I've seen the cable on cablesaurus.  But I don't want to pay $25, especially since it just appears to be tapping two wires from the main mobo connector.

Which wires?  I can't tell from their picture.  I'd much rather spend $2 at Radio Shack on two wire lead taps and just roll my own.  I'd love to put all my 300w power supplies into service.

So, is the party over?

Must be new OS X Lion based servers running the latest RDF (reality distortion field).  ;-)

I don't see how pool hopping helps very much.  But I'm curious to know if/how it might.

Also, how do you tell your miners when to hop?  Based on what?

Personally, I've been very happy with my BTC mining results AND the stability of the pool(s) I've been dealing with.  So I'm cautious to rock the boat.

IE., Not long ago, I think I was losing about 30% to DDoS attacks and other connectivity issues at various pools.

But profits from mining are supposed to be declared if this is in fact a business.  The IRS may not be able to track the BTC sales, but they sure can track the $ transfers into a bank account.  And if you have a net income of $100,000 or more and write it all off ... they sure will.

Have read some of the threads regarding NMC mining > BTC mining.  Is that still true or did the difficulty factor skyrocket and end the party?

Have also read about BTC pool hopping.  Not clear on how that nets you any gain.  If you leave a pool you have fewer shares for the round and hence make less.  Is there a loophole in how shares are calculated that would let you benefit from having few shares in many pools = more than all your shares from one?

With demand for the 58xx series cards so high, you'd think AMD would restart production.  I find it hard to believe they've stopped though.

Yup, I'm a linux shop over here.  Wonder if I boot into Win7 and muck with the clocks if they'd save the settings.  Or ... if the ATI linux drivers would even let me go there.

I think you're right about matched and mismatched clocks.  Some alignments of speed work better than others.  Even running "in the zone" I find sweet spots.

How are you getting your 5870s to go above (and below) the configurable ranges? 

My core clocks max out at 900.  Memory at 1200.  I have one card that was reflashed by the previous owner that goes to 1000 (core) and 1400 (mem).  But it locks up when I go above the normal configurable ranges of 900/1200.  Nor does that reflash let me go below the configurable memory clock range.

I'll guess your card is running a tick faster at 313 mem clock because the chip itself is running a bit cooler?  80+ C seems pretty hot to me regardless.

Perhaps it's largely card specific:

* Current settings (5870)

Default Adapter - ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
                            Core (MHz)    Memory (MHz)
           Current Clocks :    884           1287
             Current Peak :    884           1287
  Configurable Peak Range : [600-900]     [900-1300]
                 GPU load :    99%

Default Adapter - ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
                  Sensor 0: Temperature - 70.50 C
Fan speed query:
Query Index: 0, Speed in percent
Result: Fan Speed: 74%

mhash 374.0/362.9 | accept: 68287 | reject: 721 | hw error: 127

--

* Memory clock dropped to 900mhz

Default Adapter - ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
                            Core (MHz)    Memory (MHz)
           Current Clocks :    884           900
             Current Peak :    884           900
  Configurable Peak Range : [600-900]     [900-1300]
                 GPU load :    0%

Default Adapter - ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
                  Sensor 0: Temperature - 69.50 C
Fan speed query:
Query Index: 0, Speed in percent
Result: Fan Speed: 71%

mhash 366.0/362.9 | accept: 68305 | reject: 721 | hw error: 127

I've found (and you can too) that bumping memory clock most certainly boosts performance.  Just try it.

But ...

Bumping core clock gives you more bang for the buck, and costs less in terms of heat.  So the algorithm you want is:

First:
     bump core speed to as high as possibly stable
Then:
     bump memory speed to as high as you're comfortable with temperature wise (as well as stable)

Now that being said, some people tweak cards by pumping core clocks beyond the normal ranges.  In most of those cases, you need to keep the memory clocks low or you'll overheat.

But in the ideal case (eg., if you were running your machines in a basement somewhere in Antarctica) you'd crank everything to eleven.

It eventually came through.  The thing I'm wondering is ... seems like I need to leave my client running for a while until a transaction has at least 1 confirmation?

Would be nice if they added a feature to set "donation" each time you made a transaction.  IE., in the same window.

With a somewhat variable level of donation it might even help generate profit for the mining / transaction network.  People could opt to pay more for quicker processing.

I'm looking for a digital thermometer that I can plug into my PC (preferrably USB) so that I can do things like:

if (room_temperature > 90F)
     set_miner_speeds (low)

else if (room_temperature > 85F)
     set_miner_speeds (med)

else
     set_miner_speeds (high)

I do this pretty much manually now, but I see no reason why it couldn't be automated.

EDIT:  One with an API that works under Linux too.

Not showing in block explorer either.  ;-(

I.  I sent 1 btc to my TradeHill account yesterday morning (7/14) and a) it's not showing at TH most likely because b) it's still showing 0/confirmed in my BTC client.

II.  I sent 3 btc to my MtGox account at the same time.  They're there.  They show 10 confirmations. 

Why did II happen and not I?

All my miners are reporting either:

failure to connect
rejected blocks
noonce already completed

Seems like this happens every morning?

Now that's a refreshing spirit up in here. 

+1

Interesting, the wide range of values.  80C seems high to me but I guess some of the 69xx series cards need the high temps.

Makes me think of renting a shack up in Alaska or Northern Canada.

All the other GPUs I have running all run fine at close to 99% of max core AND memory clocks.  They also all run at or below 72C. 

I guess that's the main reason I find these cards so annoying.  They really do require you to drop the memory clock as low as you can while still keeping as high a core clock as possible.  Lot's of monkeying.  Other cards are much more "plug and play" so to speak.

I'll have to try to unlock shaders on one of the cards and see how that works.  I run mostly Linux boxes for everything.  But I'm sure I have a HD with XP around somewhere.  Seems like you can't unlock shaders w/o various XP apps.  ;-(

Well, the thing about these cards that I find annoying

Is there a way to set the card up with those clocks under Linux?  Aticonfig won't let me go outside the defined ranges of 500-840 and 1250-1325 for core and memory respectively.

I can see where cranking the clock that high would get more Mh/s.  Similarly, lowering the memory speed would allow the chip to run a bit cooler.

I'm still trying to figure out the optimal settings for core and memory.  Dropping either one lowers speed and heat.  Seems like core has a bigger impact on speed and memory a bigger impact on heat, but I'm basing that on what I'm reading in forums like this, not from any empirical testing.