Bitcoin Forum

Any chance of mining on a usb graphics card?
Something like this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-USB-3-0-to-VGA-Video-Graphic-Card-Multi-Display-Cable-Adapter-/310723313040?pt=UK_Computing_Sound_Vision_Video_Cables_Adapters&hash=item48588d7d90
Any other way that I can mine scrypt via usb?

I have only a laptop so true graphics card mining (i.e. a pci-e graphics card) is not an option at the moment. I know USB ASIC miners exist, but only for SHA-256, and most SHA-256 coins are difficult to make a profit from due to all the ASIC miners out there.
Any usb miners for Scrypt?
Thanks

I don't think using a USB GPU is a solution for mining, it will be too slow. I am not aware of any USB miner for scrypt.

That link you posted, is only a display adapter, it is not a GPU.

What would be awesome is an external PCIe enclosure that connected via USB. Obviously, the USB bus would limit the usefulness of GPUs for traditional use...but for Scrypt mining it would be perfect. Even if it was just a USB -> PCIe X1 it would get the job done with adapters.

I've seen similar units in the past in the concept phase...but have never actually found them available for purchase (at least not for a reasonable price -- insane custom units can be found.) If you could connect 12 cards to a laptop, for example, it would save on power use and also hardware costs.

But seriously will a laptop's power be enough to power 12 cards? You will need 1600watt PSU for 6 GPU. So you will need 3200watt PSU. No laptop give out that much power. So you still need to buy 2 units of 1600 watt PSUs. In that case you might as well build a rig yourself. Since you just need a motherboard, a USB flash drive, a small RAM and a CPU.

Simple answer. Why bother? You will see very little return on you investment.

You probably could, but it would not be profitable.

Well obviously you would need external power -- I'm not suggesting you could mine on the GPUs without an external power source. Haha -- I think you're missing the point.

If you could get a 5xPCIe external enclosure for ~$200...all you need is one of those and a PSU instead of buying a motherboard, CPU, RAM, flash drive, and having another machine/software to maintain -- more points of failure, more udpates required, more heat to dissipate (and therefore, more cooling required), more scripts to run/etc. I'm not suggesting it completely changes the face of mining...but I think an external PCIe enclosure that connected via USB would be convenient for other applications, outside of mining, as well.

When I talked about the power savings...I was referring to the power savings from no additional CPU/Chipset/etc -- all of the PSU power goes directly into the GPUs. This also means you get a bit more bang-for-your-buck out of each PSU. But if you can save up to 10% on power, why not? My power bill is currently over $1000/month -- a 10% savings sounds great.

Sounds good, shipping motherboard alone already save me at least 100$ per rig not to mention about 50watt/h

Mining is pretty much a losing proposition nowadays. The only people that make money are the ones selling mining rigs.

Of course, this presumes that the value of BTC won't go up dramatically in the future, but even so it would be cheaper to straight up buy them.

That's a complete fallacy, actually. Set aside the fact that you're always banking on values going up...even based on current value there is plenty of profit in mining.

Scrypt mining with GPUs, I mined 3700 Bottlecaps and 2100 Megacoins yesterday. If I were to exchange them for USD (CAP/MEC -> BTC -> USD) that would amount to about $75 based on the value at the time I mined them (or slightly higher right now.) All of my mining rigs combine to use 7484 Watts, on average. At my local rate of $0.10/kWh, that amounts to about $18 in power costs (for a net gain of $57 profit yesterday.)

Over the past 60 days, I've mined primarily Megacoin, Litecoin, and Bottlecaps. Recently, the price of Megacoin (and therefore, the difficulty as more people are mining it) has risen...accounting for a larger portion of the value...but my mined portfolio currently sits at a value of $7100 (a profit of about $6000 after power costs. Before 60 days ago, I cashed out everything I mined to pay off the initial investment in hardware.) That would put things on pace for $36,000/year in profit -- not bad for a hobby.

Say what you will about mining profitability, but there is plenty of profit to be had mining scrypt coins. My mining operation pays my Tesla payment and there is plenty left over to save as an investment (I keep over half of what I mine.)

The cool thing is if it ever does stop being profitable...I have a ton of GPUs that are still useful. With more and more work being done on GPUs, a GPU farm will always have uses and value. My hardware has all been paid off with my mining profits (that's the first thing I did) so at this point everything is pure profit (not even taking the resale value into consideration.)

I'm not sure why people continue to spread this false information -- perhaps they're sick of the difficulty rising? More people mining means more investors, more interest, a more secure network, and ultimately more value. It doesn't make sense to discourage new miners -- especially when you're using false information to do so.

Bitcoins aren't profitable to GPU mine, but a lot of altcoins are.

Depends on your electricity costs. Use mining calculator before you commit some buck to this  ;)

I hope this thread is a joke, that thing is a usb-vga adapter, nothing more. It is like wondering if a vga-hdmi cable is able to mine  :D

For people who do not know: to "mine" you need something wich supports OpenCL, not anything randomly related to video or to graphic.

I think the first reply pretty much covered that - OP was simply uninformed and attempting to learn (hence him posting in the newbie section.) The remainder of the thread went a bit off-topic (my bad) although I contributed to it only because I felt it was related to the discussion.

In any case...your response clearly indicates you only read the first post.

sorry but I got a kick out of this post.  Was funny actually.



This is not a video card. 

Give lanelander a Nobel prize. He has a keen eye and he's a genius: the triple threat!

Hey don't lose hope. You can still mine with a great GPU in your laptop with this.

http://www.amazon.com/PE4L-EC2C-PCIe-passive-adapter-ExpressCard/dp/B00B2OO6TO/ref=sr_1_25?ie=UTF8&qid=1381537696&sr=8-25&keywords=laptop+pci-e+extender

you just have to buy a true rated PSU to make it running.

dont think it would work at all and it would not be profitable, for just trying out buy one of the usb 333 asics although they it will not break even its a good point to start and see if mining is something for you :)

I don't mean to wake the undead here but quite a bit has changed since this post and I was just curious if anyone here could chime in? IIRC you can use riser cards at only x1 speed for mining but maybe someone can explain why that is? If pci-e x1 is good enough for mining wouldn't usb 3.0 work?

that MP1 that was posted may be a hardware solution but if i'm trying to use something like that in a linux mining setup I doubt it would be easy

USB graphics card mining?  Sure, first you'd need to.....UHM NOPE.

http://s.quickmeme.com/img/d7/d78ed1fcb4f7e17e19a38450d5c8643f8c8cc492ceb2fc76abd65f309ac90eaf.jpg

Sorry to say, you'd need an actual graphics card with a GPU to even mine the lowest difficulty alt coin, let alone Bitcoin.

The days of home mining on your home PC for anything greater than dust amounts is pretty much over.

You need something like this to even compete:

http://www.thecoinsman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/40-1X33zo7.jpg

It really isn't a level playing ground unless you have mining farm access.  Cheap ASIC equipment, cheap electricity, cheap hosting facility, the whole niner.

Well thanks for stating the obvious and also repeating what has been previously said. I'm comfortable with the current level of x11 mining I do and have experience with hardware. I don't need amateur jim kramers to tell me where to put my time and money, I would just like real technical input from someone who knows what they are talking about to help me tinker.

There do exist USB Scrypt Asic miners if that's what you're looking for.

http://photos.sevarg.net/russ/albums/FSRuss/DSCF4834.sized.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/8bMv8pJ.jpg

http://highoncoins.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/howto-make-gridseed-blade-mining-rig-1-690x370.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/KOnw19r.jpg

http://image.dhgate.com/albu_820803056_00/1.0x0.jpg



None that will result in profit obviously.

no one is talking about scrypt or ASIC's. I already have a pci-e enclosure with GPU's and am once again tinkering

Not talking to you, talking to the OP:

In case you didn't notice, that OP was posted in Oct 2013...

Yea, just noticed the necro, thanks.

right on guys, got a lot done.

Easier to just stick with regular GPU's for mining non scrypt and non SHA256 coins

for example something like this http://www.mfactors.com/pe4h-ec060a-v3-2-pcie-x16-adapter/

thats expensive for my taste but I have something similar. My concern is that whether its a riser, adapter, or enclosure, they all are either pcie,mpcie, or expresscard, which makes it difficult to interface with a barebones linux system or in my case a single board CPU.

if I can get either expresscard or pcie working in SGminer then it would be possible to make something halfway between a powered riser & this enclosure adapter for GPU mining.......in my case x11 mining.

I forget where I saw them, but I know there are things like these out there that have a GPU connector to USB, and then a PCI-e port coming in for power.  Still though, you're most likely not going to make a profit.  I'll post back here if I find the product.

Why reply to a thread that was probably answered for more than a year now? That doesn't make sense.

No point in posting it though, because the question probably was answered way back 2013. But if you want to point it out still, that's fine. It can also be used for future reference.

dothebeats i resurrected the thread because I'm curious. There was no clear answer at the time because everyone was OOOOOOOOOOOO ASICS111!!! as far as profit I can make one with a setup like this (already am making profit but would like to decrease space & power consumption -->>> decrease heat).

whether or not I get some clear advice I will eventually hook up a rpi or another board to some external cards to mine x11

don't do it, it's a thing of the past, not profitable anymore, unless you use some super private miner, and also free eletricity and you have already made roi with your cards

Don't buy a gpu dedicated to mining. It's not going to return anything. It's either you're a large mining giant or you're a person offer goods and services.

I have a box with an internal PSU and fans to plug in 6 GPU's and I can easily get more. The only issue is again it uses a PCIe-->USB-->PCIe interface or PCIe-->USB-->expresscard interface. it already mines in windows but once again i'd like to use it on a simple linux board

Only ur usb graphics burns and dies out . There nothing to mine with it .

Has it been profitable yet?  Or have you profited from it?
I don't expect it bringing anything in. Unless you're mining alts. 

Use ASIC for them. If you use a fan and a heatsink attached to it, it would have a longer lifespan. But if you can't afford to buy a expensive cutting edge ASIC, you probably shouldn't mine.

what if he just wants to help out the network yo ? who cares bout the money when you can join a revelution.

Having a GPU or small USB ASIC to mine would be a relatively bad choice. The network hashrate is very high, the impact would be pretty minimal as the GPU/USB ASIC's hashrate is extremely low.