Simple Windows Ethereum mining for beginners 2021 - Newbie level

Simple instructions to mine on your Windows 10 home gaming pc.

Firstly check to see if your gpu will mine by going to this page....follow the links in the page for a full list of profitable gpu's (you will need HIGHER than a 4GB GPU to mine ETH, 4GB will no longer work)
https://hive.blog/hive-167922/@pcste/profitable-mining-cards-as-of-january-2021

This is all based on electric use vs hashrate so if you have free electricity then you may find that an unprofitable card will still bring you revenue.

Make sure you have up to date drivers and software for your gpu.

If you are going to run your machine for long periods of time you will want to
Change windows Power Settings to Never sleep, also Turn windows update off.
Change virtual memory to at least 16GB :
In your windows search bar type :
advanced system settings,
then click view advanced system settings.
select the advanced tab, click on settings in the performance section.
then select advanced tab and click change in virtual memory.

Set a page file size of 1.5 times the amount of Physical Memory (RAM) in the system. Make sure its at least minimum size of 16GB (16000 MB)
Set the maximum file size to 2GB above your min.

get yourself an Ethereum wallet. Imo one of the easiest to use is Metamask.
https://metamask.io/

After set up you will find your wallet address at the top of metamask....

You now need to download the mining software, nanominer.

most anti-virus programs are ok with nanominer but some anti-virus programs will try to say this program is a threat (which it isn't)
So if nanominer gets flagged and quarantined. Restore it from your antivirus or turn off anti-virus and download again and install again.
If your anti-virus flags the program when you try to run it then tell your anti-virus to ignore it or create a seperate folder in (C:) called 'exclude' and tell your anti-virus to exclude it from scans.

For the download, If your GPU is AMD then choose the nanominer-windows.zip
If your GPU is Nvidia then choose nanominer-windows-cuda.zip
Download : Nanominer

Now we need to edit the config file in nanominer (single click on config.ini then right hand side mouse click) so it shows a dropdown menu. Select edit. you will be asked which program to use to open the file. choose notepad.
now add :

[Ethash]
wallet=0x52bc44d5378309ee2abf1539bf71de1b7d7be3b5
coin=ETH
rigName=Rig001
[email protected]
sortPools=true

Replace 0x52bc44... with your wallet address from metamask.
Your rig name is anything you want to call your pc/rig
Adding your email address is not mandatory, it is to receive updates to your email address. You can omit this line if you want.

You should end up with a file that looks like this :

Save this file.
Now run nanominer.exe as administrator (single mouse click then right hand side mouse click) on the dropdown menu select run as administrator. (if you dont do this you may get a slow hashrate)

You should now be mining and see a screen like this if everything is running ok..

If you have an AMD RX 4xx or 5xx GPU and you get a low hashrate (under 20MH/s) then go into your Radeon software program and select settings, then select graphics, scroll all the way down to advanced. scroll down to GPU workload and select compute from the dropdown. Remember to turn it back to graphics when not mining.

Now go to:
https://eth.nanopool.org/
Put your wallet address that you used in your config file into the search bar at the top of the page and click search.
You may want to turn the payout amount down as low as you can in settings on this page, or you will be waiting for ages for your first payout if you only have 1 card.

This tutorial is just to get you started. If you want to learn to mine to the best performance you will have to learn how to overclock for mining, which is an entire article in itself. cards can hash faster when overclocked.

If you dont overclock to the max some cards will happily run all day while still using your pc for everyday tasks, as long as you aren't gaming or doing anything too GPU demanding.
However, some will crash immediately lol.. its all trial and error.

Best thing to do if you want to learn about optimising your GPU is to google miner settings for your specific brand and model of GPU. I.e. google 'Ethereum mining settings for RX 570'
To OC your card you will also need an overclocking prog such as MSI Afterburner or Sapphire Trixx. most gaming cards come with overclocking software.

If you have any problems, leave a comment and i will try to help you.

If you like my posts or find them helpful, please help me to cover my witness server costs by Voting @pcste for witness.
currently it costs me more to run my server than i get back.
If on peakd or leofinance, click on 'approve witness' at the top of my page.

or on hive
https://wallet.hive.blog/~witnesses
scroll down the page and enter pcste into the 'vote' box (don't use @sign) then click vote.

Or if you want to donate some crypto to me use the address's below....
BTC 1Mr36tukXFnc8drHRUnA3EyKfDfbX57t1f
ETH 0x91b9CBFDFDaCee3b1969516A0109E128872cC791
Thanks

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Depends on how many GPU's you have and how much heat they create.
If you only have 1 GPU then there is no need to build a frame. If you have 2 GPU then you may be able to run them in a pc case if you have a case with good cooling and enough space to fit 2 GPU's.

Any more than 2 and you will need to build or buy a mining rig frame as you usually cant physically fit more than 2 GPU to motherboard without using PCI-E risers. Also more than 2 cards would get too hot in a pc case.
If buying a rig frame, do not buy an enclosed case. Always go for an open frame.
I did an article on steemit a few year ago on how to build a frame..It uses the old style risers so may need modding for new risers.. read comments under article....
https://steemit.com/mining/@pcste/how-to-build-your-own-gpu-mining-rig-frame-stackable-option-for-farms
I may do an updated article soon.

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