SOLUTION 3:
Don't overclock. I've been mining for two years continuous and have never lost a gpu yet. It's all about temperature and keeping them cool.

- Frequently blow out any dust that may accumulate on cooling fins/heat sinks.
- If you have a card that always runs hot, remove the heat sink from the gpu chip, clean up and apply new top-quality thermal paste.
- Never mine anything while a gpu is inside a computer case. Open air is best.
- If necessary, place a larger fan so that it blows cool air across all gpu cards.
- Keep your miners in an area that has good ventilation or lower-than-normal temperatures.
- Set gpu fans to run at max speed if necessary. It doesn't cost that much more.
- Always monitor temps while mining.

Good luck.

Same here. I got most of my roi last year when values were skyrocketing. I turned them off last summer, but I run them in the basement of my home during cold months. The extra heat helps to heat my house and that's money I was going to spend anyway. I am holding all mined coins until the market recovers, hoping that some of them will gain value.

Clearly not many small-time miners are profiting right now. We're just limping along waiting for the market to pay on our investments.

Oh, wow! Good point. I've never had a bill that had fixed costs. In my area, all charges are variable based on usage.

Generation is billed at $0.0571 per kWh
Transmission is billed at $0.0133 per kWh
Distribution is billed at $0.0433 per kWh

Add in a few taxes and fees and you arrive at $0.125 overall.

I guess there is no universal simple method for everyone.

The key word in that sentence was "constant". If a 650 W rig is mining steadily for one hour, then that rig will have used 650 Wh of energy. I didn't see the need to split hairs on explaining the method for arriving at that number. Thus, I am converting Wh into kWh by dividing, not W.

It should read...
650Wh ÷ 1000 = 0.65 (kWh)
0.65kWh x 24h = 15.6 (kWh per day)

Thanks for your help.

I was once confused about this as a rookie and I've recently had some friends that were confused about it. I just wanted to help clarify it for others. I live in the US, so this is how I calculate my electricity costs.

The simplest method to find your actual cost per kilowatt hour, (kWh,) is to divide the total monthly electric bill, (amount due,) by the number of kilowatt hours charged in the billing cycle.

Example:
My total household electric bill for last month was $143.15 (US).
You can subtract the meter readings from one another to find the number of kWh's used. Sometimes bills are estimated, but the number of hours billed should be clearly stated. Mine was 1142.
$143.15 ÷ 1142 = $0.12535

NOTE: Don't make the mistake of using the "Price to Compare" as printed on the bill. This may not include distribution charges, taxes, and fees.

In order to break out how much your mining rig is truly costing you, (or your mom,) you first need to know the wattage draw of your rig. For example, I have 3 GPU's, (1 GTX1070 and 2 GTX1080's). I have a wattage/amp meter plugged into my mining computer that displays Watts. It seems to always read between 600 and 700 Watts, depending on which coins I am mining. I'll use 650 watts as an average per hour. You can use published numbers from hardware components as long as you include all hardware in the rig.

Take the constant number of Watts being drawn from the wall outlet and divide it by 1000. This converts Watt Hours into Kilowatt Hours (kWh). Then multiply that by 24 hours per day, then by 30 average days per month, then by your cost per kWh.

In my Example:
650 ÷ 1000 = 0.65 (kWh)
0.65 X 24 = 15.6 (kWh per day)
15.6 X 30 = 468 (kWh per month)
468 X 0.12535 = $58 (actual cost per mo.)

We can conclude that if you are not mining your electricity cost, (or more,) in coin each month, you are mining at a loss. Mining at a loss, such as in my case, can still be justified if your plans are to hold all coins until the market recovers. That profit may come at a later date.

Hope this helps.