Help

[Kanguis]

Hi guys I am new to bitcoin and I have seen videos on how to mine to help me get started but even though I followed all the directions my slush account says that my workers are offline and that I am not generating bitcoins I am having trouble fixing this I am using guiminer can someone help?

[pawel7777]

Hi guys I am new to bitcoin and I have seen videos on how to mine to help me get started but even though I followed all the directions my slush account says that my workers are offline and that I am not generating bitcoins I am having trouble fixing this I am using guiminer can someone help?

Hi.

First of all, you may want to move this thread (see lower left corner) to mining support board:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=40.0

You'd also need to include more details, what hardware do you use for mining? What software (ie cgminer)?

You should know that mining is generally not profitable atm, so you'll be mining at loss.

[notlist3d]

Are you mining CPU or GPU?  If you are trying BTC mining with it you will get very very little  Make sure to do ROI math.

[Amph]

slush pool is down i believe, also is not really advisable to mine with cpu or gpu, asic also won't cut it at this point

be aware that you are losing money

[Kanguis]

I am using my laptop and i am mining with an nvidia gtx 880 and the progrm i am using is GUIminer

[OnkelPaul]

I am using my laptop and i am mining with an nvidia gtx 880 and the progrm i am using is GUIminer

Please don't!
Bitcoin mining with anything other than specialized mining hardware is absolutely hopeless! Laptops in particular are not built for constant full-power operation and might wear down pretty quickly.
You might just as well use your laptop as a shovel to dig up sand on the beach searching for dropped coins; that will probably generate more revenue.

The time of mining bitcoins with commodity hardware is over, and it won't come back.

Onkel Paul

[Kanguis]

is it really?

[notlist3d]

is it really?

Yes mining with a laptop is a horrible idea.  Just not made for it. Espically if you do GPU mining on a laptop, airflow just inst there..

[aacoins]

I am using my laptop and i am mining with an nvidia gtx 880 and the progrm i am using is GUIminer

Please don't!
Bitcoin mining with anything other than specialized mining hardware is absolutely hopeless! Laptops in particular are not built for constant full-power operation and might wear down pretty quickly.
You might just as well use your laptop as a shovel to dig up sand on the beach searching for dropped coins; that will probably generate more revenue.

The time of mining bitcoins with commodity hardware is over, and it won't come back.

Onkel Paul

That's not entirely true.

When we finally reach the end of the rewards period for Bitcoin. It will not be cost effective to run bitcoin mining farms in the MW or TH/s / PH/s so you will see the difficulty lower astronomically and the return of hobby miners or maybe even just those who are doing it with whatever they have to be able to continue to allow for a strong bitcoin economy.

But I digress that time is far from now and I do not suggest using anything other than an ASIC to mine bitcoins and even that is going to prove troublesome if you have not ROI'd yet your ROI term is 100+days with new equipment and used alike.

[pooya87]

solo mining bitcoin is not possible anymore because of the difficulty increase. if you want to do mining, you still can mine altcoins which have lower difficulty.

[notlist3d]

solo mining bitcoin is not possible anymore because of the difficulty increase. if you want to do mining, you still can mine altcoins which have lower difficulty.

Solo mining for the regular guy is not a good choice.  I would not say 100 percent not possible.  Some do use it small miners as "lotto miners".   

I would say some of the big backed guys might be able to pull it off.

[kepo07]

solo mining bitcoin is not possible anymore because of the difficulty increase. if you want to do mining, you still can mine altcoins which have lower difficulty.

Alt coins are highly volatile and most of them are actually pump and dump coins. The chances of profit is very small. If its profitable, the difficulty would already be quite high.

[Grand_Voyageur]

solo mining bitcoin is not possible anymore because of the difficulty increase. if you want to do mining, you still can mine altcoins which have lower difficulty.

Alt coins are highly volatile and most of them are actually pump and dump coins. The chances of profit is very small. If its profitable, the difficulty would already be quite high.

Yeah, I agree with you there's lot of competition in mining (Altcoins or Bitcoins). Mining is only suitable those who have large hashing power.

I think you should also take in account electric power costs otherwise, your utility bills would end eating up all profits. Large mining farms are all located in countries with low energy costs (China, Eastern Europe, most of the US's states, etc.) because of this reason.

[deisik]

I am using my laptop and i am mining with an nvidia gtx 880 and the progrm i am using is GUIminer

You could try mining cryptonight coins such as darknote or monero. I don't know if you will be able to cover your electricity costs (it all depends), but at least you will be able to mine something in satoshis compared to what you would get if you were just mining satoshis themselves...

For more info look here. This is a mining pool for cryptonight coins (among other coins)

[yeponlyone]

I am using my laptop and i am mining with an nvidia gtx 880 and the progrm i am using is GUIminer

You could try mining cryptonight coins such as darknote or monero. I don't know if you will be able to cover your electricity costs (it all depends), but at least you will be able to mine something in satoshis compared to what you would get if you were just mining satoshis themselves...

For more info look here. This is a mining pool for cryptonight coins (among other coins)

The competition for those popular alt cons is pretty high and the difficulty is quite high too. You need free electricity to profit from it. The exchange fees from alt coins to BTC is also quite high, deposit then withdrawal would incur some fees too. Unless you want to keep it permanently in that specific alt coin.

[redsn0w]

That's not entirely true.

When we finally reach the end of the rewards period for Bitcoin. It will not be cost effective to run bitcoin mining farms in the MW or TH/s / PH/s so you will see the difficulty lower astronomically and the return of hobby miners or maybe even just those who are doing it with whatever they have to be able to continue to allow for a strong bitcoin economy.

Not necessarily, if the bitcoin price will raise until reach something like that 10k dollars the mining will stay *competitive* but no one know what will really happen (because no one knows the future).

But I digress that time is far from now and I do not suggest using anything other than an ASIC to mine bitcoins and even that is going to prove troublesome if you have not ROI'd yet your ROI term is 100+days with new equipment and used alike.

Actually if you don't have free electricity  the mining of bitcoin is *crazy*. The unique two problems are the cost of electricity (as I said) and the cost of the hardware machine itself.

[aacoins]

Not necessarily, if the bitcoin price will raise until reach something like that 10k dollars the mining will stay *competitive* but no one know what will really happen (because no one knows the future).

That's true I never looked at it that way you have a point there. The only thing is if the price reaches $10,000/Bitcoin That would mean:
0.1=$1,000
0.01=$100
0.001=$10
0.0001=$1

Who's to say that bitcoiners as a whole decide they don't want to pay $1 every time they send a tx considering the fact that many tx are <$10 this would mean they would be paying 10%+ to send that transaction. So the standard tx fee is lowered to 0.00001 or even 0.000001 $0.10 and $0.01 respectively. This would mean a normal block with ~800 transaction wold only be worth up to $80 and as low as $8. this most certainly wouldn't be worth it to mine with todays hardware. Which I know we are a long way away from this happening but still I can't seem to fathom any bitcoin mining equipment able to operate and POI with those numbers and paying for electricity

Actually if you don't have free electricity  the mining of bitcoin is *crazy*. The unique two problems are the cost of electricity (as I said) and the cost of the hardware machine itself.

Not necessarily. I run a small to medium size farm in which I am constantly selling and buying mining equipment to make the most out of my 100 amps that I have dedicated to it.
I spend $0.10/KWH with my s5's I'm averaging 1100+ GH/s at ~600 watts (I like to do all of my figures on the low end to leave me extra profit instead of unexpected losses)

I'm getting about 0.013 BTC/Day so about 3.38 USD/Day I paid ~$350 and it cost me 1.44/day in electricity to run each one. SO on average I make $2 a day with each s5 so 175 day ROI and I have never bought a piece of equipment that didn't ROI before I sold it. I also never buy pre orders and that may have something to do with it but still.

If you can get cheaper or even free electricity you are in the right boat that. That would almost halve your ROI time. Also, when I'm mining I ONLY CASH OUT ENOUGH TO COVER MY POWER BILL. Allowing me to keep the rest of the coins in a secure offline cold storage wallet. So hopefully one day when the price hits say 10k I will be able to say "technically I ROI's in < 1 week

[deisik]

I am using my laptop and i am mining with an nvidia gtx 880 and the progrm i am using is GUIminer

You could try mining cryptonight coins such as darknote or monero. I don't know if you will be able to cover your electricity costs (it all depends), but at least you will be able to mine something in satoshis compared to what you would get if you were just mining satoshis themselves...

For more info look here. This is a mining pool for cryptonight coins (among other coins)

The competition for those popular alt cons is pretty high and the difficulty is quite high too. You need free electricity to profit from it. The exchange fees from alt coins to BTC is also quite high, deposit then withdrawal would incur some fees too. Unless you want to keep it permanently in that specific alt coin.

Quite the contrary. I had been mining darknote for some time at my cpu when difficulty was above 50 million (right now it is at 28,135,596), and I could get as many as 100,000 satoshi per day. Regarding the exchange fees, you are flat-out wrong. I traded them at bittrex and poloniex for bitcoins, and the fees are the same at both of these exchanges. They are equal to 0.25% per amount traded which is no different than for other currency pairs (the withdrawal fees are almost next to nothing at that, namely, 0.01 XDN)...

Where did you get this info about higher fees?

[yeponlyone]

Not necessarily, if the bitcoin price will raise until reach something like that 10k dollars the mining will stay *competitive* but no one know what will really happen (because no one knows the future).

That's true I never looked at it that way you have a point there. The only thing is if the price reaches $10,000/Bitcoin That would mean:
0.1=$1,000
0.01=$100
0.001=$10
0.0001=$1

Who's to say that bitcoiners as a whole decide they don't want to pay $1 every time they send a tx considering the fact that many tx are <$10 this would mean they would be paying 10%+ to send that transaction. So the standard tx fee is lowered to 0.00001 or even 0.000001 $0.10 and $0.01 respectively. This would mean a normal block with ~800 transaction wold only be worth up to $80 and as low as $8. this most certainly wouldn't be worth it to mine with todays hardware. Which I know we are a long way away from this happening but still I can't seem to fathom any bitcoin mining equipment able to operate and POI with those numbers and paying for electricity

You are assuming that in a hundred years or so, the ASIC technology will be the same as now and the electrical rates would be the same. Bitcoin will certainly increase in price after sometime. ASIC technology will continue to improve overtime and the cost of making the ASICs would decrease. With the introduction of renewable energy sources, the electrical rates would also drop. This would improve the chances of ROI for miners.