Over the last several weeks, we have been experimenting with the most recent GPU-shortage-inducing coin mining craze, with Ken's article as a jumping off point. On a recent podcast, I mentioned the idea of running a community coin mining group that would be used as a way for individuals to contribute to PC Perspective. I received several requests for the wallet and setup information to make this happen, so I thought it would be worth while to gather all the necessary links and info in a single location.
We have been running a Patreon campaign for a couple of years now on the site as a way to provide an avenue for those readers and viewers that find PC Perspective a useful resource to the community and directly contribute. It might be because you want to keep the PCPer staff stable, it could be because you use an ad blocker and are looking for a way to even things out, etc. But there are always some that don't have the ability or desire to sign up for a new service so contributing your empty GPU cycles is another option if you want to donate to the PCPer team.
How do you do it? Ken has created a step by step guide below – thanks for your support in this and all of our previous endeavors!
-Ryan
Donate to:
- Bitcoin: 1HHhVWPRpCUst9bDYtLstMdD7o5SzANk1W
- Ethereum: 0xa0294763261aa85eB5f1dA3Ca0f03E1B672EED87
For those of you who may be curious to try out this mining stuff on your personal computer, we would recommend looking into the NiceHash application.
For those of you who haven't read our previous article, NiceHash is a service that connects buyers of GPU mining power to sellers who have spare hardware that they are looking to put to use.
As a warning, if you are planning to mine please be aware of your power consumption. To get a good idea of this, you can look up the TDP of your given graphics card, multiply that wattage by the hours you plan to mine, divide by 1000 to translate from watts to kilowatts, and multiply that by the rate you pay for electricity (this can be found on your power bill in cents per Kilowatt/Hour in the US). (So it's watts*hours*days/1000*kw/hr rate – Thanks CracklingIce)
Given the current rates of value for these cryptocurrencies, power is a small portion of the gross profit made by mining, but it is important to be aware of this before you are presented with a huge power bill that you weren't expecting.
First, download the latest version of the NiceHash miner application from their website.
After your download has finished, extract the ZIP file and load the NiceHashMiner.exe program.
Once the application has been launched and you've accepted the terms of the EULA, the NiceHash Miner will start to download the appropriate mining applications for your given hardware.
Note: during this installation process, your antivirus program might detect malware. These miner executables that are being downloaded are safe, but many antivirius programs flag them as malware because if they are found on your PC without your permission they are a telltale sign of malicious software.
After the installation process is completed, you be brought to the main screen of the application.
From here, choose the server location closest to you, add the Bitcoin address (in this case: 1HHhVWPRpCUst9bDYtLstMdD7o5SzANk1W), and choose a unique worker name (up to 7 characters long).
From here, hit the benchmark button, select the devices you want to mine on (we would recommend GPUs only, CPUs don't earn very much), and hit the Start button.
Once the benchmarking is done, you'll be brought back to the main screen of the application where you can hit the Start button.
Once you hit the start button, a command prompt window will launch where you can see the miner at work (this can be hidden from the NiceHash setting pane), and you can view the stats of your computer in the original NiceHash application window.
And that's it, your computer will now be mining towards the PCPER community pool!
Bookmarked that wallet to
Bookmarked that wallet to keep track of it’s progress.
Good luck guys ;P
nvm, I got the itch to try it
nvm, I got the itch to try it out.
It’s cheaper than a Patrion subscription ¯_(ツ)_/¯
hehe, thanks for the support!
hehe, thanks for the support!
I have a Rockminer R-Box that
I have a Rockminer R-Box that is sitting idle (since the demise of the Bitcoin Utopia BOINC project).
Is there any way of connecting this to Nicehash?
Update
To answer my own question, it would appear not (at the moment).
The application doesn’t acknowledge that the Rockminer is connected.
I got up and running using my GTX1060, but as I use that for other BOINC projects I wouldn’t want to burn it out…
You talk about the video
You talk about the video cards. But how about the rest. CPU, Motherboard, Memory. Just had my second lock up. I’m using my gaming rig.
Intel 4770k stock water AIO
Asus Z97 Tuf
Corsair ddr 3 32 gig 2133
2 Evga GTX 980 SC
Intel 750 series sad 1.2 tb
I plan on building a mining rig but like to more about the CPU and motherboard, ram.
Thanks
From what they talked about
From what they talked about on the podcast, the other components are pretty much irrelevant. You don’t even need more than 16 pcie lanes (like a celeron or something) to run 8 gpus on some pcie splitters.
Check out http://cryptomining-blog.com/category/mining-hardware/
I think they will have more info
I can’t wait for the day when someone figures out how to just jam a RasPi Zero W into a Razor Core and rinse/repeat.
So would an old intel q9550
So would an old intel q9550 and a EVGA nForce 780i SLI Motherboard, 8 gig of ram. has 3 pci-e 16x slots and 1 – 1 x pci-e slot. So I could 4 video cards.
So will this old hardware work for mining?
Sure it would probably work,
Sure it would probably work, but wouldn't be the most power efficient. If you already have the hardware though, so long as your PSU is good enough all you'd need are GPUs and a drive to run the OS and miner(s) off of.
AFAIK mining is fine with x1 connections and from some quick googling the 780i chipset and nforce 200 chip support 32 lanes and can be divided up so you should be fine there.
Thank you sir. I am looking
Thank you sir. I am looking to buy 4 RX 480’s for now. Maybe 2 power supplies. And for OS I don’t know yet. May stay with my Windows 7.
Good luck finding a 470
Good luck finding a 470
How does one get all those
How does one get all those crypto algorithms? I only see like one listed and the Nicehash application only says its benchmarking 6 algorithms
IIRC Nicehash will only show
IIRC Nicehash will only show you the algorithms compatible with your hardware. With a 750Ti and a CPU too old to be compatible with anything I see 9 crypto algorithms on my PC. Just to test I ran Nicehash on my AMD APU-powered laptop and got only eth (daggerwhateveritscalled 😉 ) in the list.
Thanks for the recommendation
Thanks for the recommendation of Nicehash, giving it a go, got my RX580 going at ~30.5MH/s.
Just started mining as
Just started mining as roy1070. Glad to help.
Mining with
ASUS Strix GTX 1070 8GB
Installed with
Ryzen 1700 OC 4000MHz
Captain 240 EX White AIO Cooler
Taichi X370 Motherboard
Corsair RM750i
16GB DDR4 2x8Gb 3000Mhz (OC 2988)
256GB Samsung NVme 950Pro
2TB Seagate Hard drive
NZXT 440H White Case
I noticed the Ether Wallet
I noticed the Ether Wallet was still empty,
so i decided to put a small ammount ETH on it. 🙂
You guys get a share of my
You guys get a share of my new PC, yw.
Any chance to donate using
Any chance to donate using some type of CPU mining, like a different currency? CPU cooling fans are much easier to replace than those on a GPU, if they wear out.
NiceHash has a new website.
NiceHash has a new website. It’s new.nicehash.com. It contains a new miner that has a better UI, and it was showing more algorithms than the old miner did. It is version 2.0.0.7 for those wondering. The old miner is 1.7.5.13.