Newbie First Post-Questions about Mining Bitcoin

[thenokiafan]

I am a noob with bitcoin, I do not understand it entirely, have done some research, but I want to start mining.  I do not know how to start, but I believe I need a bitcoin wallet, but I do not know which one to use and from where.  I have PC's, no specific bitcoin mining hardware, and will have access to 6 PC's that have constant internet access.  Two of these pc's are gaming laptops, and one of the desktops has a decent graphics card.  I want to know what will be the best bitcoin software to use for a PC, and want to know how much money I could potentially make mining with this type of setup.  If it would not be worth it, than I would be okay with purchasing some cheap hardware to do some of this work. 

Thanks

[kleenex7]

Hi! I'm pretty new to all this myself however I'll try to help answer a few of your questions.

You do need a bitcoin wallet.  Going to bitcoin.org is the place you want to start.
I would just stick with Bitcoin-Qt.  Seems to be pretty straight forward.  Once you get it up and running it will need to update.  This will take a while.  Seriously, let it run overnight.

In regards to software I would check out Bitminter.  Seems to be the easiest version of the software. 

Load the software on your machines and your off and running. 

Now after all that hard effort what will be the payback.  Not much.  The bitcoin system changes the difficulty depending on the amount of people mining so....I don't expect you'd make more then a couple bucks a week at most.  But if you're into just trying things and learning then I would say it's worth it.

Hope that helps.

J.

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[BlockChainLottery]

There is no way you would make any money by mining Bitcoin with your pc. It costs a lot of electricity and the little money you would get out of it would by no means compensate for that.
And with the old cheap hardware it's pretty much the same. It's really competitive. The only way to get some significant work done is to buy high hash rate equipment, but is very expensive. And it's questionable if you ever break even.
Doesn't mean that you don't have to mine, if you want to contribute to the success I encourage you to mine. It strengthens the security of the network.
If you still want to do it, some sites can explain it better then I can do it here. E.g.: http://startbitcoin.com/

[thenokiafan]

I still want to start mining BTC.  I currently do not have to pay for the electricity, and since these computers are just sitting around, I might as well put them to good use.  Would purchasing a USB miner be worth it? 

[rolling]

All of the computers and a USB miner together might get you 1-2 GH/s which would earn you about $.75 to $1.50 per day with Bitcoin priced at $1000 each.  That will go down to $.50 to $1 per day in the next two days when the difficulty changes again.  Even if electricity is free, your time is probably worth more than 75 cents per day.

[thenokiafan]

When I let the computer mine, it does not do it automatically?    I thought the software you use will let you mine, just it may not be super effective. 

[lerelerele]

All of the computers and a USB miner together might get you 1-2 GH/s which would earn you about $.75 to $1.50 per day with Bitcoin priced at $1000 each.  That will go down to $.50 to $1 per day in the next two days when the difficulty changes again.  Even if electricity is free, your time is probably worth more than 75 cents per day.

I am mining with 6.46ghs the last 24h and only 0.00204 was mined

0.00204*1005$/btc= 2.05$

2.05$/6.46ghs=0.32$ghs

Take care with the numbers

[lerelerele]

All of the computers and a USB miner together might get you 1-2 GH/s which would earn you about $.75 to $1.50 per day with Bitcoin priced at $1000 each.  That will go down to $.50 to $1 per day in the next two days when the difficulty changes again.  Even if electricity is free, your time is probably worth more than 75 cents per day.

I am mining with 6.46ghs the last 24h and only 0.00204 was mined

0.00204*1005$/btc= 2.05$

2.05$/6.46ghs=0.32$ghs

Take care with the numbers

And tomorrow the difficulty will be up a 25%

[thenokiafan]

Why does the difficulty increase by 25% tomorrow?  Am I better off mining an alternative coin then? 

[rolling]

Why does the difficulty increase by 25% tomorrow?  Am I better off mining an alternative coin then?  

The difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks which should happen around 0530 UTC on 1/13/2014.

This happens so that new blocks are created about 10 minutes apart.  If blocks are being solved too quickly, the network difficulty adjusts which makes it harder to solve blocks.  It is also possible to get easier if blocks are taking on average longer than 10 minutes to solve.

[thenokiafan]

Thank You very much for the advice.  I am currently looking at starting to mine dogecoin because it is relatively new, and that might be a good start.  What about coins like litecoin.  Are there any suggestions that you give to me?