<p>If you are using dedicated mining hardware, then CPU is only used for dispatching work to ASIC and sending the result back to pool. Therefore, CPU usage in this case should be <em>very</em> small, certainly not 100%.</p>

<p>Own experience: Linux, cgminer, 2*5GH/s ASICs: the miner uses about 1 minute of CPU time per 24 hours walltime, much less then bitcoin client running mostly in background.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-12-18T18:30:57.557Z
2013-12-18T18:30:57.557Z
aland
<p>A picture is worth a thousand words.  Here is a screen capture of a Mac Mini rig with three BFL USB devices running just under 70 GH/s. The low-end Mac is not even breaking a sweat... You probably need to figure out what processes are sucking up your CPU resources and kill them. I highly recommend <a href="http://fabulouspanda.co.uk/macminer/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://fabulouspanda.co.uk/macminer/</a> and doing STM P2Pool mining at <a href="http://pool.fabulouspanda.co.uk:9332" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://pool.fabulouspanda.co.uk:9332</a>.</p>

<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/eUotQ.png" alt="MacMiner v1.5 Screenshot"></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-12-19T00:49:27.360Z
2013-12-19T00:49:27.360Z
skaht
<p>I know that if I use <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cpuminer/" rel="nofollow">Pooler's CPUMiner</a> it will use all my computer resources for mining purposes.</p>

<p>What if I use one of those <a href="https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage/5-gh-s-bitcoin-miner.html" rel="nofollow">Butterfly Labs 5 GH/s SC</a> devices will it use 100% of my CPU power or the device does all the hard work?</p>

<mining-hardware><butterfly-labs>
Will a USB mining device use my computer's processing power?
douglaslps
# Will a USB mining device use my computer's processing power?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-12-18)

I know that if I use [Pooler's CPUMiner](http://sourceforge.net/projects/cpuminer/) it will use all my computer resources for mining purposes.

What if I use one of those [Butterfly Labs 5 GH/s SC](https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage/5-gh-s-bitcoin-miner.html) devices will it use 100% of my CPU power or the device does all the hard work?

**Tags:** mining-hardware, butterfly-labs


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2013-12-18. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

If you are using dedicated mining hardware, then CPU is only used for dispatching work to ASIC and sending the result back to pool. Therefore, CPU usage in this case should be *very* small, certainly not 100%.

Own experience: Linux, cgminer, 2\*5GH/s ASICs: the miner uses about 1 minute of CPU time per 24 hours walltime, much less then bitcoin client running mostly in background.


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### Answer by username_2 on 2013-12-19. Score: 0

A picture is worth a thousand words. Here is a screen capture of a Mac Mini rig with three BFL USB devices running just under 70 GH/s. The low-end Mac is not even breaking a sweat... You probably need to figure out what processes are sucking up your CPU resources and kill them. I highly recommend <http://fabulouspanda.co.uk/macminer/> and doing STM P2Pool mining at <http://pool.fabulouspanda.co.uk:9332>.

![MacMiner v1.5 Screenshot](https://i.sstatic.net/eUotQ.png)


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