Bitcoin Forum

These are totally n00b questions (because that's what I am) so bear with me.  :)

I'm running Litecoin-Qt 0.6.3c on Windows. I'm not interested in doing mining in any serious way, but I figure since my PC is just sitting there anyway, it might might was well do something.

What do the settings for Threads and Scantime actually mean? and what impact do they have on the hashrate, my PCs performance, or how quickly I am likely to mine any LTC?

Are there recommended setting to optimize mining performance?


Thanks,

 jxc

Solo mining is quite hard now so you would be mining a very long time and might not see any results.

Check out this thread of all the pools you could join. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=104664.0

What is your hardware, do you intend to CPU mine or with a GPU?

Unless your planning on building a powerful mining rig, I think you should avoid solo-mining and focus on LTC pool mining (or maybe try mining a newer crypto currency like feathercoin)

Here's a list of some pools:  https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/Comparison-of-mining-pools (https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/Comparison-of-mining-pools)

You can calculate the amount of LTC your system can mine by going to: http://give-me-ltc.com/calc (http://give-me-ltc.com/calc)

Thanks, I'll check out the pools - like I said, I'm not looking to get into it in a big way. I was mainly curious about the settings.

Right now, it's running at about 2500 hashes / second. I don't expect that will make be a LTC magnate any time soon. :)

At 2.5 Khash/sec you'd be earning 0.01 LTC a day with a pool, and thus would take you 5000 days on average to find a block solo mining! If you're just wanting to mine for the fun of it, I'd use a pool! Do you have a graphics card on your PC?

Solo is not the way to go unless you have a Mhash, even then the chances of a return are low. Try pool mining, at least you will see some return on your time even if you will not be making any profit.

Do you guys have a favorite pool?  And if so.. why? 

-M

I like Burnside's pool (http://ltc.kattare.com/) because it is PPLNS and has worked well for me. I have read several comments on different boards stating that some people experience high-stales on this pool but I haven't experienced that personally.

Try out a couple and see what suites you!

https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/Comparison-of-mining-pools

Can i do solo mining ltc with fpga?