[Sticky] What should new miners learn first before buying hardware in Obsolete (buying)?

For anyone still troubleshooting this, the most useful sequence I found was: confirm the wallet and worker format first, then verify the stratum target, then check miner logs, then look at temperature and uptime, and only after that start changing firmware or network settings. Doing it in a clean order saved me a lot of time because I stopped guessing and started isolating the real problem.

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.

For anyone still troubleshooting this, the most useful sequence I found was: confirm the wallet and worker format first, then verify the stratum target, then check miner logs, then look at temperature and uptime, and only after that start changing firmware or network settings. Doing it in a clean order saved me a lot of time because I stopped guessing and started isolating the real problem.

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.

Thanks for posting this. I was trying to figure out the same thing today.

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.

This is exactly the kind of question many new miners search for before they commit money or hardware.