I'm at 14k accepted, still completely 0 HW. Would you still call it a sign of imminent failure? It seems like it'd probably be an overloading issue... Maybe, maybe not... What alarms me, is that it was in a 82+ degree F humid room all summer, now almost no humidity, and about 72-76F normally. Maybe it'll fail soon regardless, or something... But if that's the case, I'd rather have the thing function for a while before death, rather than just burn electricity and never actually do much mining...

Perhaps I won't even bother fine tuning the frequency and I'll just leave it as it. Not 100% sure yet. I'll just wait until I get the new equipment in, then I'll decide...

Also, I notice the unity is staying at 50 Celscius on both blades, regardless of over/underclocking. Maybe it just maintains that typical temperature...



EDIT: I just had a stupid theory. I now have it in a power strip with my christmas tree and lights on the wall... Stupid, but I couldn't connect the change in performance to anything else!

Alright, so I clocked down to 350mhz, which I guess was the default clock that runs about 180 GH/s. Hardware Errors are now... Absolutely Zero!

But it's strange. My pool earnings were normal before, so I'm not sure how long this has been going on for, but it doesn't seem like TOO long. Even still... What would make an ASIC suddenly crap out and start getting all sorts of errors at the same frequency it was mining at previously, and successfully?

Perhaps I could try to fine tune the frequency to a small amount of errors, but still a higher hashrate than the standard 180 GH/s. I saw one site recommend like 393, as opposed to 400mhz. Whatever, I'll figure it out by tonight, I'm sure. But damn, the sudden errors are really strange, and the chips seem to be fine.

Weird.

I'm assuming Cryptsy is based in the U.S.?

I remember looking at Vault of Satoshi, which appears to be Canada-based. They wanted quite bit. Like confirming a bank account, or a letter from your bank, or something. Granted, Cryptsy could get any of that with your I.D. but Vault of Satoshi wanted all of it just to get started!

Are there any other less invasive options? I don't mind going with Cryptsy, and they have a vast selection of currencies... So I'd need a similar selection, but with less invasive account confirmation.

Ha yeah, that was the problem. I'm holding the coins I'm mining because they're promising, so I'm not switch mining for a USD profit, or anything like that.

Sarge, same, I'm a legit dude. "If you don't have anything to hide, then what's the problem?" has always sounded like BS to me. You're guilty until proven innocent, or whatever. Not that they would even know what you did either way (depending on the circumstance), so whatever... These things are probably a product of things like Silk Road, and The Armory, which I heard was a giant sting operation anyway, but I didn't keep up with that stuff too closely. Honestly, I didn't care much.

And to smoothie, yeah, it's total bull. This peasant tried to rise a rank!? Destroy him!

Honestly, I'm not sure how long this has been going on. Perhaps a week or so? One of my Antminers has a huge amount of HW Errors.

As of the last 15 minutes, I have 42 getworks, 435 accepted, 9 rejected and 1130 HW. Also 27 Utility, 66 Discarded and 0 stale.

Antminer and Pools are reporting normal hashrate. I've been on Ghash for a month now, and suddenly this is happening. I thought maybe it was Ghash, so I went back to BTC Guild. Same thing. I documented my earnings, and it was about 1/2 of expected (from Coinwarz calculator). What would be causing all of these errors?

I've had this OC'd S1 running for months now. My electricity's cheap, so It's actually still slightly profitable to mine with the low efficiency, but that's besides the point. It's on a CX750m PSU. This seems to be a sudden thing. Does anyone know how I can fix this? Also, the Ant control panel shows all of the ASIC chips are fine, so again, I don't know what the heck could be going wrong!!

My deepest apologies, mein Fuhrer! I was out of line!

 

In a way though, isn't it good for the big coins? You've got a bunch of two-bit coins with nothing big to offer, and they're dumped for profit, hopefully reinforcing the value of the big coins that survive? I mean, have legitimately good and innovative coins been killed by multipool mining?

Then again, now I see a point in scam coins. Have a massive hashing power set up, launch the coin, mine a huge amount of it, pump until it has even a tiny amount of value, then dump the hell out of it. Is that how it works with a lot of these scam coins? I guess it'd make sense. But that certainly hurts cryptos in general. Hard to know what coins to trust, and which are garbage.

I have cheap electricity and a few Antminer S1's set up, so that's going well. However... My Scrypt mining setup is far more modest. I've only got a few MH at the moment, so I certainly want to maximize my profits, if even a little. I've been mining on Hashfaster, and it's been going well. However, I'm wondering if a multipool would increase my profits, if even a little. I've searched google for this, but I can't seem to get a straight answer on this.

All in all, what would the profit increase be, if I went to a multipool? Is it even worth bothering, or shall I just stay at Hashfaster? What do you guys think?

I've been mining a few coins for a while, including BTC, but I'm ready to actually buy some altcoins on an exchange, 'cause the price is right. I'm looking at Cryptsy, and to be honest, I'm a little reluctant to give my personal information to the site. It all seems legit, and I know many have done it before, but what is the purpose of needing things like photo ID and whatnot? Is that a US thing, or does pretty much every exchange want that information? And if they do... Why?

I believe for higher verification, some even want a Social Security Number? Why is that? Does anyone have more information regarding why they would collect that information? I don't necessarily doubt the honesty of Crypsy or any other big exchanges. But at the same time, I'm not going to run and give them information that they shouldn't have.

Thanks for any information you guys can give me.

Just send some to me. 

Dogie, so in other words, suppose I was using an antminer S3 , which has two boards and 4 pci-e slots... You could power one board, with one PSU, and the other board, with a different one? However, you could NOT power the same board from two different PSU's? Not that anyone would ever configure it that way, but that would be when you'd need the Add2PSU?

y_boonstra, that's good information on wire gauge. I don't have anything in front of me at the moment, but the info is duly noted. Thanks.


To Unacceptable, in regards to the CX600's. Yeah, coincidentally, I'll be getting two CX600's in. To clarify my original post... I originally was running the S1 at normal clock 180 GH/s through a single 8-pin slot, with the two 6+2's the branch off. That was on the CX500m that only has that single 8-pin. THAT was when my wires were getting warm. And what I was wondering... If the CX600's two PCI-E wires, were coming from the same "link", so to speak. Like, to simulate, would they be coming from the same 8-pin? I think they were only getting hot, because they were BOTH coming from the same 8-pin slot, and I think I was overloading it..? Again, I'm not sure if that made sense.

But on the non-modular power supplies, that didn't seem to be a problem for you, which is good news. It's reassuring that I know they'll work fine. Were those overclocked Ants? Granted, if they're not getting hot at 360, I doubt they'll be screwed at 400 watts.

So I just caught a great deal in the dark corners of Ebay, from a legit U.S. seller. Always good, huh? I've been hunting for a good Ebay gem, and while I don't think I came accross THE gem, but I've certainly found a hell of a deal. Unfortunately, I lost an equally good one yesterday. Anyway...

I'm basically getting a bundle of Antminers and PSU's, but the PSU's actually make up the price for the auction, so more or less, I just got two free antminers. Not too bad. They're S1's, but when you get 'em for almost nothing, and you have fairly cheap electricity, I don't think that's such a bad thing, even if they're inefficient. However, despite having build a PC a few months ago, and already running a couple of miners... It turns out, I don't know a whole lot about PSUs!

First off, I've recently been looking for a bigger gold rated PSU for units that don't have their own built in power supply, such as Antminer S1, S3, and now, S5. But you guys know what I mean. However, with this stuff coming in, I was thinking about using that Add2PSU thing, and combining two PSU's. But I have some questions on that, and I know there are quite a few around here, who are using that product. To my understanding, it lets you use two PSU's on one system, without... Well, whatever bad stuff would happen, if the two units weren't connected properly. But the uses seem to be limited.

I'm understanding it like this... Suppose you had two 600 watt PSU's, and you have a unit that needs like 800 watts. You could now safely combine the two 600 watt PSU's, to power the unit, correct? But that leads me to another question...

How much power can safely go through a 6-pin PCI-E connection? When I got my first S1, I had a Corsair CX500m. It had only a single 8 pin connector, which branched off into 2x 6+2 pin connectors. Whether it was safe or not, I ran the non-overclocked S1 (360 watts) through that single 8-pin connector. One 6 pin for each rail. And I see that often. However, when I look it up "officially", people say that those connectors are only rated for like 160 watts, or, whatever. Now I should say that those wires got fairly warm running 360 watts through them, so I didn't DARE overclock. Has anyone blown a PSU running an overclocked S1 through a single 8-pin slot? I've been running an Ant on a CX750m and it's been going fine, but that's through 2 of those 8 pin slots, and one 6-pin through each connector.

And another follow-up... In regards to CX600(non-M)... Well yeah, even the semi-modular ones... Do the modular ones have two 8-pins, or only one? I'm getting these extra units in, and I'm afraid to overclock if they're running off the same connector, if that makes sense? I'm not great at articulating this technical stuff. It's a curse, really.

I just hope someone can give me a bit of guidance on any of this. Sorry if I'm unclear, and I'm sorry the post is so long.

That was very interesting and helpful. Thanks, you guys. Especially Novak.

That did clear a lot of things up, and I do have a much better understanding of what FPGAs are. I did like your Lego vs injection molded sphere analogy.

Dexter, that's one I saw on Ebay.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/FPGA-Lancelot-botcion-miner-not-a-preoder-Ship-now-By-DHL-EMS-/191062390387?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item2c7c34b673

100 BTC for that, at the time? Then again, it was probably a bargain for an early adopter. Incredible!

I take it you're one of those early adopters, huh? 

Man, you guys have it good. I'm fighting just to get to 2BTC! Haha

I first found out about bitcoin in late 2012, and took interest in very early 2013. Wish I'd have had my current build at that time, I'd have really raked 'em in!

So, at this point, I think most of us know what an ASIC is. Even the super-noobs. At this point, I'm at the stage of "almost not a noob".

Application Specific Integrated Circuit. It can only do one thing... But it can do that thing, REALLY well.

From what I've learned, it would seem that FPGA is kind of the gateway to ASIC's. Or so it seems. And FPGA's seem to always come after ASIC's, so that'd make sense. You have to design the ASIC before it's an ASIC, right? Anyway... It would seem that there are people with FPGA's mining X11. Or so I've heard... So it makes me wonder... With the proper learning/knowhow, can the "average Joe" use FPGA this way?

I wonder this, because I've started getting a little into programming lately. I'm still extremely new to it, so I'm not holding my breath, but... What I'm asking is, can any algorithm be mined with FPGA with the proper programming/design of the device? It happened to Sha-256, it SEEMS to be happening with X11, and it may very well have happened to Scrypt, but I'm not sure.

I remember a very long time ago, hearing of a dude with a few boards getting MASSIVE hashrates WELL before ASICs came out. So it makes me wonder, if with the proper resources, an FPGA can be configured for anything?

Does FPGA's capability have anything do with an ASIC, in actuality? Or is it it's own independent thing? See, I thought that ASIC was merely an evolution of a congifured FPGA. The FPGA was basically the prototype, then the ASIC can be produced. But like I said, I'm far from even being intermediate, let alone an expert.

What do you guys think about this?

Contacted Ebay support... Nothing they can do. User is no longer registered.

Damn Chinese re-sellers...

No, I totally got what you were saying. And it's true, I know from experience! You guys remember in... May, June, etc? I was just wanting to get into mining with an Antminer S1. They were going for like 260-300 for just the S1 unit... And this is an aggravating story to tell, but... I had won an Antminer in an Ebay auction. As it turned out, the guy was talking about how he didn't have the unit on hand... I ended up getting a refund, but if you broke down the price of the unit, the difficulty, and the price of BTC, I'd have been way ahead right now. At this point, I've only just about broken even on the unit, because I got one a month later at the same price. I'd have well over 1 BTC now, whereas I've only got about .70. But it's not too big a deal.

Anyway, what you can get out of that story is, you can buy old hardware at the *right* time and get a great deal. And still make well over ROI in a reasonable amount of time, if everything is going right.



But as a counter to that... I'm guessing a lot of you guys are using Ebay to purchase hardware? I'm about to contact Ebay on the issue (heh good luck there) but what has been your experience with winning an auction, then having it canceled by the seller? Could I fight it? I mean, I doubt they'd be able to get through to some Chinese reseller.

Why I'm asking, is... I was bidding on a bunch of units for a low price, hoping I could actually get one. You know, sometimes you get lucky on an auction? Anyway, I believe my closing bid was maybe $250, $300 on an Antminer S4. To come in January. Yeah, no joke. Anyway, It showed that I was the highest bidder, but the item was deleted. I guess they felt they didn't get the right price. Which I'd agree with. Granted, if that's what they wanted, they'd have set a reserve price? Is there any way to fight that in you guys' experience? I don't want to sound like an opportunistic cheat, but honestly, that's what you get when you post an auction with no reserve...

:/

Yeah, unfortunately I don't have a PSU on hand. Well I do have a couple, but nothing that could accommodate the SP20, especially with an OC.

Man, I need to be an early adopter in something... Only way to really make anything with mining, it would seem. I just need to get to the point where I can invest my BTC into the next big ASIC. Then I'll be in good shape.

Ther SP20 says it gets about 1.7TH with a power consumption of 1200 watts... So about the same power consumption, with 200gh more power and $200 more in price... Right now, anyway...

However, if you do the math, the faster delivery should actually make up for that $200 within the month, and will be a tad more future proof... Maybe this is decent.

Touch decision, IMO. But S3's are typically going for like $200 each. Some are that plus shipping. You'd pay more for less hashing power, but in-hand... Then again, I only have a PSU to power one... Damn, if this A1 was in-hand, I'd pay for it in a heartbeat, you know?

Shoot...

Actually, maybe this will clear it up... In regard to the A1 28nm chips..

http://bitmine.ch/coincraft-28nm-asic/

They claim similar numbers. .66w/GH in high power, .30-some odd in low-power.

Hm... Then screw it, I'll probably just not take it, then. Are you positive?

Anyone know anything more about this, or is that it?


I just found a link for this ASIC that looks like a Dragon.

http://www.mintforge.com/product/1-5ths-bitcoin-miner-with-28nm-coincraft-a1-asic-1500ghs/

However, it's claiming A1 chips with specs similar to the auction. It's claiming 1400-1600HG at about 1170 watts.