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Bitcoin Mining for Complete n00bs !

Firstly and Most importantly join http://forum.bitcoin.org/ and be

an active member. Learn and also share.

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There has been alot of talk about Bitcoins. Whether it will survive the ride ahead, or will it not. But as for me, i would like to be a part of an idea that pretty much changes the world. Now, for a beginner, it must be tough understanding how bitcoins work etc. Well, I am not going to be talking about technicalities. I am here just to get you mining and earning BitCoins. Step by Step.

Operating System : Windows 7 ( 64 bit )

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1) First off, check whether you have a motherboard with a PCI-E slot and a power supply unit ( PSU ) of minimum 500W with minimum of 2 PCIE power source (6 pin).

2) You will need a Graphic Card to do mining, mining with CPU is a waste of time ( https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Why_a_GPU_mines_faster_than_a_CPU ). For best value for money, I would recommend the Sapphire Radeon HD 5830 Xtreme 256 bit PCI-E Card.

  • Or you can choose based on performance (Hashrates) from here:  https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison taking into account your budget.
  • If you are going to Crossfire with 2 X HD5830, u will need a PSU with minimum 750W and 4 PCI-E connectors and of course another PCI-E slot on the motherboard.
  • Recommendation for Power Supply Unit: CORSAIR for sure. But u can consider Thermaltake, OCZ, Antec, CoolerMaster…
  • Once you have installed your graphic card based on instructions supplied by manufacturer, then download and install their latest drivers from http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx . This to make sure you get their OpenCL drivers ( which permits miners to control the GPU )
  • REBOOT

 
4) After downloading and installing, launch the application and you will see a          bitcoin address which looks like this :

                                 ‘ 19NTK9zLJUJ1iURMirWeQn4766orJM7vNg ‘

  •  That is your first BitCoin Address. As you use the client, over time, you will be furnished with a bunch of addresses. This is to keep track of where are you keep getting your BitCoins from.
  • Now goto Settings —> Options. Tick ‘ Start Bitcoin on system startup’, ‘ Minimize to the tray instead of the taskbar’ and ‘Minimize to the tray on close’
  • Now minimize your BitCoin Client
5) You need to select a website to participate in poolmining in order to get faster returns. For this example, we will use Slush ~ mining.bitcoin.cz
  • Click On ‘Sign Up Here’ button
  • Enter details, and then click on the activate link that was sent via E-mail
  • Login using your credentials
  • Set your Username e.g. ‘ greenday ‘ , Copy and Paste the long Wallet address that was given to you by your BitCoin Client, Set Send Treshold to 0.01 ( The server will send you payment after you reach each 0.01 BTC equivalent of mining ) and press on the ‘Save’
  • Don’t bother of IP Whitelist currently, move on to click ‘Register New Worker’
  • Now, enter a Username for the Worker (Miner) e.g. ‘ redphoenix ‘ and Password ‘ bluekitten ‘  (Do Not Enter the same password that you use to enter into mining.bitcoin.cz account via webrowser ) ; Rewrite what you see in the Capta and hit on Save.
  • So now, to connect to the server with your miner, your username will be ‘greenday.redphoenix’ with password ‘bluekitten’
6) Now you need to download a miner. BitCoin clients use to do mining for you, but now, they have stopped. I would recommend ‘Phoenix’ as an efficient miner. Download:
  • Now Extract the ZIP file into a new folder e.g. ‘C:\Phoenix1.5’
  • You will see the file phoenix.exe, and the folder ‘kernels’ with subfolders ‘phatk’ and ‘poclbm’
  • Now download this file called ‘ Start Phoenix.bat ‘ that i created from http://www.mediafire.com/?hzd4kollah7y9vi and move it to  ‘C:\Phoenix1.5’  (same directory where phoenix.exe is)
  • Right Click on ‘Start Phoenix.bat’ and select EDIT
  • Replace ‘greenday.redphoenix’ with your Username, and replace ‘bluekitten’ with your password for the worker. Save and Close.
  • Right Click on ‘Start Phoenix.bat’ and Send To –> Desktop (create shortcut)
Now click on the Shortcut we just made…and you should see a window appear trying to connect to the pool.  It will connect to the server and you will see alot of ‘Accepted’….and thats good. At stock speed (without overclocking), you should be getting more then 220 Mhash/sec. You are already mining and making Bitcoin money. All you have to do is leave the window minimized. Payments you receive will be updated in your BitCoin client. Check your total Balance there.

 

Congratulationsss !!! 

 

Known Issues:
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1. ‘Rejected’ rates will be roughly 5~10% of  ‘Accepted’ in total- this is acceptable, but if they keep rejecting, then there is an issue.
     – The mining pool server maybe down,  under maintenance, experiencing DDoS attacks etc. Start the miner after 30 mins or login to a different pool (which u can setup similarly)
2. Error ‘ Warning: Work que empty, miner idle ‘
     – This is because the server has not sent work yet, but your miner has finished. This is why i have added ‘-q 3 ‘ in the command to initialize phoenix.exe. This will que 3 works. But may not work sometimes depending on the pool you are working with. You can remove it.
     – If it stays at this screen more then 3 minutes, close the window and start the miner again.
3. Your account can get banned if your efficiency drops less then certain percentage (e.g. 30%). In this case, please read the forum on the pool you are on and solve this and other issues. BTC miners are very helpful.

 

To Improvise Hashrates ( Mhashes/sec )
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1. Download this modified phatk kernel by Diapolo from:  http://www.mediafire.com/?o7jfp60s7xefrg4 ; and replace the ‘kernel.cl’ kernel file stored in ‘C:\Phoenix1.5\kernels\phatk’. This can increase hashrates by 10Mhashes/sec sometimes.

 

2. Changing AGGRESSION levels in the ‘Start Phoenix.bat’ by EDITING it. I’ve set it to AGGRESSION=7 so that you can still use the PC for daily chores. But in a dedicated miner, you can use AGGRESSION = 11 onwards…with FASTLOOP=false etc. You can check the various forums and try different settings and kernels and compare which actually gives you better
Hashrates. Refer https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison , on the rightest column to see the different commands they use to initialize their miner. Learn from folks at  http://forum.bitcoin.org/ ! 🙂

 

3. OVERCLOCKING YOUR GPU
    (AT YOUR OWN RISK! WARNING: YOUR WARRANTY WILL VOID )
     (i) Afraid? Don’t be…
     (ii) Download and Install Sapphire Trixxx from:  http://www.sapphireselectclub.com/ssc/TriXX/TriXX.aspx  ; Right click the file and ‘Run As Administrator’ and install and run it.
     (iii) Click on the ‘Fan Control’ Menu. Tick on ‘Fixed’ and take the bar to 100%. There will be some noise 🙂 Thats normal.
     (iv) Next go to ‘Settings’ Menu. Tick on ‘Load on Startup’, ‘…and start minimized’, and ‘…restore clocks’. You can tick on ‘Install Windows Sidebad Gadget’ if you want to monitor temp etc.
     (v)  Now go to ‘ Overclocking ‘ and look at ‘Core Clock’. Default is 800Mhz. Change it to 875 Mhz, then Apply. See how the MHashes/ec improve in your mining window. And gauge the temperature. Should not ever exceed 85 degrees Celcius. Keep it there for a while. And run a STABILITY TEST (next topic below)
      (vi) If stable, you can stop here and use this setting. Click on the button ‘1’ and then ‘Save’. This will save the profile for later use.
       OR
       (vii) You can go on increment of 10Mhz every step. And hit Apply. Some have reached very high (1010 MHz)…some stick to the midway. But its all a risk. If an OC fails, the system will hang and crash. Just poweroff and come back, and readjust the clocks.  I stick to 912 Mhz ‘Core Clock’ because that is stable for me. And don’t wanna risk it too much. I don’t OC the Memory Clock because it doesn’t really help for Mining. But helps alot for Gaming.

 

3.1 Stability of Overclocking
 (i) Download and Install MSI Kombustor from:  http://www.geeks3d.com/20110407/download-msi-kombustor-2-0-2/
(ii) You need to know whether your card is stable after overclocking. So, we need to do a burn in test.
(iii) Close the miner window if you have it open and close all applications.

 

Securing Your Wallet
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(i) Just like your physical wallet, your BitCoin Client stores money in your virtual wallet named wallet.dat.
(ii) In Windows 7, this file is stored in ” C:\Users\YourUserName\Appdata\Roaming\BitCoin\wallet.data “
(iii) You will need to regularly backup your wallet. And not only backup, but perform an encrypted backup. So that people cannot use it.
(iv) You need to have either WinZip, WinRar or my preferred 7-Zip. Download
and install. Right Click on Install file and install as Administrator.
(v) After installation, close your BitCoin Client and goto   ” C:\Users\YourUserName\Appdata\Roaming\BitCoin\wallet.data ” and right click the file.  7-Zip –> Add to archive…
(vi) Then enter password twice ( make sure its a strong password ) and select Encryption Method : AES 256
  •       To test how strong is your password:                                                                        http://www.passwordmeter.com/
(vii) Take the wallet.zip file and store it in Dropbox, Thumbdrives, Ext Drives etc.
(viii) To restore this wallet in case you formated your PC, just install BTC Client again and delete the new wallet.dat and replace with your backup. You will have your money back.

 

How Much Money Can You Make Mining BitCoins

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(i) Well, this is the estimate calculations of mining with a single Sapphire Radeon HD 5830 Extreme
(ii) At full load, it uses ~347W of power. (full load but without overclocking)
347W (full load) x 24hour/day x 30 days/month / 1000 W/kW = 249.84 kWh/month
(iii) So if your energy company charges you USD 0.20/kWh, your cost will be = 249.8 x 0.2 = USD 49.96 / month

(iv) Roughly, by running at 245 MHashes/sec for a month, you may earn nearly 5 BTC (average) at current difficulty levels in a month.
(v)If Bitcoins is trading at USD 15.00, you will earn USD 75.00 and that gives you a profit of USD 25.04
Note: BitCoin prices keep fluctuating, and with overclocking, your energy cost may rise, GPU life span may decrease…

 

Things I have not covered:
1) Other OSes – Linux, Mac
2) Other methods of mining…e.g. GUI Miner ( i don’t prefer )
3) NVIDIA Card mining
4) OC with other tools
5) Trading Bitcoins
6) …

 

Happy Mining!

 

If this article has benefited you in anyway, please Donate to:
19NTK9zLJUJ1iURMirWeQn4766orJM7vNg

 


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Hibernate Vs. Standby – The Difference


I use to often wonder the difference…and Lifehacker (http://lifehacker.com) answered it. Sharing with you folks 🙂

Hibernate vs. Standby

hibernate.png

Quick: What’s the difference between putting your PC in Hibernate or Standby mode? Yeah, we weren’t sure either. Luckily the Productivity Portfolio weblog schools us on the finer details of Windows XP power schemes. Using Standby:

Your machine recovers quickly as your data is stored in RAM. The slower part is waking up the peripherals. Although your machine is in “standby” the power has been cut to items such as your hard drive and monitor. You’re running your machine in a very low power mode, but it is still on. This mode can be useful if you’re on a notebook and need to conserve your battery while you step away.

With Hibernate:

The big difference is that your PC has shut down and is not pulling power. Another difference is that your data is saved to your hard disk and not RAM. This makes it a safer, but slower option for shut down and resume.

Not all PCs have the capability and are configured to Hibernate. If yours is, to see the Hibernate option on your XP shutdown screen, hold down the Shift key when you shut down.