Topic: a whirlwind with dust (Read 1185 times)

Yes, Windows Vista will work because all you need the computer for is to initially setup the miner.  After that, you don't need it except if you want to check out the stats or reconfigure pools or something.

The S1 was Bitmain's first stand-alone miner.  They had USB miners (The U1 and U2) as well.  After the S1 came the S2, which used the same chips as the S1 at a lower clock, but more of them.  10 hashing boards on a backplane with integrated 1000W PSU got you 1TH/s.  The latest is the S3.  Based on the S1 form factor, it's got Bitmain's newest 28nm chips.  2 boards with a total of 32 ASICs that hashes at 441GH/s at 340W power from the wall.

The S1 and the S3 require that you provide your own PSU.  Any standard ATX PSU with at least 2 (preferably 4 or more) PCI-e connectors, minimum of 500 watts capable of being delivered on the 12V rail will do.  I recommend spending a bit more on the PSU to get a high quality one with a good warranty and an 80+ gold certificate at least.  You can also get one of the Dell server PSUs.  Those are considerably cheaper than your standard ATX PSU.  Buy one of the Dell PSUs and get a breakout board and some adapter cables.  A lot of vendors will have them in stock for purchase.

That S3 should NEVER cost you $1800.  If people truly are getting that kind of price on flea-bay, that's crazy.

Also, check out the marketplace forum here, or reputable vendors.  For example, 112bit.com is an official Bitmain reseller in the US.

You should always do ROI but some will say dead for me it's still very much alive.  Cheap electricity and lots of space it's very much alive for me.  As far as asic's GPU mining is dead for me summer heat just could not profit with cooling.

There are also hosting solutions for miners.  If you do not have space for miner or electricity is high look into these and do some ROI.

Bitcoin mining through home computers is dead. Most of the work in the network now is done by sha256 specified asics. Those chips are made for the sole porpuse to solve the mathematical problems behind bitcoin mining and are the reason the difficulty is increasing each month. Bitcoin mining is now an investmnent rather than a hobby, so you should look into the miner's price and power thoroughly before ivnesting on it. You should look if it has a potential to break even.

Directly from Bitmaintech.com.

No, the S3 costs $372 or 0.64BTC, but it has a MOQ of 2, and you will need to get your own PSU.
Please don't buy miners on ebay. You're just getting ripped off.

Get an Antminer S3, used or new, if you can. But the thing is that if you have no idea what you are doing, don't mine.

The new S3's do not require a computer besides setup.  Really I would do ROI on any gpu mining, for most there is not profit. 

As far as setup on S3's any computer that can do internet can do it really, does not take power to pull up page.  Just right network settings.

on the prairies