New kid on the block here

msxoin

Hello people
I recently got the idea of researching the cryptocurrency mining process so I’m willing to start it if it worths the time and risk.
I’m not regarded as tech savvy, but I know a thing or two (literally!) about pcs. However, the mining process is totally new to me. All those terms, such as hash rate, ASIC, raspberry Pi, the cost of a Kwh in my home etc…I am overwhelmed!

So, in this first post I’m going to say hello to the forum and start for advice as to where to start reading, regarding the following:

Home pc based mining. No extreme things, just a GPU
Other methods of mining (custom pcs, raspberry Pi (what is this anyway?) etc)

Thank you in advance and have a nice week.

P.S.: For the record, my GPU is a Radeon HD7770 running with an i5-3350P @ 3.1Ghz

AcidD

Hello @msxoin , Welcome to the forums. :slight_smile:

in layman’s terms…

Hash Rate = the amount of hashes per second your hardware can calculate…usually measured in Kilo, Mega, Giga…etc
Example: Your HD7770 will probably do around 80-100 Kilohashes per second of Feathercoins NeoScrypt Algo

ASIC = Specific hardware designed to calculate hashes (unlike a GPU which is designed for every day computing)

Rasberry Pi = Tiny, minature computer board…it’s like a tiny board which is a whole computer, usb ports…network ports…the works…but it fits in your palm.

–
If you want to just see how mining works, you can do this with your HD7770.

These are the high level steps.

1 - Download Feathercoin Wallet from Feathercoin.com or have a wallet address where you own the private key…
2 - Download NSGMiner …which is software made for mining. the windows version is here https://github.com/ghostlander/nsgminer/releases
3 - you can mine on p2pool to test it out.

If you’re on windows, download and extract nsgminer from the link above and put it in a folder somewhere…example on your desktop.

open notepad and paste this line in …then edit to add your Feathercoin address, this is the address you want to receive your mined coins to.

This is the line you need to paste and edit

nsgminer --neoscrypt -O <your feathercoin address>:xx -o http://p2pool.neoscrypt.de:19327

save this as “mine.bat” by doing the following
1 - File
2- Save As
3 - make the filename “mine.bat”
4 - on the drop down menu below change the file type from “txt” to All Files
5 - Navigate to your NSGminer folder and save inside the same folder nsgminer.exe is in.

When you’ve done the above you can just double click “mine.bat” and leave it until you mine some coins.

I hope this helps,

Welcome to the Feathercoin community :slight_smile:
let us know how you get on.

msxoin

Thank you for your reply. I will do that to see how this works.
However, I did a bit of research on my own, and found out that in order to be profitable, you need about 1.5 Mh/s computing power (or more), given my own KWh cost (0.11 Euros / Kwh). Such computing power requires an initial investment of about 1500$. Am I missing something? Am I getting something wrong?

looarn

Welcome @msxoin ,

I see that @AcidD take care of you. :)

About the mining (in general), for me it’s a way of supporting cryptocurrency project you like (for their philosophy for instance).

As I understand it all this is very new for you, but I can share my vision.

I discovered first bitcoin, and learn the hard way that mining there is very centralized, and very professionalized. So this mean that for bitcoin mainly pro or rich people can participate of the process of creating the coins.

Then I discoverd ASIC Resistant cryptocurrency, that mean, philosophicaly the currency dont want to see the process of creating the coin going professional nor centralized, something like power to the people.
And today even with a basic CPU you can mine Feathercoin and be involved.

De facto, feathercoin become kind of an entry gate for all miners apprentice willing to try, because it’s actualy quite profitable, and can be done with you everyday computer.

So greed vs humanisme. Your choice. :)

msxoin

Hello looarn and thanks for the info.
I’m guessing I’m the liberal guy who wants everything to have to do with profit :money_with_wings: . I’m not asking to be millionaire, a net monthly income of 80-100$ would be nice.

You say that feathercoin is quite profitable and mining could be done using one’s everyday computer. By inputing data in online profit calculators, I found that this is not the case. As I said in my previous post, I need about 1.3 Mh/s rate just to break even. Am I missing something?

@AcidD I downloaded feathercoin wallet. How do I create a new wallet for me? Through this program or elsewhere?

EDIT: I managed to find my wallet address. Now, I created the wordpad file you mentioned and included the line, but the problem is that it doesnt show me All files from the dropdown list of file types. So I saved it as mine.bat name and left the rtf format at the file type. When I double click on it, it momentarily opens a black screen and then disappears. I also opened ngsminer.exe andasked for a mining address. Should I create an account with p2pool?

EDIT2: I pressed enter when it asked for suername and password and I got this:

Wellenreiter

@msxoin

probably there is a syntax error in the .bat file, or it has and extension like mine.bat.txt

There are two things you can do.

open a command line window
- menu-> run-> enter ‘cmd’

type in the same line you entered in the mine.bat file

that should start nsgminer and leave the window open if it fails, so you can read the error messages

in the command line window change to the directory containing the nsgminer.exe and mine.bat file. I hope you are familiar with the basic commands of the windows command line, so you know how to do that.

check the mine.bat file name with the command ’ dir mine*’
- if the output shows only the file name mine.bat all is ok here.
- if the output shows mine.bat.txt type in 'rename mine.bat.txt mine.bat

This should fix the extension problem and assuming that the content of mine.bat is correct, the miner should start

msxoin

@Wellenreiter I opened the command prompt, I changed the directory to where the miner is installed and copied the line. It says The system cannot find the file specified.

I also dir the folder and it shows mine.bat. Now when I open the miner, copy the pool address, hit enter in the username and password, it displays a blank black screen. If i press any key, the program turns off.

UPDATE: I managed to make it do the same as before. Same screenshots as before. Cant start GPU it says and cant find diablo.cl

Something relevant is this, but I can’t understand it.
https://forum.feathercoin.com/topic/8280/solved-diablo-cl-error-when-mining-win7/4

wrapper

Hi and welcome to alternative currency, see you are straight in the deep end.

AcidD

@msxoin

Can you post your mine.bat file ?

msxoin

@AcidD

nsgminer --neoscrypt -O <WALLET NUMBER HERE>:xx -u http://p2pool.neoscrypt.de:19327

AcidD

This post is deleted!

AcidD

@msxoin said in New kid on the block here:

@AcidD

nsgminer --neoscrypt -O <WALLET NUMBER HERE>:xx -u http://p2pool.neoscrypt.de:19327

There is an error/mitake with your line.

Please read each part or even each character or symbol and make sure it’s identical

nsgminer --neoscrypt -I 14 --worksize 16 -g 1 -o http://p2pool.neoscrypt.de:19327 -O 6tXAeBZzRrtXXv7WBypn29VMRTci5egbSw:xx

See below.
alt text

I hope this helps.

msxoin

@AcidD
Alright. Done that and things changed. However, now it says "No login credentials supplied for pool 0 http://p2pool…
Should I make an account somewhere?

wrapper

@AcidD said in New kid on the block here:

http://p2pool.neoscrypt.de:19327

Can you post what you have? What have you done and what things changed to what?

the FTC address is the password? There is no other login for p2pool.

http://p2pool.neoscrypt.de:19327

AcidD

@msxoin said in New kid on the block here:

@AcidD
Alright. Done that and things changed. However, now it says "No login credentials supplied for pool 0 http://p2pool…
Should I make an account somewhere?

p2pool does not need an account.

Are you 100% it’s all identical

You need to look at this switch:

-O

The above switch is specifying a username and password. for p2pool your “username” is your wallet address that you want the mined coins to go to…and for p2pool you don’t need a password so it’s just “xx”

So section by section in the bat file, I’m going to explain each part and hopefully you’ll be able to start. If you look at my screenshot it should make sense to you…

Here is the line we are discussing:

nsgminer --neoscrypt -I 14 --worksize 16 -g 1 -o http://p2pool.neoscrypt.de:19327 -O 6tXAeBZzRrtXXv7WBypn29VMRTci5egbSw:xx

First you start the nsgminer program by calling “nsgminer”

You then specify that you want to mine the neoscrypt algorithm with “–neoscrypt”

You then specify “intensity” with “-I 14” this is intensity 14

You then specify a “work size” with “–worksize 16”

You then specify your GPU threads with “-g 1” This means you’re going to use 1 GPU thread

You then specify your pool address with “-o URL”

You then specify your mining address and a random password that’s not needed with “-O MiningAddress:xx”

1- look at my sceenshot…look at the folder I have extracted the NSGminer software to.
2 - look at the mine.bat file I opened in notepad
3 - read bit and follow with my explanations above

msxoin

@AcidD
Alright, it seems that I had the second -O with lower case rather than capital. Now it seems connected, but still, it shows this:

AcidD

That looks ok.

Does it report a hashrate ?

If you look at this page http://p2pool.neoscrypt.de:19327/static/ and scroll down.

You should see your wallet address and your hashrate as well as your expected PayOut.

msxoin

I cant see my wallet in the website.
And for some reason, Khs started at about 180 and keeps decreasing. Currently at 50. Why is that?

UPDATE: I just saw my wallet at the website, But hash rate is unacceptable. 20khs

AcidD

Well the HD7770 is an old card…I dont expect a very high hashrate…altho 20 KH/s seems a bit low

if you use CMD and navigate to your Nsgminer folder and then run this:

nsgminer --help

it will give you a load of options, read each one and see if you can tweak your setup.

msxoin

Ok thanks a lot. Hash rate moving between 80 and 100 now.
So what happens now? Will I see the mined feathercoins in the feather program? When will they show up? I want to calculate my rate of mining, as it seems that website calclutators were terribly wrong.