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Title: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: frankiebits on March 08, 2011, 04:55:10 PM So I discovered bitcoin 2 days ago and this is where I'm at , I'll try to make it simple.
I am mining off my desktop PC ,the one I am typing on right now... I am using poclbm for the GPU , here are some specs and other info Windows 7 Ultimate x86 Core2Quad Q9550 12MB Cache OC'd from 2.8 to 3.4GHz /100% Load Temp 50-60C= 5000 khash/s Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 Stock @ 625MHz /100% Load Temp 60-65C = 70,000 khash/s I made a batch file to run poclbm here is the commands I found to work well start /DC:\bitcoin\ poclbm.exe --user= --pass= --device=1 -f 60 Without the -f 60 command windows felt laggy, the command fixed it and I don't notice any impact on the hashing speed. Do these numbers seem accurate for my hardware? The system has been hashing for 17 hours and is stable. Questions: Will this miner work with Crossfire? I can add another 4850 for around $60, is it worth it, and will my speed double? Should I set my cpu back to stock speeds? Are my temps too high? Thanks for any help, any advice or thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks for looking! https://i.imgur.com/FKSAL.jpg Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: xenon481 on March 08, 2011, 04:56:12 PM Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: frankiebits on March 08, 2011, 04:58:00 PM Shit you know my secret... I changed it to x86 so no one else finds out. Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: xenon481 on March 08, 2011, 04:59:54 PM Also, you should not be CPU Mining using the bitcoin client itself. If you are going to be CPU Mining in addition to GPU Mining (not recommended unless you get free electricity) then you should be using ufasoft's SSE2 CPU Miner which should get you ~3x-4x+ of the CPU Mining performance you are getting now.
Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: frankiebits on March 08, 2011, 05:12:57 PM Also, you should not be CPU Mining using the bitcoin client itself. If you are going to be CPU Mining in addition to GPU Mining (not recommended unless you get free electricity) then you should be using ufasoft's SSE2 CPU Miner which should get you ~3x-4x+ of the CPU Mining performance you are getting now. Should I just be using the GPU? Also I downloaded the miner but not sure how to get it running. Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: BitLex on March 08, 2011, 05:17:36 PM Will this miner work with Crossfire? Quote I can add another 4850 for around $60, is it worth it, and will my speed double? yes, just don't activate crossfire,you might get a 5570 for about the same price though and with a bit of OC get the same speed at 1/2 the power-consumption of a 4850. Quote Should I set my cpu back to stock speeds? as xenon481 said, i wouldn't bother with CPU mining at all, if you do it anyway and are ok with cost of electricity, go for it, no need to go back to stock-speed, as long as your system remains stable. Quote Are my temps too high? noTitle: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: frankiebits on March 08, 2011, 05:20:22 PM Will this miner work with Crossfire? Quote I can add another 4850 for around $60, is it worth it, and will my speed double? yes, just don't activate crossfire,you might get a 5570 for about the same price though and with a bit of OC get the same speed at 1/2 the power-consumption of a 4850. Quote Should I set my cpu back to stock speeds? as xenon481 said, i wouldn't bother with CPU mining at all, if you do it anyway and are ok with cost of electricity, go for it, no need to go back to stock-speed, as long as your system remains stable. Quote Are my temps too high? noWow thanks , I can only get bitcoin to use 1 cpu, how do I get it to 0? Do I just stop generating coins? Will the GPU continue to generate coins even if it is disabled in bitcoin? Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: nster on March 08, 2011, 05:24:15 PM Don't mine with CPU unless electricity is free... else you will pay more in electricity then you will get in bitcoins
Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: BitLex on March 08, 2011, 05:26:36 PM Quote I can only get bitcoin to use 1 cpu, how do I get it to 0? get it to 0 by not starting it. :Dto use more than 1core, set the number of threads to use, -t 2 would run 2 threads, or use 2cores/50% of your quadcore Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: BitLex on March 08, 2011, 05:27:41 PM Don't mine with CPU unless electricity is free... that's like saying "don't run BOINC unless electricity is free",why not let people decide what they want todo? Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: os008 on March 08, 2011, 05:36:31 PM Do I just stop generating coins? Will the GPU continue to generate coins even if it is disabled in bitcoin? Yes, just stop generating. Yes, you'll continue to generate coins even if generation is disabled in Bitcoin software.Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: frankiebits on March 08, 2011, 05:38:36 PM Do I just stop generating coins? Will the GPU continue to generate coins even if it is disabled in bitcoin? Yes, just stop generating. Yes, you'll continue to generate coins even if generation is disabled in Bitcoin software.Thank you! Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: frankiebits on March 08, 2011, 05:41:48 PM So I can get a new 5770 for $130 and sell my 4850 for $50 (which is what I paid for it almost 2 years ago).
Really tempted to do this... Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: nster on March 08, 2011, 05:49:32 PM Don't mine with CPU unless electricity is free... that's like saying "don't run BOINC unless electricity is free",why not let people decide what they want todo? no... Bitcoin is an economy... The whole point of bitcoins is to get money. it is not PROFITABLE, but the opposite, to mine with his CPU... He is looking to make money so I am warning him that he should not mine with his CPU unless electricity is included in his rent BOINC is using resources for a good cause He's new to bitcoins, he needs guidance, and whether or not I tell him not to mine with his CPU, he gets to do what he wants to do... but if I tel him he might make a more informed decision Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: nster on March 08, 2011, 06:15:43 PM He's new to bitcoins, he needs guidance, and whether or not I tell him not to mine with his CPU, he gets to do what he wants to do... but if I tel him he might make a more informed decision +1, yea what a novel idea, why don't we treat fellow miners not as competitors but as friends who help us make bitcoin more successful and protected. Help instead of deceive. frankiebits: forget about CPU mining, usually not worth electricity, consider getting 5970 card, it is the most cost effective ATI card at the moment. do not hesitate to ask questions here on forum or on IRC. BTW there is an opinion that mining with GPU's is about to get not that attractive soon. If you buy a new GPU, especially something like the 5970, make sure you buy it primarily for something else like gaming, as bitcoins become less and less profitable everyday. The days where you could buy a GPU in which your main goal is to make money are long gone... Every 2 weeks, if the trend continues, the difficulty to make a 50BTC bloc increases by 40%, so every 2 weeks it takes 40% more time on average to make he same amount of bitcoin Also, since you only have a 4850, consider (and you should) going into pools, especially paid per share ones Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: frankiebits on March 08, 2011, 06:23:27 PM Thanks everyone for all the advice!
The only thing I am still having trouble with is getting Ufasoft SSE2 Miner running. I will probably take the advice and stop CPU mining , not sure if electricity is inlcuded in the rent cause I don't handle the bills. Anyhow I am curious of what kind of increase in performance I can get with that particular miner. Any help would be appreciated, thanks again for everyones help! Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: BitLex on March 08, 2011, 06:43:29 PM The whole point of bitcoins is to get money. it is not PROFITABLE, but the opposite, to mine with his CPU... sorry, but that's untrue,the whole point of Bitcoin is to be able to transfer money, not to get it. and i never said that mining on CPUs is profitable, actually this Quote as xenon481 said, i wouldn't bother with CPU mining at all, is what i said, you might have missed that.if you do it anyway and are ok with cost of electricity, go for it,.. Quote BOINC is using resources for a good cause you say mining is NOT using ressources for a good cause?care to explain? what better cause could there be than to protect your money? Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: Grinder on March 08, 2011, 06:56:36 PM you say mining is NOT using ressources for a good cause? Spending more money to mine than it would cost to just buy the bitcoins is hardly a good way to protect your money.care to explain? what better cause could there be than to protect your money? Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: BitLex on March 08, 2011, 07:11:34 PM Spending more money to mine than it would cost to just buy the bitcoins is hardly a good way to protect your money. not only your money, everyones money, protect the whole economy.any hash/s more strengthens the network, doesn't matter if the miner is making profit or loss. Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: nster on March 08, 2011, 08:21:11 PM The whole point of bitcoins is to get money. it is not PROFITABLE, but the opposite, to mine with his CPU... sorry, but that's untrue,the whole point of Bitcoin is to be able to transfer money, not to get it. and i never said that mining on CPUs is profitable, actually this Quote as xenon481 said, i wouldn't bother with CPU mining at all, is what i said, you might have missed that.if you do it anyway and are ok with cost of electricity, go for it,.. Quote BOINC is using resources for a good cause you say mining is NOT using ressources for a good cause?care to explain? what better cause could there be than to protect your money? The whole point of mining is to get bitcoins, and the whole point of getting bitcoins is either to buy something with it or trade it for money, so the whole point is PROFIT. Using that many watts in electricity just to make a virtual economy IS NOT FOR A F$*^*$^% GOOD CAUSE. Imagine if all this were used fopr BOINC and Folding @ Home, that would have been a good cause, actually investing in research... If the purpose of mining were to make a virtual economy but with no monetary return, or if the monetary return was exactly the electric bill, NOONE would be mining. People do it for many, don't even try to convince yourself otherwise. Besides, buying bitcoins probably helps the economy 1000 fold compared to mining with a CPU that could do ~12 Mh/s and losing money in the process (as well as contributing to global warming Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: BitLex on March 08, 2011, 08:51:03 PM the whole point of mining FOR YOU might be to make profit, i guess that's true,
but that's not the whole point of mining. the point of "mining", or lets better say generating, is to create blocks that store transactions. without blocks, we couldn't move a single coin from, or to anywhere. what if difficulty rises another 2, 5 or 10fold without the price moving an inch? it will then no longer be profitable to some of us, yet someone has todo it, or the whole economy will die. i don't need to try to convince myself otherwise, i already KNOW that i will still be generating, even if it COSTS me, if only to protect the value of those coins i already have. how many watts you contribute totally depends on you and what you do it for, or what you are willing to donate to the network, doesn't need to be hundreds, as mentioned any single hash/s more makes the network stronger, only a tiny bit, but it helps anyway. you might do it for profit only, someone else might do it for the good of the bitcoin-network, just like BOINC-people have fun to use BOINC, or SETI-people have fun looking for E.T., they all PAY for doing it. Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: nster on March 08, 2011, 09:01:54 PM the whole point of mining FOR YOU might be to make profit, i guess that's true, but that's not the whole point of mining. the point of "mining", or lets better say generating, is to create blocks that store transactions. without blocks, we couldn't move a single coin from, or to anywhere. what if difficulty rises another 2, 5 or 10fold without the price moving an inch? it will then no longer be profitable to some of us, yet someone has todo it, or the whole economy will die. i don't need to try to convince myself otherwise, i already KNOW that i will still be generating, even if it COSTS me, if only to protect the value of those coins i already have. how many watts you contribute totally depends on you and what you do it for, or what you are willing to donate to the network, doesn't need to be hundreds, as mentioned any single hash/s more makes the network stronger, only a tiny bit, but it helps anyway. you might do it for profit only, someone else might do it for the good of the bitcoin-network, just like BOINC-people have fun to use BOINC, or SETI-people have fun looking for E.T., they all PAY for doing it. F@H and BOINC are nbot the same as Bitcoin. Mining for bitcoin are greedy people who want to make money, F@H and BOINC are for people who are trying to help research cures for deadly diseases, do you not see the difference? No, You are protecting the bitcoin network because you've invested in it and don't want to lose any $$ Bitcoin is all about money... If no monetary return in some form would be given to the miners, bitcoin would be dead. People would prefer to help cure stuff than to make a virtual economy that they don't PROFIT out of. If you are doing it for the "good of the bitcoin network" it really is because you want to benefit out of it. f you wouldn't you wouldn't be mining. However, when you fold for F@H, you are giving away your resources in order to help the research, and most likely, you do not have cancer or whatnot, so you are doing it completely selflessly If you mine, your are doing it for money, PERIOD. If you want to do it because transfering money is easier and cheaper, you are really doing it to SAVE MONEY, if you are doing it to protect your investment (whether it be past present or future) ITS STILL FOR MONEY Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: frankiebits on March 08, 2011, 09:02:58 PM Might as well throw this out there too... right now I have 40 connection in bitcoin? If that a good number, bad number?
ALSO THERE ARE PLENTY OF OTHER THREADS ABOUT WHETHER BITCOIN IS PROFITABLE IF YOU HERE TO ARGUE ABOUT THAT GO HERE http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3994.0 Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: BitLex on March 08, 2011, 09:20:32 PM If you are doing it for the "good of the bitcoin network" it really is because you want to benefit out of it. f you wouldn't you wouldn't be mining. sure, the benefit is, that i'm able to send money whenever i want, in whatever amounts i want, to whoever i want, without anyone being able to prevent me from doing so. that benefit is called FREEDOM and i'm glad to help protect that freedom by donating some computing ressources. i actually don't care WHY others do it, as long as they do it, be it for profit, the good, or just for fun. Might as well throw this out there too... right now I have 40 connection in bitcoin? If that a good number, bad number? 40 is a usual number of connections, my connections vary from 20-90.Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: nster on March 08, 2011, 09:27:10 PM I only get 8 :-\ sometimes it lowers to 7 but goes back to 8 fast....
I have an i7 920 quad w/ HT (@ 4GHZ), so I have 8 threads, I always that it was related to that Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: frankiebits on March 08, 2011, 09:32:10 PM I only get 8 :-\ sometimes it lowers to 7 but goes back to 8 fast.... I have an i7 920 quad w/ HT (@ 4GHZ), so I have 8 threads, I always that it was related to that Try turning off HT in bios, you may get a x2 increase. Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: BitLex on March 08, 2011, 09:35:52 PM if you only get <8 connections, you haven't forwarded port 8333 to the machine running bitcoin.
should work fine anyway, for a generating-node (i guess you'r on a pool anyway) it would be better to have the port forwarded to get more connections, the more nodes you are connected to, the sooner you'll get noticed about new blocks and the less you'll work on solving stale blocks. Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: [Tycho] on March 08, 2011, 09:47:34 PM Do these numbers seem accurate for my hardware? It's not optimal to mine solo with ~70 MH/s because it's more likely that difficulty will increase before you find a block -The system has been hashing for 17 hours and is stable. The average time to generate a block at 70000 Khps, given current difficulty of 55590.23763914 , is 5 weeks, 4 days, 11 hours, 27 minutes, and 12 seconds (and next difficulty increase is tomorrow). So you better join a mining pool. Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: frankiebits on March 08, 2011, 10:43:52 PM He's new to bitcoins, he needs guidance, and whether or not I tell him not to mine with his CPU, he gets to do what he wants to do... but if I tel him he might make a more informed decision +1, yea what a novel idea, why don't we treat fellow miners not as competitors but as friends who help us make bitcoin more successful and protected. Help instead of deceive. frankiebits: forget about CPU mining, usually not worth electricity, consider getting 5970 card, it is the most cost effective ATI card at the moment. do not hesitate to ask questions here on forum or on IRC. BTW there is an opinion that mining with GPU's is about to get not that attractive soon. If you buy a new GPU, especially something like the 5970, make sure you buy it primarily for something else like gaming, as bitcoins become less and less profitable everyday. The days where you could buy a GPU in which your main goal is to make money are long gone... Every 2 weeks, if the trend continues, the difficulty to make a 50BTC bloc increases by 40%, so every 2 weeks it takes 40% more time on average to make he same amount of bitcoin Also, since you only have a 4850, consider (and you should) going into pools, especially paid per share ones Well for my whole life I have only bought cards for gaming, but this made me feel its time for an upgrade , I will probably get some criticism for this but I just purchased a Radeon HD 5830 , i found it used for $150 , I will resell my 4850 on Ebay for $50 or to a friend for $80 ( i use the word friend loosely ). I don't have the type of money to get dual 5970 or anything like that , so figured for around $100 I can feed my gaming needs and boost my hashing up a bit. The reason I chose the 5830 one was for the price and 2 was the specs, I did a lot of comparison on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units) and found for the price I was getting the most bang for the buck. Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: frankiebits on March 08, 2011, 10:45:57 PM Do these numbers seem accurate for my hardware? It's not optimal to mine solo with ~70 MH/s because it's more likely that difficulty will increase before you find a block -The system has been hashing for 17 hours and is stable. The average time to generate a block at 70000 Khps, given current difficulty of 55590.23763914 , is 5 weeks, 4 days, 11 hours, 27 minutes, and 12 seconds (and next difficulty increase is tomorrow). So you better join a mining pool. I just ordered a new card, mostly for gaming but also for mining, if I am right it should nearly double my speed, which to me seems like a big deal. Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: nster on March 08, 2011, 10:51:08 PM He's new to bitcoins, he needs guidance, and whether or not I tell him not to mine with his CPU, he gets to do what he wants to do... but if I tel him he might make a more informed decision +1, yea what a novel idea, why don't we treat fellow miners not as competitors but as friends who help us make bitcoin more successful and protected. Help instead of deceive. frankiebits: forget about CPU mining, usually not worth electricity, consider getting 5970 card, it is the most cost effective ATI card at the moment. do not hesitate to ask questions here on forum or on IRC. BTW there is an opinion that mining with GPU's is about to get not that attractive soon. If you buy a new GPU, especially something like the 5970, make sure you buy it primarily for something else like gaming, as bitcoins become less and less profitable everyday. The days where you could buy a GPU in which your main goal is to make money are long gone... Every 2 weeks, if the trend continues, the difficulty to make a 50BTC bloc increases by 40%, so every 2 weeks it takes 40% more time on average to make he same amount of bitcoin Also, since you only have a 4850, consider (and you should) going into pools, especially paid per share ones Well for my whole life I have only bought cards for gaming, but this made me feel its time for an upgrade , I will probably get some criticism for this but I just purchased a Radeon HD 5830 , i found it used for $150 , I will resell my 4850 on Ebay for $50 or to a friend for $80 ( i use the word friend loosely ). I don't have the type of money to get dual 5970 or anything like that , so figured for around $100 I can feed my gaming needs and boost my hashing up a bit. The reason I chose the 5830 one was for the price and 2 was the specs, I did a lot of comparison on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units) and found for the price I was getting the most bang for the buck. gaming wise the 5830 aint that great bang/buck, but mining wise it is... Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: true on March 09, 2011, 04:44:57 AM gaming wise the 5830 aint that great bang/buck, but mining wise it is... Only if you're not paying for electricity.Title: Re: Hey new miner here, looking for some feedback...thanks in advance Post by: nster on March 09, 2011, 05:10:04 AM gaming wise the 5830 aint that great bang/buck, but mining wise it is... Only if you're not paying for electricity.as of nowit is profitable after electrical costs, tomorrow after the difficulty rise, I'm not so sure |
