We are all getting screwed, no matter how you look at it. Do you really think a lot of people will be interested in buying KNC's generation 2 products when their 1st products can't even break even? It will be the same story for all the mining manufacturing. They are all trying t act the best to make the most sales and make some kind of profit. Apparently a miner that that puts out 400-500Gh/s has to be pretty dirt cheap for anyone to buy going forward. I keep seeing the BFL advertisements on here for their 600Gh/s card for almost $5,000. And that won't even be available until late in the year or early next year. Who in their right mine would ever buy one or even many of those? It doesn't all boil down to electricity costs.

Upgrading a Saturn to a Jupiter you'll be in the same boat you are now. Just trying to play catch up. There's really no sense is buying anything that has hashing power less them 1Th/s these days. You know they are going to charge you for those modules just enough to mine enough to make some bitcoin to break even at a %50/%50 chance. Why do you think all the mining manufacturing companies are just selling these and not mining themselves? Because you can't make any money in mining anymore.

I went to give this pool a try and all I get is pages cannot be displays and convoluted URL's that look like someone set this up off one of their folders off their shared hosting package. Last error just received:

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /~gateway/miners/cgminer on this server.

Apache/2.2.16 (Debian) Server at eligius.st Port 80




Even the main/default URL is down. Is there is maintenance going on, than that's what should be displayed on ANY of the domain pages. Information is key here. Back to old my pool. I can't afford a pool's backend not working properly. Good luck.

I'm a KNC customer. Have had my Saturn churning at 280Gh/s since I received it last Friday. I do want to stay in the game and this is my first shot at BTC mining. Before ASIC's were around I procrastinated too much and never invested into GPU's. I guess I'm glad, since I'd be in the same boat I'm in today. Pretty soon I'll be making no profit at all. Is there a way to still make a profit for us small time miners out there? The whole system is being eaten up by monster gobblers grabbing all the hashing power leaving the weak behind. I always thought the bitcoin system/chain would split into two. One for miners under 500Gh/s (for us small time people) and then another chain for the big guys that can't get enough. Apparently you need to dump a whole lotta money into a miner if you plan on making a profit these days. And money is something I don't have a lot of. Most of it goes to my mortgage and paying the bills. Yea, I'm a grown up and have bills to pay. Even though my KNC Saturn has been working perfectly I'm very disappointed that KNC owner's are no where to be found. They don't even visit their own forums. We basically made a few guys really rich and they disappeared. I'm not sure why they even put up their own forums if especially if they weren't going to participate in them. Anyway, I guess I was looking for feedback or information if going with another company would be the wiser decision, but as it seems I answered my own question while writing this. I'll never break even on a miner I buy today if it's in the 500-900Gh/s range. Anything above that is questionable I guess. As the old saying goes, it takes money to make money. I spent $3897 (w/ shipping) on my Saturn and I doubt I'll see half of that come back to me. I also had a buy a PSU, which cost me a $150.

By the way, the Seasonic X series exhausts in the rear. I have multiple computers, all with Seasonic PSU's in them. They are the best power supplies made, and that's why even Corsair has Seasonic make some for them. Well, adios and have fun. I'll take my .5 BTC daily and hope to keep that up as long as I can.


By the way, these are VERY good power supplies also.
http://www.corsair.com/us/power-supply-units/rm-series-power-supply-units.html

O heck, who needs to know my opinion.

Been using Electrum and never happier. I actually have access to my bitcoin in seconds.

Is it true you'll get more or better payouts with a pool that has more people in it? I'm guessing the more users in a pool the quicker they solve a block, hence more payouts. Is that thinking correct?
Thanks.

All I want is to break even...if that is even a small possibility now or not. I paid $4k for my Saturn. If things are static and stay the same it will take me 60 days or so to break even, I can deal with that. But so many more hashing power coming out its just gonna kill me/us. What to do. Would it even be wise to upgrade my Saturn to a Jupiter? If I do that, I'll be in the same boat, having spent more money. Yea, a little more hashing power but more cash out of my pocket. Oh, what to do.

I'm using BTC Guild right now, but they have a %7.5 fee. Eligius is free. Would I have better luck switching to that pool? Just looking for a nice pool to use and I think because BTC Guild is old and been around a while they have the higher fees.

Would I have better luck on this pool or BTC Guild? I'm new to mining, so all the different pools and which to use.

I'll probably not break even with my Saturn and lose money. Kind of sucks...and the only way to get out of that is to actually buy more hashing power. The cycle never ends really. I'm  a solid 279Gh/s according to cgminer but I don't know what all those other numbers on the screen are. I'm trying to take a screen shot of that screen and do  a break down to help people out on what everything means. Reading it from a text file leads much to be desired. I crudely took a screen shot and point some arrows and maybe can make a one stop shop for what all those numbers mean on this one page.

SO what are you doing to do? It is just a viscous cycle over and over again. They'll release a little higher hashing unit and you'll be right on the edge in breaking even if you even do. I'm in the same boat. I have a Saturn that probably won't even get my money back from and new hardware will be out in a few months. If you can't afford to go without $20k-$30k in mining then it is a losing game really.

These VRM's I've been reading for the last hour about on here...are those the square metal objects sitting on the module board usually with a white sticker on them?

Thank you. I'm trying to learn what all the numbers are on the screen and what they mean. Trying to following an ever changing change log against text is difficult. One of these days I'll take a screen capture of the mining screen and start to box out in nice yellow highlights what everything means. So the uses after me don't need to read through pages and pages of text. Thanks again.

Can someone point out what each number is and what's it for? Mabe someone that knoiws addendeum this file so we all know what all these numbers  mean, yea?


http://www.photopiks.com/cgminer.jpg

A few good check points when you receivr your miner. Commom sense.


1. Check for external damage. The plugs sticking out could be damaged and/or even the NIC port. Just a good visual to be safe.
2. Open up the case using your handy torx bit. Make sure you mark which direction the top case is on, so you can put it back on the same direction. Just makes it easier.
3. Before touching anything examine everything inside visually or even take some pictures. Notice where plugs are plugged into, fans are plugged into, etc....
4. Check the heatsink fan shrouds that they are on tight and secure to the heatsink itself. Make sure the fans themselves that are IN the shrouds are secure and tight as well.
5. If the heatsink fan shrouds are on and secure make sure they are fairly snug/tight. There are two phillips head screws holding them on and one of them was very loose on my Saturn.
6. Check for the plastic chip protector that would be between the heatsink and the mining chip. You can visually view that with your eye and a flashlight. There has been a great post about that on here with an awesome up close picture of that. If you do see the plastic you will need to remove the heatsink and remove the plastic. Then before mounting the heatsink on again CLEAN all the old thermal grease away the best you can. Before mounting the heatsink back on you need to re-apply some more thermal grease. I use Artic Silver 5 high density synthetic compound. You can find it on Newegg or Amazon easily. I bought a large 12 grams of it, since I use with my work all the time. Before installing the heatsink make sure all the torx nuts are tight. When the heatsink is installed you can only access one of the two easily.
7. Make sure your beagleboard is secure and pressed all the way down into its pins.
8. Make sure the controller board itself is secure with the torx screws.
9, Connections! This is obvious. Make sure all wire connections are secure and in place. I usually unplug them all and plug them all back in securely. It's just an OCD thing with me. This includes the blue power cables, and the data ribbon cables, along with the fan connections.
10. Make sure the rear fan screws are snug and tight. Those two big ones that bring in the cool air.
11. Make sure your power supply is OFF. Plug in your PCI-E connections and your old school 4 pin connector from your power supply. That is to power the rear fans. Make sure all connections are snug and tight.
12. Power on your power supply and view the lights on the beagleboard and controller board itself so you can familairize yourself how the process is on power on.
13. Wait approximately 3 minutes then log into your router and check your DHCP log. You should see your miner in there. Or run the command arp -a and then you'll need to figure out which IP address is your miner. Since I have over 25 devices on my network it is a little more difficult to find. That's why I just used my routers DHCP list.
14. I DID NOT statically configure my miner with an IP address. I reserved one in my router for it, so whenever my miner boots up it will ALWAYS have the same IP address no matter what. It does this by me telling the router the MAC address of my miner. I normally set the IP address of what it defaulted to.
15. Once you know your IP address, plug that in your web browser and login with "admin" and "admin". There are some settings in there which I won't go over. They are mostly self explanatory.
16. Upgrade to the latest firmware. The latest firmware is there for a reason. Most companies won't tell you the exact reason for a new firmware, but I was successful in upgrading my firmware to the latest. Before I upgraded the firmware, I made sure to stop mining completely. "screen -r" into your miner and press "q" to quit. That will stop mining for that session.
17. Reboot, login, check things out. Start hashing away keeping an eye out on the temps. Since we don't know what the max temps are I wouldn't let them go over 55c. That may be on the low side, but since we can't confirm the normal operating temps the lower the better.


I bought two Saturn's. One for myself and one for my dad. I bought myself an RM850 Corsair power supply. I was running both Saturns with no problems off this one power supply. And according to my electric meter I was only pulling 600 watts and the power supply fan only came on randomly. This is a very efficient power supply and I highly recommend it.

I do have more to say and add in here, but I just want to start a basic check list. The KNC manual has much to be desired so maybe they'll add their own check list in there in V2. Who knows, I just wish they would participate with us here at this time. This is actually the PERFECT time KNC could participate with it's customers while receiving their hardware. This is when most questions are asked and it would probably cut their email in half. I hope this helps and if I left anything out (most likely I did) let me know. I can always go back and edit.

Thanks!



Pleasd feel free to add/change.

That "hard reset" never worked for me. Press the button 5 times, wait 5 seconds, then presss again 5 times. Nothing. Nada. I even have a constant ping on the IP address and that never even goes out. What's up with that hard reset? I truly would think a total power off is the trick.

What are these VRM's you guys talking about? Are those the silver metal boxes on top of the modules with a little white sticker on them? Do these regulate the power? If so, then the firmware has to be written just right to communicate with them.

Jesus man, I've been reading 12 pages just about talking about power supplies! WTF?

Just buy this one: http://www.corsair.com/us/power-supply-units/rm-series-power-supply-units/rm-series-rm850-80-plus-gold-certified-power-supply.html

You can use it for a Saturn, 2 Saturn's or one Jupiter. When I use it with my 2 Saturn's it pulls down exactly 600 watts, which leaves a little room to spare. People buying these 1000 Watt monsters. Crazy.

I don't believe this at all. I have an electrical meter connected to my power supply so I cam see volts/amps/watts. My Saturn starts off at 20 watts then slowly raises higher and higher until full hashing speeds and max's out around 297 Watts. The power supply isn't going to "push" more or extra amps into by itself...it's the draw of the electronics that I would assume controls that.

I bought this for my Saturn. It is overkill, but I can run easily run two Saturn's on it with no problem. Did it yesterday when I received my deliveries. Both hashing over 250Gh/s each unit pulling down 300 watts. The power supply fan barely turned on to keep itself cool. I recommend this power supply anytime. I usually buy Seasonic models, but this one had such a good price,  is VERY quiet and very efficient so I went with it.

http://www.corsair.com/us/power-supply-units/rm-series-power-supply-units/rm-series-rm850-80-plus-gold-certified-power-supply.html