Be Careful With Bad Quality PCI-E Risers for Crypto Mining
Over the years I have seen quite a lot of defective PCI Express risers, but the recent boom in crypto mining and the demand for PCI-E Risers that use USB 3.0 cables has skyrocketed. Since these are being made in China because of the price and quite a lot of busnesses are already relying on producing these boards for moving away your video cards from the motherboard things are getting worse...
Quality control is almost non existent anymore and there are stupid mistakes being made in the production, mistakes and issues that can result in you getting expensive video cards and/or other hardware burned. It is good that most of the time there is no permanent damage being done by defective PCI-E extenders, they just don't work, but still the possibility is there to get things damaged.
What I'm seeing lately as a trend is regarding the soldering of components on the PCBs, itis really bad - either so little solder is being used that components are barey held in place and making electrical contact (some actually don't and as a result either don't work or break connection from time to time) or there is too much solder used that it is shorting multiple connections.
Usually it is not much of a deal in either case as it is more often on the data pins and the extender does noo function and with some soldering skills you can easily fix the issue youerself. However if it there is a problem with electrical contacts being shortened things might get a bit worse... so it is alway best to check first and then install the extender boards in a mining rigs!
If you have a question or want to add something, then please leave a comment below.
Did you like what you have just read? Check my other posts on steemit @cryptos
good post Bro. As an electronic tech for 40+ years and learning to solder when I was about 8 (56 now) I have seen so many solder / production problems. Nowadays almost all cards and boards are wave soldered, and I can tell you as a tech that used to babysit these machines it is a pain to get them running the way YOU, and all of us would like to see. As you recommend, LOOK at your boards ! you can see where there is sloppy work, take your time and FIX them, (it's really not hard to learn to solder) before applying power. But hey, it's your money ... just a thought.
Read More, Reason More ... JTS
The PCI-E riser boards are usually soldered by hand in China and while there are some with really good solering, there are others with crappy one and then there are the ones with the solder leaking and shorting multiple connections. Then these boards apparently do not go through any quality control and get shipped to customers... not the way to do things properly, but some of the miners ar also to blame as they are looking to save cost from everything and go to the cheapest option.
I've been one of those miners before. Was too focused on that initial ROI, being as cheap as possible.
I learned my less and pay a little more for quality. Always worth double-checking too, I watched someone repair my phone in Hong Kong once, and saw that he forgot to put the battery back in before gluing it together. Accidents happen and with these super-cheap no-QC products, you're asking for trouble.
hey dude ,very nice blog and articles ,i already voted for them . keep it real & cheers :)
You also have to be careful of those Molex -> PCI-E power cables.
2 years ago, I had milk-create mining rigs setup at a friend's house (he had cheaper power than me, so we made a deal)
One day I noticed one of the GPU's wasn't responding. He said everything looked okay and the other 3 GPUs were mining.
2 days later I stopped by, and found a Molex -> PCI-E power cable had melted!
That was a bit of a wake up call. It would have been terrible if I'd caused his house to burn down! I don't skimp on quality to save a quick buck anymore.
P.S. You have a typo "electricalc ontacts" should be "electrical contacts".
4-Pin Molex to PCI-E Power is not a good idea, even if you think that everything should be fine with the cables you have available and make sure you do not overload the power lines on the PSU... then suddenly the connectors on the cables start failing you.
More up to date yet similar problem are the SATA power to Molex power adapters, though there is a solution for that as well in order to minimize the possible issues: http://cryptomining-blog.com/8792-dual-sata-power-to-4-pin-molex-power-adapter-cable/
Good post I bet you it's the rush mentality just getting as much out there as fast to get the profits. They probably figured out you can't do much about getting bad ones so it's "collateral damage" and they just move on, plus soon a new version will be built.
Probably nobody cares about warranty on these as they are pretty cheap anyway, even if one or two are deffective, unless of course you get a whole batch of bad ones... but still not Ok to not even check them.
It is already somethign that you expect to happen when you buy risers directly from China, but with a local reseller that sells them at a premium you expect that they will at least do a check a couple of them from a batch they recieve before start shipping to customers. That is not happening either in most cases.
makes me mad that people don't understand the simple sentence that my grandad left me with 'buy cheap, buy twice' - over the years i've stuck with certain brands because of the quality control for sure. good post, i hate seeing buckets of cheap mp3 players that took six-eight week to cross oceans to fill up warehouses with crud.
good post @cryptos
So, now I am interesting to hear more about mining and how I can get into without any Know-how. I guess there are companies they do it for you?
I do not understand about mining, but this information will useful for mining lover. nice posting! :)
Just posted a My first mining rig build and had to disclaim at the end that the PCIs are trash. theyre also the number one option on amazon so I am sure a lot of people are buying them without thinking (like we did haha)
can anybody recommend some brands and models?