Cannot get mining to work (at all) help?

[gravemind2401]

Ok, heres my information:

GUI Miner: 2011-06-14
BitCoin: 0.3.21
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS

no matter what i try, i cannot get mining to work. (i always get the "connection problems" in GUIMiner)
i tried bitcoin 0.3.23 but it didnt work, i read solo mining only works on 0.3.21 and less so i downgraded, but to no avail. i also downgraded GUI Miner to the second newest version and still nothing.

i followed all the guides on solo mining using GUI Miner. i set the path, the username, the password, ran bitcoin as server etc. i portforwarded my router to forward port 8332 and 8333 to my local address.

after giving up i decided to try pool mining. i registered on slush's server and went through all that, and put in my details in and clicked start mining. it tells me im getting around 3 MH/s, but nothing in the accepted column (and on the website it says ive processed 0 blocks, no matter how long i leave it going for) it also says "connection problems" occasionally instead of the speed.

in bitcoin i have "generate coins" enabled (but nothing seems to happen) and all it does is download blocks (i read somewhere that it has to download "all" blocks for solo mining, how many is "all"?)

can anyone help me?

[1715127396]

1715127396

[1715127396]

1715127396

[gochk]

I'm not an expert; but, let me try ...

Bitcoin 0.3.21 is used to download blocks. Someone can send you some bitcoins, and it'll be in a certain block, you'll have to download to that block to receive the bitcoin. You can find the current block number at http://blockexplorer.com/q/getblockcount (currently at 135047). For a test run of how this works, you can try to get some free bitcoins (courtesy of the community) at http://freebitcoins.appspot.com/

As for mining, when you mine in pools, you are getting shares of a block. Given the current difficulty rate (and it keeps increasing), the block is getting harder to solve. So naturally, it's not a big surprise if you haven't solved a block. 3 MH/s is very little and I would advise you to not even waste your electricity (the return is just not profitable enough to cover the cost of your electricity). You can calculate it at http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

And Nvidia video cards aren't the best choices for mining. If you look at https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison you'll see ATI cards are mining at 300-400 MH/s; I am running 1 6970 overclock (which gets me about 360 MH / s) card and I'm getting probably ~ 0.05 btc / night if I just run them at night (if I remember correctly). So you see ... 3 MH/s is really nothing.

I have never solo mine; but considering your speed, you probably shouldn't even bothered with that.

[Rob P.]

1)  Are you mining to a pool?  If so, you don't need Bitcoin installed at all.
2)  If you're mining with nVidia, you shouldn't bother.  You'll spend more in electricity than you can generate.

[gravemind2401]

I just looked up the tables and my graphics card is bad for mining like you said, maybe my CPU would be better if I could get it to mine at all (more connection problems)
it's an AMD sempron @ 3GHz
if only I knew about bitcoin before I bought my card, then I could've got a better one but now u have no money left :/

[Oldminer]

Err I dont think you can mine with that card

[gravemind2401]

i can mine with it, its just very slow and inefficient. anyways, something weird happened. i changed the flags and turned on the CPU affinity, and the speed shot up to 3GHash/s then slowed down to 996MHash/s... wtf?
even still, i get nothing in the "accepted" and nothing shows up in the pool website. and after a while the mining speed just stays on one number and doesnt change

[Rob P.]

i can mine with it, its just very slow and inefficient. anyways, something weird happened. i changed the flags and turned on the CPU affinity, and the speed shot up to 3GHash/s then slowed down to 996MHash/s... wtf?
even still, i get nothing in the "accepted" and nothing shows up in the pool website. and after a while the mining speed just stays on one number and doesnt change

You cannot CPU mine, especially with a Sempron.

CPU mining is worse than mining with nVidia, neither should be done by sane individuals. 

[gravemind2401]

well my CPU can mine, it just only goes at 1.4MHash/s haha

[Rob P.]

well my CPU can mine, it just only goes at 1.4MHash/s haha

Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD.

[ANSYSiC]

you need about 200 MH/s to make it profitable.

instead of paying for electricity you better buy bitcoins with that money!

[gravemind2401]

well if anyone is generous enough to lend me $165 worth of bitcoins (or paypal), i can buy a card that will work very well for mining and pay you back when i generate the coins back. any takers? (lol you can tell im desperate)

[Meisterschürfer]

Guys, i have the same problem - my system:

AMD 955 BE
Vista 64 up 2 date
ATI 6950
i tried 3 different versions of gui miner and tried to connect to a pool, always the cant connect error.
And GUI miner doesnt find my ati, only cayman and my cpu.
I already loaded the latest ATI driver, and that ati stream was also included...


I dont know what to do...

[ANSYSiC]

cayman IS your ati card
codename of the chip

[Meisterschürfer]

cayman IS your ati card
codename of the chip

Thank you very much, i got it running :-)

[gravemind2401]

anyone care to donate 1 single bitcoin to my mtgox account? i figured seeing as my hardware sucks i could try to trade and save up for a better one. i would add funds via paypal but it only has $10 and mt gox doesnt support paypal :/
my mt gox address is 14i2QbNoWXtPXskos57EfjXQqsdRTQnSxS if anyone is generous enough

[MarkG]

anyone care to donate 1 single bitcoin to my mtgox account? i figured seeing as my hardware sucks i could try to trade and save up for a better one. i would add funds via paypal but it only has $10 and mt gox doesnt support paypal :/
my mt gox address is 14i2QbNoWXtPXskos57EfjXQqsdRTQnSxS if anyone is generous enough

Same here, I'm just running 45 Mh/s...  CPU is fine, it's just my video card that s*cks...

Address is 1N2dpzV4VEfP25gBJaE5w7oFbMDZfcrgLp

Thanks to all!

[gravemind2401]

45MH/s with just a CPU? seriously? anyways, i could kill for 45MH/s. with 45MH/s you could probably at least generate a coin in a few days maybe a week or two. would you like to swap it for my 3MH/s? id be happy to take it off your hands any time

[tysat]

45MH/s with just a CPU? seriously? anyways, i could kill for 45MH/s. with 45MH/s you could probably at least generate a coin in a few days maybe a week or two. would you like to swap it for my 3MH/s? id be happy to take it off your hands any time

http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

According to that, it's over a month to generate one coin using 45MH/s at the current difficulty.

[gravemind2401]

oh god help me.... its going to take over a year for me to get one single coin
donations? anyone? im desperate

i only need 1 coin so i can start trading;
14i2QbNoWXtPXskos57EfjXQqsdRTQnSxS

[tysat]

oh god help me.... its going to take over a year for me to get one single coin
donations? anyone? im desperate

i only need 1 coin so i can start trading;
14i2QbNoWXtPXskos57EfjXQqsdRTQnSxS

Trading what in particular?

It'd be easier for you to buy 1 coin off of an exchange.