Quick question from a n00b miner.
I like to learn about settings, and in general get OPO other people's opinions about my current question.
If I am going to be working on a miner, or troubleshooting a miner hardware issue is it better to use a pool wioth a different payout system than PPLNS?
If my miner may be up and down, and the up or down times will be inconsistent, is it betetr to use that miner on a PPS pool until I have it hashing consistently again?
I understand the gist of PPLNS, how we are paid in shifts / shares and the intent of stopping pool hopping.
In effect, my miner would be turned off, on, off, and on again, so it would seem to the pool as though I am hopping when I may be changing a power supply, or testing a particular unit for Overclocking viability, etc.
So, in this case, is it better to use a pool with a different payout scheme, and if so what type (either by pool name or payment method) is the best?
The way PPLNS stops the gain from hopping is not to penalising anyone who hops, it's simply that there is no gain from hopping.
As I've mentioned before, the 5N we use here simply means that each share is paid once in each of the blocks found in the ~500% after the share.
The part that I guess were it may be confusing, is that to get an expected BTC payout when I payout a block, you have to have mined for the full 500% range of the payout.
But since each share is paid the same way, the only thing that affects the value of each share is the pool luck.
That luck can't be known in advance of course, but also has an expected average to mean that on average each share is expected to get paid 5 times 1/5 of the value of the PPS share (minus 0.9%)
Of course that is simply an expected average, so over a short time you may get more OR less, but again you can't know in advance.