How to detect mining activity.

[Sirgeorge]

How do you detect if a card has been used for mining? I've got a decent deal on a couple of cards that I wish to make sure are as described before I buy them.

[Damascus]

It's basically impossible unless they modded the BIOS

[hconverse02]

1 minute ago, Sirgeorge said:

How do you detect if a card has been used for mining? I've got a decent deal on a couple of cards that I wish to make sure are as described before I buy them.

It won't make much of an impact whether or not it was used, because a used card could have the same signs as a mined card, just because of normal gpu wear and tear (such as lower overclocking than stock or coil whine)

[Sirgeorge]

5 minutes ago, hconverse02 said:

It won't make much of an impact whether or not it was used, because a used card could have the same signs as a mined card, just because of normal gpu wear and tear (such as lower overclocking than stock or coil whine)

In that case, how do you detect normal wear and how do you use that to estimate usage? I know for a fact that you can detect power-on hours on a hard drive (though not entirely foolproof as I've changed a few numbers before myself) but is there any way to get such data for a graphics card or to "read the wear" so to speak?

[hconverse02]

1 minute ago, Sirgeorge said:

In that case, how do you detect normal wear and how do you use that to estimate usage? I know for a fact that you can detect power-on hours on a hard drive (though not entirely foolproof as I've changed a few numbers before myself) but is there any way to get such data for a graphics card or to "read the wear" so to speak?

Honestly just ask the person if it had been used for mining or just gaming use and if you like their answer, get the card you want.  EDIT: From some experience with graphics cards in general, you usually can't tell the difference, in performance or physical quality.

[Snipergod87]

1 minute ago, Sirgeorge said:

In that case, how do you detect normal wear and how do you use that to estimate usage? I know for a fact that you can detect power-on hours on a hard drive (though not entirely foolproof as I've changed a few numbers before myself) but is there any way to get such data for a graphics card or to "read the wear" so to speak?

You can't.

[Mick Naughty]

Why does it matter if it was minded on? Used is used. Just get it if the deal is so great.

[vanished]

If they were an experienced miner, it's probably in better condition than a card that was used for gaming.  The people who mine seriously don't just push everything to the max like people do for gaming, they fine tune them for maximum efficiency, which often means undervolting and even underclocking to maximize performance per watt, rather than just raw performance.  This means the wear and tear is probably minimal, and temps will have been good its whole life, and perhaps more importantly, very consistent - no load and unload cycles like gaming cards go through.

[Imbellis]

As a person who has mined on some older GPUs I've had on hand, I've haven't really noticed a difference between any of 'em. In fact, the only GPU I've had coil whine from was an old 770 that I grabbed from a friend - which I know didn't do any mining at all. Hell, he didn't even know what GPU it was at the time.