Anyone mine bitcoins?

[MongGrel]

I used to do protein folding on 3 computers at one time elsewhere, but money is a bit tight to just max out three computers on the side just to do it these days, considering power bills.

Yeah, the Bitcoin thing was impractical even a few years ago when I first really became aware of it, would have been nice getting in early.

 

[OverVolt]

Is electric cheaper than gas where you live or what?

Its amazing how ignorant people can be. You only get gas near big metropolitan areas that pipe it in. Lots of new suburban development is electric only. Lots of population sparse areas like the mid-west are electric only.

Dat internet. What one person assumes is normal is often not the case for the person on the other side of the screen. Everybody forgets that. For all the confederate flag shit you see online -- in rural Virginia it was an xmas gift stocking stuffer.

 

[TwiceOver]

Its amazing how ignorant people can be. You only get gas near big metropolitan areas that pipe it in. Lots of new suburban development is electric only. Lots of population sparse areas like the mid-west are electric only.

Dat internet. What one person assumes is normal is often not the case for the person on the other side of the screen. Everybody forgets that. For all the confederate flag shit you see online -- in rural Virginia it was an xmas gift stocking stuffer.

I've only lived in small, small mid west towns, never been somewhere without gas. Except in "the country" where LP tanks are used in which case then yeah.

I mean it's an honest question. If your reason to max out a PC is for heat, there's far more efficient ways to heat for your dollars with electricity than a PC. So that leads me to think that either gas is expensive where OP is, or his landlord pays for electric but has some say in the heat.

I'm running a dual octo core xeon as my desktop and the last thing I think is "Hrm, that's some cheap heat!"

 

[Red Squirrel]

I've only lived in small, small mid west towns, never been somewhere without gas. Except in "the country" where LP tanks are used in which case then yeah.

I mean it's an honest question. If your reason to max out a PC is for heat, there's far more efficient ways to heat for your dollars with electricity than a PC. So that leads me to think that either gas is expensive where OP is, or his landlord pays for electric but has some say in the heat.

I'm running a dual octo core xeon as my desktop and the last thing I think is "Hrm, that's some cheap heat!"

Yeah I've only heard of super rural cottage or farm areas being without natural gas.

Electric heat is typically near 100% efficient, so all space heaters or other devices designed for heat will use the same amount of power to produce the same amount of heat, so technically a computer is slightly more efficient in that it's performing another task at the same time. If you have electric heat it also does not make sense to buy CFLs or LED lights, you may as well use incandescents as they will produce heat, which you need and will pay for anyway.

If I had no choice but to heat with electricity then I'd probably go crazy with bitcoin mining, it may not cover the cost but since I have to use electricity for heat anyway it may as well be for bitcoins.

 

[sandorski]

Hey so I installed BOINC and set it up...and nothing is happening. It says no work available to process.

BOINC is just a manager, you have to join a Project which will be loaded by BOINC.

 

[Hugo Drax]

Screw that, I mine stockmarket volatility and get real USD.

 

[Hugo Drax]

https://ethereumpool.co/how/

You'll have to set up an Ethereum wallet first to get an address or (potentially risky to trust) generate one online.

Right now NVIDIA cards still aren't as efficient as AMD cards for GPU mining (though the gap narrowed with Maxwell) so I get around ~7 mhash with my GTX 970 vs 13 with my R9 270 or older HD 7870 (essentially the same card... could crossfire them if I wanted to).

For CPU mining I don't think anything works well anymore except some niche crypto... last I did for any significant length of time for CPU was primecoin two years ago. Not sure if X11 algorithm based ones like Dash are still CPU friendly, but they were at one point. My GTX 750 (non-TI) was getting 1,000 khash on X11 before I retired it. Power efficient card, but not very effective for mining on its lonesome.

I tested on my gpu, it gets 920-922 Mhash/s on the R9 Nano. windows 10.

 

[mrrman]

How easy was it to mine bitcoins when they first came out?

my sons friend made $400k on this

 

[Crono]

I tested on my gpu, it gets 920-922 Mhash/s on the R9 Nano. windows 10.

Can you screenshot/snip a pic of the commandline/console window? You might be looking at the wrong number. It should be something closer to 40 to 50 Mhash, I think, though I could be wrong (shouldn't be that high still, though). Or put your public address (the address you are mining to) after the "=" in this URL:
http://ethereumpool.co/stats/miner/index.php?address=

I'm getting dual nanos in two weeks or less, so I'm really curious about the performance. It usually takes some tweaking of the core and memory clock speeds (Afterburner for AMD, Precision X for NVIDIA) to get optimal performance for any cryptocurrency mining. Usually there's a "sweet spot" ratio for the two and not necessarily cranking them to the max that your system will allow for.

 

[sourceninja]

...

 

[desura]

Hey so I finally figured out how to solo mine bitcoin.

Which of the butterfly lab miners would make the best space heater? I don't want something too noisy.

 

[Crono]

I didn't realize they were still in business.

If you want a space heater, get a space heater. If you really want to mine and get heat, build a multi GPU setup with Hawaii based GPUs.. at least you could resell the hardware later if needed, or use them for gaming/VR if you have any interest.

Power efficient cards or ASICs aren't going to put out enough heat, anyway, versus high wattage/TDP GPUs. Just look carefully for cards without reports of coil whine.

You can mine another currency and convert to Bitcoin on an exchange, by the way, if you really want to. Solo mining doesn't make much sense unless you have a ton of money to invest.

 

[ultimatebob]

How easy was it to mine bitcoins when they first came out?

Pretty easy. You could get about 50 bitcoins a day doing solo mining on a fast CPU back when they were worth less than a penny each. Both the value and mining difficulty went up quickly at a geometric rate.

I found that it was more profitable to mine an alternative currency like Litecoin on my GPU and convert it to Bitcoin later, but even that is no longer profitable without dedicated mining equipment now.

If you wanted to something really crazy, you could try making your own cryptocurrency and come up with a plan to make it popular. I always thought that someone should do a religious themed currency, and give it a name like JesusCoin.

The holy rollers might like it... they'll be singing "All Praise be to JesusCoin!" at church when it starts climbing in value

 

[drebo]

Hey so I installed BOINC and set it up...and nothing is happening. It says no work available to process.

That's because the science is settled.

 

[MongGrel]

There is some natural gas in the Tampa Bay area, but it is not the norm.

Mostly electric down here.

 

[Zee]

a lot of new apartment buildings in up and coming neigborhoods are built like shit.

Mini washer/dryer electric combos. Dual ac/heater electric in-wall units instead of gas/oil.

 

[Crono]

Bump in case you missed the ethereum mining thread in VC&G, OP - Ethereum has jumped to above $4 USD an ether, and is only behind Bitcoin in market cap - and are still interested in mining:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2463816

 

[pcslookout]

No.

I thought bitcoins were used for illegal things.

 

[Crusty]

No.

I thought bitcoins were used for illegal things.

So is cold hard cash. Your point?

 

[Sonikku]

I guess it's totally worth it for people that live in an apartment building where your utilities are included in your rent as a flat price no matter what. But if not for those damn miners XFX would still have their lifetime guarantee.