Bitcoin Forum

Would it be worth it to mine with a cheap laptop? How exactly does it all work? How much electricity would it take up? And is it worth it?

I assume when you say a cheap laptop you mean a laptop with onboard graphics. If thats the case you will probably only be able to cpu mine. If thats the case cpu mining costs more electricity then will give you profit.

I know you didn't ask for the information coming up but I thought I would be very thorough since you said you were a newb and you may ask these questions in the near future anyway.

If you really want to make a profit off mining I recommend buying a graphics card and throwing it into a desktop you already own or building a desktop from scratch. When it comes it comes to picking a card you want to pick a 5770, 5830, 5850, 5870, or a 6770. Price is very important though. Here is my recommendations for price points for each card.

For the 5770 and 6770 (exactly the same card with different name) the absolute most you want to pay is 110 and thats pushing it. I personally would be a buyer at around 90.

For the 5830 pay no more then 130.

For the 5850 pay no more then 160-170

For the 5870 pay no more then 200.

I'd also like to point out sapphire seems to be one of the top brands so if you can snag a sapphire you will most likely get the most megahash out of your card.

Thanks, I just didn't know if anyone could mine without advanced graphics cards, like buying a new one. Thanks.

Would it be worth it to mine with a cheap laptop?
Generally Laptop mining is not worth the stress (heat) that the video card. Even some of the best laptop gpus ($1500+) only get 20 - 40 mhash compared to a $300 cheapo computer with a 5770 with 200 mhash.

How exactly does it all work?
in short:
Install the latest ATI driver package 11.7 or above
install the SDK 2.1 or 2.4 with opgenCL
download a bitcoin miner (for windows guimminer is easiest)
decide whether you want to solo mine or pool mine. (Pooled mining is prob the best solution here)
create an account with a pool miner operator. (BTC guild, slush's pool, deepbit...)
start mining
How much electricity would it take up?
depends on the power supply and video card solution
And is it worth it?
It depends. if your goal is to make money then you need a desktop platform.

here is list of hardware https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison
here is a list of builds https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_rig

Yea any one can mine with a cpu. The gpu requires opencl support or it wont be able to mine. Onboard graphics tend to be very crappy so I assume most would not have this support. If the laptop had a dedicated graphics card then maybe depending on what it is.

As stated above the stress you would put on your laptop from heat would far outweigh any potential profit you might manage.

Not worth to mine unless you have at least 0.5-1.0 Ghash/s, I have 3 oc/d gpus, 0.925 ghash/s in total and it's becoming less and less profitable...

Unless the price / value of BTC rises significantly, again... :-)

It will costs you around 54 cents a day to run it and you'll generate about .006 btc a day.

In order to break even you need it to be worth 90 dollars a btc and lets be honest if it reaches $30 the difficulty will sky rocket again so there is no profit to be had with cpu's.

Thought you meant mining in general.

Does anyone who mines use solar power?  How about bio-diesel generators?

Might be a good idea to start a new thread with this one. Green mining now that's a concept

I can't be the first one to have thought about it...
I'm toying with the idea of saving up for solar panels or figuring out how to rig up a biodiesel generator anyway, the power bill is becoming outrageous for our house.
Also, I saw a thing on CSPAN last night about the likelihood of a full-scale EMP attack against the US by 2013 being at 99% probability (don't ask me who or what came up with that figure; i was using CSPAN as I always do -- to fall asleep) but anyway, they were also talking about how easy it would be to prevent damage from one -- basically build some sort of metal shield over your transformers.  Or the power company's or whatever.  I'd rather it be my own :-)
Then I thought about how revolutionary the idea of digital crypto-currency is, and how important it might be to protect the integrity of such a system from "the very real threat of EMPs"...

Perhaps I should start a new thread or three.

Not worth it.  No.

EMP bombs aren't a myth.... but for a country to attack America with one, they would have to build it IN the US, because the finished project (to have any sort of actual range) would have to weigh several million tons and would likely take up several aircraft carriers (of the military type, not for your two seater planes)