Mining stories

patnor1011 · 16-12-2017 09:03PM

Thank you. I may rather try to find some vega 56 they do 1.95kh/s on cryptonight even that they are bit more expensive now. According to my friend they go OEM so there will be plenty of them after new year and price may be better than it is now too. I would love to get 4 even now and another 8 in january.

unkel · 16-12-2017 09:25PM

The ecomentalist in me finally seems to have convinced me to install solar PV on the roof. PV in Ireland makes no financial sense (because there is no feed in tariff), unless you use all of the production (for real use, not just to divert the overproduction to your immersion to heat the water, as that can be done cheaply at night or with gas / oil)

patnor1011 · 16-12-2017 09:34PM

I would be more inclined to build small wind turbine as there is more of a wind than sunshine&light over here. I envy people living in the country. Can't quite put up a wind turbine up in the housing estate.

cnocbui · 17-12-2017 11:02AM

unkel wrote: »

The ecomentalist in me finally seems to have convinced me to install solar PV on the roof. PV in Ireland makes no financial sense (because there is no feed in tariff), unless you use all of the production (for real use, not just to divert the overproduction to your immersion to heat the water, as that can be done cheaply at night or with gas / oil)

I would have thought it makes no financial sense because the hours of sunlight in winter are minimal and of very low strength, and that's without cloud cover.

It would make sense in Australia except the heat generated from mining would be a curse, not a boon.

cnocbui · 17-12-2017 11:04AM

patnor1011 wrote: »

I would be more inclined to build small wind turbine as there is more of a wind than sunshine&light over here. I envy people living in the country. Can't quite put up a wind turbine up in the housing estate.

That could be fun getting planning permission for. I have only ever seen one small turbine.

SlowBlowin · 17-12-2017 12:26PM

I used to run my mining operation off solar and wind.

That was in 2013, when my Intel atom CPU only would do a coin (litecoin) a day. When the difficulty rose a lot I switched to PCs running 4 nVidia cards (4096 cores per card). These PCs (I had 4) would do over 30 coins per day.

I was using 4KW of PV and a small rutland windmill, I live in Kerry where solar and wind are more common. I have 4500 amp hour of lead acid battery.

The system would keep the big rigs running i summer, but as we approached autumn they had to switch to grid power.

The lows were weminltc going,I lost a lot of coin. The high is the current price

The solar and wind systems we already in place before I started mining, I went into mining as it seemed the best way to use surplus electricity, with the big benefit of heat !!

SB

JaCrispy · 18-12-2017 12:15PM

patnor1011 wrote: »

Everybody currently mining Monero should check Electroneum. XMR jumped up in difficulty and ETN does roughly 2.5-3x more profit right now.

Gwan ya good thing. ETN on a roll.

patnor1011 · 18-12-2017 12:23PM

Ye that was a good call but I still sell only half of what I mine. I take that if I sell half I get roughly the same as if mining xmr and I am also able to increase stash of etn just in case they go much higher in future. I cant wait till they get listed on bittrex and then I will just wait for pump@dump there.

Copper_pipe · 01-01-2018 01:14PM

Just found this on Donedeal of all places!

https://www.donedeal.ie/pc-for-sale/bitmain-antminer-d3-19-3-ghz-power-supply/17575434

patnor1011 · 01-01-2018 02:55PM

People are dumping them left and right. They are not so effective anymore. You look at about 5 months just to get money back. I would rather get couple vega cards instead of D3.

unkel · 03-01-2018 02:23AM

Bought a very old Dell Precision PC off adverts.ie (think about 2004 vintage). Was supposed to be working, but it wasn't really. CR2032 was near dead, RAM was having issues and the rig didn't like any modern card in its pci-e slots. So it will go to the recycling facility soon. With no parts worth keeping except the boggo graphics card and the PSU. Which has a 24 + 20 pin Dell proprietary connector, so doesn't work with any standard ATX PC motherboard).

The good news is that it is easy enough to make it work with a second standard ATX PSU. And €20 is not a lot of money for a gold / platinum high efficiency 650W PSU

unkel · 03-01-2018 02:25AM

And here is a sweet mining vid, I thought I'd share it (being a recent first time dog owner myself)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdHnZcffheg

patnor1011 · 03-01-2018 07:24PM

I can't wait until a new batch of Vega cards hit shelves. According to my friend who is in business and got plenty of contacts they go OEM and there should be an influx of cheaper Vega cards. Cheaper than what is on offer right now. I regret that I did not buy like 10 more back in November. They are like over 220£ more than what they cost not even 2 months ago.

unkel · 03-01-2018 07:30PM

Not so sure what the hype is with the Vega cards? Even if they came down by £220 (to what, £400?), they don't hash a lot for the money they cost. A touch over 40MH/s? I get a touch under 30MH/s on some old second hand R9 390s I bought for €200 over the last few months. Sure they cost more in electricity, but that's pennies compared to the pounds of the additional costs...

ondafly · 03-01-2018 07:51PM

unkel wrote: »

Bought a very old Dell Precision PC off adverts.ie (think about 2004 vintage). Was supposed to be working, but it wasn't really. CR2032 was near dead, RAM was having issues and the rig didn't like any modern card in its pci-e slots. So it will go to the recycling facility soon. With no parts worth keeping except the boggo graphics card and the PSU. Which has a 24 + 20 pin Dell proprietary connector, so doesn't work with any standard ATX PC motherboard).

The good news is that it is easy enough to make it work with a second standard ATX PSU. And €20 is not a lot of money for a gold / platinum high efficiency 650W PSU

I feel your pain. Thought I was onto a winner as I got a free dell precision 690. 1000watt psu, dual xenon CPUs , 8gig ram. Room for easily 4 gpus. Anyway alas dell don’t provide a compatible uefi bios so the machine won’t support modern gpus. Doh !!!

patnor1011 · 03-01-2018 09:47PM

Deal with vega is that they are beast in cryptonight they are probably the best. I mentioned it before there are coins out there with much better return than eth. If I could find vega's for 400 I would buy like 12 right now.

unkel · 03-01-2018 10:29PM

ondafly wrote: »

I feel your pain. Thought I was onto a winner as I got a free dell precision 690. 1000watt psu, dual xenon CPUs , 8gig ram. Room for easily 4 gpus. Anyway alas dell don’t provide a compatible uefi bios so the machine won’t support modern gpus. Doh !!!

PSU is still very usable, hope you kept it!

I've been using the one from my precision 670 from 2004 (only 650W) in a testing rig running a 270W R9 390 for the past few days rock solid and quiet (and presumably platinum-ish efficiency). Thinking of getting more high power hot swap server PSUs, extension boards with multiple 6+2 pci-e cables and some €10 pico PSUs to power the mainboards. And then sell some of my work horse not modular Corsair 650W PSUs, that are obviously not very efficient

smacl · 04-01-2018 01:05PM

ondafly wrote: »

I feel your pain. Thought I was onto a winner as I got a free dell precision 690. 1000watt psu, dual xenon CPUs , 8gig ram. Room for easily 4 gpus. Anyway alas dell don’t provide a compatible uefi bios so the machine won’t support modern gpus. Doh !!!

Was just reading this as I've a couple of older precisions knocking around the office (670 and 620) both twin xeon. No real use so I guess.

Out of interest, what would be a good starting point as someone new to mining to setup a basic rig. I'm regularly turning over PCs and am happy enough to build and configure them as needs be. More interested initially for the craic of building and getting to grips with the technology, re-using where possible rather than buying top of the range components.

ondafly · 04-01-2018 02:42PM

unkel wrote: »

PSU is still very usable, hope you kept it!

I've been using the one from my precision 670 from 2004 (only 650W) in a testing rig running a 270W R9 390 for the past few days rock solid and quiet (and presumably platinum-ish efficiency). Thinking of getting more high power hot swap server PSUs, extension boards with multiple 6+2 pci-e cables and some €10 pico PSUs to power the mainboards. And then sell some of my work horse not modular Corsair 650W PSUs, that are obviously not very efficient

its sitting behind me

I would love to reuse the case etc, as its a lovely setup, but I think I would need to dremel it to bits.... I'm between minds currently. I have a very nice gaming pc, but I'm considering upgrading it, and using its remains now as a mining machine.

smacl wrote: »

Was just reading this as I've a couple of older precisions knocking around the office (670 and 620) both twin xeon. No real use so I guess.

Out of interest, what would be a good starting point

they might be fine - you just need to check if the bios supports uefi

you don't need a powerful cpu at all - gpu wise; I paid 290e for a rx570 8gig, and funnily enough it plays PUBG extremely well

so worse case scenario I'll end up with two gaming PCs out of this. But I do plan on buying a few more GPUs in the next few months.

I'm only running minergate currently, its nice/simple and easy to get going. Once I have my hardware chosen, I'll look into more serious cli style mining.

I'm only doing this as I enjoy tinkering with computers, I am under no illusion that I will make a penny out of it. Its purely for learning. I always like to have a project to do.

unkel · 04-01-2018 02:54PM

If you can already build PCs, there's nothing to it. The only thing extra is that you need a frame and some riser cards. If it is the mining itself you are interested in, I wouldn't bother building a rig (yet). Just get yourself a new or a second hand high end graphics card and just stick it into the pci-e 16 slot of your mobo. I got a R9 390 8GB €200 last month. They are perfect for it, very stable. No need for BIOS flash if you don't want to get into that, and high hash rates of about 28-30MH/s out of the box with the right driver. Best of luck!

Edit - ondafly beat me to it! And yes, it is mostly a hobby. It's taken up a lot more of my time than I had planned, but I like doing it.

randombar · 04-01-2018 02:58PM

unkel wrote: »

If you can already build PCs, there's nothing to it. The only thing extra is that you need a frame and some riser cards. If it is the mining itself you are interested in, I wouldn't bother building a rig (yet). Just get yourself a new or a second hand high end graphics card and just stick it into the pci-e 16 slot of your mobo. I got a R9 390 8GB €200 last month. They are perfect for it, very stable. No need for BIOS flash if you don't want to get into that, and high hash rates of about 28-30MH/s out of the box with the right driver. Best of luck!

Edit - ondafly beat me to it! And yes, it is mostly a hobby. It's taken up a lot more of my time than I had planned, but I like doing it.

Might be a stupid question but I've a microserver with ubuntu at home running plex etc (the proliant ones) can I put a decent graphics card on that and start mining while the server is running the other stuff?

unkel · 04-01-2018 03:02PM

Absolutely. I'm typing this from my main PC running W10 Pro at the moment with the R9 390 at full mining speed (for the last 131 hours). I can even watch 4k movies through my on board Intel HD graphics no bother. I've not run ubuntu and mined at the same time, but I presume it's the same in any general purpose Linux distro.

smacl · 04-01-2018 04:22PM

ondafly wrote: »

you don't need a powerful cpu at all - gpu wise; I paid 290e for a rx570 8gig, and funnily enough it plays PUBG extremely well so worse case scenario I'll end up with two gaming PCs out of this. But I do plan on buying a few more GPUs in the next few months.

I'm only running minergate currently, its nice/simple and easy to get going. Once I have my hardware chosen, I'll look into more serious cli style mining.

I'm only doing this as I enjoy tinkering with computers, I am under no illusion that I will make a penny out of it. Its purely for learning. I always like to have a project to do.

Cheers for that, just set up minergate on a few PCs and will have a mooch around for some half way decent GPUs. The old 670 hasn't been turned on in awhile so looks like it will be loading windows updates for the next few hours (days!), but a couple of other regularly used PCs were up and mining in minutes. Also very much into tinkering and excuses to upgrade and rebuild PCs.

randombar · 04-01-2018 04:50PM

unkel wrote: »

Absolutely. I'm typing this from my main PC running W10 Pro at the moment with the R9 390 at full mining speed (for the last 131 hours). I can even watch 4k movies through my on board Intel HD graphics no bother. I've not run ubuntu and mined at the same time, but I presume it's the same in any general purpose Linux distro.

Nice one, any recommendations on a coin to start with, no point looking at bitcoin from what I can tell.

unkel · 04-01-2018 05:47PM

I mine ETH, the biggest of the alt coins. Consistently one of the most profitable bigger alt coins to mine too. And when BTC took a massive crash last week, it was one of the few bigger alt coins that held up well.

randombar · 04-01-2018 07:11PM

unkel wrote: »

I mine ETH, the biggest of the alt coins. Consistently one of the most profitable bigger alt coins to mine too. And when BTC took a massive crash last week, it was one of the few bigger alt coins that held up well.

From what I've read up I should look for a "AMD Radeon RX 460" to put into the microserver (Just have to check if it's compatible)

One thing I'm wondering is can you stop and start the mining i.e. while on nightsaver mode or is that very inefficient.

unkel · 04-01-2018 08:03PM

You'll have to do the sums yourself once you have your rig up (with a power meter like they sell in Aldi / Lidl from time to time for €9.99). And it depends on your provider. But even at the full time day rate, you are likely to make a profit even with an inefficient 1 card rig, as the value of the coin is so how high now. ETH broke the thousand dollar today :eek: You might have to change plans if the coin loses half its value

I wouldn't get an RX460, but any of the following are good cards and almost as fast as each other. I would buy one with 8GB though, more future proof and better resale:

RX470/RX480/RX570/RX580. You will have to mod the BIOS though. A second hand R9 390 is cheaper, no BIOS mod necessary and it's faster. But uses a good bit more power...

Prezatch · 05-01-2018 08:31AM

I have 4 x 1070 ti on the way and will be looking to dual mine ETH with PASL/PASC or alternatively solely mine ZEN. I've been inspired by this thread and am looking forward to my first crypto build :cool:

smacl · 05-01-2018 08:32AM

unkel wrote: »

RX470/RX480/RX570/RX580. You will have to mod the BIOS though. A second hand R9 390 is cheaper, no BIOS mod necessary and it's faster. But uses a good bit more power...

Picked up a new RX 570 NITRO 8GB yesterday for £215 (€249 shipped to Ireland ex VAT) from an Amazon reseller yesterday and notice the same seller has it listed at £294 this morning! A number of RX570 4gb options around the £200-£220 mark.

Where did you pick up the R9 390? Looking around on ebay the 2nd hand cards seemed seriously overpriced. I'd tend to be cautious of buying any 2nd hand computer parts that may have been OCed for an extended period by the previous owner an would be reluctant to go much over 50% of new retail.

unkel · 05-01-2018 09:33AM

Both second hand on adverts.ie. I got them too cheap, the sellers were gamers not miners and they weren't aware of the recent inflation in GPUs suitable for mining

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