Mining on your primary use machine? Who does it?

Archaea

Archaea

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Oct 19, 2004
Messages
11,825
I have not mined on my primary use machine traditionally, and am generally against doing so due to concerns about closed code we can't see - virus/malware etc.

I have a dedicated mining machine (only crypto mining, local login account, no important passwords EVER used, etc), and a primary use machine (banking/crypto wallets/general use etc)

Lately I've been physically moving my 3080 gaming card back and forth from my primary machine to my mining machine once a day or so to play CyberPunk. Since the card makes close to $10 a day I want it working when I'm not gaming. Obviously I'd rather not do this...
Does anyone have a single pieced of software/algorithm they trust and have a positive history with? I was considering installing TREX Eth Miner on my primary use machine and just mining ETH to MPH, but decided not to when I was reading through their GitHub documentation and it said we advise not installing mining software on your primary use machine. I mean, even the first party TREX maintainer states that.

I could use Excavator, but it can only mine to NiceHash pools - which is okay I guess, but I'd prefer to mine to MPH.

At the end of the day. One cards gains are NOT worth risking ID theft, crypto wallet stolen etc...

Thoughts? Comfort level?
 
I do have Minerstat mining ETH on my only comp, while working on it 8h a day, instead of 115 MH/S i have 105 or even 90 when Youtube is running, I dont have any antivirus thingy, I accept consequences
my 2 cents
 
I use nice hash on my primary rig, but I have 2FA on pretty much everything. I run HIVEOS on my dedicated mining rigs.
 
I also mine with my primary and only machine. I learned my lesson with 13 GPUs, I could barely breathe during the summers.
About $4.5/day (2080 Ti), which is fine, pays for internet and electricity per month, at least so far :)

I use Nicehash. A bit hard to get a hold of my banking account as they will need my phone as well and if someone does, there isn't much there anyway, lol.
 
I started using nicehash Sunday on my 3080. I get about $8-10 a day from it.
 
I only mine (hash) on "primary" rigs. I have 3 boxes - one is my son's (X99), one is mine (Z390), and one is my "old" gaming box (X99) that now run's VMware's free Hypervisor. I successfully passed a 3080 through via PCI passthrough to a virtual Win10 Pro box and that's my 3rd rig. I have PCIe risers (Ubit) but I haven't been able to procure any 3060 Ti's which I'd use those with.

I am just doing the "easy button" - NiceHash to Coinbase so the risk is minimized. I have a Fortinet FortiGate firewall and I SPAN all of my network traffic and do deep packet inspection and malware sandboxing on it (along with having STIX threat intel to highlight known-bad stuff). So far, so good.
 
With nicehash, is thete major issue with malware, viruses, hacking, etc?

Been thinking about using my rig to do as its mostly just sitting there doing much 95% of the day.

Machine shoukd be decent at it
 
Bigbacon said:
With nicehash, is thete major issue with malware, viruses, hacking, etc?

Been thinking about using my rig to do as its mostly just sitting there doing much 95% of the day.

Machine shoukd be decent at it
Click to expand...
Use Nicehash quickminer. That’s what I decided upon using with my primary machine since it came out. I’m comfortable with it on my primary use machine because it’s all first party NiceHash.

Quick Miner is a very nice, super compact, very small footprint and works great. It only uses excavator which is NiceHash's no fee miner for Ethereum (ETH).
It has a game mode, you can just right click toggle and engage game mode when you want to play, and then de-actvate it when you want to mine. No restarting the PC, no third party software. You don't even have to use MSI Afternburner. QuickMiner has a built in webrowser overclocking/undervolting utility.
It remembers both overclocks and undervolt settings for both game mode and mine mode.
On my 3080 I can mine at ~100MHs on my primary PC when I'm not using it, and it drops to about 90-95MHs when am using it and browsing the internet, or watching videos. To game you will want activate game mode, but any use of the PC besides gaming - including watching youtube, you can still mine while you are using your PC. I experience no noticeable slowdown while mining with general PC use.
As a reference, 3080's make $6-$12 a day - it's volatile and depends on ETH and BTC price.

Here's a link so you can figure out how much your card would make.
https://www.nicehash.com/profitability-calculator
og.pngProfitability Calculator | NiceHash
*Please note that values are only estimations based on past performance - real values can be lower or higher. Exchange rate of 1 BTC = 47716.07 USD was used.
www.nicehash.com


Quickminer just came out Feb 24, Here is the info page:
https://www.nicehash.com/blog/post/introducing-nicehash-quickminer
marketing%2FQuickMiner_Thumbnail.pngIntroducing NiceHash QuickMiner! | NiceHash
Dear NiceHash miners! We are delighted to officially introduce NiceHash QuickMiner!NiceHash QuickMiner or NHQM is a next-generation miner developed by NiceHash. Currently, it is in the experimental phase!. NiceHash QuickMiner uses only Excavator for GPU mining and is digitally signed.Excavator is an in-house developed miner, and code running as NiceHash QuickMiner is either developed by ...
www.nicehash.com

Here is the obligatory - mine at low power settings to keep your card cooler (and profits highest) (You don't want your GPU over 75*C continous IMO - VRAM can go much hotter without issue - throttle temp on the Ampere cards is 110*C). For reference my Asus Tuf OC card is mining at 45*C, and 100 VRAM.

Ultimately the answer is no - you won't hurt your GPU by mining if you keep the temps in check by lowering the power target. (and you might not be able to hurt them anyway - Jay's Two Cents did a video where he tried to kill a GPU with a heat gun, and couldn't do it. He even disconnected the fan, and tried make the card fail - it just kept throttling slower and slower until the PC blue-screened - then when he hooked the fan back up it was fine again. As to longevity concerns - I mined with eight 1070's for about 3 years, and not one issue. At worst your fans will eventually fail and you can replace them with new fans from amazon (GPU specific) for $15-$25 bucks for 2-3 matching fans. of those 8 cards I had one fan of 24 fans that got squeaky.
https://www.nicehash.com/blog/post/can-mining-damage-my-gpu-or-a-pc

marketing%2Fcan_mining_hurt_gpu_thumbnail.pngCan mining damage my GPU or a PC? | NiceHash
NiceHash is the leading cryptocurrency platform for mining and trading. Sell or buy computing power, trade most popular cryptocurrencies and support the digital ledger technology revolution.
www.nicehash.com

Here are the overclock/undervolt settings Nicehash recommends. (these are generic and slightly conservative, but a great starting place)
https://www.nicehash.com/blog/post/nvidia-and-amd-graphics-card-oc-settings-for-mining
marketing%2Foverclock_gpu_thumbnail.pngNVIDIA and AMD graphics cards OC settings for mining | NiceHash
Below you can find a table with the most common and profitable graphic cards for mining.We have gathered all the overclock settings for each GPU in one place.. If you are using Excavator, please click the button below to get the latest OC settings for NVIDIA graphics cards!. OC SETTINGS - EXCAVATOR. Note that these overclock settings are only a starting point and to give you a rough idea about ...
www.nicehash.com
 
Last edited:
Bigbacon said:
What dies first party nishhash mean? All their code and miner?
Click to expand...
Yes. Their standard miner has third party code that they don’t control and they don’t recommend installing it on a PC you do your banking on becuase while they try to validate the plug-ins packaged, some are black box, and could end up being updated nefariously by the source author. Quickminer, by comparison, is internally developed and only uses their own in house excavator client. You don’t have to disable AV, or firewall rules. Windows won’t try to block its use.
 
also, can you do both GPU and CPU mining on the easy thing or just stick to t he GPU part? are both miners from nice or not
 
I started mining yesterday with Nicehash's Quickminer.
I am tempted to put my 3080 into my old 4790k setup and just let that mine and use my 1080ti in my primary gaming machine as I seem to just play Overwatch and the 1080ti runs that game just fine at 3440x1440 @ 120Hz.

Also, why doesn't the hashrate stay high? It goes up and down all the time (the large dip was when I was playing some Overwatch).
nicehash-hashrate-over-time.jpg


this one shows the power usage from my Corsair PSU,
nicehash-power-usage.jpg
 
Last edited:
with my 1080ti im getting 32MH/s, is that good?

for fun I also have an old i7 laptop running it....
 
The earnings are volatile as you are paid for different jobs and you switch from contract to contract as I understand it. Remember with Nicehash you are being paid what the hardware renters are willing to pay. You are not doing traditional mining, you are effectively renting out your hardware for others to mine on. The Nicehash profitability calc is accurate or even a little conservative in my experience.
 
Bigbacon said:
with my 1080ti im getting 32MH/s, is that good?

for fun I also have an old i7 laptop running it....
Click to expand...
No that’s not good.

1080ti should be about 48mhs per second at 210-220 watts.

You need the ETH enlargement pill by Oh god a company.

if you install the full Nicehash client you can turn the ETH enlargement pill on in the preferences menu and get the extra hashing speed.
On a 1080ti you should use about +585Mhz on memory, and about 75% power target.
 
Zepher said:
I started mining yesterday with Nicehash's Quickminer.
I am tempted to put my 3080 into my old 4790k setup and just let that mine and use my 1080ti in my primary gaming machine as I seem to just play Overwatch and the 1080ti runs that game just fine at 3440x1440 @ 120Hz.

Also, why doesn't the hashrate stay high? It goes up and down all the time (the large dip was when I was playing some Overwatch).
View attachment 339440

this one shows the power usage from my Corsair PSU,
View attachment 339444
Click to expand...
Your speed on a 3080 should be about 100Mhs.
Run your memory at 1250Mhz and tick up from there, set your power use target at 210-220 watts in quickminer. You may try lowering core offset too. When gaming just right click on the quickminer icon and enter gaming mode. No sense in trying to mine while you game - unless it’s a really simple game graphically.
 
I don’t agree fully with all these numbers but it’s a good starting place. Each card with ampere is different. You can fine tune every card from here. I didn’t notice as much variance with my pascal cards when mining, but ampere cards like very custom settings for best efficiency. Case in point my two 3070 cards - the asus Strix power target is 40 some percent, while the Nvidia FE is 60 some percent power targets.

https://www.nicehash.com/blog/post/nvidia-and-amd-graphics-card-oc-settings-for-mining
 
im eyeing nicehash for my main rig while im not using it 90% of the day. Its on anyway so.

any downside with nicehash?
 
arr4ws said:
im eyeing nicehash for my main rig while im not using it 90% of the day. Its on anyway so.

any downside with nicehash?
Click to expand...
Is nice a different coin than Eth? I see on a site nicehash paying out less than ETH.
https://whattomine.com/gpus
Look all the way to right of the column on the card you will be using it will have earning estimates as ETH, Nicehash and one other. Seems like ETH is more profitable.
I might be misunderstanding though.
 
Bassman99 said:
Is nice a different coin than Eth? I see on a site nicehash paying out less than ETH.
https://whattomine.com/gpus
Look all the way to right of the column on the card you will be using it will have earning estimates as ETH, Nicehash and one other. Seems like ETH is more profitable.
I might be misunderstanding though.
Click to expand...
NiceHash pays you to hash and they use "market rates" (i.e. whatever they are getting paid they cut you a slice). If you use their miner (QuickMiner) it only does ETH, but they pay you in BTC. So it's tough to correlate. I am pretty sure it is correct if you did mine ETH directly you would get paid more - but they offer the "easy button" so it's a bit of a trade-off.

EDIT: to add to the above - at my house we mine/hash 24x7 now. Even when gaming. The card adjusts and the graphics are pretty solid - nothing competitive, of course. I haven't used Quickminer to tune by cards, I still use Afterburner. I get around 85 MH/s with 3080s because I use a 75% power target and watch VRMs very closely. I try to keep them under 105 C. We did switch to Quickminer. I use GPU-Z's sensors tab to watch temps (and of course now Quickminer reports it in the app and site).
 
Last edited:
Archaea said:
No that’s not good.

1080ti should be about 48mhs per second at 210-220 watts.

You need the ETH enlargement pill by Oh god a company.

if you install the full Nicehash client you can turn the ETH enlargement pill on in the preferences menu and get the extra hashing speed.
On a 1080ti you should use about +585Mhz on memory, and about 75% power target.
Click to expand...

when you say power target are you talknig the power limit % in overclocking tools or the elargement pill? also where do you get EP that is a legit download and not a virus laden thing? Reading about it and it seems there are a lot of shady downloads.

yea a 550mhz boost in memory brought my 1080ti from 32 to 36. I do have CPU mining off because it seemed to make my machine unstable. Starting to think my memory setup is a problem.

Wish I had done this earlier now since I do still game just not nearly as much as I used to.
 
I don't have an opportunity to mining on my primary use machine because I just don't have a video card XD, and now I can't find a good video card at normal price
 
Bigbacon said:
when you say power target are you talknig the power limit % in overclocking tools or the elargement pill? also where do you get EP that is a legit download and not a virus laden thing? Reading about it and it seems there are a lot of shady downloads.

yea a 550mhz boost in memory brought my 1080ti from 32 to 36. I do have CPU mining off because it seemed to make my machine unstable. Starting to think my memory setup is a problem.

Wish I had done this earlier now since I do still game just not nearly as much as I used to.
Click to expand...
CPU mining isn’t profitable or worthwhile for most people. Unless you have a threadripper or really high core count just leave CPU mining off.

Power target refers to MSI afterburners main slider. 75% means give the 1080TI only 75% of typical power draw. This makes the 1080ti more efficient mining. Less heat, less electricity, and sometime higher hash rate, since heat affects hash rate when thermal throttling occurs.

as to downloading ETH enlargement pill. Yeah. There’s all kinds of shady sources, and the real company apparently stopped hosting it. (I haven’t heard why).

The full standard Nicehash client packages it in the client downlod, and you can enable it under the options page, but you have to weigh hash rate against level of comfort with security. Nicehash themselves don’t recommend installing the standard client on a PC you do your banking on because they didn’t write all the plugins/third party black box miners and so they can’t see source code or fully verify everything is fully safe. By default they only turn on the ones they most trust and when you try to enable the others they give a warning that it could be unsafe, and there are plenty of people who do run the full standard client and have never had a problem, in the years Nicehash had been around, but I feel safer following their guidelines. I only use the full Nicehash client on a mining rig that I have no passwords on and don’t have any personal data, don’t do any finance stuff with, etc. Quickminer, being first party Nicehash written, and them vouching for it, I do have installed on my principal machine that I do banking on.

I trust Nicehash, they’ve proven to be a standup company. In 2017 they were hacked and I lost close to .04BTC in the hack. Over the course of the next two years they paid everyone back in full for the hack. In the crypto world that’s a stand up company.

maybe someone else has a safe link to the ETH enlargement pill to use with quickminer, but the fact that quickminer doesn’t include it by default again means they can’t validate for its safety. On the plus side only 1080 and 1080ti benefit from eth enlargement pill, any other Nvidia card will not need it, or benefit from it.
 
Last edited:
sk3tch said:
NiceHash pays you to hash and they use "market rates" (i.e. whatever they are getting paid they cut you a slice). If you use their miner (QuickMiner) it only does ETH, but they pay you in BTC. So it's tough to correlate. I am pretty sure it is correct if you did mine ETH directly you would get paid more - but they offer the "easy button" so it's a bit of a trade-off.

EDIT: to add to the above - at my house we mine/hash 24x7 now. Even when gaming. The card adjusts and the graphics are pretty solid - nothing competitive, of course. I haven't used Quickminer to tune by cards, I still use Afterburner. I get around 85 MH/s with 3080s because I use a 75% power target and watch VRMs very closely. I try to keep them under 105 C. We did switch to Quickminer. I use GPU-Z's sensors tab to watch temps (and of course now Quickminer reports it in the app and site).
Click to expand...
sk3tch
Try 210 or 215 or 220 watt power limiter in Quickminer OC tune and 1250Mhz on VRAM. Your temps should be under 105*C (110* C is throttle temp, and 120* C is damage temp). Your hash rate should climb to about 99MHs or 100Mhs, My Asus Tuf 3080 OC is sitting at that. Ram temp is about 102 or 104.

when mining completely open air in my mining rig (using onboard video) I can run the VRam on this at 1467Mhz O/C and hit 102MHs at 222watts, and it’s stable for weeks, but I haven’t yet tried that high with quickminer in my primary use PC, because in my primary use PC the GPU is also driving the display, so I don’t want to run it on the absolute stability edge.
 
Last edited:
guess I'm just leaving it as is then. 3.xx USD a day is better than zero for a machine that just sits here doing nothing most of the day 24/7
 
Mining ETH directly can be more profitable than Nicehash, but as sk3tch said above, Nicehash makes it so easy - IMO it’s worth the trade off. You get paid in BTC which is the most valuable and largest user base Crypto and the most likely, in my opinion, to succeed and continue to raise in value.

if you want to explore other mining options take a look at awesome miner and hiveos. Those are direct pool miners still capable of multi algorithm and pool switching, and both excellent. I’ve mined to a half dozen different pools and tried a half dozen different clients including Cudominer, minergate, Nicehash, awesomeminer, as the big ones, and probably to a dozen different pools. I’m only doing Nicehash now. My second favorite so far is miningpoolhub with awesomeminer. I’ve been considering going back to mining straight eth, but when you trade one crypto to another there is a tax even that occurs, so any extra profitability is lost if you are honestly reporting your crypto events. I only want to store and stack BTC, so Nicehash works for me.
 
Last edited:
Archaea said:
sk3tch
Try 210 or 215 or 220 watt power limiter in Quickminer OC tune and 1250Mhz on VRAM. Your temps should be under 105*C (110* C is throttle temp, and 120* C is damage temp). Your hash rate should climb to about 99MHs or 100Mhs, My Asus Tuf 3080 OC is sitting at that. Ram temp is about 102 or 104.

when mining completely open air in my mining rig (using onboard video) I can run the VRam on this at 1467Mhz O/C and hit 102MHs at 222watts, and it’s stable for weeks, but I haven’t yet tried that high with quickminer in my primary use PC, because in my primary use PC the GPU is also driving the display, so I don’t want to run it on the absolute stability edge.
Click to expand...
Thank you, bud.

It's definitely easier and cleaner to do it this way. My results are up a bit - but I think the key difference is the GPU. I'm using a 3080 FE and you're using a 3080 TUF. I set it to 220 power and +500 for memory. I usually run +250. I set my VRM/hotspot to max 105 C. The FE has been surprisingly cool in that regard...it's a 2021 unit though so maybe NVIDIA added some thermal pads or something.
 
so another question, what is the best wallet to use? realizing now I need to have a place to push this BTC do so I can eventually cash out.

Do these exchanges report crap to the IRS? I'd rather not have to pay taxes :) if I widthdrawl.
 
Tried Nicehash just to see what it was like. GDDR6 temps jumped to 106c and shut it down and uninstalled it. Not looking to take a screwdriver to my $1500 GPU just to mine.
 
Archaea said:
sk3tch
Try 210 or 215 or 220 watt power limiter in Quickminer OC tune and 1250Mhz on VRAM. Your temps should be under 105*C (110* C is throttle temp, and 120* C is damage temp). Your hash rate should climb to about 99MHs or 100Mhs, My Asus Tuf 3080 OC is sitting at that. Ram temp is about 102 or 104.

when mining completely open air in my mining rig (using onboard video) I can run the VRam on this at 1467Mhz O/C and hit 102MHs at 222watts, and it’s stable for weeks, but I haven’t yet tried that high with quickminer in my primary use PC, because in my primary use PC the GPU is also driving the display, so I don’t want to run it on the absolute stability edge.
Click to expand...
I am currently running a evga 3080 ftw ultra at -500 core 60% power and memory at +1200. Gpu stays around 40c and memory hasn't gotten past 78c. The quick miner a reporting 98MH/s at around 230w. My first 3080 that died was really a dud. I would get errors if I set anything over +700 on the memory.
 
Bigbacon said:
so another question, what is the best wallet to use? realizing now I need to have a place to push this BTC do so I can eventually cash out.

Do these exchanges report crap to the IRS? I'd rather not have to pay taxes :) if I widthdrawl.
Click to expand...
Ledger or Trezor hardware wallets if you are going to get into crypto in a big way.

coinbase is the easy/safe button, but yes they report to IRS (and are FDIC insured for USD).

I decided to report my earnings to the IRS. I don’t think they have any business in Crypto, but I don’t make the rules, and I don’t want an audit.
 
criccio said:
Tried Nicehash just to see what it was like. GDDR6 temps jumped to 106c and shut it down and uninstalled it. Not looking to take a screwdriver to my $1500 GPU just to mine.
Click to expand...
Lower your power target. 106* is still acceptable. 110* is throttle temp, 120* is lifespan dedregation temp. Nvidia themselves says 110* won’t hurt GDDR6X on ampere.
 
Last edited:
Archaea said:
Ledger or Trezor hardware wallets if you are going to get into crypto in a big way.

coinbase is the easy/safe button, but yes they report to IRS (and are FDIC insured for USD).

I decided to report my earnings to the IRS. I don’t think they have any business in Crypto, but I don’t make the rules, and I don’t want an audit.
Click to expand...

it only gets reported if you cash out right? Is it the same as capital gains?
 
sk3tch said:
NiceHash pays you to hash and they use "market rates" (i.e. whatever they are getting paid they cut you a slice). If you use their miner (QuickMiner) it only does ETH, but they pay you in BTC. So it's tough to correlate. I am pretty sure it is correct if you did mine ETH directly you would get paid more - but they offer the "easy button" so it's a bit of a trade-off.

EDIT: to add to the above - at my house we mine/hash 24x7 now. Even when gaming. The card adjusts and the graphics are pretty solid - nothing competitive, of course. I haven't used Quickminer to tune by cards, I still use Afterburner. I get around 85 MH/s with 3080s because I use a 75% power target and watch VRMs very closely. I try to keep them under 105 C. We did switch to Quickminer. I use GPU-Z's sensors tab to watch temps (and of course now Quickminer reports it in the app and site).
Click to expand...
I plan to mine to help absorb the cost of this new card coming tomorrow. Im a little overwhelmed by it still, but any advice like this helps.
 
Bigbacon said:
it only gets reported if you cash out right? Is it the same as capital gains?
Click to expand...
I don’t know if Nicehash reports anything to the IRS. They aren’t US based, but that doesn’t mean they or others don’t. That’s one reason why I think it’s not worth it to try to hide it. Bitcoin is not anonymous. It’s difficult to trace but it’s not impossible. The open ledger records EVERY transaction and balance. IP history is a thing, and after a few transactions it’s generally regarded that your account info could be start being linked to an owner. Most of the exchanges that have KYC (know your customer) have to report to the IRS.

alternatives to reporting your crypto earnings would be spending it on gift cards, look at gyft for example. They take BTC as payment.
https://www.gyft.com/

Another option is selling it on the forum, or exchanging for goods. Many places take crypto and BTC as payment. Newegg. Microsoft, etc. you are supposed to report these spends as well, but frankly I suspect that’s like reporting internet purchases for tax purposes.

if you want to convert it to USD on an exchange without tax implications you’ll have to pick a non US based exchange that doesn’t have KYC and then use VPN, and anonymous e-mails and such. That’s a lot of hassle, and then the exchanges are less safe IMO.

I file my taxes with crypto as “hobby mining”. I have to list mining dispersements as additional income, and pay taxes on it as regular income. When I sell it, if it’s been longer than 1 year, then I will have to pay long term capital gains on it, which is 10% currently. (Just like stocks).

I think the US taxes are rubbish and unfair — especially in the crypto space. Not like the US government does ANYTHING to benefit you with cryoto. If I had a Bitcoin stolen and told the police or government they’d tell me to go pound sand — so not sure why they get to tax it — But you’ll have to find your own way here and weigh the risks of reporting or not. Dont try to claim expenses as a mining business as a all time operation because your taxes get way more complicated, you’ll have to pay self-employment tax and social security tax and all that nonsense. If you want to claim expenses, in my opinion, you’d best be mining as an occupation. I’m no tax lawyer though and the usual disclaimers apply.

if you aren’t a big fish in the space chances are extremely high the IRS doesn’t care one iota about you. But you will have to lie on your tax return because one of the questions this year is basically did you do anything at all with Crypto/do you have any financial interest or involvement in Crypto.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top