Mining cryptocurrencies using Guiminer: a guide for beginners

To achieve high efficiency of cryptocurrency mining, it is necessary to use high-performance equipment and software.

Beginner miners sometimes find it difficult to use command line programs, which are more suitable for programmers and advanced users.

To facilitate the process of mining cryptocurrencies, many applications have been created with a simple graphical interface, which are add-ons over more complex mining programs. One of the first such applications is Guiminer.

Let's take a closer look at what Guiminer is, how to download it and configure it for cryptocurrency mining.

Features and functionality of Guiminer

The program has the following features:

• This application is free and open source.
• It is designed for mining crypto coins on NVIDIA, AMD video cards and processors.
• Mining is supported solo and on pools using the PoW consensus algorithm with the SHA-256 hash function.
• Application updates stopped at the end of 2012.

Due to its ease of use, the program was widely used until 2013 in the mining of Bitcoin and similar coins. After the increase in the difficulty of mining BTC and its forks, work on its development was stopped.

The Guiminer source code was used to create modified releases, for example, a version was created for mining Litecoin using the Scrypt algorithm. It can be downloaded here.

It is also not relevant since 2014, and cannot be used to mine Litecoin and similar coins due to the use of ASICs.

Requirements

• NVIDIA driver version: >= 384.
• Special requirements for Nvidia GPU:

Advantages and disadvantages of the application

The advantages of Guiminer are as follows:

• The program is free and easy to use.
• The openness of the source code allows novice programmers to use it for their own development.
• There are many resources with detailed descriptions of the features of working with the application.

The disadvantages of the application include:

• The Guiminer program has long been outdated and does not support current cryptocurrency mining algorithms and modern equipment.
• Most of the pools included in the application database are no longer functioning.
• The SHA-256 algorithm, which is supported by the program, has not been profitable for mining on video cards and processors for many years.

Additional script for Guiminer

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Many currency speculation experts on the market highlight the program as a separate block of optimal software on the Windows platform for cryptocurrency mining. To mine litecoins, you need the GUIminer-Scrypt program script, which is a branch of the general GUIminer database. The program has an intuitive interface that does not require entering additional program code to manage cryptocurrency mining. Does not require additional manipulations with changing or adding configuration folders.

Setting up Guiminer for mining

Before starting mining, you need to install the latest drivers for Nvidia video cards with support for CUDA technology, and for AMD video accelerators - the Stream SDK package or drivers with OpenCL support.

To launch the Guiminer program, you need to double-click on the application icon in the folder where it is located:

When you first launch the program, it will have an English interface:

To change the language to Russian, click the language menu - Change language and select the desired line.

To mine cryptocurrency using guiminer, you need to register on the pool, where you indicate the wallet address for crediting the mined coins.

Then, in the main application window, you need to select the desired pool by clicking on the “Server” drop-down menu, or select the Other line and enter your host information (network address and port for connection):

In addition, you must enter the login and password specified when registering on the pool:

Then, in the drop-down list, select the device on which the cryptocurrency will be mined:

After this, the extraction intensity is selected by selecting the CPU Affinity value (from 0 to 7).

If you want to use several devices at once, you can launch several miner windows and select the necessary equipment in each of them.

Manually specified Guiminer settings can be saved for future use through the File - Save Settings menu:

Then press the start button, after which the mining process begins.

If the start button is not visible in the program interface, you need to expand the application window by clicking on its bottom edge and pulling it down:

A properly working Guiminer program should look like this:

Setting up mining on a modified version of the guiminer application using the Scrypt algorithm is done in the same way as the main version of the miner.

Setting up guiminer solo mining requires installing a full-fledged Bitcoin client, the path to which must be set through the solo mode menu:

Solo Bitcoin mining on video cards and processors has not been relevant since 2012, so this mode of operation can only be used for educational purposes.

Overclocking video cards during mining can be done using MSI Afterburner, or by entering additional parameters for the poclbm console application in the appropriate field.

The list of possible parameters can be found on this forum thread.

Log of recent changes

v40.1

• fix: ethashv40.0 false is detected as blocking LHR in the latest Nvidia drivers.
• feature: Supports future LHR GPU models.

v40.0

• feature: Add overclocking options for Nvidia GPUs, require admin rights, accept a comma separated list to specify per GPU. -power-limit, -pl: Set GPU power limit. Examples:Set PL in watts: -pl 200Set PL as a percentage of the default PowerLimit: -pl 75%(in the Windows bat file, double % is needed, -pl 75%%)
• -cclock: Set core clock in MHz. Examples: Set clock offset: -cclock 100 (Windows only) Set locked clock: -cclock @1500
• -mclock: Set memory clock offset in MHz (Windows only)
• -lock-cv: Set GPU core locked voltage in mV, support Turing and newer GPUs. (Windows only)
• -fan: Set the fan speed as a percentage of the GPU. (Windows only)

v39.7

• Feature: LHR mode supports new version GA104 3060
• feature: ethash Enables LHR mode by default for version 3060 v1, disabled by default only on Windows 470.05
• bugfix: ethash fails to detect LHR blocking in certain situation.
• Fixed: Nvidia GPU power consumption issue in certain installation configuration.
• remove: support sero.
• Feature: LHR mode adds support for 3060 GA104 kernel version
• Feature: ethash enables LHR mode by default for 3060v1 and is disabled by default only when using Windows 470.05.
• Fix: In LHR ethash mode, hashrate locking was not detected correctly in some cases.
• Fix: In some cases, it was not possible to obtain N-card power consumption data
• Remove: sero support

v39.6

• optimization: significant improvement in LHR mode ethash:

• Higher power, more stable NGR unlocking for both NGR-mode 1 and ITR-2 modes
• By default, NGR mode changes to -NGR mode 1 for ITR GPUs
• default values ​​are serviced in high mode, -NGR-mode 1 -> 74, -NGR-mode 2 -> 71
• 3 new options have been added for ITR auto-tuning under control, in most cases, you do not need to change:
• - lhr-decrease-value: the amount to be reduced - the value when setting up with one lhr. the default value is 0.5.
• - lhr-reduce-time: When a lock is detected and the time since the last lock is greater than this value, -lhr reduce will not be executed. The default is 15, which means 15 minutes.

• lhr-decrease-limit: maximum number of times to decrease is lhr value, default is 6. Typical hashrate: 3060Ti LHR default...

v39.5

• feature: ergo new LHR mode for ERGO mining, enable it manually by adding the -lhr option

• Just like in LHR mode in ethash, the -lhr value represents the expected hashrate, reaching a value as a percentage of the non-LHR GPU hashrate, supports a comma separated list for specifying the -lhr value for each GPU and -lhr -1 for shutdowns.
• For GPUs with Hynix GDDR6 memory, LHR mode is not recommended due to low performance.
• For GPUs with non-Hynix GDDR6 memory, such as 3060 3060ti 3070, start trying with -lhr 85
• For GPUs with GDDR6X memory, such as 3070ti 3080 3080ti, start trying with -lhr 100
• When a mining block is detected during ERGO mining, the miner will automatically reduce the -lhr value by 0.5 and continue mining. The maximum reduction time is 10, which is 5.0
• optimizations: Consequently, the power consumption of Nvidia GPUs is reduced.

v39.4

Fixed problem with hash error.

v39.3

• Feature: New LHR mode with low power consumption, option to add LHR mode.
• -lhr-mode 2 is the default LHR mode, which is a new low-power mode. -lhr-mode 1 changes LHR mode to the old version which is the same as v39.2 -lhr-mode 1 is only suitable for GPU with limited power limit, can achieve higher hash rate than mode 2 -lhr-mode 2 is able to provide lower average power and temperature. Especially suitable for GPUs with gddr6x, such as 3070ti, 3080, 3080ti. Power consumption in this mode fluctuates, best used with the core clock locked. feature: -support decimal value lhr
• feature: for LHR GPUs, when a mining block is detected, the miner will automatically reduce the -lhr value by 0.1 and continue mining. the maximum decrease time is 10, which adds up to 1.0

• fixed: higher CPU usage on install -share-check 0

v39.2

• Ethash added LHR lock detection and recovery in LHR mode.
• Added memory temperature display (if available) for Nvidia and AMD GPUs under Windows.
• More reliable protocol processing.

v39.0

feature: ethashNew LHR mode for ETH mining on RTX 30 series LHR GPUs, supports Windows and Linux, can get ~70% of max unlocked hashrate.

• This mode can be configured with the -lhr argument, only ethash works now.
• -lhr defaults to 0, which means that even if -lhr is not set, LHR mode -lhr 68 will be applied to LHR GPUs if certain GPUs are detected.
• Set up LHR mode by setting -lhr to a specific value that will indicate to the miner that it is trying to achieve a value percentage of the maximum unlock hashrate, for example -lhr 68 would expect to get 68% hashrate for the same GPU model without LHR.
• A higher -lhr value will result in a higher hashrate, but has a higher chance of getting into a blocked state, resulting in a much lower hashrate.
• A good starting setting is 68, which has been tested to be stable on most rig configurations.
• -lhr value can be set per GPU using a comma separated list -lhr 65,68,0,-1, where -1 means disable LHR mode.

Known issue

• Unable to unlock LHR hashrate under Windows driver 471.11

v38.2

• fix: AMD kernel error on some GPUs with drivers 21.6.1+ under Windows.

v38.1

• fix: high CPU usage in v38.0

v37.6

• fix: ethash --enable-dag-cache causes a crash on AMD GPUs when switching the DAG file.
• fix: ergo support for AMD Vega graphics processors.

v37.5

• new algo: ergo for AMD GPU can be faster with ETH mining timings
• optimize: ergo hashrate slightly increased on Nvidia GPUs
• feature: use --temperature-limit& --temperature-start to protect the GPU from overheating, details in readme.md

v37.3

• feature: Option to add --enable-dag-cache to allow additional DAG for different epochs to be cached in GPU memory, useful for ETH+ZIL mining and mining on NiceHash.

v37.2

• feature: added the ability -p -p1 -p2 to configure the password pool for mining, old format -u wallet.worker:passwd disabled，:can be added as part of a worker or wallet
• optimize: ethash minor hashrate improvement on RDNA GPUs
• fix: compatibility issue with outdated AMD 21.4.1 driver.

v37.1

• fix: ergohigh defect rate on Nvidia 10 series GPUs
• fix: pool ergocompatibility
• Recommend miner p106-90 and 1060 3G according to ERGO, hashrate will be significantly increased with -mt option.

v37.0

• new algo: ergo for mining ERGO coins on Nvidia GPUs.
• delete algo: bfc cuckarood for Nvidia, octopus for AMD
• fix: octopus CFX support for new address format
• fix: problem with clBuildProgram error on Vega for versions 35.0 – 36.1
• feature: disable AMD iGPU by default, can be enabled again by setting --enable-igpu
• other: minor bug fixes, overall stability improvements

v36.1

• optimize: octopus Lower power consumption for Nvidia 2030 series GPUs, 2% hashrate increase on Nvidia 16 series GPUs
• fix: ethashFixed performance degradation under win8 and win8.1 for Nvidia 10 series GPUs.
• fix: ethash Slightly reduce the aging factor.
• fix: Fixed random crash, improved overall stability.
• feature: Add detail datetime& cpu usage to summary log
• feature: ethash If the DAG check fails, display the corresponding GPU name in red in the summary.

v36.0

• fix: kawpow crash on some GPUs in versions 35.x
• fix: ethash performance degradation under win7 for Nvidia 10 series GPUs.
• delete algo: eaglesong, eaglesong_ethash, trb, trb_ethash, hns, hns_ethash, sipc, cuckaroo, cuckaroo_swap
• feature: smaller binary file size

Errors during operation and ways to solve them

If the pool parameters are entered incorrectly, settings are missing, or the necessary drivers or system files are missing, errors may occur.

An example of an error that occurs due to a lack of connection to the pool:

To eliminate them, perform the following actions:

• Check and adjust settings appropriate for a specific pool.
• Reinstall the drivers.
• If there are a large number of unaccepted decisions, they switch to another pool.

Performance (standard settings)

All command line arguments

If two commands are presented on a line, only one needs to be entered. The second is its synonym. Example: -h [ --help ] is the same thing. Enter either -h or --help.

Pool connection parameters:

-a [ --algo ] (argument) - specify the algorithm for mining

Supported algorithms:

equihash144_5, 144_5 Equihash 144.5 equihash125_4, 125_4 Equihash 125.4 beamhash BeamHash equihash192_7, 192_7 Equihash 192.7 equihash210_9, 210_9 Equihash 210.9 cuckoo29, aeternity Cuckoo29 eth , ethash Ethash etc, etchash Etchash cortex Cortex kawpow, rvn, ravencoin KAWPOW

-s [ --server ](argument) - specify the address of the stratum server

-n [ --port ](argument) - specify the port of the stratum server

-u [ --user ](argument) - specify the login (or wallet) of the stratum server

-p [ --pass ](argument) - specify the server password

—ssl(argument) — enable/disable ssl for connecting to the pool

—ssl_verification(argument) — enable/disable certificate verification for ssl

—proto(argument) — select the protocol: proxy, stratum or solo

Dual mining:

—dual_intensity — specify a space-separated list of intensities for dual mining (1-10)

—dserver — specify the address for the dual server

—dport — specify the port for dual mining

—duser — specify the wallet for dual mining

—dpass — specify the password for dual mining

—dssl — enable/disable ssl connection for dual

—dssl_verification — enable/disable certificate verification for ssl

—dproto — specify the protocol for the dual — proxy, stratum or solo

Performance:

--trim - Specify a space-separated list of additional loop trimming for the cuckoo24 algorithm (> 0). This may improve performance

-oc - specify a space-separated list of OC modes for each device

—oc1 — enable OC1 for all devices

Stability:

-w [ --watchdog ](argument) (=1) - enable/disable the watchdog timer

-l [ --logfile ](argument) - write logs (log) to file_name

—nvml arg (=1) — enable/disable NVML (a software library included in the NVIDIA package designed for managing and monitoring Nvidia video cards)

Program interface:

-c [ --color ](argument) (=1) - enable/disable color output in the console

--pers(argument) - specify a personalization string for the equihash algorithm

—pec [=(argument)(=1)] (=1) — enable/disable the energy efficiency calculator

--electricity_cost (argument) (=0) - specify the cost of electricity in dollars ($)

Card management:

-d [ --devices ](argument) - specify a space-separated list of cuda devices

--cuda (=1) — enable/disable the CUDA platform

--opencl (=0) - enable/disable the OpenCL platform

-d [ --devices ](argument) - show available devices

-t [ --templimit ](argument) - space-separated list of temperature limits

Working with the API:

--api(argument) - specify the API port to enable the API

Example:

miner.exe --algo 150_5 --server beam-pool.beepool.org --port 9507 --user 2d1f865b393afa3ead1e0dd0c0307c0cbcdb8412671c86fbd0b21cfe5328b608ca5 -px --ssl 1 --api 20000

If you go to the address: https://localhost:20000 while the miner is running, you will see the following picture:

Here you can check power consumption and efficiency (W and Sol/W), as well as miner operating time and other statistics.

Other settings:

--config(argument) - specify the configuration file

-h [ --help ] - show help about commands

-v [ --version ] - show program version

Happy mining!

Problem solving

In this section, we will look at the most popular errors that users encounter. If you have any errors not covered in this guide, please report them in the comments below!

Connection Error: "End of file"

The settings for connecting to the pool are incorrect. Most likely you did not specify the -ssl 1 key to connect to the pool via ssl.

Out of memory error

If you receive this error, it means that the cards do not have enough virtual memory. Increase the swap file! There is an example above.

The program won't start

If the program does not start, add the pause key at the end of the body file so that the program does not close, but displays the code and description of the error that occurred.

No devices for mining

The device is either not detected or is occupied by another application. Close other processes using the GPU through the task manager and try again. Also make sure that the system recognizes all video cards