Re-ordered Asus cards to the end, now they work, but.
The slot 3 card has been disappearing.
I opened the case, all 3 fans on card 3 are spinning. all power leads plugged in. not sure what the issue is. Formerly, Asus card on that slot did not work consistently. Perhaps slot is the issue, or something else.
For now, just let it chug and make some money.
Seeing how the Asus cards like getting more airflow, as they are not breathing in the longer-card hot exhaust beside them so much anymore.
All eight cards working after I shut it off to re-seat card3 and reroute some power cables so two cards share two power cables instead of them both getting power from one cable each.
Note: removed crossbar which was ostensibly to brace similar-height cards with its foam strip on bottom, but I suspect it may have been stressing the power wires to one or more cards instead.
So far conclusion: bad power cable sextet from PSU was okay with power up to 80W range for ETH mining, but in the higher-draw settings useful for Autolykos, it didn’t seem to be able to handle it. Not even using only HALF of the sextet by using a splitter and supplying other half of card with another seemed to work.
That sextet is just not doing to be used.
Results after half an hour:
It is working, and as with all problems, it had a cause. What the cause was, to my surprise, was just a bad power cable sextet.
However, my Asus temps are better since the shorter Asus cards are in the far end of the motherboard, and they are next to a Colorful long card where the fan blades are somewhat symmetrically broken off, so that card’s fan gets the best airflow in the entire case to make up for it, and, as a result, that card is the coolest of the Colorfuls, so that worked out well while I source a replacement fan for the card.
Outside temperature is 84F/29C so the rig is cooling REALLY well considering its environment (outside.)