Use the pc with farm for other scope

General Chia Discussion
1

hello
I am curios to know what do you think about using the machine where I have the farm for watching TV by kodi.
That pc is always on so I was thinking to take advantage using for an other scope too.
It is safe? or it is better use the pc just for farming?

thanks

2

Depends on the PC/network specs and whether software you want to run can interfere with farming software. Do you run full node or a 3rd-party farmer?

Possible interference points:

  • Compute (cpu). Chia full node doesn’t need much for normal operation, but it requires quite a bit of juice for syncing
  • Database storage. Chia full node puts a strain (continuous i/o) on the drive where you store wallet and blockchain DB. If you have a low spec drive (e.g. QLC SSD), then it will struggle and cannot support any more load
  • Network. Does your connection have enough capacity to serve both chia node traffic and TV at the same time?
  • RAM. Chia requires something about 2GB RAM, so if your system is low spec, it could be a problem.

I have a core i7-8700 with 128GB RAM, and dedicated SSD for chia DB. It runs MadMax plotter with 80-100% cpu load and it still has enough juice for the farm.

3

thank you for your support
Well for now I am not doing plots any more so just farming.
This windows pc is a full node with i5-4690T 2.50GHz 8MB ram and 1 ssd as princpal HD where full node runs and 4 external usb HD where are stored the plots.
About the network it is on a powerline and the speed is 5Mb
The software for watching tv is Kodi.

This is the situation what do you think?

4

5MB is the min requirement for netflix, I can’t imagine kodi requiring any less.
I think you’ll struggle, I wouldn’t do it personally.

Your also pretty low on ram, I often use more than your whole system has just running a full node.
Mines currently using 8.5 GB and that raises in a dust storm, 8.5 is pretty low for my node.

5

I am soo sad, I thouth to have found an other use for that pc :((
thank you

6

to be honest I thouth that to farming was not necessary all this resources

7

There is an option for a very lightweight farmer, I’m not sure if it’s flex farmer, I’m sure @Chris22 can help you if you want to try that.

I think you need to use flex pool to use their lightweight
farmer though.

8

Of course you should!
Chia was made for this exact situation.
Use your space how you see fit.
Over provisioned hard drive space that wouldn’t be doing anything anyways.
To test
stream a movie And watch your partials.

Not sure what os your rocking…

But for absolute light weight =
Containerizing an Ubuntu server
And installing chia cli. Than Pass thru your plots.
Do the same for kodi

Would be as light as air.

Also plex is a good option, as it allows for hardware accelerated transcoding
Simply put just add a gpu.
And there will be far less overhead while streaming.
When it’s not streaming it’s not doing anything anyways unless you specify Plex to catalog Ect.

Good luck.

Dun dun dun dunanana. Na na na. :cowboy_hat_face:
Indiana Jones and the temple of lost chia farmers

1 Like
9

Correct and correct.

It’s good to farm on us in general since if your node goes down you can download flexfarmer and be back up in 5 minutes. But if your node goes down on another pool you can’t flexfarm until you resync and switch pools to us.

10

I use my computers running flexfarmer for all sorts of other purposes. If the computer gets overloaded and you miss a few signage points - no big deal - you are still ahead economically than you would be if you maintained an additional computer. Now a computer running a full node - I probably would not do it.

11

This is exactly why I switched to flexfarmer. Some of my plotters (which were robust machines) I’m farming Chia, Mining Raptoreum with the CPU and Mining ETH with the GPU. Now I just need to find another purpose for all that RAM as I’m not plotting anymore.

12

wow thank you every one but i am losting my self :sweat_smile: :sweat_smile:
I dont understand what flex farme does and why you are suggest that in my case :blush:

13

Because Flexfarmer allows to use significantly less resources compared to running full node yourself and worry less about infrastructure problems.

Unlike chia full node, the Flexfarmer is sort of a harvester. All the farming and block signing happens in the cloud on powerful servers.

14

Flex farmer adds an addition layer of confusion.
Extremely Convoluted.

And it’s not like ul make more money with flex.
Waisted.

Ubuntu container. With minimum specs.
Pure and clean:

15

Happens locally I believe.

PS: Yes you do make more money using FF simply because you need less hardware and power use is cut. When I tested it the HDDs themselves used slightly less power with FF but its hard to do an accurate test as the difference is minimal.

1 Like
16

Big mistake the ram is 8Gb :crazy_face:

17

Hey I had a PC with 8mb once…