|
|
|
|
FAQ
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: Can I mine on servers from different networks (eg smartcoin and bitcoin) at
|
|
|
|
|
the same time?
|
|
|
|
|
A: No, sgminer keeps a database of the block it's working on to ensure it does
|
|
|
|
|
not work on stale blocks, and having different blocks from two networks would
|
|
|
|
|
make it invalidate the work from each other.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: Can I configure sgminer to mine with different login credentials or pools
|
|
|
|
|
for each separate device?
|
|
|
|
|
A: No.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: Can I put multiple pools in the config file?
|
|
|
|
|
A: Yes, check the example.conf file. Alternatively, set up everything either on
|
|
|
|
|
the command line or via the menu after startup and choose settings->write
|
|
|
|
|
config file and the file will be loaded one each startup.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: The build fails with gcc is unable to build a binary.
|
|
|
|
|
A: Remove the "-march=native" component of your CFLAGS as your version of gcc
|
|
|
|
|
does not support it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: Can you implement feature X?
|
|
|
|
|
A: I can, but time is limited, and people who donate are more likely to get
|
|
|
|
|
their feature requests implemented.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: Work keeps going to my backup pool even though my primary pool hasn't
|
|
|
|
|
failed?
|
|
|
|
|
A: sgminer checks for conditions where the primary pool is lagging and will
|
|
|
|
|
pass some work to the backup servers under those conditions. The reason for
|
|
|
|
|
doing this is to try its absolute best to keep the GPUs working on something
|
|
|
|
|
useful and not risk idle periods. You can disable this behaviour with the
|
|
|
|
|
option --failover-only.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: Is this a virus?
|
|
|
|
|
A: sgminer is being packaged with other trojan scripts and some antivirus
|
|
|
|
|
software is falsely accusing sgminer.exe as being the actual virus, rather
|
|
|
|
|
than whatever it is being packaged with. If you installed sgminer yourself,
|
|
|
|
|
then you do not have a virus on your computer. Complain to your antivirus
|
|
|
|
|
software company. They seem to be flagging even source code now from sgminer
|
|
|
|
|
as viruses, even though text source files can't do anything by themself.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: Can you modify the display to include more of one thing in the output and
|
|
|
|
|
less of another, or can you change the quiet mode or can you add yet another
|
|
|
|
|
output mode?
|
|
|
|
|
A: Everyone will always have their own view of what's important to monitor.
|
|
|
|
|
The defaults are very sane and I have very little interest in changing this
|
|
|
|
|
any further.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: What are the best parameters to pass for X pool/hardware/device.
|
|
|
|
|
A: Virtually always, the DEFAULT parameters give the best results. Most user
|
|
|
|
|
defined settings lead to worse performance. The ONLY thing most users should
|
|
|
|
|
need to set is the Intensity for GPUs.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: What happened to CPU mining?
|
|
|
|
|
A: Being increasingly irrelevant for most users, and a maintenance issue, it is
|
|
|
|
|
no longer under active development and will not be supported. No binary builds
|
|
|
|
|
supporting CPU mining will be released. Virtually all remaining users of CPU
|
|
|
|
|
mining are as back ends for illegal botnets. The main reason sgminer is being
|
|
|
|
|
inappopriately tagged as a virus by antivirus software is due to the trojans
|
|
|
|
|
packaging a CPU mining capable version of it. There is no longer ANY CPU mining
|
|
|
|
|
code in sgminer. If you are mining bitcoin with CPU today, you are spending
|
|
|
|
|
1000x more in electricity costs than you are earning in bitcoin.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: GUI version?
|
|
|
|
|
A: No. The RPC interface makes it possible for someone else to write one
|
|
|
|
|
though.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: I'm having an issue. What debugging information should I provide?
|
|
|
|
|
A: Start sgminer with your regular commands and add -D -T --verbose and provide
|
|
|
|
|
the full startup output and a summary of your hardware, operating system, ATI
|
|
|
|
|
driver version and ATI stream version.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: Why don't you provide win64 builds?
|
|
|
|
|
A: Win32 builds work everywhere and there is precisely zero advantage to a
|
|
|
|
|
64 bit build on windows.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: Is it faster to mine on windows or linux?
|
|
|
|
|
A: It makes no difference. It comes down to choice of operating system for
|
|
|
|
|
their various features. Linux offers much better long term stability and
|
|
|
|
|
remote monitoring and security, while windows offers you overclocking tools
|
|
|
|
|
that can achieve much more than sgminer can do on linux.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: Can I mine with sgminer on a MAC?
|
|
|
|
|
A: sgminer will compile on OSX, but the performance of GPU mining is
|
|
|
|
|
compromised due to the opencl implementation on OSX, there is no temperature
|
|
|
|
|
or fanspeed monitoring, and the cooling design of most MACs, despite having
|
|
|
|
|
powerful GPUs, will usually not cope with constant usage leading to a high
|
|
|
|
|
risk of thermal damage. It is highly recommended not to mine on a MAC unless
|
|
|
|
|
it is to a USB device.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: I'm trying to mine litecoin but sgminer shows MH values instead of kH and
|
|
|
|
|
submits no shares?
|
|
|
|
|
A: Add the --scrypt parameter.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: I switch users on windows and my mining stops working?
|
|
|
|
|
A: That's correct, it does. It's a permissions issue that there is no known
|
|
|
|
|
fix for due to monitoring of GPU fanspeeds and temperatures. If you disable
|
|
|
|
|
the monitoring with --no-adl it should switch okay.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: My network gets slower and slower and then dies for a minute?
|
|
|
|
|
A; Try the --net-delay option.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: How do I tune for p2pool?
|
|
|
|
|
A: p2pool has very rapid expiration of work and new blocks, it is suggested you
|
|
|
|
|
decrease intensity by 1 from your optimal value, and decrease GPU threads to 1
|
|
|
|
|
with -g 1. It is also recommended to use --failover-only since the work is
|
|
|
|
|
effectively like a different block chain. If mining with a minirig, it is worth
|
|
|
|
|
adding the --bfl-range option.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: Are OpenCL kernels from other mining software useable in sgminer?
|
|
|
|
|
A: No, the APIs are slightly different between the different software and they
|
|
|
|
|
will not work.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: I run PHP on windows to access the API with the example miner.php. Why does
|
|
|
|
|
it fail when php is installed properly but I only get errors about Sockets not
|
|
|
|
|
working in the logs?
|
|
|
|
|
A: http://us.php.net/manual/en/sockets.installation.php
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: What is a PGA?
|
|
|
|
|
A: At the moment, sgminer supports 3 FPGAs: BitForce, Icarus and ModMiner.
|
|
|
|
|
They are Field-Programmable Gate Arrays that have been programmed to do Bitcoin
|
|
|
|
|
mining. Since the acronym needs to be only 3 characters, the "Field-" part has
|
|
|
|
|
been skipped.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: What is an ASIC?
|
|
|
|
|
A: sgminer currently supports 2 ASICs: Avalon and BitForce SC devices. They
|
|
|
|
|
are Application Specify Integrated Circuit devices and provide the highest
|
|
|
|
|
performance per unit power due to being dedicated to only one purpose.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: Can I mine scrypt with FPGAs or ASICs?
|
|
|
|
|
A: No.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: What is stratum and how do I use it?
|
|
|
|
|
A: Stratum is a protocol designed for pooled mining in such a way as to
|
|
|
|
|
minimise the amount of network communications, yet scale to hardware of any
|
|
|
|
|
speed. With versions of sgminer 2.8.0+, if a pool has stratum support, sgminer
|
|
|
|
|
will automatically detect it and switch to the support as advertised if it can.
|
|
|
|
|
If you input the stratum port directly into your configuration, or use the
|
|
|
|
|
special prefix "stratum+tcp://" instead of "http://", sgminer will ONLY try to
|
|
|
|
|
use stratum protocol mining. The advantages of stratum to the miner are no
|
|
|
|
|
delays in getting more work for the miner, less rejects across block changes,
|
|
|
|
|
and far less network communications for the same amount of mining hashrate. If
|
|
|
|
|
you do NOT wish sgminer to automatically switch to stratum protocol even if it
|
|
|
|
|
is detected, add the --fix-protocol option.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: Why don't the statistics add up: Accepted, Rejected, Stale, Hardware Errors,
|
|
|
|
|
Diff1 Work, etc. when mining greater than 1 difficulty shares?
|
|
|
|
|
A: As an example, if you look at 'Difficulty Accepted' in the RPC API, the number
|
|
|
|
|
of difficulty shares accepted does not usually exactly equal the amount of work
|
|
|
|
|
done to find them. If you are mining at 8 difficulty, then you would expect on
|
|
|
|
|
average to find one 8 difficulty share, per 8 single difficulty shares found.
|
|
|
|
|
However, the number is actually random and converges over time, it is an average,
|
|
|
|
|
not an exact value, thus you may find more or less than the expected average.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: Why do the scrypt diffs not match with the current difficulty target?
|
|
|
|
|
A: The current scrypt block difficulty is expressed in terms of how many
|
|
|
|
|
multiples of the BTC difficulty it currently is (eg 28) whereas the shares of
|
|
|
|
|
"difficulty 1" are actually 65536 times smaller than the BTC ones. The diff
|
|
|
|
|
expressed by sgminer is as multiples of difficulty 1 shares.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: Can I make a donation in litecoin?
|
|
|
|
|
A: Yes, see SCRYPT-README for the address, but the author prefers bitcoin if
|
|
|
|
|
possible.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: My keyboard input momentarily pauses or repeats keys every so often on
|
|
|
|
|
windows while mining?
|
|
|
|
|
A: The USB implementation on windows can be very flaky on some hardware and
|
|
|
|
|
every time sgminer looks for new hardware to hotplug it it can cause these
|
|
|
|
|
sorts of problems. You can disable hotplug with:
|
|
|
|
|
--hotplug 0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: What should my Work Utility (WU) be?
|
|
|
|
|
A: Work utility is the product of hashrate * luck and only stabilises over a
|
|
|
|
|
very long period of time. Assuming all your work is valid work, bitcoin mining
|
|
|
|
|
should produce a work utility of approximately 1 per 71.6MH. This means at
|
|
|
|
|
5GH you should have a WU of 5000 / 71.6 or ~ 69. You cannot make your machine
|
|
|
|
|
do "better WU" than this - it is luck related. However you can make it much
|
|
|
|
|
worse if your machine produces a lot of hardware errors producing invalid work.
|
