Bitcoin Forum

Mining sounded fun and effortless so I installed GUIMiner and joined Slush's Pool, but I'm only getting about 3.3 Mhash/s and would take months to even get to .05 BTC.   

I have a decent computer....AMD quadcore processor and such, but I think my graphics cards are just weak. I'm using GeoForce 8400 GS and it is really THAT slow????   I don't do any gaming, but it can play HD videos and such, so I'm surprised it just can't mine any faster than that...just pathetic.

nVidia graphics cards are notoriously poor at bitcoin mining, and that particular card is a bit old. 3.3MHs is probably about the most you'll ever get.

Unfortunately, the ability to render video isn't a good benchmark for bitcoin mining performance.

Yes, it's because your graphics card is crap... and also because it's nvidia, which is significantly worse than AMD for bitcoin mining.

This is actually slightly higher hash rate than I have seen quoted for your card here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

This is low due to two reasons:
1) The GPU is the most important part of your system for hashing, CPU doesn't so much
2) nVidia cards are not as fast as ATI cards due to the differences in architecture

Yeah I think it's hopeless.  I do have an older computer I don't use and maybe could buy a videocard and stick it in there and just run it for mining but not sure if would be worth it with the added electricity and such.  It is an older PC but sounds like the videocard is all that matters.

it is the GPU, in all honestly it's slower because it is a nvidia and it's quite an old one at that. If you want to upgrade, from what I understand AMD cards are the best to go with. However if you want to stick with nvidia and are willing to upgrade at a reasonable price. I'm getting about 90Mh/s with a GTX 560ti from EVGA, not the best, but definitely better than what you're getting right now.

Well I run 6 monitors off of my main desktop and don't want to take a chance of screwing that up by changing out video cards. It was tough enough to find a combination that worked well together.  So maybe I will do some research and try to find an ATI card that will work in my old machine.  However, it doesn't even support PCI Express and would probably have to be PCI or AGP, so that may not leave me with any good options...too bad.

Thank you for information, I too am using a nVidia and getting the same rates and was wonder the same thing.

Lol you could get 15MH/s with that CPU using modern cpu mining software.

As for screwing up monitors by switching to AMD, I don't understand how that could happen.

I didn't think of trying CPU mining instead...maybe an option...better than nothing.

And about switching to AMD, when you have 3 different videocards in one computer, sometimes the drivers are not compatible and some won't work, or work properly.  So that's why I'm not going to risk screwing up the delicate balance of my three Nvidia cards powering my 6 monitors.

Surprised that Nvidia is worse than AMD, they typically have better performance.

Um welcome to the 21st century they make graphics cards capable of powering 4,5,6+ monitors.  Still if your computer has no PCIe there is no point in upgrading.  Really the lifespan of GPU mining is probably very limited at this point as ASICs will eventually push them out the door so you likely aren't missing much.

http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/14-129-274-05.jpg

I know it's been answered already but that isn't a good card for anything these days. Remember mining is about processing power, another reason why it switched from CPU to GPU and not to mention the soon to be somewhat widespread ASIC. I mine about 6-7 mh/s on my laptop which has a shitty duo core processor and a 9600m lol.

Well it's a good card for me for everything else I need it for.  Was inexpensive and runs two monitors and plays HD video files.  I haven't needed it for anything else.

I'm in a similar boat.
The mining hardware table looks to be very useful.

Will have to invest some more money!

I wasn't serious about the CPU mining as an option. I was trying to put some perspective. But, as you said, it is better than nothing.

I see what you are talking about with the GPUs now. I see you have been out of the game for a while. You only need one AMD card for 6 monitors. That is usually costly and impractical though. If cost is an issue, you could replace your 3 Nvidias with 2x lower-mid end AMD radeon cards.

like these: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161402 with a few mini-dp adapters.

I personally have a 6950 and 6450 powering 5 monitors with room for one more if I get anote mini-dp adapter. I even swapped in a 5830 when my 6950 went for warranty and it kept all my monitor positions. Two of the cards I mentioned above with the adapters will support 8x digital monitors. If you get the expensive mini-dp hub adapters, you can go to 12x.

I think the GPU is too old, get a Radeon 6990 or the newest 79xx series. You'll get higher mhash/s per card. I was able to find a brand new Radeon 6990 the other day :)

I am a newbie miner.  Wondering if the hash rate Im getting is what should be expected?

I have 3X Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7970 OC 3GB
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3
1200W PSU
8GB RAM
AMD Athlon II X2 270 Regor 3.4 GHz
windows 7

I am running Bitminter pool for Bitcoin

1st GPU: 573 Mhps
2nd GPU: 574 Mhps
3rd GPU: 355 Mhps

Another question, why is the 3rd GPU going slower than the other 2?

This look into getting say a radeon 7770 7850 they are both pretty cheap with decent hash rates

You should mine for litecoins. Now that's actually practical and profitable on even an old GPU. :3

you better upgrade your graphic cards and mine LTC at the moment, book for an ASIC and mine with it, once ASICs hit the network, GPU mining won't be profitable considering the power and cooling costs, GPU still profitable for LTC as far as I can tell from personal experience...

I believe the ASIC miners can only do SHA256 and won't be able to mine LTC. So, your GPU should still be OK to mine LTC (for now).

You definitely need and upgrade, and 8400 definitely can't do any better than that.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison#Graphics_cards (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison#Graphics_cards)

I just grabbed an AMD 5970 on ebay for $400. it gets around 800Mh/s Not as amazing as some of the miners numbers but better then 95% of single GPUs on the market. Sure it's pricey for it's age but the best part is I can use it for a couple months and sell it back for 80-100% of it's value :)

how is it possible that many ppl try mining on notebooks? you cannot get a good cooler on it. am i wrong or its a fast way of burning your board?

Just a comparision of my setup:

AMD/ATI XFX Radeon HD5870 vs. AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE
GPU: ~370 mhash/s vs. CPU: ~2.2 mhash/s

Conclusion: Mining on a CPU is useless.

Well they're not really aware of the differences between CPU's and GPU's, and people want was is convenient to them.

My GPU running at full tilt in my laptop (radeon 6770m) doesn't significantly heat up the laptop. And this is an HP we are talking about (they have a terrible corner cooling design).

My CPU, on the other hand, running at full tilt would kill my laptop through overheating (i7 quad, 90+*C and throttling when H264 encoding).

My board will not burn if I just run the GPU. Even overclocked to 850MHz, pulling 110MH/s

My actual concern is the longevity of the battery. When I mine for more than an hour or two, I take the battery out.

So you can't generalize all laptops but I recommend making sure the temps are reasonable (GPU-z and core temp - check both as most heatsinks are combined GPU+CPU) and always removing the battery if you intend to mine for more than a little bit.

Then you are using a terribly inefficient and old CPU mining program. I get 3.9MH/s per core of my non-overclocked 1090t.

(I used pooler CPUminer 2.2.2 64-bit.)

True, my CPU is not a top-notch one anymore, but hey - even your CPU is just at 3.9 mhash/s. Compared to 370 mhash/s, this is a ridiculously low value when you compare CPU vs. GPU in general. If your gfx card is a slow one, and your CPU is doing better - stick to it. For me my GPU is more than 100x faster than my CPU.

I have an 1090T too. That would be 23.4MH/s, which is something but I think isn't worth the power. GPU's are a lot more cost efficient. My Radeon 5750 gets 140MH/s with probably about the same power use as the 1090T would take. (That said, I haven't tried measuring actual power, and it's possible to undervolt the 1090T significantly.)

Mine Litecoins. Neeeeext. Wow newbie area is fun.

You should start mining LiteCoins since it's more profitable.
Here's the list of pools http://www.askminers.com/mining-pools-list
But I suggest notroll.in for startder since you can withdraw at 0,1 LTC and that shouldn't be a problem even with that computer.

You can later change LTC for BTC and in the end you'll have more BTC than you would earn by mining them.

just my 2c

I may try to mine some litecoins as well..sounds good.

Yep. CPU mining is not worthwhile but I am just pointing out it is not as bad as people make it out to be because typically those people haven't used modern CPU miners.

As a comparison, the Radeon 5450 overclocked will get about the same as the 955... while using 1/10th the power.

edit: just re-read your post.
I also notice you are not at all familiar with CPU models or what a core is. I am not going to go into detail but suffice it to say, My CPU can do 3.9 X 6 = 23.4MH/s minus any inefficiency loss for multithreading (I have noticed there is some in CPU mining). Also, the cores in your CPU and mine are the same. I am indicating that your CPU should be able to do 15.4MH/s minus any multithreading efficiency loss.

What video card is that ? model etc ? seems interesting :) thx

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709+600050352&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&IsNodeId=1&Subcategory=48&description=&hisInDesc=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&AdvancedSearch=1&srchInDesc=

Don't even waste you time on Mining.

Mining is DEAD, with all the ASIC units coming out in the last few months it has become unprofitable to do so.


You could invest $50 for an Erupter that will give you 336/Mhps, it will take you around 2 years ATLEAST to get your money back.


Example:
I have been mining with one Erupter, I have so far made  BTC0.06 ($6.00 USD) been mining for 1 month.