This thread is designed around real beginner search intent in Obsolete (buying). Please share the questions new miners ask most often and the most useful answers about setup, hardware, profitability, pools, solo mining, and safety.
Good point. A lot of beginners skip that check and then waste hours troubleshooting.
I ran into this after changing pool settings and thought the machine was the problem. In my case the miner was fine, but the network path was unstable and the shares started coming through only after I fixed DNS and restarted cleanly.
This kind of thread is useful because the same symptom can come from different causes. The best replies are the ones that show the exact setup, the tests performed, and what finally changed the result.
This is exactly the kind of question many new miners search for before they commit money or hardware.
I think the most helpful answers here are the ones that explain what to check first, not just the final fix.
A practical comparison with real setup details would make this thread much more useful for future readers.
It helps a lot when people include what symptoms they saw, what they tested, and what actually changed the result.
This is a strong SEO-style topic because it matches the real questions miners keep asking again and again.
