Thursday, May 18, 2017

On Bitcoin Mining 7


antminer r4 bitcoin miner
The Antminer R4 joins me on my Bitcoin mining journey and it is still too early in my experience with this miner to tell anything but a short story about it. But I can say these things right now: It is significantly quieter than any other powerful ASIC miner and it is more electricity efficient than any other miner.


When the R4 is running at 8.7 terahash (TH/s) it still puts out quite a bit of heat using about 950 watts compared to something like 1300 watts for the Antminer S9 (13 TH/s) and the previous model Antminer S7 (4.7 TH/s).

At the moment it is creating the equivalent of about 0.15 Bitcoin per month (in a mining pool) but this will go down at the next difficulty increase.

I really like this machine and though it is not as quiet as the Black Arrow Prospero it is much more powerful, productive, and expensive (unfortunately). Also unfortunately, I see on Bitmain’s website that they have been out of stock for a while and I am wondering if this means they will not produce them anymore. If not, then miners who want a powerful Bitcoin miner that is relatively quiet will have to buy whatever is available on eBay, which is mostly used stock. If you want a powerful miner and don’t care about the noise then get the Antminer S9 which you can get new from Bitmain, on eBay, and on Amazon.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

On Bitcoin Mining 6

antminer s7 bitcoin minerThe next inning in my Bitcoin mining adventure was my ill-fated Bitmain Antminer S7 acquisition. It was ill-fated not because of the perfectly adequate machine that it is but because of what I did with it. Prior to buying it I had no idea how loud this device was (I could hear it outside the garage of my townhouse and so, I figured, could my many closely proximate neighbors.) but I did run it for a while. Finally I decided to run it at a much lower speed so that the fan would run at a much lower (and quieter) speed. This was okay but not optimal. Why have a 4.7 Tera hash bitcoin miner running at a fraction of its design speed?

Then I heard about hosted mining. This is where you send your bitcoin mining computer to someone else who puts it in their building, runs it on their cheaper electricity, and charges a monthly fee that is less than the amount of Bitcoin generated. I did my research on hosting companies and cost and decided on an outfit called ASICSPACE. I and they signed a hosting contract and thus began a nightmare relationship.

I boxed up my Antminer S7 and its EVGA power supply. Both of which cost me $800 back when S7’s were more expensive and there were no S9’s yet. Then I sent the S7 to Tennessee. The company is in Washington state and the pictures on their website of their hosting site are in Washington state so I thought it was odd but I figured maybe they have a satellite site, so I overlooked this little Tennessee detail.

After receiving my miner they told me I didn't send a power supply and of course I told them that I did and described it and sent a picture, etc. After some time they "found it". After this snafu and a period when the owner was "out of town", it took 3 weeks for them to turn the bloody thing on. Once they finally got the miner running it would run for a while and then take days for them to turn it back on or reboot it after it went off. These were days when it wasn’t earning money. Critical time in the Bitcoin mining world. Then it wouldn’t turn on or reboot and that was additional time not mining. Then they stopped trying to turn it on saying that it was only putting out 1/3 of the hashpower. I asked ASICSPACE and Robert Van Kirk, the owner, to return the miner to me after that and he kept stalling or saying that he would and he never did. Then he said that someone else had the miner (!) and I should call him to get it back, only that person never answered the phone.

So almost a year later I still don’t have my miner or power supply back which I basically consider as theft of my property. The company is supposedly defunct but their website is still up, so I am worried that someone else may be taken for a ride by this guy.

My advice to you if you are considering having your miner hosted . . . DON’T!! Try and deal with it yourself.

In the next installment I’ll talk about the Antminer R4.