When mining crypto your computer will solve certain algorithms. Once solved, you get shares of whatever crypto you are mining. However, if your computer freezes or times-out, you do not get credit for that share and it is listed as a stale share. Your stale share rate should be very low, at most 1-2 shares per cycle. When I first started mining I was sometimes getting upwards of 50 stale shares at any given point. Sometimes this was more than 50% of my total intake of valid shares. Talk about frustrating.
I first watched every YouTube video possible on how to solve my stale share rate. The most common problem is called latency. To test your computer's latency, you need to learn how to ping the particular pool you are attempting to mine from (i.e. ethermine.org, nicehash etc.) This process is pretty easy. "Son of a Tech" provides an excellent tutorial on the subject. How To Test For Latency. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that my latency was very low and therefore it was not latency between my ISP and the mining pool that was the problem.
I then attempted to connect only via Ethernet cord. This too did not fix the problem. I must have tried every feasible solution to fix my stale share rate, but nothing work. I thought it might be my ISP, but after calling my internet provider, they assured me that "they could not be the problem." They even sent a technician out on two different occasions to fix the problem. Each time the fix seemed to work, but then within a few hours I was getting more stale shares. What could possibly be the problem?
I decided to run a little experiment. I used my cell phone as a mobile hot-spot. Most cell-phones can be used to tether a device to the internet using the cell-phone's internet connection. Once I directed my mining rigs to my cell-phone my stale share rate went down dramatically. In fact it immediately went down to the normal stale share rate of only 1-2 stale shares per cycle. I thought I had the problem fixed. I would just leave my phone tethered to my mining rigs. The problem was two fold: 1) I would have to leave my phone with my mining rigs all day; and 2) the computers would randomly not receive a strong signal from my phone and automatically revert back to my home ISP -- which because of my experiment I now knew was the problem.
I'm still not sure what led to the "micro-interruptions" from my ISP that thereby led to the creation of stale shares. But I did know that it was my ISP that was causing my stale shares. And I knew that my ISP service was not going to get any better. When mining, it is not really a matter of internet speed. You just need reliability. My home ISP speed is roughly 1 GB per second. Definitely not a speed thing. I needed reliability. My phone provided that, but how could I make my phone more reliable? Then I discovered a solution that could actually save many homes a ton of money on their internet service, and also solve any reliability problem for miners.
Setting Up Your Cell-Phone As Your Own WiFi Network
While I don't plan to get rid of my home ISP because my family uses it for downloading movies, streaming video, playing games etc. If you don't need high speed, you can save a ton of money on home WiFi, if you instead just set up your own network using your cell-phone. Most people know that you can tether devices to your cell phone, but you can actually do more than that. You can purchase a travel router to which you can tether your phone and create a hotspot that can be used throughout your house. If your cell-phone has unlimited data, and you connect your phone to a travel router, you would not need a separate ISP service. In my case, I used my cell-phone to create my own network and that network is used exclusively for my mining operation. It became clear pretty early that my ISP was the problem, and whatever was causing the mini-interruptions was not going to be fixed anytime soon. However, my cell-phone's internet service had not such micro-interruptions and is very reliable. So now that I have my own network from my cell-phone, I no longer get massive amounts of stale shares. My rate is normal...only 1-2 per cycle (if that -- most of times I don't get any at all).
So that I could keep my cell phone on me at all times, I just get another line from my cell-phone provider and purchased a cheap phone to use for the tethering. Yes it is an addition line, but because I'm on a group plan, it really only costs roughly $10 a month. If you decided to use this method instead of your ISP, you could be saving a lot by bringing your internet service down to only the cost of your additional cell-phone line.
As far as travel routers, I recommend the: Travel Router
GL.iNet GL-AR750S-Ext (Slate) Gigabit Travel N Router
This little guy is a beast. Through it you can tether your phone to turn your phone into your home network, or if you travel, you can use it to set up your own private network that is safe and secure by simple converting the signal from your hotel or airport into your own network. Or you can again use your phone to establish a roaming network. It works like a charm.
My ISP was the problem creating my stale share rate. This router fixed my issue. Yes I now spend an additional amount each month establishing my own network. But I now have the peace of mind that my mining rigs are going to be able to mine at full capacity and they won't waste time and energy just to lose out on hundreds if not thousands of shares each month.
