An adventure in miningThis topic recreates the information from the original topic, here...
Aiming to share my mining experience with other users.
This topic will be updated gradually, after the original topic.
I apologize for my English, as I am not fluent. TIMELINEChronology of events, based on the original topic.
- April 10, 2021 (1st Part) - Explanation of the purpose and how it all started.
- April 10, 2021 (2nd Part) - Explanation of what I did to start mining.
- April 16, 2021 - Report what happened in the first week.
- April 24, 2021 - Report of what happened during the second week of mining.
- May 01, 2021: FIRST 22 DAYS > HOW IS CHIA - Report of what happened in the first 22 days of mining.
- May 09, 2021: FIRST WEEK OF MAY 2021 > BEYOND THE OBJECTIVE - Report of the first days of the month of May.
- May 16, 2021: HASH IN HIGH vs BITCOIN IN FALL > THE FILE - Report of the week of May in which the value of the hash was high.
- May 23, 2021: ANOTHER GOOD WEEK > ELECTRICITY INVOICE - Report for another week and information on electricity consumed.
- May 30, 2021: THE MONTH OF MAY - Report on the month of May 2021.
- June 06, 2021: BACK TO NORMAL > A NEW PROJECT - Report on the first week of June and a new project.
- June 13, 2021: MAINTENANCE WEEK - Report of a small maintenance done to the PC.
- June 20, 2021: NORMALITY WEEK AND EXCEL CORRECTIONS - Report on how it was another week and about an excel correction.
- June 27, 2021: SUMMER HAS ARRIVED > THETA NETWORK - Report on the week the summer started and information about the THETA project.
- July 04, 2021: THREE MONTHS LATER > NOTES ON EXTRAS - Report on the last 3 months of the adventure.
- July 11, 2021: MIDDLE OF ADVENTURE > POOL IN CHIA - Report of reaching the middle of the adventure and how I started to mine in Chia Pools.
- July 18, 2021: HASHRATE ANALYSIS - Analyze the hash performed.
- July 25, 2021: THETA & MINING - Report on Theta Network and the week's performance in mining.
- August 01, 2021: MONTH OF JULY - The summary of what happened in July 2021.
- August 08, 2021: LONDON FORK ARRIVED - Report of what happened during the week of the London Fork.
- August 15, 2021: PROFITABILITY DOWN AGAIN - A week after the London Fork, profitability is low.
- August 22, 2021: HARDWARE - A description of the computer hardware where I mine.
- August 29, 2021: ONLY 30% TO GOAL - I reached 70% of the goal, only 30% to go.
- September 05, 2021: ALL STABLE - A summary of the month of August.
- September 12, 2021: GENERAL SITUATION POINT - A point of situation since I started this adventure.
- October 03, 2021: ANOTHER MONTH TO MINAR - Report of what happened during the month of September.
- October 10, 2021: PROFITABILITY TO DECREASE - Profitability starts to decrease, phase the previous weeks.
- October 17, 2021: WORST WEEK - The numbers about the worst week of this adventure, to date.
- October 31, 2021: TWO WEEKS, DIFFERENT PROFITS - The two-week report, which had very different performances.
- November 07, 2021: LITTLE LESS - The accounts that show how close the goal was.
- November 14, 2021: FINAL LINE - Report from the penultimate week to the goal.
- November 21, 2021: GOAL ACHIEVED > AND NEXT? - Goal achieved! Overall performance report, and a reflection of what comes next.
- November 28, 2021: SEE NEW PLANS? - Some ideas for other mining plans.
- December 06, 2021: CONTINUE ON NICEHASH? - Analyze the continuity in using NiceHash in mining.
- December 12, 2021: START USING 2MINERS - I started mining through the 2miners pool.
- December 19, 2021: FIRST WEEK AT 2MINERS - Report of the first week of mining in the 2miners pool.
- December 26, 2021: NO BIG DIFFERENCES - First analysis of a full week, where everything went within normality, mining on 2miners.
- January 02, 2022: ONE MORE GPU - Buying one more GPU to mine.
- January 09, 2022: NICEHASH OR 2MINER - Start of a comparison between the two mining platforms.
- January 16, 2022: SECOND WEEK OF COMPARISON - Report on the second week of comparing the two mining rigs.
- January 23, 2022: WEAK WEEK - One week report, with a lower performance than the previous ones.
- January 30, 2022: FALLING BITCOIN - Report on how the decline in the value of Bitcoin ended up influencing mining.
- February 06, 2022: NICEHASH OR 2MINERS - THE RESULT - Summary of the comparison made between the use of the two platforms, during a month.
- February 13, 2022: ADVENTURE EXTRAS - A summary of the current situation, regarding the extras of this adventure.
- February 20, 2022: FORECASTS - Predictions about what might happen to achieve the goal.
- February 27, 2022: EXTRA INTERESTING - Report on a new extra, STEPN.
- March 06, 2022: EVERYTHING IN NORMALITY - A little summary of how things have been going, including the extras of this adventure.
- March 20, 2022: ELECTRICAL PROBLEMS BUT NOTHING SERIOUS - Report of an episode that occurred with my electrical system.
- March 27, 2022: WHAT IF I BUY ANOTHER GPU? - A breakdown of the current price (as of publication date) of GPUs.
- April 03, 2022: ENERGY COST, DOES IT STILL PAY? - Information about the energy cost in this adventure.
- April 10, 2022: A YEAR IN THIS ADVENTURE - A little summary of how was a year in this adventure.
- April 17, 2022: THERE IS STILL TIME - An analysis of how I still have time to reach the goals.
- April 24, 2022: THE RHYTHM IS KEPT - Information on how mining keeps up at a steady pace.
- May 01, 2022: RENDER 20% LESS - Comparison between current profitability and the one it had a year ago.
- May 08, 2022: BITCOIN PRICE VS GPU PRICE - Analyze between the current price of graphics cards and the devaluation of Bitcoin.
- May 15, 2022: LHR 100% UNLOCKED - Week in which the full LHE unlock was achieved.
- May 22, 2022: NINE HOURS WITHOUT MINING - Report on the momentary general power failure, which caused a pause in mining.
- May 29, 2022: ONLY ONE MONTH LEFT - The latest predictions to reach the goal, and information about some extras.
- June 19, 2022: SECOND GOAL ACHIEVED - Second objective of this adventure achieved.
- June 26, 2022: ADVENTURE ALSO HAS EXTRAS - Summary of how the extras of this adventure are going.
- July 03, 2022: FOR NOW, IT'S CONTINUE - Despite the goals achieved, it will be to continue mining.
- July 10, 2022: CONTINUE BUT CALM - New strategy to continue mining.
- July 17, 2022: THE GRAPHIC CARDS - How is the behavior of the graphics cards.
- newJuly 24, 2022: "THE MERGE" ANNOUNCED, MORE PROFITABILITY - An analysis of the possible reasons for the increase in profitability.
- newJuly 17, 2022: MONTH JULY 2022 - A comparison between the month of July 2021 and 2022 in this adventure.
April 10, 2021 (1st Part)
OBJECTIVEThe purpose of this topic is to explain what my mining experience has been like since April 2021. I will try to be as frank as possible, without hiding the numbers, because that is the only way it is possible to understand what pays off or not, since throughout the process I had to rely on figures to suppose. I hope this topic will be of help to me, to collect opinions and ideas, and come to help others who also want to enter this adventure.
HOW EVERYTHING STARTEDThe first experience I had in mining, remote in 2013, with an AMD Radeon HD 7770 graphics card, which I managed to receive some satoshis. It had a super low hash capacity, which generated a mere 0.05
BTC every 15/20 days, which at the time was considered very little ... if we knew what I know today, it had not stopped ...
But like most users, I said that because of ASICs, it was no longer worth it to undermine with GPU, I stopped after a few months. But the idea of mining was not put aside, and occasionally the ASIC equipment used and other forms of mining were observed, in the expectation of finding something useful, without a large investment. Until we get to 2021.
2021 - ADVENTURE BEGINSDue to the appreciation of Bitcoin, the funds I had saved over the years, allowed me to try to invest in a GPU. And I heard again: "With the changes in ETH, it will no longer compensate for undermining with just a GPU ...". But I thought, where have I heard this?
Even so, after doing the math, I realized that the investment could be recovered in 6/8 months and, if it weren't for this goal, I might never buy such an expensive GPU, to work and play. So, I wanted to enter this adventure. But how?
CHOICE PROCESSDue to the Bitcoin appreciation, finding a GPU for sale is a real adventure: all sold out or very high prices. A GPU with a PVP of 400 €, costs 2 or 3 times more. So how to do it?
The first thing I did was to establish a maximum amount to spend. How I was going to use some Bitcoin I had to buy the GPU, and I am not rich, neither with € nor
BTC (I stopped mining in 2013 because it allegedly did not yield ... 0.05
BTC/fortnight... it was misery...
), had to define a BTC plan, based on GPU prices. With this analysis, I defined 800~900 € of investment. Now was to find a GPU in stock for this plafon.
I started to look in the computer stores for what was in stock, and to check the potential profit. Since my PC is always on, it was easy to analyze cost vs. performance, because I only had to add the cost of the GPU.
After using several sites, some very simple and others very confusing, the site
Minerstat was the most practical and gathered the information I needed. Calculates the cost and possible profitability, in an easy way because it lists the largest number of good GPUs to mine.
Between what was in stock and profitability, I chose GPU
Nvidia RTX 3060. By my accounts, based on the value of Bitcoin at the time, I recovered the money from the purchase in 6/7 months.
FIRST SCAREAfter choosing the GPU, I started researching the mining process through the RTX 3060. I started to be apprehensive, for reading comments that the board is limited by the factory for ETH mining, where the greatest profitability would come from. This meant that the investment would last twice as long, that was not a good thing.
Fortunately, I read articles about a driver, who had "accidentally" escaped (these things, we all know, are always accidental) from NVIDIA that removed the lock. And after several reports here in the forum to be confirmed and other tips - direct connection to PCIe x16 and the screen - I was more happy.
THE PURCHASEAfter this analysis, which took 2/3 days, I had to check the stock availability in the different stores again. In the morning I had stock... the night was gone.
It took three attempts to buy.
The first attempt, buy the ZOTAC GeForce® RTX 3060 Twin Edge OC 12GB GD6 - price of 870€. It was in stock at the end of the day, but the other day in the morning, it was already sold out. I was initially frustrated, but then I found articles with negative feedback on this model. Let's go to a new survey.
I found it in another store, the Asus GeForce RTX 3060 Dual OC 12GB GDDR6 card - price 849€, make the purchase. But, I got the idea that it wasn't going to work. I went back to searching and in another store I found the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3060 EAGLE OC 12GB model - same price. I made the purchase, but I chose a payment option to pay within 2 days, the GPU being reserved during this time.
This was all on a Saturday, I had to wait until Monday to see if everything was going well. My suspicions were confirmed, the purchase of the Asus model was canceled and the money was returned to me. I advanced to the Gigabyte model, making the payment. But as he had 2 days of reservation, he might not be lucky. Fortunately, a few hours later, I had confirmation that the purchase was made. I already have a new GPU!
DELIVEREDAfter 2 days, the GPU is delivered at home!
And now? I can't do anything!
My goal was to replace my old Radeon HD 7770, with a new GPU, to work, play and mine. Despite having a good monitor, he is 8 years old and uses VGA input. The RTX 3060 only has DisplayPort and HDMI inputs. That is, I forgot to buy the HDMI-VGA adapter.
The next day, I went to buy a 15€ adapter, to connect the new GPU to the screen.
In short, I bought the
Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3060 EAGLE OC 12GB for 849€, plus the adapter for 15€, with a total of 864€.
ASSEMBLY & FIRST IMPRESSIONSWith all the material, play with the mount. Open the PC case, take the opportunity to clean, remove the old GPU and mount the new one. But, it couldn't be that easy…
This GPU is larger, the hard drives were located that does not allow the installation of the GPU. I had to unmount the hard drives, put them in another location, and install the card. Something that took 5 minutes, took 30 minutes...
Turning on the PC, the first thing I do is install the driver, which I had previously downloaded (driver I am using):
https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AImZg23q45RZKlI&cid=DCF42BCB3A71AAE5&id=DCF42BCB3A71AAE5%21129862&parId=DCF42BCB3A71AAE5%21129818 I installed MSI Afterburner, which I had never used before. And I begin to explore the potential of the GPU, even before it undermines. As I usually say, it is to move that one learns, I abused in the tests.
I adjust a configuration, apply, and ... PC to. Reset to PC. Fortunately, everything is fine.
We are ready to mine... but how?
April 10, 2021 (2nd Part)
START MININGAs in 2013, I already had mining and, over time, I have been attentive, I knew how I could start. But, recognizing that things change, I had to get a better look at how things are going. Between advice here on the forum and research, I have three possible options, to achieve my first objective (to recover the investment, according to Bitcoin values), which are: to use NiceHash, to use a multipool, or to directly mine ETH.
Directly mine ETH, it’s no longer useful (but I’ll one day try it out). As I want to recover the investment, due to the high rates of ETH, much of the mining was lost in rates and exchange rates. Something for later.
In relation to multipools, there are several options, but it always involves a longer learning curve to configure well. It may have a higher return, but it would also run a greater risk of delaying the goal.
So, I chose NiceHash. Quick to set up and get the GPU to generate revenue right away.
Mining now begins. It is to remain attentive and always look for the best options, for good profitability.
ZERO DAY (09/04/2021)With everything working, I have to find the best configuration of the card, to be more profitable. I started using the NiceHash common program. But NiceHash has a specific program for NVidea cards, NiceHash Quickminer, which is lighter and more basic. I started using this program for.
Without making additional configurations or overclocking, the GPU allows for +/-40MH/s and a consumption of 130W.
But NiceHash, has a pre-configured overclocking function (which I think you can adjust), which at night I chose the high performance option, making the GPU run at 49MH/s and with practically the same consumption. But during the day, disable this option.
At the end of the first day, the yield was necessary to achieve the goal. But, on the second day I had interesting news.
2nd DAY - CONFIGURATION (10/04/2021)NiceHash has its own function to manage overclocking. This function has 3 levels of options: light, medium, high.
The high design option, I already knew, I went to test the others. In the light the MH/s are the same as without overclocking with low power consumption (~ 100W). That didn't seem like a bad idea, but it would end up being less profitable.
I tested the medium option, and I liked it. I started to have 45MH/s and a consumption of 105W, this could bring greater profitability, good hash vs low consumption. I left this setup over the course of the day, and it was positive.
I had an active day on the PC, I did some image editing (nothing too busy), about 6 hours in meetings at Zoom. In the end I won more than the day before. It may have been a coincidence, but I think this setting is the best at the moment, between gain vs. consumption. We'll see how it goes over the next few days.
FIRST NUMBERSAs I said at the beginning, I will not hide the numbers. They help, to understand which is the best strategy, and only with real numbers can I help or be helped.
NiceHash makes payments every 4 hours, if you have at least 0.00001
BTC pending, otherwise the payment is for the next round. I am on average doing 0.000011
BTC every 4 hours. Which means that I am receiving around 3.1€/day (the current rate - on the day of the original post), as planned.
In the case of configurations, I will show how the card behaves, in NiceHash's overclocking options:
No configuration | Light | Medium | High |
DaggerHashimoto:~42.73MH/s Temp. 62ºC Fan 86% Wattage 144W Efficiency 0.30 MH/J | Core clock: 1400 Memory clock: 700 DaggerHashimoto:~43.28MH/s Temp. 60ºC Fan 72% Wattage 100W Eficiência 0.43 MH/J | Core clock: 1500 Memory clock: 1000 DaggerHashimoto:~46.00MH/s Temp. 59ºC Fan 77% Wattage 107W Efficiency 0.42 MH/J | Core clock: 1560 Memory clock: 1200 DaggerHashimoto:~47.48MH/s Temp. 57ºC Fan 80% Wattage 112W Efficiency 0.42 MH/J |
The payments I received in the NiceHash wallet:
Dia | Win (€ equivalent on the date of the original post) |
1 | 0.00006215 BTC - €3.12 |
2 | 0.00006752 BTC - €3.39 |
TO BE CONTINUEDApril 16, 2021 - FIRST WEEK
April 24, 2021 - SECOND WEEK - NEW APPROACH > BERLIN UPDATE & BITCOIN VALUE > EXTRA FOR ADVENTURE
Changelog:- 16/04/2022 - Topic totally reorganized, splitting the diaries by several posts, allowing a better reading and more regular updates.
- 19/02/2022 - Added five more pages to the diary, including information about purchasing a new GPU.
- 04/01/2022 - Four more pages of the report, including the page when the goal was achieved.
- 25/12/2021 - Added four more pages to this report.
- 04/12/2021 - Added three more pages to this report.
- 23/11/2021 - Report on what happened the week of the London Fork and the week after
- 11/11/2021 - The summary of what happened in July 2021.
- 19/10/2021 - Added the reports for July 18 and July 25, 2021.
- 28/09/2021 - Report of reaching the middle of the adventure and how I started to mine in Chia Pools.
- 18/08/2021 - Report on the last 3 months of the adventure.
- 07/08/2021 - Report on the week the summer started and information about the THETA project.
- 17/07/2021 - Added two more reports to this diary.
- 04/07/2021 - Report on the first week of June 2021 and a new project.
- 24/06/2021 - Report on the month of May 2021.
- 10/06/2021 - Report for another week and information on electricity consumed.
- 30/05/2021 - Report of the week of May in which the value of the hash was high.
- 26/05/2021 - Report of the first days of the month of May.
- 20/05/2021 - Report of what happened in the first 22 days of mining.
- 14/05/2021 - Report of what happened during the second week of mining.
- 13/05/2021 - Report what happened in the first week.
- Update link for Nvidia driver. - 09/05/2021 - Reorganization of the topic.
- Second part of the account of the first days of this adventure. - 08/05/2021 - Creation of this topic, based on the original story.