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

[MDKing]

I have another question regarding shares and how rewards are paid out via the server.

Normally through an evening of mining on the server I can check the statistics page and see my reward. For example from #1072 to #1088 I was rewarded however at #1089 the reward is none. I'm assuming this is because the block was solved very quickly ( duration of 1:52 ) and within that time my miner did not solve the lower difficulty block and thus submit a share?

If this is all correct, my question is, is this entirely fair? I'll explain my point.

My miner has been logged in all evening for 10+ blocks and contributing (75Mh/s, not a whole lot but still a GPU). However, when a block is found very early only those who have contributed a new share in the new block benefit regardless that my mining has still be working away on the new block. Also from what I understand not every getwork is even capable of containing a share/solution, so it's not as if my miner has been sitting idle.

It just seems to still contain a certain amount of luck factor (that I though the pool was supposed to resolve) when a new block starts. If you receive a getwork and solve it quickly and submit a share you're good to go, however if you hit several geoworks with no solution/share and the block is solved you receive nothing.

While I have no insight to the amount of records/logging that is captured for each block couldn't there be a level of trust/history established that even if the miner hasn't submitted a share for the new block they are still contributing?

I.e. If a block is solved, check pool connections for past "n" block versus current pool connections. If a miner is still connected and hasn't submitted a share for the new block but has submitted shares for the past "n" blocks, give them credit for the current block?

Again this isn't a bashing post, just question. I think this service is A++, and everyone should have their donations setup!

[epicenter]

can some one explain how block 1072 was found to be invalid on http://mining.bitcoin.cz/stats/

http://blockexplorer.com/block/0000000000016c551207249b2534428eb26f666a03172f0a845ffd25d55001d8

did the pool think we solved it and it was determined some one else actually solved it?

[slush]

It just seems to still contain a certain amount of luck factor (that I though the pool was supposed to resolve) when a new block starts.

You are right. Whole mining is still about luck, even with pooled mining. Just solving "difficulty 1" blocks (=shares in pool) gives you more steady payouts than solving full difficulty blocks. So yes, missing reward from some round is still fair, because  in longer average (day?) you still hit the same number of shares.

Simply said, with rising pool hashrate, members with constant power will earn less from every round, but more often. But this does not affect your daily reward.

Example: When I started the pool, I had round reward around 15 BTC for single HD5970. Now, with 4x 5970, I have much lower round reward, because my hashrate is smaller fragment of whole pool rate. But my daily reward is still correct.

So don't worry about round rewards, when everything else is fine.

I.e. If a block is solved, check pool connections for past "n" block versus current pool connections. If a miner is still connected and hasn't submitted a share for the new block but has submitted shares for the past "n" blocks, give them credit for the current block?

Solving one share indicate that miner is working. Calculating rewards based on connections can be misused, because somebody can just connect to pool, but does nothing.

[slush]

can some one explain how block 1072 was found to be invalid on http://mining.bitcoin.cz/stats/

This means that another miner announced new Bitcoin block with  the same "prevhash" just a second before pool. This happen time to time and it is not related to pool.

[MDKing]

It just seems to still contain a certain amount of luck factor (that I though the pool was supposed to resolve) when a new block starts.

I.e. If a block is solved, check pool connections for past "n" block versus current pool connections. If a miner is still connected and hasn't submitted a share for the new block but has submitted shares for the past "n" blocks, give them credit for the current block?

Solving one share indicate that miner is working. Calculating rewards based on connections can be misused, because somebody can just connect to pool, but does nothing.

I agree a miner could connect to the pool and do nothing. That's why you would have to check the shares/history of the past "n" ( say 5 ) blocks to determine if this is just an unlucky miner who hasn't submitted a share to the quickly solved new block or is a free loader who should get nothing.

Anyhow over a long average this probably isn't an issue.

[slush]

I agree a miner could connect to the pool and do nothing. That's why you would have to check the shares/history of the past "n" ( say 5 ) blocks to determine if this is just an unlucky miner who hasn't submitted a share to the quickly solved new block or is a free loader who should get nothing.

I see your point, but it is absolutely not necessary. As I said, there is no reason why everybody should have some reward from every round. There are many rounds every day, it does not affect your reward in any way.

[t3h]

A whole day and not a single share found for me. I think this pool is not for us small miners anymore. 4khash is obviously not worth anything.
Shame, but fun while it lasted.

Check your mining software. I have a 4Khash node in my setup, and it produces a share every 15-20 mins.

[slush]

Check your mining software. I have a 4Khash node in my setup, and it produces a share every 15-20 mins.

MEGA hashes, not KILO hashes, guys :-)

[BitterTea]

Hey Slush, I just found myself slapping my hand upon my face palm first trying to log in to the site. I was 100% sure I was entering the correct password but it kept getting rejected. I reset my password and was having the same issue. Turns out the username is case sensitive. Is that necessary, or unintended?

edit... Thanks for trying to reset my password, whomever that was. Why would you even bother?

[slush]

Hey Slush, I just found myself slapping my hand upon my face palm first trying to log in to the site. I was 100% sure I was entering the correct password but it kept getting rejected. I reset my password and was having the same issue. Turns out the username is case sensitive. Is that necessary, or unintended?

Why should be nickname case insensitive?

edit... Thanks for trying to reset my password, whomever that was. Why would you even bother?

?

[BitterTea]

I have never used or created an authentication system with a case sensitive username. Case sensitivity makes sense for passwords (entropy), but not for usernames. Should BitterTea and bittertea be considered two separate identities? does not seem right to me.

shortly after I made my previous post, I received another password reset email. I assume someone used my username from the forum to try to reset my password. but now that I think about it, the password reset feature uses email address.

[DarkMatter]

what's the meaning of error message "verification failed, check hardware!"?
i get it generating on my amd gpu using  m0mchil's windows miner

Guess you overclocked your card too much and it's spitting out zeros instead of ones

[slush]

Pool is down for a moment, I'm doing upgrade of main server.

[DiabloD3]

Exactly. No reason to remove everything else if you're only accepting shares for the current block. Not round. Block.

I'm kindly asking you, geebus and FairUser, to stop trolling here again, as you did in m0mchil thread few days ago.

Dude, our modifications to momchill's miner would seriously reduced the load on your server......yet we're trolling?  WTF Ever.
Diablo's miner does this already, but momchills doesn't. That's the point we were making on m0mchill's thread.

Wait, since I implemented this in my miner, wouldn't this make me the troll?

[slush]

Pool outage was ~15 minutes, everything is working perfectly now. I'll add second server into cluster, change will be without outage.

[jgarzik]

Pool outage was ~15 minutes, everything is working perfectly now. I'll add second server into cluster, change will be without outage.

Is this two pool servers connecting to same bitcoind... or two pool servers connecting to two bitcoind instances?

[slush]

Is this two pool servers connecting to same bitcoind... or two pool servers connecting to two bitcoind instances?

Two bitcoin instances, mostly because reducing network latencies between those two boxes.

[jafo]

Normally through an evening of mining on the server I can check the statistics page and see my reward. For example from #1072 to #1088 I was rewarded however at #1089 the reward is none. I'm assuming this is because the block was solved very quickly ( duration of 1:52 ) and within that time my miner did not solve the lower difficulty block and thus submit a share?

My assumption here is that what happened is:

• My miner got a chunk from the previous block.
• The previous block was solved and the new block was started.
• 1.5 minutes later the new block was solved and a new block was started.
• My miner submitted a response after around 2 minute of work, and gets a chunk from the new block.

So, my miner never worked on this really short block, but it did work on the ones surrounding it and did get to participate in them.

That's just a guess, but it seems like that would make sense.  I also presume you get participation points for completing a block, not for starting it...

[slush]

I just finished big system upgrade. Pool is running on two servers now and should be able to handle 3x more traffic now. I hope it gives me enough time to work on pushwork implementation again. Tomorrow there will be also one short maintenance, I need to move main database and it cannot be done on running system.

[t3h]

Check your mining software. I have a 4Khash node in my setup, and it produces a share every 15-20 mins.

MEGA hashes, not KILO hashes, guys :-)

4Mhash, rather. Units are probably confusing because it's a number of thousand kHashes...