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Showing 17 of 17 results by TragicWish
Thanks for sharing these details. Its nice to see that people are still GPU mining and trying to grow. As a newb its been hard for me to gage whether or not its already pointless or if there is still money to be made.
This is a great idea. Im interested. Is there any chance you can set up a site with products you can/have sold. Also, can you get radio equipment? I would be interested in a fair price on some handheld or base station HAM radio gear.
Almost every thread where someone starts talking about becoming a new miner they are talked out of it by people who are currently doing it.
Let's take the ideal situation. Let's say the question started out like:
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Hi guys. I have an extra $2K lying around to buy hardware. I pay $0.10 per kWh. I have a garage that is secure and stays cool. It has plenty of outlets and I already have ethernet out there connected to my broadband internet. I know my way around the command line and can troubleshoot problems fairly well. I've got a little extra time and mining would be a better use of it than watching TV. Once I get my feet wet, I might expand capacity as there is extra room and power to do so if I want.
I doubt anyone would try to dissuade this person from proceeding.
Let's take the more typical situation:
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Hi guys. I got laid off and need money. I have an old Dell PC but think I can borrow a thousand dollars from my girlfiend's father who will go in on this venture 50/50. We live in California so electricity isn't cheap, unfortunately. It gets hot in the summer so I suppose I won't be able to mine year-round. I don't care about the noise or heat, but when the new baby comes I'll have to figure something better as the rig will have to share the room. I'm not really technical but I ran this virus sweeper and it fixed my mom's PC so I should be able to do mining too. The IT guy where I used to work was telling me about how he brings in a thousand dollars a month, all for free, because he already earned more than his hardware cost. What should I buy and how much money can I get from mining?
Or worse:
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Hi guys. I want to build a mining farm am looking for investors. What hardware do I need?
Haha, when you put it like that it does clear things up a bit.
Im particularly fond of this one.
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Hi guys. I want to build a mining farm am looking for investors. What hardware do I need?
You make some great points here. So let me phrase my question in what you have pointed out might be the correct format. I have a stable job with a steady middle class income. I can afford to lose my investment (which I consider, for me at least to be investing in a hobby and not a business). I have cheap electricity and also may be converting part of my house to solar on an unrelated project.
I want to invest in two BFL singles and see where it goes from there. I also want to buy BTC on the exchange. Im no hacker but I have higher than average skillz and will likely be able to figure out how to operate my equipment with little to no help. And to be honest a big reason I want to get into BTC mining is it gives me a reason to educate myself further on programming, and Linux skills. So having said that all that I guess I dont a question. Ive pretty much convinced myself to give it a shot. What the hell, Ive wasted money on a lot worse ideas over the years.
The thought has crossed my mind. I want to think the best in people, but it looks like the gap based on the initial cost of new hardware that can compete in the current system will likely start to grow even faster over the next few years. Likely the number of miners will decrease leaving more room for the people who have the money to continue to upgrade. Not that its a bad thing. Im concerned though that the economy wont be able to sustain itself with less miners unless more vendors start using it. Which I know has been said a million times already. One would have to speculate that most people who buy BitCoins are speculating and most people who mine them are doing so to sell to the speculators. So the value of a BitCoin has a long way to go towards earning real legitimacy.
That is flawed logic. "Upgrades" are new capital. If it makes sense for existing miners to deploy new capital then it makes sense for new miners to do so also.
I think most of the caution comes from the fact that noobs tend to make horribly stupid rigs (gaming CPU, fast HDD, expensive cases, etc) and have lots of naive assumptions. At one point when margins were much higher, pretty much any two GPUs in a box could be profitable so mistakes were less painful. Today it is all about MH/$, MH/W and your electrical cost. The days of slamming together some random junk and breaking even in 3 months are gone and will never ever come back.
If you got a 6-12 month time horizon and cheap electricity (<$0.10 per kWh) new GPU rigs can still be viable but you likely need to be willing to build a large number of them be comfortable buying used GPU, and know what parts you are buying and why. Margins are very tight.
If you got a longer time horizon, access to significant capital, and willing to lose almost everything if Bitcoin fails then FPGA are another option.
If your goal is to casually throw some random parts together and make 20% profit per month well you shouldn't be mining.
Mining will never be a get rich quick system. It is a commodity based "business" with almost no barriers to entry and global access. Margins will be a small % over the lowest cost producers.
First let me say, Thanks for responding. I was hoping at least one hero member would jump in on this so I could hear from someone who is actuly doing this on a simi large scale.
That is flawed logic. "Upgrades" are new capital. If it makes sense for existing miners to deploy new capital then it makes sense for new miners to do so also.
That makes since to me with one exception. If someone were involved in mining when the profits were high then I can see them reinvesting their capital into new mining gear even though profits may not be as high as they were, simply because they have already reached a breakeven point. Also, since the community of miners is somewhat small its hard for me, being new to the idea, to know if they are anticipating profits or just havent given up on a lost cause. I think most of the caution comes from the fact that noobs tend to make horribly stupid rigs (gaming CPU, fast HDD, expensive cases, etc) and have lots of naive assumptions. At one point when margins were much higher, pretty much any two GPUs in a box could be profitable so mistakes were less painful. Today it is all about MH/$, MH/W and your electrical cost. The days of slamming together some random junk and breaking even in 3 months are gone and will never ever come back.
Im disappointed that I missed this window because I would have loved to build some rigs specifically for this. Right now I have a gaming setup with a 5770 in it and I starting mining with it just to see what it was all about. Now Im thinking about buying a BFL single and seeing where that takes me. I have <.10$ electricity so I doubt Ill completely lose my investment. I may even buy two just for the hell of it. That should put me at 1.6 GH/s if I understand correctly which might make me be able to pull down a few coins. I really want to coins for the sake of trading on the exchange anyway. Im also planning to buy some directly for that sake. Id be lying if I said I didnt dream of huge profits and getting rich quick. But ultimately Im not dumb enough to get my hopes up. Im more interested in this as a hobby. I love all the start ups, contracts, and trading you can do. It is a micro economy and I think it could be fun for experimentation sake. Mining will never be a get rich quick system. It is a commodity based "business" with almost no barriers to entry and global access. Margins will be a small % over the lowest cost producers.
I still have to argue that with FPGAs coming to market there will soon be little incentive that I can see for a person to mine with a GPU. I dont think they are dead yet, but wont be around much longer. Given that, I doubt most people who first learn about BitCoin will be willing to make the required investment to purchase a FPGA device. That means the mining power will probably be consolidated into smaller and smaller groups of people who were able/willing to invest at the right time. That might be a good thing for the price of BTC since more people who are interested in BTC will need to buy it on the market in order to get involved. Another possible scenario is that the more people going to FPGAs will drive their price down which will make them more viable for entry level miners, but I dont see the consumer base being large enough to support that. If anything Ive said is completely off base feel free to let me know. I lack the experience with BTC to support my ideas fully. But Ill be watching to see how things turn out.
Its a super strong marketing, because its an eye opener that sticks.
Ask someone if they want to know how to pay 100.000% lower fee per transaction and there is not a single person who will say no.
As opposed to "bitcoin is a decentralized..." which will turn most people of.
Maybe interests the geeks.
Another killer line was the one that Bitcoin is like a free Swiss bank account.
Lines like those can be used to create a video with a message that explains why.
Not what.
Ask someone if they want to know how to pay 100.000% lower fee per transaction and there is not a single person who will say no.
As opposed to "bitcoin is a decentralized..." which will turn most people of.
Maybe interests the geeks.
Another killer line was the one that Bitcoin is like a free Swiss bank account.
Lines like those can be used to create a video with a message that explains why.
Not what.
You have a point about that. One thing Ive noticed is that Im very interested in BitCoin because I am a geek. Trying to explain why its important (forget about how it works) to my wife on the other hand is impossible. We need clear messages about what the benefit of using BitCoin is. On the other hand I submit that we need an EASY way for Joe Blow to get BitCoins. If he cant get one in a few simple clicks with his credit card, there isnt much incentive for him to use them. Its a catch 22. Not enough people take them because not enough people have them
if you have a decent electricity cost you can give a shot to mining with little risk with some second hand GPUs to see if it's worthwhile, and easily resell the gpus with little loss if you find that is not. Or you can mine just in the winter to have "free" heating. I wonder what the fpga crowd will make of their investment if something goes wrong.
There are a lot of interesting sides to the entire BitCoin economy. I wish I had been involved in the GPU hay day simply because I love building custom rigs. I think I going to order a BFL just for fun and if it never pays for itself Ill live and if it does Ill buy more. I have pretty cheap electricity and another project Im working on is Solar/Wind for my home. I don't have any delusions of getting rich but I just want to get involved on as many angles as i can for the fun of it.
One thing you should think about is that for every new miner that starts, difficulty will go up and other miners will lose profits. They have an incentive to stop new people from ever starting.
So while they are probably right, just keep that in mind.
So while they are probably right, just keep that in mind.
The thought has crossed my mind. I want to think the best in people, but it looks like the gap based on the initial cost of new hardware that can compete in the current system will likely start to grow even faster over the next few years. Likely the number of miners will decrease leaving more room for the people who have the money to continue to upgrade. Not that its a bad thing. Im concerned though that the economy wont be able to sustain itself with less miners unless more vendors start using it. Which I know has been said a million times already. One would have to speculate that most people who buy BitCoins are speculating and most people who mine them are doing so to sell to the speculators. So the value of a BitCoin has a long way to go towards earning real legitimacy.
I just started learning about BitCoin a few days ago. Like many before me, I have experienced the emotional rollercoaster ride from Im going to be rich! to holy crap how is anyone doing this? and everything in between.
Ive run a ton of estimates and I have read tons of threads on this forum about power vs. hash rates etc. I believe I have the basic limiting factors understood. But all this has left me with one question. Almost every thread where someone starts talking about becoming a new miner they are talked out of it by people who are currently doing it. (I wont argue whether they are right or not. Im just saying that most people are convinced that there is no profit in it)
So my question is, with so many people convincing new miners its a hopeless cause, who is still mining? Ive been looking into different options and have seen floods of support for experienced miners buying new FPGA devices at an average price off $600 a pop. So what gives? Are experienced miners holding out for the BTC/$ price to go up and speculating on that? With increasing difficulty and decreasing BTC block value why are some people who claim to know better still investing in new mining tech?
This is in no way an attempt to defend one position over another. Im just wondering if someone can explain a scenario where mining has the potential to be profitable. Obviously someone out there thinks it is so Im asking you to give us some idea what you are basing your motivation on.
(Im posting this in the NEWB area since I am still new to all of this. If a moderator thinks it holds value in another area feel free to move it.
Ive run a ton of estimates and I have read tons of threads on this forum about power vs. hash rates etc. I believe I have the basic limiting factors understood. But all this has left me with one question. Almost every thread where someone starts talking about becoming a new miner they are talked out of it by people who are currently doing it. (I wont argue whether they are right or not. Im just saying that most people are convinced that there is no profit in it)
So my question is, with so many people convincing new miners its a hopeless cause, who is still mining? Ive been looking into different options and have seen floods of support for experienced miners buying new FPGA devices at an average price off $600 a pop. So what gives? Are experienced miners holding out for the BTC/$ price to go up and speculating on that? With increasing difficulty and decreasing BTC block value why are some people who claim to know better still investing in new mining tech?
This is in no way an attempt to defend one position over another. Im just wondering if someone can explain a scenario where mining has the potential to be profitable. Obviously someone out there thinks it is so Im asking you to give us some idea what you are basing your motivation on.
(Im posting this in the NEWB area since I am still new to all of this. If a moderator thinks it holds value in another area feel free to move it.
I've read about the oven baking a video card back to life before. When I first read about this, I though it was a joke post, but surprisingly it was actually serious and it actually works for many people.
Can someone shed some light on as to why this works?? If really high temperatures and revive a dead GPU, then does putting it in the freezer also have the same effect?
Can someone shed some light on as to why this works?? If really high temperatures and revive a dead GPU, then does putting it in the freezer also have the same effect?
Putting it in the freezer will not produce the desired affect, but i can confirm that i have successfully recovered my files from a corrupted HDD by putting it in the freezer. In fact i forgot i put it in there till my wife was complaining about it a week later. Loaded it up and it has worked fine ever since. (Obviously i don't use it for anything important now.)
Hello everyone! Newbie to the boards here, but not new to mining...been going at it for a year now, finally broke the 1GH/s barrier about 2 months ago so I figured it was time to join the boards to celebrate. 
Hope to see yall around!
Hope to see yall around!Grats on your success. Since Im pretty new to this and thinking about getting into it mostly as a hobby. How is your profitability over the year you have been doing this? Im wondering about ROI for initial investment. Anything you would be willing to share about your hardware or how you brok into the game? Did you build a rig or start out using hardware you already had and grow it from there?
I can see that this is highly speculative as far as possible profits go. I like to build things so Im thinking of setting up a rig but Im wondering if I should go GPU or FPGA for my initial investment. I see the return on FPGA will be longer but might be more survivable. Right now Im just using a single 5770 from my gaming rig but obviously that's not a long term solution.
Welcome to the board.
I should probably go to bed but I'm still looking at bitcoin information xD
Was mining last summer but stop do to excessive heat, now I just started getting back into it
Same thing happened to me last night. I'm dragging at work today because I couldnt stop reading about BitCoin.Was mining last summer but stop do to excessive heat, now I just started getting back into it
Re: Since I have no where else to post ill just post here,,,,,...
Does not seem like too much trouble to me. I have been reading this forum a lot and have not noticed the normal amount of trolls and flames. I actually find it insightful and interesting. Keep up the good work.
Interesting thread. One thing I was considering is starting an LLC for to operate BitCoin mining rigs under. I have a few other business ideas that I have been floating that could operate under the same LLC and if it worked I would be able to separate my personal finances from the LLCs I then give myself a salary (in the off chance I actually made money). I doesnt cost much to start an LLC and it offers some protections from taxes and liabilities. For instance all your equipment and power investment can be written off as a loss. You can also write off the deprecation of your equipment as it ages. I have no idea if any of this is relevant or even worthwhile, its just something that was rattling around in my head.
Hello all,
Mostly writing this reply to check off one of my minimum posts. Just found out about BitCoin yesterday and a stayed up all night reading and setting up my computer. I'm a hobby builder so I love the idea of building a rig specifically for this. Although I'm not holding my breath about making money Im interested in every aspect of this from the computational power to the economic implications. I am also very interested in the anonymity provided by this currency. I hope to see good things from this project.
Tragic
Mostly writing this reply to check off one of my minimum posts. Just found out about BitCoin yesterday and a stayed up all night reading and setting up my computer. I'm a hobby builder so I love the idea of building a rig specifically for this. Although I'm not holding my breath about making money Im interested in every aspect of this from the computational power to the economic implications. I am also very interested in the anonymity provided by this currency. I hope to see good things from this project.
Tragic