Plan to mine ETH part time on gaming PC - questions

Staypuft

Gawd
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Hello all, I keep seeing posts and recommendations about using GPUs to mine part time while not gaming. I have done some research and come up with a preliminary plan:

Wallet: use existing coinbase wallet (used for some experimenting with curecoin) OR create something new with coinomi or myetherwallet...
Q: Any suggestions? Not looking for hardware fob, need simple and free. PC, phone app ok

Miner: based upon the research, looks like T-Rex is the way to go. I have read that some miners don't work correctly with 3000 series (ex: PhoenixMiner).
Q: Thoughts on this?

Pool: want to start simple and use something more common. Thinking ethermine for starters.
Q: Opinions?


Regarding use of an RTX 3060 to mine ETH. I read that you must run this card in primary PCIE (8x or above) slot with a special driver (470.05). This would mean the PC would eventually need to become a spare rig once the driver becomes too outdated for gaming.
Q: Can I run another 3060, or other card, in a second slot on the same mobo with this 3060 and still achieve peak hashrates?

General Motherboard Q: any known issues with the following chipsets being used for small mining rigs? P67, Z68, Z170? I'm assuming a Z490/590 will be fine. I have options.


Thanks for reading through and I appreciate any advice.
 
The easiest way to get started is to mine on nice hash, you get paid in BTC and you can send it to your coinbase account for free

edit, I put my rigs on it when I don't feel like looking around for alts - so easy

edit 2 - yeah, 3060 has been de-tuned by nvidia for mining, I keep hearing different reports on the "special driver" lets us know if it works.

Yes, you can plug another card in if you have a free slot that it fits
 
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Part 1

This is how I do it, might be useful to follow as you explore many different options. This method will allow many options quickly with different software miners at a click of a button, will automatically let you know when miner and software updates are available. At first it may seem confusing, but it is the quickest way I have found to configure multiple different cards, CPUs, coins, pools etc. And extremely simple in the end.

Awesome miner:
  • Free version limited to two miners (coins), can run multiple GPUs. Automatically installs many different miners for AMD, Nvidia, Both, CPUs and ASICs and will flag updates when those become available.
  • License version, basically buy more miners, gives more controls such as OCing GPU in the interface.
  • Download and install Awesome Miner
    • https://www.awesomeminer.com/download
    • The sight has FAQ, examples etc. which you can explore at your leisure
    • I will show walk through in setting up software to Mining Pool Hub pool for Ethereum (most profitable coin for most GPUs).
  • Create an account at Mining Pool Hub
    • https://miningpoolhub.com/
    • Left pane, top, click on Sign Up and create an account, very easy no personal information etc. is required other than an email address. USERNAME is what you use later to configure your miner to correctly assign rewards to your account.
      • MPHsignUp.png Reg.png
 
Part 2

Making it work easy and quick.

  • Open up Awesome Miner, Main tab, (ignore the two miners already configured on my setup, in your window at this point there will be no miners in the window)
    • With Main Tab selected, in toolbar, click on “New miner…” button
      • NewMiner.png
  • In Add new miner window click on “Next”
    • AddMiner.png
  • In Select miner type click on “Managed Miner” and then click on “Next”
    • SelectMiner.png
  • In Managed Miner window click Next
    • ManagedMiner.png
  • In Manage Miner – Pool window (fill out form)
    • Algorithm: click on the “By Coin” button which will pop up another window, Select Coin, scroll through and click on Ethereum (ETH)
      • Coin.png
    • Mining software: Select T-Rex nVidia GPU Miner
      • MiningSoftware.png
    • Path: leave blank
    • Pool: Click Actions -> New pool…
      • Newpool.png
    • Pool Properties Window, General
      • PoolProp.png
        • Description: Put what you want here
        • Pool connection URL:
          • This has to be right so just cut and paste here
          • stratum+tcp://us-east.ethash-hub.miningpoolhub.com:20535
        • Worker name: Your account name has to before the period, after the period is your description to identify your rig (can be anything). Important, is case sensitive and this tells the pool who to give the rewards to.
          • ExtremelyHard.3060
        • Worker password: not required, I just put a x there
        • Optional:
          • Coin: Select Ethereum
          • Wallet address: leave blank
          • Personalization string and Notes – leave blank
      • PoolProp2.png
      • Click OK
  • Click Next in Managed Miner – Pool Miner
    • ManagedMiner2.png
  • Miner Wizard Window click Finish
    • MinerWiz.png
  • You will have a miner now in your Main window
  • Select it by clicking on the miner, and click on the Start button
    • Start.png
  • You should now be mining, here I am using one of my already setup miner
    • Mining.png
That is the basics, recommend exploring around the software, right click on things as well. The software becomes rather intuitive and powerful in configuring but some effort has to be put in initially. If everything went right you are mining and of course how to get your coins off of the pool (very easy) and other stuff has to be learned as well.
 
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Hello all, I keep seeing posts and recommendations about using GPUs to mine part time while not gaming. I have done some research and come up with a preliminary plan:

Wallet: use existing coinbase wallet (used for some experimenting with curecoin) OR create something new with coinomi or myetherwallet...
Q: Any suggestions? Not looking for hardware fob, need simple and free. PC, phone app ok

Miner: based upon the research, looks like T-Rex is the way to go. I have read that some miners don't work correctly with 3000 series (ex: PhoenixMiner).
Q: Thoughts on this?

Pool: want to start simple and use something more common. Thinking ethermine for starters.
Q: Opinions?


Regarding use of an RTX 3060 to mine ETH. I read that you must run this card in primary PCIE (8x or above) slot with a special driver (470.05). This would mean the PC would eventually need to become a spare rig once the driver becomes too outdated for gaming.
Q: Can I run another 3060, or other card, in a second slot on the same mobo with this 3060 and still achieve peak hashrates?

General Motherboard Q: any known issues with the following chipsets being used for small mining rigs? P67, Z68, Z170? I'm assuming a Z490/590 will be fine. I have options.


Thanks for reading through and I appreciate any advice.
I use Coinbase, I have a set amount of ETH once mined it automatically goes to my coinbase account. In Coinbase go to Ethereum and get a receiving address so you can put that in the wallet address for the pool to pay you eventually, which you can set for most pools the amount to build up to before they pay you. Transfers have fees, smaller transfers add up on the fees, makes it harder for taxes etc. Leaving too much on a pool can also start being an issues as in if they get hacked you can loose it. Nicehash got hacked and I lost over $900, they paid that back over time. MPH I never loss anything.

I also use T-Rex for my 1080Ti's and 3090 (when mining)

Pool, I like Mining Pool Hub because you can auto exchange coins, mine the most profitable and auto convert to the one you want. For example, mine ETH and auto convert to RVN. I have used multiple number of different pools, MPH has low fees and I've never had a serious issue with them but if you do coins not in a given pool you will use multiple pools in the end.
 
Fired up per the above tutorial (thanks for that) and it’s running no prob. Problem is this 3060 only makes 22 MH/s. Followed all the online advice for the nvidia limiter workaround (driver 470.05, gpu in primary slot x16, monitor connected to HDMI). No go. From what I am reading the problem is my PCIE 2.0 slot. Must be 3.0 for this to work.

The real issue is that my plan to part time mine was for one or two machines that currently have PCIE 2.0 motherboards (Sandy Bridge era, LOL).

Will move the 3060 to a Z170 board to see if it will hit 40+ MH/s. Then I can decide next steps...
 
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You can also quickly try different miners like: Nanominer, PhonixMiner etc.
  • Select your miner (highlights blue) in Awesome Miner on Main view
    • Right click to open up Menu and click on Properties (bottom of the Menu)
      • OpeningProperties.png
    • This will open up the Managed Miner Properties where you can edit and change your configuration
      • OpenMinerProperties.png
    • On this page for Mining Software: line, open up mining software options and choose another Miner, you can do this while mining, select OK button on bottom of page when done. The miner selection will have green N for Nvidia or Red A or both to indicate what GPU manufacturer is supported for a given algorithm for a coin
      • SelMiner.png
    • Now to see the change just restart the miner using toolbar menu above and the new mining software will now be used
The good with this is you can find the software quickly on what gives the best hashrate, minimizes other issues such as mining and doing other stuff at the same time. Some miners or versions of the same miner can make doing something else on the computer impractical. For example for me mining Monero using XMRig on the TR 3960x causes constant intermittent pauses while XMR-stak-RX does not even when all 24 cores are at 100%, no difference with routine tasks.

Now some mining software maybe more aware of a 3060 and drivers to take advantage of it then others, so you might want to try this first.
 
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You can also quickly try different miners like: Nanominer, PhonixMiner etc.
... you might want to try this first.
Alright. Tried a handful of the different miners. Nano was same @ 21MH/s. Phoenix and a couple others didn't run. Sooooo...

I moved the 3060 to another PC with a Z170 PCIE 3.0 motherboard. BAM, working at full hashrate. See screenshots below for the two different setups:


Z68 PCIE 2.0
3060MiningZ68.jpg

This is stock performance.


Z170 PCIE 3.0
3060miningZ170.jpg

This second one has some tweaks to limit power and boost memory via Afterburner. Stock out-of-the-box performance was 41 MH/s.
 
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Great! I also read that the Nvidia mining driver does what you said, looking for an 8x or 16x pcie slot to enable full mining, also single card. Your also indicating it has to be a pcie 3.0 or 4.0 as well which is interesting. So maybe Nvidia is working on allowing gamers to mine as well on a single card.
 
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