[4+ EH] Slush Pool (slushpool.com); Overt AsicBoost; World First Mining Pool

[[Tycho]]

This is a bit risky, so I'm using your pool to keep my variance down. Getting a bitcoin or two every day has really aided my peace of mind (and my relationship with my wife, who was a bit skeptical about the whole affair). It's well worth the expected "cost" of a few bitcoins a month. I'm still running an unpooled miner as well, since the lure of the big hit is ever present, but in the meantime I know I'll mine enough to pay my electric bill and have a bit left over.

You should get more than 1-2 BTC per day with 5970. Even a half of 5970 (~290 MH/s) should mine ~3.5+ BTC daily.

[Ian Maxwell]

To clarify: getting a bitcoin or two on a really bad day. On a good day, five or six.

[Cdecker]

Small update today. I added JSON API for profile page and token mechanism to authenticate against it without need of login/password in your scripts. I see that many of you are downloading profile page and parse it periodically. This API is now preferred way to check your account balance.

For API interface instructions, follow the link on top of your profile page.

This is great, I was one of the guys scraping the page (5 minutes, I figured what's the harm), but this makes it so much easier.

For those of you using Munin, now you can monitor the pools like I do:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

case $1 in
  config)
    echo "graph_title Pool reward"
    echo "graph_vlabel BTC"
    echo "confirmed_reward.label Confirmed Reward"
    echo "total_reward.label Total Reward"
    echo "graph_category Bitcoin"
    exit 0;;
esac


CURL_OPTS="-b /tmp/cookies.txt -c /tmp/cookies.txt -L -s --max-time 3 -k"
URL="https://mining.bitcoin.cz/accounts/profile/json/YOUR_TOKEN_HERE"

PROFILE=`curl $CURL_OPTS $URL`
CONFIRMED=`echo $PROFILE | grep -E '"confirmed_reward": "[0-9\.]+"' -o | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/"//g'`
UNCONFIRMED=`echo $PROFILE | grep -E '"unconfirmed_reward": "[0-9\.]+"' -o | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/"//g'`
TOTAL=`echo "scale=8; $CONFIRMED + $UNCONFIRMED" | bc`
echo total_reward.value $TOTAL
echo confirmed_reward.value $CONFIRMED

Just add your token and drop it into /etc/munin/plugins/ ^^

The graphs look like this:

[kindle]

Hi Slush I noticed the following issues with the connection

Listener for "BTM 5970 (1)": 21/03/2011 23:56:35, Server temporarily down for maintenance
Listener for "BTM 5850": 21/03/2011 23:56:36, Server temporarily down for maintenance
Listener for "BTM 5970 (2)": 21/03/2011 23:57:38, Problems communicating with bitcoin RPC
Listener for "BTM 5850": 21/03/2011 23:58:36, Server temporarily down for maintenance

Is there some upgrading going on at the sever ?

Cheers!

[dishwara]

Too much RPC error today.

[xenon481]

Currently, the Block History on the Statistics page only displays the last 30 blocks solved by the pool. This can be a problem (and is right now) if the pool has solved more than 30 blocks within a time period that the entire network hasn't yet solved 120 blocks. In this case, you can't monitor whether the solved blocks are being successfully confirmed nor how far away they are from being confirmed.

For instance, currently, the pool's block 2193 (114305) is the last one listed on the page, but it still has 7 confirmations left. I can't tell from the page whether or not there are any other blocks (say 2192) that still require confirmations.

Theoretically, this should only be a problem when the pool has approximately (keeping variance in mind) 1/3rd (or is it 1/4th?) of the total current hashing power of the entire network.

[[Tycho]]

Currently, the Block History on the Statistics page only displays the last 30 blocks solved by the pool. This can be a problem (and is right now) if the pool has solved more than 30 blocks within a time period that the entire network hasn't yet solved 120 blocks. In this case, you can't monitor whether the solved blocks are being successfully confirmed nor how far away they are from being confirmed.

http://mining.bitcoin.cz/stats/?history=1000

[Ian Maxwell]

Thanks, I was wondering the same thing. Is there any way we could get a pull-down menu or something on the page?

Question: I notice that at the beginning of every block, my expected reward shoots up, then gradually moves down again. Is this an artifact of the payment system, or is it because people are trying to game it by disconnecting right after a block is found and reconnecting a few minutes later?

If the latter, it seems like it's self-correcting: by staying connected I have a small chance of a much higher reward, with the expected payout probably not changing that much.

[xenon481]

Question: I notice that at the beginning of every block, my expected reward shoots up, then gradually moves down again. Is this an artifact of the payment system, or is it because people are trying to game it by disconnecting right after a block is found and reconnecting a few minutes later?

If the latter, it seems like it's self-correcting: by staying connected I have a small chance of a much higher reward, with the expected payout probably not changing that much.

That's the way that the score system works. Each proof of work that you find is worth full value when you find it and then gradually decreases in value as it ages.

[slush]

Too much RPC error today.

I'm intensively solving issue in bitcoind related to today's spam transactions. Looks like bitcoind is busy calculating the spam transactions and rejecting getwork requests.

[Ian Maxwell]

xenon: I understand that, but I'm continuing to submit shares. Even if my earlier ones are aging, shouldn't my later ones be making up for it?

[Shardok]

As I said, I tried most of them that were recommended and of them RPCMiner was the only one that really gave me any kind of Input on what was going wrong.

With ufasoft, it just pops up, then closes.

With jgarzik, I installed it, and yet, I can't open it. It just shows a folder, then inside of it a blank named application that when run asks me what to open with, and an option to uninstall it.

Though when I navigate to the folder jgarzik installs to I find minerd.exe and when I run that it just claims to startup, then gives HTTP request failed errors. I don't see anywhere to edit the url it connects to or anything like that either.

[[Tycho]]

As I said, I tried most of them that were recommended and of them RPCMiner was the only one that really gave me any kind of Input on what was going wrong.

With ufasoft, it just pops up, then closes.

With jgarzik, I installed it, and yet, I can't open it. It just shows a folder, then inside of it a blank named application that when run asks me what to open with, and an option to uninstall it.

Though when I navigate to the folder jgarzik installs to I find minerd.exe and when I run that it just claims to startup, then gives HTTP request failed errors. I don't see anywhere to edit the url it connects to or anything like that either.

Looks like you aren't familiar with command prompt and console applications. Am i correct ?

[Shardok]

No, I am, just used to ones that can Also be run by opening them. Sorta hit me that's why ufasofts was being a pain. Though now I'm only half certain if that's working or not. Running, gave no more errors after I figured out the nearly unreadable help, and it's showing a grand total of 0 MHash/s with a nice flashing line after it.

This is what I wrote, assuming it's correct for me...

Code:

bitcoin-miner -g no  -o http://mining.bitcoin.cz -u user -p pass

Why is it that no one has bothered to make one with either A: readable help, or B: a GUI?

[[Tycho]]

Why is it that no one has bothered to make one with either A: readable help, or B: a GUI?

There is GUI for m0mchil's poclbm OpenCL miner.

[Cablesaurus]

Does slush' pool support long polling?

[Shardok]

I had more luck programming for a C++ class I never went to than I did trying to figure these things out. (Though that's likely because you got a C if you turned in a program that at least had a few lines written in it saying what you wanted it to do)

I'm guessing it's working now, and eventually I should be able to see proof that it is by checking my account on the website.

And sadly, my video card sucks and doesn't support OpenCL

[slush]

Does slush' pool support long polling?

Not yet (publicly), I'm in the last stage of testing.

[slush]

Today we found one bottleneck in bitcoind. When there are many of transactions in the network and many getwork calls (as on the pool), the processing of spam transactions cause high CPU load and freeze getwork requests for the moment. This caused today's higher ratio of stale shares. Artforz found one nice workaround how to handle this, but it needs some development and testing. In the meantime, pool does not accept free transactions as quick&dirty anti-spam prevention. I understand it is far from idea, but we (me, m0mchil and ArtForz) are working on the better solution.

[frankiebits]

So I started mining on your pool today and right now according to my miner I have over 1500 accepted shares but in the "My account" page it is only showing around 300.

Can you help me understand a little better why that is?