[ANN] [MΣC] Megacoin.co.nz - Forum, Github, Website Now in 18 Languages

[ethought]

Yeah, even with the hit-n-run pools spiking the difficulty like crazy we still manage to grab a few blocks. 

It's so pointless for the hit-n-run pools to continue keeping MegaCoin in the rotation. They mine it for a split second...the difficulty reacts quickly and they move on. All it does is screw up the difficulty briefly from time-to-time. Luckily things correct quickly...but it's just inconsiderate at this point as there isn't really anything for them to gain. They would be better off mining whatever they were mining before they switched.

Yeah - I have been closely watching the multipools effect on Megacoin. Kimoto has done very well. It seems they gain very little from hitting MEC. Where they used to come in and grab 100+ blocks in a single go they are now struggling to get 10 - 20 blocks... 

They will stop sooner or later, and even if they don't I don't really think it matters as the difficulty adjusts down pretty quickly - more profitable to just mine MEC full time I think.

The best thing, in my opinion, is the multipools are now not getting massive amounts of Megacoin to dump on the exchanges which used to put downward pressure on MEC prices. Now with minimal multipool dumping and massive buy support there is really only one way the price of Megacoin can go.

[symzzi]

Still having the same issue with solo mining on windows 0.8.996 that I had on earlier client versions, the MEC client shuts itself down/crashes/exits after a few hours and cgminer stops getting any work..

Back in a pool for now but I'd rather solo mine if I can figure out whats going on. Any ideas?

[ethought]

Still having the same issue with solo mining on windows 0.8.996 that I had on earlier client versions, the MEC client shuts itself down/crashes/exits after a few hours and cgminer stops getting any work..

Back in a pool for now but I'd rather solo mine if I can figure out whats going on. Any ideas?

How much RAM have you got?

[bholzer]

Still having the same issue with solo mining on windows 0.8.996 that I had on earlier client versions, the MEC client shuts itself down/crashes/exits after a few hours and cgminer stops getting any work..

Back in a pool for now but I'd rather solo mine if I can figure out whats going on. Any ideas?

For starters, be sure to have a pool set for backup ( --failover-only ) -- that way if any issues arise, at least your miner(s) jump over to the pool. I mine Megacoin solo almost exclusively...and the only issues I have ever had is drawing too much power on the host machine (which has 2x7990s in it) -- it would sometimes just shut down (so all of my other machines would stop getting work and fail over to the backup pool.) A beefier power supply took care of the issue.

It seems to me like it may be a Windows issue -- fragments of some program either running in the background or gumming up your registry. 99% of the time, these types of issues are solved by re-installing Windows. If you're on Windows 8, the final 8.1 patch is rolling out and it's possible that will clean up whatever issue is causing your problem as well.

Another suggestion would be to close the clients for other currencies if you don't need them open (LTC, CGB, etc.) Sometimes keeping too many of them running at once causes strange memory errors.

Finally, my advise would be to use a pool at this point unless you have quite a bit of mining power. The small amount you lose in fees will likely be balanced out by getting a better average difficulty. I've seen brief periods where the Megacoin difficulty dips down below 6 in the past few days and it's nice to hit a ton of blocks on a pool during these low-difficulty periods. Yes, your chances go up mining solo as well, but with low hash power you are a lot less likely to get anything out of it. This is just a suggestion, however. I understand the appeal of solo-mining.

[symzzi]

Still having the same issue with solo mining on windows 0.8.996 that I had on earlier client versions, the MEC client shuts itself down/crashes/exits after a few hours and cgminer stops getting any work..

Back in a pool for now but I'd rather solo mine if I can figure out whats going on. Any ideas?

How much RAM have you got?

8GB for 4 x 7950. This only happen with MEC, the rig has been mining LTC since March, but when i try to solo mine MEC it runs fine for a few hours then stops when the client (run with -server flag) exits itself. I've lost a lot of mining time over days to this problem in the past, just gave it another go as I was hoping the new client would fix it, but it still happens..

Still having the same issue with solo mining on windows 0.8.996 that I had on earlier client versions, the MEC client shuts itself down/crashes/exits after a few hours and cgminer stops getting any work..

Back in a pool for now but I'd rather solo mine if I can figure out whats going on. Any ideas?

For starters, be sure to have a pool set for backup ( --failover-only ) -- that way if any issues arise, at least your miner(s) jump over to the pool. I mine Megacoin solo almost exclusively...and the only issues I have ever had is drawing too much power on the host machine (which has 2x7990s in it) -- it would sometimes just shut down (so all of my other machines would stop getting work and fail over to the backup pool.) A beefier power supply took care of the issue.

It seems to me like it may be a Windows issue -- fragments of some program either running in the background or gumming up your registry. 99% of the time, these types of issues are solved by re-installing Windows. If you're on Windows 8, the final 8.1 patch is rolling out and it's possible that will clean up whatever issue is causing your problem as well.

Another suggestion would be to close the clients for other currencies if you don't need them open (LTC, CGB, etc.) Sometimes keeping too many of them running at once causes strange memory errors.

Finally, my advise would be to use a pool at this point unless you have quite a bit of mining power. The small amount you lose in fees will likely be balanced out by getting a better average difficulty. I've seen brief periods where the Megacoin difficulty dips down below 6 in the past few days and it's nice to hit a ton of blocks on a pool during these low-difficulty periods. Yes, your chances go up mining solo as well, but with low hash power you are a lot less likely to get anything out of it. This is just a suggestion, however. I understand the appeal of solo-mining.

Power supply is fine, 1250w for 4 x undervolted 7950's. Rig is clean install of windows 7, nothing but basic drivers and mining software + MEC client. 2.5 MH/s is enough for solo mining, even more so if I switch another couple of rigs over.

[ethought]

Still having the same issue with solo mining on windows 0.8.996 that I had on earlier client versions, the MEC client shuts itself down/crashes/exits after a few hours and cgminer stops getting any work..

Back in a pool for now but I'd rather solo mine if I can figure out whats going on. Any ideas?

How much RAM have you got?

8GB for 4 x 7950. This only happen with MEC, the rig has been mining LTC since March, but when i try to solo mine MEC it runs fine for a few hours then stops when the client (run with -server flag) exits itself. I've lost a lot of mining time over days to this problem in the past, just gave it another go as I was hoping the new client would fix it, but it still happens..

Can you put 16GB in there to test?

I always had issues trying to run any coin wallet client on a windows machine while mining. My guess is memory stability problems with windows + cgminer + client...

Do you know how to use Linux, for example Ubuntu? If I were you I would get another cheap PC and set up a dedicated client machine. That way you can mine directly or setup a stratum server, setup stratum proxies etc.. I really don't use windows much at all so cannot say but after running pools of at least a dozen different coins on debian servers I find the Megacoin client to be one of the most stable, if not the most stable, of all altcoins when run on linux. In comparison to some of the problems I have with other coin clients I would give the Megacoin client an A++ for stability.

[ethought]

Total buy orders on Cryptsy down to 0.0009 = 38 BTC!

Total sell order up to 0.0013 = 3 BTC

[claycoins]

Total buy orders on Cryptsy down to 0.0009 = 38 BTC!

Total sell order up to 0.0013 = 3 BTC

pressure is building.

[cgminer-o]

Very nice ! 

[Tequilablob]

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii29/bweezeh/Animated/Fireworks.gif

Hooray

[gr33k]

It's good to see activity on MegaCoin happening. I've been focused so much on SexCoin lately that I hadn't noticed there was an update required.

I've updated the back-end to the latest daemon now, and I'm leaving my MEC pool up for those that want to mine in a small pool w/ proportional payouts.

megacoin-0.8.996

[vtr99]

Still having the same issue with solo mining on windows 0.8.996 that I had on earlier client versions, the MEC client shuts itself down/crashes/exits after a few hours and cgminer stops getting any work..

Back in a pool for now but I'd rather solo mine if I can figure out whats going on. Any ideas?

How much RAM have you got?

8GB for 4 x 7950. This only happen with MEC, the rig has been mining LTC since March, but when i try to solo mine MEC it runs fine for a few hours then stops when the client (run with -server flag) exits itself. I've lost a lot of mining time over days to this problem in the past, just gave it another go as I was hoping the new client would fix it, but it still happens..

Still having the same issue with solo mining on windows 0.8.996 that I had on earlier client versions, the MEC client shuts itself down/crashes/exits after a few hours and cgminer stops getting any work..

Back in a pool for now but I'd rather solo mine if I can figure out whats going on. Any ideas?

For starters, be sure to have a pool set for backup ( --failover-only ) -- that way if any issues arise, at least your miner(s) jump over to the pool. I mine Megacoin solo almost exclusively...and the only issues I have ever had is drawing too much power on the host machine (which has 2x7990s in it) -- it would sometimes just shut down (so all of my other machines would stop getting work and fail over to the backup pool.) A beefier power supply took care of the issue.

It seems to me like it may be a Windows issue -- fragments of some program either running in the background or gumming up your registry. 99% of the time, these types of issues are solved by re-installing Windows. If you're on Windows 8, the final 8.1 patch is rolling out and it's possible that will clean up whatever issue is causing your problem as well.

Another suggestion would be to close the clients for other currencies if you don't need them open (LTC, CGB, etc.) Sometimes keeping too many of them running at once causes strange memory errors.

Finally, my advise would be to use a pool at this point unless you have quite a bit of mining power. The small amount you lose in fees will likely be balanced out by getting a better average difficulty. I've seen brief periods where the Megacoin difficulty dips down below 6 in the past few days and it's nice to hit a ton of blocks on a pool during these low-difficulty periods. Yes, your chances go up mining solo as well, but with low hash power you are a lot less likely to get anything out of it. This is just a suggestion, however. I understand the appeal of solo-mining.

Power supply is fine, 1250w for 4 x undervolted 7950's. Rig is clean install of windows 7, nothing but basic drivers and mining software + MEC client. 2.5 MH/s is enough for solo mining, even more so if I switch another couple of rigs over.

Bingo! bholzer was probably correct on his first guess. Not all coins have the same power requirements when mining. I know it sounds strange, but it's true. If you have a Kill-a-watt meter, try mining Litecoin and take a snapshot, them try it with MEC. For some reason certain coins work the cards harder. In my opinion a 1250 watt supply is VERY weak for 4x 7950 cards. The 7950's are pulling about 250 watts each leaving you maybe 250 watts to run everything else. Your symptoms fit exactly what I would predict. Your supply is right at the limit, and as everything gets hotter it pulls a few more watts and blammo! I would bet if you drop it to 3 cards, or get a stronger supply your problem will be solved. It's not the Megacoin client, it's just that you are working your cards harder with MEC.

I think dropping the intensity a notch on each card would solve it too, but a 1250w supply is too small for 4 7950's.
I believe ethought has a good point too. 8gb is the bare minimum for 4 cards. 

[symzzi]

There is nothing wrong with the hardware, this is a software problem. I leave the client open, with cgminer running and hashing away quite happily, come back hours later to cgminer idling and displaying a message like 'pool cannot be found' and the MEC client window gone, and the MEC client process closed for no apparent reason.  If I manually open the MEC the client again, cgminer resumes hashing. It is only the client process that closes itself, the machine does not crash, its been up without issue for months.

If I can mine MEC in a pool for weeks on end without issue, how does solo mining change its load on the hardware? It makes no sense. Its doing exactly the same thing, just getting work from a different source.

[ethought]

There is nothing wrong with the hardware, this is a software problem. I leave the client open, with cgminer running and hashing away quite happily, come back hours later to cgminer idling and displaying a message like 'pool cannot be found' and the MEC client window gone, and the MEC client process closed for no apparent reason.  If I manually open the MEC the client again, cgminer resumes hashing. It is only the client process that closes itself, the machine does not crash, its been up without issue for months.

If I can mine MEC in a pool for weeks on end without issue, how does solo mining change its load on the hardware? It makes no sense. Its doing exactly the same thing, just getting work from a different source.

It is not a software problem - at least not in terms of the Megacoin client (bet you 100 MEC on it). It sounds like classic symptoms of hardware or overclocking problems to me.

I suggest rather than blaming the software at least eliminate hardware problems first. Just because it runs fine in one situation does not automatically imply it will in another. As vtr99 pointed out mining different coins can have slightly different power requirements.

Put some more ram in - does that help? Change the power supply - or use another power supply to power one of the cards - does that help? Does turning down the overclocking a little help? Is it a heat issue? Is it a combination of factors? And so on.

Jumping to conclusions that it is the software when no one else seems to be having the same problem is a bit illogical I think.

[mojosplurr]

Lower your intensity to 13 and let it run for a couple of hours, if it goes past the usually crashing point then its probably a power issue.

1250 is the bare min for four cards, and if they are overclocked you'll be drawing more.

I run 5 cards with 2 x 1000 watt Platinum efficiency Seasonics, you don't want to run your PS past 50% 24/7 for longevity and stability.

[vtr99]

There is nothing wrong with the hardware, this is a software problem. I leave the client open, with cgminer running and hashing away quite happily, come back hours later to cgminer idling and displaying a message like 'pool cannot be found' and the MEC client window gone, and the MEC client process closed for no apparent reason.  If I manually open the MEC the client again, cgminer resumes hashing. It is only the client process that closes itself, the machine does not crash, its been up without issue for months.

If I can mine MEC in a pool for weeks on end without issue, how does solo mining change its load on the hardware? It makes no sense. Its doing exactly the same thing, just getting work from a different source.

It is not a software problem - at least not in terms of the Megacoin client (bet you 100 MEC on it). It sounds like classic symptoms of hardware or overclocking problems to me.

I suggest rather than blaming the software at least eliminate hardware problems first. Just because it runs fine in one situation does not automatically imply it will in another. As vtr99 pointed out mining different coins can have slightly different power requirements.

Put some more ram in - does that help? Change the power supply - or use another power supply to power one of the cards - does that help? Does turning down the overclocking a little help? Is it a heat issue? Is it a combination of factors? And so on.

Jumping to conclusions that it is the software when no one else seems to be having the same problem is a bit illogical I think.

Every time someone claims a problem is related to the Megacoin client, it turns out to be something else. It would help if he gave us the specs on his complete setup, exact hardware description, settings, Afterburner settings, temp readings, and so on. 99.9% chance this is a hardware or settings issue.

[symzzi]

I'm not new to mining, I'd hope by now I know how to set up, tune and troubleshoot a stable mining rig. You still have not put forward a valid reason as to how you believe a rig that can pool mine a coin indefinitely suddenly develops these suspected hardware instabilities from solo-mining the exact same coin.

Anyway, after trawling way back in this thread here's another chap with what appears to be a very similar issue:

wow, I just solo mined a diff 350 block!

[2013-08-07 13:05:59] Accepted 000000c3 Diff 21.9M/309191 BLOCK! GPU 1

awesomesauce

Nice what's your hash rate that you are solo mining?

8Mh/s

--

Dr Kimoto, here's what I'm getting from one of my miners after a few hours mining against the qt client:

Code:

 [2013-08-07 13:20:01] Found block for pool 0!
 [2013-08-07 13:20:01] Accepted 00002c07 Diff 381K/309191 BLOCK! GPU 0
 [2013-08-07 13:21:06] New block detected on network
 [2013-08-07 13:25:22] Pool 0 http://192.168.1.10:22222 not responding!
 [2013-08-07 13:26:27] Pool 0 http://192.168.1.10:22222 not responding!
 [2013-08-07 13:27:32] Pool 0 http://192.168.1.10:22222 not responding!
 [2013-08-07 13:28:37] Pool 0 http://192.168.1.10:22222 not responding!
 [2013-08-07 13:29:42] Pool 0 http://192.168.1.10:22222 not responding!
 [2013-08-07 13:30:47] Pool 0 http://192.168.1.10:22222 not responding!
 [2013-08-07 13:31:52] Pool 0 http://192.168.1.10:22222 not responding!
 [2013-08-07 13:32:57] Pool 0 http://192.168.1.10:22222 not responding!
 [2013-08-07 13:34:02] Pool 0 http://192.168.1.10:22222 not responding!
 [2013-08-07 13:34:07] New block detected on network
 [2013-08-07 13:35:07] Pool 0 http://192.168.1.10:22222 not responding!
 [2013-08-07 13:35:12] New block detected on network
 [2013-08-07 13:36:12] Pool 0 http://192.168.1.10:22222 not responding!
 [2013-08-07 13:37:17] Pool 0 http://192.168.1.10:22222 not responding!
 [2013-08-07 13:38:22] Pool 0 http://192.168.1.10:22222 not responding!
 [2013-08-07 13:39:27] Pool 0 http://192.168.1.10:22222 not responding!
 [2013-08-07 13:40:32] Pool 0 http://192.168.1.10:22222 not responding!
 [2013-08-07 13:40:37] Network diff set to 294K
 [2013-08-07 13:40:37] New block detected on network

You can see it's intermittent. Restarting the miner has no effect. Only restarting the qt client. megacoind has the same issue iirc.

I'm running four cgminer instances plus one perl script polling stats every five minutes.
(note: when the four miners are connected, the qt-client refuses the perl connection for stats (times out))

I do not have this issue with other coin qt clients.

Please look into it if you can.

Thanks

I'm done losing uptime over it, I'll just stay in a pool, but instead of being told I'm wrong I thought someone might be interested enough to look into it.

[kriwest]

I'm done losing uptime over it, I'll just stay in a pool, but instead of being told I'm wrong I thought someone might be interested enough to look into it.

For some reason people seem to get very defensive as soon as someone points out any flaw or possible bug that needs fixing. I don't understand why? It's not a bad thing. If something needs looking into, people SHOULD point it out. It can only help make MEC better.

[orco#2]

TROlled!

[vtr99]

I'm done losing uptime over it, I'll just stay in a pool, but instead of being told I'm wrong I thought someone might be interested enough to look into it.

For some reason people seem to get very defensive as soon as someone points out any flaw or possible bug that needs fixing. I don't understand why? It's not a bad thing. If something needs looking into, people SHOULD point it out. It can only help make MEC better.

First of all, there is no evidence for a possible bug in the client. His hardware is minimal at best if he is running 4x 7950's on a 1250 watt PSU, and 8gb of memory. It doesn't make much sense to blame the least likely thing when you can see obvious issues. I have setup dozens of mining rigs, and never seen an issue caused by the Megacoin client. He gives us very little information, other than letting us know his system hardware is marginal, and then blames the client.  
It's not about being defensive, it's about using common sense when troubleshooting!