Frequently Asked Questions
Check most frequently asked questions here, if you still need help then please contact us at support@siliconhillsmining.com
Profitability
You can use this handy list to decide what GPUs to mine with.
This is a more in-depth list with hashrates for various coins and overclock configs.
Something to note, while the RTX 3090 and AMD VII are at the top of the list we don't recommend those 2 beasts due to excessive power usage and heat.
Also make note of the difference between LHR cards and non-LHR.
One of the advantages of GPU mining is the options it allows as far the number of coins to mine. Scroll down past the calculator section to find the list of mineable coins sorted by profitability.
You can also use this handy graph to see the percentage of rigs mining each coin, GPUs, and miners.
With the crypto market, and especially mining Ethereum, it's impossible to predict long term mining profits. That said, we recommend the use of a calculator like in the links below. These all calculate Ethereum profits, but you can also mine a variety of other coins several of which can be found under this GPU in the Graphics Cards Earnings And Overclocks section of this FAQ.
Nvidia RX 3070 (non LHR)
This measures the hashing power of a single RTX 3070 (~62 MH/s) and the power usage of the rig (110w) and the GPU (115w). This also assumes that your power cost is $0.10 per kilowatt hour.
Likewise in the following link, we expand the rig to use a maximum of 6 RTX 3070:
You can also take the hashrate and power for another coin listed in the Nvidia RTX 3070 config (found in the Graphics Cards Earnings And Overclocks section of this FAQ) such as RVN and plug it into this calculator: https://minerstat.com/coin/RVN
If you decide to use NiceHash, here's their calculator for Bitcoins profits using a single RTX 3070: https://www.nicehash.com/profitability-calculator/nvidia-rtx-3070
With the crypto market, and especially mining Ethereum, it's impossible to predict long term mining profits. That said, we recommend the use of a calculator like in the links below. These all calculate Ethereum profits, but you can also mine a variety of other coins several of which can be found under this GPU in the Graphics Cards Earnings And Overclocks section of this FAQ.
Nvidia RX 3070ti (LHR)
This measures the hashing power of a single RTX 3070ti (~55 MH/s) and the power usage of the rig (110w) and the GPU (171w). This also assumes that your power cost is $0.10 per kilowatt hour.
Likewise in the following link, we expand the rig to use a maximum of 6 RTX 3070ti:
You can also take the hashrate and power for another coin listed in the Nvidia RTX 3070ti LHR config (found in the Graphics Cards Earnings And Overclocks section of this FAQ) such as RVN and plug it into this calculator: https://minerstat.com/coin/RVN
If you decide to use NiceHash, here's their calculator for Bitcoins profits using a single RTX 3070ti: https://www.nicehash.com/profitability-calculator/nvidia-rtx-3070-ti
With the crypto market, and especially mining Ethereum, it's impossible to predict long term mining profits. That said, we recommend the use of a calculator like in the links below. These all calculate Ethereum profits, but you can also mine a variety of other coins several of which can be found under this GPU in the Graphics Cards Earnings And Overclocks section of this FAQ.
Nvidia RX 3080 (LHR)
This measures the hashing power of a single RTX 3080 LHR (~70 MH/s) and the power usage of the rig (110w) and the GPU (249w). This also assumes that your power cost is $0.10 per kilowatt hour.
Likewise in the following link, we expand the rig to use a maximum of 6 RTX 3080 LHR:
You can also take the hashrate and power for another coin listed in the Nvidia RTX 3080 LHR config (found in the Graphics Cards Earnings And Overclocks section of this FAQ) such as RVN and plug it into this calculator: https://minerstat.com/coin/RVN
If you decide to use NiceHash, here's their calculator for Bitcoins profits using a single RTX 3080 LHR: https://www.nicehash.com/profitability-calculator/nvidia-rtx-3080-lhr
With the crypto market, and especially mining Ethereum, it's impossible to predict long term mining profits. That said, we recommend the use of a calculator like in the links below. These all calculate Ethereum profits, but you can also mine a variety of other coins several of which can be found under this GPU in the Graphics Cards Earnings And Overclocks section of this FAQ.
This measures the hashing power of a single RX 6800 (~63 MH/s) and the power usage of the rig (110w) and the GPU (150w max). This also assumes that your power cost is $0.10 per kilowatt hour.
Likewise in the following link, we expand the rig to use a maximum of 6 RX 6800:
You can also take the hashrate and power for another coin listed in the AMD RX 6800 XT config (found in the Graphics Cards Earnings And Overclocks section of this FAQ) such as RVN and plug it into this calculator: https://minerstat.com/coin/RVN
If you decide to use NiceHash, here's their calculator for Bitcoins profits using a single RX 6800: https://www.nicehash.com/profitability-calculator/amd-rx-6800-xt-16gb
Mining with HiveOS
Hive OS is an operating system based on the Linux distribution of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. It's main task is to provide the user with a convenient dashboard for mining crypto-currency on multiple GPU rigs and ASIC miners while managing them by using a web interface.
HiveOS and its web dashboard are available free for managing up to 4 workers (rigs).
After you pass the 4 worker count, you'll be charged $3 per month for each of your workers including the prior 4 that were free.
You can game the system by registering for another farm each time you hit the 4 wor ker count, but you lose the value of managing all of your workers in one convenient place.
You can protect your account from hacking with 2FA authentication. To do this, you need to install the Google Authenticator or Authy application on your phone. After this, go to your account settings and turn the 2FA on.
To reset the 2FA password, send an email to bee@hiveos.farm. In the letter, indicate the following information:
- your login, name and email account in Hive OS
- the number of workers and their names
- wallet address from the "Wallets" section (the primary one, if you have several wallets)
- the last IP address from which the account was logged in and the time of successful login
All fields are required.
If you do not know your external IP address, you can find it out at https://hiveos.farm/myip.
Apart from this, you can revoke unknown tokens in the "Authentication tokens" section (https://the.hiveos.farm/account). One more way to protect your account is removing unknown persons from the Access tab of your farm.
NiceHash
- You can register for a NiceHash account here
- Select the service you want to use: Cryptocurrency Wallet, Cryptocurrency mining, or both.
For this guide, we'll select both. You'll need your Mining Wallet Address in the next FAQ.
- First create your NiceHash account.
- Follow this guide from NiceHash.
- A few additional notes:
- Creating your Wallet:
- Your Mining Address can be found on the NiceHash Mining tab
- Creating your Flight Sheet:
- Miner: we recommend Phoenixminer or T-Rex Miner for Nvidia GPUs, or TeamRedMiner for AMD GPUs
Unlike mining cryptocurrencies directly using mining pools, NiceHash pays you in BTC for your hashing power.
Payout amounts will be more regular since you don't need to "play the blockchain lottery" like with mining other cryptocurrencies. That is not to say that the value of your hashing power will stay fixed however.
More info about NiceHash can be found here
Their profitability calculator can be found here
Troubleshooting
You can grant our techs at Silicon Hills Mining, or anyone else, access to your HiveOS Farm.
You can grant them access based on what you'd like done, from monitoring to tech support, to ownership.
1. To grant access, go to Farms > Your Farm > the Access tab > Trust User
2. Next enter the email address of the user you want to grant access.
2a. If you're using our remote support, enter support@siliconhillsmining.com
2b. Also uncheck User must have 2FA enabled to perform any actions
3. Choose the Access Level based on what permissions you wish to grant the user.
3a. For our remote support choose Advanced
4. You'll also need to enter either your 2FA code or email confirmation code.
If you see this error, your BIOS settings may have gotten reset.
- First reboot and hammer the delete key until BIOS comes up.
- Then push F7 to get to the Advanced mode.
- Go to Settings and press enter.
- Make sure they're the following:
PCIe/PCI Sub System Settings:
PEG0 Max Link Speed->Gen 2
(If option is available) PEG1 Max Link Speed->Gen 2
PCI Latency timer->32 PCI Bus Clocks
Above 4G memory/crypto Currency Mining->Enabled
Integrated Peripherals:HD Audio ->Disabled
Integrated Graphics Configuration:
Integrated Graphic Adapter->IGD
Integrated Graphics Share Memory->32MB
USB Configuration:
XHCI Hand-off ->Disabled
Legacy USB->Auto
Power Management Setup:
Restore after AC loss->Power On
Windows OS:
Windows 10 WHQL Support->UEFI
5. Press escape, save and exit.
You may install a new GPU and find that it doesn’t show up in the HiveOS dashboard automatically. Or you may find that your rig reboots and a GPU that was installed no longer appears in the dashboard. (For the latter, see "1 or More GPUs Not Mining")
First unset your flight sheet so your rig stops mining. To do that go to the Flight Sheets tab, click the 3 dots next to your flight sheet and rocket icon and click Unset.
Then power off your rig and unplug the top PCIE cables from all your other cards so that just your problem card is plugged in. If the card that was not detected is hot, give it time to cool down.
Now power back on your rig and go to the Overview tab in HiveOS. Your card should show up. If not, open Hive Shell(link) and enter the command amd-info or nvidia-info. If your card still isn’t detected, then try plugging it into a different riser and PCIE power cable bundle and repeat the process. You can also try unplugging and plugging back in the riser cable to the motherboard:
First try mining with your stock GPU settings, only setting the fan speed to 70 or higher. Then apply your Flight Sheet and test mining. (You'll see a MH readout if it's mining successfully)
Next, unset the flight sheet and power back off the rig. Then plug back in each other GPU one by one and repeat the process.
You may find that one of your GPUs that was previously mining is no longer showing up in the HiveOS dashboard.
To find out what happened, always check your notification section:
Look for scary sounding messages in red. You can click on it for the logs surrounding the event. Most of the time errors like this just mean that the GPU has crashed triggering a reboot of the rig.
In order to get the rig to recognize your card again, first follow the FAQ: 1 or More of my GPUs Aren’t Detected
Usually just powering off and unplugging and plugging back in the PCIE cable from the motherboard is all you need to do.
This can be caused by overclocks that are too aggressive or not mining with stock settings first while the DAG is being generated. Either way delete all of your overclock settings for that card except for the fan percentage:
After you're mining without crashes, you can try tweaking your overclock settings again or trying one of the Popular Presets in the tab next to Config in the image above.
You can also try using other miners. Some miners are less stable. Phoenixminer is the most notorious of these.
This error appears to be with the miner itself. We recommend using another miner such as one of those menitoned in the Popular Miners section of Part 3 of the Starter Guide
If your rig is unable to connect to HiveOS automatically, you will need to do the following steps to connect it manually.
When you connect a monitor to your rig and first boot it up, after you connect to the internet you'll see this message:
Next go to your PC and open a browser. In your HiveOS Farm at https://the.hiveos.farm/ click on your farm, and click on the + at the t op of the screen and click Add Worker:
Choose Add Rig, then Connect existing.
The next screen will instruct you on what to do next:
You may want to take a picture of this screen if your rig is in a different room than your PC
1. Back at your rig, at the command prompt where you left off, type:
firstrun -f
2. Enter the Rig ID and Password that were displayed in the HiveOS web dashboard.
3. Enter "y" when asked a question "Set rig password as system?" if you want to set rig password, "n" if not.
You should see your rig added to your HiveOS dashboard shortly afterwards.
In rare cases the BIOS settings for your rig may have gotten reset. To set them to what they should be, follow below.
- First reboot and hammer the delete key until BIOS comes up.
- Then push F7 to get to the Advanced mode.
- Go to Settings and press enter.
- Make sure they're the following:
PCIe/PCI Sub System Settings:
PEG0 Max Link Speed->Gen 2
(If option is available) PEG1 Max Link Speed->Gen 2
PCI Latency timer->32 PCI Bus Clocks
Above 4G memory/crypto Currency Mining->Enabled
Integrated Peripherals:HD Audio ->Disabled
Integrated Graphics Configuration:
Integrated Graphic Adapter->IGD
Integrated Graphics Share Memory->32MB
USB Configuration:
XHCI Hand-off ->Disabled
Legacy USB->Auto
Power Management Setup:
Restore after AC loss->Power On
Windows OS:
Windows 10 WHQL Support->UEFI
5. Press escape, save and exit.
In rare cases the BIOS settings for your rig may have gotten reset. To set them to what they should be, follow below.
- First reboot and hammer the delete key until BIOS comes up.
- Then push F6 to get to the Advanced mode.
- Right arrow key (→) to select ‘Advanced’ tab.
- Make sure they're the following:
Chipset Configuration:
- Primary Graphics Adapter -> Onboard
- Above 4G Decoding -> Enabled
- PCIE*(1 through 6) Link Speed -> Gen2
- Share Memory: 32M
- IGPU Multi-Monitor -> Enabled
- Onboard HD Audio -> Disabled
- Restore on AC/Power Loss -> Power On
USB Configuration
- Legacy USB Support -> UEFI Setup Only
- XHCI Hand-off -> Disabled
5. Press escape, save and exit.
Graphics Cards Earnings and Overclocks
Overclocking Info
- All GPUs are prone to crashing with certain overclock settings and with certain miners.
- Certain 3rd party SKUs of GPUs can handle more aggressive overclocks than other SKUs of the same model.
- For example an EVGA RTX 3070 may crash under overclock settings an AORUS 3070 can handle.
- Abbreviations:
- VDDC (mV) - is the GPU core voltage
VDDCI (mV) - is the I/O bus voltage
MVDD (mV) - is the memory voltage
Best Practices
- Even if leaving all other settings at stock, always set your fan speed to 70% or higher.
- This setting will be set in the overclock settings menu in HiveOS covered in Part 4 of the Starter Guide
- There will be an initial break-in period for each GPU you add to your mining rig, or a single break-in period if you start with a fully populated rig in which you need to mine with all stock settings except the fan speed.
Overclocking Levels
- In most of the overclocking guides, the following notify how aggressive the overclock is and how likely it is to cause a crash:
- Low (Will work on most cards)
- Medium (Will work on many cards)
- High (Will work on some cards)
- We recommend starting with the Low settings and working your way up if your GPUs can handle the settings without crashing.
Crashes
- If your rig crashes it will automatically reboot and attempt to resume mining.
- Sometimes one or more of GPUs will not be recognized by HiveOS after a crash.
- If this happens, please refer to our FAQ in the Troubleshooting section:
1 or More of my GPUs Aren’t Detected
All new Nvidia GPUs include the LHR algorithm which limits the GPUs hashing ability (up to 50%) at the BIOS level.
What Nvidia GPUs have LHR?
- RTX 3060
- RTX 3060ti (Founders Edition unaffected)
- RTX 3070 (Founders Edition unaffected)
- RTX 3070ti
- RTX 3080 (Founders Edition unaffected)
- RTX 3080ti
Founders Edition models which are made by Nvidia themselves were all manufactured before the LHR change was implemented.
LHR Support
We now support mining with LHR GPUs. New versions of miners are able to bypass LHR and affected GPUs can mine with up to 75% of their original hashing power.
Please note that in order to use new versions of miners, you need to be on the newest version of HiveOS which is not the current stable version. As these are new developments, our support is limited.
Previous Workarounds (Outdated)
The LHR for the 3060 specifically was leaked, and we provide a guide that can unlock up to 75% of the GPUs original hashrate.
(This method is now outdated, and the FAQ has been removed. See the next section.)
All LHR GPUs can reportedly get up to 70% of their original hashing power using the newest version of NBMiner. To use this miner, simply make a new flight sheet for ETH and choose NBMiner.
You can run up to 5x 3090s in our High Power 6 GPU Capacity rig in its standard configuration. Choose the Upgraded Power Supplies for 6x 3090 option if you wish to do that.
The standard configuration has 2000 watts available. The rig itself uses 120w, and best practice is to use at most 90% of your PSU capacity, so that leaves us with 1800w - 120w = 1680w. If you use the medium power limit in your overclock settings for your 3090s they will use 320w each. With that in mind 5x 3090s will use 1600w which is just under our available wattage.
The upgraded power supplies have a total of 2500 watts to work with. That comfortably allows for the 2040w we need for the rig + 6x 3090 to operate.
⚠️ For either power supply option make sure that the circuit you're running the rig on is rated for these continuous loads. ⚠️ Below are calculations of available wattage for common circuit sizes:
Overclock Settings:
As the 6600 XT is a new GPU, it has mixed success in HiveOS. We don't support it currently, but will when firmware and drivers are more commonly available.