Build your own Ethereum Mining Rig, part 3: Windows Setup

Ethereum & WindowsNo doubt some of you saw the Ethereum mining guide for Linux that I published last week and balked at all of that “command-line nonsense”. Linux isn’t everyone’s thing, and that’s ok—if Windows is your OS of choice, then this guide is for you!

While Linux offers some significant advantages when it comes to GPU mining, Windows does have one potentially important edge: undervolting your GPUs currently requires quite a bit less effort under Windows. If you want your mining rig to run at its maximum efficiency, you’ll want to keep power consumption to a minimum, and with Linux that generally requires flashing a custom BIOS to each GPU—whereas in Windows you can usually accomplish this at the driver level with a simple software setting.

The bad news is that if you want maximum performance out of your rig, you’ll probably eventually want to flash your GPU BIOS under either operating system, but we’ll get into that in part 4 of this guide. But if you already know that overwriting your GPU BIOS with a custom replacement is outside of your comfort zone, then sticking with Windows will at least allow you to undervolt.

So with all of that in mind, if Windows sounds like the best option for you, read on for our setup guide!

Build an Ethereum Mining Rig, part 3: Windows Setup

I won’t go into quite the same excruciating level of detail as I did with my Linux guide, as it’s probably a safe assumption that anyone reading a guide about building a custom cryptocurrency mining rig is already quite comfortable with basic Windows tasks. The steps outlined below should be more than adequate for the average Windows user, but feel free to leave comments if anything is unclear!

Step 1: Configure BIOS Settings

Before we even get to Windows, make sure your mining computer’s BIOS settings are in order. Power on your computer, and press the “delete” key a few times immediately after power on. You should end up in the BIOS configuration area. Do the following, then save & exit:

  • Change power options so that the computer automatically turns itself on whenever power is restored. The reason for this is two-fold: first, it’ll make sure that your miner automatically starts up after a power outage. Second, it makes powering the computer on much easier if you don’t happen to have a power switch connected to the motherboard.
  • Disable all components that you don’t plan to use. This might save a little bit of power, and since your miner will likely be running 24/7, it’ll add up. For me, that meant disabling onboard audio, the USB 3.0 ports, one of the SATA controllers, the Firewire port, and the serial port.
  • If you’re running a lot of GPUs (4+), additional tweaks might be necessary to ensure that they’re all recognized by the OS. Exact tweaks vary by motherboard, but setting the PCIe speed to Gen1 is usually a good place to start. No need to change anything now, but make a mental note that you may need to come back and play around a bit if all of your GPUs don’t show up in the OS later.

Step 2: Install Windows 10

Any 64-bit edition of Windows 10 should work fine (a 32-bit OS is not capable of running the Ethereum mining software). Windows 7 and 8 will work as well (as long as they’re 64-bit versions), although you may need to do a bit of extra work to recognize all of your GPUs if you’re running more than 4. The guide is written assuming that you have Windows 10, but the steps for 7/8 should be pretty similar.

I’m going to assume that everyone reading this is capable of installing a fresh copy of Windows. Complete the installation and boot into the Windows desktop before proceeding to the next step. If necessary, also install the LAN/Ethernet driver that came with your motherboard so that you can get online.

Step 3: Configure automatic login

If you’re building a dedicated mining rig, then you probably want your mining rig to boot up and start mining automatically, without any user intervention. We’ll need to enable auto-login for that to be possible.

  • Right-click on the Start Menu and select “Run”. Type “netplwiz” (without the quotes) at the prompt, and click “ok”.
  • Uncheck the box that says “Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer”.
  • Click “Apply”. You’ll be prompted to enter your password to confirm the change.

Step 4: Change power settings to prevent sleep

By default, Windows will go to sleep after 30 minutes without user interaction. Obviously, we don’t want that behavior on our mining rigs. To disable it:

  • Right-click the Start Menu -> Control Panel -> System & Security -> Power Options.
  • “Balanced” should be selected. Click on “Change plan settings” next to it.
  • Change “Put the computer to sleep” to “Never”, then click “Save changes”.

Step 5: Minimize unscheduled reboots due to Windows Updates

Windows 10 introduced forced updates as a pretty controversial “feature”, and not having control over when your mining rig is rebooted to install OS patches could be frustrating. We’ll be setting things up so that your mining rig automatically begins mining any time Windows boots, so leaving automatic updates in place certainly wouldn’t be disastrous if you want to skip this section. But if you’d prefer to retain control over downtime, here are some workarounds:

Keep in mind that if this is a fresh install of Windows, it’s a good idea to let the OS install any available updates first (right-click start -> settings -> windows update -> check for updates).

Step 6: Allocate at least 16GB of virtual memory

The author of the mining software that we’ll be using recommends this step, although I’ve never encountered issues with a smaller pagefile (edit 4/19/17: I tried mining on a machine with only 4GB of physical RAM and got terrible performance until I increased my pagefile to 16GB). Here’s what you need to do:

  • Right-click the Start Menu -> System -> click “change settings” on the right side of the window (if you don’t see “change settings”, click “system info” first)
  • Click on the “Advanced” tab, then in the “Performance” area, click “Settings”
  • Click the “Advanced” tab, then click “Change” in the area labeled “Virtual Memory”
  • Uncheck the box at the top that says “Automatically manage paging file size for all drives”, then click on the “Custom Size” radio button.
  • Enter “16384” (without the quotes) in both the Initial and Maximum size fields, then click “Set”. You’ll need to reboot for the change to take effect.

Step 7: Disable unnecessary Windows visual effects

On systems with borderline hardware, this may increase performance a bit and help keep the OS a bit more responsive during mining:

  • Right-click the Start Menu -> System -> click “change settings” on the right side of the window (if you don’t see “change settings”, click “system info” first)
  • Click on the “Advanced” tab, then in the “Performance” area, click “Settings”
  • On the “Visual Effects” tab (which should be open by default), click on the radio button labeled “Adjust for best performance”, then click “Apply”

Step 8: Install AMD GPU drivers

AMD offers special mining-specific “blockchain compute” drivers that deliver considerably more performance than their standard drivers, so that’s what we’ll be using. If the computer that you’re installing to will not be a dedicated mining rig (eg: you plan to also play games on it, etc), you may prefer to use the latest available standard driver.

It’s ok to simply pick all of the default options during installation. Skip including ReLive when asked, as we don’t need it.

Reboot after the driver installation is complete.

Step 9: Generate a wallet address

You can skip this section if you already have an Ethereum wallet address. Otherwise, you’ll need to create one to mine with. There are many ways to generate your own wallet address, but I’ll show you how to do it using the official open-source Ethereum software. Be wary about trusting other methods, as some online creation tools are potentially scams designed to later steal your coins.

  • Download the latest release of Geth for Windows here.
  • When the download is finished, run the installer and select all of the default options.
  • Open a command prompt window (right-click the Start Menu -> Command Prompt).
  • Type the following to switch to the Geth installation directory (assuming you installed it in the default location):
    cd \Program Files\Geth
  • Type the following to create a new wallet address:
    geth account new

If you see a warning about starting the Ledger hub here, you can ignore it. You’ll be prompted to enter a password, and then to confirm it (use a strong password that you won’t forget!). The output will be a long string between two curly braces { }. That’s your new wallet address—make a note of it. You can easily copy it by right-clicking anywhere in the command prompt window, selecting “Mark”, highlighting your new address by holding left-click and dragging the mouse over the entire address, and then right-clicking again to copy to your clipboard. From there, you can paste your address anywhere using standard Windows shortcuts (CTRL+V).

Important: The combination of the password you just used to create this address *and* the associated encrypted key file is what gives you control over your new wallet address. If you lose either of these, you’ve also lost control of your wallet and all of the coins associated with it—and there is literally nothing that anyone will be able to do to help you. Remember your password, and keep multiple backups of your key file(s)!

Your key file(s) are stored in the %APPDATA%\Ethereum directory. For a fresh Windows 10 install, that means the C:\Users\[YOUR WINDOWS USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Ethereum\keystore folder (note that the AppData folder is hidden by default). Copy the entire keystore folder someplace safe to backup your wallet.

If you ever forget your wallet address, you can open a command prompt, return to your Geth installation folder, and type geth account list to see your addresses and the location of their key files.

Step 10: Install Claymore’s Ethereum miner

I talked about my reasons for selecting Claymore’s miner over other alternatives in my Linux guide, but to sum up: it’s currently the fastest, most stable Ethereum miner that’s still under active development. The downside is that it’s not free—about 1% of your mining time will benefit the creator of the software instead of you. However, even after the usage fee, you’ll come out ahead compared to the alternatives.

  • Download the latest version of Claymore’s ETH miner (v10.2 at the time of this post). Make sure to get the .zip file and not the Linux tar (also check here for newer releases)!
  • Extract the downloaded archive into a folder on your mining computer.
  • Open the folder where you extracted the miner, and create a new text file called “mine.bat” (you can use notepad for this).
  • Enter the following text into your mine.bat file exactly as written (but do make sure to substitute your own wallet address—see note below):
    timeout /t 15
    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
    ethdcrminer64.exe -epool eth-us-east1.nanopool.org:9999 -ewal YOUR_WALLET_ADDRESS/Miner01 -epsw x -mode 1 -allpools 1

    pause

Where it says YOUR_WALLET_ADDRESS, use the address you created in step 9 (you’ll need to put “0x” in front of it). The “Miner01” following your address can be changed to any friendly label that you want to give your miner (only important if you plan to run multiple rigs).

Note that I’m using nanopool.org as the mining pool here. It’s a fairly typical ETH pool that seems to have good reliability, but feel free to pick your own pool. Most don’t require registration, and simply payout to whatever wallet address you supply whenever a certain threshold is met (usually whenever you accumulate 1+ ETH). Assuming you stick with Nanopool, you’ll be able to check on your miner’s status by going to this URL after you start mining: https://eth.nanopool.org/account/[YOUR WALLET ADDRESS]

Save and close notepad when you’re done.

Now is a good time to perform a quick test. Simply double-click your mine.bat file to launch the miner. It’ll take a minute or two before it actually starts mining, but it should get there eventually. When you see a scrolling log of outputs that includes non-zero hashrates (expect hashrates in the low to mid 20s for unoptimized GPUs), you’re good to go. If the script fails to start, or you see errors, make sure that you’ve created the script exactly as outlined in the guide.

Press CTRL+C to exit the miner when you’re satisfied that it’s working.

Step 11: Configure your miner to start automatically

We want our rig to automatically start mining whenever it’s powered on or rebooted. That way, we keep mining losses to a minimum whenever a power outage occurs, and we don’t have to worry about manually starting it back up in other situations.

  • Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the folder where you created “mine.bat” in the previous step.
  • Right-click on your mine.bat file, and pick “Copy”.
  • Now, navigate to %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup (should be something like C:\Users\[YOUR WINDOWS USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup).
  • Right-click anywhere on the empty background of the Startup folder and select “Paste shortcut”.

You should see a shortcut to your mine.bat file appear in the startup folder. Windows should automatically execute it upon bootup.

At this point, we’re done with the essentials. If you’ve done everything correctly, you should be able to reboot and watch your rig automatically start mining shortly after the Windows desktop loads. There are a couple more steps that may be important to you, though.

Step 12 (optional): Optimize clock speeds and undervolt (basic)

We’ll get into more advanced optimization in the next section of this guide, but as long as we’re on Windows, it doesn’t hurt to see what we can accomplish via some basic driver setting adjustments. We should be able to squeeze out some extra performance on most RX 470/480 cards and save a bit of power without venturing into the realm of BIOS mods.

  • Open the Radeon Settings app. There should be an icon for it in your system tray. If not, it’s located here: C:\Program Files\AMD\CNext\CNext\RadeonSettings.exe
  • Click on the “Gaming” tab at the top left.
  • Click on the “Add” button near the top right, then click “Browse”.
  • Navigate to the folder where you installed Claymore’s miner, select “EthDcrMiner64.exe”, and then click “Open”.
  • You should see a new profile appear on the Radeon Settings App window labeled “EthDcrMiner64”. Go ahead and click it.
  • Click on the “Profile OverDrive” tab.
AMD's WattMan

(click for full-size)

You should see something that looks like the image on the left (click for full-size). I’ve cropped in on the two areas that we’re interested in (they’re labeled “GPU” and “Memory”). Find them and start by setting the Frequency to “Dynamic” and the Voltage Control to “Manual” in both areas.

Before we go any further, I’ll just throw out this disclaimer: changing the factory voltage settings on your GPU can result in system instability, crashes, and/or damage. Proceed at your own risk! Honestly, the risk here is tiny—we’re still constrained to basically safe values by AMD’s software, and in the case of a crash we’ll just reboot and be back to factory settings (where we can try again with less-aggressive values).

We’re aiming to accomplish three things here:

  1. We want to lower the core clock speed as low as possible without impacting performance.
  2. We want to increase the memory clock speed as high as possible without impacting stability.
  3. We want to lower both the core and memory voltage as low as possible without impacting stability.

Before we go changing any values, if you haven’t run your miner at stock settings already for a few minutes to get a decent idea of its baseline performance, now is a good time to do that. Look for output along the lines of “ETH: GPU0 XX.XXX Mh/s” while Claymore’s miner is running. There will be some variance from line to line, but that XX.XXX number is the hash rate for that individual GPU. When you have a good idea of your average hash rate, close the miner—it’s time to start making some changes!

  • Start by decreasing your core clock speed to 1000 mhz from whatever the factory setting was (in the “GPU” area, change the values for state 6 and 7 to 1000 on the Frequency row). Click “Apply” (at the top right). Restart your miner and see how performance looks. There is a good chance that it’s unchanged. If that’s the case, repeat the process, but decrease the core clock speed by another 50 mhz or so. Keep moving down in 50 mhz increments until you notice mining performance drop. When that happens, bump the core clock back up to the previous value—that’s the sweet spot.
  • We’re going to basically do the reverse with the memory clock speed, but there are some important things to know. If you have a GPU that is factory-clocked at 1750 mhz or less (virtually every 4GB RX 470/480 GPU, and most RX 470 8GB GPUs as well—the Sapphire Nitro being the notable exception—then 1750 mhz is going to probably be your limit via this method. Increasing the memory clock beyond 1750 mhz will likely result in a change to less-aggressive memory timings that will result in a loss of performance, and there is no way to prevent this outside of BIOS modifications. So if you have a card clocked at under 1750 mhz, bump it up to exactly 1750 mhz, which will give you a decent performance boost. If you have a 2000 mhz card, you can increase it incrementally, like the reverse of what we did with the core clock. Eventually you’ll experience system instability: artifacts on the screen, a GPU crash, bluescreen, etc. When that happens, back down a bit until things are stable.
  • When you’re satisfied that you’ve found the sweet spot for both clock speeds, it’s time to lower voltages. This is pretty straightforward: drop values 25 mV at a time until you experience instability, then bump it back up to last stable value. You should be able to reduce your power consumption a fair bit this way without impacting performance at all (these are great if you want to measure your electricity usage at the wall).

While more significant performance gains are possible by flashing a custom GPU BIOS (which I’ll cover in the next part of this guide), you should at least be able to realize some significant power savings (which has the added benefit of lowering GPU temperatures as well).

The screenshot in this section is from a factory-clocked 1650 mhz 4GB RX 470 GPU. Feel free to use the settings pictured as your starting point if you have a 4GB GPU, I haven’t found any cards that aren’t stable at these settings yet; most go a bit lower on the voltages.

 Step 13 (optional): Configure remote administration

Configuring remote administration will allow you to disconnect the monitor, keyboard, and mouse from your mining rig and manage it from another computer—even over the internet, if you wish. Windows 10 Professional and up have the built-in option to use Remote Desktop, although it’s disabled by default and must be configured. It’s a fine option if you’re looking for something basic and don’t want to install additional software.

There are a host of other options available, if you’re on a Home edition of Windows and/or want something a bit more robust. I recommend TightVNC: it’s lightweight, simple, cross-platform, and free. Here are the basic setup instructions for TightVNC:

  • Download TightVNC.
  • Install TightVNC on your mining rig. Choose a custom installation and make only the server portion of the application available.
  • Now install TightVNC on the other computer(s) that you plan to manage your rig with. Choose a custom installation and make only the client portion of the application available.
  • If you plan to manage your miner across the internet, forward port 5900 on your router to your mining rig (make sure you choose a strong password if you do this!).

That’s it—you’re done! You’ll probably want to test everything now. The easiest way to do that is to power down your miner. Turn it back on and the following should happen:

  1. Windows should boot up as usual.
  2. You should see a 15 second countdown to the Claymore miner’s launch shortly after the Windows desktop appears.
  3. After the countdown, the miner will start, and your GPUs should start mining.
  4. You should be able to VNC into your rig at any point after the desktop loads to monitor your miner’s progress and GPU temperatures.
  5. If you ever need to start the Claymore miner manually (because you quit out of it, or it crashed, etc), simply double-click your mine.bat file, located in your Claymore miner installation folder.

Congratulations—you have your own headless windows Ethereum miner!

The screenshot above shows a single 4GB RX 470 mining at the settings pictured in section 12. I was able to get about a 10% performance gain over factory settings while reducing power consumption at the same time. That’s good, but we can do better (sometimes much better!) if we’re willing to venture into the world of GPU BIOS mods—and I’ll show you how to do exactly that in the next section of my guide.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

336 Responses to “Build your own Ethereum Mining Rig, part 3: Windows Setup”

  1. DW says:

    thanks for this and the linux guides, they helped me get a good grasp on the basics.

    I notice you have a few more switches for claymore under windows than linux.

    I know some aren’t necessary if your running an 8gb card, but i’m still learning so not 100% sure.

    Thanks again

    • CryptoBadger says:

      Good catch – I actually had an issue with the extra environment variables causing problems under Linux, so I omitted them. I run a mix of 4GB/8GB cards under Linux and so far haven’t had any issues because of it.

  2. j5 says:

    You need to add -allpools 1 to Claymore’s miner. My hash would not show up on the website until i did this.

    • CryptoBadger says:

      Thanks – apparently this is necessary if you pick a pool that the Claymore developer can’t mine his 1% fee on. Adding the “-allpools 1” switch lets the miner switch to a default pool whenever it’s time to mine for the developer. It has no effect if you pick a pool that the developer supports (such as ethermine.org). Not sure why it’s not just the default, but I’ve added it to my guide.

  3. greg says:

    where did you put that -allpools 1? I’m still pretty new at this and was having the issue of my hashrate showing up.

  4. Anonymous says:

    thanks!!!

  5. Greg says:

    Any chance of getting a tutorial for getting freshly mined ETH out of GETH to trade at Poloniex?

  6. Jon says:

    Hi
    im running a 6x rx470 nitro + oc 8gig rig and the gpu that has the monitor plugged into it hashes lower than the other cards 19m/h compered to 28m/h
    for the other 5 cards do i need to use a dummy plug and access remotely to get it
    running at the same speed

    thanks in advance

    j

  7. r9-270 says:

    Hello Cryptobadger, long time reader here back for a little advice…

    I’m attempting to run 5 old 2GB r9 270 ‘s, but I’m running into these errors:

    GPU0 – OpenCL error -61 – cannot allocate big buffer for DAG. Check readme.txt for possible solutions.
    – and –
    GPU0, OpenCL error -38 – cannot write buffer for DAG

    on scouring the readme for anything related to DAG, I’ve found -eres (tried -eres 1, -eres2, etc, etc to no effect)

    Is it just that these 2GB cards are no longer fit for purpose?
    If so, might they be useful mining some other altcoin?

    Thank you for your time 🙂

    • CryptoBadger says:

      To mine Ethereum, each GPU must have enough RAM to hold the entire DAG file in memory during mining. The DAG file is constantly slowly growing over time, and is already over 2GB, which is why you’re seeing the error – 2GB cards aren’t able to mine ETH anymore. The DAG file will reach 3GB sometime in April of 2018, and 4GB in late 2019 (assuming Ethereum hasn’t moved over to PoS by then).

      You should have no trouble mining many other altcoins, just make sure that profitability works out in your favor given whatever you pay for electricity!

  8. Bob says:

    Hello Cryptobadger, can i ask what are timeout /t 15 and pause commands for? in your step 10. official claymore bat file dont use them, neither any other sites, only you?

    • CryptoBadger says:

      Sure, the timeout command tells the batch file execution to pause for 15 seconds before continuing. This should give Windows enough time to load other important software (such as Radeon Settings, if you’re using it to handle things like overclocking and undervolting) before launching the miner. You can change the delay to another number if you find that 15 seconds isn’t enough time, or remove it entirely if you don’t need the delay.

  9. si says:

    Good guide, thank you. Helped me a lot on my first ethereum miner rig. Very clear and easy to follow.

  10. Jhosep says:

    Very well explained and complete information.
    Thanks

  11. Orchid says:

    Thank you for the very detailed and straightforward guide. I’ve wanted to get into mining for years now. I’m pretty comfortable with the idea of assembling various parts, having spent several years disassembling test equipment for fun. However, I’m a Mac (graphic designer) and I’ve never really used Windows or Linux. I can follow instructions, once I have everything assembled, but I’ve only repaired my Mac when it’s gone down. t I’ve never done a build before and the software installation part is where I get confused.

    Here’s what I don’t understand. Because I don’t have a PC, should I be buying one in order to install Windows 10 on the SSD? Is buying a CD drive to install the Windows 10 disc the best option? Is there any way I can install Windows 10 on an SSD using my Mac and downloading it online? I’m worried I’m going to run into a stumbling block when it gets to this part.

    Once Windows is installed and my rig successfully boots up, I’m sure, if I take my time, I can follow the instructions for drivers, configuration, and the rest.

    If you can point me toward some help, I’d really appreciate it. I need it ELI5. This doesn’t come naturally to me. Thank you!

    • CryptoBadger says:

      The easiest way to install Windows 10 is to visit this page and download Microsoft’s tool to create installation media. Then you can use that to create an installer on a blank 8GB USB stick (USB sticks are much cheaper than buying a CD/DVD drive, although that would work too). Then you’d simply use the USB stick that the tool creates to boot up with, and follow the prompts from there to install Windows on a new SSD/harddrive. If you’re starting from scratch, you can do all of this on the hardware that you purchase for your mining rig.

      That said, I generally recommend Linux unless you have some reason where you absolutely need to use Windows. Linux is free, runs great on old/less powerful hardware, and seems more stable when mining long-term. SSDs are pretty cheap nowadays – you can always order 2 and try Linux on one, and Windows on the other (in fact, this is what I do – I switch over to my Windows disk whenever I want to flash a new GPU BIOS).

  12. Jessica says:

    Hi cryptobadger,

    Thank you for the thorough guide! I am super new to mining and really excited I successfully got mining set up on my gaming PC with the your help. I tried to follow other tutorials before, but got lost until I found this one.

    However, I have a question about my hashrate… its currently reporting to be around 3MH/s.
    https://ethermine.org/miners/ccdE8AfBB2f248cC59d995065484F80a6deD2FD9

    While reading your other guide, Build your own Ethereum Mining Rig, part 1, I noticed it said this:
    “1650 Mhz memory GPUs will hash at 21-23 Mh/s, and the fastest 2000 Mhz ones will do 25-28 Mh/s”

    This is the graphics card I am currently using which states memory clock at 7.0Gbps:
    http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-970/specifications

    Not sure if I am misunderstanding, but I think this means my hashrate should be around 20Mh/s. Is there any insight you can share about why my hashrate might be so low?

    Thanks again so much! -Jess

    • CryptoBadger says:

      Hi Jess – I haven’t personally done any testing with nVidia GPUs, but a quick Google search confirms that your GTX 970 should get roughly 20 MH/s, so something isn’t right.

      Do you know what version of the nVidia graphics driver is installed in your system? Can you take a screenshot of Claymore starting up (everything from the initial startup to when you first start seeing hashrates posted) – you can upload and link to it on imgur.com for free so we can take a look.

      • Jess says:

        Thanks for your fast reply! I just upgraded the drivers to make Claymore happy. Here are 2 screenshots of my Claymore logs from start up to hashrate and also a screenshot of the nvidia driver version on: http://imgur.com/a/7o6Vx

        I really appreciate the help! Super nice of you.

        • jess says:

          hey crypto,

          I think I may have actually found the answer to my question. Its states here https://github.com/nanopool/Claymore-Dual-Miner that “9xx cards in Windows 10 x64: you have to use old drivers (for example, 352.xx) and miner built for cuda6.5”. Sounds like I just need to make these modifications.

          Well I appreciate your guidance around all this! You were right “a quick google search” held the answer.

          thanks!

  13. elGuille.AR says:

    Hi. At first, thanks for this guide!!.
    What can you say about this hardware, http://www.ufominers.com/ethereum-rhinominer-prime ?

    • CryptoBadger says:

      It’s a scam. They’ve been up for sale since last year, but nobody actually has one. There aren’t any ASIC machines available for ETH, and to my knowledge nobody reputable has announced that they’re working on one. The only way to currently mine ETH is with GPUs.

      • elGuille.AR says:

        Defenitely there are not such a shortcut to mine!! :D.
        I’ve read that ethereum are ASIC resistant, so I started doubt about it.
        Thanks again!!

  14. elGuille.AR says:

    One more question. As GPU uses pci-2 1x to 16x riser, can we use a pci-e 1x multiplier (1 slot to 3) to connect even more GPU on a single mobo. Of Power source should be enough to support more GPU.

  15. mbe says:

    Hello, thanks for nice tutorial. Can I ask if you are installing any drivers from motherboard company like chip set drivers etc ?

  16. Brickflip says:

    Hey CryptoBadger, great article! I’ve looked around the net for something as useful as this site and nothing comes close IMO. I have a single, soon to be dual rx 480 8GB setup, but keep running into an issue whereby the computer locks up and shows a solid colour on the screen, blue, green, orange… Any thoughts? I’ve changed the PCIE to Gen 2 on my mobo and am running the latest (17.4.4) driver. Would you start buy trying different drivers or tweaking clock speeds and voltages? Cheers.

    • CryptoBadger says:

      Do the lockups occur only while mining, and are you running at stock settings? What you’re describing is usually the result of overclocking (and/or undervolting) a bit too aggressively. Try dropping your clock speed a bit (and/or upping your voltage, if you’re undervolting).

      Most people shouldn’t need to change your PCIe BIOS setting from the default value (usually when changes are necessary, it’s because you want to run 5-6+ GPUs on a single motherboard). If you’re not sure that you need to make changes there, you can leave it at the factory default setting.

      • Brickflip says:

        Cheers dude, yes the lockups only occour whilst mining. I started off with everything at stock and experienced lockups after about half an hour. I then lowered the clock speeds and tried tweaking the voltage to a sweet-spot, but still experienced lockups. Finially I’ve done a fresh windows install and used a stable driver version for the RX 480. Unfotunately I’m still getting locks, but now it takes about 3 hours, the only thing I’ve changed are the values for the GPU_FORCE… Mine are below:

        setx GPU_FORCE_64BIT_PTR 0
        setx GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE 80
        setx GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS 1
        setx GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT 80
        setx GPU_SINGLE_ALLOC_PERCENT 80

        Not ideal, but it’s the only solution I’ve found to achieve some form of mining. Thank you for you help so far!

        • brickflip says:

          Update* I’ve formatted my SSD and put a fresh version of Windows 7 on and had 8 hours uninterrupted.

          It seems that Windows 10 doesn’t like my setup! Good luck all and thank you CryptoBadger!

  17. Alx_010 says:

    Hello, Great Guide..Thank You!! One question though; Does the blockchain need to be downloaded (synchronized) before mining can begin?

  18. Harry says:

    Hi, I am getting an error in my command prompt that says that ethdcrminer64.exe is not a valid internal or external command. Do I need to somehow install it for that to work?

    Thanks, guide is great btw, will be using your linux one once I get the parts for my standalone, at the moment I just want to try it on my gaming rig.

    • Harry says:

      Ignore above, I was being stupid and running the script as Admin!

      I do have a general question though, does the server you get jobs from matter at all? So following this script I am getting jobs from us1.ethermine.org but if I changed that to EU would it work better?

  19. ethNOOB says:

    Hi Crypto,

    Thanks for this great guide! I was able to follow up until step 10 “Install Claymore’s Ethereum miner”.

    Following your instructions, I created a new text file called “mine.bat” and copied the script you provided. I also made sure to substitute my own wallet address that I created on step 9.

    When I run the script I get an error message stating

    ETH: 1 pool is specified
    Main Ethereum pool is us1.ethermine.org:4444
    AMD OpenCL platform not found
    No NVIDIA CUDA GPUs detected.
    NO AMD OpenCL or NVIDIA CUDA GPUs found, exit

    ….press any key to continue

    I pressed “space” to continue, but the window just disappears and I don’t see any hash rates.

    Do you need an AMD OpenCL or NVIDIA CUDA GPU to start mining? I’m trying to run this miner on a basic laptop to see what mining ETH looks like before I invest in a proper rig.

    Thanks for your time.

    • CryptoBadger says:

      Yes, you’ll need a modern AMD or nVidia GPU to mine. There are some software mining packages that will let you mine some currencies using only your CPU, but they’re many orders of magnitude slower than GPU-based miners, and they won’t generate any significant amount of currency.

  20. andydis says:

    WOW THIS GOT ME MINING!
    Thank you so so much!!!!!

    However one of my GPU’s only mines at 0.6 mh/s (its a rx380) but the others mine at 21 mh/s (they are 380’s) , any ideas?

    also How can i check my GETH balance ?

  21. packetloss says:

    im looking to reproduce a windows 10 miner is there a way to reduce the ssd costs as far as i can tell i need 120gb ssd minimum for win10

  22. john says:

    i am starting mining with biostar motherboard with RX 480 5 cards but only 4 detected by W10 .what i have to check .

  23. OP says:

    As for Step 11

    I have it set correctly to start mining after it powers on/rebooted but

    You mention after a power outage. How can we have the computer turn back on after a power outage without actually pushing the power button on manually? if power goes out I need to hit the power on button myself. Or am I missing something here?
    Great guide BTW!

    Thanks

    • CryptoBadger says:

      Check your BIOS settings – most motherboards will have a setting somewhere that says something along the lines of “restore A/C power after loss”. Enable that, and your rig will power on by itself after a power interruption.

  24. Abhishek says:

    do you have a tutorial on how to send ether from the ac i made through this guide to another wallet?

  25. Camazon says:

    Do I need to wait for my ethereum node to download before I click my mine.bat file?

Leave a Reply