Crypto currency mining

Delboy · #1 27th September 2017, 02:12 PM

Question for you all.

How much data is passed over internet to run a miner.

Was thinking if possible to run on boat I work on which has power on tap but internet is via sat.

moltuae · #2 27th September 2017, 03:15 PM

Not sure of the exact bandwidth requirements, and it'll probably depend to some extent on what's being mined, but it doesn't need much.

You can certainly mine over WiFi and a 4G LTE connection (I've tried it) but I'm not sure about satellite broadband. Latency might be an issue there, possibly resulting in lots of late/rejected 'shares'. 3G/4G would probably be more reliable if it's available (I'm assuming not, unless the boat is docked).

Having said that, it's easy enough to do a quick test. Just run NiceHash up on a PC equipped with a suitable graphics card and check the performance over the sat connection.

richardracer · #3 27th September 2017, 07:03 PM

Hello folks,

I have a spare, unused HP dl160 4 processor blade server, 4 Xeon chips, 32gb memory. Is this any good for bit coin mining, given it is only 3" high and would be difficult to put multiple graphics cards in? As you can probably tell, I am a new by at this bitcoin stuff!

Any feedback welcomed.

Richardracer

moltuae · #4 27th September 2017, 08:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by richardracer

Hello folks,

I have a spare, unused HP dl160 4 processor blade server, 4 Xeon chips, 32gb memory. Is this any good for bit coin mining, given it is only 3" high and would be difficult to put multiple graphics cards in? As you can probably tell, I am a new by at this bitcoin stuff!

Any feedback welcomed.

Richardracer

You can mine with some Xeon CPUs, but you'll probably just about cover your electricity costs.

I sometimes run NiceHash as part of a stress test on any new/used servers that I get on my bench before I configure them for the customer. About 6 months ago I had a Gen8 HP ProLiant DL380p in my workshop, with twin Xeon E5-2670 CPUs (2.60GHz, 32 virtual cores, 128GB RAM). If I recall correctly, it managed about 80p per day, probably only slightly more than it cost to run. Still, it would've cost me the same to run while stress testing it using other methods, so for me it was still worthwhile. It wouldn't be worthwhile running a server like that purely for mining though.

ainarssems · #5 29th September 2017, 10:22 AM

My L3 + has not shipped yet and its already past 6pm in China now. Unless it ships tomorrow I am in for even longer wait with the Chinese national holidays 1st-8th October and Bitmain offices shut.

I was also thinking about mining directly but it seems like at least sometimes it's more profitable to use Nicehash or similar service. Not sure if somebody just mines and hopes for value of mined coins to rise or maybe just laundering BTC from illicit sources and get freshly minted altcoins in place of dodgy BTC.

I have also found section on Nicehash that shows how the hashrate and how payouts were affected with the new Asics coming in operation.
https://www.nicehash.com/algorithm/scrypt

Edit: did not take screenshot big enough to show what each line represents but blue line is hashing power and green line payouts

moltuae · #6 29th September 2017, 01:34 PM

Certainly a lot of new hashing power coming online there!

I'm planning to give Prohashing a try on one of the L3+ miners, so that I can do a direct comparison with the L3+ that is presently using NiceHash.
https://prohashing.com/

Unlike NiceHash, with Prohashing you're mining for yourself rather than selling hashing power and mining for someone else. Like NiceHash though, I believe it automatically selects the most profitable coin to mine and you can receive payments in BTC. You can also choose to be paid in other cryptocurrencies and you can even choose to divide the payments (eg 60% in LTC, 40% in BTC).

MikkiJayne · #7 29th September 2017, 01:48 PM

Wow! X11 is Dash isn't it, so that's the first batch of D3s coming online? No wonder the payout has dropped so dramatically.

ainarssems · #8 21st October 2017, 11:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delboy

Question for you all.

How much data is passed over internet to run a miner.

Was thinking if possible to run on boat I work on which has power on tap but internet is via sat.

The internet usage is very little, I have not done any tests but I understand you need less than 5kB/s with less than 2GB/month usage but low latency plays part which could be a problem with satellite. Probably not a problem with high power miner which runs at high difficulty but if you just run a test with like a 1 GPU PC you might get your shares rejected if they are late. Obviuously cannot say for sure as I have not tested.

ainarssems · #9 21st October 2017, 11:25 AM

I have another L3+ arriving Monday or Tuesday

. I bought it on e-bay and stuck to the budget I have set but I made a mistake where most of the ones I was looking at had PSU included but not this one. Luckily I have a spare PSU.

moltuae · #10 21st October 2017, 11:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ainarssems

I have another L3+ arriving Monday or Tuesday

. I bought it on e-bay and stuck to the budget I have set but I made a mistake where most of the ones I was looking at had PSU included but not this one. Luckily I have a spare PSU.

Cool

How's your L3+ doing?

The first two we got got, which I suspect are from an earlier batch, take several reboots before they'll see all the ASICs but are fairly stable once they're running properly. The one that arrived later has been rock-solid so far. All of them are 'earning their keep' nicely now though. Probably earning at least £500/month each at the moment.