How to mine Ethereum on Microsoft Windows 64 bit - benchmark the miner and mine

These instructions have been tested on Microsoft Windows 10 64 bit, 4GB RAM, with an ATI video card.


In a prior post, the geth software which communicates with the Ethereum network was downloaded and installed. An account address was created and the current block chain was downloaded. The mining software was downloaded and installed.

In this post, we will test the mining software by benchmarking both CPU mining and GPU mining.


Two command prompt windows will be opened, one for geth and one for ethminer.






Open a cmd prompt.

Go to the geth software directory.

Start geth by typing: .\geth --rpc

The block chain will be synchronized, which should take a few minutes to download the latest blocks.

Open another cmd prompt.

Go to the ethminer directory: cd %PROGRAMFILES%\Ethereum <release number>\Release

Ethminer communicates with geth, so ensure it is still running in the other cmd window. The first time ethminer is run, it will create a "DAG" file. The DAG creation process conveniently shows percent complete.

Start ethminer to create the DAG file.
C:\Program Files\Ethereum 0.9.41\Release>.\ethminer
miner  13:13:26|main  Getting work package...
JSON-RPC problem. Probably couldn't connect. Retrying in 1...
miner  13:13:28|main  Getting work package...
miner  13:13:28|main  Grabbing DAG for #0016beddΓǪ
DAG  13:13:55|main  Generating DAG file. Progress: 0 %
Creating DAG. 0% done...DAG  13:14:08|main  Generating DAG file. Progress: 1 %
Creating DAG. 1% done...

Start ethminer in benchmark mode (-M) and benchmark CPU mining.
Benchmarking on platform: CPU
Preparing DAG...
Warming up...
Trial 1... 377068
Trial 2... 381018
Trial 3... 385818
Trial 4... 386728
Trial 5... 388705
min/mean/max: 377068/383867/388705 H/s
inner mean: 384521 H/s
Phoning home to find world ranking...

Start ethminer in benchmark mode (-M) and benchmark GPU (-G) mining.
.\ethminer -G -M

If the miner does not start, there are some troubleshooting steps. A common failure message is "No GPU device with sufficient memory was found. Can't GPU mine. Remove the -G argument"

List the GPU devices: .\ethminer --list-devices

Listing OpenCL devices.
FORMAT: [deviceID] deviceName
[0] Bonaire
        CL_DEVICE_TYPE: GPU
        CL_DEVICE_GLOBAL_MEM_SIZE: 2147483648
        CL_DEVICE_MAX_MEM_ALLOC_SIZE: 1409286144
        CL_DEVICE_MAX_WORK_GROUP_SIZE: 256

Try to specify the GPU: .\ethminer -G -M --opencl-device 0

Try to specify a different OpenCL platform implementation: .\ethminer -G --opencl-platform 1 -M

Found suitable OpenCL device [Bonaire] with 2147483648 bytes of GPU memory
Benchmarking on platform: GPU
Preparing DAG...
  i  22:35:42|gpumineWra0r m iwnogr kuLpo.o.p.
0 #00000000… #00000000…
  i  22:35:42|gpuminer0  Initialising miner...
Using platform: AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing
Using device: Bonaire(OpenCL 2.0 AMD-APP (2004.6))
Printing program log

Creating one big buffer for the DAG
Loading single big chunk kernels
Mapping one big chunk.
Creating buffer for header.
Creating mining buffer 0
Creating mining buffer 1
Trial 1... 4801172
Trial 2... 4886838
Trial 3... 4972448
Trial 4... 4886838
Trial 5... 4974103
min/mean/max: 4801172/4904279/4974103 H/s
inner mean: 4944463 H/s
Phoning home to find world ranking...
 

Start mining with whichever flags work on your platform:
.\ethminer -G
.\ethminer -G --opencl-platform 1

How to mine Ethereum on Microsoft Windows 64 bit - ethminer

These instructions have been tested on Microsoft Windows 10 64 bit, 4GB RAM, with an ATI video card.

In a prior post, the geth software which communicates with the Ethereum network, was downloaded and installed. An account address was created and the current block chain was downloaded.

In this post, the block miner ethminer will be downloaded and installed.


Download the latest Ethereum miner at https://build.ethdev.com/builds/Windows%20C%2B%2B%20develop%20branch/Ethereum-win64-latest.exe

Unzip the files. By default, the files will go to the %PROGRAMFILES%\Ethereum <release number>


The Ethereum miner has been downloaded and installed.

The next step is to test the miner.

How to mine Ethereum on Microsoft Windows 64 bit - geth

These instructions have been tested on Microsoft Windows 10 64 bit, 4GB RAM, with an ATI video card.

Geth is software which communicates with the Ethereum network, a block chain crypto-currency and global programming network.

Download the latest version of geth at https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/releases
Put geth in a convenient directory, like c:

Open a command prompt by pressing Windows button and typing: cmd
Navigate to the geth directory and unzip the files.

Using a strong password which you will remember, create an account address.
C:\Geth-Win64-20160401105807-1.3.6-9e323d6>.\geth account new
Your new account is locked with a password. Please give a password. Do not forget this password.
Passphrase:
Repeat Passphrase:
Address: {long_address_string_____________________}

The account keys are stored in <DATADIR>/keystore.
View the new account key in directory: cd %APPDATA%\Ethereum


Display the geth version.
C:\Geth-Win64-20160401105807-1.3.6-9e323d6>.\geth version
Geth
Version: 1.3.6
Protocol Versions: [63 62 61]
Network Id: 1
Go Version: go1.5.1
OS: windows
GOPATH=
GOROOT=c:\go


Start geth to download and synchronize the block chain.
C:\Geth-Win64-20160401105807-1.3.6-9e323d6>.\geth --rpc
I0411 16:54:24.451793    4296 database.go:71] Alloted 16MB cache to C:\Users\mswindows_username\AppData\Roaming\Ethereum\chaindata
I0411 16:54:25.233804    4296 database.go:71] Alloted 16MB cache to C:\Users\mswindows_username\AppData\Roaming\Ethereum\dapp
I0411 16:54:25.270260    4296 backend.go:314] Protocol Versions: [63 62 61], Network Id: 1
I0411 16:54:25.351417    4296 backend.go:362] Blockchain DB Version: 3
I0411 16:54:25.582006    4296 blockchain.go:214] Last header: #99215 [babce72f…] TD=166437631468780593
I0411 16:54:25.585960    4296 blockchain.go:215] Last block: #99215 [babce72f…] TD=166437631468780593
I0411 16:54:25.592422    4296 blockchain.go:216] Fast block: #99215 [babce72f…] TD=166437631468780593
I0411 16:54:25.787411    4296 cmd.go:115] Starting Geth/v1.3.6/windows/go1.5.1
I0411 16:54:25.800840    4296 server.go:311] Starting Server
I0411 16:54:27.043156    4296 udp.go:212] Listening, enode://e4f5fd7e13e73e227bbe2f5ca4001f4872ef24379199fe290b99df65bad9dc6f98248dfd0554bffc318973dc7eae21a17a934199e869133201af7e8331418b51@[::]:30303
I0411 16:54:27.052664    4296 backend.go:526] Server started
I0411 16:54:27.052664    4296 server.go:552] Listening on [::]:30303
I0411 16:54:27.073593    4296 ipc.go:112] IPC service started (\\.\pipe\geth.ipc)
I0411 16:54:47.054104    4296 downloader.go:288] Block synchronisation started
I0411 16:56:24.358034    4296 blockchain.go:1251] imported 256 block(s) (0 queued 0 ignored) including 58 txs in 7.7356549s. #99471 [7378a4ef / 0ed10e27]
I0411 16:56:28.799755    4296 blockchain.go:1251] imported 256 block(s) (0 queued 0 ignored) including 51 txs in 4.4371818s. #99727 [5b7e1e92 / 70ef8fdb]

Geth will acquire blocks in chunks of 256 (the first chunk can take minutes to appear). In the geth output, you will typically see low "txs" numbers and importing one block at a time when the block chain is synchronized.
With a web broswer, go to https://ethstats.net/ and look at "BEST BLOCK". Geth will be done downloading the block chain when your machine shows the "best block" number.

After the block chain is synchronized, end the geth process by pressing: ctrl-c
I0415 12:45:31.430682    4296 blockchain.go:1251] imported 1 block(s) (0 queued 0 ignored) including 0 txs in 8.981ms. #1342669 [ebc34c57 / ebc34c57]
I0415 12:45:35.800612    4296 blockchain.go:1251] imported 1 block(s) (0 queued 0 ignored) including 6 txs in 42.0009ms. #1342670 [9e7e42f5 / 9e7e42f5]
I0415 12:46:00.582403    4296 blockchain.go:1251] imported 1 block(s) (0 queued 0 ignored) including 5 txs in 29.5749ms. #1342671 [0f1555a6 / 0f1555a6]
I0415 12:46:17.510895    4296 cmd.go:124] Got interrupt, shutting down...
I0415 12:46:17.617873    4296 blockchain.go:690] Chain manager stopped
I0415 12:46:17.621902    4296 handler.go:192] Stopping ethereum protocol handler...
I0415 12:46:17.624903    4296 handler.go:202] Ethereum protocol handler stopped
I0415 12:46:17.628907    4296 tx_pool.go:156] Transaction pool stopped
I0415 12:46:17.650008    4296 backend.go:630] Automatic pregeneration of ethash DAG OFF (ethash dir: C:\Users\mswindows_username\AppData\Ethash)
I0415 12:46:17.719083    4296 database.go:158] closed db: C:\Users\mswindows_username\AppData\Roaming\Ethereum\chaindata
I0415 12:46:17.728089    4296 database.go:158] closed db: C:\Users\mswindows_username\AppData\Roaming\Ethereum\dapp
C:\Geth-Win64-20160401105807-1.3.6-9e323d6>

List the new account.
.\geth account list

Using geth console, verify there are zero rewards on the new account address.
.\geth console
web3.fromWei(eth.getBalance(eth.coinbase), "ether")
exit


Geth has now been downloaded, an account has been created, and the existing block chain has been downloaded.

The next step is to download the Ethereum miner.

Performance Comparison With New GPU

The old video was Intel HD Graphics 4600, built in to the motherboard. The free PerformanceTest 8.0 was run to determine rough graphics processing capabilities.

Onboard graphics card


PassMark rating 1825


Add-in graphics card


PassMark rating 2405



The benchmarks don't show everything, and in this case appeared to under-rate the new video card. In real usage, the AMD showed about double the 3D graphics performance compared with the onboard video.


GPU-Z is used to measure the new video card, including the temperature. Running a stress test, the fan is at 56% and the temperature is 71 C.

GPU Video Card Upgrade

This PC had video built in to the motherboard. The motherboard has one PCI Express slot for expansion. After carefully measuring available height and width, and upgrading the power supply, an ATI R7 360 GPU was purchased.

ATI R7 360 box


ATI R7 360 card


ATI R7 360 power connector


ATI R7 360 installed


The installation of the GPU was tight, and took patience. Two metal slots were removed from the PC case. Note the additional power connector is on the right side of this picture.

Power Supply Upgrade

When adding power-hungry cards such as a GPU, check the power supply capacity. While researching a GPU upgrade, the desired GPU performance would require more power than the existing power supply. This PC is a ATX size.

The specifications of the existing power supply should be on a label. Open the PC case and read the label.
Determine what size power supply will be needed (add up motherboard, disk drives, existing peripherals, and new card) to find the required wattage. Research power supplies to find a power supply unit (PSU) size which will fit inside the PC case.
Measure, measure, measure. The existing power supply was about 5 1/2" long.
As the new power supply likely has a fan, carefully determine the fan position and if it will work with your PC case.

Old power supply length


Old power supply width



A Cougar DX500 was chosen as the new power supply. This new power supply has the same width and is about 1 1/2" longer. The power supply fan exits out the back of the unit, near the power cord.

Cougar DX500 power supply


Next, locate the motherboard connector. The existing motherboard connector was 24 pins. The new power supply is a 20 + 4 pin connector. This means the main connector is 20 pins with an additional 4 pin connector.

Mother board connector in top right corner (near the arrow)



If adding a GPU, the card will typically take additional power from a 4 pin power supply connector. Carefully determine what power is needed by the new card, and what is provided by the new power supply unit.

Old 24 pin connector beside new 20 + 4 pin connector



Remove old power supply and carefully install new power supply. Routing power cables may be tricky, so take your time.

New power supply installed, with old power supply in picture


Power on the new power supply and test the PC.