Creating Bitcoin at home?

[XTreat]

I have a pretty decent machine I built myself and am interested in getting into processing Bitcoins.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

How much can I expect to make? Can you easily set it to process only in down time? Does it use CPU or GPU? etc.


Any evidence I'll make enough before I burn out my video card and have to buy a new one that I will still turn a profit?

[brandon]

You aren't going to make any money mining bitcoins. You will probably lose money. If you want to just do it for fun though,, just download the client, join a pool, and hit start. You can be started mining in probably about 20 minutes from now if you want. Just go for it.

[Indy Vidual]

Too late

[opal]

from what I glean, the process involves solving very complex math problems.
In the event I ever want to really hurt my brain matter, are any of the equations published anywhere.. just to look at?

next question.. where did these equations come from and what beyond bitcoins will they be used to do?

[muh_roads]

I have a pretty decent machine I built myself and am interested in getting into processing Bitcoins.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

How much can I expect to make? Can you easily set it to process only in down time? Does it use CPU or GPU? etc.


Any evidence I'll make enough before I burn out my video card and have to buy a new one that I will still turn a profit?

Do you have nVidia or Radeon?

GPU's & FPGA's stopped being profitable a long time ago. It wouldn't be worth your time regardless.

[XTreat]

Do you have nVidia or Radeon?

GPU's & FPGA's stopped being profitable a long time ago. It wouldn't be worth your time regardless.

Nvidia 580 GTX, it's stand alone, not SLI and its not top of the line anymore but its relatively close.

So how is it not profitable? What if I only earn .00001 btc but someday a 1 btc can buy a house?

Am I missing something?

[newbitech]

Nvidia 580 GTX, it's stand alone, not SLI and its not top of the line anymore but its relatively close.

So how is it not profitable? What if I only earn .00001 btc but someday a 1 btc can buy a house?

Am I missing something?

no you aren't missing something. i just fired up my miner for first time.

you need a wallet.

you need to set up an account with pool. ( i used slush's for a quick start)

you need to down load and install a mining app. (slush's pool recommended GUIMiner, so i installed that.)


I have been running for about 20 minutes. I have submitted 3 level 1 difficulty shares accept for this round.

I'll let you know how much it pays bitcoin wise.

I'm on an i5 quad core, nvidia geforce gts360m 1gb, 4gigs ram.

Right now im getting something like 20Mhash/s. The network from what I understand is at about 160Ghash/s.

So' we'll see.

[newbitech]

[newbitech]

that first bit of coin my wife got for me by watching some videos or something, haven't gotten my .01 yet for writing the poem, and this mining pool isn't going to send me anything till I hit 1 bitcoin total reward.

[brandon]

Nvidia 580 GTX, it's stand alone, not SLI and its not top of the line anymore but its relatively close.

So how is it not profitable? What if I only earn .00001 btc but someday a 1 btc can buy a house?

Am I missing something?

Yes you are missing several things

[newbitech]

Yes you are missing several things

you better hope it doesn't rain.

[XTreat]

that first bit of coin my wife got for me by watching some videos or something, haven't gotten my .01 yet for writing the poem, and this mining pool isn't going to send me anything till I hit 1 bitcoin total reward.

seems like it will be a long long time until you hit 1 btc

[newbitech]

seems like it will be a long long time until you hit 1 btc

meh, this is just my test run. I'm also have the full bitcoin peer software validating the full block chain from when it all started. Once that is done, i free up the 75% clock time its sucking down.

We'll see what happens then.

[muh_roads]

no you aren't missing something. i just fired up my miner for first time.

you need a wallet.

you need to set up an account with pool. ( i used slush's for a quick start)

you need to down load and install a mining app. (slush's pool recommended GUIMiner, so i installed that.)


I have been running for about 20 minutes. I have submitted 3 level 1 difficulty shares accept for this round.

I'll let you know how much it pays bitcoin wise.

I'm on an i5 quad core, nvidia geforce gts360m 1gb, 4gigs ram.

Right now im getting something like 20Mhash/s. The network from what I understand is at about 160Ghash/s.

So' we'll see.

Nvidia 580 GTX, it's stand alone, not SLI and its not top of the line anymore but its relatively close.

So how is it not profitable? What if I only earn .00001 btc but someday a 1 btc can buy a house?

Am I missing something?

Radeon's run @ much higher MH for some reason than nVidia (10-20x+). Mining doesn't require the 3D floating point integers. Something about the way the data that feeds into ATi's chip is more linear or something. This makes them best for mining. Unfortunately most gamers are nVidia because they play games better than they mine.

Having said that you still won't make much...harming your PC, burning your cards, and then the electricity costs to boot.

You're better off investing in BTC than buying all new equipment if you're that curious.

[amonasro]

I have a Radeon 4870 video card. Apparently the 57xx series are the ones to get for bitcoin mining.

Unfortunately, the algorithm is designed such that to increase the odds enough, you need multiple machines running multiple video cards. That's thousands of watts running 24/7 and a huge power bill. I wonder how many college students have these set up in dorms

There are new chips coming out soon that are made just for bitcoin mining. They consume much less power, like hundreds instead of thousands of watts. They are expensive.

[muh_roads]

I have a Radeon 4870 video card. Apparently the 57xx series are the ones to get for bitcoin mining.

Unfortunately, the algorithm is designed such that to increase the odds enough, you need multiple machines running multiple video cards. That's thousands of watts running 24/7 and a huge power bill. I wonder how many college students have these set up in dorms

There are new chips coming out soon that are made just for bitcoin mining. They consume much less power, like hundreds instead of thousands of watts. They are expensive.

They look ridiculous...lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLt8Se3vVNg

2 years ago this was maybe worth it if you weren't scared out of whatever Bitcoins you made. Very few.

Today doing this would be a big waste of money. Too many involved with a difficulty that is shooting to mars.

[newbitech]

Radeon's run @ much higher MH for some reason than nVidia (10-20x+). Mining doesn't require the 3D floating point integers. Something about the way the data that feeds into ATi's chip is more linear or something. This makes them best for mining. Unfortunately most gamers are nVidia because they play games better than they mine.

Having said that you still won't make much...harming your PC, burning your cards, and then the electricity costs to boot.

You're better off investing in BTC than buying all new equipment if you're that curious.

perhaps then you are posting in the wrong thread?

[muh_roads]

perhaps then you are posting in the wrong thread?

Did I screw up somewhere? It's Miller Time so I have an excuse right now.

[newbitech]

Did I screw up somewhere? It's Miller Time so I have an excuse right now.

I could have sworn I read the thread title that said something about creating bitcoins at home. It doesn't sound like you do this, so i thought maybe you'd like to post in one of the other threads that deal with investing. I kinda like the idea of having a thread with the discussion about creating coins rather than trading frns for them..

[The Rebel Poet]

Over six thousand messages in your inbox? Remind me never to write you... lol

[brandon]

I could have sworn I read the thread title that said something about creating bitcoins at home. It doesn't sound like you do this, so i thought maybe you'd like to post in one of the other threads that deal with investing. I kinda like the idea of having a thread with the discussion about creating coins rather than trading frns for them..

I think he contributed pretty nicely. He essentially said the MH rate of your GPU is nearly infinitesimally small compared to the network hash rate so you will never mine anything worthwhile. And that's exactly correct. If you really want to mine you should probably look into getting some of the ASIC boards but I don't know about their current availability. If they are widely available now then I suspect they too are nearly worthless.

[brandon]

Meh this image is too big to post here,but click the link

http://bitcoin.sipa.be/speed-lin-ever.png


GPU mining wasn't profitable before the recent tripling of the network hash rate.

[brandon]

from what I glean, the process involves solving very complex math problems.
In the event I ever want to really hurt my brain matter, are any of the equations published anywhere.. just to look at?

It helps if you have a basic understanding of cryptographic hashing. Specifically, bitcoin uses SHA 256.

Basically what everyone tries to do at the same time is find a number such that the output of putting that number through the SHA is less than a certain value. The smaller that value is the harder it is to find a solution. The first person to find it wins 25 Bitcoins.

next question.. where did these equations come from and what beyond bitcoins will they be used to do?

Unfortunately they aren't useful for anything besides bitcoins. Well maybe one day the equipment would make a really good distributed encryption cracker. But that's about it.

[green73]

Jeff Tucker says he knows a guy making minimum wage mining bitcoins. Have no idea what that entails as far as a setup.

[muh_roads]

I think he contributed pretty nicely. He essentially said the MH rate of your GPU is nearly infinitesimally small compared to the network hash rate so you will never mine anything worthwhile. And that's exactly correct. If you really want to mine you should probably look into getting some of the ASIC boards but I don't know about their current availability. If they are widely available now then I suspect they too are nearly worthless.

Pretty much.

The system is designed to only pay out 3600 coins to all the miners around the world combined per day. It used to be 7200 per day before "halving day" last year in November.

ASIC is incredibly difficult to come by. By the time you get them if you order today, the hashrate will be incredibly high as will the difficulty. Early adopters who paid for their equipment still haven't received their ASIC and it has been almost 1-year now. Newbies don't stand a chance.

The money would be better off used to buy BTC directly. Who knows what the price per coin is by the time you receive your equipment. A lot of the early adopters feel screwed because they paid with lots of BTC when spot was much, much cheaper. Many now wish they never did that...a lot of people would be worth 6 figures if they kept their money as BTC.

The general consensus from old-school GPU miners is that ASIC is ruining mining. Many have shut down their equipment and sold off their Radeons.

The best time for mining was 2-3 years ago. But even back then when spot was dirt cheap it may have been better to buy directly also.

[newbitech]

I think he contributed pretty nicely. He essentially said the MH rate of your GPU is nearly infinitesimally small compared to the network hash rate so you will never mine anything worthwhile. And that's exactly correct. If you really want to mine you should probably look into getting some of the ASIC boards but I don't know about their current availability. If they are widely available now then I suspect they too are nearly worthless.

I realize the OP mentioned "profit", but it sounds more like the tone of the OP was more directed at actually doing it rather than speaking of the risks involved.

There are plenty of "what if" threads regarding the value of bitcoin. I was hoping this thread would be more directed at the actual doing of the thing. Guess people would rather speculate than produce. Whatever.

[opal]

TY Brandon.. even the description made my brain hurt

[talkingpointes]

Is there any EEs here that could give us an equation for this. I don't have good equipment. But even with old equipment with modified hardware (fan, heat sinks) you can almost double output of core speeds in GPUs, and increase core clock on ram about 20-30%

I run a modified 8800gt - I put a cpu heatsink and fan on it. Sealed it nicely with silicon and can run (600 core/825 now)25% faster without seeing barely any increase in heat. However I hit the threshold of power on my entire unit. Anymore and games artifact and pause up. Any other overclockers ?

Given the amount of power it now takes to create a block, that is I assume a sort of mechanism to add stability ?

[talkingpointes]

Just looked up something to consider....

The 5970 uses a VLIW-5 architecture, which means the 3,200 Stream Processors are actually 640 "Cores," That is vs CPU's.

In other words - any cards of medium to low end are useless becuase they have 1/2 to a 1/3 amount of stream processors. Overclocking in the artic seems like the way to go. I live in Phoenix, so dealing with heat is huge. But at night the temp can drop 30 degrees.

Nvidias cards are made for details/textures while radeons seem to be made to have a $#@! ton of physics going on. Makes sense becuase doing math is different from filling in pixels.

en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Why_a_GPU_mines_faster_than_a_CPU

[kylejack]

Your equipment will likely fail before you mine a single bitcoin. It's not all about heat management, a video card or CPU can only handle constant operation for so long. You're better off working a low paying job and just buying some bitcoins and waiting for them to appreciate.