Quote from: whitetoo on March 31, 2013, 03:20:38 PM

Hi Bitcoin gurus,

This question is more out of curiosity than anything else, how important is a stable "always on" Internet connection when mining for Bitcoins? I'm assuming once synced with the network the hashing occurs on the local data files?

If this is not the case and a constant net connection is required, are your efforts reset if the Internet connection does drop from the network?

Thanks and sorry if these seems stupid questions, I couldn't find my answer through searching.

I don't know the specifics of how any given mining software handles that, but I see three critical things for which a connection is needed:

Catching up to the latest blockchain state
Collecting transactions
Transmitting a block you found

Theoretically, if you got the latest block and a handful of transactions, disconnected, solved a block and reconnected to submit it before someone else solved another block you would be ok. If someone else solves a block first, though, and you don't know about it, you could be wasting work on an old block.

Disclaimer: I am not a miner, so this is just my supposition.