Author

Topic: What's generally considered the best pool to join? (Read 6660 times)

legendary
Activity: 1204
Merit: 1000
฿itcoin: Currency of Resistance!
What's generally considered the best pool to join that someone could link me to, or perhaps even a website that is reputable that handles rankings? I'm not so sure solo mining is going to get me anything.

I'm churning out 870 mh/s, I'm unsure if that's good enough for solo'ing exactly, or if I'm even doing this correctly. If that is good enough for solo what's a really good guide for solo mining that goes into great detail so a noob like me can learn the ropes to it?

What's the best software for mining? I'm currently using GUIMiner for my 2x 5870's and my 4670, is that good?

Also, my bitcoin wallet program had to be re-installed and I've lost my original receive coins address, is there a way to get this back or should I just concentrate on the new address?

EclipseMC is the best I know...

You can have:

1- Payouts directly to your PayPal account! Instead of Bitcoins!;
2- SMS alerts of everything! New blocks founds, wallet changes, cashouts, offline miners, etc...

It will be awesome when EclipseMC reaches 200GHash!!

Cheers!
Thiago
legendary
Activity: 2352
Merit: 1064
Bitcoin is antisemitic
You might consider even if a pool has merged mining i.e. it mines namecoins with no additional effort on your part. At current exchange rate it means a +1% bonus.
full member
Activity: 154
Merit: 102
Bitcoin!
Watching.
legendary
Activity: 4592
Merit: 1851
Linux since 1997 RedHat 4
Ah OK - maybe something a bit more obvious that you were going on a complete tangent Cheesy
donator
Activity: 2058
Merit: 1054
I agree the 10% is amazingly high!
and Bitpenny was PPS with 10% fee.
Later Bitpenny was hit by a bad luck run and had to close because 10% turned out to be not enough. That's one of reasons why I decided not to make it lower.
It's only "not enough" if there isn't enough reserve. In AoBPMRS I describe the reserve needed at a given fee level (or vice versa) to make bankruptcy probability arbitrarily low.


Didn't anyone here hear about pool-hopping? I don't know how big the problem is in Deepbit specifically but those looking for a small proportional pool could easily suffer 20% loss. Use a hopping-proof method like PPS, PPLNS, DGM, shift-PPLNS.
Um - as you do well know (or all those pages of guff you have written are based on a severe lack of knowledge)
Pool hopping does not make a Prop pool lose n% needed to be covered by fees.
So it has nothing to do with the fees charged by pools.

Of course, it may make people leave the pool ...

It simply makes the miners get what some consider less value for their shares than if hoppers didn't hop.
I put two blank lines to clarify that the hopping comment has nothing to do with the PPS fee comment.

The hopping comment was addressing all the people who were talking as if there is nothing wrong with proportional and looking for a small proportional pool.
legendary
Activity: 4592
Merit: 1851
Linux since 1997 RedHat 4
I agree the 10% is amazingly high!
and Bitpenny was PPS with 10% fee.
Later Bitpenny was hit by a bad luck run and had to close because 10% turned out to be not enough. That's one of reasons why I decided not to make it lower.
It's only "not enough" if there isn't enough reserve. In AoBPMRS I describe the reserve needed at a given fee level (or vice versa) to make bankruptcy probability arbitrarily low.


Didn't anyone here hear about pool-hopping? I don't know how big the problem is in Deepbit specifically but those looking for a small proportional pool could easily suffer 20% loss. Use a hopping-proof method like PPS, PPLNS, DGM, shift-PPLNS.
Um - as you do well know (or all those pages of guff you have written are based on a severe lack of knowledge)
Pool hopping does not make a Prop pool lose n% needed to be covered by fees.
So it has nothing to do with the fees charged by pools.

Of course, it may make people leave the pool ...

It simply makes the miners get what some consider less value for their shares than if hoppers didn't hop.
full member
Activity: 168
Merit: 100
What exactly is limited about noticing that I get more payout from ABC than Deepbit? That to me seems like a very astute and relevant observation. It is also relevant if the pool cannot supply enough work. Stop trying to flame me already and stay on topic.
To stay on topic ? The topic is not about you doing observation on two pool. Are you aware there is ~50 pools ?   As much as you want to help there are people who have much more knowledge about what pool is best for X or Y.

What is limited your actual knowledge of how pools works, it shows by your claim that "X pool cannot supply enough work".

People with 10-100 Ghs had incentives to do this research more than 6 months ago and they did.
 For more information on pool there is this 30 000 post subs named "Pools" located here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=41.0

Note that I am not challenging your assumption but simply trying to spare you some work while sparing us some pointless reading.

Flaming ? I am trying to be polite, your private message are full on insult.
Quote
You are a real ass you know.
Inaba got mad because I pointed stuff out and he was in love with the people he met obviously because he took offence and started flaming too.
...done a pretty good job of making an ass of yourself and are turning the pool thread into a clusterfuck with your irrelevant posts."
JACKASS!
Please grow up.

Tip : Do not expect to provide help unless you think you know better than all previous people who posted. (same goes for BFL thread)

Do you speed French?
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
Well maybe the user doesnt want to stray from the thread. It might have been too much reading to read many threads and asked advice which is what the topic of this post is about.The person obviously didnt find the thread themselves or they wouldnt have posted.

When you assume you make and ASS out of U and ME
donator
Activity: 1731
Merit: 1008
What exactly is limited about noticing that I get more payout from ABC than Deepbit? That to me seems like a very astute and relevant observation. It is also relevant if the pool cannot supply enough work. Stop trying to flame me already and stay on topic.
To stay on topic ? The topic is not about you doing observation on two pool. Are you aware there is ~50 pools ?   As much as you want to help there are people who have much more knowledge about what pool is best for X or Y.

What is limited your actual knowledge of how pools works, it shows by your claim that "X pool cannot supply enough work".

People with 10-100 Ghs had incentives to do this research more than 6 months ago and they did.
 For more information on pool there is this 30 000 post subs named "Pools" located here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=41.0

Note that I am not challenging your assumption but simply trying to spare you some work while sparing us some pointless reading.

Flaming ? I am trying to be polite, your private message are full on insult.
Quote
You are a real ass you know.
Inaba got mad because I pointed stuff out and he was in love with the people he met obviously because he took offence and started flaming too.
...done a pretty good job of making an ass of yourself and are turning the pool thread into a clusterfuck with your irrelevant posts."
JACKASS!
Please grow up.

Tip : Do not expect to provide help unless you think you know better than all previous people who posted. (same goes for BFL thread)
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
As per my suspicion earlier I am definitely getting more stales/invalids at ABCPool than deepbit. There is long polling but it does not seem to be as effective. Even wiht this I am sure the payout is higher (assuming you do not donate). If you take donations into account you might just be better off at Deepbit with their proportional. The regular use miners are to allow for HD videos so they are not run as often.

hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
Back to the ABCPool vs Deepbit

I have earned 0.40950177 BTC since joining last night. The shares I have produced do not match their calculations but my payout seems to be. It also seems to have a higher payout than Deepbit. I will be sticking with this pool and have deepbit set as my backup. I noticed three times around noon their server ran out of work so that is when I decided to set up the backup. Havent cofirmed the backup but am running it in GUIMiner as parameter  --backup http://user:[email protected]:8332 (for some reason I cannot connect to the main deepbit server).

I would now recommend this configuration to anyone else looking for a pool. Plus with ABCPool you can get the cool picture that updates your hash rates in real time in my picture courtesy of BTStats.
Why not start your own thread in technical support ?  I don't think you can help anyone decide which pool is "generally best" based on your limited observations.


What exactly is limited about noticing that I get more payout from ABC than Deepbit? That to me seems like a very astute and relevant observation. It is also relevant if the pool cannot supply enough work. Stop trying to flame me already and stay on topic.
donator
Activity: 1731
Merit: 1008
Back to the ABCPool vs Deepbit

I have earned 0.40950177 BTC since joining last night. The shares I have produced do not match their calculations but my payout seems to be. It also seems to have a higher payout than Deepbit. I will be sticking with this pool and have deepbit set as my backup. I noticed three times around noon their server ran out of work so that is when I decided to set up the backup. Havent cofirmed the backup but am running it in GUIMiner as parameter  --backup http://user:[email protected]:8332 (for some reason I cannot connect to the main deepbit server).

I would now recommend this configuration to anyone else looking for a pool. Plus with ABCPool you can get the cool picture that updates your hash rates in real time in my picture courtesy of BTStats.
Why not start your own thread in technical support ?  I don't think you can help anyone decide which pool is "generally best" based on your limited observations.
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
Back to the ABCPool vs Deepbit

I have earned 0.40950177 BTC since joining last night. The shares I have produced do not match their calculations but my payout seems to be. It also seems to have a higher payout than Deepbit. I will be sticking with this pool and have deepbit set as my backup. I noticed three times around noon their server ran out of work so that is when I decided to set up the backup. Havent cofirmed the backup but am running it in GUIMiner as parameter  --backup http://user:[email protected]:8332 (for some reason I cannot connect to the main deepbit server).

I would now recommend this configuration to anyone else looking for a pool. Plus with ABCPool you can get the cool picture that updates your hash rates in real time like in my picture courtesy of BTStats.
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
Runing a 6 core 1090T OC'd at 3.6Ghz ...  I did blow up my 600 watt PSU doing this however and am now running a 850W lol. With afterburner and custom fan profile the 6950 runs at 77C and the CPU at 53 (Corsair A50 and Arctic Cooling MX-4 paste). Also have 3 120mm intake fans and 2 140mm exhaust fans. I am not worried about power consumption but temps are important to me.

This kind of post confirm why I got you on "ignore",   You made the 500$ 1ghs thread completely unbearable, and now you're posting about CPU Mining and the color of your thermal paste.

Not going to explain why you are irrelevant, but you are, REALLY.

Ignore favor returned. I was stating my config to rule out a configuration problem due to invalid shares. The color of the paste is not what I was talking about it was the brand and model.  Might be useful if someone wants to use an aftermarket cooler for their cpu or gpu.

"Transisto
   
Re: What's generally considered the best pool to join?
Today at 04:21:31 AM
This user is currently ignored."

Ahhh thats the stuff!
hero member
Activity: 756
Merit: 500
I am using deepbit, have tried others but find deepbit best in terms of getting pay outs.
donator
Activity: 1731
Merit: 1008
Runing a 6 core 1090T OC'd at 3.6Ghz ...  I did blow up my 600 watt PSU doing this however and am now running a 850W lol. With afterburner and custom fan profile the 6950 runs at 77C and the CPU at 53 (Corsair A50 and Arctic Cooling MX-4 paste). Also have 3 120mm intake fans and 2 140mm exhaust fans. I am not worried about power consumption but temps are important to me.

This kind of post confirm why I got you on "ignore",   You made the 500$ 1ghs thread completely unbearable, and now you're posting about CPU Mining and the color of your thermal paste.

Not going to explain why you are irrelevant, but you are, REALLY.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
Hi Meni,  I do agree hopping would be more of a problem in smaller pools, but I haven't been watching the big pools to see if they have suffered the short term hop-swings.  Comes back to reward systems and consistency of hash rates.  Anyway, I'm lazy with my set up and doing something else with the GPUs so was never too interested in optimising every last bit cent.  A card failure would wipe that out quickly enough.

Smiley
donator
Activity: 2058
Merit: 1054
I agree the 10% is amazingly high!
and Bitpenny was PPS with 10% fee.
Later Bitpenny was hit by a bad luck run and had to close because 10% turned out to be not enough. That's one of reasons why I decided not to make it lower.
It's only "not enough" if there isn't enough reserve. In AoBPMRS I describe the reserve needed at a given fee level (or vice versa) to make bankruptcy probability arbitrarily low.


Didn't anyone here hear about pool-hopping? I don't know how big the problem is in Deepbit specifically but those looking for a small proportional pool could easily suffer 20% loss. Use a hopping-proof method like PPS, PPLNS, DGM, shift-PPLNS.
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
Ah, I didn't catch that. Yea, a cpu miner will have a few invalids. You aren't CPU and GPU mining on one rig are you?

If you are I'd stop, dedicated GPU mining will give you a higher hashrate than doing both on one machine. I'd stop pcu mining altogether, not worth the >150W you're consuming

Runing a 6 core 1090T OC'd at 3.6Ghz and a 6950 OC'd to 951Mhz Core and 830Mhz (underclocked mem). I do not pay for electricity and I dont mind the extra heat in my apartment. I am also mining with 5 cores instead of 6 using the command line Ufasoft miner since i cannot get it to run in guiminer. I get the exact same performance with 5 cpu cores than 0 as I have done some optimization. I did blow up my 600 watt PSU doing this however and am now running a 850W lol. With afterburner and custom fan profile the 6950 runs at 77C and the CPU at 53 (Corsair A50 and Arctic Cooling MX-4 paste). Also have 3 120mm intake fans and 2 140mm exhaust fans. I am not worried about power consumption but temps are important to me.

[Update]

So far with 2 hours running at the pool I have earned ~0.034 BTC

I think this is more than the Deepbit pool on average but will have to wait a day or two to find out. I would average 0.36 BTC per day at Deepbit

Also no more invalid shares so I just think I had really bad luck for some reason. I will be sticking with this method for the time being.
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 500
Ah, I didn't catch that. Yea, a cpu miner will have a few invalids. You aren't CPU and GPU mining on one rig are you?

If you are I'd stop, dedicated GPU mining will give you a higher hashrate than doing both on one machine. I'd stop pcu mining altogether, not worth the >150W you're consuming
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500

Hash rate will be different between the miner and the site. The miner is real time, whereas the site is average shares submitted.

Same goes for the delay in what you see on the site as submitted shares and what your display on the miner reads.

Your rejected share is probably a share submitted after a block was solved. This still happens with LP enabled, just not as frequently.

Hmm another rejected share on my Ufasoft (CPU) miner. So far 2 out of 18 rejected shares which is much higher than I have ever gotten at Deepbit. Maybe I will be better off to do my CPU mining at Deepbit (19Mhash) and GPU mining at ABCPool (389Mhash)? Im going to keep it running for a while longer and if this continues to be a pattern I will have to switch at least that miner.
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 500
I have 410 Mhash/s (even though ABC is showing 320) and I have 0.01 since I mentioned I made the switch.

Interestingly enough I just saw my first rejected share (not even stale) from my Ufasoft miner. There also seems to be a few minutes at least delay between when my miner shows a share to when its registered on the site. I really hope this is just a delay. Has anyone else experienced rejected shares before and what does that even mean?

Hash rate will be different between the miner and the site. The miner is real time, whereas the site is average shares submitted.

Same goes for the delay in what you see on the site as submitted shares and what your display on the miner reads.

Your rejected share is probably a share submitted after a block was solved. This still happens with LP enabled, just not as frequently.
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
I have 410 Mhash/s (even though ABC is showing 320) and I have 0.01 since I mentioned I made the switch.

Interestingly enough I just saw my first rejected share (not even stale) from my Ufasoft miner. There also seems to be a few minutes at least delay between when my miner shows a share to when its registered on the site. I really hope this is just a delay. Has anyone else experienced rejected shares before and what does that even mean?

[Edit]

Rejected is what the miner said that can mean stale or invalid. I got an invalid which I have never seen show up on other sites. I have since received 6 invalid and 35 stale. I suspect this is a high number of invalid. Can anyone confirm?
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
I think he's referring to their FAQ.

http://www.abcpool.co/faq.php#fees

What are your transaction fees?
Transaction fees for withdrawal of your balance are modelled after the default bitcoin client transaction rules. This means a default fee of 0.0005 BTC. For withdrawals below 0.2 BTC we charge 0.01 BTC.

Guess I never looked at it close enough?

My withdraw was set at 10btc then manually transferred to 3 separate wallets. I'll go look back at that deposit wallet I guess.

It's really negligible for some, but for someone who only has 100 Mh/s, it may take them a while to accumulate that 0.2 Tongue
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 500
I think he's referring to their FAQ.

http://www.abcpool.co/faq.php#fees

What are your transaction fees?
Transaction fees for withdrawal of your balance are modelled after the default bitcoin client transaction rules. This means a default fee of 0.0005 BTC. For withdrawals below 0.2 BTC we charge 0.01 BTC.

Guess I never looked at it close enough?

My withdraw was set at 10btc then manually transferred to 3 separate wallets. I'll go look back at that deposit wallet I guess.

Yeah I guess I was a bit off on the percentage but its still very low. This is just the standard bitcoin network fee. This is waived by deepbit but will still amount to next than nothing in the big picture. This is my first 0% fee pool and it will be interesting to see if my shares match up with my miner now that I am at a PPS pool. Anyways if its the same number of shares showing submitted at Deepbit this will be a much more profitable pool for me.

From my experience; at my lower hashrates, PPS was always better
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
Yeah I guess I was a bit off on the percentage but its still very low. This is just the standard bitcoin network fee. This is waived by deepbit but will still amount to next than nothing in the big picture. This is my first 0% fee pool and it will be interesting to see if my shares match up with my miner now that I am at a PPS pool. Anyways if its the same number of shares showing submitted at Deepbit this will be a much more profitable pool for me.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
Did the calculation on my shares submitted to deepbit and I would have made 1 more BTC at ABCPool (6.3) so I have officially made the switch. To get the 0 fee you have to manually set it though because they try to include a 4% "donation". You also have to pay the tranasction fees for transferring to your wallet which are 0.1% so not a big deal at all given that I am not paying a fee.

All 0% fee pools do this. It's not to trick you, they get most their income from donations, and it would be nice if you donated every once in a while. Also I never paid a fee when I was there on a withdraw

I think he's referring to their FAQ.

http://www.abcpool.co/faq.php#fees

What are your transaction fees?
Transaction fees for withdrawal of your balance are modelled after the default bitcoin client transaction rules. This means a default fee of 0.0005 BTC. For withdrawals below 0.2 BTC we charge 0.01 BTC.
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 500
Did the calculation on my shares submitted to deepbit and I would have made 1 more BTC at ABCPool (6.3) so I have officially made the switch. To get the 0 fee you have to manually set it though because they try to include a 4% "donation". You also have to pay the tranasction fees for transferring to your wallet which are 0.1% so not a big deal at all given that I am not paying a fee.

All 0% fee pools do this. It's not to trick you, they get most their income from donations, and it would be nice if you donated every once in a while. Also I never paid a fee when I was there on a withdraw
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
Did the calculation on my shares submitted to deepbit and I would have made 1 more BTC at ABCPool (6.3) so I have officially made the switch. To get the 0 fee you have to manually set it though because they try to include a 4% "donation". You also have to pay the tranasction fees for transferring to your wallet which are 0.1% so not a big deal at all given that I am not paying a fee.
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
ahh was closed just a couple of days ago.

Thanks for the heads up
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 500
ABCPool is reg closed.. I thought about joining it the other day.

Just clicked on the reg link and it looks open still

http://www.abcpool.co/register.php
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
ABCPool is reg closed.. I thought about joining it the other day.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
What proportional pool that pays for stale shares and unmatured blocks is there besides Deepbit? If you know one that has all this without fees I will gladly use it.

It's not PPS, but SMPPS I believe, ABCPool.co

ABCPool.co is straight PPS.  0% fee.
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 500
What proportional pool that pays for stale shares and unmatured blocks is there besides Deepbit? If you know one that has all this without fees I will gladly use it.

It's not PPS, but SMPPS I believe, ABCPool.co
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 500
Well, if you don't know, how can you tell ? Smiley
TX fees are almost zero and nowhere near the amounts needed even for hosting.

Because 0% fee pools are still around, keep growing and new ones are popping up.
I would think they would have disappeared quite rapidly if they weren't profitable/sustainable.
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
No, I think it was pretty well written. That's what comma's are for.

Proportional pools are all the same over time, their only difference will be in fees. A pool already makes its own BTC on every block found there, typically the fees that have been attached by transactions and donations. Get yourself in a pool that you like, without a fee, there are a lot to choose from.

If I may add my own 2 bitcents, you may enjoy 0% fee PPS style pools better at 870 MH/s.

What proportional pool that pays for stale shares and unmatured blocks is there besides Deepbit? If you know one that has all this without fees I will gladly use it.
donator
Activity: 532
Merit: 501
We have cookies
A pool already makes its own BTC on every block found there, typically the fees that have been attached by transactions and donations.
How much BTC can pool make on a TX fees per day ?
Enough to run I suppose...I'm not a pool operator, IDK
Well, if you don't know, how can you tell ? :)
TX fees are almost zero and nowhere near the amounts needed even for hosting.
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 500
A pool already makes its own BTC on every block found there, typically the fees that have been attached by transactions and donations.
How much BTC can pool make on a TX fees per day ?

Enough to run I suppose...I'm not a pool operator, IDK
donator
Activity: 532
Merit: 501
We have cookies
A pool already makes its own BTC on every block found there, typically the fees that have been attached by transactions and donations.
How much BTC can pool make on a TX fees per day ?
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 500
No, I think it was pretty well written. That's what comma's are for.

Proportional pools are all the same over time, their only difference will be in fees. A pool already makes its own BTC on every block found there, typically the fees that have been attached by transactions and donations. Get yourself in a pool that you like, without a fee, there are a lot to choose from.

If I may add my own 2 bitcents, you may enjoy 0% fee PPS style pools better at 870 MH/s.
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
It was poorly explained and since I mine with Deepbit I know I only lose 3%. If you read exactly what was written it looked like they take 10% from everything. Simply not true.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
So then are we all in agreement that for proportional that Deepbit is the best pool?

No, that conclusion has not been reached, and is unlikely to be reached.  I also didn't think I needed to spell out the 10% vs 3% for the pps vs prop.
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
So then are we all in agreement that for proportional that Deepbit is the best pool?
donator
Activity: 532
Merit: 501
We have cookies
I agree the 10% is amazingly high!
When Deepbit was created there were only two online pools: Slush's and Bitpenny. Slush's was proportional and Bitpenny was PPS with 10% fee.
Later Bitpenny was hit by a bad luck run and had to close because 10% turned out to be not enough. That's one of reasons why I decided not to make it lower.

How is their proportional 10%. From what I see it is 3% and non matured shares are still paid.
10% is for PPS, 3% is for proportional.
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
How is their proportional 10%. From what I see it is 3% and non matured shares are still paid. Their PPS is not a very good rate and if I look at how many shares I would have produced there I would have significantly less BTC if I did PPS. I tried slushs several times when I could not connect to deepbit but every share I mined except for 1 block which I only had about 5 shares for did not mature. For that reason alone I have stuck with deepbit.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
3: The payment/reward is simple cf Slush for newbies.  different methods, not one necessarily better than the other.
The proportional method used by deepbit is necessarily worse than all others. If a newbie really wants simplicity he should go for PPS, preferably in a pool with lower fee than deepbit's 10%.

I agree the 10% is amazingly high! 
donator
Activity: 2058
Merit: 1054
3: The payment/reward is simple cf Slush for newbies.  different methods, not one necessarily better than the other.
The proportional method used by deepbit is necessarily worse than all others. If a newbie really wants simplicity he should go for PPS, preferably in a pool with lower fee than deepbit's 10%.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
Anything but Deepbit,

I still don't understand how they are one of the biggest.

That said, it's all personal preference. Personally I like the different varieties of proportional. When the pool hits a nice luck streak it's like winning the lotto! But, PPS and SMPPS (so long as the pool can produce) are nice as well for a steady income

Some reasons could be:
1: It is large.  That gives some stability and they find blocks reasonably often.
2: 3% isn't too huge a fee for many, especially when linked with #1.
3: The payment/reward is simple cf Slush for newbies.  different methods, not one necessarily better than the other.
4: When setting up miners via Guiminer, deepbit is fairly easy and works.  (When I first started and couldn't get solo running, it was one I chose due to likely variance.  It could have as easily been Slush's Pool.)

Why do people prefer different things? That's partly what gives marketers their jobs.  For example, buying computer hardware, some people prefer buying online, others with a real person, some the big companies, others the local store.  Different people have different needs/wants.

sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 500
Anything but Deepbit,

I still don't understand how they are one of the biggest.

That said, it's all personal preference. Personally I like the different varieties of proportional. When the pool hits a nice luck streak it's like winning the lotto! But, PPS and SMPPS (so long as the pool can produce) are nice as well for a steady income
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
Anyway, OP, here is some help: http://tpbitcalc.appspot.com. You need to wait around 2 months to mine a block with those cards. This is a probability, which means that you may hit a block next month or 3 months from now.

Good calculator - I had not seen that one before.
hero member
Activity: 602
Merit: 502
I wonder how could you spend 4 hours in the newbie section without realizing that you can't solo mine with that hardware and that lost wallet means lost addresses.

Congratulations, you've invented a new game - stand with a stopwatch next to newbies and see how long it takes them to become experts in the various intricacies of Bitcoin.


Sorry for my bitterness but when I first got here there were 'flashing signs' all over the newbies section saying stuff like "wallet.dat is the most important file ever", "solo mining is not worth it", "we don't accept paypal", etc. I was just wondering what did he read during those 4 hours...

Anyway, OP, here is some help: http://tpbitcalc.appspot.com. You need to wait around 2 months to mine a block with those cards. This is a probability, which means that you may hit a block next month or 3 months from now.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
I wonder how could you spend 4 hours in the newbie section without realizing that you can't solo mine with that hardware and that lost wallet means lost addresses.

Congratulations, you've invented a new game - stand with a stopwatch next to newbies and see how long it takes them to become experts in the various intricacies of Bitcoin.


+1

They could solo mine with that hardware, they just might not see blocks very often.

Plus, to jctusmc03, Meni has looked pretty carefully at different pools so checking his recommendations would be a sound idea.
donator
Activity: 2058
Merit: 1054
I wonder how could you spend 4 hours in the newbie section without realizing that you can't solo mine with that hardware and that lost wallet means lost addresses.

Congratulations, you've invented a new game - stand with a stopwatch next to newbies and see how long it takes them to become experts in the various intricacies of Bitcoin.
hero member
Activity: 602
Merit: 502
I wonder how could you spend 4 hours in the newbie section without realizing that you can't solo mine with that hardware and that lost wallet means lost addresses.
donator
Activity: 2058
Merit: 1054
What's generally considered the best pool to join that someone could link me to, or perhaps even a website that is reputable that handles rankings?
This is a hotly debated topic. There are bad pools and good pools but you won't find any consensus about which is which. At this point in time, personally I would recommend eclipsemc.com, yourbtc.net or bitminter.com.

I'm churning out 870 mh/s, I'm unsure if that's good enough for solo'ing exactly
It's not.

What's the best software for mining? I'm currently using GUIMiner for my 2x 5870's and my 4670, is that good?
It should be about as good as any other software.

Also, my bitcoin wallet program had to be re-installed and I've lost my original receive coins address, is there a way to get this back or should I just concentrate on the new address?
Try looking in the "receive coins" tab or "receiving" tab of the address book (depending on the Bitcoin software version). If it's not there then it's probably in an old version of your wallet.dat file. If you lost this file you can't use that address anymore so you should focus on the addresses in the new file (and keep a backup of it). In any case reinstalling the software shouldn't harm the wallet file if you keep the data directory intact.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools

Choose one that seems fair, and probably one that isn't too small.  Also, make sure you are happy with the reward method as some have high fees or quirks that advantage hoppers (and my opinion and investigation says that tends to be the smaller ones).

Personally, I mine at Deepbit because it suits my setup, but not much at the moment because of price.  Slush also looks interesting and his posts on the forum are sensible so you can get good feedback/information.
donator
Activity: 1731
Merit: 1008
Anything but Deepbit,

I personnaly like nmcbit.com because they offer both proportional and per share reward

and have Merged mining, meaning you get both BTC and NMC, you can also convert them directly on the site.

EDIT: Why not DeepBit ?   They have high fees and threaten the whole network security by having more than 50% of mining power.

newbie
Activity: 31
Merit: 0
What's generally considered the best pool to join that someone could link me to, or perhaps even a website that is reputable that handles rankings? I'm not so sure solo mining is going to get me anything.

I'm churning out 870 mh/s, I'm unsure if that's good enough for solo'ing exactly, or if I'm even doing this correctly. If that is good enough for solo what's a really good guide for solo mining that goes into great detail so a noob like me can learn the ropes to it?

What's the best software for mining? I'm currently using GUIMiner for my 2x 5870's and my 4670, is that good?

Also, my bitcoin wallet program had to be re-installed and I've lost my original receive coins address, is there a way to get this back or should I just concentrate on the new address?
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