Good summary of what I'm experiencing.  I'd only add that two win7 rigs on the same hub as a linux rig, the win7s puke often.  The linux rig is a rock. 

I haven't found cgminer dead in the water for some time now, but cgwatcher has restarted one rig a couple times a day due to 'no new shares submitted for x minutes'.  I can't say if that's stratum interrupt, or some other issue, but I don't care with cgwatcher babysitting.

Thanks for the updated software, ck!

2/5 of the giga 7970s I have burnt out, rather, sparked out.  They shot sparks on start up, and you can see scorched circuits if you look closely.  RMA ASAP, if you can.

I use cgminer, which keeps the temps down, so I don't think the two of five cards of mine failed due to heat.  They are not GHZ versions.  I still have two more that are working just fine, and one that has to be babied to minimize HW errors.  Pretty bad stats:  2/5 toast.

I'm now a believer.

So sent the one giga 7970 for RMA, then another one in the same rig started doing it.  The second sparking 7970 is in a different pcie slot.  Both are on unpowered risers.  Sparks seem to be coming from different locations.  I hope to catch it on video sometime.  At least the PSU is shutting down....  At least.

PSU:  COOLER MASTER Silent Pro Gold Series RSC00-80GAD3-US 1200W
Mobo:  GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+

One of my gigabyte 7970s started sparking too!  Scary business.  There's no ozone smell of a good arc, but it's a pretty big burst of sparks coming out of the top heat sink.

steamboat, I appreciate your analysis.  It means a lot coming from the front man for a product.

What does your increase in hardware comments mean to the equation?  Are you suggesting the millions of dollars of hardware to be added is unrealistic, and may stave the rise in difficulty if those millions aren't invested in mining?

Thanks

While I haven't done the math, steamboat speculates in a recent post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=192916.msg2434731#msg2434731): 

"As an aside: Each person should do their own research and calculations to decide if purchasing miners is right for them. That being said, the numbers I have run are based on a very aggressive difficulty ramp up, and show the units will be unprofitable after 9-10 months. That being said, in order to maintain the exponential increase in difficulty, $26 million dollars worth of hardware would need to be introduced in month 3, $54 million in month 5, $110 million in month 7, and so on. This assumes .5btc per gh/s, and there are companies slated to produce miners at a .2. "

I tried the MSI trick, but it wont work with my 7970s.  I'll try again.

Thanks!

From cgminer gpu_readme:

--gpu-memdiff -125
This setting will modify the memory speed whenever the GPU clock speed is
modified by --auto-gpu. In this example, it will set the memory speed to
be 125 Mhz lower than the GPU speed. This is useful for some cards like the
6970 which normally don't allow a bigger clock speed difference. The 6970 is
known to only allow -125, while the 7970 only allows -150.

bitcoiner49er :  what 7970 are you using? (EDIT:  You're not, you're using 7950)  I've found I can't separate the engine from the memory by more than 150.  Ckolivas talks of the same lock for 7970s where 7950s didn't have it. My gigabytes will reset the engine and memory if I try to spread them more than 150.  I've tried, and want to, but it wont let me...  I also haven't cracked the voltage unlock yet.

5 x Gigabyte 7970 OC averaging 680mhs per for BTC on cgminer 3.2.0 (sorry, no conf at work):  1000-1145 gpu, 990 mem, 0 powertune, -150 memdiff, 8 intensity, autofan, autogpu, stock voltage

Checkout anything ckolivas has to say about configuring 7970s.  Memory clock should be -150 of engine clock.  Memdiff will do it automatically for you.  Intensity over 8 on win7 causes instability for me.

Order placed.  Thanks for the service, Steamboat, and all involved.  Looking forward to hearing more about the final board products.

64 x .086 = 5.504 BTC

TX ID:  5e6052f709b28661e11c4bbb737839763e21fc8e63df8dce385ba1762eed970f-000

Email sent.

Made me smile!  Gracias.

I check every other day.   This is the greatest piece of software for mining since cgminer.  I would consider cgminer incomplete without cgwatcher.  Let's pile some BTC on the effort, folks--kindly consider donations.

The website says 4% fee....

I have one of five 7970s mining BTC that throws HW errors.  I backed the engine down to 1140/990mem (from 1145/995), turned power tune to 0 (down from 5), and intensity to 7 (down from 10) and get less errors, but still get at least 1 HW error per 100 shares.  About four times a day that cards gets sick and cgminer has to be restarted.

I've gotten the HW errors reduced, but am still letting that card mine until it has to be restarted.  I haven't tried applying new thermal paste.  I have tried it in multiple rigs with different risers, with no change in HW errs.  I'm considering backing it down a little more to 1135/895.  I'd return it for warranty, but don't want to be without it, so I'm living with the errs.

The worst 'piece' I've ever read on the Fool.  Utterly worthless.

I have been intrigued with this concept since I read a couple weeks ago (yes, it's old news):

Per Meni Rosenfeld:
"If you distribute your hashrate among multiple pools in proportion to their respective total hashrate, your variance will be as if you mine in one pool with the total hashrate of all pools."

I wonder, since my math is crap...
1)  does this apply equally to all payout methods?  PPS, PPLNS, DGM, Slush, etc?  Or is the concept applicable to a specific payout method only?
2) does anyone have results or comments to present based on Meni Rosenfeld's proof?
3) what have other miners done to leverage this or similar concepts?  Such as "I use x many pools, of what pool hash to my hash power ratio, using cgminer --load-balance, etc, resulted in less variance."

Anyone?  Bueller? Gracias!

I'm a bit amazed how many miners complain about the Slush pool, but seemingly just can't bring themselves to jump ship.  I've moved to other pools, but I still check the Slush forum daily--it's like a TV drama.  Even with all the negative talk, I still want to believe the Slush payout method balances over time.  As do all the methods, right?  Multiple methods of payout sometimes make me think of the huge retail businesses pushing products/brands/quantities that you can get no where else, so you can't compare the value of the product one is purchasing.  I've spent hours reading the payouts and the pools, and am still uncertain as to which is best for me.

In the end, Slush seems unstable to me as a 'customer' on the outside looking in.  Yet, my payout graph was very flat (consistent) when I was mining Slush.  It's all over (but probably averages) since trying other pools....