[CLOSED] BTC Guild - Pays TxFees+NMC, Stratum, VarDiff, Private Servers

[eleuthria]

After a few people having the same issues in IRC, here's a quick guide on some common issues:


1) Extremely high HW Error rate with virtually no hash rate.  This is almost always due to power issues.  The chip is not receiving full power from your hub/port most likely.  If you're running many chips, unplug them all, plug them in one at a time, run it for a few minutes, and confirm that it's getting shares.  All ASICs will have HW Errors to some degree, but anything over 1-2% after 10 minutes is where there may be something very wrong.

2) Chips not showing up in bfgminer/cgminer.  This is the same as #1.  Cheap powered hubs will not be providing enough power to each port, and as a result the chips won't be acknowledged by bfgminer/cgminer.



USB Hubs:

There are virtually no hubs out there under $50 that will power more than 4 or 5 Block Erupters at once.  If you are determined to buy cheaper hubs, you will need to plan on running only 4 per hub.  The only hubs I have confirmed as being safe to run more than 4 miners are:

Rosewill 10-port hubs:  These are 4A @ 5v.  This means it is safe to run 7 Block Erupters.  You do not want to push the hub to the max power supply rating!
Anker 10-port hubs:  These run 4A @ 12v.  This means it is safe to run a full 10 Block Erupters without worry.


On any other hub:  Look at the power rating.  Factor in 0.6A per Block Erupter to give it safety.  Running a low grade PSU at it's max rating could eventually result in damaging any or all chips plugged into the hub, and undesirable performance even if it does not actually damage the chips.

Quoting this on a new thread page just so nobody misses it.

[1714152583]

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[1714152583]

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[-Redacted-]

I use mostly Anker hubs, but also run a couple of cheap hubs using an upgraded 4 Amp power supply.  For some reason, my Raspberry Pi doesn't seem to like the more expensive Anker hubs.    

I've had no problem running 9 Erupters (plus a USB fan) in a cheap 10 port USB hub after upgrading to one of these power adapters:

http://www.siig.com/it-products/usb/accessories/5v-4a-power-adapter-for-usb-3-0-hubs.html

A word of warning, though - the brand of hub you use DOES matter.  As one example, I can't get D-Link 7 port hubs to work with the Raspberry Pi, or with any of the direct USB zadig installed libusb drivers on a Windows box.

[mdude77]

Ankers are working flawlessly for me.

M

[eleuthria]

I use mostly Anker hubs, but also run a couple of cheap hubs using an upgraded 4 Amp power supply.  For some reason, my Raspberry Pi doesn't seem to like the more expensive Anker hubs.    

I've had no problem running 9 Erupters (plus a USB fan) in a cheap 10 port USB hub after upgrading to one of these power adapters:

http://www.siig.com/it-products/usb/accessories/5v-4a-power-adapter-for-usb-3-0-hubs.html

A word of warning, though - the brand of hub you use DOES matter.  As one example, I can't get D-Link 7 port hubs to work with the Raspberry Pi, or with any of the direct USB zadig installed libusb drivers on a Windows box.

I would recommend against running 10 devices on a 5v 4A adapter.  While it might work...you're really playing with fire there.  9 erupters + fan should be pulling 5.0-5.2A.

[-Redacted-]

It's not an issue for my setup - I run the RPi off a 3 amp supply and Vcc of the two power adapters ties together via the USB port- so there's 7 A available (minus what the Rpi itself draws, which is almost nothing) at the hub for the BEs.   The BEs have lots of juice, probably the biggest danger with this setup is that something in the cheap hub will melt (but I haven't had a problem yet, knock on wood...)

It might be an issue if I was trying to do that using a standard USB port on a old desktop computer or laptop, but most modern computers provide at least an AMP at their USB ports to allow for charging phones and iPads.  You can get by with the cheaper hubs, but it is better to just spend the cash and get Anker hubs.  

[AvL42]

I saw on a screen-shot posted recently, that someone with a bunch of block erupters
was still running with lowest "Minimum Difficulty", sending found shares each second.
I think that is quite a waste of network ressources and might even reduce your asics'
performance.

As I think many people don't know that feature yet, I suggest you try the following:

- On BTCGuild webpage (after logging in, of course), click to the "Workers" tab.
- look at the column titled "Minimum Difficulty"
- for each "worker" (or just for the one) select for example "4 (4-8GH/s ASIC)" or
    an even larger number instead of the standard "1 (CPU/GPU Miner)"

Now, your mining software will no longer report each dust particle it mined, but only about
nuggets of less ridiculous size.  It will then seem in cgminer's output as if you got fewer shares,
but if you watch your dashboard, you'll see that each of those fewer shares counts the respective
multiple. (Note also, that these "dust particles" aren't technically productive at all. They are like
finding three-leaf clovers while searching for four-leaf ones - merely a proof that one is spending
effort on examining clovers.)

Btw., not every pool offers this adjustment. Fortunately, BTCGuild does

PS: If you try it, and if you really get a noticeable performance win from it,
   then I'd be happy about a small tip      (1AvL42MQeAZSki3cC4ZDvmngRJ5mkDGuJc)
   

[eleuthria]

I saw on a screen-shot posted recently, that someone with a bunch of block erupters
was still running with lowest "Minimum Difficulty", sending found shares each second.
I think that is quite a waste of network ressources and might even reduce your asics'
performance.

BTC Guild utilizes variable difficulty, so even if you don't do these steps, you don't stay at diff=1 for more than a minute if you're a fast miner.  The pool allows miners to fluctuate between 12 and 40 shares per minute before adjustment.  The target is 20~25 shares per minute.

However, if you do run a large farm, or extremely fast ASIC, setting a minimum difficulty is useful in preventing the initial burst of traffic you would see otherwise prior to a diff adjustment (although the pool is quite aggressive with adjusting new connections to proper difficulties).

[AvL42]

I saw on a screen-shot posted recently, that someone with a bunch of block erupters
was still running with lowest "Minimum Difficulty", sending found shares each second.
I think that is quite a waste of network ressources and might even reduce your asics'
performance.

BTC Guild utilizes variable difficulty, so even if you don't do these steps, you don't stay at diff=1 for more than a minute if you're a fast miner.  The pool allows miners to fluctuate between 12 and 40 shares per minute before adjustment.  The target is 20~25 shares per minute.

However, if you do run a large farm, or extremely fast ASIC, setting a minimum difficulty is useful in preventing the initial burst of traffic you would see otherwise prior to a diff adjustment (although the pool is quite aggressive with adjusting new connections to proper difficulties).

I'm glad to read, that the parameter won't stick at 1 for those not explicitly setting it,
but my impression is, that it is still far too low - i.e. too much reporting.

My recommendation would be to give it a try and increase the Min.Diff setting until the rate
of reported shares drops to about one in a minute or even one every few minutes.

At least, for those miners whose machine is not on the same LAN with the btcguild servers

[Trongersoll]

I use mostly Anker hubs, but also run a couple of cheap hubs using an upgraded 4 Amp power supply.  For some reason, my Raspberry Pi doesn't seem to like the more expensive Anker hubs.    

I've had no problem running 9 Erupters (plus a USB fan) in a cheap 10 port USB hub after upgrading to one of these power adapters:

http://www.siig.com/it-products/usb/accessories/5v-4a-power-adapter-for-usb-3-0-hubs.html

A word of warning, though - the brand of hub you use DOES matter.  As one example, I can't get D-Link 7 port hubs to work with the Raspberry Pi, or with any of the direct USB zadig installed libusb drivers on a Windows box.

I would recommend against running 10 devices on a 5v 4A adapter.  While it might work...you're really playing with fire there.  9 erupters + fan should be pulling 5.0-5.2A.

I don't think so. if you look at the paper that came with the ankar, i'm pretty sure it says not to exceed 7 Amps. I think they effectively add their 4A to the 3A available from the port they are plugged into. 10 devices shouldn't be a worry... I think.

[ak49er]

Did you get new stock in on Friday?  Are you expecting to start shipping again on Monday?

[eleuthria]

Did you get new stock in on Friday?  Are you expecting to start shipping again on Monday?

I got the first part of the next batch (~75% of the units on order) yesterday.  I only did limited testing yesterday, but I'm starting to test all the units today and tomorrow.  I expect to be shipping out a large bulk of orders Monday.  I expect most (if not all) backordered units to be shipped out by Wednesday (remaining units won't be here til Monday).

[eleuthria]

An email went out recently to high speed users informing them of private server access details for DDoS mitigation/protection.  This server has been around a long time, and with the exception of a few early attacks when the private server wasn't properly isolated, it has kept high end users online during attacks.  This post is just confirming that those emails did originate from BTC Guild.

Additional invites will go out to private servers more regularly in the future.

[BenTuras]

hi guys, can you please check the most recent link of the Payments & Withdrawals, Payout Detail list ?
My link is very odd: http://www.blockchain.info/tx-index/16346 -
normally it is http://www.blockchain.info/tx-index/11379818794826794643202f25cf1644a6746ba61f983cc48800f504aae51f38
so the most recent link points to a very old block ?!

Obviously, the payment that would normally have been done isn't there

moved to -->> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=251729.msg2673743#msg2673743

[eleuthria]

Payments are temporarily paused.  Something happened last night and somebody was paid a lot more than they should have been.  All failed payouts will be resent once funds are transferred back to the hot wallet and I find out what happened.

[BenTuras]

Payments are temporarily paused.  Something happened last night and somebody was paid a lot more than they should have been.  All failed payouts will be resent once funds are transferred back to the hot wallet and I find out what happened.

Thanks.

[SilentSonicBoom]

Payments are temporarily paused.  Something happened last night and somebody was paid a lot more than they should have been.  All failed payouts will be resent once funds are transferred back to the hot wallet and I find out what happened.

Hopefully you find the problem soon. Good luck!

[quest]

Payments are temporarily paused.  Something happened last night and somebody was paid a lot more than they should have been.  All failed payouts will be resent once funds are transferred back to the hot wallet and I find out what happened.

Thanks for update, do you have a timeframe on fixing the situation?

[eleuthria]

Payments are temporarily paused.  Something happened last night and somebody was paid a lot more than they should have been.  All failed payouts will be resent once funds are transferred back to the hot wallet and I find out what happened.

Thanks for update, do you have a timeframe on fixing the situation?

Broken payouts (bad txid) have been removed from payout history.  I've manually issued two automatic payout runs (one for large and one for small).

I'm expecting manual payouts and automatic payouts to resume normally within the next 2 hours.

[Trongersoll]

Have you heard from Friedcat? i saw that he was in touch with canary and he is starting another group buy.

[eleuthria]

Have you heard from Friedcat? i saw that he was in touch with canary and he is starting another group buy.

Some new units are being ordered, yes.  Store should be open (US Only until I catch up, I'm very sorry international users) later in the week once I get a tracking #.