Have hardware but No Clue?

[wannaBaMiner]

Hi all
 I am looking for a teacher/ mentor, some one willing to help a simpleton out.
I am not a programmer nor very experienced with computers.
I am willing to share a percentage of what ever I mine with those who can and are willing to help me get this set up and running.

 First the equipment I have : a Dell GX-240 with windows xp pro 32 bit,
hope to use this to run what ever software I may need on it as a host type computer.
I have ASIC Block Erupter Cubes, Avalon mini (60 gh/s) and an Antminer S1.
Still not sure which version of ether CGMiner or BFGMiner will run with windows xp pro 32 bit??

Going with CGMiner, I hope!

[ALToids]

Which of those 4 steps I listed have you gotten stuck at?

[hotwired007]

I have replied to the post - once you reply we may be able to help you a bit more.

[wannaBaMiner]

I have replied to the post - once you reply we may be able to help you a bit more.

Thanks just doing research on mining pools, boy some really sketchy ones out there. As well I am stll trying to figure out what version of software that would run on windows xp pro 32 bit. Not sure if the newest version would work. Or even which one to use ie: CGMiner or BFGMiner??

[hotwired007]

BTCGuild and p2pool are pretty good - some of the old ones are the best but beware of some like 50btc.com - still running but rarely pays out.

download both and try? they're easy enough to download - the config in a windows batch file is practically identical.

The sooner you get an account on a pool the sooner you can earn - its easy enough to swap around once you've got the setup part done

[xstr8guy]

BitMinter is a great pool for newbies. They have a java mining client that might support some of your hardware so you might not need CGMiner or BFGMiner which can be difficult to install and run for noobs.

BTCGuild, Eligius, Slush and BitMinter are all very trustworthy. Do NOT use GHash.io for reasons I won't go into here.

[wannaBaMiner]

Thanks for the info, BTC Guild and Slush seem to be fine but I am a little leery about Eligus and Bitminter.
 I am still trying to figure out which version of CGMiner or BFGMiner will work with windows xp pro 32 bit??? Any clues?

[hotwired007]

i've run bfgminer on xp pro but it had issues with usb miners due to drivers - as i said before best option is to downlaod and try.

[vm1990]

Thanks for the info, BTC Guild and Slush seem to be fine but I am a little leery about Eligus and Bitminter.
 I am still trying to figure out which version of CGMiner or BFGMiner will work with windows xp pro 32 bit??? Any clues?

All versions should run on both 32bit and 64bit windows xp and above. As for pools id choose bitminter if your new and use there plug and play client. And over time change to diffrent pools and software. Best to get hardware mining asap every day lost is saying goodbye to a day of profit.

[wannaBaMiner]

Thanks for the info, BTC Guild and Slush seem to be fine but I am a little leery about Eligus and Bitminter.
 I am still trying to figure out which version of CGMiner or BFGMiner will work with windows xp pro 32 bit??? Any clues?

All versions should run on both 32bit and 64bit windows xp and above. As for pools id choose bitminter if your new and use there plug and play client. And over time change to diffrent pools and software. Best to get hardware mining asap every day lost is saying goodbye to a day of profit.

Thanks So any version will run on windows xp pro? As for profit I will only have about 300 gh/s to play with once I figure out how to set up all my machines (Four in total) I just want to do it right and safely! Not to comfortable with computers let alone some thing like this mining project. But determined to learn how. Most have been very helpful so far. I am sure to figure this out one day.

[wannaBaMiner]

 Will I need to down load From the Parent Directory 4.4 and cgminer-4.4.1 -windowszip
or can I just down load the cgm windowszip  
I am trying to follow the cgminer windows build I found here https://github.com/someone42/cgminer/blob/master/windows-build.txt

[wannaBaMiner]

Go to this url ==> http://www.mingw.org/wiki/Getting_Started
Click the link that says "Download and run the latest mingw-get-inst version."
Download and run the latest file.
 Install MinGW in the default directory.
(I downloaded the one labeled "mingw-get-inst-20120426" - note that this could
be a different version later.)
Make sure to check the option for "Download latest repository catalogs".
I selected all the check boxes (excluding "Fortran Compiler") so that everything
was installed.

**************************************************************************************
* Run the MSYS shell for the first time to create your user directory                *
**************************************************************************************
(Start Icon/keyboard key ==> All Programs ==> MinGW ==> MinGW Shell).
This will create your user directory for you.

I down loaded the latest one and followed the instructions above.
Now here do I find the MinGW shell to run

I think I found it, just had to reread the instructions again.