Bitcoin Forum

Hello, I just discovered and read about bitcoin today! I've read a lot about bitcoin and how it works, but I'd like to get some personal help on how to get started mining, do I just need to download it and just keep it running on my PC?

If anyone with AIM is willing to help me get this setup I'll gladly send half of my first block made to you to spoon feed me directions.

My laptop was bought around 3 years ago costing me over $1,000, so I'm sure its still decent enough to make some profit.

Thanks.

Chris

Unfortunately probably not.

Laptops have integrated video cards, which serve a great purpose, but do not do well with the specialized needs of bitcoin.

If you are still willing to kick in some hashing power to the network, check out the "poclbm" mining program and the btcguild.com pool.   Create a shortcut to the program as described by BTCguilds FAQ, and see what you get.

If you're getting under 10000Khash/sec (10Mhash) its probably not electrically efficient to do make money off it.  Im no genius with laptop power consumption though,

You can't mine profitably nowadays using your CPU, you must use a GPU.  Using a CPU it costs you more in electricity than the bitcoins are worth.  So unless your electricity is free, you need a GPU.

I very much doubt your 3 year old laptop has a GPU capable of mining.  ATI GPUs are best, Radeon HD 5XXX models and later (must support OpenCL).  You can mine with Nvidia GPUs, but they are _significantly_ worse at it than ATI.

As for "having a play", download the bitcoin client, run it (it'll take some time to download the current blockchain - the current record of all transactions), and once it's up to date you can have a play.

See if you can find someone to give you a few bitcents (there used to be a site called the bitcoin faucet that would give away bitcoins, last I checked they'd run out), watch the bitcoins "magically" appear in your account.

Your laptop is almost certainly not decent enough to make a profit.  

What video card is in your laptop?  Unless you got a gaming specific laptop with an ATI chipset it will not be worth your time/energy and could lead to frying your graphics card due to heat.

This isn't free money.  You are competing against people who have custom-built computers with video cards that are now twice the price they were 2 weeks ago.  Some miners have whole datacenters devoted to mining.  If you want to cash in on the bitcoin craze you'll either need to buy a new desktop computer for mining or buy bitcoins directly and hope for the same rapid appreciation we've been seeing.

Icy, your laptop might not generate the hashing power you want to find a block in a reasonable amount of time so I recommend you join a mining pool to give you faster and more consistent payouts.
BitClockers has a complete guide on how to get started available here (http://bitclockers.com/forums/index.php?topic=3.0)

My laptop that was 3400€ two years ago can only hash for 25Mhash/s so I doubt your will do better..

looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool.



That is all.

I find it funny how everyone is just bashing this guy lol

Only you and that one other guy. Typical troll. :D

My IBM PowerPc cost $14,000 in 1993 so it must be excellent for mining. Why am I only getting 26khash/s.

It says: powerful computing for the entire family. I want my money. You guys owe me.
This thing takes up half of my room and I'm earning 2 cents per day. This is not right or fair. I will sue Mt Gox.

My uncle knows the emperor of Japan. The yakuza will cut your pinky if I don't get my bitcoins. And I'm on a hunger strike already.

Here since im new i will help you...
step 1.Spend the next 65 hours reading everything
step 2.Then spend like 1100 bucks
step 3.Then you can mine efficiently.
O, if you dont purchase that hardware from a frys electronics that is, where it will most certainly be shit, go to frys and you will only make it to the end of step two.

mining is largely unprofitable, but the community needs it.
if you not are a a Geek, don't miner. sell stuff, insted its way easier and more noob frendly..

yeah, sure...
you guys still missing that part in which i can sell my mining rigs as gaming pc's after 6 months for ~75% of purchasing costs

so how exactly it is unprofitable if i get more than $30 daily from each rig fitted with 5970+5870?

sure, difficulty is increasing but so far price goes up as well, unless all this btc thing collapse it is quite hard to loose any money on mining this days

correction: its more the noobish attitude i think is unprofitable.
most new user is looking for the free money, and wants to go solo cpumining... !!!
but there they are not free, they comes at a cost. which is relatively large investments.
andi think the prices will fall some time soon, because it has not been a steady growth, it has nearly only been big buyers who had buyed.