some beginner questions i could not find answers to

[nexusthird]

Hi there,

i read about bitcoin and wanted to try it out myself. Therefor i have 3 questions you might can help me with:



1) I always read about getting graphic cards, would actual server hardware do a good job too? E.G i would try mining with a 1Gbit connected rootserver with Xeon i7 W3520 4x2(HT)x2.66+ GHz and 24 GB Ram


2) What if i need to reinstall at some Point, do i have to spend the bitcoins and just download a new client afterwards? Or would it be a good idea to have one "save" banking account for generated coins? At some point every computer will crash i think...

3) Even if I'm connected with 1Gbit to the Internet i have 1 or max 2 connections, mostly 0 how comes that? Do I need to wait or what I'm doing wrong? Should I use a differnt client for mining then the official?


Thanks in advance and sorry for my bad english, it isn't my native language

[wareen]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

1) I always read about getting graphic cards, would actual server hardware do a good job too? E.G i would try mining with a 1Gbit connected rootserver with Xeon i7 W3520 4x2(HT)x2.66+ GHz and 24 GB Ram

CPU mining is not cost effective - GPUs are vastly more powerful and have therefore set the standard for mining. No matter which CPU your server has, it would cost more on electricity than you could gain in bitcoins. Even if you don't have to pay for the energy, bitcoin-income would be abysmal.

2) What if i need to reinstall at some Point, do i have to spend the bitcoins and just download a new client afterwards? Or would it be a good idea to have one "save" banking account for generated coins? At some point every computer will crash i think...

The coins are "inside" the wallet.dat file - you should back this one up before you reinstall and on a regular basis to avoid and coin-losses from computer crashes. You should probably think about encrypting it before you back it up.

Alternatively there are online wallet services like mybitcoin.com which save you the hassle of dealing with your wallet.dat. You have to trust them however to keep your coins save.

3) Even if I'm connected with 1Gbit to the Internet i have 1 or max 2 connections, mostly 0 how comes that? Do I need to wait or what I'm doing wrong? Should I use a differnt client for mining then the official?

You probably have to wait a bit before you get more connections. The connection speed is not very important for the operation of your client. If you plan on mining, you should use some of the specialized GPU mining programs out there instead of the official client.

[nexusthird]

Thanks!

No matter which CPU your server has, it would cost more on electricity than you could gain in bitcoins. Even if you don't have to pay for the energy, bitcoin-income would be abysmal.

I run several Server i dont use 24/7 so there is a lot of idle time i pay for, so thats the idea why i want to do CPU mining. Would be cool if there would be even CPU instead of GPU Clients


2)

This helped me very much, thanks!

If you plan on mining, you should use some of the specialized GPU mining programs out there instead of the official client.

Is there any good you could refer to? I guess there are many of them.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Did you forward port 8333? This should get you more connections.

Is there any good you could refer to? I guess there are many of them.

poclbm, which also has a GUI version. You'll also need a mining pool like Continuum pool (and a GPU). There are also CPU mining software, a search should unearth them.

[nexusthird]

You don't have permission to access /wiki/Poclbm on this server.

And google just refers me to threads where people want to do CPU mining, i could not find a client specialized for that. I'm running the Servers on a Gbit Port in a Datacenter so there is no router to forward.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

You don't have permission to access /wiki/Poclbm on this server.

And google just refers me to threads where people want to do CPU mining, i could not find a client specialized for that. I'm running the Servers on a Gbit Port in a Datacenter so there is no router to forward.

Yeah, the wiki is down.

This is Kiv's GUI version of poclbm.

This seems to be a miner good for CPU.

[nexusthird]

Both won't start on Windows 2008 Server Standard Edition so i might have to use the standard client.

How long does it take till the first coin is generated? I run with 7 Connections and it shows 110k blocks whatever this means, the wiki is down for some reason :/

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Both won't start on Windows 2008 Server Standard Edition so i might have to use the standard client.

How long does it take till the first coin is generated? I run with 7 Connections and it shows 110k blocks whatever this means, the wiki is down for some reason :/

6 years. And no, I'm not kidding, with your CPU (assuming one server) I don't think you'll make more than 10 MH/s, which at current difficulty takes on average 6 years to find a block of 50 bitcoins. And of course by the time 6 years pass difficulty will increase, so you will probably never see even a bitpenny from the client.

With a CPU miner connected to a pool, rewards would still be measly but they will be spread out, meaning you will at least make some fraction of a bitcoin.

[xenon481]

I run several Server i dont use 24/7 so there is a lot of idle time i pay for, so thats the idea why i want to do CPU mining.

The difference between idle power usage and load power usage is extremely significant. Just that difference in electricity usage alone will cause you to pay more in electricity than what you will gain in BTC.

[nexusthird]

Actualy it does not even use 5% of my CPU for some reason, could do much more. Due the point i pay the same for the servers it does not matter if they idle or the CPU runs 20 hours a day @ 100%

But for some reason it just looks like:

http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/6341/bitcoin.png

Getting blocks after blocks but stuck at 0khash/s

[xenon481]

It's because you're not generating yet, you're downloading the already discovered blocks (probably done by the time I posted this).

Also if you owned the server this is what it would look like until the next difficulty increase heh:
bitcoin income
Your two processors would produce $24.64 USD a month (0.0925btc/day * 30days * 8.88usd/btc)

power usage:
An i7 from peak to idle is a difference of 213-109 = 104W.  
208watts*24hours*30days/1000 = 150kwh

power cost required to break even
150kwh * $/kwh = 24.64
$/kwh = .164

And you need to remember to include the electricity cost of the additional Air Conditioning load due to extra heat being poured into the server room.

[nexusthird]

As mentioned I do not pay the power supply, its in a data center and currently its running at 4100khash/s that makes ~ 30 $ / Month right? BTW it are 8 cores. Can (and if how) this become even more if i do not mine solo? Sorry for all that questions that are surly answered in the wiki which is down :/ And thanks for your help so far! Nice community here

[Meni Rosenfeld]

As mentioned I do not pay the power supply, its in a data center and currently its running at 4100khash/s that makes ~ 30 $ / Month right? BTW it are 8 cores. Can (and if how) this become even more if i do not mine solo? Sorry for all that questions that are surly answered in the wiki which is down :/ And thanks for your help so far! Nice community here

I calculated $2.5 / month for 4 MH/s. And again, that's just an average, it's not a steady payout. When mining solo (eg with the client) you only get anything when you find a block which is completely random. Due to difficulty increase, it is almost certain you will never find a block.