How to mine Conflux on a standard gaming laptop?

Hardware Requirements for Conflux Mining

1. Conflux uses a proof-of-work consensus mechanism called Tree-Graph, which is designed to be ASIC-resistant and GPU-friendly. A standard gaming laptop with an NVIDIA GTX 1660 Ti or higher can technically participate in mining.

2. At least 16 GB of RAM is recommended to handle the memory-intensive DAG file generation during mining sessions. Laptops with only 8 GB may experience frequent page swapping, reducing hash rate stability.

3. The CPU must support AVX2 instructions; most Intel Core i5-8th gen or newer and AMD Ryzen 5 2500U or later fulfill this requirement. Older CPUs will fail to initialize the Conflux miner software.

4. Storage space matters: the Conflux node requires approximately 120 GB of SSD space for full synchronization. HDDs are discouraged due to slow I/O latency affecting block propagation timing.

5. Thermal throttling is a critical constraint. Gaming laptops often sustain 75–85°C under load. Without active cooling pads or repasted thermal compounds, sustained mining leads to automatic clock down and hash rate collapse.

Software Setup Process

1. Download the official Conflux CLI client from the GitHub repository maintained by the Conflux Foundation. Pre-built binaries for Windows and Linux are available; macOS support remains experimental.

2. Install CUDA Toolkit 11.2 or higher if using an NVIDIA GPU. AMD users require ROCm-compatible drivers and OpenCL 2.0 runtime libraries.

3. Configure the conflux.conf file to enable mining mode, specify the number of GPU devices, and set the local RPC port to 12537.

4. Launch the node in daemon mode first, allowing it to sync fully before enabling mining. Skipping sync results in rejected shares and zero reward accumulation.

5. Use cfxminer, a lightweight fork of ethminer adapted for Conflux’s epoch-based DAG, to initiate actual hashing. Do not use generic Ethereum miners—they lack Tree-Graph compatibility.

Power and Thermal Management

1. Connect the laptop to AC power at all times. Battery-only mining causes immediate voltage sag, triggering GPU core undervolting and inconsistent nonce submission.

2. Disable Windows Fast Startup and Hybrid Sleep. These features interfere with PCIe device enumeration, causing GPU detection failures after reboot.

3. Set fan curves manually via third-party tools like MSI Afterburner or HWiNFO. Default OEM profiles rarely exceed 60% fan speed until 90°C—far too late for safe mining operation.

4. Monitor VRAM junction temperature separately. GDDR6 on mobile GPUs often hits thermal limits before the GPU die itself, leading to silent hash drops without visible throttling alerts.

5. Avoid concurrent GPU workloads. Running games, video encoding, or browser-based WebGL applications alongside mining introduces kernel scheduling conflicts and share rejection spikes.

Reward Distribution Mechanics

1. Conflux mining rewards are distributed across multiple blocks per epoch due to its multi-chain structure. Miners receive partial payouts every 30 seconds, but final settlement occurs after 500 confirmations.

2. Payouts are denominated in CFX tokens and credited directly to the wallet address specified in the miner configuration. No centralized pool is required—Conflux supports solo mining with sufficient hash rate.

3. Each block contains a base reward plus transaction fees. Fee inclusion depends on mempool congestion; low-priority transactions may remain unconfirmed for hours, delaying fee accrual.

4. Difficulty adjusts every 1024 blocks based on observed block time variance. Sudden increases in network hashrate cause rapid difficulty spikes, temporarily lowering individual laptop yields.

5. Block rewards halve every 4 years starting from mainnet launch. The current reward per block stands at 3.2 CFX, down from the initial 6.4 CFX.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I mine Conflux using integrated graphics?A: No. Integrated GPUs lack sufficient compute units and memory bandwidth to generate valid Tree-Graph proofs. Only discrete NVIDIA or AMD GPUs meeting minimum specifications are supported.

Q: Does Conflux mining require running a full archival node?A: Yes. Light clients cannot submit valid proofs. The node must store all historical state transitions to verify block ancestry and prevent double-spending attacks.

Q: Why does my miner show “stale share” repeatedly?A: This indicates your node is out of sync or experiencing high network latency. Ensure your system clock is synchronized with NTP servers and that UDP port 32323 is open on your router.

Q: Is there a minimum hardware uptime requirement to earn rewards?A: No fixed uptime threshold exists, but consistent participation increases probability of finding valid blocks. Nodes offline for more than 15 minutes miss entire epochs and forfeit associated reward windows.