How to set up auto-restart for mining rigs? (Batch Script)

Understanding Auto-Restart Triggers

1. Mining rigs often encounter GPU driver timeouts, memory leaks, or pool disconnections that halt mining operations silently.

2. Windows may suspend processes during system updates or power state transitions, causing miner executables to terminate without error logs.

3. Overheating events detected by monitoring tools like MSI Afterburner or HWiNFO can trigger thermal throttling that drops hash rates below profitability thresholds.

4. Driver crashes—especially with older AMD Adrenalin or NVIDIA Game Ready drivers—frequently leave the miner process in a zombie state, consuming CPU but producing zero hashes.

5. Network instability between the rig and mining pool introduces authentication failures that some miners fail to recover from automatically.

Core Batch Script Structure

1. The script begins with @echo off to suppress command-line noise during execution.

2. A :loop label defines the main infinite execution block, enabling continuous monitoring without external schedulers.

3. tasklist /fi 'imagename eq lolMiner.exe' 2>nul | find /i 'lolMiner.exe' >nul checks for active miner process presence using case-insensitive string matching.

4. If the process is absent, the script executes start '' 'C:\miners\lolminer\lolMiner.exe' --algo ETHASH --pool eth-eu.flexpool.io:5555 --user 0x... with full path and parameters.

5. A timeout /t 60 >nul introduces a one-minute interval before rechecking, balancing responsiveness and system resource usage.

Integration with Windows Task Scheduler

1. Create a basic task triggered at system startup with highest privileges enabled to bypass UAC restrictions on GPU access.

2. Configure “Run whether user is logged on or not” to ensure miner persistence across remote desktop sessions and lock screens.

3. Set “Configure for Windows 10” explicitly to avoid compatibility issues with newer Windows Insider builds.

4. Add a custom action pointing directly to the .bat file location, ensuring no relative path resolution errors occur during boot.

5. Enable “If the task fails, restart every 10 minutes for a duration of 1 hour” as fallback protection against script-level failures.

GPU Initialization and Driver Recovery

1. Insert nvidia-smi -r or amdgpu-pro-uninstall && amdgpu-pro-install commands before miner launch to reset GPU state when detection fails.

2. Use devcon disable 'PCI\VEN_10DE' && devcon enable 'PCI\VEN_10DE' to cycle NVIDIA GPU devices via Device Console utility.

3. Embed wmic path win32_videocontroller get name output parsing to confirm GPU enumeration before launching compute workloads.

4. Add ping -n 5 127.0.0.1 >nul delays after driver resets to allow hardware stabilization before miner initialization.

5. Log GPU temperature via hwinfo64.exe --csv --silent --no-gui --export C:\logs\gpu_temp.csv and parse CSV for thermal safety checks.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can batch scripts detect miner software crashes without process termination?A: No. Batch scripts rely solely on process existence. Silent hangs require external watchdogs like Process Lasso or custom Python scripts parsing miner API endpoints.

Q: Why does my miner restart repeatedly even when running?A: This usually occurs when the tasklist command fails due to permission restrictions. Run the batch file as Administrator and verify antivirus exclusions for the miner directory.

Q: Is it safe to use devcon on production rigs?A: Yes—if used only during known failure states. Always test devcon commands in isolated environments first, as improper device cycling can cause BSODs on certain motherboard/GPU combinations.

Q: How do I prevent multiple miner instances from launching simultaneously?A: Add if exist 'C:\miners\lolminer\running.lock' exit /b at script start and create the lock file with echo.>C:\miners\lolminer\running.lock after successful miner launch.