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Showing 20 of 72 results by jbillk
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Topic
Board Mining (Altcoins)
Re: Taxes in Canada
by
jbillk
on 18/03/2021, 18:53:34 UTC
My understanding is just capital gains for hobby miner. Can't write anything off unless a mining business.
Post
Topic
Board Mining speculation
Merits 1 from 1 user
Re: 2021, time for a new general & diff speculation thread...
by
jbillk
on 05/03/2021, 15:52:23 UTC
⭐ Merited by philipma1957 (1)
"China’s Inner Mongolia, once a hotbed of bitcoin mining, is now planning to ban all cryptocurrency mining farms and has asked them to shut down operations by the end of next month, forcing miners to move their equipment elsewhere in China or even overseas."

Looks like we may have a continued drop, at least until all the Mongolian miner find a new home.
Post
Topic
Board Mining (Altcoins)
Re: GPU mining - Am I better off inventing time travel?
by
jbillk
on 01/03/2021, 23:16:32 UTC

Everything is already in bubble stage. It will not take long for that 95% crash.

Well, you can short it then, and make millions. So why even mine?

Mine as much as you can before POS, and hold it. Eth mining is still extremely profitable, and will probably remain profitable until ETH2.0.

If you just want to mine to make some quick cash, then stop. You probably wont see crazy returns until several years of appreciation.
Post
Topic
Board Mining (Altcoins)
Re: GPU mining - Am I better off inventing time travel?
by
jbillk
on 01/03/2021, 22:23:20 UTC
Phil is right.

We can make assumptions based on rising difficulty, or upcoming hard forks/havening. But making assumptions on price is just baloney.

My tarot card reader to me the price is going up, so Alikait is wrong.
Post
Topic
Board Mining (Altcoins)
Re: I DONT UNDERSTAND WHY NEWBIES KEEP ASKING THE SAME QUESTIONS !MUST TO READ !
by
jbillk
on 24/02/2021, 22:28:58 UTC
Newbs are good for the seasoned miner. They are the ones buying our old GPUs at 3X the price. They think that an rx480 will keep making $5/day for years, but they never mined during the crypto winter, getting by on $0.25/day.

The best time to be mining is when nobody is making any money.
Post
Topic
Board Mining (Altcoins)
Re: ETH - Mining Pool without KYC ?
by
jbillk
on 20/02/2021, 22:28:48 UTC
Um..all of them? Never heard of a pool with KYC. All I ever provided was eth address. Email is usually optional.
Post
Topic
Board Mining (Altcoins)
Re: Is this safe to run 24/7?
by
jbillk
on 18/02/2021, 15:15:58 UTC


Your rx5700 going over 100°C ? That's crazy mate, how do you sleep conveniently in the night? Just because it's working doesn't mean it's safe, a gpu running at that temp can cut lose all it's memory chip and you will start getting memory size error, don't do it 😔

Doesn't matter, I have many GPUs in a small area. Not much I can do about it. I have never had a GPU go down because of high temps. I do have 3080/3090 that thermal throttle, so I added extra cooling for them and fixed the problem.

1. The software will it shut down if too hot. So its safe and within OEM programmed limitations.
2. I have 3 year warranty. If it breaks, ill just RMA. But have many GPUs running at excessive temps for many years, and never had an issue.
Post
Topic
Board Mining (Altcoins)
Re: When to exit
by
jbillk
on 17/02/2021, 23:25:11 UTC
Gas fees are high, but..

EIP-1559 incoming,
Difficulty skyrocketing,
Ton of new asics coming in the spring,
POS 1-2 years away,
Warmer temperatures incoming,
2X investment by selling cards on ebay,

Timing is everything, this is what makes mining fun, like gambling.

Ill probably keep mining until spring.

Post
Topic
Board Mining (Altcoins)
Re: Is this safe to run 24/7?
by
jbillk
on 17/02/2021, 21:58:00 UTC
Temperature doesn't mater, been mining since 2017 at very high temps. No issues. GPU has temp sensors, that's what they are there for. If it overheats, software will take care of it. If it thermal throttles, its too hot.

I see people installing delta fans, and other expensive cooling on their rigs. I just don't get it. Why waste money/power?

I have some rx5700 with 106deg memory temperature, been running flawlessly for over a year.

Post
Topic
Board Mining software (miners)
Re: Braiins OS: open-source mining firmware [S9, T1]. New release includes AsicBoost
by
jbillk
on 21/01/2021, 16:21:44 UTC


Any ideas how to restore?

Either use the sd card recovery image from Bitmain, or the bos-toolbox, ie. bos-toolbox uninstall ipaddress. Then log into the miner and "update" that firmware to the latest from Bitmain.

Once you have Braiins OS installed just inserting the sd card won't boot from it unless you edit the text file uEnv.txt and add the line sd_boot=yes. I don't think reflashing Braiins OS from sd would make any difference, what you could try is re-enabling the boards (in Miner > Configuration) and lower the powerlimit (autotuning should always be enabled).

Thx. Cant seem to find windows version of bos-toolbox. Only Linux on website. Do you have a link?
Post
Topic
Board Mining software (miners)
Re: Braiins OS: open-source mining firmware [S9, T1]. New release includes AsicBoost
by
jbillk
on 20/01/2021, 02:34:53 UTC
Need some help.

Flashed my S17 NAND with Braiins. Miner fans just throttle, not hashing. Tried flashing back with the software, displays "The uploaded image file does not contain a supported format. Make sure that you choose the generic image format for your platform."

Tried flashing back with SD, and just boots from NAND.

My miner is doing nothing now fans just throttling. Was working fine with stock bBtmain firmware.

Any ideas how to restore?
Post
Topic
Board Mining support
Re: T17/S17 malfunction: cases, solutions, remedies, RMA history
by
jbillk
on 03/06/2020, 16:37:39 UTC
Jbillk, don't throw them to the garbage, find someone near you that have soldering skills using hot air guns, buy yourself a good soldering paste and bring one hashing board and ask the tech resold the chips and most of the components on the hashing board.

here is a top notch soldering paste

https://www.digikey.com/products/en/soldering-desoldering-rework-products/flux-flux-remover/266

Problem is that all the boards look ok, it would be like finding a needle in a haystack finding the bad chips. The log shows 0 chips detected on all 3 boards, so i have no idea witch ones need to be re-soldered.

I also tried blasting the boards with hot air gun, no results.

Not sure if reflow oven at higher temperature will work (already tried 10 min @ 200 deg c). Really have nothing to lose, i'm just experimenting at this point.
Post
Topic
Board Mining support
Merits 6 from 2 users
Re: T17/S17 malfunction: cases, solutions, remedies, RMA history
by
jbillk
on 27/05/2020, 18:43:52 UTC
⭐ Merited by suchmoon (4) ,frodocooper (2)
I have a S17 with 3 dead hashboards that gradually dropped out. No warranty, no good-will. For sure its the solder breaking on the chips, tried everything.

This is not recommended, but as a last ditch effort tried to re-flow the hash boards by heating to 385 Deg f for 10 min. Haven't had success. I've heard of people bringing motherboards and GPUs back to life using this technique. Theory is the heat melts and reconnects the broken solder joint.

Maybe something to try before you throw your board in the trash. Not sure if anybody else has tried this with any degree of success.
Post
Topic
Board Mining speculation
Re: I can develop low cost electric power, what are my options on what to do with it
by
jbillk
on 22/05/2020, 15:18:09 UTC
Just from my experience, Running a generator  24/7, 365 in a remote location can be very expensive. Lots of moving parts, and if it goes down, be ready to pay a field mechanic an arm and a leg to fix it, Especially if its far away from a major city.

Mining is a long grind, it may be a couple years before you ROI,  Capital cost on top of the quickly depreciating miners will kill you.

Personally I don't invest for anything less than 6 month ROI, given the volatility, and ever increasing efficiency of new gear.
Post
Topic
Board Mining speculation
Re: It is 2020 time for a new diff thread.
by
jbillk
on 11/05/2020, 16:24:06 UTC
I can make 11 space heaters.  I will hold 17 s9's in storage.

I find you can make decent profits flipping the S9s with hobby, or entry level miners. I buy them when nobody wants them, and resell them locally when we get a decent price run up/FOMO.

If BTC runs up to ATH again they could be worth decent penny. Especially when new miners sell out everywhere. I've done this on the last 3 price surges. They are a easy sell because of the 120V, 1200W rating. Standard 15A circuit.
Post
Topic
Board Mining speculation
Re: It is 2020 time for a new diff thread.
by
jbillk
on 11/05/2020, 15:07:21 UTC
This will be interesting, ill be taking all my miners offline after the last 12.5 block. Great time for maintenance.

I'll gradually bring the most efficient back online if the profitability is there. Hopefully after the difficulty adjustment ill have them all running again.

My S9s are definitely going in storage today.
Post
Topic
Board Mining software (miners)
Re: Braiins OS: open-source mining firmware [S9, T1]. New release includes AsicBoost
by
jbillk
on 02/05/2020, 17:46:01 UTC
Have been playing with OS+ tuning. Anybody know the most efficient setting for temperature and power. I can get close to 75w/th with 1050w setting at 75C target temperature. This is with my best hashboards. I find higher temps I start to lose efficiency, but I do like the lower sound around 80C or 85C target temp.

I find with the power setting of 900w or less, efficiency isn't that great.
Post
Topic
Board Mining support
Merits 2 from 1 user
Re: T17/S17 malfunction: cases, solutions, remedies, RMA history
by
jbillk
on 26/04/2020, 01:29:07 UTC
⭐ Merited by frodocooper (2)
I am wondering if i should try what jbillke did by warming up the chips during booting process.

I don't think the frequency and voltage adjustments will help if the chains aren't initialized. I haven't had much luck with that. Looks like in the log that the pre-heat, voltage tuning, and frequency tuning is done after the board detects all the chips are good to go.

Perhaps this is why i've had luck manually pre-heating the boards, as it gets them up to temperature before it attempts to detect all the asic chips. Try to get the startup temp to 75 C and see what happens.

Code:
[2020/04/25 19:41:01] ERROR: driver-btm-chain.c:487 chain[0] - Failed to detect ASIC chips
[2020/04/25 19:41:01] INFO: chain[0] - Shutting down the chain
[2020/04/25 19:41:02] ERROR: driver-btm-base.c:358 chain[0] - Initialization failed
[2020/04/25 19:41:05] INFO: Start-up temperature is 28 C (min -15 C)
[2020/04/25 19:41:05] INFO: Switching to manual fan control (100 %)
[2020/04/25 19:41:05] INFO: Setting voltage from 21000 to 19400 mV gradually
[2020/04/25 19:41:33] INFO: Setting freq from 50 to 700 Mhz gradually
[2020/04/25 19:41:33] INFO: Warming up the chips
[2020/04/25 19:41:41] INFO: Switching to automatic fan control (75 C)
[2020/04/25 19:41:41] INFO: Start mining!
[2020/04/25 19:42:41] INFO: Setting voltage from 19400 to 19200 mV gradually
[2020/04/25 19:43:03] INFO: Setting voltage from 19200 to 19000 mV gradually
[2020/04/25 19:43:26] INFO: Setting voltage from 19000 to 18800 mV gradually
Post
Topic
Board Hardware
Re: Avalon A10 series announced
by
jbillk
on 25/04/2020, 13:06:18 UTC
Looks like the new firmware added fields for additional pools. No low power mode though Sad. Just normal and performance.


I also see they added:

CGMiner Configuration:

More options text box.

I remember with the older Avalons you you could adjust voltage/frequency/fan speed. Not sure if its possible with this input, don't remember the commands.
Post
Topic
Board Hardware
Merits 3 from 1 user
Re: Avalon A10 series announced
by
jbillk
on 24/04/2020, 17:39:25 UTC
⭐ Merited by frodocooper (3)
^ Just because you had some bad 741 units, doesn't mean that the overall quality is shit.

Like i said, build quality is good. The efficiencies are 12 months behind competitors, and therefor the least profitable to run in the long term.  They are always the first miners to unplug.

Just noticed that that they posted new firmware:

https://www.canaan.io/service/447

Ill try it out and post the results.



Looks like the new firmware added fields for additional pools. No low power mode though Sad. Just normal and performance.

I also see they added:

CGMiner Configuration:

More options text box.

I remember with the older Avalons you you could adjust voltage/frequency/fan speed. Not sure if its possible with this input, don't remember the commands.