Found PCIe splitter:
1 to 3 https://www.aliexpress.com/item/USB-...0-aa6035d6b366

1 to 4 https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1-Po...0-aa6035d6b366

Also found aluminium profiles that should be good for case/frame: http://www.valuframe.co.uk/Connectin...m-Profile.html

That aluminium frame is the same stuff I'm using. Got it from RS Components who (somewhat surprisingly) were the cheapest, though I have found someone on Ebay since selling it a little cheaper in bulk.

http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/products/8508476/

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/20x20-Alum...-/272763151729

One thing to be aware of with the cheaper (ie non-genuine Bosch Rexroth) aluminium extrusion is that they're usually 5mm slot (instead of 6mm slot). The fixings for 5mm slot tend to be harder to find and more expensive.

Those PCI expanders are interesting. At that price it might be worth getting some to experiment with but since they split from a single lane (1X), I wonder if it will affect the performance of the cards ....

On my old PC GTX 1080Ti running on PCI-e 1.1 slots interface load for card on x16 is 1-2%, card running on x4 is 3-4%. So I guess on x1 it would be about 15% on gen 1.1 . On gen 2 or gen 3 it would be a lot less.

AMD cards run on new motherboard with PCI-e 3.0 slots but unfortunately GPUz does not show interface load for these cards.

Another thing that had come to my mind is that you can get Expresscard to PCI-e adapter , then PCI-e 1 to 4 multiplier and run 4 desktop cards from laptop but not sure if laptop BIOS would correctly recognise all of the GPU's. There are also mini PCI-versions if you do not have express card slot but that would mean that laptop needs to be opened up.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EXP-GDC-La...38.m2548.l4275

Interesting.

It'd certainly be fun to try stuff like that but, from a practical point of view, after you've added up the cost of all the adaptors and your time, you could probably get a cheap motherboard, CPU, etc and knock together a rig for not much more. Common desktop components will probably hold their value better too than obscure laptop adaptors and splitters.

Some useful advice/info about the upcoming fork ....



What Every Bitcoiner Should Know About 'Bitcoin Cash'
Article Link: https://news.bitcoin.com/what-every-...-bitcoin-cash/

Bitcoin Cash: Why It's Forking the Blockchain And What That Means
Article Link: https://www.coindesk.com/coindesk-ex...ng-blockchain/


The Future of “Bitcoin Cash:” An Interview with Bitcoin ABC lead developer Amaury Séchet
Article Link: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/future-bitcoin-cash-interview-bitcoin-abc-lead-developer-amaury-séchet/


Fork Watch: ‘Bitcoin Cash’ Support Grows as August 1 Draws Near
Article Link: https://news.bitcoin.com/fork-watch-...-1-draws-near/



More info/links:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2040221.0
https://www.bitcoincash.org/
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-cash/

I guess this contributing to Bitmain not releasing any new batches at the moment? I've been watching the L3+ and S9 for a couple of weeks now, having concluded that GPU mining is a complete waste of time if you have to pay anything at all for power. My GTX980ti is making £1 a day after electricity costs, which means an ROI of a year :( I'll run it for a month to recoup the ebay fees and then sell it on.

They announced that they were suspending payment by Bitcoin for a few days before/after the fork but that shouldn't affect manufacturing. I guess they've just taken as many orders as they can handle for the present manufacturing batch.

Mining with a single graphics card certainly isn't going to make a lot of money quickly; you need to scale up. It also depends on how you look at it: If you're looking at a complete ROI (ie recovering the total cost of all the hardware) then it can take a while. The hardware retains some value though, so you should take that into account. In reality you're into profit as soon as you catch up with depreciation. Also consider that, unless your aim is to pay off any investment with money earned, the chances are that any Bitcoin you earn now may be worth far more in future (although, arguably, simply buying Bitcoin as an investment may be a better option for some people). If Bitcoin ever gets to the price some have predicted, your £1/day profit may turn out to be more like £200/day or more. And remember, once your rigs are up and running, whether you're earning a little or a lot, you're making money for doing absolutely nothing.

Hmm that is an interesting way of looking at it. I was fooled by Nicehash's sales calculator tbh, and its 48 day month and was expecting the card to pay for itself in 3-4 months, then I'd buy another and keep going.

Even with your approach its hard to justify spending lots on GPUs for a pound a day when an S9 can do 10-20 times that for the price of 3 used 980s.

True. But the Antminers are a riskier investment. They only mine one algorithm and, if they suddenly become unprofitable miners, for whatever reason, they'll be practically worthless.

Having said that, they can make a better investment if all goes well. Checking my stats, my Antminer S9 is averaging about £10 per day (£300/month) right now (not counting electricity because it's at my customer's premises :) ). I haven't kept an accurate record of its earnings, but I reckon it's just about paid for itself by now in the 6 months or so that I've had it. While it's still a profitable and fully functional device, it's probably still worth a fair bit, so I guess in that way I'm already in profit, assuming it doesn't fail any time soon.

Just found out that the electricity at my workshop is now 14p a unit compared to 8p in 2015 when I last had a bill :-( That means my 980 has earned £21 and used £19 of electricity doing it, and since I have 2 years of electricity to pay for now (cos the landlord forgot about it until I reminded him last week) I'll have to sell the card to raise some cash :mad: (unless demand for Ethereum goes up considerably after the fork - seems unlikely?)

It also renders the S9 somewhat pointless since it'd take a year to break even, although I guess it'd have some resale value since it would become unprofitable for me a lot sooner than someone with free electricity! How the L3+ would work out remains to be seen, since I don't believe the sales calculator on Nicehash.

Bonfire somewhat rained on :(

Just switched tariffs at home and got 12.8p :rolleyes: