Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Mining => Topic started by: cheezcarls on May 26, 2017, 09:09:47 AM



Title: I want to start mining with my old laptop. Helpful advice welcome
Post by: cheezcarls on May 26, 2017, 09:09:47 AM
Hello guys!

I was thinking of starting to do bitcoin mining with my 8 year old tiny laptop (Asus EEE PC, still functioning only when plugging, battery's out). My room is airconditioned, so it's good enough to keep it cool. I can also borrow my dad's old unused HP laptop, and my sis' old netbook to mine bitcoins together.

I don't know where to begin haha! I'm confused. Should I use Electrum wallet? Do I need to buy external hardware?

Any helpful advice will do. I'm very new into mining with hardware stuff. Thanks!


Title: Re: I want to start mining with my old laptop. Helpful advice welcome
Post by: mocacinno on May 26, 2017, 09:10:46 AM
Hello guys!

I was thinking of starting to do bitcoin mining with my 8 year old tiny laptop (Asus EEE PC, still functioning only when plugging, battery's out). My room is airconditioned, so it's good enough to keep it cool. I can also borrow my dad's old unused HP laptop, and my sis' old netbook to mine bitcoins together.

I don't know where to begin haha! I'm confused. Should I use Electrum wallet? Do I need to buy external hardware?

Any helpful advice will do. I'm very new into mining with hardware stuff. Thanks!

No, don't mine bitcoin using a laptop, a pc, a server, a gpu,...
As soon as you start mining with this hardware, the power will cost a lot more than the profit will ever be... A while ago, i estimated that a server with XEON CPU's and 6 of the best GPU's on the market today, running 24/7 at 100% (both CPU and GPU) would make about $11 a year in BTC (not counting the energy cost)...

I've even written a blogpost about this very subject, please read the CPU and GPU section before even thinking about proceeding:http://www.mocacinno.com/blog/is-bitcoin-mining-equal-to-free-money-printing/

Last but not least: even if you have free hardware AND "free" power, and you don't mind spending hours/days setting everything up, you'd need to recompile old cpu mining software, since cpu mining has been removed from all recent versions of cgminer, bfgminer,...
Also, if you would pool mine, it would take decades before you even reached the minimum withdrawal amount.

Long story short: take a step back, don't do it...


Title: Re: I want to start mining with my old laptop. Helpful advice welcome
Post by: cheezcarls on May 26, 2017, 10:00:45 AM
Hello guys!

I was thinking of starting to do bitcoin mining with my 8 year old tiny laptop (Asus EEE PC, still functioning only when plugging, battery's out). My room is airconditioned, so it's good enough to keep it cool. I can also borrow my dad's old unused HP laptop, and my sis' old netbook to mine bitcoins together.

I don't know where to begin haha! I'm confused. Should I use Electrum wallet? Do I need to buy external hardware?

Any helpful advice will do. I'm very new into mining with hardware stuff. Thanks!

No, don't mine bitcoin using a laptop, a pc, a server, a gpu,...
As soon as you start mining with this hardware, the power will cost a lot more than the profit will ever be... A while ago, i estimated that a server with XEON CPU's and 6 of the best GPU's on the market today, running 24/7 at 100% (both CPU and GPU) would make about $11 a year in BTC (not counting the energy cost)...

I've even written a blogpost about this very subject, please read the CPU and GPU section before even thinking about proceeding:http://www.mocacinno.com/blog/is-bitcoin-mining-equal-to-free-money-printing/

Last but not least: even if you have free hardware AND "free" power, and you don't mind spending hours/days setting everything up, you'd need to recompile old cpu mining software, since cpu mining has been removed from all recent versions of cgminer, bfgminer,...
Also, if you would pool mine, it would take decades before you even reached the minimum withdrawal amount.

Long story short: take a step back, don't do it...

Oh okay thanks for the heads up. I would better back off, change my mind and stick to some existing BTC opportunities out here.