How to Mine Ethereum

How to Mine Ethereum – Is your one stop place to go to learn everything about Ethereum mining. How to Mine Ethereum is an in-depth guide on Ethereum Mining for beginners & professional Ethereum miners too!

Ethereum's mining has evolved a lot in a short time, and there have been many questions in the comments on previous tutorials. If I make the effort to respond as quickly and as often as possible, it is clear that often the same questions come back. So I wrote a new article to try to answer as many questions as possible about the material, the ways of mining, the profitability.

This article also offers a tutorial to use software frequently used under Windows. In order not to write an encyclopaedia, only this method for mining will be explained, as well as its use on 3 pools. It is possible to undermine with other software, in a different way, but the pools almost all explain it very well, and a bad level of English is enough to understand what to do.

As in my previous tutorial, I will only talk about mining in a "pool" which allows pooling the computing power of several people to pool the means of mining. The difficulty is today such that it seems to me illusory to want to undermine all alone with its few big GPU.

Note that my old "complete" tutorial remains quite valid, just check if the pools have not changed their server addresses. Sometimes they no longer allow mining without Stratum-proxy.

Finally, a few words of vocabulary to remember:
 Fork = Modified Software
 Pool = mining team
 Wallet = a wallet that stores your ethers
 Worker / Rig = machine that mine (most often your PC)

Wallet

To destroy ether (ETH) by participating in the blockchain Ethereum, you need a wallet to send your ether (type 0xD95DC4cf508fDDC10870 ...). If you do not have one, you can create it here .
Once you have created your wallet, you do not have to go back to the wallet to know your balance and transactions, you can go to all the blockchain's explorer sites, such as https: // etherchain. org / or https://etherscan.io/ . In the search tool, at the top right of these sites, you paste your wallet address and access to all info: balance, transactions.

Advance warnings and quick overview of financial risks

How to Mine Ethereum - I prefer to warn you right away: mining on Ethereum has become incredibly hard in less than 2 years. When I started mining a year ago, I had only one GTX970 and it only took me 3 days to accumulate 1ETH. Now I have a GTX970, a R9 290 and an RX480 and a hashrate of 71.5MH / s. I recently observed:

 as of 18/03/2017, I got about 0.1 ETH in 1 day , or 10 days to reach 1ETH
 At today's date (12/05/2017), I get about 0.085 ETH in 1 day, or 12 days to reach 1ETH.
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Since the recent outbreak of the course, many people are discovering minors and full of big miners have reinvested. The more machines there are mining, the harder it is to undermine the less you gain from ether for what you participate. Do your calculations well before you start, there is of course a financial risk and it is not me who would be responsible for your financial losses if there were to be!

A small example of calculation deliberately simplistic to allow you to better understand the problem:

 A Rig with 6 RX480 (I give you some tips to build such a machine at the very end of my article), it's about 2000 € for 0.195ETH / day, about 71 ETH / year without taking into account that the difficulty increases what is a fairly bad hypothesis (you will have less ether in reality as the difficulty increases every day),
 The power consumption of such a machine is 1000W. So 1000W * 24h * 365j * 0.1449 € / kWh≈ 1300 € / year ,
 Assuming that you will only sell your Ether within 1 year (for a little speculate on a rising price!) And taking an exchange rate of 82 € / ETH at that time, you will get 5822 €.

If the value of the ether does not move too much in one year, you see with this simplistic calculation that your material will only be profitable after about 200 days. If the value of the ether climbs, obviously you are winning more quickly. On the other hand, and that is what I draw your attention to, if the value falls (which can obviously happen in view of the extremely sharp rise in the price in recent months), you risk ending up with a high cost of ownership, electricity remaining at your charge.

Finally, do not forget that at some point Ethereum will switch from a Work validation system to a Proof of Stake system , which means that we can no longer undermine our GPUs. To my knowledge this major modification of the functioning of the blockchain is not yet defined, but the team is working on it. When this happens, everyone will fall back on different blockchains. Although other blockchains seem very attractive, do not forget that the massive migration of minors to these other blockchains will blow up their mining difficulties (so you will earn less than what you currently earn by mining them).

Equipment for mining

For mining on Ethereum you need a computer with a graphics card with enough power and (currently) a minimum of 3GB of video memory. It may be important, if one cares about one's finances and one pays one's electricity, to choose equipment that is an efficient minimum (calculates quickly but consumes little electricity). How to Mine Ethereum: I have no friend who works at EDF, snif...
And why so 3GB of RAM onboard will you tell me? In reality, video memory is required to load a file named DAG that will allow doing the calculations. And this file is currently greater than 2GB and grows little by little according to a rule defined in advance. The forecast of its size evolution is as follows:

The 2GB limit was exceeded in mid-December 2016
the limit of 3GB will be exceeded in mid-April 2018
the limit of 4GB will be exceeded in mid-September 2019

If your graphics card does not have enough video memory to load the DAG file, you will not be able to mine with it.

Warning! Note that not all graphics cards are equal. The old cards like GTX6xx, 7xx; AMD R7, etc are rather outdated: you will not mince very quickly and consume a lot of current (chic, it heats the apartment in winter!). The R9, type R9 290 or R9 390 are valid hashrate level, but they consume a lot of electricity and heat a lot. Currently, I find that the RX470 and 480 are a good compromise, especially since their price should soon fall with the appearance of the RX5xx.

Get the lowest Ethereum Currency Prices here: http://ethereumcurrency.yolasite.com

The GTX1070 are powerful, but to choose and at the time of writing this article, I prefer 2 RX480 for the price of a GTX1070. As a general rule, the more recent the card, the more efficient it is. But beware, it is rarely the very high-end models that are the best at this game, because a little swollen and blow hungry in electricity. They are even sometimes super bad, like the GTX1080 (with the latest news, the GDDR5x memory that it embarks is not very good to undermine).

In short, you alone are in control of your budget and your goal: choose efficient cards to be profitable quickly and be able to update your equipment frequently, even if you abandon everything and not lose much if ether course breaks the figure. Invest all your savings to have the highest possible hashrate and quickly earn the most ether possible if you make the bet that its course will climb a long time and ultimately this big investment will be largely profitable.
I put some links to tools for you to form a personal opinion:

 You can see some graphics card hashrate stats here: http://62.212.74.86/~mining/list/nvidia/index.php?algo=eth .
 You can get a feel for your hardware here: https://whattomine.com or https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/#/equipment?f1=Ethash . Beware, sites often offer a high Hashrate for cards, I think they assume that you have completely optimized your machine or even put a custom BIOS on your GPU (which makes you lose the guarantee it seems to me).

 If you want to accurately calculate the profitability of your business it is here: https://cryptowizzard.github.io/eth-mining-calculator/
Finally, if these warnings have not cooled you and you still want to acquire a dedicated tool for mining, you will find some tips in the last paragraph of this article.

Miner, software part

We will now get to the heart of the matter and present a software that will allow you to step into your new modern day worker activity but before that some prerequisites and advice:

 For owners of AMD cards up to R9, do not use the Catalyst 16.3 drivers, they will cause your Hashrate to fall. Prefer the 15.11 that can be found on the site Guru3D for example.
 For the owners of AMD RX, take the 16.12.2, also available on the site of Guru3D.
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 Disable the SLI / Crossfire so that you can benefit from the power of each graphics card, it's more interesting.
 Whatever software you use, be patient, use the help of the program before coming to ask for help.
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 There are FAQs and Help pages on each pool's sites. Use preferably what they recommend. Obviously, it is in English, but if you start in the mining, it is better to have some knowledge in English, MS-DOS commands and hacks and small hacks of programs.

 Mining under Windows 10 is complicated, especially if you have an Nvidia card. But not impossible, see Ben's excellent tutorial on the subject .
 I propose to start your software by going through a .bat file, with a little bit of cmd / K "start / B ..." code. It is not necessary, you can put the attributes in a shortcut, but with my method you will be able to read the indications of the software if you have typed an error (by default the window closes and unless you are a super sayan, you will not have time to read the message).

In addition, you can add other things to do before launching the program (a few lines of optimization start a timer or something else that goes through your head). Be careful, this .bat file must be in the folder of the software, and if that does not suit you have to type in the .bat file the entire tree to reach your executable file.

Claymore Dual Miner

How to Mine Ethereum - This is the software I am currently using, version 7.4. The full name is Claymore's Dual Ethereum + Decred / Siacoin / Lbry / Pascal AMD + NVIDIA GPU Miner (sic). Very stable, it can be used indifferently with AMD and / or NVIDIA cards. There is also a slightly different version for Zcash (but no dual miner). You can parameterize a lot of things and you can even mint 2 blockchains at the same time (Ethereum + Decred or SIA or PASCAL or Lbry).Obviously, it's undermining with the rest of the available power, so it does not look too strong either. The intensity can be adjusted, but if the value is too high, it can slightly reduce the mining speed on Ethereum.

The best Ethereum Mining graphics Card is the RX Vega 56: http://rxvega56.zohosites.eu

There is a readme .txt file to read to know all the parameters. I will remind some of them here, but it evolves over the versions so do not hesitate to go and check what is mentioned there! I will not explain how to mine on a 2nd blockchain (read the readme to understand how it works).

Download and install Claymore's Dual Ethereum + Decred / Siacoin / Lbry / Pascal AMD + NVIDIA GPU Miner:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1433925.0
Open Notepad, and write the following lines:
cmd / K "start / B EthDcrMiner64.exe -epool URL_POOL: PORT_POOL -ewal VOTRE_WALLET -eworker WOMEN_NAME -epsw x"
Pause
If you want to mine only on your second card, including for a laptop with an Intel + GPU integrated AMD or Nvidia card combo:
Cmd / K "start / B EthDcrMiner64.exe -epool URL_POOL: PORT_POOL -ewal VOTRE_WALLET -eworker WOMEN_NAME -epsw x -di 1"
Pause
Obviously, change URL_POOL, PORT_POOL and YOUR_WALLET (mine eg: 0x14D65bEa9D868e77C7cbBF2787077A66d760F8bb) and only put -eworker NOM_DU_WORKERif it is useful (if you have several workers and you want to name them specifically to better follow them). The URLs and ports of the desired pool are detailed in the paragraphs below.
Save your .bat file in the software folder where you
unpacked it (File> Save As -> Name "LAUNCH.bat")
Launch the software by double-clicking on your LAUNCH.bat file.

Software options

For info, there are options, to be added at the end, but all depends on your hardware and the configuration you want to make. I recall some of them:

-di x GPU index (if you do not set this parameter, the software starts with anything that can undermine). Let's say what GPUs are undermining.
For example -di 023 will allow to miner with the 1st, the 3rd and the 4th GPU (yes, 0 = 1 I know it's weird :))
-esm x Stratum mode (x = 0 by default):
0 eth-proxy mode (dwarpool.com, ethermine.org, ...)
1 qtminer mode (ethpool.org)
2 miner-proxy mode (coinotron.com)
3 nicehash mode
-etha x Type of Ethereum algorithm to use for AMD cards (if this parameter is not set, the software automatically detects the value)
0 optimized for high-performance cards
1 optimized for low Hashrate cards
2 optimized for Linux drivers
The algorithm for each card can be specified by separating by a comma each value for example: -etha 0,0,1,1
-ethi x Sets the intensity for the calculation (x = 8 by default). You can voluntarily reduce this value if you want to be able to have an office activity in parallel or if you have problems of stability. The lowest value is "-ethi 0". Attention, from experience it is often found that it is not because the intensity is the highest that the Hashrate will be the best.
The intensity for each card can be specified by separating by a comma each value for example: -ethi 7,7,8,8
-es x This parameter is to be set if your miner crashes when changing Epoch. During a change of Epoch, the software reloads the DAG into the GPU memory. But this new DAG is slightly bigger than the old one, and sometimes ca crashe. To avoid this, this parameter stores the memory that will be needed for the DAG that will be loaded into x Epoch (default x = 2).
-li x Low intensity mode. To reduce the intensity of computation, history that it heats less or that freeze less (if you want to have an activity of office at the same time). -li 10 min less than -li 1 (0 by default)
-nofee Removes the "tax" introduced by the developer to pay, but reduces the hashrate by about 4%.

-tt x GPU temperature target. -tt 80 means a target temperature of 80 ° C for the 1stGPU. -tt 70, 80, 75 for example is used to specify the target temperature for the first 3 GPUs. -tt -50 (negative therefore) allows to set the fan speed (in%), here 50%.By default, the software is set to -tt 1, which just allows you to get information about GPU temperature and fan speed.
Attention, for the NVIDIA cards one can only monitor and not manage the temperature.
-ttli x Decreases the intensity of the mining to stay at temperature x. for example, the first 3 GPUs remain at the target temperatures (70 °, 80 ° and 75 °)
-fanmax x Specifies the maximum fan speed (in %). -fanmax 80 means a maximum speed of 80%. It is also specified by GPU: -fanmax 70,80,75 for example
Not supported with NVIDIA
-fanmin x Specifies the min speed of the ventilos (in %). -fanmin means a min speed of 30%.It is also specified by GPU: -fanmin 40,50,40 for example
Not supported with NVIDIA

There are other options, which I will not describe here, but are available in the Readme!!!

Pools and how to participate

How to Mine Ethereum - It is mandatory today to join a pool to mining, unless you have a huge mining ability, but you would not read this tutorial in this case. A pool is used to distribute the work. One does not mine by finding blocks every 30 seconds (it takes a lot of computing power to get there), but solutions that help to find a block. The pool lets you separate the work into small entities, and gives you calculations that your hardware tries to solve. If your machine finds a solution to the calculation fast enough, it shares it with the pool (share). Do not think you find blocks every minute; it's much more complicated than that.

Note that it is often unreliable to be in a pool. Indeed, the majority do not require any registration, to participate it is enough to use their server link in your software, and one identifies with his wallet on the site to see the result of his work. The only thing to check is how the pool pays and how long it takes to start getting a glimpse of your statistics (yes, ladies and gentlemen, you are often very / too hurried!).

Note again that below I only give the method to mine with Claymore. If you want to use something else, take a look at what you have here and the FAQs and other help specific to the pool you want to join.
Dwarfpool
http://dwarfpool.com/eth
Dwarfpool, it was historically the biggest pool, but today other pools have developed well. They pay according to an HBPPS system (the pool counts the number of blocks that it found during the last hour and distributes the earnings to all the minors in proportion to the number of shares carried out by each during the same period), with 1% of payment, and pay 1 time per hour (but only if your ceiling amount is reached). How to Mine Ethereum - Mining is anonymous (no account to create). The ceiling amount from which the accumulated ether for the work performed is paid on the wallet can be set.

The stats page is not stupid, but there are the basics and the evolution of your stats goes pretty fast. The speeds displayed are calculated according to the last shares received it is fairly fast just (about 30min).

To undermine Dwarfpool

Install Claymore and configure it with the config to undermine as described in the paragraph dedicated to the presentation of the software.
Use the following parameters to create your .bat file:
 URL_POOL = eth-eu.dwarfpool.com
 PORT_POOL = 8008
Example
All-purpose control:
cmd / K "start / B EthDcrMiner64.exe -epool eth-eu.dwarfpool.com:8008 -ewal 0x14D65bEa9D868e77C7cbBF2787077A66d760F8bb -eworker WORKWELL -epsw x"
Pause
DO NOT FORGET TO PUT YOUR OWN WALLET AT THE PLACE OF MIEN
To see his stats, wait at least 15 min, and go to:
http://dwarfpool.com/eth/address?wallet= YOUR_WALLET
Ethermine
http://ethermine.org/

Ethermine is a good pool, currently the 2 nd largest contributor. It is directly from Ethpool.org which is technically very developed. The only thing that changes is the payment method PPLNS (Grosso-modo, they redistribute the gains obtained for the last block found proportional to the average of your shares during the last x found blocks). It is possible to set the Payment threshold in Ether in account settings. How to Mine Ethereum - Attention, however, there are commissions on payouts if your threshold is less than 1 ether. The payment fee is 1%. Mining is anonymous (no account to create).

I like their statistics page. Beware, the Hashrate is not just the first 60 minutes (they average the received shares).

To undermine on Ethermine

Install Claymore and configure it with the config to undermine as described in the paragraph dedicated to the presentation of the software.
Use the following parameters to create your .bat file:
 URL_POOL = eu1.ethermine.org or eu2.ethermine.org
 PORT_POOL = 4444 or 14444
Example
All-purpose control:
Cmd / K "start / B EthDcrMiner64.exe -epool eu2.ethermine.org:14444 -ewal 0x14D65bEa9D868e77C7cbBF2787077A66d760F8bb -eworker WORKWELL -epsw x"
Pause
DO NOT FORGET TO PUT YOUR OWN WALLET AT THE PLACE OF MIEN
To see his stats, wait at least 15 min, and go to:
http://ethermine.org/miners/ YOUR_WALLET
Nanopool
https://eth.nanopool.org

How to Mine Ethereum - This pool pays 4 times per day, according to the PPLNS method (with N the number of shares during the last 20mins). There is no fixed commission on payments, just a payment fee of 1%, like the others. Mining is anonymous (no account to create). They recommend not mining at home if you do not have a hashrate of at least 5 Mh / s. We find an Android app and iOS to follow his work.

To mine on Nanopool

Install Claymore and configure it with the config to undermine as described in the paragraph dedicated to the presentation of the software.
Use the following parameters to create your .bat file:
 URL_POOL = eth-eu1.nanopool.org or eth-eu2.nanopool.org
 PORT_POOL = 9999
Example
All-purpose control:
Cmd / K "start / B EthDcrMiner64.exe -epool eth1-eu1.nanopool.org:9999 -ewal 0x14D65bEa9D868e77C7cbBF2787077A66d760F8bb -eworker WORKWELL -epsw x"
Pause
DO NOT FORGET TO PUT YOUR OWN WALLET AT THE PLACE OF MIEN
To see his stats, wait at least 15 min, and go to:
http://eth.nanopool.org/account/ YOUR_WALLET

Some combinations to maximize his Hashrate

If you have the feeling of being harmed level Hashrate, you can always:
 Check that you do not have a bad graphics driver (see preamble to the software section)
 insert these few commands at the very beginning of your .bat file (if you have an AMD graphics card):
setx GPU_FORCE_64BIT_PTR 0
setx GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE 100
setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
setx GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT 100
 Add the / affinity option 0x1 after start in your command line of your .bat file. This will force the program to be controlled by the second core of your processor, less used than the first.

 Modder its graphics card, example here: https://anorak.tech/t/anoraks-vbios-collection-optimized-settings-for-performance-power-saving/13 . Be careful, however, take the time to read how to do and do not do anything, I do not do this and I do not know how to repair those who will grill their card. In passing, flashing the BIOS of its card loses the guarantee.

And how do I do it personally?

How to Mine Ethereum - In my previous tutorial, I had made a small BAT script to run CUDAminer and restart it at a given frequency. I did this because the software crashed regularly, so the script would restart it before it happened. But all this is of ancient history; everything is much more stable for a while already. Later, I had improved this script to be able to choose the software to launch (but this one I never showed it to you). That being said, it was a bit heavy to modify because regularly, new software or a new blockchain came out and I had to modify the code to use it and / or mine. In short, I finally opted for something else.

Get the lowest Ethereum Currency Prices here: http://ethereumcurrency.yolasite.com

Currently, I use 2 PCs to mine. I also happen to undermine something other than Ethereum. As I am not too bad on Excel and VBA, I made a sheet with a small macro to start / stop / restart my software. It's much more flexible to use:
In the "Configuration of programs" tab I can write 30 different configs pointing to different software.

I put a description of the command line history to find it in the tab "Start" (obligatory and careful not to put twice the same thing), I write the software concerned and its version (optional) between the path that will allow Excel to find the executable of the software (mandatory), I write the exact name of the executable (mandatory) and in the last column I put all the arguments necessary for the launch of the program (mandatory, and always start with a space). How to Mine Ethereum - The advantage is that copying and pasting parameters are easy and fast between configs to test several arguments, several optimizations, and so on.

In the "Start" tab there are 3 buttons, a check mark and a table:

 The table allows you to enter up to 3 programs to be started (a drop-down menu recalling the descriptions you entered in the tab "Configuration of the programs"). The order does not matter, just as you can very well only enter the choice 3 and not 1 and 2, it will work anyway. On the right, in blue, the reminder of the executable and the complete command (do not touch).
 The "Miner" button launches 1, 2 or 3 software previously selected in the small table below.

 The check mark "minimize" indicates whether you want to start the minimized or visible software (s).
 The "Restart" button allows stopping the 1, 2 or 3 software specified in the small table and then restarting them (if they are bugged for example). Warning, this stops only the software that is specified so if others are running, they are not stopped.
 The "Stop" button allows to stop the 1, 2 or 3 software specified in the small table

In this tab, nothing should be deleted and not added / deleted. So I put a password (Ethereum-France) to avoid accidental mistakes.

You can download this sheet here: https://okkoh-owncloud.cloud.seedboxes.cc/index.php/s/8BtDPVf7fvZqRRf Free to use or modify it as you see fit. On the other hand, I do not support!

Create your intensive mining tool

How to Mine Ethereum - You may have noticed it, but mining with its PC gamer works, but the number of ether won per week is not many. If you also stop the software to degaulate for 4 hours on the last Battlefield, you do not have to have a lot of Ether in the pockets... So, for those who would like to invest a little more, it is possible to mount a machine competition, dedicated to mining.

There are a thousand and one ways to do this, but I will give you some ideas on the components that seem really suitable (while noting that personally, I do not have such a machine!). In order to successfully complete the mining machine, you must:

 To take a motherboard (CM) cheap but which has many slots PCi express 1x (ASRock H81 Pro BTC R2.0 for example) to be able to connect a max of GPU.
 Take an entry-level processor (Intel Celeron G1840 for example). In any case, there will be very little solicited bother to put a lot of money into it.
 Take a bit of RAM, 4GB of RAM is enough.

 Prefer, if possible graphics cards (GPU) with at least 4GB of video memory. Warning, it seems that Windows does not know how to manage by default more than 4 GPU but that it is circumvented. No problem with Linux (EthOS, Simplemining, ...).
 Do not plan to enclose the whole in a case; it will release a lot of heat. Attention also to the room in which you put the thing since once again it makes a noise and it releases heat. In summer, if it is too hot, it is likely that the hashrate is decreased to preserve the graphics cards. That's it!
 For a dedicated machine, prefer a dedicated OS, either EthOS (paying) or Simple mining OS (free, with fee on your hashrate, and you cannot mix RX series with R series and / or Nvidia) or KopiemTu (Nvidia), or NVOC (Nvidia).

 These software are not limited to the number of GPUs, as long as your CM recognize them, they manage them.http://ethosdistro.com/ or https://simplemining.net/ or https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=520998.0 Note that these distributions all work with Linux and that it probably should be possible to for example to remotely control Teamviewer if necessary.

 Question storage, a small SSD of 32GB (one can buy EthOS on a SSD directly) or even a USB stick with fast read / write rates will suffice.
 You need risers to deport your GPUs from the CM. Prefer PCIe 1x-16x powered risers with USB cables rather than with ribbons: https://www.amazon.com/XCSOURCE-Adapt-dextension-dower-AC330/dp/B01ER2Z1GY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid = 1487923697 & sr = 8-1 & keywords = riser . According to the products, it has been postponed that the quality of the welds for the ribbons is not always at the rendezvous. No problem with USB cables!
 For power, its power will depend on the number of GPUs. To be wide, count 170W / GPU + 150W.

 Try to take power supplies with a good certification, like Gold or platinum, it guarantees a good electrical efficiency (low losses in transforming the 220V current). Be careful to have a maximum of PCIe and Molex power cables (you can buy 2 * Molex-> PCIe adapters). If you see a good offer on a smaller power supply, know that you can work with 2 power supplies thanks to this http://www.thermaltake.com/products-model.aspx?id=C_00002406 . Or ca http://www.la-boutique-du-mineur.com/connectique/11-coupleur-alimentation-dual-psu-50cm.html .

How to Mine Ethereum: This cable is used to wake up the second power supply, which is not connected to the motherboard, at the same time as the other, and to power the additional GPUs without delay (and without break)