The Common n00b Question(s)

[RadChad]

Okay, I know this is a total n00b question -- hence why I'm here. I'm *brand new* to the mining world. I want to throw it out there at first as well, I know my setup here is not professional. I'm trying this out for research first. If I start to get into it, I want to get a new rig with a better hash rate.

My problem currently, is getting off the ground at first. I've tried a few different miners, but haven't gotten any to work yet. My #1 is GUIMiner. v2012-12-03, which, if I'm to believe correctly, is the latest one. That one gets the common 'Starting..' and / or 'Connecting..' hangup in the bottom right corner. Left corner says diverted to stratum on startum.bitcoin.cz:3333. The device I'm using is Intel Core i5 CPU. GUIMiner does pick it up. But this is as far as I get.

The other one I had tried for a bit to get setup, is I believe called 'CPUMiner'? The exe is minerd, if that helps. Anyways, when launching the .bat file for that one, it reads:

2 miner threads started, using 'scyrpt' algorithm.
HTTP request failed: empty reply from server
json_rpc_call failed, retry after 30 seconds.
(and just repeats from there)

I know I'm missing some kind of a very easy fix here, I'm just not sure what it may be. Any help would be definitely appreciated! Thank you all.

[RadChad]

Bump. Anyone see an easy flaw in my process or see something that may help?

[whiskers75]

If you are, as you admit, a person who knows next to nothing about mining, or a person who wants an easy mining experience, you can try BitMinter - the easiest miner (and pool) ever. (And if you make something, mind donating a bit?  )

[RadChad]

This is the first miner I've gotten to work. Though, it does tell me no OpenCL compatible devices were found. I downloaded and installed the Intel SDK for OpenCL, maybe my computer just isn't worth it for mining? I thought it would be at least sufficient, but I'm only getting around ~500Khps, which I know to be pretty damn low from reading around.

Would it be wise to invest in a new rig altogether for this, if it's something I want to get into?

[pheaonix]

your computer doesn't have a graphics card?

 

basicly CPUs are worthless for mining.
graphics cards are ok but slow (assuming your using shit from around the house, and don't really care about power consumption at the current price of 200usd/btc)
fpgas are slightly above graphic card speeds at much lower power. if only i was around 1.5years ago and invested in them then.
asics are the best, with only 1 actual company, and they are sold out, because they are a skeleton crew in china.

we are scrambling to try to find a solution to get an asic device into your home mining ASAP

[RadChad]

I'm afraid not! Currently I'm using an HP Touchsmart PC. Which, they aren't the best -- but I had gotten out of the PC gaming world some years back, and hadn't needed anything spectacular, especially in the graphics department. I thought though, that I had read a chart comparing hash speeds, where people using the onboard graphics of an Intel Core i5 were reporting somewhere between 10-15Mhps. Which is what first led me to believe that maybe I'm just doing something wrong, but now I'm thinking this PC is much more useless in the mining world than I originally thought.

I remember seeing that Butterfly Labs (I think that's the name of the company, or something similar) had some very nice products for this, or I had thought about building a new rig from the ground up for this venture.