well, can't take a pic without taking apart the whole rig...

Simply solder a wire at the back of the MoBo on each of the damaged pins (12v, yellow wires I guess) like in the pic and connect them directly to the PSU wires (after having pulled them out of the PSU connector).

I have 2 MoBos running like this for 4 months without any issue (mining 24/7 with 3 and 4 280x respectively).

While that will save your 24 pin connectors, I'm not too sure about the copper traces in the PCB. Probably not ideal.

 

[manu2b]

Finally, a couple of pics (no problem with the PCB). That's the P8Z68. The Sabertooth 990FX got the same treatment.

 

[Fever]

Ouch.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Just a *little* burnt.

Thanks manu2b, now I know what to do to revive my old mobo

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Well the 270x is on the verge of death now.
I noticed it was unstable when I was mining on it but I was always able to get it stable again so I ignored it, but ever since I stopped mining and folding on it, it's been an awful card. Constantly crashing and artifacting in my brother's PC.

I was finally able to track down an email address for Sapphire RMA, IIRC I have until January until the 2 year warranty wears out.
So today I'll flash back the original BIOS and send the card in.

 

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Well the 270x is on the verge of death now.
I noticed it was unstable when I was mining on it but I was always able to get it stable again so I ignored it, but ever since I stopped mining and folding on it, it's been an awful card. Constantly crashing and artifacting in my brother's PC.

My Dual-X Sapphire 270X 4GB lost both of its fans over the weekend. Went in there and it was running at 85 degrees. One look at the fans and I knew why... put my fingers on the top of the card and it was vibrating like crazy.

So, I ripped both fans off and zip tied a 120mm ultra high speed fan to it. Now it runs at 58 degrees.

I hate those Dual-X fans.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

My Dual-X Sapphire 270X 4GB lost both of its fans over the weekend. Went in there and it was running at 85 degrees. One look at the fans and I knew why... put my fingers on the top of the card and it was vibrating like crazy.

So, I ripped both fans off and zip tied a 120mm ultra high speed fan to it. Now it runs at 58 degrees.

I hate those Dual-X fans.

Maybe they are sleeve bearing fans??

 

[Oklahoma Wolf]

I believe they are. Actually tried to take those fans apart to see if I could lube them. One came apart the way it should, the other had the fan blades pull right off the shaft, leaving the shaft still down inside the motor.

Total junk. I'll have to order a better 120mm fan than I put on there, as the only thing I had was sleeve bearing, but it should hold up for the week or so I need it to.

Got another card needing a fan job, too - a Gigabyte 7950 refurb from eBay. Two weeks of mining with that one and two of the three fans had slowed down significantly. Fortunately, the Windforce fans are much easier to lube so they're all at 100% for now. That card will get a pair of 92mm fans, I think.

 

[Fever]

Failed Dual-X 280X. Nice enough pop to knock the copper trace out of the PCB!

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Woah

 

[NiHaoMike]

Thus far, the only mining hardware I had break down was a cheap Allwinner A20 tablet. It no longer boots but will go into USB bootloader mode. No obvious damage so I suspect the cheap MLC Flash died. Not worth fixing (though I might play with the bootloader later on) but at least it had already paid for itself.

 

[NiHaoMike]

Just had an old Nook Color break down - doesn't boot anymore. I'm not too surprised since it was crashing more and more often over the last few months. What is surprising is that it won't boot from the SD card either (which I recall should be able to boot it no matter how trashed the internal Flash is) or even show up as a USB device. On opening it, there's no visible damage but one voltage regulator gets unusually hot as soon as power is connected. It's a BGA package (very difficult to rework) so that's the dead end. Time to retire it to the parts bin...

I guess nearly a year of 24/7 mining, not to mention a few years of use as a normal tablet before that, isn't too bad. If the cost is to be taken as the $200 I originally paid for it, then it was just past halfway to break even, but that's clearly not a correct analysis since it was not bought for mining in the first place.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Wait, so you mined on a tablet??

 

[NiHaoMike]

Not just one tablet, a cluster of old tablets and cheap smartphones. Also a few Pogoplugs operating as supervisors. I had the Nook mining Realbucks (very profitable when it first came out, now the difficulty level has increased dramatically) since the mining software is pretty unstable to begin with.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Ohh i see now. Like when people mined on Rpi's

 

[Fever]

Anddddddd another one bites the dust. This time, our lucky winner is a Gigabyte 7950 WF3.

Luckily I picked up 4x RX 480 today to pick up the slack. Maybe this card died of jealousy.

 

[NiHaoMike]

My two ZTE Paragons went down last night. They still turn on, but won't boot. Entering into the bootloader and doing a factory reset doesn't change that. I was able to get it into "QDL" mode and get it to be seen by the PC but I'm not sure where to go on from there. (If someone knows, it would be well appreciated!)

At $5 each (Black Friday deal), they have paid for themselves many times over.

 

[rescuetoaster]

What's the return on mining with mobile hardware like that?

 

[NiHaoMike]

I was getting nearly $100/month mining Perk with 2 cheap smartphones and two old tablets last Thanksgiving, but the difficulty level has increased significantly over the last year. Still worth mining provided you can get some cheap smartphones or have some old devices lying around unused. The more experienced coiners like myself often choose to move on to more profitable but less proven coins.