[1050 TH] BitMinter.com [1% PPLNS,Pays TxFees +MergedMining,Stratum,GBT,vardiff]

[DrHaribo]

This information should be included on first post in topic, as you declare full support to Stratum and GBT - but nowhere we can find info how to connect to it, except single posts inside this huge topic.

You mean there are people who don't read every post in this thread? This is a bit of a shock.

Sorry, I forgot to add that - thanks

[lenny_]

You welcome
So are you going to include var diff to GetWork protocol? It would be great to see, if it's available and useful, of course.

[willphase]

Since around midnight UTC my stats on bitminter show 0 contribution to shifts but my miner is still showing accepted for my work and my hash rate submitted is fine on my miner... Do you know what is happening? I have not changed any configuration at my end.

I'm on 8332 with bfgminer 2.9.4. Going to play around with other ports in the meantime...

EDIT: changed my miner version back to prior to stratum so I'm back to LP and it seems to work now so something is up with me and stratum at the moment... Can you clarify the port I'm supposed to use with bfgminer 2.9.4 or a specific cgminer version that might work better?

Cheers

Will

[DrHaribo]

EDIT: changed my miner version back to prior to stratum so I'm back to LP and it seems to work now so something is up with me and stratum at the moment... Can you clarify the port I'm supposed to use with bfgminer 2.9.4 or a specific cgminer version that might work better?

It's 3333 or 5050. So you can use --url stratum+tcp://mint.bitminter.com:3333

It looks like you have a gap where you were not mining from last night till this morning (euro time). Looks like you fell out around the time I did a pool server restart. I have heard of miners crashing when the pool disconnects them, although I think it's rare. It could also be that it stayed on a failover pool and didn't switch back?

What exact problems or errors are you seeing when you use stratum? And was the miner crashed in this instance, or did you see anything else to explain why it wasn't mining?

[AfricanHunter]

The only way to use stratum/gbt is to connect through cgminer or similar correct? Can't use the bitminter GUI?

[DrHaribo]

The only way to use stratum/gbt is to connect through cgminer or similar correct? Can't use the bitminter GUI?

Yeah, BitMinter client uses getwork with rollntime. I will be adding Stratum and GBT later.

[AfricanHunter]

The only way to use stratum/gbt is to connect through cgminer or similar correct? Can't use the bitminter GUI?

Yeah, BitMinter client uses getwork with rollntime. I will be adding Stratum and GBT later.

So assuming ASICS ship first half of January, do I need to get cgminer setup or will the GUI support it by then? Or do you think Getwork with rollntime will be sufficient for a few Single SC's?

If I will need to use a miner other than the Bitminter app, what do you recommend for BFL equipment? Before bitminter I was using GUIMiner but was getting some strange bugs.

Thanks

[DrHaribo]

So assuming ASICS ship first half of January, do I need to get cgminer setup or will the GUI support it by then? Or do you think Getwork with rollntime will be sufficient for a few Single SC's?

My goal is for BitMinter client to work with BFL SCs from the day you receive them. If I don't have time for everything then that will be with getwork with rollntime. That's good enough for running ASICs. It doesn't allow you to inspect blocks like GBT or give you the low bandwidth usage of Stratum, but it certainly works.

When it comes to bASIC it looks like I won't have remote access to any units until miners have them. It also looks like it will be more complex to add support for them than the BFL units. That means if you ordered bASIC you will want to find a miner that will support them from day 1 so your bASIC doesn't sit idle.

Avalon, from what I understand, comes with a (tiny) computer with preinstalled software. You just plug it in and it runs.

If I will need to use a miner other than the Bitminter app, what do you recommend for BFL equipment? Before bitminter I was using GUIMiner but was getting some strange bugs.

I don't think I want to go there. The GBT versus Stratum discussions are bad enough. If you ordered bASIC then you will probably want to check the bASIC forums to see which miner authors they are working with to get support from day 1.

[kano]

...
Avalon, from what I understand, comes with a (tiny) computer with preinstalled software. You just plug it in and it runs.
...

software=cgminer

[willphase]

EDIT: changed my miner version back to prior to stratum so I'm back to LP and it seems to work now so something is up with me and stratum at the moment... Can you clarify the port I'm supposed to use with bfgminer 2.9.4 or a specific cgminer version that might work better?

It's 3333 or 5050. So you can use --url stratum+tcp://mint.bitminter.com:3333

It looks like you have a gap where you were not mining from last night till this morning (euro time). Looks like you fell out around the time I did a pool server restart. I have heard of miners crashing when the pool disconnects them, although I think it's rare. It could also be that it stayed on a failover pool and didn't switch back?

What exact problems or errors are you seeing when you use stratum? And was the miner crashed in this instance, or did you see anything else to explain why it wasn't mining?

I'm just using commandline:

-o http://mint.bitminter.com:8332

without any stratum specified - but it says at the top that I'm using 'stratum' so I must be.

I noticed this morning and tried restarting, the blocks were successfully submitting and I was getting 'Accepted' and my miner was reporting normal hash rate, but nothing was showing on bitminter - which is odd - so as I had to go to work I just flipped to the old version (same commandline, but it uses LP instead)

I'm now back from work, and I switched the version back again - and it's back to using stratum and now the blocks are being accepted.  I seem to remember getting something about there being nothing in the block header when I restarted this morning, but do not have the logs for that.

Anyway - all fixed now... I think I missed mining around 1.3 btc so I just bet (and won) on satoshidice... so no loss

Will

[AfricanHunter]

So assuming ASICS ship first half of January, do I need to get cgminer setup or will the GUI support it by then? Or do you think Getwork with rollntime will be sufficient for a few Single SC's?

My goal is for BitMinter client to work with BFL SCs from the day you receive them. If I don't have time for everything then that will be with getwork with rollntime. That's good enough for running ASICs. It doesn't allow you to inspect blocks like GBT or give you the low bandwidth usage of Stratum, but it certainly works.

When it comes to bASIC it looks like I won't have remote access to any units until miners have them. It also looks like it will be more complex to add support for them than the BFL units. That means if you ordered bASIC you will want to find a miner that will support them from day 1 so your bASIC doesn't sit idle.

Avalon, from what I understand, comes with a (tiny) computer with preinstalled software. You just plug it in and it runs.

If I will need to use a miner other than the Bitminter app, what do you recommend for BFL equipment? Before bitminter I was using GUIMiner but was getting some strange bugs.

I don't think I want to go there. The GBT versus Stratum discussions are bad enough. If you ordered bASIC then you will probably want to check the bASIC forums to see which miner authors they are working with to get support from day 1.

Thanks Doc! I have only purchased bfl gear in part due to the issues you mentioned so good to get validation I likely made the right choice.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to read up on gbt vs stratum/etc?

Thanks again all.

[conspirosphere.tk]

Bitminter.com seems to be down. Anyone confirm?

[LazyOtto]

It is for me.

So, what's new?

[MKEGuy]

something wrong with the site?

[MKEGuy]

came back up for me

[DrHaribo]

Sorry for the short downtime. There was an issue with bitcoind which had to be restarted.

[AfricanHunter]

Is something going on with the pool? I am connected on the GUI using 1.3.0 mining with 1 7970 and 1 Single on this worker. I noticed my shares per shift and GH/S were a bit low(in stats) so looked at the bitminter client.

My single was running about hlf speed so I power cycled it and started again. When it came up it showed 1265 MH/s (over 150% normal) for the single for about 5 seconds, then dropped to 350mh/s and kept dropping. Stopped it at 250MH/s and ran a diagnostic with EasyMiner which showed all normal. Just reflashed the firmware and restarted bitminter client, seems like it is working ok now but kinda strange.

Ever hear of something like this?

[kano]

Is something going on with the pool? I am connected on the GUI using 1.3.0 mining with 1 7970 and 1 Single on this worker. I noticed my shares per shift and GH/S were a bit low(in stats) so looked at the bitminter client.

My single was running about hlf speed so I power cycled it and started again. When it came up it showed 1265 MH/s (over 150% normal) for the single for about 5 seconds, then dropped to 350mh/s and kept dropping. Stopped it at 250MH/s and ran a diagnostic with EasyMiner which showed all normal. Just reflashed the firmware and restarted bitminter client, seems like it is working ok now but kinda strange.

Ever hear of something like this?

Yep quite a while back one of the two FPGAs in my BFL became randomly unreliable using the 832 bitstream.
Sometimes completely stopped mining in half the device.
Flashed it up to 880 (after messing with cgminer code and the device over a few weeks)
After reflash it was OK for a while then failed again.
2nd reflash and no problems since.
So ... yep that can cause a drop to half

[AfricanHunter]

Is something going on with the pool? I am connected on the GUI using 1.3.0 mining with 1 7970 and 1 Single on this worker. I noticed my shares per shift and GH/S were a bit low(in stats) so looked at the bitminter client.

My single was running about hlf speed so I power cycled it and started again. When it came up it showed 1265 MH/s (over 150% normal) for the single for about 5 seconds, then dropped to 350mh/s and kept dropping. Stopped it at 250MH/s and ran a diagnostic with EasyMiner which showed all normal. Just reflashed the firmware and restarted bitminter client, seems like it is working ok now but kinda strange.

Ever hear of something like this?

Yep quite a while back one of the two FPGAs in my BFL became randomly unreliable using the 832 bitstream.
Sometimes completely stopped mining in half the device.
Flashed it up to 880 (after messing with cgminer code and the device over a few weeks)
After reflash it was OK for a while then failed again.
2nd reflash and no problems since.
So ... yep that can cause a drop to half

Weird but seems to have gone away after reflash. I contacted bfl as now my fan is noisy and temp up by 2 degrees (still within normal range) so they are sending me a new fan and some thermal paste to refit the sink. Dont think the two issues are related but odd none the less.

Did you contact bfl about it and if so what was their response?

[kano]

...

Weird but seems to have gone away after reflash. I contacted bfl as now my fan is noisy and temp up by 2 degrees (still within normal range) so they are sending me a new fan and some thermal paste to refit the sink. Dont think the two issues are related but odd none the less.

Did you contact bfl about it and if so what was their response?

Can't remember - probably not.

However, I contacted them when I first got the BFL coz it took 8 hours to 'burn in' but after that was OK until the problem much later.
The first day problems were most likely the heat sink since it rattled when I first got it - and running hot for 8 hours probably helped reseat it properly

The later problem went something like this:
damn it having problems, spent a week (or 2 or ?) messing with the cgminer code sometimes mining full speeds, sometimes half speed (power cycles sometimes helped) then finally decided, stuff this I'll put in a fast bitstream and see how long it takes to kill it
880 didn't kill it I'm still using the 880.

I also found that with the 880 bitstream it worked at a much higher reported temperature without throttling.
At the moment it says 61.5C (when I first got the BFL it throttled around 50C with the 832 bitstream)

Last time it throttled/had a comm error was ... 8-Nov ... had 8 that day coz it was very hot here (it's now summer)
Previous was 16-Oct - 3 times - was a hot early evening and that's the time it throttled also.