Bitcoin Discussion Thread Part 2

I wouldn't do that.

If anything, overclocking/overvolting the video card a little more is about the only thing I'd do. Maybe run folding @ Home on the CPU.
 
fps4ever said:
I know this goes against everything you've been taught but have you tried to partially cover up some of the vents on the case to get the temps up a little more? It might help to get the video card temp up to 88C-90C, which shouldn't hurt it? The ambient temp in the case will rise as well. That may just help enough...
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That's just stupid. For given settings, the amount of heat the GPU puts out is the same regardless of what temperature it's running at.

Like jebo said, space heaters range from about 1000-1500W. A system with one GPU is pulling about 300W from the wall (power out = power in), so expecting that to heat a room on its own is just not realistic.
 
Parja said:
That's just stupid. For given settings, the amount of heat the GPU puts out is the same regardless of what temperature it's running at.
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LOL...what? Do you even understand thermodynamics! There's a difference pumping out 30CFM's at 70 C vs. 85 C or whatever, without upping the airflow. And what do you mean "amount of heat the GPU puts out is the same regardless of what temperature it's running at". That is just stupid right there! :p

Grant it the room might be to big to make a difference! Just cheap trick to try!
 
You can't be serious man.

You said yourself, the only way to increase ambient temps in the case is to restrict airflow, so your 30 CFM number goes down.

Parja is making perfect sense, I hate to tell you.
 
fps4ever said:
LOL...what? Do you even understand thermodynamics!
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Quite well, actually. I've got a BS in Mechanical Engineering. About a quarter of my major level curriculum was Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer.

There's a difference pumping out 30CFM's at 70 C vs. 85 C or whatever, without upping the airflow. And what do you mean "amount of heat the GPU puts out is the same regardless of what temperature it's running at". That is just stupid right there! :p
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So blocking those vents, guess what happens? Ta-da! Reduced airflow.

Put a power meter on your computer to see what it's drawing. Regardless of what you do, the amount of heat that computer puts out is equal to what it's drawing from the wall. And that, right there, is the First Law of Thermodynamics.
 
Though I think he must be trolling, there will be a slight increase in the power draw of the card if it is running at 90C as opposed to 70C. Hotter silicon is less efficient, it uses more current at the same voltage. I would never suggest purposely running your cards hot though.

A large temperature swing makes a pretty significant difference in power draw. One of my mining rigs is in my unheated garage. In the summer it was drawing about 700W on 45C air and now with 0C air it has dropped to 615W.

My 180W 2500k is just about enough heat to keep my 150sq ft bedroom warm with one window and 0C temperatures outside. It BSODed over night so this morning and I woke up cold.
 
Zink said:
A large temperature swing makes a pretty significant difference in power draw. One of my mining rigs is in my unheated garage. In the summer it was drawing about 700W on 45C air and now with 0C air it has dropped to 615W.
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Couldn't that also be caused buy an increase in the psus efficiency due to colder temps?
 
ArbY said:
I have a 6970 and the most I've seen it mine was at a rate of 393.6 Mhash/s (-v -w128). I've grown tired of deepbit and am trying out another pool (Simplecoin.us). I'll see if there's any difference in returns.

More to the point of this post, even when mining 24/7 and the GPU is at 78 C, it is not heating the apartment at all. If it was in the bedroom then things would be different, besides actually feeling the heat, the resulting insomnia from hearing the fan spinning at over 5000 RPM wouldn't be so great.

The apartment is like 754 sq ft. The bedroom I'm estimating is 225 sq ft, maybe less. That leaves the mining machine to heat 529 sq ft. Apparently, its too much and I'm sitting here freezing my ass off as I type this. I may soon shut it off entirely since I don't know how long I can last being uncomfortable in my own living space. But all that previous talk about it being a space heater, maybe for dual or tri-cards it might actually work, but this is my own experience. There is just not enough heat produced to make any noticeable difference in the ambient temperature of the apartment. So that space heater idea is now down the toilet. I'm going to try turning the tower around so it's facing the open part of the room instead of the wall, but I'm nearly convinced it's a wasted effort.

Anyone else freezing their assess off as they rely solely on their mining machine for a heating alternative?
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A single card won't do anything as a space heater. You need at least two or three and I would highly recommend not using reference cards with blower fans but non-reference with axial fans as they will be quiet while still moving air to warm your room. It also helps to have some additional fans to help circulate air and push it out of your space heating mining rig. Relying on ambient convection is not as good as having your system actively pushing air around.

This is my space heater of 3x5870s for my bedroom and it is so effective that I sleep with the window partially open in the Canadian winter with -30° C nights
ghetto1.jpg


For my computer room/home office, I just rely on crossfired Sapphire 6950s (also with axial fans) and a 2500K @ 4.5GHz to heat the room silently and it works perfectly fine as well.

I also have 3 5870s heating the basement and 3 5870s heating the garage which helps keep my car happy.

My 5870s can do close to 460 MH/s so it may be an issue with your 6790 overclocking or the miner you are using.

Honestly, with Simplecoin, I'm not sure if my returns are maximized since the total hashrate is so low that the luck is here and there but from time to time I vary between 10-15% of the total hashrate of the entire pool so with each block, I get from 10-15% of the returns.
 
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fps4ever said:
I know this goes against everything you've been taught but have you tried to partially cover up some of the vents on the case to get the temps up a little more? It might help to get the video card temp up to 88C-90C, which shouldn't hurt it? The ambient temp in the case will rise as well. That may just help enough...
Click to expand...

physics fail
 
Kardonxt said:
Couldn't that also be caused buy an increase in the psus efficiency due to colder temps?
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Yep, any combination of things. It could even be the effect of the temperature on the kill-a-watt. There is a relation between temperature and power consumption with silicon though.
 
Look up [H]'s review of the Pallit WC'd 580GTX's. The same card with the same volt and speeds used less power when cooled 20c lower with the WC'ing solution as apposed to the air version. It wasn't huge but noticable.
 
Yeah, I only brought up the "mining rig as a space heater" topic since there was all this buzz during the summer that the net loss due to power usage wouldn't be so disproportionate because you'd need to be heating your place anyway. As I've found first hand, it won't work in any room larger than a bedroom at least with my card. I have a Corsair 600T case, so there's no shortage of airflow. The baseboard heaters which I have draw between 1,000 - 1,500 W depending on the lengths, and there are several. They will obviously heat the room up fairly quickly, but I'm not clear on how often they'll need to be used in order to maintain a comfortable ambient temperature. The fact that the mining rig makes no perceivable difference in the heat of the room has basically talked me into abandoning the operation. It's not profitable. It's drawing power from the wall but it isn't doing anything more than raising my electric bill. Too bad, it definitely made the room quite warmer in the summer if it was left on during the day, but at this point, it's just full of hot air.
 
So, you were expecting one 300w PC to adequately replace several 1500w heaters?

I hope for your sake you are trolling
 
You can run a computer and your normal heating at the same time. The PC will add heat as it works and so the amount of heat you need to supply using your other heaters decreases by same amount. If all of your heating was electric to start then the your power bill will be exactly the same. If you normally heat you place with gas or something then that might be cheaper than using electricity. Why would you sit around in the cold thinking that is the only way to use the heat from your PC to help heat your apartment?
 
ArbY said:
Yeah, I only brought up the "mining rig as a space heater" topic since there was all this buzz during the summer that the net loss due to power usage wouldn't be so disproportionate because you'd need to be heating your place anyway. As I've found first hand, it won't work in any room larger than a bedroom at least with my card. I have a Corsair 600T case, so there's no shortage of airflow. The baseboard heaters which I have draw between 1,000 - 1,500 W depending on the lengths, and there are several. They will obviously heat the room up fairly quickly, but I'm not clear on how often they'll need to be used in order to maintain a comfortable ambient temperature. The fact that the mining rig makes no perceivable difference in the heat of the room has basically talked me into abandoning the operation. It's not profitable. It's drawing power from the wall but it isn't doing anything more than raising my electric bill. Too bad, it definitely made the room quite warmer in the summer if it was left on during the day, but at this point, it's just full of hot air.
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Mining is perfectly capable of being a great space heater. The problem is that 1 card is not enough to bring the temperature up to a comfortable range. For your square footage, 2-3 cards on 24/7 would work perfectly. Believe me, it's below freezing outside but I still have the window cranked half open because my 3 cards have me boiling in bed.
 
I dont know the geographic location of the guy asking questions about bitcoin space heaters - here in North Texas though my SINGLE 6950 OC'd to 930 (axial dual fan model) does make an ever so slight difference in temps.

Only because the coldest it's been here for one night was 24F - if I leave the thing running all day while I'm at work my apartment is usually noticeably warmer. I still havent had to turn on my "real" heater but then again we have had warmer than normal weather (lows 30/40F, hell later this week high of 63F is predicted.)

If you are up north where its -10F then a single GPU by itself won't do anything noticeable. That being said though it will make SOME difference - gotta respect those laws of thermodynamics :)

On my single OC'd 6950 I'm getting about 340-360 Mhash - I forget which pool I'm mining under for the time being, but I only have like 1.1BTC after 2 weeks of off and on mining. No idea what I can spend it on if anything though.
 
working on getting guiminer set back up

ERROR:root:Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "guiminer.py", line 2275, in run
File "guiminer.py", line 1717, in __init__
File "guiminer.py", line 1943, in load_config
File "guiminer.py", line 955, in start_mining
File "subprocess.pyo", line 621, in __init__
File "subprocess.pyo", line 830, in _execute_child
WindowsError: [Error 267] The directory name is invalid
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "guiminer.py", line 2284, in <module>
File "guiminer.py", line 2275, in run
File "guiminer.py", line 1717, in __init__
File "guiminer.py", line 1943, in load_config
File "guiminer.py", line 955, in start_mining
File "subprocess.pyo", line 621, in __init__
File "subprocess.pyo", line 830, in _execute_child
WindowsError: [Error 267] The directory name is invalid


wtf, any ideas?
 
not at my house...but back up to 4 bux recently

edit/ answered my own question; no APPDATA environment variable defined, how it got undefined is a mystery
 
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I'm using my 3 6950 as room heaters need to heat the house anyway why not make some coins
 
that's where I'm at...cold ass out there

hey, that guy from simplecoin still on here?
 
Kardonxt said:
$5 you say? May be worth firing the farm back up, Sold most of it off already tho.
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Yup, up to around $5.50. And difficulty is down to 1.15 million, so equivalent to about $8.60 at the difficulty of around 1.8 million that it was a few months ago.
 
Damn i still have a good amount of 5830s around but sold most of my mobos and psus. Hrmmmm what to do what to do? lol
 
Parja said:
Quite well, actually. I've got a BS in Mechanical Engineering. About a quarter of my major level curriculum was Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer.
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i like how fps4ever ran away from the thread after reading this

ot: i have a bulk amount (subjective) of namecoins saved up, but the nmc/btc exchange rate looks like it is fluctuating depending on the btc/usd exchange rate, in a way that doesn't benefit me. so it looks like im just stuck sitting on this pile of forever worthless nmc.

unless, of course, something big were to happen with NMC.
 
Kardon or anybody else who has downsized, you got any x16-x16 patch cables laying around you need to get rid of? I'm getting a spotswood case and need 2 or 3.
 
flogge said:
Kardon or anybody else who has downsized, you got any x16-x16 patch cables laying around you need to get rid of? I'm getting a spotswood case and need 2 or 3.
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I've got one spare 16x to 16x cable and two 1x to 16x cables (works the same for mining).
 
I gotta get another barebones setup to get my 5870's back up and running again, and that's not counting my 6 x 5770's
 
sethmo said:
Yeah, I feel you. I can't run my 8x5830s and 2x6950s at the same time on the same breaker :(
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LOL.

Think that's hard? Try 13 5870s and 2 6950s in one basement on one breaker.

I'm down to only 9 5870s now and 2 6950s now split up to warm the place. I will have to quit in summer. The basement is the only place cool enough for everything then.
 
So how many of you are in the red because of the bust? Seems like it is coming back. Currently at $6.21.
 
I was in the green and sold off most of my hardware to put me way in teh green.

The decision now is if it's worth me eating up all the green to get back into the game. I dont think it is. Would take too long to pay of the hardware. I may have better luck playing the market.
 
EdGaRRRRR said:
So how many of you are in the red because of the bust? Seems like it is coming back. Currently at $6.21.
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I've been mining non-stop through the bust and difficulty declines and I've been holding the stash of coins, so I've seen a rather nice appreciation in value over the past week or two. On the downside, difficulty appears to be on the increase again (5% last time, looks like another 5-10% soon).
 
If you guys mined through the bust and low-difficulty, you would be in a good postion if you held onto the coins. Unfortunately, I kept selling everytime it hit about $3 because it didn't look like it would break that for 2 months and it was on a huge downward trajectory since the summer.

Here's what I think happened: a ton of people bought bitcoins to buy Christmas presents and that drove the value up. That would account for the meteroric spike just before Christmas. Now that the prices started going up, the speculators are back in. If you bought a ton of coin @ $3 in early December, you'd be able to double your money today.
 
I mined until early December when I started having machine issues. Back up at half speed. I used a good chunk of my stash to buy gift cards for Xmas at about $3.
 
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