Quick Bio
Hello everyone my name is Alvaro I am avid technology enthusiast I have work in the tech field for a little over 15 years and currently an IT Director at the present company I work for.
My version of a good time typically is sitting at my computer trying to figure out new tech or play a good RPG or MMORPG. I did jump into the Cryptocurrency a little late in the game just over 6 months ago and purely by circumstance.
A few years back I heard of a little something called Bitcoin and at the company I was working for at that time we made high end computer gaming systems. A starting boutique dealer ship and we had customer at that time wanting high end systems or just video cards to mine Bitcoin.
I did not understand the craze then and it seemed like a cool concept I can buy a hat or t-shirt. Well looking back on spending some of that coin then on those trinkets makes you want to kick yourself now.
It seemed like the new internet flavor of the month and I moved on about my business and focus on other things. Several years later the flavor of the month has taken the world by storm.
Do I kick myself everyday now seeing how it has evolved and the possibilities of the technology? YES I do everyday.
My wife came home one day talking about Ethereum and how a co-worker was going to invest. One day became two and three so I decided to do some research this was back in May 2017. I was in the middle of moving services at work and concerned more about databases, backups and new software implementation then anything else.
One night I sat down took a break and started to Google Ethereum. I was brought to the site https://ethereum.org/ . I read about Ether and what the technology does and offers to developers.
I read about the mining options, trade options and other possibilities. It caught my attention. I started to do further research what do I need to trade, mine or be part of this revolution that has been ongoing now for some time.
I wanted to start mining since I was tech geek I wanted to play with configurations, hardware and tweaks.
First Steps
Decide on the coin this time it was Ethereum (ETH) AKA DaggerHashimoto
needed a wallet for the coin or algorithm i was going to mine
(many options here I started with the Ethereum Wallet https://github.com/ethereum/mist/releases) vs any other and now
have moved to a Ledger Nano S (Love this thing) https://www.ledgerwallet.com/needed to see what the cost would be for electric if I decided to this at home
what hardware I was going to run
What do I need to build a rig
A. motherboard
B. cpu
C. ram
D. hard drive
E. a frame of sorts open or closed
F. graphic cards
Some resource sites I used
- http://www.coinminingrigs.com/how-to-build-a-6-gpu-mining-rig/
- https://99bitcoins.com/guide-ethereum-mining-how-to-mine-ethereum/#prettyPhoto
- http://www.cryptobadger.com/build-your-own-ethereum-mining-rig/
- https://99bitcoins.com/guide-ethereum-mining-how-to-mine-ethereum/#prettyPhoto
- http://highoncoins.com/litecoin-rig/how-to-make-diy-wooden-frame-for-litecoindogecoin-rig/
I found the links above very helpful in guiding me on what to look for and even to build a simple wooden frame and come up with cost.
I currently run two rigs nothing out of this world but looking to build another two.
My setup
First Rig
- SSD Adata Premier SP600 128GB
- HDE PC Case Power Push button Cable ATX
- Intel Celeron G1840 Processor
- Kingston HyperX Fury 4gb 1600Mhz DDR3
- 6 PCIe Ver 006 PCI-E 16x to 1x Powered Rider Asapter Card w/ 60cm USB 3.0 Extension Cable by MintCell
- 1 Corsair AXi Series AX1200i Power Supply 80+ Platinum Certified
- ASRock H81 Pro BTC 2.0 LGA 1150 Intel H81 Motherboard
- One Wooden Frame right from the DIY Video
http://highoncoins.com/litecoin-rig/how-to-make-diy-wooden-frame-for-litecoindogecoin-rig/ - 6 RX480's Single Blower VisionTek Cards with Samsung Memory 8GB
- Operating systems Windows 10
I was able to find most of the items I needed on Amazon this was right before the ALT Coin market became the bane for all gamers. Miner's had been snatching up all video cards they can find in bulk and made the surplus dry up really quick.
Second Rig
- SSD Adata Premier SP600 128GB
- HDE PC Case Power Push button Cable ATX
- Intel Celeron G1840 Processor
- Kingston HyperX Fury 4gb 1600Mhz DDR3
- 6 PCIe Ver 006 PCI-E 16x to 1x Powered Rider Asapter Card w/ 60cm USB 3.0 Extension Cable by MintCell
- 1 Corsair AXi Series AX1200i Power Supply 80+ Platinum Certified
- ASRock H81 Pro BTC 2.0 LGA 1150 Intel H81 Motherboard
- One Wooden Frame right from the DIY Video
- 6 RX580's Dual Fans VisionTek Cards with 8GB cards with Dual type memory Hynix/Samsung
- Operating systems Windows 10
Perfect everything was on order. Now the mining. I read the difference between POW (Proof of Work) and POS (Proof of Stake) and the DAG difficulty and what to expect in regards to an ROI for investment I just laid down.
The dreaded Difficulty Chart
https://etherscan.io/chart/difficulty
What is it
In the end I figure I can always sell the video cards or hey have a nice upgrades for the kids desktop computers at home or just mine other coins or move my resources to NiceHash as a seller more on this later.
So what now how to determine my cost and return I found a few sites that can provide you some details
- https://whattomine.com/
- https://99bitcoins.com/advanced-ethereum-mining-calculator/
- https://cryptowizzard.com/eth-mining-calculator/#25mhs-150w-0.007usd-3304.24hwd
I had an idea at the time of what my ROI may be and need to calculate further as the difficulty went up.
Where to mine do I go solo or pool do I mine direct to my wallet or exchange?
I looked at several sites for details reviews and comments by other community members. I joined several Facebook groups to get insight and what others are doing and speak with some more veteran miners and traders. along with Blogs and Forums.
One site I always came back to is https://www.cryptocompare.com/
Other resources you should sign up for
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php
- https://forum.ethereum.org/
- https://www.coingecko.com/en
- https://etherscan.io/
Solo vs Pool video quick easy description
I decided on Pool mining. So what Pool is good well many community members have different ideas as to which one is best. I went with one that had the most information available to me to start. I choose NanoPool.
https://nanopool.org/?_ga=2.164096186.404065066.1507733843-1162674871.1507733843
Nanopool provides several different ALT coins to mine and gives good details of how to mine and what software to use.
Most Pools have Fee's make sure to look over those fees in the Help section on the sites and that you understand them. Also you may have a Dev fee on the software you use to mine so that is another percentage removed from your ROI.
Many Pools are available depending on the Coin you like to Mine.
I have tried several Pools within the six month range and have always come back to Nano Pool since the payment is always on time and they have been consistent.
I hope some of the links are helpful. I will be going over my system build in detail and will provide my overclock and undervolting experiences and sites as well I used for help.
Then I will go into my experiences with the different pools from Ethermine, Suprpool, Flypool, and NanoPool. I will also go over the different OS I have played with and mined with from Widows, Ubuntu, Ethos (My Favorite) and Pimp OS.
I will go over the settings and Bios mods I have tried along with the different Polaris Bios Editors and recommendations and links. If you like Ethos I will go over the local.conf file and claymore.stub.conf as well.
I will go over the different exchanges I have used from Bittrex, Kraken and Coinbase and some of the Phones Apps I have tested and liked on both Android and IOS.
Hopefully some of these links are helpful and good luck to everyone jumping into mining and or trading cryptocurrencies.
Nice man... I am a tech enthusiast myself! Can I talk to u privately?
U can contact me at steemit.chat with the same name...
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