Mining stories

unkel · 12-10-2017 12:36PM

cnocbui wrote: »

Thanks. That seemed like a really good price for 8GB cards.

Except they are 4GB cards

From benchmarks I've seen there isn't that much in MH/s between any of the 470/480/570/580 4GB or 8GB cards I thought?

h0neybadger · 12-10-2017 12:50PM

depends on the memory that's inside them.

I've got a load of rx 570 4gb with Hynix memory, and they get 27.5MH/s on Ethereum. that's with modded bios flashed to the cards and an OC profile in afterburner.

cnocbui · 12-10-2017 01:02PM

h0neybadger wrote: »

depends on the memory that's inside them.

I've got a load of rx 570 4gb with Hynix memory, and they get 27.5MH/s on Ethereum. that's with modded bios flashed to the cards and an OC profile in afterburner.

Thanks. My son didn't want to flash due to the possibility of bricking the cards.

cnocbui · 12-10-2017 01:14PM

unkel wrote: »

Except they are 4GB cards

From benchmarks I've seen there isn't that much in MH/s between any of the 470/480/570/580 4GB or 8GB cards I thought?

The 8GB cards have a higher memory clock speed capability which should mean about an 18% higher hash rate. https://steemit.com/ethereum/@cryptos/what-is-the-ethereum-eth-mining-hashrate-of-the-new-radeon-rx-470-gpus

unkel · 12-10-2017 01:19PM

That's the 470 though. And I'm not really that concerned what hash rate I get. Would be more than happy with around 25MH/s. Should be no problem out of the box if the memory is Samsung, slightly smaller chance of it if the memory is Hynix. Main reason for getting the 580 over 470/480 is that the resale will be higher (limiting my worst case scenario loss)

I would be willing to flash the BIOS on the cards. Hell, I've flashed almost every bit of hardware I have ever owned

unkel · 12-10-2017 01:29PM

6 * RX-580 4GB Hynix getting 29MH/s each with minor tweaks. That'll more than do me, can probably get a few MH/s higher if the memory is Samsung

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Di8Jid4eo4

cnocbui · 12-10-2017 01:43PM

unkel wrote: »

That's the 470 though. And I'm not really that concerned what hash rate I get. Would be more than happy with around 25MH/s. Should be no problem out of the box if the memory is Samsung, slightly smaller chance of it if the memory is Hynix. Main reason for getting the 580 over 470/480 is that the resale will be higher (limiting my worst case scenario loss)

I would be willing to flash the BIOS on the cards. Hell, I've flashed almost every bit of hardware I have ever owned

Same for the RX 480, higher memory speed on the 8Gb version. My son bricked his LG G2, a feat supposedly impossible, hence his concern. :rolleyes:

ricimaki · 13-10-2017 12:38AM

I've a gaming PC, and have dabbled in mining. I started with a gtx 970, and upgraded to a gtx 1070 recently, with the original intention of selling the 970. The gtx 970 gets about 265 SOL/s with the EQM miner, which equates to roughly 67c worth of bitcoin every day. The 1070 gets 400 SOL/s with EQM, or roughly €1.02 per day. I've only really run the mining for a few hours a week, as a lot of heat is generated, and the fans on the GPU's can get a bit noisy. I haven't really payed attention to electricity usage, but haven't noticed any major increase.

I've recently installed Nicehash's mining software, which is an easy to use miner with a GUI, with support for multiple algorithms. There's also a version for AMD GPU's, but i haven't used it. I'd recommend it if you want to quickly set up and see what mining is like.

Just to be aware, if you intend on mining on your main PC, it can be very stuttery, with even mouse movement being jumpy. Playing a youtube video took a few SOL/s off the mining performance, and was nowhere near smooth to watch. This only seems to occur if you mine on the GPU your monitor is plugged into. I have played games with the gtx 1070, and had the 970 mining, with no noticeable performance issues.

unkel · 13-10-2017 08:46AM

ricimaki wrote: »

The 1070 gets 400 SOL/s with EQM, or roughly €1.02 per day. I've only really run the mining for a few hours a week, as a lot of heat is generated, and the fans on the GPU's can get a bit noisy. I haven't really payed attention to electricity usage, but haven't noticed any major increase.

Check out what your electricity rates are. A typical rate in Ireland would be about 16c/kWh incl VAT. Let's say your rig with the 1070 maxed out uses about 500W. So that's 500/1000 * 24 hours * 16c = €1.92 per day

So you would be losing €0.90 per day by mining...

ricimaki · 13-10-2017 12:27PM

unkel wrote: »

Check out what your electricity rates are. A typical rate in Ireland would be about 16c/kWh incl VAT. Let's say your rig with the 1070 maxed out uses about 500W. So that's 500/1000 * 24 hours * 16c = €1.92 per day

So you would be losing €0.90 per day by mining...

As I said, I only mine for a few (less than 8, normally 4 or less) hours a week. I don't mine with the intention of making money, but more to play around with the setup. I am considering building a dedicated mining rig at some stage though.

unkel · 13-10-2017 12:36PM

Fine of course to play around with it for a bit, but in your current situation, for every hour you mine, you lose money. And that is not even taking into consideration the depreciation and opportunity cost of money relating to your hardware (as you already owned it)

Be very careful though and do your sums. And have realistic expectations. For many people mining means losing money at this stage (unless of course the value of the coin keeps going up - in which case it makes more sense to actually just buy the coin)

unkel · 23-10-2017 05:16PM

Well I'm up and running for about 4 days now. Built a rig with parts from my old PC in an open wooden frame. Currently using 3 * RX580 8GB Hashrate 83Mh/s
All three flashed with a faster BIOS that brought the hashrage up from 24.2 to 27.6

The rig is using about 530W and is nicely heating up our conservatory, which is a very cold room in winter. Radiator in there is switched off now

In less than 3 days I received my first payment, 0.05 ETH

Ordered more cards, so maybe I'll build another rig. Or two...

cnocbui · 23-10-2017 07:15PM

Are those the average hash rates reported by a mining pool or peaks?

My son says he doesn't know why we are only getting 20 mhs average. We are using basically the same cards and our unflashed rate is a full 4.2 mhs per card lower.

unkel · 23-10-2017 11:32PM

Average. The cards are all between 27.4 and 27.7 (with fans at 55%, temps early 60s - not noisy at all)

You need to flash the BIOS though. Makes a big difference.

Stuck a card into my PC this evening for a play with the Claymore miner for Windows. Works fine and the PC is still fully usable, which is good, but the hash rate is only about 25.2 and the temps are late 70s. And it is very noisy. Open rigs FTW...

Thargor · 24-10-2017 11:25AM

Are you mining more than the electricity bill?

unkel · 24-10-2017 11:27AM

Thargor wrote: »

Are you mining more than the electricity bill?

Not sure what you mean. Did you read my post #8?

moonlighting · 24-10-2017 11:29AM

does mining take up much broadband bandwidth

cnocbui · 24-10-2017 12:28PM

moonlighting wrote: »

does mining take up much broadband bandwidth

Yes, but then my BB is slow at about 8 mbps.

unkel · 24-10-2017 12:34PM

It's negligible afaik. Less than 1 mbps I would have thought. I guess if you have only 8 mbps contented adsl (which in practice is often just 2 or 3) it does make an impact. But for most people with modern broadband (several hundred mbps) it makes no difference.

cnocbui · 24-10-2017 01:22PM

unkel wrote: »

Average. The cards are all between 27.4 and 27.7 (with fans at 55%, temps early 60s - not noisy at all)

You need to flash the BIOS though. Makes a big difference.

Stuck a card into my PC this evening for a play with the Claymore miner for Windows. Works fine and the PC is still fully usable, which is good, but the hash rate is only about 25.2 and the temps are late 70s. And it is very noisy. Open rigs FTW...

Thanks. We obviously have a major problem somewhere. What mining software are you using?

unkel · 24-10-2017 01:50PM

EthOS. Surely that's what everyone is using, no?

(and currently Claymore miner in Windows 10 as a trial just with my PC and 1 GPU. Open systems are far better, but I am getting 28.2Mh/s from my card which is higher than EthOS for some reason. Didn't do anything with the driver, just the standard Windows 10 driver. Did try a few minutes of messing with undervolting this morning, but that didn't work on this card)

cnocbui · 24-10-2017 02:22PM

unkel wrote: »

EthOS. Surely that's what everyone is using, no?

(and currently Claymore miner in Windows 10 as a trial just with my PC and 1 GPU. Open systems are far better, but I am getting 28.2Mh/s from my card which is higher than EthOS for some reason. Didn't do anything with the driver, just the standard Windows 10 driver. Did try a few minutes of messing with undervolting this morning, but that didn't work on this card)

Thank you. No we are using genoils eth miner under Windows 10. My son said he tried mining on Linux but the Open CL performance was appalling. Thanks again, gives us some very useful clues as to what is wrong and what to try next.

unkel · 24-10-2017 02:41PM

Well I'm only mining 5 days, I'm hardly experienced

The one thing you really should look into is replacing the stock BIOS. Even if you accidentally brick a card, you could still flash it from another card under Windows. Did that myself last week and got it back up and running. Second flash was successful

Obviously this is all not without risk and it does invalidate the warranty on the card...

Shiny · 25-10-2017 01:15PM

Got a mining rig off adverts a while ago, I had done the calculations based on $0.20/kWh electricity costs that I would break even on the hardware, if I didn't have to turn on the heating in the apartment during the winter, after 7 months.

What I didn't realise was how loud the thing is. I was told it was going to be loud, I had read online that it would be loud but it was still louder than I expected. Its pretty much like a vacuum cleaner.

I live in a tiny apartment so I can't run it at night which is a pain in the arse as that is when the night rate electricity price kicks in which I had factored into my original calculations.

I bought an energy meter off adverts yesterday so I will know the exact power consumption and redo my calculations. My temps aren't great either, will have to sort that out.

124.44 MH/s 0 H/s
85 80 82 78 60 ℃
96 90 90 90 90 %
1050 1050 1050 1050 1050 (10)
1450 1450 1450 1450 1450

Make no mistake I am a noob but I find the whole crypto thing fascinating.

unkel · 25-10-2017 01:33PM

What cards are they? The temps are far too high for an open air rig. No wonder it is loud. Bringing the temps down will allow you to slow down the fans, which is the only noise you should hear from the rig. How long have you had the rig and how much did you pay for it? What are you mining, ETH? What's your OS / mining software?

And if you can't mine 24/7, you are probably losing money. Particularly if you can't use the cheaper night rate. You will indeed need to do your sums again. Also, did you try to do something with your cards? Different BIOS / undervolt?

Shiny · 25-10-2017 01:51PM

There is a mix of cards in there 1x r9 290x, 4x r9 290, 1x r9 280x. The 280X is nearly a waste of time at this stage which I might replace with another R9 290 if one comes down in price.

I paid 1200 for the rig which would pretty much be the going rate if you were to buy the graphics cards and power supply second hand at the moment.

Its currently mining ETH running the simplemining software, haven't done anything with the cards yet.

unkel · 25-10-2017 05:38PM

I'd say take that 280X out and spread the remaining cards more evenly. The two on the right look very close together. That might take down the temps and thus the fan speed and thus the noise. If you're not comfortable flashing the cards, then don't. But you can be almost guaranteed that if you are only mining part time and not mining when your electricity is cheapest, that you aren't making any money...

Once it is not as noisy, the aim is to have it on 24/7, preferably in a cold area of your home (so saving on heating bill too)

pro_gnostic_8 · 25-10-2017 09:11PM

Even though I will never be mining, myself, I am finding this thread fascinating. Thoroughly enjoyable and educational.
Loving reading all your ongoing experiences and experimentation. Keep it up and keep reporting, all of yiz.

Shiny · 26-10-2017 12:38PM

unkel wrote: »

I'd say take that 280X out and spread the remaining cards more evenly. The two on the right look very close together. That might take down the temps and thus the fan speed and thus the noise. If you're not comfortable flashing the cards, then don't. But you can be almost guaranteed that if you are only mining part time and not mining when your electricity is cheapest, that you aren't making any money...

Once it is not as noisy, the aim is to have it on 24/7, preferably in a cold area of your home (so saving on heating bill too)

Yeah I might take out the 280X and swap it with the R9 that I have in my gaming PC and bump back up the numbers that way.

I also have a bank of 5 x 12V fans (I inherited it with the unit) that I move around to get additional air flow across the unit. I noticed that its powered with a PSU with insufficient power to drive all the fans. I am going to hook that up to a more powerful supply which will significantly increase their airflow which will help.

Also looking at the different ASIC miners out there, especially the Litecoin based one. Its a tempting prospect to go in on one with a few people in work.

JaCrispy · 01-11-2017 04:13PM

Well my first mining story is that I managed to mine 1ETN (Electroneum) with a crappy old Nvidia 660 and i7 CPU.

Mining stories

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