text:
How to get started using your GPU to mine for Bitcoins on Windows
This is no longer guaranteed to be correct/up to date
(In a slight departure from my normal content…)
Money for only running your computer!? It's more likely than you might think! No referral pyramid scam shit, you can make as much money as you have computing power to devote.
***NOTE: Since the difficulty is very high, unless you have an ASIC mining device and/or a very significant aggregate hash rate (over several TENS OF Ghash/sec or more) you are probably going to spend more on electricity than you can recoup in mined bitcoins, even when mining in a pool! If you have access to free electricity though, then there really is no argument against mining (aside from the *possibility* of shortening the lifespan of your graphics card(s)/mining hardware). For solo mining, you may end up waiting for many months/years to generate your own block and get 25 bitcoins (plus transaction fees), or use lots of electricity to maybe not ever generate a block at all.***
This post is aimed mostly at people who are already familiar with Bitcoin (Wikipedia page), and would like to get started using their GPU(s) to mine for bitcoins in a Windows environment.
Just some quick terminology: miner = program which is external to bitcoin-qt.exe that uses your graphics card to perform calculations; your GPU is much more efficient at the type of calculations bitcoin does than your CPU
First of all, you are going to need a graphics card that supports CUDA and/or OpenCL; most graphics cards from the past 2-3 years will support this.
*UPDATE*: If you are unsure, please download GPU Caps Viewer (I recommend the portable version) to determine if you have a compatible video device and a working version of OpenCL installed. If you are using an AMD/ATI card you likely need to install the ATI APP SDK (make sure you obtain the correct version for 32/64-bit Windows).
Please make sure you are using the most recent drivers for your particular graphics card.
Important: Make sure that windows explorer is configured to show file extensions and show hidden folders – In windows explorer go to tools(alt+t)→folder options→view tab→tick the show hidden files/folders button, and also make sure the box for hide file extensions is unchecked. This is very important or you may end up trying to create bitcoin.conf.txt without even realizing the .txt extension is still present!
Too Long; Didn't Read / Easy and somewhat automated version:
1. Go to www.bitcoin.org, download and install the most recent version of bitcoin (the default file path should be fine).
2. A GUI-based tool exists here which will help to speed this up and will automate a lot of the setup steps. Go to the linked forum thread, download and extract the archive somewhere, and then run guiminer.exe.
3. From the GUIMiner interface, click solo utilities → set bitcoin client path. Point the dialog box to bitcoin-qt.exe; likely located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\bitcoin-qt.exe or C:\Program Files\Bitcoin\bitcoin-qt.exe. Next click solo utilities → create solo password. Pick anything arbitrary for username and password but remember it, as you will need to use this later. Then finally you want to click solo utilities → launch bitcoin client as server.
This will launch bitcoin ready to be mined with, you must first wait for all the blocks to be downloaded before you can start to mine, and this may take several hours; you can view the current block count here.
4. Once all the blocks are downloaded, select solo from the server drop down box, then enter the username and password that you used before, then click start mining. Congratulations, you are now mining for bitcoins
(Recommended) 5. Since the difficulty is high now, you will only likely see an immediate return if you mine as part of a pool. The GUI Miner will greatly expedite pool setup and you can find some more information about pools here.
Additional notes: The GUI Miner also does not display the actual console window of poclbm or whatever miner you may be using; this may be desirable for some people.
Long, manual set up version using batch scripts and the command prompt:
Please note that the long version of this guide will show you how to do everything manually and via the command line. This is somewhat advanced and only recommended if you are comfortable manually creating/editing text files and using the command prompt.
1. To start, head over to http://www.bitcoin.org/ and download the latest windows client. Install it to wherever you want, but it may be of benefit to keep the directory path somewhat simple, because batch scripts and launching from the command line will follow. For argument's sake, I will just assume you are using the default install path on the 64-bit version of windows, so your install directory may be:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin
At the time of writing, the latest version of bitcoin is 0.3.23, and your overall path to bitcoin-qt.exe should be:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\bitcoin-qt.exe
To start, open up a command prompt (windows key + r → type cmd → hit enter), and then navigate to the directory where bitcoin-qt.exe is located. If you've been following along with my examples, you will want to type this into the command prompt window:
cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin
2. Put the command prompt aside for just a second, because before launching bitcoin, you will need to create a text file called bitcoin.conf (the location of this file will vary depending on which version of Windows you are using)
If you are using Windows 7 or Vista, navigate to:
If you are using Windows XP, navigate to:
C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Bitcoin
(You will probably need to create the "Bitcoin" directory, as bitcoin-qt.exe will auto-create it on first run, but you haven't yet run it… This is also where showing hidden folders comes into play, because on Windows 7 the AppData directory is hidden; Application Data may be hidden on XP as well)
Inside the appropriate folder, just right click and select new→text document, then rename this file to bitcoin.conf
Once you have created this file, open it up with your favorite text editor and add the following 2 lines (don't forget to save it when finished):
Where youruser and yourpw should be any arbitrary username and password; this is supplied to the miner later on via command line so that the miners can communicate with bitcoin-qt.exe (these are the values that bitcoin expects, if the miner specifies different values at launch you will likely get RPC errors).
3. Next, you want to start bitcoin-qt.exe with the '-server' argument specified. This tells bitcoin that there will be external programs running and allows bitcoin to communicate with them. To do so, bring your command prompt back into focus and type:
bitcoin-qt.exe -server
(alternatively you can just launch bitcoind.exe from the \daemon directory, which is the GUI-less client, but I prefer to use the GUI client. Using bitcoind.exe is equivalent to launching bitcoin-qt.exe with the arguments -server -daemon specified)
Now you will see bitcoin start up for the first time. Your client must first download the block chain before you will be able to start generating coins, and this is done automatically on first startup. You will see the number of blocks begin to increase over time, and at the time of writing there are 130,805 blocks (you can view the current block count here). This can take many hours, so be patient and let it do its thing. This process can be sped up if you forward port 8333 TCP on your router, but this is not required.
4. Next, head on over to this thread and download the latest poclbm_py2exe binary from the first post. There are other miners available which work in windows, but m0mchil's is the one that I use and this guide will instruct how to set up this particular miner. (poclbm stands for (I believe…) PyOpenCL Bitcoin Miner)
If you have been following along so far, I would suggest that you create a new directory inside C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin to reflect the latest version of the windows binary. At the time of writing the most recent version is poclbm_py2exe_20110709, so you should create a new directory
C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110709
and then extract the contents of the archive to this new folder. The executable which will be used is poclbm.exe, but this must be launched via command line and given several launch parameters. This can be tedious to do on windows, so we will expedite this with a batch script. (and your final path to poclbm.exe should be C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110709\poclbm.exe)
5. You can place the batch script anywhere you like; I put mine on my desktop for easy access. Right click again and create a new text file, then rename it to whatever_you_want.bat, all that matters here is the .bat extension. Right click on this file and hit edit (double clicking on it will launch it). In this batch file you want to put the following contents (this is assuming you're following the convention of this guide so far – if you are using your own directory structure, then use whatever location you have chosen instead):
start /D"C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110709" poclbm.exe youruser:yourpw@localhost:8332 –device=0
(Similarly, for using a pool you can do something like this: start /D"C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110709" poclbm.exe http://poolworker.1:email@example.com:8332 –device=0 )
***(Important Note: Some people have been having issues with the batch script failing to launch initially. It seems that it may be important to specify your device number along with the rest of the launch parameters on each line of the batch script. This can be done by simply specifying –device=X, where X is the number of your desired video device; most likely 0. If you have multiple devices, then the 2nd device is likely "1", and so on; if you are using onboard video I am not sure how this would work…)***
"start" just tells the batch script to start a new process in its own window, the /D parameter specifies the directory that the program is located in (this allows the batch script to be launched from anywhere on your computer), and then poclbm.exe is just the target program, followed by the arguments it needs to run properly. Make sure to use the same user and password that you specified earlier in your bitcoin.conf file. Quotes are needed whenever paths have a space in them.
Now all that's left to do is save this file and wait until bitcoin finishes downloading all the blocks; you cannot generate until you have acquired all blocks.
(You may end up waiting a long time for this to finish, so if you want to take some time to go read more about bitcoins and how the system works, now is a good time )
Once all blocks have been acquired, make sure bitcoin is running with the -server switch, then simply double click on your batch file. A new window should pop up and after a few seconds. If all is going well, your hashrate will be displayed. When you want to exit just "x" out of the window or press ctrl-c.
You can make a batch script to launch bitcoin-qt.exe with the -server argument as well, its contents should look something like this:
start /D"C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin" bitcoin-qt.exe -server
If you have more than one graphics card, you can use them both at the same time by doing something similar to this within your batch file:
start /D"C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110709" poclbm.exe youruser:yourpw@localhost:8332 –device=0
start /D"C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110709" poclbm.exe youruser:yourpw@localhost:8332 –device=1
for however many devices you use. This will open up a new window for each graphics card and show each card's hashrate.
Another switch you may want to play around with is the -w switch, which indicates the worksize for your card to use; for example:
start /D"C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110709" poclbm.exe youruser:yourpw@localhost:8332 –device=0 -w 256
By default, m0mchil's miner will use the maximum work size supported by your card, most likely 256 or 512. You can play around with different sizes to see which gives you the highest hashrate; the size must be a power of 2. You will know if you have exceeded your card's maximum size if the miner errors or crashes when you try to start it; going too small will greatly lower your hashrate. You can also play around with the -v argument as well.
If you notice your desktop is being sluggish you can mitigate this by adding:
-f 60
to the end of each line of your batch script.
Assuming you have gotten this far and everything works, you can add the totals of each individual hashrate from your GPU(s), and put the grand total into this calculator to get an idea of how much you can earn daily (if you use a pool). If you are mining solo assume that the expected average time to generate a block is easily
4-8 weeks several decades…or much longer (but this will get you 25BTC).
Now all you have to do is wait…
Note that it will likely take many weeks to generate coins, and you are likely to notice an increase in your power bill while you run your bitcoin miners (Please Note: if you are not using high-end hardware, it is likely that you will spend more on power than you can recoup via bitcoin generation and sales for solo mining). Additionally, you may want to look into doing something like this with [
RivaTuner NO LONGER UPDATED, SEE BELOW] or a similar app to mitigate the temperature increase on your graphics device(s). (I think that rivatuner also works with newer amd/ati cards)
(MSI Afterburner is also recommended)
UPDATE: If you are using slow-ish hardware, take a look at the pooled mining option here. (Additional info on how to use m0mchil's miner with slush's pool)
Troubleshooting: It seems that some people are having issues where the batch script just pops up for a second and then closes without anything happening. This usually indicates that whatever you are trying to launch is failing and quickly prints out an error message on the console window opened by the batch script, but since it fails immediately it closes too quickly for you to read it. In order to determine what the problem is, you will need to navigate to the location of poclbm.exe within a new command prompt; just use cd as is described somewhat in step 1. Once you are in the directory where poclbm.exe is located, you should now try to launch poclbm.exe with the arguments exactly as they are contained in the batch script. So assuming you have been following the conventions of this guide so far, and your batch script fails to start the miner successfully, you would type the following once you are in the directory C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110709:
poclbm.exe youruser:yourpw@localhost:8332 –device=0
This is just how you would normally launch the miner anyway, the batch script simply does this for you when you double click on it. By entering this manually from within an already-open command prompt, if the miner fails to launch, the error messages will be printed to the console and will remain there for you to read. This should give you the specific problem that is preventing your miner from launching, and allow you to provide a more specific error message than "it doesn't open".
Also…please read all of the comments before making a new one asking for help, it is possible that your problem may have already been covered.
Once you do finally generate some coins, you can head on over to www.mtgox.com and create an account. You can now deposit some bitcoins into your account and get trading (there are other exchange sites but mtgox still the largest). More information can be obtained by talking with the folks in #bitcoin-otc on irc.freenode.net; people may be willing to purchase bitcoins directly from you for paypal or other methods of currency exchange. IMPORTANT NOTE: Paypal does NOT like bitcoin, you SHOULD NOT mention bitcoins at all in any correspondence with paypal, nor should you mention it at all when transferring money!!!
ADDITIONAL DISCLAIMER: I am not an accountant/attorney, and any profits you derive from mining and selling bitcoins may be subject to taxes and other regulations. Check your local laws and consult with your personal accountant/attorney to find out how this may affect you.
If you intend to stick with this and help the bitcoin community grow you should also make a forum account on the bitcoin site as well as join the irc channels #bitcoin, #bitcoin-market, and #bitcoin-otc, all on freenode.
I hope that this tutorial helps, and it is only intended to be an introduction to getting a "no frills" miner setup working under windows.
***Yes mining bitcoins is legal but you may be subject to fees and regulation(s) if you choose to sell them
Please leave a comment if you found this post useful, have any problems, or if you notice any errors or inconsistencies. If you are feeling generous, I will gladly accept any donations of any amount at the bitcoin addresses 1J3UPhu8i5XCz7A5sPC4rRz99fPzFn3N5e
347 comments so far...
hmmm Said on December 1st, 2010 at 15:50:54:
Is there any info on how many dependencies need to be installed for this? Just following this blog didn't work out for me.
LobsterMan Said on December 1st, 2010 at 19:33:42:
I'll admit…my experience with it is probably atypical as it worked for me first try, just using the latest nvidia drivers, 260.99 I think. You may want to check to make sure that your device supports CUDA/OpenCL. If you still can't get it to work you can post a reply in my thread here and I can try to help you out:
Kiv Said on December 4th, 2010 at 14:10:16:
Thanks for the post! I got an error about not finding a DLL, but updating to the latest drivers fixed it and got it working great. 15 Mhash/sec on a Geforce 9600 GT. It sure does heat up the GPU though, mine was steady at 86 celsius… not sure if that is ok for the long term or if I should throttle it back.
imanikin Said on December 7th, 2010 at 09:55:13:
Thanks for the great instructions! I sent you some BTC from my first block.
It's only going about 12-14M on a Sapphire 5450/AthlonX2-5000+/Win7-64, but that's 7 times faster than it was going on CPU alone. Not going to make me rich, but it's something…
Have fun! :^)
Michael Prins Said on December 7th, 2010 at 12:00:01:
Worked great for me. Missed the restart after installing Stream SDK, but after that all went smoothly. ~225 Mhash/s on a Radeon HD5850 compared to 1500khash/s on my 3GHZ Core Duo.
Johan Said on December 11th, 2010 at 16:42:25:
It's working, 300Mhas/s on a ATI 5870
MarCT Said on December 12th, 2010 at 04:06:16:
Wow, very nice instructions!! Thanks!!
Got about 4000Khash/s on (1) 2.33Ghz Quad CPU (Xeon e5345)
and now 80Mhash/s on an ATI 4870 (looks like i need to upgrade to a 5870 like Johan 🙂 and temp is around 180 F / 84 C,… donation coming your way as soon as my first BTCs come in!
MC Said on December 14th, 2010 at 21:26:41:
Thanks for taking the time to help out with this post!
I did these steps with a GeForce 9600 GT, and got 8000 khash/s.
Then I noticed that my driver wasn't as up-to-date as I thought it was, and after updating, got to 14000 khash/s. Doesn't sound too great compared to others here….
I checked GRU caps viewer, and I definitely have BUDA and openCL.
Any suggestions, or is my graphics cards a lot worse that I thought it was? 🙂
MC Said on December 14th, 2010 at 21:48:44:
Apologies for my typos that make it look like I don't know my acronyms very well 🙂 Looking at a table of graphics card FLOPS, it might well be that my card is just that bad!
LobsterMan Said on December 15th, 2010 at 03:12:50:
MC: That sounds about right, older cards don't do so well, especially nvidias 😛
G Said on December 16th, 2010 at 01:07:10:
Another success…
Installing the ATI stream SDK didn't work for me, I had older ATI drivers. Uninstalled the stream SDK, downloaded & installed the latest Catalyst driver (the Accelerated Parallel Processing version), didn't need to re-install the stream sdk (it appears Catalyst 10.12 comes with stream 2.3). Doing 27M on my HD 4670, pretty good.
For interest I tried running the OpenCL on the CPU. I got about 1650 khash, compared to 3300 khash on the main client. So for me OpenCL on the CPU ran exactly half as fast as the native client on the CPU. I know that's not how you're supposed to use it, just interesting.
Edgar Said on December 16th, 2010 at 12:02:30:
Thanks for the informative write-up. You helped me go from 6mhash/s to 365mhash/s now that I'm using my 5870 as a miner as well as a 9800gtx+ which is in another machine that I'm using as a remote miner client.
Needless to say I'm very happy 8D
I have one concern though, when using the gethashespersec command on the bitcoin.exe -server, it only calculates the CPU hashes/s as per the bitcoin GUI. Is there any way to get a total hashes/s, including the external miners?
Maybe I'm being too skeptical but I'd like some confirmation that the work the external miner GPUs are doing is not being wasted as those numbers just sound too good to be true! That or I sorely underestimated the computing power of a GPU 😀
LobsterMan Said on December 16th, 2010 at 17:29:59:
You can try launching bitcoin with -testnet which has a much lower difficulty for testing if your setup is working
i agree with edgar Said on December 18th, 2010 at 04:56:21:
it would be nice if there was some indication in either the bitcoin GUI or the debug.log that anything was happening, if not poclbm itself.
I connected to test and at least saw what it looked like to generate a few blocks, but my log looks very different on the test and the main. Main looks like
IRC got join
IRC got join
IRC got join
IRC got new address
received: addr (31 bytes)
IRC got join
IRC got new address
IRC got join
IRC got join
sending: addr (31 bytes)
mostly, where the test one actually looked like it was calculating more… does this make sense? I read on the forums that the newest poclbm was supposed to have a "block status" but all i see in my window is a slightly changing ###### khash/s number….
LobsterMan Said on December 19th, 2010 at 17:23:08:
It can be annoying sometimes not knowing if it's working, but if you can see the hashrate, it is working. When you finally do get a block it will show up with like "abcd0ef12 12/20/10 04:20 accepted", but not much more than that. After a while it will show up in your bitcoin.exe UI as a "Generated" transaction.
Running -testnet just gives you a much lower difficulty so blocks will appear within a few minutes to indicate that all is well.
Don't forget, for testnet, you may need to make a copy of your bitcoin.conf file inside the /bictcoin/testnet folder in your appropriate user profile location.
Metal Said on January 4th, 2011 at 20:00:05:
Great Success! I didn't realize how awesome GPU-accelerated stuff like openCL was.
Next, I'm probably going to find out that the cake wasn't a lie after all.
bitcoinnewbie Said on January 15th, 2011 at 23:22:00:
Has anyone tried to do all these via windows remote desktop? ATI stream SDK, poclbm seem unable to see my HD5770 GPU 🙁
LobsterMan Said on January 15th, 2011 at 23:44:16:
I was under the impression that this will not work via RDP, and that you need to set it all up locally
bitcoinnewbie Said on January 16th, 2011 at 13:33:49:
Thanks. I have a headless desktop, only used VGA/TV converter occasionally.
Windows device manager shows there's a HD5700 card, but ATI stream SDK keeps saying there's no OpenCL driver found. CPU is used instead (something like that). I can run the poclbm but only got mere 1800 Khash out of it (the CPU I suppose).
bitcoinnewbie Said on January 16th, 2011 at 19:30:40:
@LobsterMan: You were probably right, MS terminal service session may not have access to the GPU driver I installed. I think I am going to get a monitor and find out.
bitcoinnewbie Said on January 19th, 2011 at 22:18:23:
Bought a monitor, got it working. Yes, it has to be installed from a console session, RDP doesn't work. Thanks!
Nick Said on January 27th, 2011 at 08:22:32:
I can't seem to get it to work.
I create the bitcoin.conf file in "C:\Users\Nick\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin", with a username and password, and then start bitcoin via the command line using -server.
But when I do it says "Warning: to use the '-server' option, you must set rpcpassword = <password> in the configuration file 'C:/Users/Nick/AppData/Roaming/Bitcoin/bitcoin.conf. If the file does not exist, create it with owner-readable-only file permissions"
This is what my bitcoin.conf file looks like
LobsterMan Said on January 27th, 2011 at 08:27:48:
The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is make sure you have file extensions visible, or maybe try putting a new line at the end of bitcoin.conf?
If you're still unsuccessful you can try making a post on the bitcoin forums
LobsterMan Said on February 14th, 2011 at 18:01:33:
I would just like to say thank you very much to all of those who have donated 🙂
laur Said on February 18th, 2011 at 06:53:43:
How do i know when bitcoin has finished downloading all the blocks ? thanks.
LobsterMan Said on February 18th, 2011 at 07:13:30:
Bitcoin has all current blocks when the number of blocks displayed in the bitcoin client matches the number here:
tony Said on February 18th, 2011 at 11:08:59:
I've an error, I launch the bat for poclbm.exe and I see a serie of that in the console:
"incomplete read:incomplete read(296bytes read, 15 more expected) unexpected error traceback (most recent call at last):
File "bitcoinminer.pyc", line 210 in mine
File "bitcoinminer.pyc", line 188 in getwork
File "httplib.pyc", line 525 in read
File "httplib.pyc", line 617 in _safe_read"
Any idea ? what's that shit? thanks for help!
(and sorry for my bad english)
Anonymous Said on February 18th, 2011 at 12:09:13:
[…] […]
Julio Said on February 19th, 2011 at 01:34:29:
como veo los bitcoin generados ? abri el bitcoin como servidor, y luego el pocl… ambos estan calculando… donde veo cuando me calcule un bitcoin ?(segui la guia al pie de la letra)
LobsterMan Said on February 19th, 2011 at 14:33:58:
Tony, you should try asking for help on the forums, Julio I apologize but I don't speak spanish…..no espanol 😀
DarkNeutron Said on February 20th, 2011 at 23:01:59:
I have the same problem as tony:
IncompleteRead: IncompleteRead(296 bytes read,
20/02/2011 22:59:41, Unexpected error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "BitcoinMiner.pyc", line 210, in mine
File "BitcoinMiner.pyc", line 188, in getwor
File "httplib.pyc", line 525, in read
File "httplib.pyc", line 617, in _safe_read
Nick Said on February 21st, 2011 at 03:33:29:
Hi, lobster, only a noob question :
I just don´t get this part :
3. Next, you want to start bitcoin.exe with the '-server' argument specified. This tells bitcoin that there will be external programs running and allows bitcoin to communicate with them. To do so, bring your command prompt back into focus and type:
bitcoin.exe -server"
i mean, if i change the .exe file into "bitcoin.exe -server" the program will not be able to execute.. i don´t know what else can i do… maybe i read wrong..also, i followed all the following steps, and when i click (BUT WITH THE BITCOIN OPENED WITHOUT THE -SERVER) the .bat file i get this message :
"problems communicating with bitcoin RPC"
Hope to get a solution!, thanks for your time
Nick Said on February 21st, 2011 at 18:00:31:
problem solved lobster! i just rename the file ,and execute the bitcoin with the bitcoind.exe. and then the bat file.
i have an HD 5850 and getting 219,000/s any suggestion?
Nick Said on February 21st, 2011 at 19:40:31:
well, i add -w 128 to the .bat file and the hash rate has increased to 240,000/s, now another noob question :
do i have to leave the bat file open during 6 days (average time to generate 1 block), or can i close it whenever i want and just the probability of getting a block is the same?
because i don´t know if the videocard would resist 1 week at 98% gpu haha -.-!
thanks again, regards.
ted Said on February 22nd, 2011 at 13:38:18:
If I run the program and stop a few hours later, he resumed his calculations when he was stopped?
anonymous Said on February 22nd, 2011 at 16:43:12:
The link for ATI stream is dead. You can find it in archives here:
matteumayo Said on February 22nd, 2011 at 19:01:16:
Hey Lobster, would you be able to make a post about using poclbm and doing pooled mining?
anon Said on February 22nd, 2011 at 19:22:00:
72Mhashes/s on a HD5670 with -v -w 128.
Does this sound about right, or do I need to tweak more? Thanks anyway. Donation coming your way when/if something is generated.
LobsterMan Said on February 23rd, 2011 at 11:38:37:
Nick: bitcoind will work for you, but if you use regular bitcoin.exe you need to execute it from the command line, that is where you specify "-server". Also, the batch script should only be open for a very short period of time to launch whatever you are using it to launch, and should not even stick around long enough for you to need to x out of it.
ted: There are no calculations to be "resumed", bitcoin tries to "solve" a problem basically, and it just throws lots and lots of possible solutions at it. You may get lucky and find one and thus generate a block, but there is nothing that needs to be resumed if you stop coin generation
matteumayo: I plan to do that once slush gets the issues he's been having with his pool fixed
anon: that sounds a bit low perhaps, you may want to ask about that on the forums or IRC
Other anon: thanks for telling me that the link was dead. My spam protection plugin had your comment marked as spam for some reason so I had to approve that comment…
For those with the _safe_read error, I'm not sure, I would also suggest that you try on the forums or IRC 🙁
I also am aware that the version numbers in this post are pretty old, I plan to update them once a new version of bitcoin is released
matteumayo Said on February 23rd, 2011 at 15:33:17:
Thanks 😀
Nick Said on February 23rd, 2011 at 20:21:16:
well , thanks a lot for your help, one more thing. I have this two ugly -.- but useful programs opened, don´t know i if am doing it well , see it below :
the coind.exe and de miner.bat up there. My question is, when do i realise that i have successfully generated a block (50 coins)?, and how do i check it , opening the bitcoin.exe again? or something appears into the .bat program?
Also, the bitcoin.exe it´s set as "bitcoin.exe – server" but won´t open. so reaching daemon folder i open bitcoind ,screen below again :p :
i wont bother you any longer , thanks for all again
Matthew Said on February 23rd, 2011 at 20:23:31:
Hey, how do I find all total hash/s including GPU?
matteumayo Said on February 23rd, 2011 at 23:55:34:
Matthew, when you run the GPU client, it says the total k/hash rate, just combine that rate with the CPU rate displayed on the bottom left of the bitcoin client when it's generating.
The CPU rate will always be much smaller in comparison to the GPU however.
Julio Said on February 24th, 2011 at 09:48:41:
dont worry, I wanted to know if anyone knew of bitcoin speak Spanish, because there is not much information in Spanish … but the answer you gave to Ted, he answered mine. thanks … excuse my bad English.
LobsterMan Said on February 24th, 2011 at 16:46:39:
Nick: I think you are still confused. You should not be renaming your executable to include "-server". You need to launch bitcoin.exe from the command prompt, and you only type "-server" into the command line or your batch script. When you launch bitcoin.exe properly with the -server argument, it will just show up normally as the bitcoin gui, but will also allow you to use your miner with it (you can then minimize bitcoin to the system tray if you launch bitcoin.exe). bitcoind.exe is just the gui-less version of bitcoin so you will not see anything aside from the console window that says "bitcoin server starting".
When you do finally generate a block, the bitcoin gui (using bitcoin.exe, NOT bitcoind.exe) will show a "Generated" transaction and you will be credited with 50btc. Also, the miner will report something like this to indicate a block has been generated:
24/02/2011 16:11:35, 2bca4325, accepted
I hope this helps….
(sorry about the delay on some comments appearing, some of them need to be manually approved before they will show up; I do my best to catch them all among the spam)
Homersmrt Said on February 24th, 2011 at 17:20:05:
32000 khash/s with an ATI 4600. Not great, but SIGNIFICANTLY faster than my quad core cpu. Running with all 4 cpu's, it was 4200 khash/s, and the fan (of course) ran constantly! HUGE difference even with a mediocre card… Thanks LobsterMan!!!
Julio Said on February 24th, 2011 at 17:50:34:
apology "lobsterman" to make you suffer the retranslation lol.
Once you open the bitcoin–server, I connect the mine, it makes 250.000khash / s and the processor 9500kh / s, it would be best to leave the vcard working alone? comfortable rest and let the processor? or both make an effort mancumunado(united)?
Thanks for you effort… from venezuela.
LobsterMan Said on February 24th, 2011 at 18:02:00:
Julio (I'll do my best to interpret your question 😀 ): I don't think that there is any negative effect from running both at the same time (CPU + GPU), aside from increased heat output and power consumption. These components are designed for intensive computation, so letting them idle is just "wasting" cpu cycles that could have gone into possibly generating coins. Again though, you should take power consumption into consideration, because most modern hardware and quad core cpu's can use a lot of energy. Just make sure that the temperature of your card and cpu are reasonable and make sure yours fans are working (and dust-free) and you should be ok.
The only real consideration for me is whether or not I am playing a game at the moment, as counter-strike is somewhat laggy when I am running 2 miners. If you don't mind the lag, there should be no problem letting the miners run essentially forever.
Personally, I have rivatuner set up so that when my cards heat up, the fans go to 80% speed (~2600rpm, I am afraid of having them run at 100% all the time) and my GPU cores usually max out at around 80-84°C
Julio Said on February 24th, 2011 at 18:58:44:
Gracias… usted entendio muy bien :)…
mi unico problema es la temperatura de mi tarjeta de video, 80º una hd5850, voy a comprar un disipador nuevo…
gracias por tu tiempo… espero generar algun bitcoin y enviarte algunos para apoyar tu esfuerzo.
Julio Said on February 24th, 2011 at 19:00:01:
Thanks … you understand very well :)…
My only problem is the temperature of my video card, 80 º a HD5850, I'm buying a new sink …
thanks for your time … I hope to generate some bitcoin and send some to support your effort.
I was wrong, published in Spanish
LobsterMan Said on February 24th, 2011 at 19:27:59:
80°C actually sounds about right; my computer keeps my room very warm 🙂
Nick Said on February 24th, 2011 at 20:02:35:
Thanks a lot lobster! everything is working fine now, i just read your guide too fast :p
waka Said on February 24th, 2011 at 22:08:23:
I followed this guide but once I run the final .bat it seems that it's using my cpu instead of my gpu. According to MSI's overclocking tool my GPU isn't doing any work at all while it's running, and my cpu is at 100%.
Did I do something wrong? I'm very sure I have the latest ATi drivers, and I followed everything else correctly it seems, but it's just using my cpu instead of the gpu.
LobsterMan Said on February 25th, 2011 at 17:45:53:
waka: you may want to try using different device numbers in your call to poclbm.exe. Device 0 is usually your first graphics card, but that may not always be the case
Clippy Said on February 25th, 2011 at 18:30:41:
I followed your instructions (attempting both bitcoin.exe – server and running from bitcoind.exe), and I triple-checked that the .conf and batch files were set up properly. But once I have Bitcoin running and then launch the batch file, I just see the command window pop up very briefly and then go away. I don't get the window you describe that shows a hash rate from my GPU (which is an Nvidia). What could be going wrong?
If it matters, I had already downloaded Bitcoin yesterday, ran it, and got all the blocks before following your steps.
What could be going wrong? 🙁
Julio Said on February 25th, 2011 at 23:30:24:
In bitcoingui, meaning the connections? is better to have many or few?
good night…
LobsterMan Said on February 26th, 2011 at 02:49:36:
Clippy: I added a section about troubleshooting after step #5, please try doing that and report back what error message(s) you are getting
Julio: As far as I know, even if you only have 1-2 connections your node is fully operational, and having many connections is not necessarily better than having only a few connections
Clippy Said on February 26th, 2011 at 04:03:52:
Thanks, Lobsterman. I ran it in the console window and this is what I got as the message:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "poclbm.py", line 3, in <module>
File "pyopencl\__init__.pyc", line 3, in <module>
File "pyopencl\_cl.pyc", line 12, in <module>
File "pyopencl\_cl.pyc", line 10, in __load
ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified procedure could not be found.
It looked like the problem might be that I needed to unzip the file "library.zip", which I did, into the same directory as the poclbm_py2exe_20110222 folder, but got the same message. I also tried copying libeay32.dll from the main bitcoin directory into that folder (because I had seen bitcoind.exe need that DLL in the same directory), but still got the same message.
Any further suggestions? Does library.zip need to be unzipped, or unzipped a different way?
Thanks again for helping me troubleshoot this. You're a good human.
Clippy Said on February 26th, 2011 at 04:06:51:
That comment looked nicer in this editor before I posted than it looks now.
LobsterMan Said on February 26th, 2011 at 14:12:37:
Clippy: That looks like it may be a drivers problem, if you don't have them already, get the latest drivers for your card from http://www.nvidia.com and then reboot and try again
rogalik Said on February 26th, 2011 at 15:39:13:
Update needed, with the newest version you also have to specify OpenCL platform
Clippy Said on February 26th, 2011 at 19:10:33:
Thank you LobsterMan! I can't believe it! It actually works now! GPU fan is definitely working harder, and it's reporting 29 Mhash/sec. Perhaps time for a GPU replacement…
Should we worry about overworking the GPU? What is a way to check on its health?
Thanks again!
reflex99 Said on February 27th, 2011 at 15:15:49:
Great guide. pulling about 210K khash with my 6870…. I can smell the money.
Quick question lobster, if you don't mind me asking. How much (if any) do you get per month off your hardware?
Dave Said on February 27th, 2011 at 21:15:26:
Great guide!
My quad-core Phenom II generates about 5,500 khash/s , and my Radeon 4870 generates about 84,500 khash/s , although I'm going to clock that down a little bit. Not real thrilled about having the card run at 88 degrees Celsius 24/7 😉
LobsterMan Said on February 28th, 2011 at 12:54:16:
I do not really know if it's "bad" for your card to be running at maximum capacity for long periods of time. In theory, as long as it's running sufficiently cool, I suppose it's ok. I don't know if in the long run it will shorten your components' life.
I don't really make a lot of money from mining anymore since the difficulty is so high, but I have made a fair bit over the previous several months since I started mining back in July/August.
Travex Said on March 3rd, 2011 at 12:09:42:
Thank for the great guide mate.
But just one quick question, since the bitcoin.org and bitcoin.cz close their registration, so until I have an account with them, theres nothing I can do with bitcoin now, is this correct ?
LobsterMan Said on March 3rd, 2011 at 16:10:52:
Travex: Registrations on bitcoin.org's forum are not closed, and slush's pool is only closed for the time being. This just means that you cannot use his pool to mine for now, but you can still try to mine for yourself.
Sean Said on March 3rd, 2011 at 17:34:22:
Thank you very much for putting this guide together. Following it loosely, I was able to get it working on my first try on both of my machines.
Daniel Said on March 4th, 2011 at 17:28:37:
I'm new to this, and am having trouble getting this thing off the ground. I get this error when I run the following batch file:
start /DC:\Program_Files_(x86)\Bitcoin\python\poclbm.exe –user=asdf –pass=asdf –device=0
Windows cannot find 'user=asdf'. Make sure you typed the name correctly and then try again.
I've got the the .conf file set up with user and password both set to 'asdf'. Does this need to correspond to my windows 7 logon info? What am i missing here?
Thanks so much!
Win 7 Home
i5 M480
Nvidia GTX 420
LobsterMan Said on March 4th, 2011 at 19:03:19:
Daniel: The syntax of your batch file is incorrect…you want a space between python and poclbm.exe; I'm also not sure if you can use underscores as spaces, but your main problem is that \ should be a space.
I also edited your email address out of your post, I'm pretty sure spammers scrape these pages for emails so you don't really want to put yours out in the open like that.
deMangler Said on March 5th, 2011 at 05:58:24:
Thanks for the information and the python. Excellent.
I found that using -f 60 did not help my desktop responsiveness (winXP 64) – however changing thre priority on the process of poclbm.exe to 'below normal' helped a lot. With minimal loss of hashes.
Hope this helps someone.
Jack Said on March 6th, 2011 at 17:11:43:
Works fine for me on my GTX 580. I get 119449 khash/s + 6827 khas/s on my cpu, but my PC is drawging 380w an hour so it's going to cost me more than i recieve in bitcoin lol.
FrankXavier Said on March 7th, 2011 at 19:04:34:
Thanks for this, got mine running on my core2qaurd 3.4 and my geforce hd 4850 on windows 7
Billd Said on March 8th, 2011 at 20:41:48:
I'm running in to an issue that google cannot solve.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "poclbm.py", line 51, in <module>
File "BitcoinMiner.pyc", line 120, in __init__
IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '338d6e93df0423ee4d9a0e86716c9dce.elf'
Has anyone seen this?
LobsterMan Said on March 8th, 2011 at 23:09:26:
Billd: never seen that one….you should try asking in m0mchil's miner thread:
Matthew Said on March 9th, 2011 at 10:51:13:
"system cannot find the file specified" which obviously means I mistyped the file name. Except i typed it right, and I am in the right directory. After getting that error, i typed 'cd..' and then 'dir' and there was the file 'pocblm.exe' so what is wrong? Example:
c:\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110222> poclbm.exe –rpuser=user –rpcpassword=pass –device=0
the system cannot find the file specified.
(types 'cd..' then 'dir')
and it displays very clearly the name of the program 'poclbm.exe'!
Matthew Said on March 9th, 2011 at 10:53:41:
nevermind, the command prompt has a different command for user than the batch file.
Matthew Said on March 9th, 2011 at 10:59:27:
argh, it still says cannot find file specified, yet I am certain I am in the right directory. btw, I only initiated the script after being in the correct directory so I didn't need to change directories as I explained earlier. in any case, this is very odd.
Matthew Said on March 9th, 2011 at 11:06:20:
okay so how do you specify the opencl platform? and how could that possibly be related to a file not found error, which is baseless…and yet there it is…
matthew Said on March 9th, 2011 at 15:03:32:
"This should give you the specific problem that is preventing your miner from launching, and allow you to provide a more specific error message than "it doesn't open" "
LobsterMan Said on March 10th, 2011 at 07:19:24:
Matthew: I'm not really sure… "not found" or similar errors usually mean you are mistyping something somewhere; you should go back and check your syntax and make sure that everything is in place and named correctly and then called correctly
Malcolm Said on March 13th, 2011 at 10:47:28:
first test on a msi notebook with 9800M GS:
It gave an additional 13Mhash/s to a poor 680Khash duo core…
time for heating some more serious hardware.
nice instructions in conjunction with JeGX monitoring tools.
Steven Said on March 15th, 2011 at 07:53:40:
Matthew: make sure the EXE file is actually in that folder. It sounds like it's not. It could be due to an issue with extraction, or the files were unknowingly extracted to a subfolder.
Alternatively, try a GUI version of m0mchil's tool here: http://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=3878.0. I had to use it as –device=0 was actually pointing to my CPU. I didn't figure this out (wondering why Mhash/s was so low) until I used the GUI tool.
I'm currently using it to get 160Mhash/s on my 5770. I don't believe there's any performance hit in using it; if there is, it would be negligible.
LobsterMan Said on March 15th, 2011 at 19:21:00:
Steven: Thanks for providing that link 🙂
Kiv Said on March 16th, 2011 at 17:08:04:
Hi Lobsterman, thanks for linking to my GUI tool. I was one of the first people to use your guide way back in December and it really helped get me started in the Bitcoin community 🙂
Your post mentions you haven't tried the GUI – I'd encourage you to give it a try even if you have already got things running on the command line. It makes it a lot easier to manage multiple miners in a nice tabbed interface, supports several common pools out of the box, and in the next version you'll be able to view your balance from inside the GUI.
Per Rommetveit Said on March 26th, 2011 at 08:14:18:
Here's a quick script that could replace the bat-file. This is a vbscript.
It could be put in the startup-folder, and it will run the bitcoin deamon
and poclbm.exe in the background. I've just made this little script, and
verified that it works. It will also make a couple of log files. runtime.log
will track the running time in seconds for each session. Rate.log will keep
track of khash/s every minute. This could be expanded in many ways. One idea
could be do code some interaction with the calculatorr that calculates the
likelyhood of you completing a block and recieving a 50 bitcoins. Or you could
expand on this script and make an automated ftp-upload to a web site that could
keep track of your mining efforts.
To make this working on my machine (windows 7, 64bit running ATI Radeon HD 5700,
I downloaded the drivers from here: http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/radeon_win7-64.aspx
Package Includes:
Display Driver
OpenCL Driver
ATI Integrated Driver
Catalyst Control Center
(English Language Only)
For the 64 bit version of Windows Vista and Windows 7
'Script to start bitcoin and poclbm.exe in the background (this will start mining).
'run bitcoin server
Set objShell = Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
objShell.Run "cmd /C START /b C:\bitcoin\bitcoin-0.3.20.01\daemon\bitcoind.exe", SHOW_ACTIVE_APP, FALSE
' Delay 10 seconds
WScript.Sleep 10000
Dim starttime
starttime = Now()
Set objShell2 = Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
objShell.CurrentDirectory = "C:\bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110222"
objShell2.Run "C:\bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110222\poclbm.exe –user=myuser –pass=secret –device=0 –verbose –rate=60 >> c:/bitcoin/logs/rate.log", SHOW_ACTIVE_APP, True
Dim endtime
endtime = Now()
Dim timedif
timediff = starttime – endtime
Dim logdata, myFSO, logfile, dateStamp
dateStamp = Date()
'Write information to Text File
Dim secs
logdata = DateDiff("s",starttime,endtime)
Set myFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set logfile = myFSO.OpenTextFile("C:\bitcoin\logs\runtime.log", 8, True)
SET logfile = NOTHING
SET myFSO = NOTHING
LobsterMan Said on March 27th, 2011 at 09:48:59:
Per Rommetveit: Interesting, I don't have much experience with vbs but I will have to give this a try sometime. I suppose whoever would want to use this should just put this into a text file and then rename it something.vbs ?
Per Rommetveit Said on March 27th, 2011 at 23:08:32:
Put it into a file calles whatever.vbs, then put it in your startup directory. It will run automatically every time you start up the pc, it will run hidden in the background. If you want to check if you have recieved any bitcoins, then you could kill the processes using task manager, and then fire up the bitcoin client and check your current amount of bit-coins. I run this script on my pc. It could also be extended to say upload current information about the mining to a website giving various stats. I don't have time to develop that at the moment.
Horborgl Said on April 6th, 2011 at 21:48:12:
The error I get says:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Python26\lib\site-packages\py2exe\boot_common.py", line 92, in <modul
ImportError: No module named linecache
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "poclbm.py", line 3, in <module>
ImportError: No module named pyopencl
I have no clue whatsoever on what to do about this.
LobsterMan Said on April 6th, 2011 at 23:22:31:
Horborgl: That's….strange, are you trying to launch it like how I describe above? You don't need to have python installed on your machine to get poclbm to work
Horborgl Said on April 7th, 2011 at 01:49:58:
Yes, I did exactly as you said. I'm not even sure what python is. Is it possible my computer just needs a restart? I'll try restarting sometime soon, but I have way too many important things open at the moment.
LobsterMan Said on April 7th, 2011 at 06:21:42:
If you haven't already done so, make sure you have the most recent graphics drivers and then try a reboot. If that still doesn't work, you should try posting in the official miner thread here:
Zaaj Said on April 7th, 2011 at 17:31:15:
VNC can work for CUDA when RDP doesn't. Remote Desktop uses it's own video "driver" I guess, but VNC just copies whatever's in video memory and sends it to the remote client – software is still using the hardware video card's driver – helpful for headless operation…
A Corpse Said on April 19th, 2011 at 23:56:39:
If you're getting "Problems communicating with bitcoin RPC" make sure you put a carriage return after the second line in your bitcoin.conf file. Else it doesn't work.
Paxton Said on April 23rd, 2011 at 01:34:50:
mine says "No such file or directory: 'BitcoinMiner.cl' but i looked through all my files. and there it was right in front of my eyes.haha. do i have to re download it?
Vad är BitCoins? « Oscars Blag Said on April 24th, 2011 at 09:24:41:
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LobsterMan Said on April 24th, 2011 at 19:00:33:
Paxton: That is one I've never seen before, you should ask about that on the forums
Oscar Said on April 25th, 2011 at 11:58:40:
Is there any way to make sure the GPU setup works? Sure, I'm getting 45khash/s with my GTX260, but how do I know it works as it should with the client? If I find the right hash, how do I know it wont "slip by"?
Perhaps a stupid question, but a question nevertheless.
LobsterMan Said on April 25th, 2011 at 19:17:23:
Oscar: If you find a block with your miner it will tell you so, showing "accepted" along with the hash and timestamp of the found block. Shortly after it will show up as a "Generated" transaction in bitcoin. If it actually starts up and shows the hashrate, and you're not getting RPC errors or anything like that, then it is working 😛
DukeOfEarl Said on April 25th, 2011 at 21:58:50:
Thanks for the guide, LobsterMan. I had no problems getting this to work following your step by step. I'm still new and am doing exactly what you suggested and reading about what I am mining for. Since it seemed like the thing to do, I set up my GPU generating 26Mhash/s and it looks like I have several months to catch up on why I am doing this. 🙂
cwilli Said on April 29th, 2011 at 15:57:02:
Thanks for this info, small question. I assume you dont have to select 'Generate Coins' in the bitcoin -server window? When I do it lowers the khash/s in the dos window by 25M and yet only adds 4500K in the Bitcoin window.
LobsterMan Said on April 30th, 2011 at 01:08:48:
cwilli: "Generate coins" from within bitcoin should only be using your cpu and should have no effect on your gpu miners. If enabling coin generation in the bitcoin client lowers your poclbm hashrate you may want to make sure you are specifying the correct device numbers in your launch options.
hunter Said on April 30th, 2011 at 17:04:21:
I was getting the "IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '0303c221e52590b1c8d438ece3ac092f.elf'" error as well. The problem was the directories I had bitcoin and poclbm_py in were read-only, and the permissions weren't set correctly. I changed those two things, and it worked correctly. I'm on Win 7 64 bit.
S Said on May 2nd, 2011 at 07:22:19:
Lobster, I'm getting an error message saying
Traceback <most recent call last>
File "poclbm.py", line 3 in <module>
File "pyopencl\__init__.pyo", line 3, in <module>
File "pyopencl\_cl.pyo", line 12, in <module>
File "pyopencl\_cl.pyo", line 10, in __load
ImportError: DLL load failed. The specified module could not be found.
What do I do to fix this and make the miner work?
BitLex - Exchange bitcoins for linden dollars » Video cards, pooled mining and L$66 per bitcoin Said on May 4th, 2011 at 05:39:07:
[…] off-world (or even in-world, it might lag you down though and we all hate the lag). Here's a how to get your GPU up and running for bitcoin on windows (other OSes might find sources in the […]
SnakeJG Said on May 9th, 2011 at 04:41:31:
It is a lot easier in windows to work with shortcuts instead of batch scripts. All you need to do is drag and drop the poclbm.exe while pressing the ALT key. Windows should show it is creating a shortcut before you drop. The shortcut will start in the proper directory and you can just add your parameters to the target line in the shortcut page under its properties.
ah1n1 Said on May 10th, 2011 at 06:17:26:
What is the best settings for HD4850?
ah1n1 Said on May 10th, 2011 at 06:18:39:
i have only 60.000 rate. Is it normal for 4850?
ah1n1 Said on May 10th, 2011 at 06:27:01:
in statistic i have 179.215 Ghash/s – is it normal too?
LobsterMan Said on May 10th, 2011 at 07:17:23:
ah1n1: I don't know what the hashrate should be for that particular card, I believe there are forum posts were people have listed the max performance for each card. To find the best settings you can either check what other people on the forums/IRC have done or just play around for yourself and see what gets you the best hashrate.
ah1n1 Said on May 10th, 2011 at 10:25:17:
This site (mining.bitcoin.cz) looks like cheat-base system, the "Estimated reward:" field is stuck between 0.01-0.02 BTC…sometimes then i refresh browser page i see 0.017 and next time…tadaaaa.. 0.006…wtf? Where is my reward-points gone?
LobsterMan Said on May 10th, 2011 at 18:09:08:
ah1n1: that number changes because more shares are generated as the round goes on
skyline Said on May 17th, 2011 at 09:28:33:
Can you please tell me how do i know that my bitcoin.exe working successfully and how do i know that i am generated bitcoin also how to transfer the bitcoin to https://mtgox.com/ if i generated any or if the all the setup want well.
Kalinka Said on May 17th, 2011 at 11:14:24:
Hey people, How do I know if I'm doing it right? I got the batch and bitcoin both generating Khash/s, is that the only confirmation I get that it's working? The .bit window shows me the following "62000 khash/s" does that mean its generating coins aka working properly?
LobsterMan Said on May 17th, 2011 at 13:58:10:
skyline: If you see a hashrate being displayed by poclbm, it is working correctly. If you read the comments your other question has already been covered, and there are instructions on the mtgox site how to add bitcoins to your account there.
Kalinka: if you're getting a hashrate you are successfully generating coins, whether or not you actually generate a block is another matter entirely 😉 (you may want to look into joining a pool)
Bitcoins.. wow. by testing123 - Page 3 - TribalWar Forums Said on May 17th, 2011 at 21:27:05:
[…] with an "invalid username/password" crap. I figured it out though, found a good tutorial here that breaks down installing a specific GPU miner and getting it work. I'm still downloading the […]
skyline Said on May 18th, 2011 at 05:46:52:
can you make a video and upload it to youtube on how to set up everything i cant get it to wok please help
skyline Said on May 18th, 2011 at 06:13:08:
C:\bitcoin>cd poclbm_py2exe_20110428
C:\bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110428>poclbm.exe –user=youruser –pass=yourpw –device=0
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "poclbm.py", line 3, in <module>
File "pyopencl\__init__.pyo", line 3, in <module>
File "pyopencl\_cl.pyo", line 12, in <module>
File "pyopencl\_cl.pyo", line 10, in __load
ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified procedure could not be found.
can some one help me i cant get this to work also when i run the bitcoin with server i get the GUI and on that i can see the blocks in status bar also i can see the connection but when i run the poclbm.exe i get the error message on the top
please help
LobsterMan Said on May 18th, 2011 at 10:59:01:
skyline: that looks like it is a problem with your video drivers, make sure you are using the most recent version of your drivers, if you are not, install them and reboot and try again
skyline Said on May 18th, 2011 at 12:07:10:
thanks for that
also i only get 5500 khash/s is there is a solution to increase that also how do i know i am not using my CPU how can i know that i am using my video card.
ah1n1 Said on May 18th, 2011 at 17:45:13:
How can i limit GPU load with this miner? Any command-paramenters for this case?
LobsterMan Said on May 19th, 2011 at 22:06:46:
skyline: If you monitor your gpu and cpu temperatures, you will know immediately if it is your cpu or gpu which is being utilized. Other that messing around with the -w parameter I am not aware of any ways int which to limit gpu usage. I just stop my miners running when I want to play a game or don't want them to run for whatever reason
pudgybunnyBry Said on May 21st, 2011 at 00:08:57:
So I've done everything just as the guide suggests and I'm running across a problem when I launch with the bitcoin.exe -server command. It gives me the following message:
"Warning: To use the "-server" option, you must set rpcpassword=<password> in the configuration file <insert path to bitcoin.conf> If the file does not exist, create it with owner-readable-only file permissions."
The file is there. I have the username and password all there. I don't understand what could possibly be going wrong?
LobsterMan Said on May 21st, 2011 at 12:25:42:
pudgybunnyBry: Sounds like file permissions errors…make sure you're doing this all with an administrator account
Feesh Said on May 22nd, 2011 at 00:20:52:
The guide worked great, got a miner up and running thanks to it, but it more or less destroyed my bandwidth, but if anyone has any info regarding how to resolve this issue I'd really appreciate it.
petertt Said on May 22nd, 2011 at 04:19:03:
Thanks for this. Its been two days at 25mhash/sec and I still have a wallet of 0.00 🙁
pudgybunnyBry Said on May 22nd, 2011 at 13:45:37:
Strange, I doing this on the administrator account.
Tropin Said on May 22nd, 2011 at 14:34:15:
Hello, I'm trying to connect to your server, and it starts hashing, but I also get tons of "Unparsable JSON" errors. What I'm doing wrong?
I'm using DiabloMiner and user-name.worker-name as the rpcuser and worker-pass as the rpcpassword.
LobsterMan Said on May 22nd, 2011 at 17:52:26:
Tropin: could be a problem with the pool you are trying to connect to…?
would-be bitcoin mogul Said on May 24th, 2011 at 10:33:48:
I'm using Windows 7 x64, with the stock bitcoin release.
I've followed the above instructions but I am getting the following error:
Exception in thread Thread-2:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "threading.pyo", line 525, in __bootstrap_inner
File "threading.pyo", line 477, in run
File "BitcoinMiner.pyo", line 272, in miningThread
File "BitcoinMiner.pyo", line 373, in loadKernel
IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '1f63fd39e1ee12410b65130c08567382.elf'
Any ideas?
would-be bitcoin mogul
LobsterMan Said on May 24th, 2011 at 20:25:25:
would-be bitcoin mogul: I think that may be a permissions problem, make sure your folders are not read only and you're trying to do this all with an administrator account (this problem has already been covered in the comments)
Erik Said on May 25th, 2011 at 13:34:01:
I get a wrong username or password error when I run my bat file, any help? I checked to make sure there the same.
Erik Said on May 25th, 2011 at 13:35:23:
I got it to work, just closed and reopened Bitcoin
Ken Said on May 25th, 2011 at 18:19:54:
I'm having difficulty getting my second graphics card set up properly. I have two 5770's and with one I have had no problem – just put in another one, disabled crossfire (no cable connecting them either). I see both in the device manager, but the GUI miner and GPU caps viewer only say i have device 1 (Juniper – that's the first graphics card) and device 2 (CPU).
any ideas what i need to do?
Matt Said on May 25th, 2011 at 20:48:33:
I set it up and it runs just fine, however i'm only getting about 1350khash/s… according to the hardware comparison on https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison I should be getting around 206 – 245 for a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5830… also it seems to be using a LOT of CPU, could it be using the CPU to mine instead of the GPU?
How can I determine this and how do I fix it if that is the case?
Matt Said on May 25th, 2011 at 20:52:27:
Just as another note, GPU Caps says I only have one OpenCL device (Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU) so it is using my CPU. I installed ATI Stream
LobsterMan Said on May 26th, 2011 at 04:57:06:
Ken: Try with the crossfire cable installed?
Matt: Try changing the device number around on your launch options, since it's a laptop the device numbers may be different. Also make sure you have the latest drivers and the APP SDK installed
Ken Said on May 26th, 2011 at 13:21:44:
Update: Issue Resolved
In case anyone else encounters something similar, I ended up uninstalling everything 'ATI' – drivers, CCC, etc., removing both cards (I swaped their positions as well just to be safe), attaching the crossfire cable, and rebooting – then i installed the latest drivers, etc. from Radeon (the 11.5 set). I think there was some kind of driver conflict going on.
I now have two GPUs I can target with the miner (device 0 and 1 – CPU is now 2) and getting about 180,000 khash/s on each (going with -w 128 added abouut 30,000). So far, so good… 🙂
Ports Said on May 26th, 2011 at 19:57:34:
Lobster was hoping you could help out, ive followed all of the steps prior to launching bitcoin.exe -server but when i attempt to use the command prompt for that it doesnt launch or show an error. Suggestions?
Ports Said on May 26th, 2011 at 20:12:08:
restarted my computer now it seems to work perfectly.
help Said on May 26th, 2011 at 21:37:17:
Lobster got a noob question. When i download the binary for the poclbm im not given an option to extract it anywhere and it doesnt seem to come with a .exe file, ive completed all steps except that, did i download the wrong file from the link? confused 🙁
help Said on May 26th, 2011 at 21:49:19:
i just cant find an exe file anywhere to download from the link, do i need to change the name?
Ken Said on May 27th, 2011 at 00:03:35:
@help – if you're on windows, you need WinZip. it will extract it for you…
TheDane Said on May 27th, 2011 at 13:02:36:
Hey, I get a "cannot find user" error. My .bat file looks exactly like this:
start /D"%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Bitcoin\poclbm\poclbm.exe" –rpuser=youruser –rpcpassword=yourpw –device=0
Am I supposed to fill the "youruser" and "yourpw" with something else? My local account's user&pass doesn't work.
LobsterMan Said on May 27th, 2011 at 18:22:44:
help: Yes…the file that is distributed for poclbm is a 7zip file, so you will need winrar or winzip or something to extract it
TheDane: Check your batch file syntax, "–rpuser" along with other parts of it are not correct
jake Said on May 29th, 2011 at 08:13:26:
I get this message when i run poclbm.exe from the batch file:
***CAL version mismatch:
This OpenCL buils requires version 1.4.879, version 1.4.815 installed.
I can't find anyone else with the same problem. I use a radeon HD5670.
The thing is, that poclbm.exe starts running, but only about 1300 khash/s
Steve Said on May 29th, 2011 at 18:22:50:
@jake : You need to install a newer ATI Catalyst driver. I recommend 11.4 or 11.5.
FreeJAC Said on May 31st, 2011 at 01:26:56:
Hi Thanks for the walkthrough, everything worked perfectly. Sounds like we are all late to the party though since difficulty has skyrocked recently. Can you guys point to link on how to setup a second PC contributing to the same account?
LobsterMan Said on May 31st, 2011 at 01:32:15:
FreeJAC: just run a node on each pc and mine locally…and then deposit the coins into one wallet. Or better yet just make a whole bunch of miners that mine for the same pool account, that way you don't even need to run bitcoin except on the machine that accepts pool payouts.
FreeJAC Said on May 31st, 2011 at 02:20:31:
Where do i get a wallet? (b/c the pool part is really over my head)
LobsterMan Said on May 31st, 2011 at 03:35:08:
FreeJAC: I meant just send the coins all to one bitcoin address (wallet.dat is your wallet file, but that's a bit beyond the scope of this article)
Anonymous Said on May 31st, 2011 at 06:45:02:
To anyone having the permission denied error when attempting to run the batch file – I was getting the same thing, and was somewhat baffled since Windows 7 wasn't allowing me to remove the "read-only" setting from the Bitcoin folder. My solution was to run the batch file as Administrator (right-click –> run as Administrator). Hope that helps.
FreeJAC Said on May 31st, 2011 at 10:13:32:
I will leave that OT question and seek my answers elswhere. Thanks again for your walkthrough was nice to get a hand up with this mining stuff.
Bookmarks for May 17th | Chris's Digital Detritus Said on May 31st, 2011 at 18:46:06:
[…] NewsLobster (Y)^_(V) – How to get started using your GPU to mine for Bitcoins on Windows – […]
lio Said on June 1st, 2011 at 10:19:56:
Will it work if I just download the client and the GUI Miner separately .Adjust the username and pass in the miner itself
Point the bitcoin .exe path from the Miner and just start bitcoin like a server from it (it got the GUI and the option inside .
Just wonder will it work just like that ?
Stranger Said on June 1st, 2011 at 13:22:15:
Wow.. 280.000 – 300.000 khash/s with a 6970 at 85°.
Amazing 🙂
Stranger Said on June 1st, 2011 at 13:28:09:
Update: I disabled the cpu-mining in the client and the GPU jumps to 360.000 khash/s at 88° o_O
So the cpu is basically stealing bandwidth here?
Mike Said on June 1st, 2011 at 15:18:29:
Thank you for this howto. It worked great on the first try.
May i spend you some .01 * Bitcoins? 😉
LobsterMan Said on June 2nd, 2011 at 02:42:03:
lio: Sorry, I don't really understand your question…
Stranger: I think with amd devices you may benefit from not using the cpu…not really sure on that one as I use nvidia
Mike: I have listed some addresses you can donate bitcoins to at the very bottom of the article text right before the comments 🙂
Bitcoin: che ne pensate? - Pagina 2 Said on June 2nd, 2011 at 09:43:06:
[…] […]
Bitcoin Mining – Was das ist und was man damit machen kann - myBitcoin.de Said on June 2nd, 2011 at 14:18:09:
[…] m0mchil GPU-Miner (Windows) […]
Austro-libertarian/AnCap/Market Anarchist circle jerk thread - Page 27 - Grasscity.com Forums Said on June 3rd, 2011 at 22:01:59:
[…] Austro-libertarian/AnCap/Market Anarchist circle jerk thread Huh. I don't get it. I followed the newslobster guide to mining. Typed cmd, bitcoin.exe -server and I get a pop up saying that I need a password […]
Allen Said on June 4th, 2011 at 13:34:30:
I am having a big problem. I followed everything that you have done but I can't get bitcoin.exe to open with -server. Every time, I get
Warning: to use the '-server' option, you must set rpcpassword = <password> in the configuration file 'C:/Users/Nick/AppData/Roaming/Bitcoin/bitcoin.conf. If the file does not exist, create it with owner-readable-only file permissions"
I have already made the bitcoin.conf file in C:\Users\Allen\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin
multiple times. This is what's inside it
No matter what I do I can't start it. Thank you.
Logan Said on June 4th, 2011 at 14:40:24:
Thank you for the great right up lobster. I am having some issues tho. Every time I try opening my .bat file I get the following error:
Problems Communicating with bitcoin RPC
I am loading the bitcoin with the -server and it comes up fine. I made sure my passwords matched.
The only other post I saw close to this said to use a carriage return at the end of my .conf file. I am confused as to what this is and if it will correct my problem.
Thanks for the help
Logan Said on June 4th, 2011 at 14:47:40:
NVRM !!! I just had to restart the bitcoin.exe -server again since I had made some changes since it last loaded. Thanks a ton 🙂
Allen Said on June 4th, 2011 at 18:40:46:
NVM, I got it. I think you should add into your guide to make sure that the file is actually a conf file, not a txt file, cause my txt file was named techinically bitcoin.conf.txt. You should specify to make sure it is a conf file and not a text file, by using Save As and clicking all files. This may have misled others. Thank you for your guide though :D!
sean Said on June 4th, 2011 at 23:31:28:
awesome guide.. after much trial and error i finally got the server version of bitcoin running, which is a start. now when launch poclbm.exe i'm getting the following error:
Traceback <most recent call last>:
File "poclbm.py", line 3, in <module>
File "pyopencl\__init__.pyo", line 3, in <module>
File "pyopencl\_cl.pyo", line 12, in <module>
File "pyopencl\_cl.pyo", line 10, in __load
ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified module could not be found.
sean Said on June 4th, 2011 at 23:34:59:
sorry, noticed someone else is reporting the same issues above, but i did already update my drivers so it shouldn't be that…
sean Said on June 5th, 2011 at 01:49:08:
now it seems to be loading but it doesn't work from the batch file; how do you correctly imput all the parameters in the cmd so that it will load? it keeps saying wrong username or password but i think thats because i'm not initiating the program with them. it won't take -password=pass, it doesn't like that as a command.
dook Said on June 5th, 2011 at 18:38:58:
@paul : you need –password=pass
two hyphens bro
LobsterMan Said on June 5th, 2011 at 22:02:02:
Sean: please see the section about troubleshooting, it covers how to launch poclbm manually without using a batch script so you can see your errors in more detail.
I also updated the very top part to put more emphasis on paying attention to file extensions since a lot of people seem to be getting caught up with that
Eric Said on June 6th, 2011 at 00:34:38:
I have ATI 5830 and im not getting anymore than 0.2 Mhash/s
any thoughts?
Eric Said on June 6th, 2011 at 17:17:34:
— Eric Said on June 6th, 2011 at 00:34:
— I have ATI 5830 and im not getting anymore than 0.2 Mhash/s
— any thoughts?
So anyway nvm….i just learned to multiply by 1000
Alan Said on June 6th, 2011 at 22:04:15:
First of all, thanks for the guide Lobster!
in my bitcoin.conf I have
my batch file is
start /DC:\bitcoin\poclbm_20110428\ poclbm.exe –user=user –pass=1 –device=0
The error I get is "Problems communicating with bitcoin RPC". I've read other solutions on it, but none of them seem to apply to me. I had a suspicion that it was a permissions issue, but running both as administrator did not help.
The other issue I suspect are my ports, but since I am using University of California, Santa Barbara internet, I don't know if the required ports are blocked or not. However, PTP and other applications which could require port forwarding normally work.
I don't know what else could be causing the issue.
Garrett Said on June 7th, 2011 at 01:53:59:
^ bump
LobsterMan Said on June 7th, 2011 at 03:06:44:
Alan: First of all make sure your file extensions are correct, and that you have actually called the file bitcoin.conf and not bitcoin.conf.txt. Further, also make sure you have acquired all the blocks. Other than that, make sure you are using the most recent version of bitcoin and your graphics drivers. Of all the people who have had this issue, it's turned out that one of the aforementioned scenarios is usually the problem…It's also probably not related to port forwarding. Maybe it doesn't like user=user, you could also try changing that around
Also make sure you've launched bitcoin with the -server switch
Charlie Said on June 7th, 2011 at 04:10:03:
Hey Lobster
Good to see someone actively helping people with their guides. You are the man.
I'm getting the same issue as Alan. Box is an i7 950 with dual GTX 580s on W7 – Bitcoin has been running for hours and the blocks count at the bottom is sitting pretty at 129159. When I first ran the batfile it just said bitcoin was still grabbing blocks. Pretty sure it's done now cause the message I'm getting is the problems communicating with bitcoin rpc issue. All system drivers including video are up to date. Using:
start /dD:\Programs\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110428 poclbm.exe –user=charlie –pass=charlie –device=0 –verbose
Even tried:
start /dD:\Programs\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110428 poclbm.exe -0 192.168.1.110 –user=charlie –pass=charlie –device=0 –verbose (i.e. specifying my system, even used 127.0.0.1, same issue)
Netstat shows a connection on port 8333 so I added –port 8333 to the run as well. Router (WRT54G running open DDRT) has my box set as DMZ AND ports 8333 and 8332 forwarded to my system. Still nothing. Tried running both bitcoin and the bath file as administrator – Nothing. Any ideas?
Charlie Said on June 7th, 2011 at 04:11:33:
Also I'm running bitcoin 0.3.22 and poclbm_py2exe_20110428
Charlie Said on June 7th, 2011 at 04:14:44:
And yes, bitcoin.conf is in C:\Users\Charlie\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin and Hide File Extensions is off.
LobsterMan Said on June 7th, 2011 at 04:32:46:
Interesting….I just updated to bitcoin 0.3.22 and it seems that this most recent version does not allow me to mine locally with poclbm 4-28. I've made a post on the forum and this is most likely a new development. Until then I would recommend trying to find bitcoin 0.3.21 or just mine for a pool for the time being until this gets fixed 🙁
Charlie Said on June 7th, 2011 at 04:42:35:
Just so happen to have 3.20 — gonna install that — I'll update in a few!
Charlie Said on June 7th, 2011 at 04:44:56:
Worked. And I meant to say 3.21 – By the way http://bitcoin.it has 3.21 as their download version. Thanks so much!
LobsterMan Said on June 7th, 2011 at 04:46:36:
Glad to help, it was also good this was pointed out because I don't think bitcoin 0.3.22 has been posted on the bitcoin site until very recently, so this may be an as yet unknown problem
BloodBall Said on June 7th, 2011 at 12:11:44:
First off: Very impressed with the response from Lobster to the comments and problems so long after the original blog (which was very straight forward and easy to follow).
Second: I had the same problem with the "Problems communicating with bitcoin RPC" error, and I just want to confirm that it does work with bitcoin 0.3.21 and not with bitcoin 0.3.22 (as of this post).
LobsterMan Said on June 7th, 2011 at 15:50:58:
BloodBall: Yeah…this still has not received any official response from m0mchil yet, so I suppose for now all that we can really do is wait and hope a fix is out soon
Alan Said on June 7th, 2011 at 21:41:21:
Thanks for the help Lobster!
.3.21 is currently working. Thanks to Charlie for the download link
Nabisco_DING Said on June 8th, 2011 at 00:34:37:
I also noticed that 0.3.22 doesn't work as well but when I start the guiminer for solo mining, the difficulty is at 1 when the current difficulty is much higher. Is it safe to assume that the guiminer is simply calculating for nothing?
Nabisco_DING Said on June 8th, 2011 at 00:35:40:
oops, forgot to mention that i reverted to 0.3.21 and tried solo mining with guiminer
guiminer shows a difficulty of 1 (as opposed to a much higher current difficulty on block explorer)
LobsterMan Said on June 8th, 2011 at 02:53:07:
Nabisco_DING: If you are mining locally it should be much higher, but most pools use a difficulty of 1
xchargerx Said on June 8th, 2011 at 18:16:39:
Hey LobsterMan,
Nice tutorial. I'm sorta new to BTC but you tut got me up and running quickly. Thanks!
A question though:
I have bitcoin.exe running in server mode on PC "X". I have poclbm running on PC "X" and its working fine. I also have PC "Y" running poclbm with arg –host=IP_OF_PCX. And it seems to be working.
Are PC "X" and PC "Y" working together to solve a block, or are they working on one block each? If the latter is true, then how do I set things up to have separate PC GPUS pool resources to solve one block? I've read your other posting regarding pooling, but it refers to third party services. How can I do this "in-house"?
Thanks again!
LobsterMan Said on June 9th, 2011 at 03:45:53:
xchargerx: I think the way it works the whole network is working on one block until someone solves it, then everyone starts working on a new block. I think the way you're doing it is going to be about as effective as you can be for using more than one computer
BenAdamson Said on June 9th, 2011 at 14:42:49:
Hey, I'm getting an error when attempting to run the batch file – I get the error shown in this screenshot: http://img1.uploadscreenshot.com/images/orig/6/15914385532-orig.jpg
Have I done something stupid?
LobsterMan Said on June 9th, 2011 at 16:38:33:
BenAdamson: check your syntax….it doesn't look like you actually called poclbm.exe
BenAdamson Said on June 9th, 2011 at 16:45:20:
I am an idiot. Thanks!
YourWelcome Said on June 9th, 2011 at 23:23:45:
For anyone with the -server launch giving them the "bitcoin.conf does not exist" error, this one.
"Warning: to use the '-server' option, you must set rpcpassword = <password> in the configuration file 'C:/Users/Nick/AppData/Roaming/Bitcoin/bitcoin.conf. If the file does not exist, create it with owner-readable-only file permissions"
The problem I had was that I use windows 7 and the file was actually called "bitcoin.conf.txt". You have to turn off "hide extentions for known file types" in Tools>Folder Options>View then rename it to "bitcoin.conf".
Hope that helps someone.
Deed Said on June 10th, 2011 at 12:47:21:
Thanks for such a good guide – it really helped to get me up and running 🙂
I too had the 3.22 version and the 'RPC' Error, I stopped , started reconfiged, double checked, started again today after some sleep – still failed, googled a bit & failed some more
I then read this thread to the end and realised that I had happily skipped over the stuff in big letters at the beginning of the page – that I had seen several times and ignored {disengage muppet mode!} Installed the 3.21 version and it worked first time
It is trundling away now at about 55K – Thanks again! 🙂
LobsterMan Said on June 10th, 2011 at 16:11:18:
Deed: yeah…I'm starting to get the impression that people don't always read things, but I guess that's what the comments section is for 😛
Anyway gavin said in IRC that 0.3.22 has a bug and it will be fixed as soon as 0.3.23 is released.
dearman4 Said on June 10th, 2011 at 22:02:15:
so if u mine this way, do the BTC get transferred to a wallet running on the same machine automatically?
P1n3apqlExpr3ss Said on June 11th, 2011 at 00:51:41:
Nice informing thread but one little problem, something to do with the batch file.
"start /DC:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110428 poclbm.exe –user=P1n3apqlxxxxxx –pass=xxxxxxxxxx –device=0"
This gives me a "Windows cannot find 'Files'. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again."
How would i go about solving this?
LobsterMan Said on June 11th, 2011 at 06:26:02:
dearman4: yes
P1n3apqlExpr3ss: try this:
start /D"C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\poclbm_py2exe_20110428" poclbm.exe –user=P1n3apqlxxxxxx –pass=xxxxxxxxxx –device=0
bill Said on June 11th, 2011 at 12:59:49:
could you dumb this down or retranslate to web-surfer english? i know it will be difficult for your gigantic brains but if you actually could do that you would make a pile of cash from us less fortunate folks. remember "kiss" keep it simple stupid.
Deed Said on June 11th, 2011 at 15:31:37:
Well Thanks again Lobsterman, I would certianly have not been able to get started without your guide – I really apreciate it. Although a geek by nature & happy with a cmd prompt, this Bitcoin lark is a completely new adventure. I have been involved in a few team crunching efforts in the past such as RC5, Seti and more recently Folding but this is different.
I have even started looking at the local prices for ATI cards 🙂 as 0.1 bitcoin for a 'PC with good Nvidia card' day seems a little steep – but I am always keen to learn new stuff!
P1n3apqlExpr3ss Said on June 11th, 2011 at 22:27:38:
Just noticed the nice big red type up the top, changed to 0.3.21 and followed the directionaries in guide instead of in program files and all is well now.
I'd copy it into word and make the font and size nice and pretty, id imagine that would make it easier as I had some difficulty understanding what the guide was asking at times but a thorough read through and all is fine
NewsLobster Y^_°V – How to get started using your GPU to mine for Bitcoins on Windows « TechDefiler Said on June 11th, 2011 at 23:20:30:
[…] NewsLobster Y^_°V – How to get started using your GPU to mine for Bitcoins on Windows. […]
Peter Filias Said on June 12th, 2011 at 22:49:30:
No matter what I do, I get a wrong username or password message.
Peter Filias Said on June 12th, 2011 at 22:52:34:
Would it matter that I already had been running the bitcoin.exe client for days, with Generating Coins enabled (nothing ever happened except for having my CPUs pegged at 100%.
Do I need to delete everything out of my AppData\bitcoin\ folder before I start this GPU mining? I wasn't aware that I couldn't mine with just the bitcoin.exe client. I have a Radeon 6950 and a core i7 920. I should be able to mine fairly decently.
And last thing: What's the difference between using bitcoin.exe to generate coins (is that the same as mining, seems to, as CPU was pegged) or using a mining program, like the poclbm.exe I download?
bupojung Said on June 13th, 2011 at 01:00:14:
Hi,I have run the bitcoin client for nealy 2 hours.
How can I make sure all the blocks have been acquired?
bupojung Said on June 13th, 2011 at 10:45:30:
I have setup a bitcoin miner follow your instruction with a Geforce 9400gt GPU.
The output hashrate is 3000k hashrate/s.Is it rate normal?
Peter Filias Said on June 13th, 2011 at 14:01:45:
I was able to get this working only after downloading the guiminer and having it create the bitcoin.conf file for me (used the same values). I then tried to have guiminer launch bitcoin.exe as a server, which failed to work. I kept getting rpc call errors.
I started bitcoin.exe as a server, manually, and then started mining with guiminer. I am at around 297 MHash/s. I guess that's what I should expect with an ATI 6950?
Carlos RH Ruiz Said on June 13th, 2011 at 15:23:01:
When I run poclbm.exe from the batch script, I get the following error:
Traceback (most recent call last)
File "threading.pyo", line 525, in __bootstrap_inner
File "threading.pyo", line 477, in run
File "BitcoinMiner.pyo", line 272, in miningThread
File "BitcoinMiner.pyo", line 369, in loadKernel
File "pyopencl\__init__.pyo", line 141, in program_build
RuntimeError: clBuildProgram failed: build program failure
Build on <pyopencl.Device 'Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8400 @ 2.26GHz
' at 0x3d08890>:
Internal error: Link failed.
Make sure the system setup is correct.
What happens???
LobsterMan Said on June 14th, 2011 at 13:50:52:
bill: I've had other people ask for similar things…I suppose a tl;dr version couldn't hurt
Peter Filias: That sounds about right, you may be able to tweak -w and -v to get a few more mhash/s out of it. Also note basic CPU mining has been removed from bitcoin 0.3.23 since it is really inefficient to mine on a CPU through the default client with the difficulty so high.
bupojung: Yes that seems about correct as well
Carlos RH Ruiz: Looks like either a drivers issue or you are trying to use the wrong device for poclbm, you may want to use gpu caps viewer which is linked at the top of this post to ensure you are capable of running opencl
I'm also very glad when I see comments that say something like "got it to work, great guide" 😀
Korx Said on June 16th, 2011 at 13:45:16:
Great guide! Using GUIMiner w/ my 5870 i'm getting around 380 mhash/s. It was originally 310~, but using the "-v -w 128" command gave me a large boost.
BH Said on June 17th, 2011 at 06:13:53:
can both CPU and GPU be run at the same time?
BH Said on June 18th, 2011 at 10:44:02:
i have a radeon 5850, and especially with the -v -w 128 command, i'm getting about 260Mhash/s. so the people with this class hardware reporting under 1Mh/s, you're probably not utilizing OpenCL (i.e. regular processing).
Steven B Said on June 18th, 2011 at 15:27:16:
can someone please tell me what "hashs" means?
i mine alone and i use guiminer
it says "difficulty 1" and a increasing amount of hashs, but what does this mean?
please answer
BH Said on June 18th, 2011 at 21:49:10:
hash is one processed unit, /s is per second, M is mega, G is Giga.
BH Said on June 18th, 2011 at 21:52:38:
excuse me: hash on the bottom left is processed unit, hash/s on the right is element, like bits per second.
NeoKeth Said on June 19th, 2011 at 23:02:44:
So i followed the steps through 3 down to the letter, however when I try to launch
bitcoine.exe -server
i get the following message:
Warning: To use the "-server" option, you must set rpcpassword=<password> in the configuration file:
If the file does not exist, create it with owner-readable-only file permissions.
I put in my own password and it still says that, I tried putting it in exactly and it still doesnt work.
Think Said on June 20th, 2011 at 20:50:50:
I started a site that is a lot easier to use then this guide for people who are wanting to get started. <a href="http://startbitcoin.com" title="Bitcoin Mining" >Bitcoin Mining Guide for Beginners</a>
Think Said on June 20th, 2011 at 20:51:32:
I started a site that is a lot easier to use then this guide for people who are wanting to get started. http://startbitcoin.com
LobsterMan Said on June 20th, 2011 at 23:55:29:
NeoKeth: it helps if you get your paths correct…try:
brian Said on June 21st, 2011 at 15:19:00:
Hey LobsterMan,
I am a complete and total noob at this. I set up the miner correctly and got it running, everything is fine there. My question is, how do i know when i have mined a coin?
This is the part that i dont get. How does it know i am the one mining it and where will these coins show up once i complete a block?
Also one more question, do i have to continuously work an entire block straight through or can I stop the miner and then start it up say a few hours later and have it still working the same block? or will i be starting all over on a new block?
thanks for any help
brian Said on June 21st, 2011 at 16:04:42:
also one more question. mine says it is doing like 2.1 Mhash/s
reading what other people say this sounds extreamly low. Any reasons why this might be?
brian Said on June 21st, 2011 at 16:09:13:
sorry i didnt specify my graphics card in the last comment.
Its a newer graphics cards i would imagine but i guess it might not be all that great. I bought a replublic of gamers asus laptop a few months ago and that is what im using. Not sure what graphics card is in it . . . . i know that it is ATI
mege Said on June 21st, 2011 at 18:41:00:
BH i have a question….
i also have a ati 5850 like you. i just updated my drivers and but the device section of guiminer does not drop down with my graphics card, what do i need to do?
BH Said on June 22nd, 2011 at 02:16:43:
brian, you did not say how much you paid for your laptop. to get 5850 class gpu in a laptop, you'd need to pay around $1000+. also, you need to apply the amd Catalyst driver package that contains the opencl runtime (IF your laptop maker allows it, some demand you use their flavor of driver which may not have opencl). otherwise, those 2 things will limit your speed. also, add the command "-v -w 128" to guiminer (don't forget to save settings).
mege, when you open up guiminer it should show "device 0-0 cypress" in the dropdown. if not, it may be a driver issue. go here: http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/. use this to clean up your registry: http://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER. then reinstall the latest drivers: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/radeonaiw_vista64.aspx?type=2.4.1&product=22.214.171.124.42&lang=us&rev=&ostype=Windows%207%20-%2064-Bit%20Edition (this is 64-bit) or here: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/radeonaiw_vista32.aspx?type=2.4.1&product=22.214.171.124.42&lang=us&rev=&ostype=Windows%207%20-%2032-Bit%20Edition (32-bit).
if anyone else want to help out mege, pelase do.
BH Said on June 22nd, 2011 at 02:40:55:
brian, you also did not say how old your laptop is. if more than 2 yrs old, it may not even run opencl, so that number may be correct.
Atuss Said on June 22nd, 2011 at 13:03:09:
Exception in thread Thread-2:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "threading.pyo", line 525, in __bootstrap_inner
File "threading.pyo", line 477, in run
File "BitcoinMiner.pyo", line 272, in miningThread
File "BitcoinMiner.pyo", line 373, in loadKernel
IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '4cd591f539230b2adbff06c9d1a53ce6.elf'
When i start the batch file i get this error. What did I do wrong ?
Michael Said on June 22nd, 2011 at 15:29:25:
Atuss, I was getting strange errors too while trying to start up mining programs under remote desktop. You have physically be at the console.
mege Said on June 22nd, 2011 at 21:29:33:
BH You are a god!
It worked finally I can't tell you how much this bothered me, i definitely see a huge improvement. for 5850 what would you say is the best settings? OpenCL Cuda Phoenix? … Extra flags? my average right now with one card 225.5mhash is it a good idea to run my i5 simultaneously
…one thing, (and i know this will be answering a lot of newb questions) when signing on solo where do i set my bitcoin client, i keep getting problems communicating with rpc
BH Said on June 23rd, 2011 at 18:04:30:
mege, you ARE running opencl now. extra flag is -v -w 128. do not run a second instance for your cpu; it will hurt your mhash/s.
BH Said on June 23rd, 2011 at 18:11:23:
oh yeah, go into catalyst and enable overdrive, crank gpu clock and memory clock to the max. that and the flag should give you 290 mhash/s.
BH Said on June 23rd, 2011 at 18:15:15:
mege, if i assume correctly, you need to wait for bitcoin to download all the latest blocks. when you don't see more added for at least 30 seconds, then you can start mining.
Atuss Said on June 24th, 2011 at 14:15:26:
what makes you think I am doing it under remote desktop ? I am not ,I am physically here ! :S
LobsterMan Said on June 25th, 2011 at 04:36:35:
Atuss: this is posted in an above comment………
hunter Said on April 30th, 2011 at 17:04:
I was getting the "IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '0303c221e52590b1c8d438ece3ac092f.elf'" error as well. The problem was the directories I had bitcoin and poclbm_py in were read-only, and the permissions weren't set correctly. I changed those two things, and it worked correctly. I'm on Win 7 64 bit.
Luis Said on July 4th, 2011 at 03:00:32:
hi lobsterman…. i was able to run the program in multi gpu as i am using 6990.. one thing id like to know if the long method that i am using right now is for solo mining. If not how do you make it to run in solo? thanks and regards..
LobsterMan Said on July 4th, 2011 at 07:14:40:
Luis: If you followed the long version of the guide and are connecting to your local bitcoin node to mine, then you are solo mining for yourself
Melroy van den Berg Said on July 6th, 2011 at 22:48:17:
About the Poclbm miner, you said you use the -f flag for your nvidia gtx275. The -f stands for frames -h says:
-f FRAMES, –frames=FRAMES
will try to bring single kernel execution to 1/frames
seconds, default=30, increase this for less desktop
kiko Said on July 9th, 2011 at 21:38:06:
Hello LobsterMan, my miner works fine with my HD 5870, mining at 345 Mhash/s, but… Where can I see the Bitcoins that I am creating?… thanks
LobsterMan Said on July 9th, 2011 at 21:54:33:
kiko: It depends…if you are using a pool you will need to check that pool's website, if you are mining for yourself you won't see anything unless you actually happen to generate a block, in which case you will receive 50btc to your wallet on the computer which you are using to mine
kiko Said on July 9th, 2011 at 22:00:31:
Thnaks.. but look this.. I'm now viewing a youtube tutorial, and then I realized that my bitcoin client version don't have the option "generate coins" ???… so a few minutes ago I made client downgrade from the last version 0.3.24 to 0.3.21… that is weird :S
kiko Said on July 9th, 2011 at 22:21:32:
mmm, oh, and when I will know if I finish to generate a block ??? can I see the progress of that ???… thanks Lobser 🙂
Makala Said on July 9th, 2011 at 22:41:05:
I get an error that says: "ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified module could not be found.". Any thoughts? Thanks!
kiko Said on July 9th, 2011 at 23:09:26:
Yes… if your video card is ATI, install the SDK and the last drivers
Pop Said on July 12th, 2011 at 16:46:49:
Hello, I've followed the guide to the letter but I seem to be having a problem with my batch file. Therefore I went to troubleshooting and just accessed the file poclbm.exe with the command prompt. When I put in:
poclbm.exe –user=pop –pass=sal –device=0
All it does is respond: poclbm.exe: error: no such option: –user
I'd attempted changing and fixing things and redoing steps but it's managed to not fix anything. Looking for some help, please and thank you<3
obvious fake Said on July 12th, 2011 at 19:03:55:
with the latest version of poclbm, syntax –user and –password no longer exists. now it must be used like this:
poclbm http://user:pass@host:port –device:0
where user is your username, pass is your password, host is your computer (usually typing 'localhost' is enough) and port is the server port for bitcoin, usually 8332.
so it became like this:
poclbm http://user:pass@localhost:8332 –device 0
don't forget to replace 'user' and 'pass' with your own login.
Osilot Said on July 12th, 2011 at 20:08:41:
I'm getting an odd error;
Usage: poclbm.exe [OPTION]… SERVER[#tag]…
SERVER is one or more [http[s]://]user:pass@host:port (required)
[#tag] is a per SERVER user friendly name displayed in stats (optional)
poclbm.exe: error: no such option: –user
LobsterMan Said on July 12th, 2011 at 22:17:54:
Sorry about the delay…I've updated the guide to reflect changes in the recent version of poclbm; thanks for the heads up in the comments
Shazbot2000 Said on July 20th, 2011 at 15:58:28:
i7-D920 2.66Ghz. (not using cpu at all)
Catalyst: 11.6
ATI SDK v2.1
Using: GIUMiner v2011-07-01
Flags: -v -w 128
Worked straight away, 3hrs to get the full chain…
GPU set to defaults: Mem 1200MHz/Clock 800MHz
Generating 340 Mhash/s
Actually clocked the GPU down in CCC to 1100Mhz/700Mhz so I don't have to have it running full whack!
Generating 305 Mhash/s
Nick Said on August 3rd, 2011 at 05:53:57:
Hi, LobsterMan
I faced the same problem as described many times here:
Import error: DLL load failed.
I have an Intel GMA 4500MHD video card installed in my laptop. and it seems to be the last version of driver is installed as well.
Could you propose some causes of problem or solutions?
Keep fingers crossed,
LobsterMan Said on August 4th, 2011 at 00:07:41:
Nick: I believe that is onboard/integrated video and may not support OpenCL, check out the GPU Caps viewer linked at the top of the page to see if your device supports OpenCL
norma Said on August 26th, 2011 at 09:35:57:
how do I know when blocks are downloaded when it reach 0? I know its a stupid question but im not sure how can i know when it finished download…
chris Said on August 29th, 2011 at 10:57:28:
Is it correct that my miner reads 31.0 Ghash/s running on CUDA w/ a gt240?
LobsterMan Said on August 29th, 2011 at 22:25:36:
norma: when the number of blocks in your client reaches this number http://blockexplorer.com/q/getblockcount
chris: sounds about right
Ironwizard Said on September 15th, 2011 at 15:22:14:
Thanks for the write up!
Got both GPUs running well @60 C or so
iBit Said on September 22nd, 2011 at 14:22:01:
Thanks Lobby – your instructions worked smooth for me.
But don't think I can bear the lag on my PC for weeks – I need it to do real stuff too. Is there any way to "pause" the miner or, alternatively, if I shut it down can it pick up from where it left off (or I suspect it goes back to square 1)?
LobsterMan Said on September 23rd, 2011 at 14:41:21:
iBit: there is no "progress", and you can mess around with the -f option to try to reduce lag on your computer; I tend to stop my miners when I am playing games and stuff though
AnttiM Said on October 9th, 2011 at 08:46:48:
Hi, when I try to run bitcoin.exe with the -server option, it gives me a Warning message:
"Warning: To use the "-server" option, you must set rpcpassword=<password> in the configuration file: C:\Users…\bitcoin.conf If the file does not exist, crate it with owner-readable-only file permissions."
I created the bitcoin.conf file as you've told above, but it doesn't work. How do I set the permissions right?
AnttiM Said on October 9th, 2011 at 09:02:44:
Oh never mind. My bitcoin.conf file was just saved as a .txt file, now it seems to work.
AnttiM Said on October 9th, 2011 at 10:30:04:
The current block count is
but my bitcoin server has stopped downloading blocks at 130615.
Do I just have to wait longer?
AnttiM Said on October 9th, 2011 at 11:54:52:
Yeah, I'll just wait longer 😉
Mining bitcoins - Grasscity.com Forums Said on November 13th, 2011 at 13:38:36:
[…] […]
vfoolio Said on December 5th, 2011 at 00:45:11:
this is what is displayed after i did everything
localhost:8332 [42.935 MH/s (`0 MH/s)] [Rej: 0/0 (0%)]
is it working. is my hash rate at ~42 MH/s? i even used the -w 256 parameter.
LobsterMan Said on December 5th, 2011 at 11:48:44:
vfoolio: Yes that means it's working
John DeBrita Said on January 31st, 2012 at 12:52:46:
I have been syncing for 3 days now and am at 97% now. I imagine this mean laptop will suck for mining.
does anyone now have a suggested build for hardware software just for mining at ultimate efficiency in a budget of $1,000.00 to 2,000.00 USD?
I 'd be very interested to see what a few of you would come up with.
"please don't hate the noob, encourage him so he can grow into the community instead of being left behind and outcast only to exact his revenge in some meaningless holocaust some day in the near future."
LobsterMan Said on January 31st, 2012 at 20:27:03:
John DeBrita: You cannot really mine well on most laptops… As for building a mining rig, there is a lot of info out there on which cards to buy etc, https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison for example
Creating my username and password for bitcoin… Said on February 6th, 2012 at 20:01:19:
[…] reading this article for Windows Bitcoin […]
Beginners' Resources | newbitcoiners Said on February 7th, 2012 at 18:20:51:
[…] How to get started using your gpu to mine for bitcoins on windows […]
vfoolio Said on February 27th, 2012 at 01:13:31:
well i decided to use guiminer and it shows my speed at 739 Ghash/s .
is this normal or some kind of bug? i see most results in the 100 Mhash/s
why do i have 739 Ghash/s?
thanks in advanced
LobsterMan Said on March 1st, 2012 at 02:32:15:
vfoolio: Could be showing the pool aggregate hash or something….it most definitely should not be several hundred Ghash/sec for your own personal miner…
Enrique Said on August 24th, 2012 at 00:38:55:
Hi mr Newslobster, i did it all, it worked fine until i ran the miner and gave me this error
pyopencl.LogicError: clGetPlatformIDs failed: invalid/unknown error code
im on a WinXP x64 machine with an nvidia quadro pro 560 im pretty sure i have the most updated driver so, any thoughts?
thanks in advance,
LobsterMan Said on August 27th, 2012 at 16:56:59:
Enrique: I'm not sure if this guide is even up to date any more as I haven't been mining as much with the difficulty so high…I think your card is just really old and might not actually support opencl
zero0 Said on August 31st, 2012 at 02:47:12:
i have a problem, when i run the BinCoin-qt.exe it doesnt create a folder on programs, its like portable
Anonymous Said on September 14th, 2012 at 14:55:59:
where file bitcoin.exe, not found in my computer ,just BinCoin-qt.exe, after instal program not single one of bitcoin,exe
LobsterMan Said on September 16th, 2012 at 17:43:21:
Sorry about the confusion…bitcoin.exe is now bitcoin-qt.exe, and I have updated this page to reflect this
rpadgett Said on September 23rd, 2012 at 22:31:55:
Enrique, issue is windows xp. Install Windown 7 and your issue will disappear. XP no longer supports OpenCL.
Anonymous Said on October 3rd, 2012 at 04:33:19:
where have you updated the bitcoin-qt.exe insead of bitcoin.exe?
the guiminer cannot link to bitcoin-qt.exe
How to calculate Bitcoins using GPGPU on an ATI HD 6770 | circulos meos Said on October 10th, 2012 at 18:19:52:
[…] How to get started using your GPU to mine for Bitcoins on Windows http://www.newslobster.com/random/how-to-get-started-using-your-gpu-to-mine-for-bitcoins-on-windows […]
How to calculate Bitcoins using GPGPU | circulos meos Said on October 10th, 2012 at 18:28:15:
[…] How to get started using your GPU to mine for Bitcoins on Windows http://www.newslobster.com/random/how-to-get-started-using-your-gpu-to-mine-for-bitcoins-on-windows […]
asdfgh Said on November 16th, 2012 at 21:39:47:
I'm sure the IRS would love to know about this, nigger lover.
bob Said on December 16th, 2012 at 19:07:33:
Every time I try to load guiminer it just crashes and says the following.
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: guiminer.exe
Application Version: 0.0.0.0
Application Timestamp: 49180193
Fault Module Name: StackHash_0a9e
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 00000000
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00000000
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 0a9e
Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3: 0a9e
Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
How to mine bitcoins and namecoins ? | Spotforblog.com Said on January 23rd, 2013 at 06:14:35:
[…] you're thinking buying mining hardware, read this first ! How to get started using your GPU to mine for Bitcoins on Windows (information is a bit old, but you can still read it, to widen your knowledge about mining) Mining […]
Anonymous Said on January 25th, 2013 at 23:37:48:
I have followed this guide to the T. When I run the .bat for poclbm I get this:
api-stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333 _date_ _time_, checking for statum…
Exception in thread Thread-1:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "threading.pyo", line 525, in __boostrap_inner
File "threading.pyo", line 477, in run
File "BitcoinMiner.pyo", line 79, in mining_thread
File "BitcoinMiner.pyo", line 224, in load_kernel
IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: 'd1d21c03eb56da0442ee3becf4b79be6.elf'
api-stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333 _date_ _time_, no response to getwork, using as stratum
can anyone offer help on how to get the miner to work
I'm running Win8 64 bit Pro
Radeon 6570 GPU
FX 4100 CPU (OC'd to 4.4 GHz)
I have installed the latest drivers from AMD
Anonymous Said on January 26th, 2013 at 00:09:03:
Above fixed, I ran .bat as admin and it worked no problems. getting ~120MH/s with my card is amazing. I was running GUIMiner in Win7 64 Ultimate and only getting ~70MH/s. Thanks for this guide, I will be sending some btc your way for sure
Anonymous Said on January 31st, 2013 at 22:20:18:
i followed this and get the following error for
2013-01-31 20:10:17: Listener for "Default": 192.168.1.75:8333 31/01/2013 20:10:17, started OpenCL miner on platform 0, device 0 (GeForce 9800 GT)
2013-01-31 20:10:17: Listener for "Default": 192.168.1.75:8333 31/01/2013 20:10:17, checking for stratum…
2013-01-31 20:10:22: Listener for "Default": 192.168.1.75:8333 31/01/2013 20:10:22, no response to getwork, using as stratum
2013-01-31 20:10:32: Listener for "Default": 192.168.1.75:8333 31/01/2013 20:10:32, Failed to subscribe
2013-01-31 20:10:34: Listener for "Default": 192.168.1.75:8333 31/01/2013 20:10:34, IO errors – 1, tolerance 2
WHY NO WORK lol help please
LobsterMan Said on February 2nd, 2013 at 00:08:07:
Anonymous: A simple google search with your error message yielded this suggestion….:Any ideas if I'm doing something wrong, if something is wrong with the new poclbm or something with the stratum pool?
I was able to connect to BTC Guild with the standard protocol and port and it does work. So the problem seems to lie somewhere in the stratum implementation.
I don't know if this may help and I am unfamiliar with stratum; this is the thread I found it from (google is a handy tool….. 😉 ) —
Good Luck 🙂
BTCM Said on February 10th, 2013 at 07:58:18:
At last I found a good tutorial for solo mining with GPU! Thanks so much! I wrote myself a tutorial exclusively for pool mining with a CPU here: http://thebitcoinmaster.blogspot.com/2013/02/how-to-join-mining-pool.html
Jakobb Said on March 23rd, 2013 at 07:25:34:
When i try to launch my .bat file i get these errors.(I put them in cmd so that i could see them) And i dont understand what ther errors mean:
File "poclbm.py", line 85, in <module>
File "BitcoinMiner.pyo", line 50, in __init__
File "BitcoinMiner.pyo", line 263, in get_adapters_info
NameError: global name ´ADLError´ is not defined
Any ideas?
mechh69 Said on March 27th, 2013 at 10:12:13:
How well does this work with multipule GPUs? I have 3 260GTX Core 216 SC and a 9600 for physx. Should I run this in SLI w/Physics or should I run them seperatly?
Sauliooz Said on March 30th, 2013 at 05:13:06:
Hey there. Does mining with GPU still working? Now when there are ASIC mining hardware difficulty should be rocketing up, thus decreasing probability to get BTC's. GPU cards should use more electricity than they earn BTC now. Or is it not the case when BTC prices are increased?
LobsterMan Said on April 1st, 2013 at 16:15:38:
Mining with most GPUs isn't really worth it any more for the most part…it depends though, with the price so high… If you have more than a few hundred MHash/sec and are part of a pool you may still be able to make more money than you spend in electricity, but with the difficulty going so high to match the price I really don't know…
Stupid Said on April 2nd, 2013 at 01:44:59:
Idk how to do this. I'm stupid.
NeedHelp Said on April 3rd, 2013 at 12:19:19:
I recieve this message in the console: 'OpenCLMiner' is not defined
clay Said on April 5th, 2013 at 12:18:30:
Just a couple quick questions. From reading your tutorial on the GUI, do I need to first install poclbm or if I am just using your GUI is that already taken care of? I am running the GUI now with Bitcoin Wallet (did not install poclbm) and it is telling me difficulty 1 hashes 47 but only 2.8Mhash/s … I have a GTX660Ti GPU so I thought this should be higher and wanted to be sure it is actually mining? If it is, then I will most likely join a pool because it sounds like my single rig wont cut it to actually find anything. Thanks in advance for any help!
LobsterMan Said on April 5th, 2013 at 20:55:28:
clay: As far as I remember…the GUIMiner has poclbm or whatever miner already included in the package. 2.8mhash/sec looks like a CPU's rate of mining speed (not a gpu)…and most pools will give you hashes with "difficulty 1" to hash in order to earn shares. You probably do want to join a pool if you are using a GPU to mine.
SlyG07 Said on April 6th, 2013 at 10:04:13:
Hey Guys,
Great guide. I had to follow though some of the comments concerning with the .bat files, .conf files, and .txt files. It's better to just open Notepad first and then save properly than just right clicking and adding a .txt files with the file name and extension.
Anyways, I'm having some issues; I'm getting this error when trying to run the .bat script…
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "poclbm.py", line 3, in <module>
File "zipextimporter.pyo", line 82, in load_module
File "BitcoinMiner.pyo", line 16, in <module>
File "zipextimporter.pyo", line 82, in load_module
File "adl3\__init__.pyo", line 1, in <module>
File "zipextimporter.pyo", line 82, in load_module
File "adl3\adl_api.pyo", line 53, in <module>
File "ctypes\__init__.pyo", line 353, in __init__
WindowsError: [Error 126] The specified module could not be found
Can anyone help please?
SlyG07 Said on April 6th, 2013 at 18:05:24:
Sorry for reposting, but I just wanted to make sure someone was able to look at my comment.
Hey Guys,
Great guide. I had to follow though some of the comments concerning with the .bat files, .conf files, and .txt files. It's better to just open Notepad first and then save properly than just right clicking and adding a .txt files with the file name and extension.
Anyways, I'm having some issues; I'm getting this error when trying to run the .bat script…
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "poclbm.py", line 3, in <module>
File "zipextimporter.pyo", line 82, in load_module
File "BitcoinMiner.pyo", line 16, in <module>
File "zipextimporter.pyo", line 82, in load_module
File "adl3\__init__.pyo", line 1, in <module>
File "zipextimporter.pyo", line 82, in load_module
File "adl3\adl_api.pyo", line 53, in <module>
File "ctypes\__init__.pyo", line 353, in __init__
WindowsError: [Error 126] The specified module could not be found
Can anyone help please?
LobsterMan Said on April 6th, 2013 at 20:28:12:
SlyG07: There are tons and tons of error message and I haven't experienced them all…the #1 thing that will fix most problems is get the latest graphics card drivers, and be sure that your card even supports OpenCL in the first place. If that fails, googling part of the error message such as
" File "zipextimporter.pyo", line 82, in load_module"
tends to be helpful in some cases 🙂
You could also try getting a more recent version of poclbm too, because it seems that some issues may have been fixed in there too.
Web Journal – [littlefixit] » Beginner's Guide to Bitcoin Said on April 10th, 2013 at 12:07:21:
[…] How to get started using your gpu to mine for bitcoins on windows […]
Bitcoin Quick Tutorial and Overview Said on April 10th, 2013 at 12:36:26:
[…] Comparison – https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison 9. GPU Mining – http://www.newslobster.com/random/how-to-get-started-using-your-gpu-to-mine-for-bitcoins-on-windows 10. GPU/Guiminer […]
LobsterMan Said on April 10th, 2013 at 22:38:41:
UPDATE and additional reply to SlyG07: I just tried the latest version poclbm_py2exe_20110709 on my gtx275 and it gives me the same error
It appears this is a known issue and there is no updated standalone working windows version yet…use GUIMiner in the meantime
Dave Said on April 14th, 2013 at 16:03:24:
Thanks for the guide LobsterMan!
@SlyG07 and LobsterMan:
I am getting the same [Error 126] with my GTX 460. I'm not worried about it since GUIminer has been working fine for me.
On another note, I am trying to get my own pool setup. I have pushpool setup in a virtual Ubuntu computer, but I am struggling with the database configuration! I have never used SQL first hand before, and this seems like an overwhelming project to jump into and try to learn a new language/syntax all at once. Anybody have any pointers? Cheers.
Chris Said on April 24th, 2013 at 02:01:12:
Hey I need some help.
I followed your guide, but when running poclbm I get the following output and then nothing happens:
localhost:8332 24/04/2013 07:58:44, checking for stratum…
Exception in thread Thread-1:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "threading.pyo", line 525, in __bootstrap_inner
File "threading.pyo", line 477, in run
File "BitcoinMiner.pyo", line 79, in mining_thread
File "BitcoinMiner.pyo", line 224, in load_kernel
IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: 'f092258948ca4bddbf4c84fc2b10e6
localhost:8332 24/04/2013 07:58:44, using JSON-RPC (no stratum header)
Dennis Said on April 24th, 2013 at 15:36:04:
Hey this is a really nice guide but I got a problem.
I followed the long part completely but if I am running the batch file this error message appear:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "poclbm.py", line 3, in (module)
File "zipextimporter.pyo", line 82, in load_module
File "BitcoinMiner.pyo", line 11, in (module)
File "zipextimporter.pyo", line 82, in load_module
File "pyopencl\__init__.pyo", line 3, in (module)
File "zipextimporter.pyo", line 98, in load_module
ImportError: MemoryLoadLibrary failed loading pyopencl\_cl.pyd
I really don't know what to do know i hope you can help me! 😀
LobsterMan Said on April 24th, 2013 at 20:45:30:
Chris: Not sure…looks like a pool error?
Dennis: The most recent version of poclbm has some issues, use guiminer instead for now…
Dennis Said on April 25th, 2013 at 07:40:02:
Thanks for the fast answer..
but I got a problem with you GUIMiner too, because everytime I want to start mining it says "nothing to mine on, exciting".. when I open GUIMiner it also says "No OpenCL devices were found[..]". To be honest I really don't know how to set up this OpenCL I searched the wohle web and tried everything but there must be certain things I missunderstood :D. Do you know this problem and give me some advice? PS: I'm glad you take so much time to answer to all posts 🙂
LobsterMan Said on April 25th, 2013 at 17:21:03:
Dennis: I don't really know…have you tried getting the latest drivers for your graphics card? It is also possible your card does not support opencl, or you've got something configured incorrectly…..
Dennis Said on April 26th, 2013 at 19:47:42:
I'm sorry that I take so much of your time, but it's really frustrating..
I got the latest driver of my graphic card It's a Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 and I'm pretty sure it also supports OpenCL, but it is not listed in the GUIMiner devices.. even Cap Viewer tells me that my graphic card is OpenCL compatible. I REALLY don't know what to do… is there something special to know if you want to use Nvidia GPU to mine bitcoins??
LobsterMan Said on April 26th, 2013 at 23:46:25:
Dennis: Sorry…I really don't know. I have GTX275s and they work fine. Running poclbm standalone gave me the exact same error you listed, but guiminer has its own custom compilation of poclbm and it worked fine. Maybe you have something else misconfigured elsewhere…. 🙁
(Old cards such as the ones you/I have aren't really worth mining with anymore anyway 😉 )
Bitcoin Beginner's Guide | Happiness Sharing Said on May 18th, 2013 at 06:34:23:
[…] How to get started using your gpu to mine for bitcoins on windows […]
Hao Cher Said on May 28th, 2013 at 23:37:16:
Hello, Im wondering that is it possible that my solo machine cannot get any block forever due to my hash rate is not high enough. As I understand (If Im correct), only first 6 miner that get the solution of a deal are considered as contributers and only they will get new coins. So what if there are always somebody get solution faster than me? Is that means that its possible that I moght get nothing forever? And how does the calculator you peovided calulate my time of earning block?
*assume I have a 2Gh/s machine about what I said above.
LobsterMan Said on May 29th, 2013 at 22:29:41:
Hao Cher: Very possible you may never get a block solo mining (only the first one person who finds the block will get it in the case of solo mining)… Probability dictates that you should get one eventually, but it is not guaranteed.
See here: http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/old_calculator.php
12153412 is the difficulty factor at the time of this post
Alex B. Said on June 7th, 2013 at 11:27:16:
I just want people to know about the GP-GPU mining of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies such as Litecoin, BBQcoin, etc., despite your using your graphics card to generate the hash, your CPU is still being used to ferry the data back and forth between the main memory and your cards, also does the actual submitting of your shares, so the CPU is still being used.
If you use both your CPU and your graphics card (GP-GPU) at the same time and you use all cores at once on the CPU you're asking for trouble. Because the CPU has to run your application, the operating system it sits on and of course ferry the data back and forth from the memory to the cores and to the cards and back again, when the data hash is done, then send it. Your CPUs can't very well do their job if they are cranked at 75 ~ 100%.
If you have a descent graphics card now that's fairly inexpensive, such as an ATI HD5750, it's best to stick with GP-GPU number crunching only / hash-bashing.
If you are really serious about this you can get a dedicated miner for Bitcoin from Butterfly Labs which does cryptological hashes only and a very specific kind (which Bitcoin at current uses). Which would then free up your computer to do other things, such as to game on.
As of the date today, Friday, June 7, 2013, I would not advise anyone to do solo mining unless you get upwards of 332 and above Terahash rates per second. Yes, that is a nut-case high number but you have to remember, pools have all the computing power together and is additive but if you do it solo, you're all alone.
You should see the other pools that are mining for Bitcoin, since they use the same shares as what you are mining from the source, they are your competition. So, that means you have to be much faster than all of them combined in effort to keep yourself afloat, thus also generating income at a descent rate too.
So, if you can't do this and don't have that kind of hardware (give you a hint, it's over 1/4 million bucks USD to date to even getting anywhere near this number. It's not just the hardware you would be paying for, it's the power bill too, by this time you would have a secured building, secured rack enclosures, high speed Internet; 1 ~ 10 Gbps optical Ethernet multi-homed and a crud load of the Butterfly Labs 1,500 GH/s Bitcoin Miner
BitForce Mini Rig SC.
1,000 GH/s is 1.0 TH/s (TeraHash)
1,000 MH/s is 1.0 GH/s (GigaHash)
1,000 kH/s is 1.0 MH/s (MegaHash)
So, just by looking at the note as information, you realize exactly how much processing you need to be doing to outrun the other pool, it borders at this point in time as insanity. Most people can't afford all of this, let alone know how to configure
the myriad of hardware options to get this high-end processing done and submitting hashes like the big dogs.
Stick to pool mining for now.
Alex B. Said on June 7th, 2013 at 11:36:48:
I need to correct one error I made in the last statement and it wasn't clear. The operating system and your applications are in memory (collectively sitting on the CPU and the rest of the system).
If you try to use the CPU at max and the GP-GPU at max at the same time your numbers will drop because the bus line in the computer systems are shared with all the components in your system, that gets loaded down and in most cases, DMA can't occur if certain conditions aren't met. In this case, it's not met, which means that your cards will starve for data, which makes the hashrates drop like a rock. If you stop using the CPU for this purpose and just run it on your GP-GPU, your hashrate skyrockets again (which is the way it should be).
When the GP-GPUs crank up to 70 ~ 89 degrees Celsius, that's normal for this type of application, make sure you have darn good air circulation in your case and it's cool in your room where you are using the system, because you can overheat the cards really quick, if you're above 25 degrees Celsius (room temperature), which is 77 degrees Fahrenheit in your room where you are running your computer.
LobsterMan Said on June 8th, 2013 at 03:01:33:
Just chiming in, the above info by Alex B. is pretty much correct 🙂
If you want to earn any bitcoins at all, you should use a pool (and mining BTC with your CPU is pretty much pointless at this point in time). It is in theory possible that someone with 100mhash doing solo mining may even generate their own block, but the odds are very much against that happening within 50 years so so…but since it is all based on luck essentially, you could possibly hit 3 blocks all in a row in under 100 seconds…but this is even more rare 😉
You can see the various pools and their respective percentage of the aggregate hashrate at http://www.bitcoincharts.com and http://blockchain.info/pools
If you do have "decent" hardware, as in a modern gpu or two, if you can ensure that your cooling is adequate and are aware that your hardware will be somewhat stressed and may (but probably won't) fail, and you are in a situation that allows you access to free electricity (such as living in a college dorm or apartment), then you may as well mine if you are not using your GPUs for gaming or something else at the time (in a pool, but again there is a small, small chance you could hit a block solo too). Also note that if your computer is in an enclosed space or small room, the area is likely to go up in temperature quite a bit while mining, so make sure nothing catches on fire etc…
jacob Said on June 14th, 2013 at 10:20:50:
Ok so I try and run it, and cmd windows open & close way too fast, but with some careful print scr timing I see that it closes after
"WindowsError: [Error 126] The specified module could not be found"
Any help?
LobsterMan Said on June 14th, 2013 at 21:26:24:
jacob: If you read the guide carefully it tells you how to start a miner in its own command prompt window, so what it won't shut before you can view the error message…. 😛
Other than that, some people seem to have the best luck with GUIMiner, as I think the latest version of standalone poclbm may still have some bugs in windows
Ani Said on August 13th, 2013 at 14:39:19:
hey everyone,
Iam new to the concept of bitcoin mining my professor has assigned me the project of bitcoin mining using GPU.
Iam confused and not knowing how to get started with, I need your help as to know how to get started with and how do I know how actually bitcoin mining is done..? hardware used and software required for it…
Your help is appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Ani Said on August 13th, 2013 at 14:49:35:
Hi Alex,
As you have commented earlier about mining of bitcoins with GPU's show that you have already worked/working with miner using GPU.I here by want you to please guide me how do i get started with bit coin mining as I have no idea about it.
I just want you to please guide me in an orderly way right from basics as to learn each and every thing.
Your help is appreciated thanks…
LobsterMan Said on August 13th, 2013 at 20:37:50:
Ani……………try reading the article………….(if you are not a spam bot)
Ani Said on August 14th, 2013 at 00:46:25:
Hi Lobster Man
which article ur referring to..??
Stef Said on September 23rd, 2013 at 17:29:03:
I have AMD Radeon HD6970 with new drivers but Guiminer is shows me this message "api.bitcoin.cz:8332, 23/09/2013 23:22_59, Verification failed, check hardware!", what to do?
LobsterMan Said on September 23rd, 2013 at 18:00:03:
Stef: It seems that problem can be related to incorrect drivers installations or failure to perform a totally clean upgrade and/or uninstallation of previous drivers…take a look here:
JimB Said on September 25th, 2013 at 01:28:39:
Uh, do I understand Alex B's message on June 7 correctly? He says unless we have 330+ Terahashes per second, it's pointless to go it alone. With a Radeon ATI 6870, it gets 278 MEGAhashes per second. In other words, a person would have to have over 1 million such devices to 'go it alone'. Doesn't sound at all realistic to me. Who's gaming the system now? What did they do three years ago? Who's moving the goal-posts? and how
LobsterMan Said on September 26th, 2013 at 02:50:48:
JimB: Well…. that is debatable. If you mine in a pool, with approx 280MHash/sec, you will get *some* bitcoins, but it will probably be very few, only on the order of maybe 0.005 to 0.01 per day/week (I don't know the exact number, I just pulled that out of my ass, but it is probably somewhat comparable to that). The question is, is it profitable for you to sell or hold the bitcoins you mine, vs. how much it costs you in electricity to run your mining device. If you have a graphics card or other device to mine, and for example live on a college campus with "free" power, then it may be "profitable" to mine anyway even though you will gain very few BTC (as some is better than none). I would however caution that unless you are able to get your hands on a multi-gigahash "ASIC mining device" (google that for more info), you probably should NOT purchase anything with the intent to mine; aside from acquiring it soley for novelty factor (as in the USB block erupters), because you will probably not recoup your investment at this stage in the game.
Who is "gaming" the system now? …no one really in particular. Some people have these much sought after ASIC mining devices and they are the competitive forces generating most of the BTC at present.
3 Years ago any CPU could mine bitcoins well (and GPUs extremely well). The difficulty was very low and bitcoins were plentiful (but only worth a few ¢…don't we all wish we kept more from way back when….). The "difficulty" factor self-adjusts automatically based on how many people mine for bitcoins, and in general only goes up. If you want to learn more about difficulty and how that all works see here (a bit technical but still describes how things work 😛 ): https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty
MRM Said on October 8th, 2013 at 07:48:27:
ok can anyone help me to understand i run this thing and i get 89.9Mhash/s and 28 accepted but balance stays 0?
LobsterMan Said on October 8th, 2013 at 17:23:09:
MRM: it depends on how your pool works…that may mean "28 shares", and you should get some payment next time the pool finds a block…consult your pool's documentation for further info :X
Boehler Said on November 7th, 2013 at 20:04:54:
Great guide. pulling about 250K khash with my system
Thanks very much!
Win 7 Home
i5 M480
Nvidia GTX 620
Guide: Bitcoin-Mining | The LastBlog Said on November 29th, 2013 at 12:17:42:
[…] Guide zum Solo-Mining: http://www.newslobster.com/random/how-to-get-started-using-your-gpu-to-mine-for-bitcoins-on-windows […]
Kurt Said on November 29th, 2013 at 13:32:40:
Hey everyone,
Great posting if you have the time to review it all. I have been looking into the newest AMD APU's like the A10. Has anyone looked into thes as a possible solution to the cpu/gpu issues? It is my understanding that te APU's are or have GPU's on the core with the CPU's. I wonder if they would speed it up at all? Any thoughts?
LobsterMan Said on November 29th, 2013 at 14:42:04:
Kurt: That is a good question, I don't know of any research or testing which has been done with APUs, although I haven't really been following the most cutting edge mining activities these past few months.
I don't know a whole lot about this thing, but if it looks like it may be a game-changer or will significantly affect things, I will update the main article with this new info.
Garrett Said on December 1st, 2013 at 13:38:41:
Who wants to go landfill diving in Europe? That could be the next great Nicolas Cage/Indiana Jones movie.
Beginner's Guide to #Bitcoin Mining | The Crypto-Currency Mining and Exchange Guide Said on December 4th, 2013 at 17:55:27:
[…] How to get started using your gpu to mine for bitcoins on windows […]
bretto Said on December 7th, 2013 at 05:14:06:
Kudos to the author for having a very detailed beginners guide but do the new versions of guiminer set this all up or is/are there good reasons to still do everything in this guide? I ask because after watching MrJayBushs youtube vid I have my rig doing 260ish Mhash/s but with problems. I have 3 miners on guimer, all slushs pool. My APU does ~1.5Mh/s, and my two RadeonHD6700s do ~300Mh/s. but the only results are with my APU. I get a couple of shares an hour at 1.5MH/s and zero accepted/stale shares with my GPUs. Anybody gots any suggestions? I just found this site so when I have time I'll look through it more, so apologies in advance.
ryan Said on December 9th, 2013 at 18:07:53:
Can someone help me? im having a problem running my gui miner with the switchable graphics. HP pav g6 series with the radeon HD6xxx…. i have a updated driver but will not work
LobsterMan Said on December 9th, 2013 at 21:39:19:
ryan: google the error message you are getting…
investo Said on December 10th, 2013 at 00:54:38:
Guys, thinking about purchasing a 2 Ths miner. Are these calculators regarding going alone correct? It shows at the current level I would get about 1.42 BTC over a 24 hour period. What is the gotcha here. I would only have to wait about 17 days or so for a block. Any help would be appreciated.
LobsterMan Said on December 10th, 2013 at 18:34:24:
investo: I'm not sure about current calculations… The difficulty is going up so fast these days that any mining is a risky endeavor, and you may not "break even" in terms of bitcoin equivalent spent in us dollars vs how many bitcoins you mine. Further, there are A LOT of scam/sham mining device vendors out there, so do thorough research before you buy anything.
frankie Said on December 25th, 2013 at 08:48:10:
The BitcoinMiner.py from the 20120920 release looks for ImportError, but I see WindowsError
"WindowsError: [Error 126] The specified module could not be found
I think the reason is that it checking availability of ATI drivers
Crypto - Bitco, Bitcoins and Digital Cryptocurrency Said on January 3rd, 2014 at 06:46:46:
[…] Here's a detailed guide to mining bitcoins from your windows laptop or pc : http://www.newslobster.com/random/how-to-get-started-using-your-gpu-to-mine-for-bitcoins-on-windows […]
Linus Said on January 29th, 2014 at 15:15:48:
hi i dont understand what you are meaning on the 3. when i start guiminer i do the extract thing but where is the interfase?? im so stupid sorry but please tell me 🙂
eno Said on March 9th, 2014 at 17:10:21:
How many <<Accepted>> thingies do you guys usually get while solo mining ? How about <<Stale>> ones ?
While using Guiminer, after finding a new block, in how much time did that reflect in your wallet balance ?
LobsterMan Said on March 10th, 2014 at 08:24:42:
eno: It should only say accepted when you find your own block when mining solo (depending on your miner); pools will see this for every share
Bitcoin Mining – Was das ist und was man damit machen kann | BitCoin Digitrends Said on March 25th, 2014 at 21:22:01:
[…] m0mchil GPU-Miner (Windows) […]
Anonymous Said on March 28th, 2014 at 20:40:09:
The GUI is really irrelevant if everything is command line
hytecman Said on June 10th, 2014 at 12:16:01:
Really, this is the craziest stuff, I have ever heard. Mining for bitcoins on your computer, by the time you mine one of this stupid things or any amount for that matter you'll be dead. Come on, the US treasury did it better, they cut down trees, put nice little graphics on a piece of paper and call it a dollar bill, and it took them a shorter time than mining for "bitcoins"! What a waste of good computing power.
LobsterMan Said on June 10th, 2014 at 19:45:32:
hytecman: First of all US dollar bills are no longer treasury notes, they are federal reserve (debt) notes. (All us dollars say this note is legal tender for all debts…us money is debt these days not anything of value)
Also they are made of cotton not paper 😛
But they are kind of like bitcoins…only having value because people believe they have value 😉