The popularity of bitcoin, driven by the rise in its value, has created a community that wants to make money. And many miners at one time purchased powerful video cards for mining, which sooner or later began to malfunction. In such cases, miners try to sell the expensive video card and buy a new one. Should you buy a video card after mining?
Does the video card really spoil from mining?
Bitcoin or other similar coin is mined constantly, 24/7, not allowing farms and individual video cards to rest. Many are convinced that mining cryptocurrency in this mode spoils the video card, but is it really so?
Silicon crystals, which are the basis of the composition of semiconductor chips, are distinguished by their reliability. There are no mechanical elements in crystals that undergo natural wear and tear, so it can work for many years.
But there are also some nuances: the dependence of crystals on temperature and power. Any serious deviations from the normal power supply and temperature can cause degradation of the transistors, leading to damage to the crystals. Also, the soldering points of the chips can be damaged from overheating. And the wrong voltage can break the "strapping" of the chip.
Two more points can be noted:
- If the temperature rises sharply from 90 to 100 degrees, this will cause microcracks in the solder balls, which will cause the chip to lose contact with the board, and the video card may become unusable.
- If the supply voltage is insufficient, you can observe the voltage drop. An increase in strength will cause heat loss. Overheating will sooner or later cause degradation and damage to the video card.
Based on this, we can conclude: mining as such is not dangerous for a video card if the miner monitors the voltage and temperature. It is not uncommon for a graphics card in an untreated gaming PC to break down faster than a graphics card in a well-tended mining farm.
How to choose the right video card
The choice of the miner's video card is based on several parameters.
Inspection
Most often, equipment is properly cleaned before being sold, but the seller will still not be able to make the video card as new as on the day of purchase. Therefore, before purchasing, you should thoroughly study the video card. It is also important to examine the video card for worn spots or screwdriver marks.
Testing
Visual inspection will not give a lot of data, so it is important to test it before purchasing a card. In any toy that requires a lot of resources, problems can begin in 2-3 hours. If this time is not available, you can install diagnostic programs and run a stress test. For example, FurMark will be able to detect the problem in about half an hour.
Guarantee
If it really is a GPU from a mining farm, it is most likely still under warranty. If so, you should ask for documents and a guarantee in case of a warranty case (if the screwdrivers on the card void its warranty).
Factory settings
Most often, video cards are not only used for mining cryptocurrency, but they are also reflashed in a special way. Therefore, if the video card came up and it was decided to buy it, you should reset its settings to the factory settings. To do this, you need to download a special utility on the developer's website.
