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Mining Bitcoins on a college campus

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Re: Mining Bitcoins on a college campus

#21

Post by maxerickson »

waiquoo wrote: post #14

Interesting, I have access to a university cluster (in the top 100 of the top500) and I had played with the idea of using it in a similar way. I didn't actually implement it because I need to maintain good terms with the IT dept for my research (and everything else really). Does anyone know how this would scale or at what point (in terms of number of cores/memory) it would be a worthwhile?

What do you mean by worthwhile? For bitcoin, you won't manage to pay for the electricity using anything general purpose, so it won't be worthwhile at any scale.

I don't know the particulars, but CPU mining of scrypt coins is at least not very profitable.

Re: Mining Bitcoins on a college campus

#22

Post by rhino369 »

maaaats wrote: post #12
Crito wrote: post #3

"Although I wouldn’t go so far to say that it is “stealing” (especially if they are like CU Boulder and leave all of their computers running 24/7 anyways)" Now I am not entirely sure about this, but I am pretty certain that this is not how power usage on modern computers works.... An idling machine (what they will typically be doing) will be burning far less power than a computer pegging all of its cores running bitc…

And here in Norway, where it's cold most of the year so we have indoor heating, the power used from computers is saved from heating.

Not nearly as efficiently as your regular heater does though. So there is some cost.

Re: Mining Bitcoins on a college campus

#23

Post by waiquoo »

schmichael wrote: post #20
waiquoo wrote: post #14

Interesting, I have access to a university cluster (in the top 100 of the top500) and I had played with the idea of using it in a similar way. I didn't actually implement it because I need to maintain good terms with the IT dept for my research (and everything else really). Does anyone know how this would scale or at what point (in terms of number of cores/memory) it would be a worthwhile?

No. Just don't. These computers are not your property. Do not use them for personal financial gain (unless it's somehow directly related to your studies). You will cost your university far more in electricity than you'll make from Bitcoins. This is stealing.

I don't plan on it, haha. I was more curious. Besides if I got banned from the cluster I would have to drop out of my program.

Re: Mining Bitcoins on a college campus

#24

Post by wyager »

rhino369 wrote: post #22
maaaats wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here in Norway, where it's cold most of the year so we have indoor heating, the power used from computers is saved from heating.

Not nearly as efficiently as your regular heater does though. So there is some cost.

>Not nearly as efficiently as your regular heater does though.

What do you mean? It's basically 100% efficient. Where else would the energy go? Through the ethernet port?

Re: Mining Bitcoins on a college campus

#25

Post by schmichael »

maaaats wrote: post #12
Crito wrote: post #3

"Although I wouldn’t go so far to say that it is “stealing” (especially if they are like CU Boulder and leave all of their computers running 24/7 anyways)" Now I am not entirely sure about this, but I am pretty certain that this is not how power usage on modern computers works.... An idling machine (what they will typically be doing) will be burning far less power than a computer pegging all of its cores running bitc…

And here in Norway, where it's cold most of the year so we have indoor heating, the power used from computers is saved from heating.

My guess is that heating-by-CPU is less cost effective than baseboard electrical heating which is already one of the least cost effective heating methods: http://www.efficiencymaine.com/at-home/home-energy-savings-p...

Also, depending on the setup of your HVAC system, it may be possible to cause a lab to overheat and trigger the cooling system in the middle of winter. Many datacenters vent excess heat year-round.

The absolute pittance of bitcoins you'll mine using CPUs won't begin to make up for these inefficiencies.

Edit: s/efficient/cost effective/g

Re: Mining Bitcoins on a college campus

#26

Post by praptak »

wyager wrote: post #24
rhino369 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not nearly as efficiently as your regular heater does though. So there is some cost.

>Not nearly as efficiently as your regular heater does though. What do you mean? It's basically 100% efficient. Where else would the energy go? Through the ethernet port?

> It's 100% efficient.

Probably above 99.99% but not 100%. The light from the power LED might escape through the window and there's some electromagnetic emissions in the parts of the spectrum that might also go through walls, same goes for the sound of the fan.

Re: Mining Bitcoins on a college campus

#27

Post by boyter »

Should have gone with primecoins... I would guess on a pool you could get about 10 a day with that much power (assuming they were i5/i7 machines) and then traded them in for bitcoin.

Although apparently the difficult of primecoin was raised a month or so ago. In any case going for another coin and trading is likely to be more profitable.

Re: Mining Bitcoins on a college campus

#28

Post by Crito »

wyager wrote: post #24
rhino369 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not nearly as efficiently as your regular heater does though. So there is some cost.

>Not nearly as efficiently as your regular heater does though. What do you mean? It's basically 100% efficient. Where else would the energy go? Through the ethernet port?

Basically, the computer will be very nearly as efficient as a regular resistive electric space heater, but the building is almost certainly not being heated that way. Heat pumps are far more efficient than resistive heating.

http://physics.stackexchange.com/a/1494

(The building may also be on district steam heating, fuel oil, possibly even coal, any of which could be cheaper than electricity, depending on location.)

Re: Mining Bitcoins on a college campus

#30

Post by fivre »

JonFish85 wrote: post #10

"I still have a few tricks up my sleeve that CU doesn’t want to deal with any time soon!" Probably want to be careful about that. No matter how smart/clever you are, you'll probably get caught doing whatever it is you're talking about. The school has already caught you doing something they didn't want you doing, so if it happens again, they might have a place to start looking...

Nah, the best response to the IT staff not revoking your access immediately is always to subtly threaten to ignore them and/or maliciously attack their systems.
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