[0 GH/s 0% fee SMPPS] ArsBitcoin mining pool!

[BurningToad]

Thanks for the suggestions Meatball!  I will be working on these.

There is already an automatic payout system.  You can set your auto payout threshold in the account details, from 1 BTC to 25 BTC.  Once you reach the threshold (such as 1 BTC) it will automatically be sent to your payment address.

[Exonumia]

Hello! Thanks for the pool...

Any chance you can httpS the website?

Would even go for a private certificate... just trying to avoid sniffing between my browser and the status page!

[BurningToad]

Block!   Cmon, lets get that hash rate up!

[Meatball]

For anyone on the fence about joining the pool, I offer some great reasons to jump in.

First and foremost, there's a good community.  IRC usually has some folks chatting and BurningToad is responsive to change requests.

Second, there no fees...seriously.  You can donate a fee if you want, but you don't have to.  No matter what anyone says, long term, no matter how you mine, solo, small pool, big pool, you will on average get the same amount of BTC.  The key difference between solo and pools is the fees and with 0% fees here, you just get the benefit of added hashpower.  Yeah, you'll get less per block, but the group will find more blocks than you would on your own.

[BurningToad]

Hello! Thanks for the pool...
Any chance you can httpS the website?
Would even go for a private certificate... just trying to avoid sniffing between my browser and the status page!

I almost had this done a while ago, but I didn't receive many requests for it.  I will work on it again

[rearwheels]

Hi BurningToad,

I've added ArsBitcoin to www.btc-poolwatch.com so that miners can easily monitor multiple pools.

I would like to check if there is a JSON for just the pool info like round shares, total hashrate, etc. that I can pull?

Thanks in advance.

regards,
koo

[BurningToad]

Cool, thanks rearwheels!

I recently added this, which contains hash rate and historical block info.

http://arsbitcoin.com/blockApi.php

[BurningToad]

Ok, these are my top three current priorities, not necessarily in order though

1) Implement Shared Maximum Pay-per-share payments as mentioned previously in thread. This would replace proportional payments and ensure that miners are paid evenly regardless of round length. Are there any objections to this?  If so, why?

2) Miner idle emails

3) A BTC payout history graph like Slush, daily BTC reward and a 7 day moving average.

If you think my priorities should be elsewhere, let me know!

[Meatball]

Those priorities look good to me.

BTW, some talk on graphics cards on IRC.  A while back I put together this completely and utterly unscientific calculation to help me figure out what the best cards for hashing were.  I based it on Hash Rate, $ and Watts and combined them all.  For watts/hash rate, I used numbers I was able to get with my cards, or if I didn't have those cards, I used an average of what I was seeing on the Mining Hardware Wiki.  The prices were as of 6/12 and the best I could find at that time either through Amazon/Newegg, so the numbers might not be exact now. 

Also, the ones with the x - in front of them are pretty much impossible to find at that price or even any price now. 

I don't know if this helps anyone, but this is what I used to try to figure out what the best overall card based on MH/$/Watts was.  Higher final number is better.

GPU | MH Range | Watt Range | Lowest Price | (Avg MH)/$ | (Avg MH)/W | (Avg MH)/$ + (Avg MH)/W

x - 5830 | (200) | 160w | $109 | (2.8 ) | (1.75) | 4.55

6870 | (232-329) | 155W - $165 | (1.99) | (2.12) | 4.11

x - 5850 | (350) | 150w | $155 | (2.2) | (1.82) | 4.02

6950 (Shaders unlocked with bios mod) | (370) | 176W  | $222 | (1.66) | (2.10) | 3.76

6850 | (177-244) | 125W - $146 | (1.67) | (1.95) | 3.62

6950 (w/o shader Unlock Bios) | (340) | 176W | $222 | (1.53) | (1.93) | 3.46

x - 5870 | (313-421) | 188W | $379 | (1.11) | (2.23) | 3.34

x - 5970 | (530-802) | 300w | $909 | (0.88) | (2.31) | 3.18

5770 | (200) | 100W - $100 | (2) | (1) | 3

x - 6990 | (708-772) | 400W - $722 | (1.06) | (1.93) | 2.99

6970 | (323-372) | 254W | $310 | (1.46) | (1.20) | 2.66

[BurningToad]

So I've found a way to grab us a quick 6+ g/hash.  Simply change the number of shares in the round to a very low number.  Hi automatic pool hoppers!  The real share number is below (for now) for our normal users.  I'm sure they will figure it out soon, but it is a fun test

You can see the pool hash rate jump here: http://vps1.thedevcave.net/arsbitcoin_stats/showstats.php

Until I implement the improved payment system, I will keep playing with the pool hoppers to ensure the pool isn't losing efficiency.  If they can use automatic scripts to screen-scrape the stats page, well, I have every right to alter the stats page as I wish!

[BurningToad]

Ok, most of them caught on, back to normal

[BurningToad]

Made good progress on the new payment system today.  It is half up on my test server (running on testnet.)  You can receive the new payments, but you also receive the old method payments   Next up is coding the transition between the two systems, and I want to have some good stats/charts on the new system before I release it, so that it is easy to see and understand.  I should be able to continue work on it tomorrow!

Meanwhile, keep hashing! 

[geek-trader]

Meatball - I have a 5830.  They are hard to find, I ended up paying too much in order to get one ASAP.  $179.  I think you'll find most mining cards are higher than "regular" if you actually want to purchase one today and not sit around waiting for them to come into stock.

Also, you listed 200 Mh/s, and I'm getting 277 right now into the Ars pool.

I also have a UPS that my computer is plugged into, and it has a watt display.  The difference between mining and not mining is 122w.  Total is 203w.  It's a file server, so it would be on if I was not mining anyway.

My real world 5830 numbers:

GPU | MH Range | Watt Range | Lowest Price | (Avg MH)/$ | (Avg MH)/W | (Avg MH)/$ + (Avg MH)/W
5830 | 277         |  122         |   $179         |   1.54         | 2.27         | 3.81

so, my Mh/s and watts are better than what you listed, but I paid too much.  Still the best card, I think, if you can get a better price than I did.

[Zoomer]

Hello! Thanks for the pool...
Any chance you can httpS the website?
Would even go for a private certificate... just trying to avoid sniffing between my browser and the status page!

I almost had this done a while ago, but I didn't receive many requests for it.  I will work on it again

You can get a free cert here. Compatible with any modern browser.
http://www.startssl.com/

[FreeJAC]

Meatball - I have a 5830. I'm getting 277 right now into the Ars pool.

If you OC you can get into the 300s. Not sure if that is a practical thing to do as you say it is in a server. My settings are CC 1010 Mem 354 GPU Voltage up a bit from stock to 1200 and getting 317 - 321 Mhash/sec @60c. 

[geek-trader]

Meatball - I have a 5830. I'm getting 277 right now into the Ars pool.

If you OC you can get into the 300s. Not sure if that is a practical thing to do as you say it is in a server. My settings are CC 1010 Mem 354 GPU Voltage up a bit from stock to 1200 and getting 317 - 321 Mhash/sec @60c. 

It's clocked at 875 right now, to make 277 Mh/s.  If I clock it to 975, it hits 303 Mh/s, but the fan spins up and it's really loud.  The fan noise at 875 is not bad at all.   Got to keep the marital harmony in the household. 

[Meatball]

Yeah, not all my numbers are exact as prices have swung a lot on some of the cards recently.  I got my 5830's for $109 and my 5850's for $149 while all the vendor's were dumping them.  You're right about the Hash Rate too.  I'm getting about 293 MH/s running 945/315.

To me it was just an easy way to plug some numbers in and rank cards.  You're mileage may vary, but the keep is to find out what card gives you the best hash rate at the lowest wattage with the lowest price.

[gade202]

I joined the pool this morning.  I had been with BTCGuild but after last nights issues, I decided to jump ship.

I'm running at roughly 2.2Ghash and I like the lower powered pools.  I realize all pools equalize to the same BTC/day ratio but I like the idea of getting a bigger chunk when a block is found. 

Anyways, thanks for your work on the pool.  So far, I'm very satisfied with the pool, stats site and bringing all the miners online was super smooth.  I look forward to the next block!

[miscreanity]

Ars reader from the beginning (early 1999) hopping on-board. CPU mining only atm. Nice, simple pool interface - good work, BT.

A couple of questions:

How is the worker activity determined? I have a few that are consistently running, yet show as inactive on my account details. When I'm away from the machines, it'd be nice to see which ones have hit a snag. If it's just due to my painfully low Mhash rate, c'est la vie.

I know it isn't the best option, but what would an ideal laptop GPU be for mining? I haven't seen much discussion along those lines and I value the Ars community opinion higher than most.

Thanks!

[geek-trader]

Ars reader from the beginning (early 1999) hopping on-board. CPU mining only atm. Nice, simple pool interface - good work, BT.

A couple of questions:

How is the worker activity determined? I have a few that are consistently running, yet show as inactive on my account details. When I'm away from the machines, it'd be nice to see which ones have hit a snag. If it's just due to my painfully low Mhash rate, c'est la vie.

I know it isn't the best option, but what would an ideal laptop GPU be for mining? I haven't seen much discussion along those lines and I value the Ars community opinion higher than most.

Thanks!

It depends on the GPU.  I'm a  Mac guy, so I don't know what GPU's come in Windows laptops these days.  There's a hardware list / comparison at https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_Hardware_Comparison

CPU mining, or mining on non-ATI cards is a nice way to use what you have to see how the whole thing works, but you're never going to get any money that way.  My MacBook Pro (2009) was getting 2.1 Mh/s on it's Nvidia 9400M.  My file server running linux and an AMD cpu from 2006 was getting 1.2 Mh/s. I threw a ATI 5830 in that file server and now I get 277 Mh/s.

277 Mh/s gets you .2 BTC a day.  So you can imagine how long it would take to get 1 BTC with CPU or Nvidia mining.