# Asus b250 expert mining motherboard



## Andi1010 (Oct 29, 2017)

Hi All,

I have been researching this motherboard "asus b250 expert mining motherboard" for quite some time and since it is quite new it seems there is no consensus yet about it, or even enough knowledge of how to use it. Therefore, I would like to hear from someone who has this MB or has enough knowledge about it:
1) Should I use powered USB risers or non-powered?
From what I read, I understood that this MB has dedicated multi-layer protection system for your GPUs and has 3 dedicated 24 pin to connect 3 PSUs, and voltage stabilizer, among many other things to provide enough power to your GPUs and make it safe not to get them damaged from a faulty PSU or electricity fluctuations. However, every video which I have watched about this MB, they ALL use powered risers, and I don't want to follow the crowd just for the sake of everyone else doing it. As I read through ASUS website, they have specially designed this MB to save you money and hassle on unnecessary and extra cabling effort which can lead to a lot of negative side effects, so why everyone is still using powered USB risers with such MB? If your advice is to STILL use powered USB risers, please DO provide detailed technical explanation why you think that this MB is not going to be able to handle 6 GPUs per unit each running at around 100w (after optimization) totaling not more than 700w at worst case scenario per division on the MB (as we have 3 separate divisions)
2) My second question is that, many people claim that only newbies use this MB and this is absolutely not reliable. Do you think so and why? If your claim is that this MB is going to break down and all my 19 GPUs are going to be offline, then let me ask you a question, how soon do you think this MB wil break down? if we agree that this wont happen more than once a year, then do you still think that few hours down out of 365 days does not justify the savings from this MB? CPU, SSD, RAM, Cabling, space, etc...
3) my last question is, could you please refer me to a video or a guide of how to set up this MB, usually most of the videos start from a ready MB fully stacked and they don't go step by step of how to set up this SPECIFIC MB, I know that there are million videos about similar MBs, but I know that this one is DIFFERENT, and to set it there are few MB specific instructions for this MB in particular

Sorry for the long and many questions, but I have really been searching for answers with no success...

Would very highly appreciate your help and support here...


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## micropage7 (Oct 29, 2017)

1. its better you use add on powered since mining eats much power.
2. personally i more agree if how it meet your needs. some use low end boards and they fine but high end board will offer you more features and so.
so back what you need and your money


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## cdawall (Oct 29, 2017)

I don't know who is claiming only newbies use that board. Most bigger groups don't use it because it is a pain to setup. 

The only cards that currently work with 19 cards running are p106 mining cards. Then you need to make sure the os is stable with 19 cards (ethos is a toss up)


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## Andi1010 (Oct 30, 2017)

T


micropage7 said:


> 1. its better you use add on powered since mining eats much power.
> 2. personally i more agree if how it meet your needs. some use low end boards and they fine but high end board will offer you more features and so.
> so back what you need and your money



Thank you for the quick answer,
Do you know by any chance if AMD is going to release another updated driver in Q4 2017 to remove the limit of 13 GPUs
I have seen Bits be trippin doing 13 AMD GPUs and 6 P106, I just feel that it is not fair to have such a limit from AMD while if you are a huge fan of Nvidia you can have all the 19 cards running properly (because P106 is also Nvidia, so you can mix them with other Nvidia  GPUs as well)



cdawall said:


> I don't know who is claiming only newbies use that board. Most bigger groups don't use it because it is a pain to setup.
> 
> The only cards that currently work with 19 cards running are p106 mining cards. Then you need to make sure the os is stable with 19 cards (ethos is a toss up)



Thanks for the tip, yes I think ethos is great or any other Linux distribution, although some people like Bits be trippin claim that it can also run on windows as well, assuming you are not going to use the rig for anything else other than mining, maybe worth giving a try, since tuning, tweaking and playing around with the configuration is so much easier and faster 

Do you have any idea if AMD will remove the limit of 13 GPUs sometime in 2017 or this is something we should not expect anytime soon?


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## cdawall (Oct 30, 2017)

Unless I am mistaken that was a mix of amd and Nvidia they have gotten 21 to work on windows on that board as well with a splitter, but it still requires a mixed rig.


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