If you missed part 1, read it here: it covers setting up the gridcoin client on your operating system. This part will cover how to get set up on the BOINC network and start earning Gridcoin for your computing power renting.
Most of what I did was covered in this video so please follow along with it. You can probably use it exclusively but I ran into problems, so I’ll type out the process along with any issues I had.
Step 1: Create an account on grcpool.com or Katiee’s pool
I don’t own any Gridcoin tokens so solo-mining was not an option for me, so I decided to join a pool. On Gridcoin’s website they listed two pools, and since I had issues loading the website for Katiee’s pool, I joined grcpool.com. I did no optimization calculations on which pool is better to join for rewards, I just wanted to get everything set up before tinkering.
Go to https://www.grcpool.com/, click sign up in the top right, and sign up and log in.
Step 2: Install BOINC
BOINC stands for Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. It was originally developed in 2002 to support the SETI@home project, but it’s now used to work on projects in “mathematics, linguistics, medicine, biology, climatology, environmental science, and astrophysics, among others.” This is a large network of untapped users for the gridcoin project: presumably many of those donating computing power to scientific pursuits are doing so purely for altruistic purposes and are not compensated properly.
To install BOINC, go to this website and download it then install: https://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php
After BOINC is installed and launched, it will prompt you to choose a project to run, but since we are joining a pool we can ignore that for now.
Step 3: Choose an Account Manager
To do this first you must view BOINC in advanced mode, otherwise the option to use an account manager is not available. This took me some time to correct, I could not find the Use Account manager option anywhere until viewing in advanced mode.
I advise you to follow along the above video for now, but I’ll type through it and leave comments where I needed to troubleshoot:
Once in advanced mode, at the top of the screen go to tools, use account manager, enter the website: https://www.grcpool.com/, hit next, then enter your username/password.
I ran into problems here that I’ll detail to help you guys.
I use a password manager and all my passwords are long random strings of characters. I assume the first time I tried typing in my password I did it wrong so I went to grcpool site and changed my password to something simple. However, the BOINC software didn’t recognize this, so after spending 15 minutes unsuccessfully typing my username/password into BOINC manager repeatedly and asking for help on Gridcoin channels, I finally got it to work by deleting my grcpool account and recreating it with an alphanumeric password then this worked.
But once your BOINC account is using an account manager, you need to go back to the grcpool site and link projects from there.
Step 4: Add Projects
The video was easy enough to follow along with from here out. Just make sure you uncheck CPU for projects that use GPU because your CPU cannot compete.
I again did no math in trying to figure out what the most profitable projects were.
Here are a list of some guides and advice for picking projects I found online:
http://gridcoins.blogspot.com/p/gridcoin-what-is-most-profitable.html
https://steemit.com/gridcoin/@dutch/hardware-and-project-selection-part-1-cpu-vs-gpu
https://steemit.com/gridcoin/@dutch/hardware-and-project-selection-part-2-gpu-projects
https://steemit.com/gridcoin/@dutch/hardware-and-project-selection-part-3-cpu-projects
I basically just chose my projects by picking either ones I had heard of, ones suggested in the video, or ones that had the least users on them.
Suspending Projects or Tasks
At certain points my computer was running far too slow so I had to suspend some tasks or projects from running. In the BOINC manager, I went to the projects tab and hit no new tasks:
Alternatively you could change your options so that it doesnt run while the computer is in use. To do this go to Options > Computing Preferences and check the "suspend when computer in use button". Note also that I lowered my CPU usage to maximum 50% so I can still read articles and blog while helping projects:
Note now when I go to my active tasks, everything is currently suspended because my computer is in use:
Change your screen saver and lock out settings
I changed my settings so that my computer does not log me out after 30 minutes and a screen saver comes on after 2 minutes. So my computer is not donating power while I'm using it, but a screen saver comes on quickly and my computer donates power while that is on after only 2 minutes. I also went back and changed to 100% CPU usage so that I can help projects more effectively while not using my computer.
This was fun
Setting everything up took a few hours of tinkering. It's possible I actually learned more because some of the guides were not helpful, which may ironically make my own guide less useful than I thought because the struggle was part of my learning process. However, most people don't want to struggle through it. But this should make the next coin I get involved with at more than a loaning or buying level easier.
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