Hi I'm new, I have a few quick questions

eMansipater

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Quote from: curator on March 25, 2011, 06:06:43 PM

Hey, since this is the "new" thread (of which I still consider myself), why would you need a username/password for solo mining? Where are you signing up to to confirm it's you? I'm in a pool right now, so the u/p scheme makes sense.

Thanks.

Mining clients which use the user/password functionality, instead of just an address which you own, are able to be run over networks. Thus you could, for example, run the mining clients on many computers connected via LAN but have them all connected to just one computer that runs the normal bitcoin client, minimising internet bandwidth use and the cpu load of verifying transactions (which is significant once you scale up). You are still "solo" mining because you're not connected to a pool, but this allows you to sort of form your own pool.

LMGTFY

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Quote from: CryptikEnigma on March 25, 2011, 06:26:55 PM

I think he is talking about clients like poclbm, which does ask you for a username and password for solo mining.

DiabloMiner does as well:

Code:

./DiabloMiner-Linux.sh
...
Remember to set rpcuser and rpcpassword in your ~/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf
before starting bitcoind or bitcoin --daemon

CryptikEnigma

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Quote from: MoonShadow on March 25, 2011, 06:09:57 PM

Quote from: curator on March 25, 2011, 06:06:43 PM

Hey, since this is the "new" thread (of which I still consider myself), why would you need a username/password for solo mining?

You don't. My client has never asked for that.

I think he is talking about clients like poclbm, which does ask you for a username and password for solo mining.

MoonShadow

legendary

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Quote from: curator on March 25, 2011, 06:06:43 PM

Hey, since this is the "new" thread (of which I still consider myself), why would you need a username/password for solo mining?

You don't. My client has never asked for that.

curator

newbie

Activity: 21

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Hey, since this is the "new" thread (of which I still consider myself), why would you need a username/password for solo mining? Where are you signing up to to confirm it's you? I'm in a pool right now, so the u/p scheme makes sense.

Thanks.

Distribution

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Fight fire with photos.

If you were looking to get a little more, you could sign up at Bitcoin Bonus which gives you .10 btc for signing up and a percentage of stuff you buy for referred purchases. Not to mention a referral bonus for getting your friends to sign up.

CryptikEnigma

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Okay, I think I finally got the hang of it now, thanks to everyone who kindly answered my questions Cheesy

Cryptoman

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Quote from: Meni Rosenfeld on March 23, 2011, 08:55:54 AM

The downside of this is that the time to find blocks is very variable. It's possible you'll mine for months and not find anything. With your hashing rate I strongly suggest joining a pool (slush's, Tycho's, btcmine, ...)

I'll second this recommendation. You only lose a few percent by mining in a pool. On the other hand, you could have an unlucky start to your mining and not find a block for 100 days or more. The general rule of thumb is if your GPU has an average generation time of greater than a couple of weeks then you should mine in a pool. YMMV.

eMansipater

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Quote from: CryptikEnigma on March 23, 2011, 08:44:10 AM

Quote from: Jim Hyslop on March 23, 2011, 08:26:48 AM

Quote from: CryptikEnigma on March 23, 2011, 06:47:25 AM

Last question, I SWEAR LOL

No problems - keep 'em coming if you have them.

Well in that case!

I used the bitcoin calculator to find out on average that it will take me 50 days to generate my first block. What I'm wondering is, if I need to shut off my computer for whatever reason, do I have to start the fifty days all over again once I turn my computer back and start mining again?

Generation is like a lottery that you participate in once per hash (therefore many thousands of times per second). You can play it whenever you want without changing the chances of winning any other time. The 50 days is just saying, based on the odds per ticket and how quickly you are playing the different tickets, how long will it will take on average to win once. It could happen earlier, or later, or many times, or never--though in the long run it tends to be fairly consistent. But it doesn't depend on work done before or after, so you are welcome to turn your computer on or off whenever you like.

Most people with a 50 day average generation time are going to participate in a mining pool so that instead of one payout every 50 days (well, randomly but with that average) they get a more predictable one bitcoin per day, with a bit shaved off for the pool operator. If you're interested you should check out the mining board.

Meni Rosenfeld

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[Edit conflict]

Quote from: CryptikEnigma on March 23, 2011, 08:44:10 AM

Quote from: Jim Hyslop on March 23, 2011, 08:26:48 AM

Quote from: CryptikEnigma on March 23, 2011, 06:47:25 AM

Last question, I SWEAR LOL

No problems - keep 'em coming if you have them.

Well in that case!

I used the bitcoin calculator to find out on average that it will take me 50 days to generate my first block. What I'm wondering is, if I need to shut off my computer for whatever reason, do I have to start the fifty days all over again once I turn my computer back and start mining again?

No. You can safely shut down your computer and you only lose the time your computer could have been on. Mining is less progressing towards some goal and more drawing lottery tickets until you happen to hit the jackpot.

The downside of this is that the time to find blocks is very variable. It's possible you'll mine for months and not find anything. With your hashing rate I strongly suggest joining a pool (slush's, Tycho's, btcmine, ...)

da2ce7

legendary

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Live and Let Live

Quote from: CryptikEnigma on March 23, 2011, 08:44:10 AM

I used the bitcoin calculator to find out on average that it will take me 50 days to generate my first block. What I'm wondering is, if I need to shut off my computer for whatever reason, do I have to start the fifty days all over again once I turn my computer back and start mining again?

Nope, it will just take longer... It is like looking in a pond for a lost coin... the longer that you spend drinking tea, the less time you are looking for the coin. Of course, if you wait too long, the mud will go over the coin and make it harder to find. Meaning that the difficulty will go up, so it takes even longer to find the lost coin.

The key difference between the analogy above and what is really happening with Bitcoin is that the pond is the sea, and the coins are the sand. There are lots of Gold grains evenly spread out in the sand, and you need only to find one Gold grain to win the 'block,' as the difficulty is increased, the size of the Gold grain that you need to find gets larger, so it take more tries.

CryptikEnigma

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Quote from: Jim Hyslop on March 23, 2011, 08:26:48 AM

Quote from: CryptikEnigma on March 23, 2011, 06:47:25 AM

Last question, I SWEAR LOL

No problems - keep 'em coming if you have them.

Well in that case!

I used the bitcoin calculator to find out on average that it will take me 50 days to generate my first block. What I'm wondering is, if I need to shut off my computer for whatever reason, do I have to start the fifty days all over again once I turn my computer back and start mining again?

Jim Hyslop

member

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Quote from: CryptikEnigma on March 23, 2011, 06:47:25 AM

Last question, I SWEAR LOL

No problems - keep 'em coming if you have them.

CryptikEnigma

full member

Activity: 336

Merit: 101

Quote from: eMansipater on March 23, 2011, 08:00:24 AM

Quote from: CryptikEnigma on March 23, 2011, 06:47:25 AM

Last question, I SWEAR LOL

Would solo mining with poclbm and generating with bitcoin at the same time be bad or good or not really make a difference?

If you overload your cpu too far, it will impact your hashrate negatively. But if you limit cpu generation to half or less of your available cores you should be okay on a modern system. You should realise, though, that CPU generation typically isn't worth the electricity that it costs.

Okay thanks, I'll just stick with with poclbm and use my GPU in that case.

eMansipater

sr. member

Activity: 294

Merit: 273

Quote from: CryptikEnigma on March 23, 2011, 06:47:25 AM

Last question, I SWEAR LOL

Would solo mining with poclbm and generating with bitcoin at the same time be bad or good or not really make a difference?

If you overload your cpu too far, it will impact your hashrate negatively. But if you limit cpu generation to half or less of your available cores you should be okay on a modern system. You should realise, though, that CPU generation typically isn't worth the electricity that it costs.

CryptikEnigma

full member

Activity: 336

Merit: 101

Last question, I SWEAR LOL

Would solo mining with poclbm and generating with bitcoin at the same time be bad or good or not really make a difference?

CryptikEnigma

full member

Activity: 336

Merit: 101

Ah no worries, I finally got it working. I closed bitcoin out, then restarted it from poclbm, which then gave me a pop up that said I could start mining. So I clicked start mining and it worked. Thanks for all the help guys Cheesy

rebuilder

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I haven't used that GUI version of m0mchil's miner, but I do think you need to have the Bitcoin client running in server mode. You need to run bitcoin.exe -server (or is it --server? - not a windows user myself)

CryptikEnigma

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Alright, since I'm wanting to mine solo, I set the server to solo, then I went to solo utilities, created a solo password and set the bitcoin client path. Then I clicked start mining, but it said having problems communicating with the bitcoin RPC or something(I already had it running since yesterday). Should I close the program and restart it from poclbm? Also, do I need to add anything in the 'extra flags' field(ATI 4850)?

CryptikEnigma

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Merit: 101

Alright, I think I got it working on my own. Thanks for the help guys.

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