Bitcoin Forum

hi guys just a few questions I am new to this so sorry in advance if they are silly.

1 can I use a normal computer? before I make any sort f investmen.
2 I have downloaded bitcoin QT is this any good?
3 is it worth using the likes of cloudhash?

again sorry if they are basic the internet give conflictin advice, also any other advice you guys can give would be appreciated.

regards
Paul

Welcome Paul :)

1. For bitcoin mining, the age of CPU/GPU mining has long gone.
But, you can mine CPU coins with your CPU, and mine scrypt coins with your GPU.

2. It is good, but you need download 16GB+ block data in initial sync, and keep downloading all the new blocks. If you have limited space/bandwidth, you can try some thin client such as Electrum or Multibit.

3. Nope. You will never get your investment back. Check some profit calculator before buying any hashrate or hardware.
http://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/calculator

Are CPU coins basically bitcoins and are scyript coins the same aswell?

Bitcoin (and many other coins) are SHA256-based, meaning that all those hashing in bitcoin are sha256 hashing.

Litecoin (and many other coins) are scrypt-based, meaning that all those hashing in litecoin are scrypt-based.
Scrypt hashing is more memory intensive, and thus it is much harder to produce ASIC for it.

For CPU coins, it literally means the coin can only be mined using CPU (instead of GPU or ASIC).
Here is a list of CPU coins I find using google search. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=379601.0

does cpu mining work the same way as in can you sell the coins you mine? and does bitcoin-qt mine cpu coins?

Yup, the coins you mined can be sold in exchanges.
Nope, bitcoin-qt is a bitcoin wallet. You can use the -gen argument to mine bitcoin using cpu, but you will get nothing for thousands of years at current mining difficulty).

go on tell me what am I best doing to get started on this what is the best route with a personal computer and please talk English software I need ect ect

There's no point mining Bitcoins on a "normal" computer, but you could try get in early with an upcmoing altcoin and try trade the coins for BTC.

Which CPU and GPU do you have in your "normal computer"?

As others have pointed out (1), you can use a normal CPU, but the return vs expenditure is no longer worth it (unless the value of BTC/USD goes very high); (2) using Bitcoin-QT isn't a bad idea to get familiar with the various aspects involved in running as a node in the network with your own copy of the complete cryptographic ledger (blockchain) and how to secure your wallet with a good passphrase, but you may find other wallet clients are more useful that don't require you to download the blockchain to begin using them since they connect you to a service that aleady has the complete ledger, allowing you to use them as a transaction relay point instead (like MultiBit, which connects you to their proxy servers to sync with the network); (3) you'll want to use the following rule of thumb when looking for mining hardware: the hashrate and the cost of running it - so given the difficulty, my favorite way to calculate what I would need is the following mental formula: given difficulty X, hashrate Y, and a mining period of 24hrs, in general, you will need 1000 times more X hashes per second than difficulty X to earn approximately 0.5BTC.

So the current difficulty is about 2,621,000,000. That means you will need 2,621,000,000,000 hashes per second. 1000H/s = 1KH/s. 1000KH/s = 1MH/s. 1000MH/s = 1GH/s. 1000GH/s = 1TH/s. So you would need 2,621GH/s or 2.62TH/s to get 0.5BTC per 24hrs (62904000000000H for a whole day). With this mental calculation at your disposal, you should be able to factor in the cost of your hardwre as well as how much it may cost per KWh to run it, and then factor in the amount of BTC it would make, given the difficulty, to see if the BTC earned at its going or expected market value is a viable option for you.

cpu is an Celron dual core t3100 1.90ghz
and I think the graphics card is mbile intel 45 express chipset

Not familiar with your GPU, but I would est. that you would only be able to do about 2MH/s with that CPU. I don't think your GPU can do much better, either. You should be able to calculate how much you would earn in a given timeframe based on that hash rate.

no worries Paul, Mr Bitty loves you:

Hi Paul.
What people here are telling you is that mining bitcoin is likely not an option for you. You will need to buy very expensive specially built mining hardware to get in that game. You could try mining a different coin then selling it for bitcoin, but that has a steep learning curve and may not be profitable. I would highly recommend just buying a small amount of bitcoin to play with.

If you want to drop $20,000 on some mining equipment, here is something that might help.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison
cheers

Where exactly did this come from? I LOL whenever I see it.

me too mang, me too. i am cracking up at work. it comes from a guy named Mr. Bitty, you can click the quote to go to his original thread

To be honest, with your setup, I guess you should forget about mining completely...

1.yes
2.yes

3. I'm not sure, check a few threads about that website on this forum, we have plenty of them :D