On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 10:13:30 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

On Sun, 28 Jan 2018 10:47:48 +0000, T i m wrote:

Where are they 'coming from', if you aren't actually paying for
them ?.

And has mining become more efficient as my mate had a fairly big
mining rig (10 video cards or summat) but it was costing more in
electricity than he was mining at the time?

I know there is some fairly hefty number crunching required, hence
the use of multiple GPUs. Do you need GPUs or is mining something
that could run on an basic PC that is on 24/7 (acting as a server)
that spends most of it's time doing basically nothing except using
electricity.

You could run it on anything but you wouldn't typically get the
processing power without using optimised kit.

Obviously it's not going to yield very much but the
lecky will be used anyway.

Quite. The thing is, if the CPU is working hard(er) it will typically
use more lekky than when idle so it's the law of diminishing returns.

If you wanted to actually make your otherwise idle server more
'useful' you could sign it onto one of the 'Community Grid' projects
and have it searching for cures for human illnesses or extra
terrestrials etc. ;-)

https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/discover.action

https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sah_participate.php

I did wonder if bitcoin mining was just another community grid but
working for the dark web, cracking passwords or whatever?

Cheers, T i m