Need advice/tips on running 2 PSU w/ 1 Mobo Setup Safely

Mining
1

Hi guys,

I need some advice/tips on a safe/stable/reliable 2 PSU mining setup. What are some good practices to note, what’s to avoid?? I’d love to hear from others who have a similar setup, please share your experience/wisdom on the topic, I’d love to hear it!

I was trying to do a 2 PSU setup on my board, I’ll explain what I’m planning to do, some questions/concerns, and then I’ll list my parts. Any and all feedback welcomed, especially if you have successful experience in 2-PSU setups for one Motherboard that you’ve been using.

General parts list:

  • PSU#1 Antec 620 Watt Eco
  • PSU#2 EVGA 1000 Watt G2 Supernova
  • Motherboard: Asrock H81 BTC pro R2.0
  • GPU: 4x R9 Fury’s

My Wiring Plan:

=====================================================
Connection Wiring Plan:

PSU#1[Antec 620 Watt Eco ] will connect to:

  • Motherboard + CPU(G3258) +RAM + SSD
  • All PCI-e risers
  • 1x GPU R9 Fury

PSU#2 [EVGA 1000 Watt G2 Supernova] will connect to:

  • 3x GPU R9 Fury’s

=====================================================

Other notes:

  • PSU#2 will be grounded with a paperclip#electrical tape in order to be switch operated
  • PSU#2 will be turned on(the 3x GPU’s) prior to turning on the motherboard based on information from here
  • 4x GPU R9 Fury uses 2x 8pin pci-e power connectors each! Neither of my PSU’s have 2x 8 pin PCI-E connectors so I have to buy adapters… hope it’ll be ok… I have to buy 4 adapters that will convert 6pin to 8pin PCI-e

I read a thread arguing whether or not to power the both the risers and the motherboard molex connectors here And, I have concluded that it’s probably a good idea to power both, but please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong from your experience.

What do you guys think? Do I have anything to concern about? Does this sound safe? Any recommendations on making this better/safer? Am I missing anything in my logic/plan? Anything that I’m doing wrong?

TIA.

Hopefully I can post pics soon too.

2

Figure out your total power needs. You may be able to run the 4 gpus with just the EVGA 1000. But you do have to power all the risers from the master(motherboard power supply) which should be the bigger(1000w) of the 2 if you running 2. Even if you do run 2, the master will be loaded from the other gpus. Also I would invest in a piggyback adapter for the 2nd, that way they are both controlled incase of an emergency shutdown.

3

I burnt a H81 trying to run 2 1000w with 6 R390 with 1 riser hooked to the 2nd because I ran out of connectors! Big mistake! Got lucky it burnt the board instead of a gpu. If you can avoid using 2…avoid it.

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check out add2psu device to connect bridge for 2 PSU.

5

So its always better to have 1 psu instead of 2 or more?
Even if 1 big costs more than 2 small? Is it worth the extra money?

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Yes they are worth the extra! Less headaches. Cheap psus are cheap and you know… you get what you pay for… you may spend a little more on a top of the line. But better efficiency, cleaner power, way better reliability, and a real 10 year warranty(they are built with higher quality parts). I just don’t do 2 anymore. I run a EVGA SuperNOVA 1600 T2 on my 6 390x rigs(got them on sale). It was the best investment rig wise I ever made.

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@s3479 I have figured out my power needs for 4x R9 Fury’s, it’s roughly 300watts per card, plus my system(cpu, mobo, etc.), It’d be around 1600 watts, that’s being generous on overhead too.

Thus, I have two relatively high quality PSU’s the 620watt Antec Eco, and the 1000watt EVGA Supernova G2

Thanks for sharing your experience, that sucks that you burned a board… It’s weird because I’ve read many people who argue to break the load with 2 PSU’s relatively safely, yet, I meet others, like yourself who have burned their boards.

That’s what led me to trying to find out the “Do’s and Dont’s” of a Dual PSU mobo setup.

This guy burned 3 H81’s: https://www.reddit.com/r/litecoinmining/comments/1z99gz/fried_through_3_asrock_h81_pro_btcs/

@tycoon Thanks for bringing that device up, I came across it before, but thought it wasn’t worth it because there seemed to be many successful people with the paperclip+electric tape setup, haha… but I should consider it if it’s going to make the setup safer… Do you use a 2 PSU setup? Do you have first hand experience with a add2psu device? I’d love to hear feedback.

@R0x0r There’s a guy on this forum… can’t remember his name off the top of my head but he posts youtube videos often, and I believe I recall him saying that he prefers to use a 2 PSU setup to break the load/burden/stress off of just 1 PSU to it’s limit. Which let me to making this thread… I’m still thinking there’s a “right way” and a “wrong way” to do this, or I should, better vs worse way via good wiring practices… not sure, still researching myself… I’m using two high quality PSU’s though, and it’s true, it costs considerably less.

Thanks again to all who have posted! Keep them coming! Would love to hear more feedback! Surely there are more people out there who are using a 2 PSU setup!

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@cryptomined Care to share any of your wisdom/tips/insight/advice on running 2 PSU’s safely on an Asrock H81 BTC pro R2.0 ? Do you run any 2 PSU setups? Any do’s and don’t’s for a safe+stable setup?

Cryptomined is a guru and super experienced mining builder in my book, haha. :slight_smile:

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I was planing to use as i have 1600 w EVGA G2 PSU and my current usage is around ~1500 W, as my mobo support 7 gpu so I was researching on it.
check out this: - YouTube

Even using wires in properly work as well its your choice.

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LOL no sorry i have not actually used 2 PSU’s in any of my rigs. different people say different ways of setting it up, so i was never able to find a definitive method. i recommend just sticking to one PSU if you can, like an EVGA G2 series.

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What do you guys think about this PSU: Enermax MaxRevo 1500W? It has 80+ Gold certification and it costs here around 225$

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ok i see, it comes with 4 8pin cables that each have 8 8pins on them? so 8 8pins all together?
http://www.enermax.com/home.php?fn=eng/product_a1_1_3&lv0=1&lv1=43&no=159

it looks ok
but the 12V is on 6 rails
12V1 12V2 12V3 12V4 12V5 12V6

1 rail is always better IMO

im not sure how it would be, plugging 2 GPUs into each 2x8pin cable… i have no experience with this PSU and have not really looked into it in the past.

where are you buying from?

you can’t get the EVGA’s? I think its always worth it to get 1 single 12V rail like the EVGA 1300G2 or 1600G2 have.

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Here where i live we dont have many EVGA PSU’s…
We have (above 1000w):
EVGA SuperNova 1000 G1 - 190$
EVGA SuperNova 1000 G2 - 245$
EVGA SuperNova 1200 P2 - 290$
EVGA SuperNova 1600 T2 - 465$
EVGA 1000 GQ - 185$

And thats all the EVGA PSU’s above 1000w here in Romania… So I wont buy them cause they cost too much, and I need a big one (at least 1600w), which we only have the 1600 T2 which is way too expensive…

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You guys should watch this video about PSU rails. It really helps.

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@tycoon Thanks for that video, making me consider the product.

@cryptomined Thanks for your input, greatly appreciate you chiming in man, cool to know that you stick to single PSU solutions… I have a EVGA G2 PSU… but only 1000 watts… I might pick up an EVGA G2 1600 watt (highest wattage output they sell I believe…), but even then… it will only be able to power 4 (maybe 5) R9 Fury’s comfortably… while the motherboard (Asrock H81 btc…) supports 6 slots.

@R0x0r Thanks for sharing the rail video. Good information, I always preferred single rails… seemed more reliable and stable, always a good reminder for why.

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@dubie You have experience with 2 PSU’s on one motherboard right? Care to share your wiring setup? Which entities are wired to PSU#1 and PSU#2 on your setup. Presumably your setup has been reliable correct? Do you use an add2psu device, or did you just do a simple wire ground to your 2nd PSU(the one that’s not connected to the motherboard/controlled by the power switch to the mobo).

We’re trying to figure it out… haha… so many nay sayers out there, but I know… there are some people out there who had it work out fine for them… surely you are one of them? :slight_smile:

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Well, my evga came with a tester plug (which wires the ground on the one
PSU) that had to be connected to the motherboard power supply cable for it
to work. I split the load evenly… 3 GPU each power supply with the
slightly larger one also powering the motherboard via 12 pin connector…
nothing fancy.

18

you can get a leadex 2000W :slight_smile: i have one of those, you could probably power 5-6 fury with that sucker :sunglasses:
though not sure if they are available in your area, last I checked they only seemed available in europe and asia.

as far as that video goes… single rail is better than multi rail, especially with power hungry cards… just get it from a dependable company, like EVGA

EVGA is tried and tested… i think everyone here can confirm EVGA does it all.

that being said, Corsair also make good high end high watt PSUs, but they usually cost an extra arm over EVGA.

Right now for all my systems, gaming and mining combined, I use 3 EVGA 1300G2, 1 Leadex 2000W and 2 Corsair AX1200i

I personally wont buy PSUs from any ohter company but those… and since the EVGA here are a good price - ill probably always be buying EVGA 1300G2 or 1600G2 from now on… the P2 series isn’t worth the extra money IMO, BUT if its your only choice it will save a bit on electricity… the T2 series… well I really dont think that increase in price is worth it, but again you are getting better efficiency so depends how much your electricity costs in the end if its worth it.

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I bought one of these and it started smoking the first time I used it.

I just turn the auxiliary PSU on first, and then within a few seconds, power on the main PSU. The auxiliary PSU has to have the 24 pin Jump Starter Bridge and the outlets they are plugged into have to be on separate circuits (if they are 15 A each).

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I run 2 PSU’s mystelf. I’ll be referring to the PSU that powers the motherboard as Master, and the secondary one as slave. Plug the Master PSU into everything on the motherboard. 24 pin, 8pin, and hard drive. For the slave PSU, you need to short the 24 pin. My EVGA units came with a device to do this. Also, make SURE that the power connectors on each graphics card and the PCIe power connectors on each card are from the same PSU. Don’t have multiple PSU’s powering one card as this can and usually will damage it. I have 4 cards, two are running off each PSU. When you boot the system, turn the switch on the slave PSU on first and then boot the system.

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