Hobbyist Miner Needs a Helping Hand

[WowAFreeBeer]

I wanted to preface this thread by stating that I am a hobbyist miner... if you didn't realize that from the title. I plan on getting some hardware in a few weeks from my wife on my birthday, aside from that I am just starting with the hardware I have now. I have a pretty awesome gaming PC, my wife's Laptop and a Windows 8 Tablet. Basically I want to start mining on all of these devices. Heck we use them anyways, why not turn a Bitcoin profit?

My wife mostly uses her laptop away from home so I am not worried about power consumption or performance because she basically just browses the web anyways. She also doesn't understand or care what I am doing on her computer. So far I only get about 15 Mhash/s on this device.

Specs:

<sub>Product Number D8X43UA
Microprocessor 2.1GHz up to 2.6GHz AMD A6-4455M Accelerated Processor 
Microprocessor Cache 1MB L2 Cache
Memory 4GB DDR3 SDRAM (1 DIMM)
Memory Max Maximum supported = 8GB
Memory Slots 2 user accessible
Video Graphics AMD Radeon HD 7500G Discrete-Class graphics and up to 2033MB total graphics memory
Display 15.6-inch diagonal HD BrightView LED-backlit display (1366x768)
Hard Drive 500GB 5400RPM hard drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
Network Card 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector)
Wireless Connectivity 1x1 802.11b/g/n WLAN 
Sound Altec Lansing dual speakers with Dolby Advanced Audio
Keyboard Full-size island-style keyboard with numeric keypad
Pointing Device Touchpad supporting multi-touch gestures with on/off button
External Ports Multi-format digital media card reader for Secure Digital cards and Multimedia cards

2 SuperSpeed USB 3.0

 1 Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0

 1 HDMI

 1 RJ-45 (LAN)

1 Headphone-out/microphone-in combo jack
Dimensions 0.81 (min H)/ 0.83 in (max H) x 15.19 in (W) x 10.2 in (D)
Weight 4.60 lb
Power 65W AC adapter

4-Cell 37WHr 2.55Ah lithium-ion battery</sub>
ID Mech Description HP TrueVision HD Webcam with integrated digital microphone


My Gaming PC is by far the best with around 40 Mhash/s

Specs:

<sub>1 x Case NZXT Guardian 921 RB Gaming Case - Red

1 x Processor Intel® Core™ i5-3570K Processor (4x 3.40GHz/6MB L3 Cache) - Intel Core i5-3570K

1 x Motherboard iBUYPOWER IBP-Z77E/S

1 x Memory 8 GB [4 GB X2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module - G.Skill Ripjaws X

1 x Video Card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti - 2GB

1 x Case Lighting Meteor Light w/ 8 Speed settings - Red

1 x Power Supply 500 Watt - Standard

1 x Processor Cooling Corsair Hydro Series H55 Liquid CPU Cooling System - Standard 120mm Fan *FREE Upgrade from Default CPU Cooling System*

1 x Primary Hard Drive 1 TB HARD DRIVE -- 32M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive

1 x Optical Drive 24x Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black - FREE Upgrade to BLU-RAY Reader Combo Drive for Primary Optical Drive

1 x Sound Card 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard

1 x Network Card Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100)

1 x Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) - 64-Bit</sub>

My Tablet... ugh, I cant get this little P.O.S. to do anything at all. It wont hash anything. Basically nothing works on it... I am not really surprised but at the same time I was hoping it would contribute to something.

Specs:


<sub>Operating System

Windows 8

Display

10.1" with Multi-Touch Screen WXGA (1366x768) Screen
IPS Panel

CPU

Intel® Atom™ Z2760 Dual-Core

Memory

2G

Storage

64GB
32GB 36 Months ASUS Webstorage Space *

Wireless Data Network

WLAN 802.11 b/g/n@2.4GHz
Bluetooth V4.0

Camera

2 MP Front Camera
8 MP Rear Camera

Audio

Stereo Speakers

Interface

1 x 2-in-1 Audio Jack (Headphone / Mic-in)
1 x micro HDMI
1 x Micro USB
1 x Micro SD Card Reader(SDHC)

Sensor

G-Sensor, Light Sensor, Gyroscope, E-compass, Hall sensor, NFC

Battery

9.5 hours; 25Wh Li-polymer Battery *2</sub>

So here are my main issues. I started with EclipseMC and I downloaded BFGMiner on all three of my devices. I made three workers and aptly named them so I can check on the performance of the computers. The Gaming PC started hashing away and Eclipse picked up on it and I started earning. The laptop... never... not once does it pick up anything with BFGMiner same with the tablet.

So I switched to a different pool to see if I had any success. When I did that I was able to see that the Laptob and even the little Tablet was able to contribute, but I saw no real progress made. With Eclipse they showed that I was at least earning, but with 50btc, all I saw was some performance stats, no money stats. I was sad by this fact because 50btc was the first time I got any progress on all three of my devices, but I saw no payout information.

Now to make things easier I tried GUIMiner... I cant get it to work with EclipseMC for any of my computers.

Ideally this is what I would love to happen. I turn on my computer, and INSERT PROGRAM HERE runs automatically, works with the mining pool I have it set up for, and no one is aware its running in the background. I don't care if I don't earn much, I just want to do it for fun while we are using these devices. Please advise me on the best way to get everything set up. Which pools are going to work best for my situation and what programs should I use. I am not afraid to get my hands dirty and write a few scripts either.

Thank you in advance.

[Gator-hex]

Try mining Litecoin instead.

I know you said you was doing it for a hobby, but you're just throwing electricity away trying to mine Bitcoins unless you buy some kind of USB ASIC to attach to it.

You'd have better luck sending your wife to visit free bitcoin dust sites every day.

[WowAFreeBeer]

I was looking into Litecoin, but again, I have no idea where to get started with that. Too little information, too many places to go. The ASIC USB is what my wife is getting me for my birthday. She plans on buying a few of them.

[busabus]

Well at 15MH/s you're talking about a maximum of maybe .35 cents per day... Maybe it's just too small to register for payout.

I thought hobbies were supposed to be fun?  I'm not sure that CPU mining is.

[pontiacg5]

Why slowly destroy a laptop and tablet for nothing in return? You'll never meet the minimum pool payout requirement. Although the devices may be on you are never using them 100% like you would be with bitcoin mining.

Mining litecoin is much the same as BTC, if you can set one up you can do the other. I'd still say you are wasting your time with that though, burning up hardware for no return at all.

[WowAFreeBeer]

This only applies to the hardware I am currently using right? If I bought ASIC Usb and started to mine with that it would be okay. Am I incorrect in saying this.

I started looking into mining LTC as well. Thank you for the guidance with that. I still however maintain a big interest in BTC.

[pontiacg5]

Yes, the ASIC is designed to run 24/7 at 100% usage, the laptop and tablet - not so much. The gaming PC's VGA can handle it, doesn't mean it's cost effective or a good idea though.

[zuerdemon]

This only applies to the hardware I am currently using right? If I bought ASIC Usb and started to mine with that it would be okay. Am I incorrect in saying this.

The Usb Block Errupter draws about 2.5 W and has 333 MH/s
For comparsion my GPU ATI 5850 draws about 250 W and has 350 MH/s


For how much you can mine with 333 MH/s, use profitability calculators

[WowAFreeBeer]

Thank you everyone for the advice. I decided to stop mining bitcoin until I get my ASIC USB's. My wife hinted that she would be getting me a couple of them!!

In the meantime I will start mining lightcoin. Can anyone suggest a really good pool? I have been looking around but nothing really seems to be appealing, and a few of the sites I tried you cant even log into after you sign up. I would really appreciate it.