Really trying to get into Mining, but encountering many issues.

[anonona3]

Hey all. Just got into this whole Bitcoin thing, and I've established that I want to start mining on the side. I don't really have the money for any new rigs or fancy GPU's, so I have to work with what I have currently. I have a desktop computer, ~3-4 years old, which I want to CPU mine on, despite it's inferiority to GPU mining. I downloaded a viewing cap to confirm that I do not have the GPU to mine with, so I'm stuck with the less efficient type. I downloaded GUI miner (running windows vista 64bit) and got the error message "ImportError: DLL Load failed: The specific module could not be found". Not sure exactly what the problem is. If anyone could shed some light on that situation it would be appreciated.

I also am attempting GPU mining on my Macbook pro. I have had slightly better success with this using Diablominer, but I've only reached around 6000khashes/sec, which seems like a pretty abysmal rate. Any suggestions regarding that would also be great. I'm still feeling a bit over-my-head here, and it'd be really nice if one of you old hands could help me out a bit.  

[boss cat]

yep, CPU mining is that slow. if you wanna mine you should get a gpu otherwise you are pretty much wasting your time.

[anonona3]

yep, CPU mining is that slow. if you wanna mine you should get a gpu otherwise you are pretty much wasting your time.

Point is though, I'm not even managing to get any CPU mining done. I am GPU mining on a laptop, and wondering if the speeds I'm getting are around the maximum I could get given my gear. (Standard Macbook Pro, AMD Radeon HD 6490 2.0ghz). Although if this is the best speed I can possibly get given what I have, I would tend to agree that mining seems out of my future.

[sunny day]

which macbook do you have?
it seems on the hardware wiki that you should get at least 16 MH/s
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

[nmat]

The 6 MHash/sec should be a correct value if you are not using Mac OS X Lion. Apple's OpenCL implementation is bad...

I don't know about that error with gui miner... Have you tried other miners? Also, did you take a look at this to calculate your earnings? http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

[anonona3]

which macbook do you have?
it seems on the hardware wiki that you should get at least 16 MH/s
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

I'm not entirely sure. The computer is at most 2 years old, and according to that chart you're right. If I'm looking at the right model, I should see speeds of about double what I'm getting currently. Are there any flags or something I should be inputting to increase my speed or something? When Diablo asked me for info, I just used the server (deepbit), 8332, and my user/pass. Also, even with my weak ass speeds I've still solved 2 blocks in the 30 minutes I've been mining.
 

[anonona3]

The 6 MHash/sec should be a correct value if you are not using Mac OS X Lion. Apple's OpenCL implementation is bad...

I don't know about that error with gui miner... Have you tried other miners? Also, did you take a look at this to calculate your earnings? http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

I have tried other miners but they're not working too well currently. If you have any suggestions for what might work best I'd be glad to give them a try.

[PLaci1982]

Hmmm, interesting... Lets start with the error msg:

running windows vista 64bit

"ImportError: DLL Load failed: The specific module could not be found"

Do you have Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package installed? If not, or your unsure, download and install both the x86 and the x64 package, then run Windows Update. (VC Redistributables have security updates.)

[anonona3]

Hmmm, interesting... Lets start with the error msg:

running windows vista 64bit

"ImportError: DLL Load failed: The specific module could not be found"

Do you have Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package installed? If not, or your unsure, download and install both the x86 and the x64 package, then run Windows Update. (VC Redistributables have security updates.)

Working on that as we speak. I repaired x86 and installed x64, now running windows update.

[ovidiusoft]

@anonona3, I know you don't want to hear this, but here goes: you will not have much success with the hardware you have. Even if you do push the card to the max and get it to 30 MH (which is highest on the wiki hardware comparison table), you will only generate 0,5 BTC/month. Excluding power cuts, pool downtime, connectivity problems, reduced hashrate if you want to use your computer for something else. And also assuming that difficulty will not go up - which it will. I don't know how much you pay for electricity, but you can safely asume that you will pay more than you will gain by mining. The mining calculator says that at the current difficulty and exchange rate you will make 7.6 USD/month. A better bet is 5/month and a realistic one is 3/month.

So my advice is, if you really want to mine, to get a ATI card you can afford, that can push more than 200 MH and build a dedicated mining rig. Don't lie to yourself and do the proper calculations: electricity/cooling, time invested in tuning the software and hardware setup. Otherwise you'll mine at a loss and that's no fun.

Or, if you just want some bitcoins to play with this cool new econosystem, there are other ways to get some: buy them at a exchange or sell products and services. Selling "real" products is, from what I can see, the least developed part of the bitcoin econosystem, so that would be a great place to start. You'll get BTC which you can then spend on other stuff - for example on hardware to build a powerful mining rig.

[PLaci1982]

running windows vista 64bit

My second opinion: Why Vista? Why not 7?

[anonona3]

@anonona3, I know you don't want to hear this, but here goes: you will not have much success with the hardware you have. Even if you do push the card to the max and get it to 30 MH (which is highest on the wiki hardware comparison table), you will only generate 0,5 BTC/month. Excluding power cuts, pool downtime, connectivity problems, reduced hashrate if you want to use your computer for something else. And also assuming that difficulty will not go up - which it will. I don't know how much you pay for electricity, but you can safely asume that you will pay more than you will gain by mining. The mining calculator says that at the current difficulty and exchange rate you will make 7.6 USD/month. A better bet is 5/month and a realistic one is 3/month.

So my advice is, if you really want to mine, to get a ATI card you can afford, that can push more than 200 MH and build a dedicated mining rig. Don't lie to yourself and do the proper calculations: electricity/cooling, time invested in tuning the software and hardware setup. Otherwise you'll mine at a loss and that's no fun.

Or, if you just want some bitcoins to play with this cool new econosystem, there are other ways to get some: buy them at a exchange or sell products and services. Selling "real" products is, from what I can see, the least developed part of the bitcoin econosystem, so that would be a great place to start. You'll get BTC which you can then spend on other stuff - for example on hardware to build a powerful mining rig.

I respect you for telling it like it is. And yeah, I never really expected to get much money out of it. This was a little experiment to see what kind of speed I could push with my gear, and the experiment supports what you said. I simply do not have the hardware for bitcoin mining. I suppose I will have to acquire my currency somewhere else, since this is just not a viable option for me.

[nmat]

I respect you for telling it like it is. And yeah, I never really expected to get much money out of it. This was a little experiment to see what kind of speed I could push with my gear, and the experiment supports what you said. I simply do not have the hardware for bitcoin mining. I suppose I will have to acquire my currency somewhere else, since this is just not a viable option for me.

I understand you. I also don't have good hardware for mining, but I tried to run it anyway. My GPU makes 14 MHash/sec which gives me less than a bitcent a day. My CPU makes around 7 Mhash/sec (I suppose it would give me half a bitcent a day, but I never let it ran for more than a couple of hours). And I even tried my iPod (yes, I successfully compiled and ran a miner on my iPod Touch) which gave me around 600 100 KHash/second.

At the end, it was an interesting experiment and I still mine with my GPU because I don't pay for electricity (rented apartment), but I know I won't earn much...

[sunny day]

And I even tried my iPod (yes, I successfully compiled and ran a miner on my iPod Touch) which gave me around 600 KHash/second.

how'd you do that? a little writeup perhaps? i wanna see how much my ip4 can get. jb ofc

[nmat]

And I even tried my iPod (yes, I successfully compiled and ran a miner on my iPod Touch) which gave me around 600 KHash/second.

how'd you do that? a little writeup perhaps? i wanna see how much my ip4 can get. jb ofc

Correction: 100KHash/s

It was definitely not easy. I think I have notes around here somewhere... =P Maybe I will make a post about it later. My iPod Touch is 2nd gen so your iPhone 4 should perform around 200 Khash/second. The iPad 2 should double that. The iPad 2 GPU has no OpenCL support I think...

[sunny day]

do you mean 4th gen? the one with the camera on the front

[PLaci1982]

...

Working on that as we speak. I repaired x86 and installed x64, now running windows update.

Did VC+ removed the error msg?