Coin Box: Alpha

The Why:

Coinbox started because... I could. Over the past several years I had upgraded my main pc almost completely to the point where I had effectively replaced all the parts. (Ship of Theseus Lmao.) Anyway, having all these parts siting around felt like a waste, especially in a time where they were so valued.

I thought about setting up a home NAS. I mean, at least it gives the parts something to do. But then I had a much better idea....

My political disposition towards cryptocurrency mining aside, setting up a mining rig would be extremely profitable, especially for someone with no reliable source of income.

The What:

The parts I had lying around for the machine were an 8700 (non k), GTX 1080 FE, 2x8 2666Mhz Corsair Vengeance, and a Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon. Notice the lack of case and power supply. I hadn't upgraded my case at the time, nor gotten new storage, so I was faced with a roadblock...

For the case.....

I was planning on upgrading my case in the near future, but couldn't afford to at the time so I devised a plan...

I was able to rescue an old amazon box from the recycling bin, it was just barely big enough to house the motherboard and the GPU. I cut slits into the side for IO and ventilation, and then plopped in the mother board.

For the storage...

I wasn't really sure what I needed for storage. I had a couple of *very* old 5.25 hard drives that I had torn from old machines of times past, but I knew they were going to be *very* slow and I didn't really wanna have to try and use them. Luckily, the software I eventually used (spoiler alert) is able to be run directly off a USB thumbstick, even if not recommended.

For the power...

Like I said earlier, I hadn't yet upgraded my power supply in my main computer (even though I definitely need to), so I was tasked with finding a new one.

Remember those computers I mentioned earlier? Well I didn't bother saving the power supplies from any of them. Other than being so dusty and a fire hazard that I'd be a felon for plugging them in, they were all very weak, and proprietary.

Anyway, I ended up going with this 80+ bronze psu from EVGA. Its 600w, trash, but most importantly, cheap. Remember, everything I have to buy for this project pushes back my ROI by a little bit.

The How:

I originally was going to use NiceHash OS. I had used both the normal NiceHash miner on my main computer, as well as the NiceHash quick miner whenever I wasn't using it. While this was a relatively smooth experience, I decided to go with a different OS. I wanted to make sure I was maximizing my potential profits, and various reddit threads suggested operating systems other than NiceHash OS for that.

After a while of debate, I settled on Hive OS. Its free (for my needs, at least), open, and easy. All I had to do was use the setup wizard, input my account info and stuff, then flash it onto the thumb drive from earlier. After I stuck the stick in the hole ₕₑₕₑ, I was done.

Here comes the money!

I decided, after some very intense reddit searching, that I was going to use T-Rex miner with OHMYGODANETHPIL. If you don't know what either of those means, it doesn't matter.

Okay, the miner was up and running, now what? I wait....

To be honest, this was the hardest part. I have the patience of a toddler, so this was to be expected.

Anyway, after a while the rig settled on around 30MH/s. This is certainly better than the 0MH/s I was making before, so this was definitely a success!

If/when crypto crashes, I'm either going to turn the setup into a NAS or Folding@Home rig.

Anyway, join me next time when I take a year to actually put this monstrosity of a miner in a case!