Slow to sync? This tiny config trick should speed up your initial sync immensely when trying to CPU mine Steem on Windows
I have been trying to mine Steem using my CPU on my Windows platform now for 24hrs, I followed this fantastic post from: http://steemit.com/steem/@r3b37/steem-mining-for-windows-update-1 but, unfortunately, the initial sync would run pretty fast until about 96%, then the last 4% of the initial sync would literally take 7-8hrs, my computer would run out of RAM, the sync would die, and I would restart the whole process again. I did this 4 times, over 24hrs.
It was enough to make me quit, almost, but I am not a quitter (well, ok, I am trying to quit the smokes right now)!
The solution to this problem is as follows.
To speed up the initial sync from about 8hrs to ~10mins, apply this simple change in your config file:
Find:
enable-plugin = witness account_history
Change to:
enable-plugin = witness
So, delete 'account_history' from that line.
If you use the 'account_history' plugin, steemd requires ~7GB RAM. This was my problem, I only have 4GB RAM.
My initial sync went from taking ~7hrs+ to literally ~10 minutes, and I am now happily mining Steem.
I hope this helps somebody else start mining Steem on Windows. I would like to thank @geoffrey for the tip. What a legend!
I wanted to ask you a question? Can we mine steem through GPU?
No, it is only CPU based. This is a helpful resource as well:
http://steemit.chat/channel/mining
Of course, so are the whitepapers.
Okay, I will look into it. Thanks
nice post. after changing to: enable-plugin = witness, do you need to delete existing downloaded blockchain and restart from scratch or can you continue where you left off before the config modification?
You should be able to continue where you left off, just ctrl+c to make a clean exit if it is currently running, then make the change to the config, then restart with steemd --replay-blockchain
Let me know how that goes for you...
thanks for responding. ok tried exactly what you mentioned but still pretty much stuck around 3.56mio block slow moving. perhaps it's the current state of the blockchain or something i've not done right. will wait for another 24 hours to see before throwing in the towel
I am sorry to hear it has not helped your particular situation.
What is your current download speed (can you do a speed test and report back?), CPU, RAM specs?
It definitely 100% helped my issue removing that 'account_history' parameter from the config file. You are definitely using a custom config file etc (sorry, just asking the typical troubleshooting questions)?
Also, did you try DL the blockchain first from e.g http://www.steemitup.eu/ as per:
http://steemit.com/steem/@r3b37/steem-mining-for-windows-update-1
?
Thank you for taking the time to post this discovery...
No worries! I knew it would come in handy for someone down the track! :)
Thanks for the tip, really helps.