Any LTC miners out there willing to answer some questions?

C

Carbon_Rod

Gawd
Joined
Apr 2, 2012
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Aside from folding, I want to try my hand at LTC mining... it still seems like it might be profitable for GPU miners, right?

I have some other really noob questions that I hope I can get answered... I've looked at a bunch of guides but none seem to answer my questions. They're good at getting you up and running, but not good for providing answers to the "hows" and "whys" of things.

If any Litecoin miner out there wouldn't mind answering a few questions, shoot me a PM. I can ask them in this thread too, but I'm trying not to let too much of my noobness show to the public. :eek: :p
 
I ltc mine, dunno if i can answer your questions but feel free to shoot me a pm and ill try my best.
 
Carbon_Rod said:
Aside from folding, I want to try my hand at LTC mining... it still seems like it might be profitable for GPU miners, right?

I have some other really noob questions that I hope I can get answered... I've looked at a bunch of guides but none seem to answer my questions. They're good at getting you up and running, but not good for providing answers to the "hows" and "whys" of things.

If any Litecoin miner out there wouldn't mind answering a few questions, shoot me a PM. I can ask them in this thread too, but I'm trying not to let too much of my noobness show to the public. :eek: :p
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It's always good to get that out in the public! For ever question you have there is probabl4 3-4 people wondering the same thing but too afraid/lazy to ask.

Its how we all get better and share information!

Lord knows my "dumbness" has come out to the public in way more than one occasion here...
 
Pick a pool and setup your account info with them. Install BAMT for LTC on a 4gb USB stick. toss the pool info into the pools file and then when your system boots its mining. The graphics BIOS defaults will be used and you're up and running with as close to no work at all as it gets.

Coinhuntr.com is whats here and I've been using them but I'm about to take my 2M to a bigger pool because with the pools there's not much point in being in a small pool. I'm going to setup with the top 3 pools and between the three I'll stay well fed with work.

I have technically had higher PEAK crunching with windows nothing has been plug in and completely forget like BAMT. I used cgwatcher with windows but when I switched from BTC to LTC you really can't do it in the background of your workstation because it demands the systems full attention to crunch really anything.
 
I have 2x 7950s and 1x 7970 mining LTC at Coinotron. I do about 1.6Mhash. Average about 1.5-1.7 coins per day.

I've bought a few things with LTC... but haven't bothered to cash out ever.
I figure I should convert some LTC into BTC and deposit in my CoinBase account. This way is BTC spikes again, I can quickly cash out if I wanted to.

Granted, LTC difficulty is low... it does feel like it takes a while to amass much. 1.6 coins a day at a $2.60 value each... Sometimes I wonder if its worth it. But I stick in with the hopes that LTC will grow like BTC. Obviously, never to the same value as BTC... but even if it reached $10.... $20... a coin.


But as far as starting out... Just hop into a pool. Maybe download GUIMiner ... easiest way to start mining. It runs CGMiner or Reaper, but is simple and doesn't take much to figure out. Install the Wallet, encrypt it right from the start with a ridiculous passphrase, longer = better. Take backups of the wallet regularly. Leave the wallet program OFF. No reason to keep it running unless you want to accept a transaction or pay someone. Look into changing where the default wallet .dat files saves also. There's known malware that copies your wallet files and steals coins. Some people even prefer to leave the wallet file on a computer that you just turn on and off when you want to make transactions. No reason to risk your wallet by leaving it on a PC that's online 24/7.
 
I had high stales at coinotron and wemineltc.

give-me-ltc has the lowest stales (tied with coinhuntr) and give-me-ltc has an android app now.

I have 18x 7950's. My coworker has 45.
 
0.5% @ gmltc. invasion also had really low stales, so I imagine coinhuntr would too.

1% fee though... so still better than no fee and 3% stales.
 
So I got impatient waiting for the extra pieces for a dedicated mining rig to show up and stared to test the waters using my 7970's. I started using Coinhuntr for the time being just because, well, it was the first pool that came to mind. Again, I'm totally new to this... I'll figure out the quirks of things eventually.

Right now I'm happy with running things under Windows. It did take a bit of work, but I figured out early through just playing around with the settings, how to get everything working at its peak efficiency (or close enough). That's not to say I will never try BAMT or another Linux distro at all, it's just I'm much more comfortable with Windows at this point.... especially when it comes to overclocking GPUs and whatnot. Again, totally new to this right now... but if this is anything like my folding obsession, it won't just end with a couple of GPUs (I actually have parts on order for 2 more dedicated mining rigs).

I do appreciate the advice though... especially about the pools. That was going to be another question I had... how to determine which pool is better aside from just trying each one. That, and if the size of the pool actually translates into greater mining efficiency.
 
J Macker said:
I had high stales at coinotron and wemineltc.

give-me-ltc has the lowest stales (tied with coinhuntr) and give-me-ltc has an android app now.

I have 18x 7950's. My coworker has 45.
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Just out of curiosity, how do you set up 18 cards, 5 diferent systems?.. and at current rates when will you pay off the 4.5k in cards + whatever else you have in it?
 
FriedLemming said:
Just out of curiosity, how do you set up 18 cards, 5 diferent systems?.. and at current rates when will you pay off the 4.5k in cards + whatever else you have in it?
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I currently have 14 cards installed in computers in laundry baskets. I posted pics in another thread (2gpu boxes not pictured)

2 more in a tower, and 2 in my main comp. Though I don't mine with my main because I don't want the heat in the family room. I'm going to move one of the video cards back to a basket when it gets back from RMA (fan failure).

I convinced 2 coworkers to make mining rigs as well. one has 6x7950's and the other has 45x7950's. There's a pic with our 69x7950's on the forum... :)

hashrates are stable but LTC production varies with difficulty. It will take me about 6 more months if everything stays at constant current rates to pay it off. if LTC value goes up, then it pays off faster. Though, production rates right now are less than half of what they were 3 months ago. So if you started today, it would probably take over a year to recoup your costs.

Electricity is expensive in the summer, but in the winter it will be effectively free because I'd be burning money using the house heat pump anyhow. The outside temp is a beotch though... it's slow going when it gets 95F+ outside and the room gets to ~110F.
I have a box fan blowing down on each basket to cope with the high summer temps.
 
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Heh, that is crazy looking. So with 18 you get ~10-11khs and ~12-13 coins a day for 4.5kw/h of draw?
 
yeah, pretty much. Though I'm only mining with 16 right now. 1 is out on RMA for fan failure and I don't mine with the 1 in my main gaming comp.
 
There's a guy on here that has some aluminium open air cases where you can hang a bunch of cards. I have 3 6950's, a 7870 and a 6870 in just one with a fan blowing air over it. I have another using zip ties and a milk crate.
 
Carbon_Rod said:
Spotswood is his name... tech bench cases are his game.
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I bought a one off prototype and it works pretty nicely. I'll probably explore more into the ghetto methods myself because I'm putting all of my cash into video cards but if you're a perfectionist or just setting up something fairly small for mining they work far better than any real case I've encountered so far. Jamming 4 6950's in a row just didn't work no matter how many fans I crammed into my cases.
 
Well, they're both for small builds and for the big farms as well. Spotswood has designed all of his tech trays to be completely modular and stackable. So, you can expand upwards with them (and I would imagine, with little modification, you could expand sideways as well). You can even add casters to make the stack mobile. There are a few on these forums that have some very nice folding/crunching/mining farms built with Spotswood's tech trays. If I had the money to spend, that is the route I would take for my farm (which is currently only a small flower bed).
 
Carbon_Rod said:
Well, they're both for small builds and for the big farms as well. Spotswood has designed all of his tech trays to be completely modular and stackable. So, you can expand upwards with them (and I would imagine, with little modification, you could expand sideways as well). You can even add casters to make the stack mobile. There are a few on these forums that have some very nice folding/crunching/mining farms built with Spotswood's tech trays. If I had the money to spend, that is the route I would take for my farm (which is currently only a small flower bed).
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Same here, the money is best spent on more video cards. I sent a 6950 into RMA and they sent me a 7870 but after trying some tweaking for a while I think I'll just sell that card off because its crunching quite a bit worse than the 6950 and has a higher sale value. I might just put the 7870 into my main rig though instead of the 7770
 
Is there anything on the horizon that might be more bang/buck than 7950? I imagine that could make it hard to resell the 7950 if you bought a load of them, and then a more efficient more powerful card came out at the same pricepoint? (Talking about buying 7950's now, not those who have already gotten some or all of their value out of them)
 
FriedLemming said:
Is there anything on the horizon that might be more bang/buck than 7950? I imagine that could make it hard to resell the 7950 if you bought a load of them, and then a more efficient more powerful card came out at the same pricepoint? (Talking about buying 7950's now, not those who have already gotten some or all of their value out of them)
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*magic 8-ball says*

ask again later.

:D

Next AMD gpus are due out in october. I wouldn't buy a bunch of 7950's now unless you get them for a good deal. mining performance on new gen may increase 10% per card.
 
Or look for sales... that's how I decided now was the time I should try my hand at LTC mining. :D
 
DriveEuro said:
You can get them used for $200 and less.
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I wouldn't... 7950's run rather hot and its a newish platform which hasn't shown itself to be the most solid. When buying used make sure you get from a guy who will help you RMA if there's an issue or make sure the warranty includes a second person.

From my experiences avoid powercolor like the plague. XFX has crazy fast RMA's while my powercolor's they sat on the card a solid two weeks both times before shipping back on the slowest boat possible. my last powercolor came back smelling like cigs so they sent me a board from a smokers house
 
My last XFX RMA was a little over a month ago, and they took 10 days before they even issued an RMA number. The process time after they received the card was about a week.

So, I wouldn't say "crazy fast", the initial wait for approval to get an RMA was painful and I had to add another inquiry to my submittal before they responded. The card only had a dead fan, so it was pretty obvious that it needed to be replaced.

But I agree about getting gpus with a warranty. I wouldn't buy any 7950's without it if you intend to use it for LTC mining.
 
Newegg has Powercolor AX7950's on sale for $229 with a one per person $30 rebate, and 2 year warranty. Hard to turn that down if you are just looking to add on one more for $199 (even $229 ea without rebate, limit 5 per person)
 
FriedLemming said:
Newegg has Powercolor AX7950's on sale for $229 with a one per person $30 rebate, and 2 year warranty. Hard to turn that down if you are just looking to add on one more for $199 (even $229 ea without rebate, limit 5 per person)
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I mine with these and they aren't half bad for the price
 
pbassjunk said:
Is it possible to mix 6xxx and 7xxx?
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6870 and 7870 mixed here and I have 3 6950's and a 7950 in another rig.

There will be some mixes that really just don't play nicely together though it gets pretty hit and miss. When you run into trouble with windows boot BAMT and see how fast you can run. I'm seeing slightly worse crunching using BAMT over windows but for some configs its just easier than dealing with windows issues
 
I've been thinking about this myself, but don't know where to start really...

I read all kinds of stuff and downloaded some stuff but not sure where to begin with it

I built my kids computers and they just sit here all week doing nothing, they're only allowed to play games on weekends because of school work and activities so I was thinking of putting them to work with LTC

Then I have a an older computer just sitting here not even hooked up which I could run as well for it...
 
To give you an idea Dracos... you will need at least 2x 7950s to get anywhere. 2x 7950s will get you about 1.2 LTC per day.
Its almost too late to be jumping into the game unless you can get a bunch of video cards going.
 
DriveEuro said:
To give you an idea Dracos... you will need at least 2x 7950s to get anywhere. 2x 7950s will get you about 1.2 LTC per day.
Its almost too late to be jumping into the game unless you can get a bunch of video cards going.
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oh well.. it was an idea.. . I only have a 7870 in my own computer..
 
DriveEuro said:
To give you an idea Dracos... you will need at least 2x 7950s to get anywhere. 2x 7950s will get you about 1.2 LTC per day.
Its almost too late to be jumping into the game unless you can get a bunch of video cards going.
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To be honest, I don't think it's too late. With ASIC and FPGA still a few months off (ASIC at least 6 while FPGA 3) and the fact that FPGA isn't really that much of increase over current GPU rates unless they sell it at a drastically reduced capital cost, Its still open. I just bought 3x 7850's with all the hardware necessary to run it for around $575. Load up windows from a usb, overclock the sh*t outta them with Afterburner and I should meet my ROI at roughly 48 days. 7950's had an ROI of about 44 but it was at 2x the capital cost. If i end up making something from it, I may invest in the ASIC's.
 
I have just ordered a 7990 for £400, I have free electricity until July, think I will be able to break even if I start litecoin mining?

Also mine in Windows or with BAMT?
 
Bigballingpr24 said:
To be honest, I don't think it's too late. With ASIC and FPGA still a few months off (ASIC at least 6 while FPGA 3) and the fact that FPGA isn't really that much of increase over current GPU rates unless they sell it at a drastically reduced capital cost, Its still open. I just bought 3x 7850's with all the hardware necessary to run it for around $575. Load up windows from a usb, overclock the sh*t outta them with Afterburner and I should meet my ROI at roughly 48 days. 7950's had an ROI of about 44 but it was at 2x the capital cost. If i end up making something from it, I may invest in the ASIC's.
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Thats assuming ASIC and FPGA actually make it to the market. As of right now, I've not seen any FPGAs that are actually efficient enough to be considered relevant. But if they do, it's going to throw a wrench into the difficulty just like it did bitcoin.

Also, with the price of litecoin going nuts, that will probably bring out bigger players like it did with bitcoin which again means difficulty will be going up rather quickly.
 
Bigballingpr24 said:
To be honest, I don't think it's too late. With ASIC and FPGA still a few months off (ASIC at least 6 while FPGA 3) and the fact that FPGA isn't really that much of increase over current GPU rates unless they sell it at a drastically reduced capital cost, Its still open.
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The latest I heard from one ASIC producer was that their best was 10MHash/s @1000W and at "significantly greater cost than GPU counterparts". So, take from it what you will... I think that unless something is leaps and bounds greater than GPUs (other than power consumption), they may not see the same wild adoption as they were for BTC.
 
Bonksnp said:
Thats assuming ASIC and FPGA actually make it to the market. As of right now, I've not seen any FPGAs that are actually efficient enough to be considered relevant. But if they do, it's going to throw a wrench into the difficulty just like it did bitcoin.
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If we can assume these things aren't wildly more efficient than GPUs (at least from what I see so far), I don't think we have to worry about network hash rates and difficulty flying through the roof yet. I have a feeling that GPU mining will still be very viable 6 months to a year from now yet. Though this is still up in the air because of:
Also, with the price of litecoin going nuts, that will probably bring out bigger players like it did with bitcoin which again means difficulty will be going up rather quickly.
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THIS is what I'm afraid of. Everybody and their dog jumping on the bandwagon trying to get their piece.
 
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