Simple guide to GPU mining Ethereum (ETH) and Decred (DCR) cryptocurrencies with your graphics card
If you have a decent spec graphics card in your pc why not put it to use and mine some Ethereum while you are afk or asleep? It's easy to set up and once your miner is configured you just run the program when you want to mine and leave your pc to do its thing.
A mid tier gaming pc with a recent GPU could easily generate you up to a dollar a day at today's price and potentially a lot more if you are prepared to hold onto your coins.
While mining Bitcoin used to be profitable with GPUs this is no longer the case as most mining operations are now carried out with massive mining farms with highly specific (and expensive!) hardware.
Many alternative crypto-currencies (altcoins) still rely on GPU mining and are somewhat profitable to do so, including Ethereum.
Make your hardware work for you!
Step 1) Register with a pool, I recommend suprnova.
https://eth.suprnova.cc
You will need to register using your email address, a password and a PIN number, don't forget your PIN as you will need it to withdraw coins you have mined.
Step 2) Create your workers.
Once registered with Suprnova, one the left menu bar go to My Account, then My Workers.
Click "add new worker" to create two new workers and name them 1 and 2. Leave the password space empty or just type 1 and click update workers. Passwords are not needed for workers, the pool does not even check for them so don't worry about that. You now have 2 workers.
You workers should be yourusename.1 and yourusername.2. One will be mining Ethereum and the other will be mining Decred.
Step 3) Download your miner.
This is your mining program, there are many to choose from and we will be using Claymore's miner which is stable and also allows us to mine two different coins at the same time, this is called merge mining. Get the most recent version here -
https://github.com/nanopool/Claymore-Dual-Miner/releases
You will need to unzip this to a folder. Some antivirus programs do not like mining software so you may need to temporarily disable yours while it downloads and unzips. (Don't worry, always go to github for clean software)
Step 4) Config settings.
Now we need to create a .bat file with the settings of your pool so your miner knows what to connect to and what to do. This is easier than it sounds.
First just open the folder you unzipped containing Claymores miner open it and look for a file called start.bat, right click this and select edit. You will be brought to a text editor.
You're looking for this
Paste the following code into this document and save it. (make sure it is saved as a .bat and not a .txt file.
ethdcrminer64.exe -epool eth.suprnova.cc:5005 -ewal WORKER.1 -epsw x -esm 3 -dpool dcr.suprnova.cc:3252 -dwal WORKER.2 -dpsw x -allpools 1
(Replace WORKER.1 and WORKER.2 with your username you registered with)
If for some reason there is not a start.bat file in the folder you can create one by right clicking>new>text document. Then save it with the filename start.bat with the same code above pasted in.
Double click start.bat to start your miner. You can also create a shortcut to the bat file to place on your desktop.
You are now mining Ethereum and Decred. You may keep any coins you mine on the pool site but this is not advisable. It is recommended you set up wallets for both these coins to keep them safe.
https://www.myetherwallet.com/
https://wallet.decred.org
Make sure to keep a record of your passphrases and private keys as these are you backups just in case.
That's it, run the miner when you are afk and you'll see coins falling into your wallets in no time.
Any problems or questions feel free to leave a comment. Happy mining.
Upvoted and Resteemed
How many mhs do u get by mining eth?
Thanks I'm actually mining EXP myself alongside LBRY using the same method on a single gtx1060 slightly overclocked, I get around 20mhs on EXP and around the same on LBRY.
This should be the same for ETH as EXP. With Decred instead of LBRY I get 180mhs and if i turn intensity up to around 70 this goes up to around 400-450mhs.
For my gaming pc I am happy with this. :)
sprnova pool is crap, they locked my login, I emailed them a dozen of times in the last months never had an answer, I still have decred on my account that i cant withdrawn! be away from sprnova!!!!!
Never had a problem with them myself. Sorry you had that problem, any pools you would recommend?
Well I want to mine eth + dcr with my 5 gpu (sapphire rx 580 8gb pulse) rig, but my problem is, I have a 850w psu only so when I start dual mining my rig goes down. Here I want to mine eth from all 5 gpu's and dcr from 2 or 3 gpu's any settings for Claymore's Dual miner ??
couldn't you just start one instance with -di 012 (only use first 3) and another with -di 34 ? haven't tried, but that's what i would look to do
Hello! This is a great walk thru. But, do you happen to have one that goes with ethos distro? I just can't figure out how to get decred and eth working on ethos using claymore. I'm baffled. I have a supernova account. I can mine eth no problem on ethosdistro. I am seriously debating getting a new OS. Cheers! Any help would be amazing!
Very good disucssion. I fully understand what you're talking about. I strongly advice people to only buy in to cryptos that have a solid background: A solid team, product, advisors, preferably VC investors, etc. Sell all cryptos that don't have this solid background. It's a waiste of money. I found this great website: https://www.coincheckup.com. Every single coin can be analysed here based on: the team, the product, advisors, community, the business and the business model and much more. Check for example: https://www.coincheckup.com/coins/Decred#analysis For a complete Decred Investment and research analysis.