Laptops just were not made for the intensity many miners use.  It creates heat which the laptop was not designed for long term to deal with.   In your case it will cost more to run it then you will make.... so it does not make sense financially or hurting your laptop.

Cpu mining is sadly just not worth it anymore.  The only altcoin mining worth it is GPU mining and it really is all Ether currently. But it takes a decent graphics card the intel you mentioned will not cut it.  Also people who do it in most cases use desktops that are open air, basically cards sit up in air for better cooling.   It makes the cards life easier with less heat, and is very good in the long run.

So you would have to invest going into altcoins.  Even then you would need a decent amount to do 400 each month. Even though crypto currencies are digital they still hold value, and are not get rich quick schemes.

These are two completely different thing's.  A faucet as I say pay's cents per hour and is dust payments.  So it is a horrible way to spend time but you know going into it that you will make little for many hours of work.

Ponzi are harder to tell think of like the fake cloud mining sites.  They ask for X amount and claim you will get great returns. They pay some people with other peoples money just shuffling money around.  They do this till they have the most money they think they will get... then disappear in most cases.  But a Ponzi will always want money, and proof of payment for a small period of time does not prove something is not a ponzi do the shuffling of money mentioned above.

You have to ask in a lot of cases why would people be willing to take out a loan online and pay more then they would to say a regular bank? The sad anwser is a lot of them have no intention of paying it back.

Even the best lending sites that have scan's of the peoples information does not make it fool proof. First photoshop is there... so people can send in fakes. Second were talking about some lending that people are in different countries so very hard to get money back if they default.   And even if best case of default and you have right person and in same country in a lot of cases they don't have money to pay you back and you cant get money where there is none, also some it's going to cost more to get a lawyer and try to get it back then you loaned.

I suggest avoiding loans.  The interest rate sounds great in many cases... but sadly a lot end up in scam/default.

I suggest adding a version of it on forum.  It might be me but I hate things like this that are like learn X here just download a file! As I really don't want to download random files and no offense to OP I just don't trust people specifically almost brand new people.  Also doing it and having referrals almost makes it seem like you created an account to hide your main and try to get referrals but again I speculate.

But the honest truth of cloud mining is you don't need to look around much.  To many scam sites, and frauds.  I personally only suggest hashnest on cloud mining or people can use reputable hosting centers  to.   

I am hoping we can keep BTC in upper 600's going into having.  I think some sold some off before having as lot's of unknowns so I can understand that.   I hope with getting so close to having we manage to get up to 700+ again this period.  But I have a hard time complaining still at high 600's.   

I am also hoping we don't have any bad news.  I have enjoyed playing around with Ether and man did the DAO news drop it.  It has rebounded some but not to the 20 mark which was so nice to see.  So I just hope we can keep news positive about bitcoin going into having as news definitely has a effect on price.

How many of the Bitmain APW3's have you tried out? Through my testing I have 1 remote connected to a APW3 and one now at my place connected to an APW3 and not having issues with them.

What way are you testing the APW3 to determine they are coming up short?  I have been testing by running the units with them so wanted to what tests you were using to get this. Just trying to compare as we seem to be getting different results.

Might take a look at Ethey - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=798843 .  Recently joined Yobit below are some examples I think qualify as low quality post's.  Everything from small posts that add nothing to thanks that again add nothing





You can look but I think quality of posts went down since joining a sig campaign - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=798843;sa=showPosts .  Not the worst one I have seen but enough to possibly warn I would think.

There are many "odd" things for lack of better term.  One of biggest is recent jump in how often they are being mentioned, specifically in beginner forum.  Is it do to having best service or most trusted?  Of course not so leads me to believe shills or possibly owner of site pushing it.

I challenge anyone to make sense of the 2 year payout calculator... with ROI in  two month's.  It is scam or ponzi in my mind.

I think you will find a lot with the AP3 from bitmain - https://bitmaintech.com/productDetail.htm?pid=000201505040743496917U7kGsCm0694 .   It is the one recommended from them "Bitmain recommends the APW3-12-1600-B2 power supply for both the S9 and S7 miner.".   

Just make sure you have the 205V or more so PSU can operate properly.

There is good and bad.  The bad is we lost some value which does stink 740-750 was nicer to see.  But the positive thing I see is 700 seemed like new base.   It has hanged around it. Which if that is new base and we still have 18 plus a little or so day's till having - http://www.bitcoinblockhalf.com/ .  So great to see I think a new possible base.

But around 6 hours or so ago it did dive some for sure - http://www.coindesk.com/price/ .  And slowly up a little bit after.

I would wait for full member it is the biggest jump in pay, also gives you a while to learn about the forums and bitcoin.  If  your sole goal is to join a signature campaign and make money on the forum it leads many into trouble due to low quality posts.

I personally consider the signature campaign as a bonus, I would be here either way.   Personally I waited till hero was just into mining did not really look into signature campaigns back then.  Looking back I still think  full member would have been best, but I don't regret waiting till hero.

I'm not sure on special computer guessing he means less possibility of security issues.  For example if you really want a paper wallet without worry you can go all the way to starting with clean OS and updating it, get anti-virus/anti-malware software and update, then make a wallet.  

I have computers I play with that even though it sounds like a lot as long as you don't mind blowing away computer not that bad.   And it provides a much more secure computer then one that's been surfing the web/downloads.

Hardware wallets done properly are easier in my mind.  But paper wallets are free so many love them as hard to beat the price.

Well the value of BTC is dropping some at end of difficulty period so not exactly way we wanted to go out.  We hit under 700 on coinbase.    So been a drop of decent amount - http://www.coindesk.com/price/   But it also could be worse at around 700 value still has rised a lot.

Difficulty did not go to crazy at end so bitwisdom does not look horrible:
Bitcoin Difficulty:    196,061,423,940
Estimated Next Difficulty:    208,709,397,356 (+6.45%)
Adjust time:    After 24 Blocks, About 3.7 hours
Hashrate(?):    1,612,115,017 GH/s

There are a few great exchanges already so making so lot's of competition.  Also if you do exchanges you run into legal having to follow certain laws (based on where you users are or possibly where hosted).   So I see a lot of programming, security, and legal work.  This will add up to a lot I think personally so a big financial investment with no guaranteed gain.

Not sure on mixing services in with it, guess it depends on what services.  I think you are looking at a huge project unless you meant just like a website listing exchanges and services.

The bot did perfect on reset it was at right time.  Which is a good thing as you don't have periods over 7 day's.  The bot has been great on resets so I thank Marco for that.

So you are correct it reset, now just wait for payment's. Last week it was pretty quick. But Marco always pays so no worries

It is a good miner which one is best is going to depend on your electricity price.  What is your electricity price?  This is going to decide a lot really.

As far as getting started it is pretty easy with Bitmain miners as the GUI is easy to use.  You in most cases can plug in and enter pool info and it works.  Not always the case but in a lot of cases it is very easy.

There is not really a guide as far as hardware to buy.  What most do is with the electricity price try to run some ROI math with sites such as bitwisdom - https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/calculator .   But if you mention your electricity (make sure taxes and fees are in your KWH price) someone most likely can point to what your options are.

Just to check with first miner your AP3 psu is hooked up to 205 volts or more on electricity? Did you purchase a new miner from Bitmain or is it used?

Also are you able to post a link to your miner status page?  How you said you don't know how to insert image if on windows  and recent you can use the "snipping tool" just search for it and it allows to take images, or you can look up screen print/paint combo.  But after throw it up on any standard image site (I personally use photobucket but there are a TON of options).  It wont let you post image directly in forum due to rank but you can post link to image.

I have tried a few fan's out the maxair one I had got worked fine and seemed like decent quality but I was not getting the 4000 cfm they mention highend.  I have one http://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-Pro-24-in-2-Speed-High-Velocity-Fan/4755305 had two but one gave out.  Lowes had some kinda policy you could call and get a new moter for X amount of day's from purchase but they were out so I ended up getting refund and bought one bigger as they were out of 24 inch fans at the time http://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-Pro-36-in-2-Speed-High-Velocity-Fan/4755307 .   It really can move some air though.

Between those two I am able to make it through a midwest summer.  My mining area I have the hot air going out a gable fan the one that was installed there did not cut it http://www.homedepot.com/p/QuietCool-Professional-3013-CFM-Power-Gable-Mount-Attic-Fan-AFG-PRO-3-0/206047381 was able to move a lot more air out.   But that setup was close to what made it through last summer for me and is doing good again this summer.

I don't think it beat's the RPI, and the simple fact is we don't need much more for a controller.  A RPI 3 for 35ish dollars has a ton of power for the money and a big community behind it, where you can use it for many other things besides mining if you have one laying around.

The controller I would love to see one use is the RPI Zero - https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-zero/ .   It is at a pricepoint of 5 dollars.   I  mean to get one some day and play around with it but have not got to that project yet.   Not sure if still like it was but it was very hard to find one for the retail price, most were selling for decent amount more.

Bitcoin is the king of crypto currency.  It was gold was like BTC, silver like LTC for the longest time as a miner I heard this.  Which is not totally accurate but it kinda fit.  Anymore the 2nd most popular is Ether the DAO hack dropped it's price but it's still in second I think.   

I'm not sure I quite follow why "dogecoin and blackcoin transaction always better than bitcoin". I loved dogecoin as it had a fun community around it, but I think of it as kinda having it's good day's in the past.