Win7 Ultimate x64 SP1 Updates Fail - KB2619339 - KB2729094 - KB976932

McCaulk · 19 Nov 2012

No problem :)
The first part of the network should sync pretty fast and that's because there were not many transactions per block in the early days. While with bitcoin growing there is a hugh increase in the transactions so those blocks take longer to verify. The blocks remaining is not really a good identifier of how much time is remaining to fully sync.

There would also be the question of do you use an encrypted filesystem as bitcoin does a lot of Disc I/O. Very little of the time is spent downloading the blockchain data compared to how much time your computer is spending verifying each transaction. That's why internet performance isn't really a big factor with bitcoins, even if you had multiple mining rigs setup mining i don't think you would need more then 10Mbps in both directions.

But then again it depends on if you want to have and store your BitCoin wallet on your Computer or if you choose to use an online wallet. If you store your bitcoins wallet on your computer then you will have a wallet file and if you delete this file simply put you have deleted your bitcoins and there are no hopes to get them back as they would just be lost in the network. You could use an online wallet such as https://blockchain.info that will stay up to date for you... They also allow withdraw with PayPal for a fee of course.

If you wanting to mine i would definitely recommend pool mining as mining on your own would probably be an impossible task and you would never actually get a block to yourself. So there are mining pool websites you can join where basically hundreds can all mine together then when the block is found everyone gets a share depending on how much work they did. A lot safer as you get BitCoins for sure but the pool is most likely taking a share so for instance each block might only be worth 45BTC as the pool is taking 5BTC per successful block. But with enough users you can finish many blocks per day.

I would like to have internet like yours, i got dedicated 1Gbps lines on each of my dedicates servers but my personal internet is only 30/1

tom982 · 19 Nov 2012

Yeah, it was flying along at the start and had me thinking that it would be done in no time. I left my computer on whilst I was at my lectures today and it's done 5.7k whilst I was away, so I'm down to the last 300 blocks now. There's 8 people on the network, so it's going at a reasonable rate.

I don't encrypt my filesystem. I have encrypted file containers that I use to store sensitive information, which I'll put my Bitcoin wallet in when it's finished. Would you recommend using Blockchain? It sounds like a good idea to me, but I'm new to the whole bitcoin scene. Paypal withdrawals would be ideal :)

Do you have any recommendations for which pool to join? I saw this one being recommended somewhere:

mining.bitcoin.cz

1Gbps lines

Wow... and I thought mine was fast! I suppose you probably need those sort of speeds for a server. 30Mb/s DL is pretty good, but 1Mb/s UL would annoy me because I use Dropbox a lot.

McCaulk · 19 Nov 2012

Oh man i know, 1Mbit upload is just awful. Just forget about uploading anything but php files

Id definitely recommend using Blockchain.info, in the early days there were not online services like it but now it's great as even if you have failure of some sort you don't lose your bitcoins and you don't have to stay up to date with the actual blockchain as they do all that for you. Plus being able to transfer right to PayPal is a huge plus if you don't mind paying the small premium.

As for a mining pool iv used BitCLockers with no troubles mainly, iv tried others but to be honest i just can't remember the names as i left them for some reason and went back to BitClockers.com.

If your living in a situation where utilities are included you can also use that to your advantage as the one thing that would put you in the red (aside from startup costs) you just eliminated as Power is the only expensence while mining.

tom982 · 19 Nov 2012

lol, you might as well post it to your server host.

Yeah, I've got costs included at the moment - I'm in university halls at the moment and will be until June so I have all the electricity that I want

I'm really confused with this setup, it doesn't seem to work for me. The main Bitcoin application has finished syncing with the network. I made an account at Blockchain (my number: 1J3Vom1wYDZwzVVTPdGds58rv8yMJ5qJPc). I also made an account ad BitClockers. I then downloaded the GUIMiner application and set it up to work off my 7850

It doesn't seem to like me though:

Code:

2012-11-20 00:15:05: Running command: poclbm.exe tom982:IO errors - 1, tolerance 2@pool.bitclockers.com:8332 --device=0 --platform=0 --verbose -r1 
2012-11-20 00:15:05: Listener for "7850" started
2012-11-20 00:15:05: Listener for "7850": 20/11/2012 00:15:05,  need more than 1 value to unpack
2012-11-20 00:15:05: Listener for "7850": 20/11/2012 00:15:05,  need more than 1 value to unpack
2012-11-20 00:15:05: Listener for "7850": 20/11/2012 00:15:05,  need more than 1 value to unpack
2012-11-20 00:15:05: Listener for "7850": 20/11/2012 00:15:05,  need more than 1 value to unpack
2012-11-20 00:15:05: Listener for "7850": 20/11/2012 00:15:05,  need more than 1 value to unpack
2012-11-20 00:15:05: Listener for "7850": 20/11/2012 00:15:05,  need more than 1 value to unpack
2012-11-20 00:15:06: Listener for "7850": At least one server is required
2012-11-20 00:15:06: Listener for "7850": 20/11/2012 00:15:06, started OpenCL miner on platform 0, device 0 (Pitcairn)
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": Traceback (most recent call last):
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": File "Switch.pyo", line 45, in __init__
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": File "Switch.pyo", line 60, in parse_server
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": ValueError: need more than 1 value to unpack
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": Traceback (most recent call last):
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": File "Switch.pyo", line 45, in __init__
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": File "Switch.pyo", line 59, in parse_server
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": ValueError: need more than 1 value to unpack
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": Traceback (most recent call last):
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": File "Switch.pyo", line 45, in __init__
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": File "Switch.pyo", line 59, in parse_server
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": ValueError: need more than 1 value to unpack
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": Traceback (most recent call last):
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": File "Switch.pyo", line 45, in __init__
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": File "Switch.pyo", line 59, in parse_server
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": ValueError: need more than 1 value to unpack
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": Traceback (most recent call last):
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": File "Switch.pyo", line 45, in __init__
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": File "Switch.pyo", line 59, in parse_server
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": ValueError: need more than 1 value to unpack
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": Traceback (most recent call last):
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": File "Switch.pyo", line 45, in __init__
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": File "Switch.pyo", line 60, in parse_server
2012-11-20 00:15:07: Listener for "7850": ValueError: need more than 1 value to unpack

Any ideas? I'm running the latest AMD drivers.

Tom

McCaulk · 20 Nov 2012

Yeah that's perfect, since your at uni you could essentially leave your computer mining 24x7 if your able to. But id recommend CGMiner over anything else, it seems to work the best for me.

Also since your using an AMD GPU make sure you have the most recent OpenCL SDK installed as well as the GPU drivers. Then with CGMiner type in the pool url including port number, username, password and see if you connect to the pool and start getting successful shares. With a 7850 you should start getting shares within the a few seconds probably.

But to simplify things if you are going to use blockchain.info as your wallet as well as do pooled mining (which you should) then you don't necessarily even need the main bitcoin client. Because blockchain.info will stay up to date for you and you don't need the actual blockchain downloaded for pool mining. Since all the BTC you earn for mining will be kept at BitClockers.com and then whenever you want to cash out you tell BitClockers to send your balance to your wallet which in this case would be your blockchain.info number. Then when you have a high enough ballance you can cash out to paypal.

tom982 · 20 Nov 2012

Yeah, that's the plan, it might turn my room into an oven though!

Thanks for the tip about CGMiner.

I installed the OpenCL SDK and then CGMiner wouldn't launch, telling me I had no devices. So I uninstalled the runtime (but left the SDK) and it launches now. But I still can't connect to BC:

Code:










 [2012-11-20 14:04:03] Press any key to exit, or cgminer will try again in 15s.
 [2012-11-20 14:04:19] Pool 0 slow/down or URL or credentials invalid
 [2012-11-20 14:04:19] Unable to get work from pool 0 http://pool.bitclockers.co
m:8332
 [2012-11-20 14:04:19] No servers were found that could be used to get work from
.
 [2012-11-20 14:04:19] Please check the details from the list below of the serve
rs you have input
 [2012-11-20 14:04:19] Most likely you have input the wrong URL, forgotten to ad
d a port, or have not set up workers
 [2012-11-20 14:06:41] Pool: 0  URL: http://pool.bitclockers.com:8332  User: tom
9827850  Password: REMOVED
 [2012-11-20 14:06:41] Press any key to exit, or cgminer will try again in 15s.

I started CGMiner, entered the pool URL:

http://pool.bitclockers.com:8332

Entered my worker username:

tom9827850

Entered my worker password. Then I was shown the above

Tom

McCaulk · 20 Nov 2012

Hmm, im not exactly sure what that could be

What version of CGMiner are you using, the latest one is 2.9.4 though in saying that im only using 2.6.1.

Now that you have OpenCL see if you can connect using the other mining program to check if it's a problem with CGMiner or not being able to connect. If you still can't connect create a new worker with a random password and let me see if i can connect to make sure the worker is good.

Here's what mine looks like when it starts up

tom982 · 20 Nov 2012

I've just realised what I've been doing wrong this whole time. I accidentally installed the OpenCL 2013 Beta instead of the 2012 stable release (still don't know how!). But now I've installed the 2012 version, it works perfectly:

So that's mining for me now? My speeds are a lot better than I was expecting them to be :)

Thanks so much for your help!

McCaulk · 20 Nov 2012

Ah that's great news :)

But yes now you are successfully pool mining. Leave it on non stop mining then whenever you want withdraw your BitCoins to your BlockChain wallet from BitClockers then whenever you have enough Withdraw to PayPal and get your real money.

tom982 · 20 Nov 2012

McCaulk said:

Ah that's great news :)

But yes now you are successfully pool mining. Leave it on non stop mining then whenever you want withdraw your BitCoins to your BlockChain wallet from BitClockers then whenever you have enough Withdraw to PayPal and get your real money.

Great :) This could take a while! I'm on 0.00103776BTC lol.