Asicminer Block Eruptor

[gambit1]

I've been involved in bitcoin for years but have never been able to make mining work for me. I've always been plagued by technical difficulties. I was thinking of having a go with the Asicminer block eruptor. I was wondering if people more experienced with mining could answer a few questions. I appreciate the help

* Is £130 for a 336/mhz stick a good idea?
* Given the increasing difficulty is using these ubs sticks?
* Is the mining power of these sticks likely to be relevant for a reasonable time given the hardware coming on line?
* Are these sticks definitively better than GPU mining?
* Are these sticks easy to use to mine? Do you still use a mining pool?

Thanks

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[os2sam]

* Are these sticks definitively better than GPU mining?
* Are these sticks easy to use to mine? Do you still use a mining pool?

Thanks

Just commenting on what I think I know.

Yes they are better than GPU mining.  Allot less electricity is used and allot less noise and waste heat are generated.

Yes they are easy to mine.  Just follow the instructions in CGMIner 3.3.1+ ASIC Read me file.  Here is my rewording of that for use with Win7

Per the ASIC readme
1. Unplug all Erupters
2. Run Zadig - Install WinUSB (I may have rebooted, can't remember for sure) - I could not install WinUSB while Erupters were plugged in.
3. Plug in one Erupter, verify that it is set to WinUSB.
4. Close Zadig, plug in the rest of the Erupters, run CGMiner.
Done

Yes you can still mine with a pool.
Sam

[gambit1]

Thanks, really helpful.

Any more thoughts would be appreciated.

When you say they are better than GPUs : are they also more powerful as miners?

[os2sam]

Thanks, really helpful.

Any more thoughts would be appreciated.

When you say they are better than GPUs : are they also more powerful as miners?

Well that's a bit relative.  I just recently retired my GPU's after replacing them with ASIC Miner Erupters.  Each Erupter is around 333Mhs my 5770 was around 215Mhs and my 5830 was around 305Mhs so yes they are more powerful than my GPU's but there are GPU's that are more powerful.  And you can't play games on Block Erupters so that may be a downside as they don't have a secondary use.
Sam

[Trongersoll]

Thanks, really helpful.

Any more thoughts would be appreciated.

When you say they are better than GPUs : are they also more powerful as miners?

It depends on which GPU some are twice as fast. But, the power reduction should more than cover the difference. Also, the Erupters are getting cheaper all the time. A rough(and i mean rough) at the current difficulty is about US$0.48 a day for one of these things in a typical pool.

[gambit1]

So you use CGminer. That's important to be because guiminer doesn't work for me.

[os2sam]

So you use CGminer. That's important to be because guiminer doesn't work for me.

Yes, CGMiner 3.3.1 has direct USB w/hotplug support.  It works great for me.  But people using the Anker USB 3.0 hubs have trouble with later versions of CGMiner and opt to use the older CGMiner 3.1.1 with USB to Serial drivers.

The CGMiner developers are working on the Anker USB hub issue.
Sam

[gambit1]

I have the issue of not having opencl drivers and not being able to get those drivers to work. That won't matter right?

[-ck]

I have the issue of not having opencl drivers and not being able to get those drivers to work. That won't matter right?

Correct. There is a cgminer binary built that doesn't need the opencl drivers. (cgminer-nogpu).

[gambit1]

Reading around it seems like they are probably a bad investment. The difficulty is going up too quickly and its unlikely you'll get your money back, seems to be the consensus. Anybody have a counterpoint point of view?

[os2sam]

Reading around it seems like they are probably a bad investment. The difficulty is going up too quickly and its unlikely you'll get your money back, seems to be the consensus. Anybody have a counterpoint point of view?

That all seems to be true.  But since they are available we're ordering them and receiving them in days instead of months/years.

[Trongersoll]

Reading around it seems like they are probably a bad investment. The difficulty is going up too quickly and its unlikely you'll get your money back, seems to be the consensus. Anybody have a counterpoint point of view?

At the current rate of increase, you will most likely never get your money back on any miner you buy for the forseeable future.

[wlwesq]

Reading around it seems like they are probably a bad investment. The difficulty is going up too quickly and its unlikely you'll get your money back, seems to be the consensus. Anybody have a counterpoint point of view?

At the current rate of increase, you will most likely never get your money back on any miner you buy for the forseeable future.

Trongersoll's comment may be the truest thing ever said here (for the whole week or two I've been around, anyway).

And yet, people are buying the USB miners up and still thinking about jumping in with Butterfly Labs or Avalon (or other producers whose products are on the horizon). Some might actually be placing orders.

So who knows? One thing is for sure: Trongersoll could be wrong. If you get a miner now, then you might be profitable. If you don't get a miner now, you'll never know what might have been.

I'm glad I ordered my pair without giving it too much thought, and I try not to second-guess myself. I'm in, and maybe I'll be profitable and maybe I won't. Regardless, I'm learning some things, and that's not a bad thing at all.

[wedgy2k]

* Is £130 for a 336/mhz stick a good idea?

Look around, you can get these for £60-£75 each on various group buys on here. 0.89BTC from some of the Europeans
£130 is for Ebay buyers

[hotwired007]

i worked out that i'd be better off sticking the bitcoins i spent on my miners in something like CoinLenders or something BUT i actually did by 2 when they were first released for 4.2BTC and now have again bought 3 at 3.25BTC - reducing the overall cost of my original miners... so far i have mined (since 6th june) 0.75BTC after spending 4.2BTC. so fingers crossed that in 6 weeks time i may actually have paid one off

[J35st3r]

i worked out that i'd be better off sticking the bitcoins i spent on my miners in something like CoinLenders or something BUT i actually did by 2 when they were first released for 4.2BTC and now have again bought 3 at 3.25BTC - reducing the overall cost of my original miners... so far i have mined (since 6th june) 0.75BTC after spending 4.2BTC. so fingers crossed that in 6 weeks time i may actually have paid one off

When I first joined here (what, six weeks ago now?), I spent my first posts scratching exactly this itch. I just could not understand why people were buying them. And they are still selling like hot cakes (even though the reduced price will still never break even). At first I thought it was some sort of SR thing, but I've now come to the conclusion that peeps are bored with humdrum reality, and just want to play at something different. There are more expensive habits, so what am I to complain? So I've chillax'd about it (and reduced my risk of RSI to boot). Just thought I'd share (and I've not posted for a few days, so getting really itchy here  )