Anyone ever get lucky mining with a low power machine?

[bitcoinbugler]

As I understand it, the mining of bitcoin is probabalistic: the longer you work at the problem the more likely you are to solve it.

Building a dedicated rig to mine is like buying loads of lottery tickets to increase you chance of winning.

That being the case, has anyone ever got lucky and had a low powered, non-specialized machine unearth some fresh bitcoin?

[hole896]

Well...running solo...nope. Join a pool, it will increase your chances a TON. Pools are made for low machines.

[@Zack]

Join a pool and u will get the shared constantly.

[FalconDelta34]

 I tried with my 5 year old pc and barely could get a decent hash rate.

[Kennji]

Well...running solo...nope. Join a poll, it will increase your chances a TON. Polls are made for low machines.

Are you trying to say 'pool'  ??

lol two typos on the same word.  Funny.

[Lorren]

I have four machines that I set up with pools.  None of my computers get great hashrates, but I do get small amounts with all of them.  My lowest powered machines mine Feathercoins and Litecoins.

[cryptogoldstandard]

Is your mining cost effective or is the cost of electricity more than the value of the coins received? I could see doing it if I had a free source of electricity and a faster computer or GPU. The stuff I have right now is too old, and I just can't see abusing a new computer by mining all the time.

[antony]

though it is probabilistic in nature, my understanding is it not like a probability of one event in infinite time. Rather a sequence of events within a interval; with a specific initial condition.   Also many players are trying at the same time and the first one wins.  In other words it is not getting one time head in coin toss but getting a specific sequence say hhhhhtttthth within a minute before some one else gets it. That is my understanding. Also I think there is a further complication that you need a previous bitcoin and a transaction to mine the next one. If that is true no one can mine all coins in isolation.

[ihuntsausages]

Definitely join a pool. Solo mining is suicide.

[cooldude123]

At the current rate, even for Litecoin, the average time is well over 100 days to find a block, so unless you have a very high powered graphics farm and ASIC together at the same time, I'd say to go for Pool mining.

[PMB]

I tried with my 5 year old pc and barely could get a decent hash rate.

In a raspberry PI the hash rate for LiteCoin (not BitCoin) was 0.2k .... I think it is easier to win the lottery....

regards,

P

[hashrateproducts]

general consensus: dont bother mining just buy a lottery ticket 

[pythons]

At the current rate, even for Litecoin, the average time is well over 100 days to find a block, so unless you have a very high powered graphics farm and ASIC together at the same time, I'd say to go for Pool mining.

yes, that is 100 days if the difficulty stayed the same , but it will go up, so in reality it is impossbile to solo now

[Jarunik]

I think you already got enough volatility in pool mining. Solo mining is like playing high risk gambling.