Thanks for the suggestions and warnings, folks.

I'm running ubuntu, so the powershell doesn't quite cut it.

Now I'm running an additional script that just watches the temperature and pauses the oclvanitygen process when the temperature of the motherboard goes over 84 (and continues the process when the temperature drops under that).

I'm including a copy of the script, in the hope that it can help others that might be looking for a similar solution.

I don't ever want to underestimate my own stupidity, much less publicly proclaim it, but here goes:

I'm generating vanity addresses to give out bitcoin for holiday gifts. I'm using oclvanitygen (since some of the prefixes are kinda long...)

So here's my 1st world problem:

I'm doing this on my laptop with an nvidia card (that is otherwise unused). It's running just fine, except sometimes the laptop overheats from the GPU and shuts down.

Is there some flag that I can use to throttle GPU usage with oclvanitygen?

./oclvanitygen -h
oclVanitygen 0.23-red (OpenSSL 1.0.1 14 Mar 2012)
Usage: ./oclvanitygen [-vqrik1NTS] [-d <device>] [-f <filename>|-] [<pattern>...]
Generates a bitcoin receiving address matching <pattern>, and outputs the
address and associated private key.  The private key may be stored in a safe
location or imported into a bitcoin client to spend any balance received on
the address.
By default, <pattern> is interpreted as an exact prefix.
By default, if no device is specified, and the system has exactly one OpenCL
device, it will be selected automatically, otherwise if the system has
multiple OpenCL devices and no device is specified, an error will be
reported.  To use multiple devices simultaneously, specify the -D option for
each device.

Options:
-v            Verbose output
-q            Quiet output
-i            Case-insensitive prefix search
-k            Keep pattern and continue search after finding a match
-1            Stop after first match
-N            Generate namecoin address
-T            Generate bitcoin testnet address
-X <version>  Generate address with the given version
-F <format>   Generate address with the given format (pubkey, compressed)
-e            Encrypt private keys, prompt for password
-E <password> Encrypt private keys with <password> (UNSAFE)
-P <pubkey>   Use split-key method with <pubkey> as base public key
-p <platform> Select OpenCL platform
-d <device>   Select OpenCL device
-D <devstr>   Use OpenCL device, identified by device string
              Form: <platform>:<devicenumber>[,<options>]
              Example: 0:0,grid=1024x1024
-S            Safe mode, disable OpenCL loop unrolling optimizations
-w <worksize> Set work items per thread in a work unit
-t <threads>  Set target thread count per multiprocessor
-g <x>x<y>    Set grid size
-b <invsize>  Set modular inverse ops per thread
-V            Enable kernel/OpenCL/hardware verification (SLOW)
-f <file>     File containing list of patterns, one per line
              (Use "-" as the file name for stdin)
-o <file>     Write pattern matches to <file>
-s <file>     Seed random number generator from <file>

Would the -w, -g or -t switches/options be what I'm looking for? I'm unsure what exactly each means in the context of this program. Would anyone feel like pulling out their hand-puppets to explain them to me? (I'm guessing that -t is only for CPU usage, not GPU... and subsequently assuming that -b is somehow related to that?)

I'm trying to cobble together something that watches psensor and sends a kill -STOP or a kill -CONT to the actual process, but if there's something I'm missing, I'm all ears!

TIA, folks...

May you live in interesting times.

(Alleged ancient chinese curse, which probably originated in 1950's America...) http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/hub/A807374

Ooo... Haiku! I can play this game!

With hash rates rising
Everyone is watching the
ASICs that have shipped.

Much envy and greed
Driving all these markets now
Much entertainment.

I find it interesting to watch the reactions of many folks who claim to want a free market with a deflationary currency who are complaining about the effects of a free market with a deflationary currency on themselves.

Perhaps some perspective is in order (everyone take a deep breath!)

The first question to ask yourself is: "Where will the price of one bitcoin be when I cash out?" Cashing out, for me personally means when I leave my paper wallet to my heirs, as any brain wallets dissapear.

Will my actions beforehand have strengthened the bitcoin economy to the point where they will benefit from my actions and choices? If I then lose a few bitcoin to ensure the long-term survival of the network, am I not, in fact, leaving my heirs richer?

I think we all can find clarity in viewing our choices in a historical perspective at times.

Would I love to have my unit arrive tomorrow? Sure, but if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump it as a-hoppin'. In the meantime, I will watch my GPU miners scale back, and rejoice in the fact that the distribution of ASIC -- from Avalon, BFL, ASICMiner, or wherever -- all prevent any single government from changing this currency into anything other than what the miners agree to.

Again, it is a deflationary currency. Every purchase will feel more like a loss than any purchase with an inflationary fiat currency. Yet each purchase strengthens the bitcoin economy. This is a fact that each of us will have to learn to live with on our own terms.

I, for one, will look back at my life and say "I am satisfied with my choices, for sometimes luck was with me."

I hope the same for each of you.

I've done my five posts, and I'm ready to taste freedom.

I, too am waiting for batch#2 to ship. Eagerly.

~100Mhash/sec. Woo-hoo. Waiting on my Avalon to ship, however...

I, too, should appreciate whitelisting.

I am trying to set up bitcoin-mining-proxy http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=5506.0, but am having some issues authenticating with actual pools; I can authenticate to any single instance of bitcoind, but all of the pools return no data with a 403 error. (Actually, api.bitcoin.cz returns a further header and page, suggesting that I go to the site and sign up, which I have -- long ago -- but everyone else returns no data at all.)

I have even enabled some debugging, and retrieved the base64-encoded authentication string that is sent in the header, and manually telnetted to the proper port and manually completed the exact same transaction.

Despite what you may think from reading the above, my php-fu is weak. (My http-fu is strong, however!)

So, once I am whitelisted, I will probalby hop on over the the proper form, and copy-pasta much of this over there.

Oh, FWIW, this is on a gentoo server that is reasonably up-to-date, apache 2.2.something and php 5.3.something. Safe mode off, apache's allow override is on for the .htaccess file in the documentroot to work it's magic, fopen should be able to do it's thing as well. I don't have actual network traces, but will get them if needed.

Thanks for listening.

Well, I can certainly relate to that.  "Me, too".

Well, I will post some nonsense until I can ask my question about the bitcoin-mining-proxy on the appropriate forum. Here goes message #1!