Yep... I don't pay for my electricity at home, it's a part of my fixed rent.  So I utilize what I can by having my old Athalon X2 64 machines, and early generation i5/i7 laptops/machines running with extra forced-air cooling....   Typically I wouldn't do it.... but there are some scenarios.   It's nice getting a steady trickle of 0.00000015-0.000000105 all day on top of the bigger 0.000019 per block reward of the GPU coins my home miners bring in.

The secondary reason I run them especially in the winter is the heat =)

Check YouTube for "Mini pcie 16x"...

Using an adaptor you can add a 16x slot through a wifi/wwan mini PCIE slot...
Still need an external power supply for the video card.

most virus protection (especially corporate setups) will detect the miner as unwanted and probably not allow this at all....

I would suggest looking at cpu's like Intel L5335... The TDP is quite low for being a quad core...  I even ran the CPU algos on my SLAED models (same as L5335, but 3.0Ghz and not an L-series) and they performed quite well, but the power draw went up quite a bit.


CPU mining is hard to be profitable when you pay for your own power.  The only machines that truly make good use if the power are multiple processor machines due to the fact that the overhead power consumption is less than if you has separate machines per-cpu.

Even the SOC type CPU's or ultra low power mobile CPU's just don't make enough alone to justify running them when power is paid for.  The figures just don't add up to anything but a negative....

if you are paying .03c/kwh, then by all means, mine with anything you can....

Yeah, basic anodizing small parts doesn't take much at all as far as supplies, and coming up with a regulated power supply to do it is right up your alley sidehack.

The hardest part for most is the calculating of the part surface area for the volt/amp calculation.    Might be something to consider for in-house... if you want to... just a small tank (tupperware bin or old porcelain sink) that you can dunk the parts in a conductive basket.

Lots of youtube vids with home anodizers showing their stuff =)

Port 3333 is a SHA256 port....

I normally don't configure via the json file.


Can you check my post above;  you can just enter any BTC or supported altcoin address in place of my notes, and see if it will mine to that address and port.   Through the webpage wallet link I also provided, you can see your miner connections/hashrate generated at the pool.  let it run for 15-20 min and report back... it should work fine.   The Pi/minera is seeing your gridseed devices, it looks like you are simply connecting to the wrong port? (i recommend BTC as you dont have to wait for the pool to mine enough of your payout coin to get paid)

agreed x10.

Plus the question lacks certain data, such as what is your primary goal overall?  do you consider resale? if so what target audience?  do you consider using the equipment for things other than mining?

Most of these questions in themselves will lead you to what brand you wish, or to specific questions about specific mining aspects to do with one or the other.

Research is key.  I know its a lot to read and do, but just starting somewhere as simple as the beginning of claymore's ETH miner thread and reading it all;  will teach you mountains upon mountains about mining specifically ETH.


Hopefully you take this to heart, and understand I am trying to give as serious of a reply without trying to come off as rude; because a part of me wants to be rude for the aforementioned reason(s).

I answered your email )


Also, in looking here, it looks like you got cgminer to see the miner (good news!) and that it is trying to work, but no shares is a big issue.... The port # could very well be the issue; 

Maybe try these settings for the short term just to be on the same page as me and make sure that we are using the proper settings since I do not know your pool:


scrypt.mine.zpool.ca:3433   

Username: <A BTC WALLET ADDRESS>
Password: c=BTC,scrypt,stats

your miner can be viewed on the website as well as live earnings estimates (dont expect alot with scrypt):
zpool.ca/?address=<A BTC WALLET ADDRESS>

It seems (as from the screenshot) that your miner is not getting correct shares from the server and is never actually processing anything... only cgminer is getting workunits (of what type?).


But Ill digress since I just looked up multipool.us.  They are using a different port number.    I am willing to bet some BTC that changing the port number to their suggestion on their homepage will fix everything.


Looks like your miner is trying to get SHA256 workunits.

plenty of profitability with other algos....   I am personally running my nvidia gear on skein coins for the last month.   Payout has been steady and consistent.

If you have the mindset that only zcash and ETH are worth mining, please refer to the above posters comments about choosing AMD over Nvidia.


Nvidia carries a HUGE resale value compared to AMD;  the gaming market soaks them up a lot more readily when it comes time to sell them.

well, I have still to this day months and months later have not needed to activate a copy of 10 on one of my laptops....  no ill effects....

Yeah, I understand for sure.  Its a shitty concern being the customer having to worry about something someone else did.


I downloaded the full ISO from MS when they were offering the free upgrades, and just burned it to a USB pen drive for easy installing.... it was a publically available one.   If I install a copy of 7 or 8, activate it, then install this over it, it always still lets me activate 10... I think as per the reply above mentioned.  But if you are keeping the original drive intact, then you shouldn't have to worry about loosing functionality in the device.

The fact they have windows in test mode means they needed to code their own driver for one reason or another (most likely video  knowing how mobile device manufacturers needed to do it in the past).... so you will almost 100% need to recover one or many drivers off that msata drive for the new OS install...  But who knows for sure till you dive deeper.


I would highly urge the pandaminer manufacturers to just build an ubuntu or debian image with everything installed on that.    It would be the most versatile for an altcoin miner in the end.

Possibly more useful info:
if the original HDD is activated, you can sign in using your microsoft account and link that license to your account.  when you install a new copy of 10 on a different HDD and link your MS account, there's an option to recover the activation from the original machine.

This may be a viable option rather than a re-purchase of a new copy of 10.

be sure to keep a copy of the windows inf and driver folders.   This way you have all the preloaded drivers.


At least print out a list of the hardware that's present in the original drive =)

Ill comment this:

Windows 10 utilizes many of those features they removed to update things int he background.

I have personally installed 10x64 on a laptop, and purposefully not activated it.  It serves as my internet connection/router at home in the country (WWAN card).   I ran DWS 10 on it; and it has a 24/7 uptime.   Not once has activation of the OS been an issue.   I have no need to customize the OS past what I mentioned above.   No ill effects.  Interesting that they don't lock you out of the system or networking features over time.

Maybe this info will help others.   I am also wondering if someone will be making a linux image eventually.   I know there's a linux mining os out there....  comes preinstalled with the miner softwares.

Given they are using their own boards;  Its easy for them to have pre-activated one;  and carried over the same hardware profile specs between machines.

I have still been activating windows 7 machines and doing the 10 upgrade myself the same as when it was free, and activations are sticking and holding.

Try rebooting with an F8 menu and going into the boot-up troubleshooting and seeing if there's an option to restore the previous version of windows.

for the gridseed blades don't use bfgminer or the zeus build.   Use the cpuminer that I mentioned above.   There should be a preconfigured GC3355 setting for the gridseeds, and it will populate the text field below the select box with the gridseed options.  Then choose to manually set it, copy/paste the data and input your own freq if you wish.

I never got the two other versions of the miners to work on minera.    The stable and reliable one was the regular cpuminer.  It has the GC3355 support.   Im pretty sure it was cpuminer.    I would need to find my SD with the RPI image n it to load it up to double check.

*edit*

If you can open up an external port and provide an IP to your location, I can log into your minera/RPI and configure it for you and try and get it mining remotely.

-Al   (my username at gmail dot com)

actually wrong.   You can get PCIE adaptors for the mini-PCIE slots that the wireless/wwan adaptors plug into.

I have seen full GPU's hooked to a laptop outside the laptop itself with just a cable stretching to the underside.

Regardless;  the power systems in the laptops aren't meant to handle that kind of load from the PCIE connector. https://www.amazon.com/Laptop-External-PCI-Graphics-Card/dp/B00Q4VMLF6

Yes, minerA is waaaay better from my tests in the past.

Once you get the proper miner config set up its stable and self-sufficient.

if you have adequate cooling, gridseed chips can generally operate between 950-1050Mhz stable....   I typically got 1.5-2Mh off of 4 orbs.... (20 chips)

USe the zadig driver to update the driver per-device and try again.

If you have a Raspberry Pi, Id suggest downloading the Minera RaPi image.    It's pre-configured, and easy to set up.

I use the manual string as posted above, and use the regular cpuminer version that comes pre-compiled with the image.  Works with every gridseed device I have ever plugged into it.  It also was able to control my U3's when I had them.

I still get a steady trickle of payments from my sig campaign....  It's worth it to me.

Plus my posts are usually on-topic and long-winded; alongside with the fact that I provide help to others here whenever I am able.

I'd have to create multiple accounts to try and survive off them, mainly because of my location and my cost of living.


I think I could pay my rent off a few GPU rigs though with no problems.... luckily power at home is covered in my rent, so I can suck whatever my circuit can handle with no worries.

The problem with laptops is the processors are mobile variants.   They usually lack proper cooling for 80%+ constant load.... you will end up ruining the laptop and having issues in the not too distant future.

Plus compared to non mobile variants, you get less hash from them....

I seriously advise not to mine with a laptop.    I have destroyed probably 10-20 of them now.

Me personally, I have been sticking to the other algos.  They have been steady and consistent payment.

Then again;  I don't do it like most of you seem to.  I do a direct mine->Exchange->wallet.  I do not hold coins, only BTC.  The rewards from mining this way are reliable, and when BTC jumps in price, I usually notice the altcoin rig payouts decrease 1-3 weeks later.   So all in all, the price of the altcoins, is being correlated to BTC in my eyes; and the pattern is pretty simple to see.  You just have to watch how people are acting on it and understand why the price is swinging as it is.   Sometimes you reap the benefits of pumps, and it's seen in a graph of my earnings now and then.... They were so big once I emailed the pool operator to make sure the pool didn't make an error and screw him out of some $$$, but the logs showed why.... just an abnormal buy price.

Still to this day, to me, ETH is just a rudimentary compiler and script/code storage system piggybacked on the concept of digital tokens like BTC.   Complete garbage in the scope of the sense.   I've never mined ETH/ETC, only bought and sold a few times during the scares and made a few dollars.  Nothing special.  Seeing how people have been with their software as well;  especially centered around ETH and a few others; I am very disappointed in that side of the community as well.  Purely showing how selfish and self-centered some people can be when the digital currency concept is openness and community support.  Now it's feeling like most other C++/programming forums where people ask for help, and get shamed and trash talked for asking a very basic question;  unacceptable behavior.   (I will add that the BTC developer fighting about changing the code and trying to expand the network capability debate is also in this realm in my eyes).

I have tried mining Equihash, but the payout was less than my nvidia cards mining on Lyra2v2 by far....  I haven't had any incentive to restart the miner and at-least reach a minimum payout from NH.

As far as CPU, I have been getting pretty good payouts from xevan.  The wattage/profit factor is garbage.. pretty much negative, but I don't run CPU miners where I have to pay for the electricity.... so it's a win/win concept.