Post Your Hash/Sec and Hardware

[ichi]

Hello, all    I'm new to Bitcoin.  I'm running client on Ubuntu 10.04 x86 VM with two CPUs and 2.5GB memory.  The VM's running in Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 x64, on old Dell SC1435 with Quad-Core AMD Operon 2376 and 8BG memory.

It's been up for two days, has 15 connections, and currently sees 65,564 blocks.  This morning, it generated "50", and tells me that they'll mature in 9 more blocks.  That seems more-or-less normal, yes?

What's odd is that it's running at 300-500 khash/s when otherwise idle, but is using only about 1% host CPU on average, with occasional bursts to 10%-20%.  The bursts seem to correlate with disk and network activity, which makes sense.

Anyway, I'm curious why I'm not seeing higher khash/s, given that there's plenty of resources available.

Could it be because the VM is running without Linux integration services (which I haven't managed to install successfully)?  Or could it be because I'm not port forwarding?  And FWIW, I can't do that because I'm connecting through OpenVPN.

How can I increase resource utilization?  Alternatively, I'm sure that Ubuntu would be happy with one CPU and 1GB memory.  Would running four such VMs be workable?

Thank you.  This is fun.

[Xunie]

Hello, all    I'm new to Bitcoin.  I'm running client on Ubuntu 10.04 x86 VM with two CPUs and 2.5GB memory.  The VM's running in Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 x64, on old Dell SC1435 with Quad-Core AMD Operon 2376 and 8BG memory.

It's been up for two days, has 15 connections, and currently sees 65,564 blocks.  This morning, it generated "50", and tells me that they'll mature in 9 more blocks.  That seems more-or-less normal, yes?

What's odd is that it's running at 300-500 khash/s when otherwise idle, but is using only about 1% host CPU on average, with occasional bursts to 10%-20%.  The bursts seem to correlate with disk and network activity, which makes sense.

Anyway, I'm curious why I'm not seeing higher khash/s, given that there's plenty of resources available.

Could it be because the VM is running without Linux integration services (which I haven't managed to install successfully)?  Or could it be because I'm not port forwarding?  And FWIW, I can't do that because I'm connecting through OpenVPN.

How can I increase resource utilization?  Alternatively, I'm sure that Ubuntu would be happy with one CPU and 1GB memory.  Would running four such VMs be workable?

Thank you.  This is fun.

Well, running Bitcoin in an VM slows it down, significantly.
It's better to run it directly on the host operating system.
I suggest you do that.

[ichi]

Thanks, Xunie.  The host isn't secure, for many reasons (MS knows me well, basically).  The VM is running encrypted filesystem, and connects via private VPN.

I'm also playing with Ubuntu 10.04 Server on old gaming machine.  I just need to figure out command line access, because there's no GUI.

[robcontact]

With the default build (Linux x86_64)

Desktop (Xeon x3350 @ 3.2Ghz, 4GB RAM):

4 cores - ~ 3300 khash/s

Laptop (ASUS w/ Core2 Quad Q9000 @ 2GHz):

4 cores - ~ 2000 khash/s

[The Madhatter]

My mini-cluster of Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q8400 on FreeBSD 8.0/amd64

hashmeter   32 CPUs   20,704 khash/s

(2588 khash/s per node!! GO TEAM FREEBSD! Roast those penguins! )

[ichi]

Well, running Bitcoin in an VM slows it down, significantly.
It's better to run it directly on the host operating system.
I suggest you do that.

Why is bitcoin so slow on VMs?  Is it intentional, to prevent corporate/government cornering?  Or

Edit: 

Ubuntu 10.04 Server x64
Gateway DX4710
Intel Core2 Quad Q6600
5.5GB real memory
4 CPUs
2,472 khash/s

[Xunie]

Well, running Bitcoin in an VM slows it down, significantly.
It's better to run it directly on the host operating system.
I suggest you do that.

Why is bitcoin so slow on VMs?  Is it intentional, to prevent corporate/government cornering?  Or

Why would we want to slow Bitcoin down?
No see, Virtual Machines can cause quite some overhead. And Bitcoin can really use all the resources it can get to generate higher.
As with any computer program, or even any real world system, everything is based around bottlenecks.

The slowest part in a machine determines the actual speed.

More on that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottleneck

[ichi]

Why would we want to slow Bitcoin down?

Wouldn't it suck if NSA (or Google) cornered Bitcoin market?

[ichi]

What's the VM bottleneck for Bitcoin?  Is it CPU virtualization?

Ubuntu on Hyper-V is particularly slow, I admit.  Win 7 x64, OTOH, screams.  Damn.

[thufir]

Hyper-v is a microsoft product. That is your answer. It runs windows fine I'm sure, but it is your problem, not VM technology itself.

For example, I run bitcoin under Xen (linux/linux) and get khash/sec numbers that run with any I've seen posted.

Theoretically, I wouldn't think VM would affect bitcoin performance (coin mining at least) more than maybe a minute amount. The hashing code has zero system calls that need to be passed outside the virtual host, there is no overhead, especially in any good VM system like Xen that utilizes Thread Local Storage, Etc...

(not saying Xen is the best, only that bitcoin should run undetectably less good inside a VM as out; it does for me.)

[thufir]

I'm sorry. It could very well be that your hyper-v is running linux in full-virtualization mode (full is bad). If you ran the client OS in para-virtualization mode, then it would run near full speed. I am not sure if hyper-v supports that or what. Linux is happy to run in para-virtualization mode, so most VM systems can do that just fine.

[ichi]

I'm sorry. It could very well be that your hyper-v is running linux in full-virtualization mode (full is bad). If you ran the client OS in para-virtualization mode, then it would run near full speed. I am not sure if hyper-v supports that or what. Linux is happy to run in para-virtualization mode, so most VM systems can do that just fine.

Yes, that's the problem.  Microsoft's para-virtualization support for Linux is minimal.  It supposedly works for Red Hat and Debian () but I've had no joy with Ubuntu.

Perhaps I'll set up some Red Hat VMs.  There's another project that needs a virtual network of Red Hat VMs.

Or perhaps Win XP VMs, if I can dig up enough full-install packages.

Thanks, all, for your help.

[AndrewBuck]

Hello everyone, first post here.  Currently only have bitcoin running on my eee-1000 but after I upgrade my desktop I will have a node running there as well.  My eee is running:

intel atom N270 1.6 GHZ dual core.
1.0 GB of ram, about 3/4 of which is free/cache under normal operations.
currently getting between 160 and 180 khash's per second with both cores running.

-Buck

[SlipperySlope]

Ubuntu 10.04
AMD Phenom II X4 920
4 cores
2.8 GHz
8 GB RAM
2718 khashs/sec
the bitcoin process runs on all cores but is "niced" to yield cycles to ordinary processes

[Stone Man]

Here is my set up.

Windows 7 64-bit
Intel Core 2 Duo P7450
2 cores
2.13 GHz
3 GB RAM
749 khashs/sec

[Bitcoiner]

Windows 7 64-bit
AMD Phenom II X4 810 2.61Ghz
2000 khash/sec
CPU temperature stabilises at 61C
MB temperature at 40C

I noticed something funny: After running for a long while, the khash/sec went down to 1750-1800. Is this normal? I see the same thing happening on my laptop where it went down to 275 after staying at 300 - 310 for a while.

[sgtstein]

Fedora 13 64-bit
Intel Core i7 930 @ 2.8GHz
4 Cores, Hyper Threading on but using only 4 threads.
Uncertain on temps as of yet.

2800kh/s

[lobo235]

Hi all, I'm getting 3440 khash/sec on my HP Z600 desktop with the following specs:

• OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
• Processor: Intel Xeon E5520 @ 2.26 GHz (2 processors)
• RAM: 4GB

Bitcoin is running on 8 cores.

[aceat64]

2x Quad-Core Xeon E5335 @ 2 GHz
24GB FB-DIMM DDR2 667
4150 khash/s

I'm using the binaries straight from the site. I'll probably compile it later today and see if I can squeeze out a bit more performance.

[Bitcoiner]

Windows 7 64-bit
AMD Phenom II X4 810 2.61Ghz
2000 khash/sec
CPU temperature stabilises at 61C
MB temperature at 40C

I noticed something funny: After running for a long while, the khash/sec went down to 1750-1800. Is this normal? I see the same thing happening on my laptop where it went down to 275 after staying at 300 - 310 for a while.

Bitcoin 64-bit
Ubuntu 10.04 64-bit
AMD Phenom II X4 810 2.61Ghz
2450 khash/sec

So, somewhat faster than in Windows 7. However, ubuntu lags a lot more than Windows does when Bitcoin is going fullbore.