FAQ on mining
What is mining?
What the miner requirements to access the Internet?
Traffic hashing depends on the number of devices, their productivity, and minimal complexity solutions, which takes the pool. For one correctly configured device, the traffic is not more than 10 KB/s, that is enough for Dial-Up connection, the main thing - stability.
Miners that do not have stable wired connection, often use 3G modems, with the cheapest unlimited data plans. If you have several dozen or even hundreds of devices – you will need more "fat" channel.
How to earn miners?
The Bitcoin system is decentralized, it has the difficulty of generating coins depending on the total power of the system. The difficulty changes every 2016 blocks so that on average, an hour was decided six blocks. Thus, the change of difficulty happens approximately every 14 days. But if the power network increases, the complexity of earlier changes (increases), and if the power of the network decreases, the complexity of later changes (decreases).
The entire history of changes, you can see in the graphs at the link. The forecast for the next change of the complexity look at the main page of our site.
Calculate your earnings, you can Bitcoin Mining Calculator. You just need to enter your speed in Mhash/s and click "Calculate". If you don't know your speed, you can calculate the name and number of the devices in this table.
The Bitcoin exchange rate does not depend on the complexity, this complexity indirectly depends on the exchange rate. The buyers of BTC no matter how difficult it was to generate those BTC.
Mining (from the English. mining) in the mining industry means the development of fields, in our case, the extraction of "virtual gold" Bitcoin. Miners (miner, miners) - the people who are mining, or specialized devices for mining.
From a technical point of view, mining is the calculation of the hash of the block header, which includes, among other things, a hash of header of previous block, the hash of the transaction set and random number. If the hash value is less than the current target (which is inversely proportional to the difficulty), a new block is formed and the miner gets 25 bitcoins that you just created. If the hash more of the target changes the random number and calculates a new hash. This is done billions of times per second by each miner.
To engage in mining may be economically profitable, depending on different factors: the rate of BTC to other currencies, the current complexity, cost of electricity, available hardware, etc For mining requires very large computing power, and what will be more in the network, the more it will increase the complexity and the less to each "miner", but the more secure the network itself, as any false information and accepted by a network you will need such power that the attack would be economically disadvantageous.
Even at a fairly early stage of its development the total computing power of the Bitcoin network exceeded the speed of hashing the fastest supercomputer in the world.
It is the result of the excess profits that were "miners." For example, in June 2011 or fall 2013 buy top graphics cards for mining pays for itself in just a couple of weeks, if not faster.
Now return even the most powerful ASIC miners in the normal tariff for electricity is around six months or even more.
How to remotely manage a farm?
In operating systems of Windows to use remote desktop (RDP) to manage the farms, because it works with your virtual card. Stopping mining, you don't start it again because the video card will not be correctly detected. Use third-party tools such as TeamViewer *VNC and others. Under linux (Ubuntu, XUbuntu, Debian) lightGDM does not allow to obtain the resources of the video card in the remote console. With GDM everything works fine. Tested with cgminer, diablo.
How to start mining in solo mode?
Bitcoin mining in solo mode is now almost impossible unless you have your own datacenter with a few thousand modern ASIC miners. However, for some forks solo mining is still effective.
Describe the process on the example of Bitcoin:
To start, follow the path "%appdata%\Bitcoin" (for example, in Windows 7: "C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin"). Create a text file. We enter in it with three rows:
server=1
rpcuser=user
rpcpassword=pass
(without quotes, user and pass think of themselves). Then rename the file to "bitcoin.conf"
Setup cgminer:
1. Go to the folder with cgminer
2. Create txt file and write in it:
cgminer -u http://имя:пароль@127.0.0.1:8332/ -k phatk DEVICE=0 VECTORS WORKSIZE=128
(setting your name and password are taken from bitcoin.conf)
3. Rename the file to "runsolo.bat" and run.
For solo-mining ASIC in the above mentioned address, name and password is necessary to enter in the settings of the miner. However, not all ASIC support the getwork Protocol used by the wallet. You may need to install additional software.
Mining pools
What is a pool?
Currently, anyone who finds the block gets 25 BTC. Alone make it very hard if you don't have a very large computing capacity. To solve this problem, there are pools in the network can be many. Brings together a pool of miners for a General search and decision blocks. More detailed information about the pools joint of generation, modes of their work and examples of how miners can be found in the article Pools.
What happens if two miner will go to the pool one worker?
It all depends on the pool. Most pools allow multiple connections under the same worker. The pool takes into account all the decisions from multiple devices is exactly the same as for one.
Do not forget that the worker on the pool tied to a specific account, and all the income goes to the owner. No matter where the devices themselves and to whom they belong.
I Maini in the pool and find the block. Can I not give it to the pool and pick up all the BTC yourself?
No, it will not work. Every miner in the pool looking for a unit job of the server, from a technical point of view this is equivalent to the fact that all decisions are sent to the device pool belongs. When any of connected to the pool of miners finds a block, premium transaction comes to the purse pool. And only after that the software keeps records of work miners, distributes between them the award. But if the owner is a cheater pool, he can assign all of the found bitcoins, and there's nothing you can do about it.
The owners of most of the major Bitcoin pools known, but small pools for the forks of the often anonymous. Therefore, when choosing pool use caution and often get produced on your wallet.
As the miner can verify the integrity of the pool he gives the job all the transactions and does not ignore objectionable?
Miner at the moment of generation can not check what is included in the block and what not, because the generation comes only the task to generate title block. About the bad behavior of a pool miner can learn only after the fact, after receiving the finished block.
What is pool hopping (pool hopping)?
Pool hopping is an intentional transition from the pool to the pool to catch the period of review ("short") and by doing so earn more coins than it would be at constant work on one pool.
In fact, it is cheating, with whom the pools are struggling with the introduction of the output timing statistics, the introduction of the rating systems and other methods. As a rule, pools with PPLNS system of calculating such jumps are not justified, as even a short absence of the miner on the pool reduces its income for a long period of time (4-12 hours).
Questions on ASIC miners (SHA256 and Scrypt)
What is ASIC miner?
ASIC (acronym from the English. Application Specific Integrated Circuit, "integrated circuits for special purposes") is an integrated circuit specialized for a specific task. Unlike integrated circuits, General purpose, specialized chips are used in a specific device and perform strictly limited functions, specific to this device. The example ASIC may be a circuit designed exclusively for the control of a mobile phone chip hardware for encoding/decoding audio and video signals (signal processors).
For mining ASICS are used because due to the strictly defined structure greatly reduces the production process of the chips, and also due to the narrow specialization of the chips increases performance and energy efficiency of mining.
What is the difference from ASIC Scrypt SHA256 ASIC?
Hashing algorithm Scrypt was designed specifically to counter the faster devices - the first GPU, then FPGA and ASIC. Therefore, it is "harder" SHA256 (more numbers, more rounds of calculation) and to calculate it, you need much more RAM. This makes the production of such an ASIC is more expensive.
What is Dual miner?
This miner, who could perform calculations simultaneously on two hashing algorithms — Scrypt and SHA256. The developers put on a single chip computational core for the calculation of both algorithms, however, each type of nuclei can only be considered on "his" algorithm. This makes this device universal, but greatly increases the cost of production and dissipation, which affects the payback. Now, only one company manufactures this type of ASIC — Gridseed in the past, and now SFARDS.
What are ASIC miners?
Devices for mining are available in several form factors, based on different customer categories – compact, domestic and professional.
Compact miners as a rule are inserted into the USB connector and feed through it. In comparison with the "older brothers", they are the small and weak. Looks like the first generation of chips from ASICminer, one of the first manufacturers of ASIC for mining with the USB Block Erupter.
It features: 300 MH/s, 1.05, 335 MHz, 6x6 mm. and 4.2 watts for 1 GH/s.
Later, small miners produced chips from Bitfury and Coincraft, and even Antminer U series*, but was not popular, as they bring purely nominal income and in the end turned into Souvenirs.
Home and professional miners essentially differ only in size, enclosure type and power consumption, all their other characteristics are identical.
At-home devices typically cheaper housing and poor fans, they are smaller and lighter for their food rather mediocre PSU with a capacity of 600-700 watts. Typical representatives of this class - Antminer S1/S3/S5.
"Professional" miners are designed to be placed in DataTrak and are usually mounted in a 19” server rack. They have built-in power supply (sometimes several) with a capacity of above kilowatt, sophisticated cooling system and powerful server fans, very noisy but effective. Typical representatives - Antminer S2/S4, Terraminer from Cointerra, Bitmine Coincraft Rig from.
ASIC miners compared for the following characteristics:
1) the process of the chip
2) Productivity in GH/s (gigabase per second) or Th/s (terahara per second), where 1 Th/s = 1000 GH/s)
3) power Consumption per 1 GH/s – for example, 1 W/GH/s
4) Cost of 1 GC/s, for example, 0.5$ per GH/s
5) the Average temperature of the chip - °C (depending on process technology, on average, 40-60 °C)
Who produces an ASIC for mining?
Own ASIC chips are now producing (or has produced) several companies:
Bitmaintech
Spondoolies-Tech
KnCminer (the most high-tech 20 nm ASICS in project 16 nm)
Innosilicon (Scrypt and SHA256)
SFARDS (Dual miner) – in production, delivery 07.2015
Bitfury chips are already outdated, but they are manufactured. With the low price for electricity and still make a profit.
ASICminer is no longer manufactured, but their chips still relevant
Zeus (Scrypt) is bankrupt, but the chips still relevant
Which miners are most reliable and popular?
The most merit for Bitcoin mining are considered miners from Bitmaintech, as the company never seriously let down their customers.
Current model:
ANTMINER S5 Bitmain chips BM1384
Specifications:
Performance: 1155 GH/s ±5%
Power consumption: 590 watts from the socket
Energy efficiency: 0.51 W/GH/s out of the socket
Voltage: 12V
Operating temperature: 30 °C - 90 °C
Of the miners on the Scrypt algorithm are the most popular device Terminator from Innosilicon.
Current model:
TERMINATOR A2 90 MH/s Innosilicon
Specifications:
Performance: 90 MH/s ±5%
Power consumption: 1000 W or 1 kW
Energy efficiency: 1.1 W/MH/s
Voltage: 12V 
Temperature: 40°C - 90°C
How to configure ASIC miner in solo mode?
Unfortunately, due to the different types of firmware for ASIC miners, each model needs to be applied your setting method. Some miners do not work in solo mode.
It is possible either to configure ASIC miner to work in p2pool?
Configuring the ASIC to work with P2Pool is possible, as with any other pool, but to set the P2Pool node you have to themselves. For example, according to the instructions.
The remuneration shall be distributed in the same way that a pool with PPLNS, but with some difference, as the award does not stay on the pool for a while and goes straight to your wallet. P2pool works on the principle of "himself master".
By the way, p2pool provides real decentralization - a key reason for the success of Bitcoin.
What software is used in ASIC miners?
As you know the firmware version of the miner you have, but almost all include CGMiner or BFGminer because of flexibility and support all the ways to connect to the pool.
The firmware of most modern ASIC miners based on Linux and have user-friendly web interface that allows you to manage network settings, connection pools, and adjustment of frequency and voltage, see detailed statistics of work of the miner, to monitor faults, update firmware and more.
Interface Bitmain Antminer S5:
There are many custom firmware versions, each with its own characteristics, such as support extranonse.subscribe or a lot of settings.
How to "overclock" ASIC miners?
Most miners have the opportunity to disperse, the potential of which depends on the manufacturer and chip technology. Antminer with factory default frequencies are usually accelerated by 10-30%, while chips from KnC is sometimes possible to disperse almost half. But be very careful with the acceleration of miners, increasing the frequency dramatically increases the power consumption. The chips or the power supply circuit can not handle the acceleration, as a result, you may lose the miner, and other equipment.
On some ASIC miners operating frequency is deliberately understated to enhance the stability (for example Bitmain Antminer S2 and S4). As a result of acceleration you can get significantly more productive but less stable miner.
What type of PSU to use for ASIC miners?
In modern devices for mining tacit steel standard power connectors 6-pin, same connectors for connecting additional power for PCI-E graphics card. They were chosen for small size and maximum compatibility with mass-BP.
In choosing the perfect power supply, the opinions of miners (the people) differ. Some people prefer b/a BP server because of its stability, good efficiency and low prices, while others prefer the ATX power supplies for home PC due to the fact that depreciation (the gradual cheapening and wear) is almost not affected. When selecting a power supply for the miner need to look at the total capacity of the PSU, specifically the +12V rail. Here the choice depends on you.
To start ATX PSU without a motherboard, you need to short the 2 contacts as shown in the image:
aining on the GPU and archive
What kind of graphics card for mining?
Best show itself in mining senior model of the Radeon HD series 5xxx, 7xxx and R9 xxx.
The old NVIDIA graphics cards, because of their architecture, show a low level of performance in this type of calculations. But since the GTX 7xx series on the architecture of Maxwell, with the latest drivers of the Nvidia card are not inferior to Radeona and often even surpass them in efficiency.
For GPU mining, your computer must be installed the SDK AMD APP / Nvidia CUDA, the driver or separately.
What cryptocurrencies can mine on the GPU?
As Bitcoin, Litecoin and their direct ppl were using the same hashing algorithms (SHA256 and Scrypt) have already been produced on specialized devices (ASIC), for graphics cards only the ones of cryptocurrency, where the development of ASIC is still impossible or unprofitable.
On the GPU you can still mine oldoini with the following algorithms:
X11, X13, X15, Scrypt-N, Scrypt-jane, SHA-3 (Keccak), Quark and all the others that already exist for mining on GPUs.
How many graphics cards I can use on a single computer?
A limitation of the driver - a maximum of 8 cores, there are 8 cards or 4 dual-processor graphics card. It is worth noting that the more engines you use, the more unstable the system behaves. To start and control of 6 cards on 1 computer can be quite problematic, and will not work on any motherboard, OS, and drivers. Also increasing demands on the PSU, requires riser, preferably with additional food to reduce the consumption from the PCI-E motherboard. Also, with increasing number of GPUs you need to install more RAM.
What to do if the miner is not displayed, one or more of installed video cards?
There are many options. why it could happen. You can remove the video card from device and allow it to be again. If does not help, then check in the system of residues deleted or rearranged the cards that make failures.
There are times that the graphics card goes in the "hidden devices", then before you uninstall, you must configure the mapping as follows: the icon "My computer", right-click, select "Properties" (or Win+Break). In system properties go to the Advanced tab (for Vista, 7, 2008 etc. in the computer properties, you first need to click "advanced system settings") and at the bottom click "environment Variables". In system variables create a variable DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES and assigning it the value 1. Then open device Manager, View menu, turn on the show hidden devices and delete the hidden card.
After updating the driver dropped the speed, what to do?
Since driver 11.12 fixed the problem of 100% utilization of CPU cores, but the rate of mining fell slightly, compared with version 11.11 and previous. To return to the old speed, unpack the archive Library OCL to disk in the Windows folder with the replacement. If the system informs you that the file is in use process, close the program-miner. In archive two folders for each of the bitness of the OS.
On one of the graphics cards performance much lower
This problem may occur on the "first" video card, which displays the image on the active monitor, but the monitor is not connected to it.
In that case, you need to connect to this map, the monitor or "plug". First, insert the adapter DVI>VGA, then put resistors on 75 Ohm as in the diagram:
This problem occurs rarely on different systems, and its origin may be due, for example, with outdated drivers, BIOS, or simply a bad combination of hardware. If you are not lucky, use as described above.
Does not display the Guiminer window, only a tray icon. How to fix?
This bug is that the miner window is displayed over the visible bounds of the screen. To overcome it in two ways:
1. Select the taskbar tab in Guiminer to become active. Press the key combination Win + left arrow. The miner window is displayed at the left border of the screen.
2. Close the program Guiminer. Open the configuration file poclbm.ini, it's located in %appdata%\poclbm (for example for Win7 is C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\poclbm) and correct the values in the "window_position" are:
"window_position": [
546,
353,
579,
318
]
Then again run Guiminer, the problem should disappear
Radeon HD 7*** is not defined in the miners on Windows XP, what to do?
Radeon HD 7*** does not appear in the miners, because Windows XP does not support OpenCL for series 7*** and above. This restriction in AMD drivers, applies to all versions of Windows XP. I can recommend to use a more modern OS, such as Windows 7 or 8.
What to do if the card is not seen through the 1x riser?
Different motherboard and video cards relate differently to if is PCI-E 16x connection will go in a PCI-E 1x. For mining the bandwidth of PCI-E 1x is enough, and the PCI-E supports a feint, but the signal about the connection of the video card can go unused contacts, and the graphics card is not able to work correctly. In this case, it is easiest to complete with a hotplug signal wire at the connector, it is necessary to make a revision, connecting the pins in the connector thus:
Blue screen of death and the error ati2dvag 0x000000ea what to do?
You need to uninstall the drivers and install them again. The caveat is that after you delete in Windows/system32 there are 2 library ATI, which are not automatically removed even by special utilities like Driver Cleaner. They need to be deleted manually, and then install new drivers.
There are problems with a decrease in the frequency of memory on the graphics card in AfterBurner, what to do?
If downclocking RAM does not work, try in the configuration file to register
UnofficialOverclockingMode = 2
If that does not work, you can try to apply the following technique:
Go to the Profiles folder, it is in place install MSI AB, go to each profile graphics card, looking for the Defaults section in each profile, do as follows:
[Defaults]
Format=2
PowerLimit=0
CoreClk=750000
MemClk=600000
FanMode=1
FanSpeed=25
Later I put:
[Profile5]
Format=2
PowerLimit=10
CoreClk=820000
MemClk=300000
FanMode=1
FanSpeed=44
Voila, if more than 4 identical cards, just run AB, put in the settings "sync settings same GPU" memory clock by default all will be maximized (the default) and not the one written in the profile, but push the hot button of the profile and all is 300mhz.