First post on this forum, so please bear with me. I’m wouldn’t consider myself a ‘novice’ at hardware, as I’ve built numerous PCs in the past, but I’m definitely no expert either.
I recently turned my 2 year old gaming PC into a crypto miner, using my existing NVidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super GPU, MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Plus mobo, Intel Core i7-9700K CPU, Corsair Vengeance LPX Series 16GB DDR4 memory, Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SSD. I initially just wiped the SSD, and downloaded Raven OS onto a flash dive and booted directly from that. Configured Raven OS via the web GUI, and was up and running pretty quickly. Kept the PC tower wide open to prevent overheating, and had zero issues.
After running for a couple of weeks, I wanted to try adding one more GPU. I didn’t want to cram a second card into that PC tower, so I purchased a mining rig frame, as well as a 6-pack of Ubit PCI-E Risers (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076KLJR2Y/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1), and a 5 pack of 120mm fans.
After assembling the rig and transferring the components from my PC, I connected my existing GPU to the riser and powered it with a 6 pin PCI-E power cable, while plugging the other end of teh riser into the larger PCI slot on the mobo. Tried booting, but it failed, and the “VGA” debug light was lit on the mobo, which I interpreted as an issue with the riser connection. I then tried plugging the riser into one of the 4 smaller PCI slots, but got the same result. Tried a different riser, but got the same result. Tired going into the BIOS and changing the PCI settings from auto-detect to Gen 3, but got the same result. I finally just plugged the GPU into the larger PCI slot on the mobo, and was able to boot up and was back to mining within a couple of minutes.
Today I received a new/sealed GPU (EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 XC 12GB). I tried adding it to the other large PCI slot directly on the mobo, but the card was not recognized. I then unplugged the original NVidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super GPU from the mobo, but teh new card was still not being recognized. I’m not sure if I need to install a driver for that card or not (I assumed that these GPUs were basically “plug and play” based on the “How to set up a mining rig…” videos that I had previously viewed). If a driver is needed, I’ll have to research how to install a driver onto a GPU outside of a windows environment.
Any suggestions or help concerning my issue with the PC Risers and the new GPU would be greatly appreciated!!!
Thanks in advance.