# Using spare server CPU cycles for mining.



## aceinc (Mar 14, 2021)

I am sure someone out there is doing this, but I couldn't find any good solid advice.

I have a small rig with one GPU and I am trying to find other GPUs at a price which make sense. For fun I decided to install HiceHash on my desktop PC (I7-9700 w/24GB) which is running all the time anyway and it is happily mining Montero at ~$0.13 a day.

I have a number of servers laying about running various applications which are seldom taxed. Since I am already paying for their electricity I thought I would see if anyone can point me to a way of using the spare CPU cycles under Vmware to mine. I would want the mining to run at a low priority, only sucking up CPU cycles that would ordinarily go to the "idle process." I probably have about a dozen CPUs in various VMWare hosts and if I could get a few dollars a day, its a few dollars I didn't have before.

So if anyone can point me in the direction of discussions on how to do this, that would be great.


----------



## Hardcore Games (Mar 15, 2021)

don't waste your time


----------



## joemama (Mar 15, 2021)

CPUs are awful at mining, you're just gonna waste electricity.


----------



## R-T-B (Mar 15, 2021)

It's going to have limited gains yes.  I doubt you'd recoup the labor in setting it up unless you have a lot of servers, even if you are paying the electric anyways.


----------



## aceinc (Mar 15, 2021)

R-T-B said:


> It's going to have limited gains yes.  I doubt you'd recoup the labor in setting it up unless you have a lot of servers, even if you are paying the electric anyways.


If the labor means not watching 2 or 3 episodes of "The Bachelorette" what have I lost?

I am paying a fixed price for space and electricity, I have at least 12 CPUs with at least 12 cores each. Over time if my other business does better, I will add more CPUs. This is in no way meant to be a primary source of revenue.


I suppose I could just setup a VM assign it enough memory and cores and see if MultiMiner will run. I was hoping someone had done something a little more elegant.


----------



## R-T-B (Mar 15, 2021)

aceinc said:


> was hoping someone had done something a little more elegant.


Not that I'm aware of but I am several years out of date on the mining scene.


----------



## hat (Mar 15, 2021)

You can make like, a dollar a day with a Ryzen 5950x. My 2600k gets like, 16 cents a day or something.

Not sure what 12 core chip we're looking at here, but assuming it's similar to the performance of the 5950x, we could be looking at 12 dollars a day with Nicehash. It would be more interesting to set it up for Monero or something, rather than slowly plodding along with Nicehash and earning tiny amounts of Bitcoin.


----------



## aceinc (Mar 16, 2021)

I have 3 servers with 2 each of Intel Xeon E5-2678v3, for example.


----------



## joemama (Mar 16, 2021)

A 5950x has 3 times the performance of a E5-2678V3 looking from benchmark scores and it only makes 1 dollar a day, so I expect that you will only make 2 dollars per day with all your servers, not to mention that this is calculated assuming the CPUs are running on full performance without other tasks running. You can only profit if your electricity is free.


----------



## aceinc (Mar 16, 2021)

joemama said:


> A 5950x has 3 times the performance of a E5-2678V3 looking from benchmark scores and it only makes 1 dollar a day, so I expect that you will only make 2 dollars per day with all your servers, not to mention that this is calculated assuming the CPUs are running on full performance without other tasks running. You can only profit if your electricity is free.


As I mentioned earlier, I pay a flat rate for space & electricity. So while it is not free, it does not cost more than I am already paying.


----------



## Operandi (Mar 16, 2021)

aceinc said:


> As I mentioned earlier, I pay a flat rate for space & electricity. So while it is not free, it does not cost more than I am already paying.


If you did this when Bitcoin first came on the scene you'd be rich.  Now...... even if your time was worth absolutely nothing you'd still be loosing out because there is nothing to gain.  Do a bit of research into the type of compute that is involved in mining if you want to know why this is fruitless effort.

If you want to do something useful with your CPUs donate them to World Community Grid.


----------

