Requesting Guidance

[din djarin]

Hello friends,

I am seeking guidance from those who are well versed in GPU mining. Perhaps there is an individual(s) on this forum who are willing to spend a few minutes of their day to convince me that mining, after all, is a bad idea. Each time that I crunch the numbers factoring in initial investment, ROI, the unpredictability of the crypto market, and the amount of electricity used, I end up coming up negative. 

In addition, I do not have any knowledge of what to actually do once I have the physical mining rig set up right in front of me. Such as
- Mining software?
- Configuration of mining code?
- Optimal settings for GPUs by using drivers? 
- Which pools should I join?
- How to join a pool?
- What is my ignorance not allowing to me realize that is so obvious for someone that knows exactly what they are doing?
And other equivalent topics.

Nevertheless, mining is something that I truly want to follow through on, I believe there is a lot to learn and a lot to gain from mining when it is done right.

And that friends is my dilemma, how is it done, right. 
(any information provided will be taken into consideration and greatly appreciated. Cheers)

[Lucius]

I'm not an expert on these things, so I won't go into any technical details, except that I can tell you that it's not something you can do without money (a lot of money), and you need to have some knowledge. If I'm not mistaken, most individuals today mine altcoins, and large mining farms are the ones that mine Bitcoin. The reasons for this are, of course, the very expensive mining devices, the price of electricity, and all the other costs such as storing the devices, cooling, but also paying taxes if the operation is legal.

Maybe some of the tips and examples from this threads could help you :

[GUIDE - Personal Experience]How to get started with Mining
Part II - [GUIDE - Personal Experience] How to get started with Mining Continued
Mining

[bill gator]

Hello friends,

I am seeking guidance from those who are well versed in GPU mining.

Hello, I would suggest you start your journey in the "Mining" section: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=14.0

Every question you will have has already been asked and answered. There are plenty of helpful people, threads and search tools to help you get started in the right direction; lucius pointed to a couple.

Each time that I crunch the numbers factoring in initial investment, ROI, the unpredictability of the crypto market, and the amount of electricity used, I end up coming up negative.  

It's more "predictable" the further out you stretch the timeline. It has been a winning investment since it's inception. It's impossible to factor in growth, and a imagine a lot of miners look at their immediate losses as "hedged investments"

I'm not telling you that you will make money, because I'm rusty on the scene and never was an expert to begin with.

I remember someone saying something like "You didn't gain or lose money until you sell."