Sparetime Mining

[Zeikos]

Ok , since i'm completly new to that bitcoin community and i just started to understand how it does work i searched for something that could allow me to use my hardware in a not-stressing way and getting some income by staying at computer surfind the internet or playing games. I NEVER used fully my computer , so some informations about my computer :

OS : Windows7 ultimate 64-bit ofc
CPU i2500K not overclocked (i know CPU mining is not wroth , i know it ^^)
8GB ram at 1.2k Mhz (ofc useless for that kind of stuff , i know that too)

ATI Radeon 6950

My pc is normaly on 6 hours / day (from 3pm to 9 pm , but mostly 5 hours ^^)
electricity is 0.25 Eurocent/Kw , that's why i don't want to mine at the present coin rate it's a complete loss.

The thing i wanna do is : pooling (as far as i read it's the best thing to do if can't mass many hashing power) a bit , getting a decent ammount of bitcoins and start invest them on ideas i have.

Now , the things i want to ask are :
What miner (software) do i need?What settings i should use? And what pool do you suggest me ? =D

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[drewtaz]

If you want to try something very easy I would suggest Bitminter.com
Dr H there has a Java based miner that will set you up and have you pointed to their pool in a seconds.  Also merger mining with NMC.
Not an advertisement here, just one noob talking to another

[matthewh3]

The easist method would just to be open http://www.bitcoinplus.com/ for GPU Bitcoin mining and Open http://www.litecoinpool.org/miner for CPU Litecoin mining in browsers when the computer is on.  To increase efficiency you might want to download a dedicated GPU miner for a Bitcoin pool and cpuminer for a Litecoin pool.  http://pool-x.eu/index is a good pool for Litecoin miner as there is no fee's and an optional donation setting only.  Also if you get a GPU miner look for a pool that does merged-mining for free NMC.  http://simplecoin.us/index.php is a good pool for merged GPU mining again with no fees just an optional donation setting.

[nave]

Bitminter would probably be the easiest for you to set up. However they use a PPLNS reward scheme. If you're only going to be mining 5-6 hours a day with relatively low hashing power I think you'd be better of at a pool that uses a PPS scheme. You'd be getting paid for every share submitted, as opposed to betting that the shares you submit won't fall off the PPLNS before a block is found. As far as the ease of setup goes, there are really good guides on these forums that will get you set up quickly even if you're not the most savvy geek around. As far as the specific pool goes, there are 0% fee PPS pools like MTRed available, so make sure you find one of those. Good luck getting set up!

[Zeikos]

ok just a couple of things more :
1) I think i prefear dedicated mining , i mean i set the programs to start-up with windows and they stay on even if chrome crashes (i open TONS of pages and play many flashgames , so it crashes quite often) and it must be low-profile i mean that when i hard use the GPU for games the miner goes on minimum usage , same for CPU (i think i never used the full 4 cores , so i could keep 2 cores mining np). And ofc i do not want them to over-heat my stuff since i do not want to stress the computer
Afterall they are a) more efficient b) less likely to crash


2) About litecoin-bitcoin , i always used to not trust clones , not becouse they may be a fraud but becouse they are never known - used as the official ones =D so what's the conversion from litecoin to bitcoin?

PPLNS / PPS =D What?
It's not about being geeky! i'm one of the geekyer guys on my shool , i'm just not used to that kind of stuff  coz 1) english is not my native language (and trust me italian is waaay different , the good thing is : i can think in english , but is kinda complicate to fully understand) 2) every single time i move topic the therms change and acronymes just kill down my brain.

Anyway FOR sure i will do pooled mining , and anyway mining will be just to get started and to have a low but constant income.

[P4man]

At 25 eurocent per KwH, its barely going to be cost effective, even if your computer is already on anyway. When just browsing or doing nothing, your videocard will consume something like 30W, if that. While mining bitcoins it will be close to its TDP,  dont know the numbers by heart for your card, but probably 160+W. So you would add ~130W for ~370 MH/s

Use those numbers here:

http://bitcoinx.com/profit/index.php

I think it comes out pretty much break even.

That said, I second third the bitminter suggestion. Bitcoinplus is total waste of time and energy, its CPU based.

[drewtaz]

Didnt know there was a LTC browser miner. neat!

[drewtaz]

That said, I second third the bitminter suggestion. Bitcoinplus is total waste of time and energy, its CPU based.

Agreed, Ive never seen any results from it.   

[Zeikos]

At 25 eurocent per KwH, its barely going to be cost effective, even if your computer is already on anyway. When just browsing or doing nothing, your videocard will consume something like 30W, if that. While mining bitcoins it will be close to its TDP,  dont know the numbers by heart for your card, but probably 160+W. So you would add ~130W for ~370 MH/s

Use those numbers here:

http://bitcoinx.com/profit/index.php

I think it comes out pretty much break even.

That said, I second third the bitminter suggestion. Bitcoinplus is total waste of time and energy, its CPU based.

well yeah , i'm planning to do a team with 2 friends of mine anyway , that have a 3KwH solar panels on their house and the electric company buys it just for 7-10 eurocent/KwH so they will join bitcoin mining to make more money with the 1-2/KwH that they do not use when they are not at home on daily hours.
Ofc if i get them in , and for doing that i need to get a lil more expert ^^

Well , atm bitcoin is at 4.5$ so it's 3.4€ , that means that every bitcoin gives an equal of 13,6 KwH
so it's profitable if i get 1 or more bitcoin every 2 days. I noticed on some threads that under-volting the graphic card works for cutting down watt usage.

Anwyay i got still a main problem : i want that my GPU don't care about the miner if there is something else up , i mean if i'm playing and i need 50% of the gpu power , it have to slow down the mining , i do not want to brun that card up , you know

[P4man]

Anwyay i got still a main problem : i want that my GPU don't care about the miner if there is something else up , i mean if i'm playing and i need 50% of the gpu power , it have to slow down the mining , i do not want to brun that card up , you know

You will have to pause the miner. If you use bitminter, you could try setting a low work interval (in tweak and tune), but even then it may not give you acceptable gaming performance, depending how GPU intense the game is.

BTW, gaming and mining is not going to "burn" your card, mining alone is far more intensive. More intensive than just about anything really. Make sure its properly cooled.

[Zeikos]

ok seems i will go more on busyness than on mining thx

i think i can start to give translations from english to italian to a fair-low prize 

[P4man]

You could give it a shot; to be honest, Ive never tried it (mining while gaming). It may work better than I think.

[Zeikos]

Wait a second. Can genetic programming be applyed to miners 
I'm learning that stuff for-fun but i do not know how to apply that to that networks becouse i do not know how this works.
i mean : genetic algorithms need to be trained and that means it needs a X ammount of stuff and Plenty of time , and i bet that bitcoin network got a counter for it , changing the "difficulty" every X time i suppose.
Any clue? Becouse if it works (doubt it coz it would screw the network) a guy can decode blocks with no-hardware usage (since the hardware husage come out becouse you are brute-forcing)