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Topic: Don't Mine on an iMac! - page 2. (Read 25682 times)

newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
June 15, 2011, 11:24:39 PM
#16
Yeah, I have a friend who gpu mined on his imac while we were getting started mining. About two days later I come to his house and point out a blue vertical line on the same computer's monitor. We immediately stopped, but the damage had been done. Not worth it for the ~35 Mhash/s.
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
June 15, 2011, 04:07:28 PM
#15
A Mac not mining bitcoin's well/efficiently? Color me surprised.

Also what twitcoins said: Mobile is quite different from the "real" model. Advertising trick, and a good one. I don't know how many friends think they have a good graphics card in a laptop because they don't know the difference between a XXXXM and a XXXX.
full member
Activity: 168
Merit: 100
June 15, 2011, 03:58:34 PM
#14
Theres a good chance Apple care will fix the repair but they may try to weasel out of it if they knew you were bit mining with it.

Would there be any basis for that though if there was no evidence of overclocking or warranty voiding modification? Just running a taxing program on a computer and having it die seems more like a design/manufacturing flaw. Apple seems to have a history of that happening with certain models, e.g. the G4 cube. I think they believe the noise of a fan detracts from the zen experience of using their computers, or something along those lines.

Chances are if you send it in to Apple, they'll see the artifacts and automatically assume overclocking. They'll most likely do some tests on it and find that the card is running perfectly fine temps and assume you were grinding the shit out of the card somehow.

I'm not saying they won't replace it for you as I've never dealt with Apple. I'm just saying that it's very likely they will know that it wasn't faulty hardware to begin with.
full member
Activity: 154
Merit: 100
June 15, 2011, 10:55:05 AM
#13
Theres a good chance Apple care will fix the repair but they may try to weasel out of it if they knew you were bit mining with it.

Would there be any basis for that though if there was no evidence of overclocking or warranty voiding modification? Just running a taxing program on a computer and having it die seems more like a design/manufacturing flaw. Apple seems to have a history of that happening with certain models, e.g. the G4 cube. I think they believe the noise of a fan detracts from the zen experience of using their computers, or something along those lines.
legendary
Activity: 1386
Merit: 1004
June 15, 2011, 09:10:03 AM
#12
Strange. the iMac i overtook in my university (guest account, logged on in background) still mines.
All day, all night. and due to multi-user-login it's seems still usable for the other students (otherwise they would had shuted it off already)

I am not saying it will fail, but it has a much higher chance of failing running 100% GPU load on an iMac for a long time.  You may not have any problem.  You also may be CPU mining which still puts heat stress on the machine, but it may not be as bad.

hero member
Activity: 896
Merit: 1000
Buy this account on March-2019. New Owner here!!
June 15, 2011, 08:57:09 AM
#11
Those machines are designed for aesthetics not for power crunching

the cooling systems are not designed at all for that kind of use
 

it is quite possible the gpu overheated and was permanently damaged.

best thing to do is not tell anyone what you did. Delete all signs of bitcoin off of the machine and then walk into your boss's office wit a puzzled look on your face "gee boss I dunno what happened"


Theres a good chance Apple care will fix the repair but they may try to weasel out of it if they knew you were bit mining with it.
hero member
Activity: 826
Merit: 1000
°^°
June 15, 2011, 07:52:11 AM
#10
Strange. the iMac i overtook in my university (guest account, logged on in background) still mines.
All day, all night. and due to multi-user-login it's seems still usable for the other students (otherwise they would had shuted it off already)
newbie
Activity: 42
Merit: 0
June 15, 2011, 06:36:33 AM
#9
and don't buy anything from Apple or other exploiting companies /slavers for rest purposes.
full member
Activity: 154
Merit: 100
June 15, 2011, 05:27:22 AM
#8
iMacs are the one piece desktop computer line with the screen built in, not technically a laptop but obviously very similar.
full member
Activity: 168
Merit: 100
June 15, 2011, 05:17:32 AM
#7
You've got to remember, laptops have terrible airflow. The 6970 is a powerful card and you've got to take into consideration that while playing a game, this card might top out at %50 gpu load and the rest of the time you're playing usually hovers around %20 (this is a dx11 game i'm talking about, visually demanding games). While bitcoin mining, your gpu is running under a load 5X the size of running a dx11 game at max. This is a fine way to destroy any laptop.
legendary
Activity: 1386
Merit: 1004
June 07, 2011, 09:03:49 PM
#6
Overheating happens, but usually the motherboard powers it down before anything like that happens...

Apple iMacs are known for video chip heat issues.  The design is wonderful looking (and I own one) but it is a lot of computer with a small set of fans.  You can run it hard, and just playing games heats my whole machine up.  I would not mine on a iMac or even visit a site that mines in the browser for long (minutes or even an hour should be ok, all night long no). 
member
Activity: 98
Merit: 10
June 07, 2011, 06:59:38 PM
#5
Do you have Applecare? Tongue
legendary
Activity: 2058
Merit: 1452
June 07, 2011, 06:57:52 PM
#4
would you leave a stove on, unattended? same thing with computers. Wink
newbie
Activity: 39
Merit: 0
June 07, 2011, 06:10:01 PM
#3
That's a 6970_M_ (high end mobile part) in a very restricted-airflow case.  I would heartily second your recommendation of NOT mining with one of these.
member
Activity: 83
Merit: 10
June 07, 2011, 06:04:27 PM
#2
Overheating happens, but usually the motherboard powers it down before anything like that happens...
newbie
Activity: 15
Merit: 0
June 07, 2011, 06:03:11 PM
#1
I just got a new iMac at work (I'm a PC/linux guy, but my boss is a Mac guy). It has a ATI 6970, which is one of the best video cards for bitcoin mining today. So I figure I'll download Diablo miner and set it up to run with default settings. Apparently Open CL doesn't work very well on a Mac, so I was only mining at about 1/4 the rate that the 6970 would get in a PC, but still figured it would be worth it to run it over the weekend.

So I come back on Monday, and the computer is froze. I restart, and I'm getting visual artifacts on the screen, and it freezes, usually at the login screen, sometimes it logs in, only to have more video artifacts, and freezes shortly after. I'm pretty sure I fried the video card. I'm assuming that the iMac must have really bad cooling on the video card, and it overheated. Aren't there any safety features to shut down the computer if the hardware is getting dangerously hot?

I load in safe mode, and delete everything related to bitcoin or the diablo miner, and call the company's tech guy complaining my New iMac is acting up, acting like I have no idea why it would do that.
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