Bitcoin mining

This guide will show you how to start mining Bitcoin with your GPU in a few simple steps. CPU mining was used at the start but is pretty pointless in these days as GPU’s can do the task 10 to 100 times faster. If you are looking for the most efficient card to mine with then you’ll want to get a AMD Radeon 7950. When looking at the hash to watt ratio this is currently the most efficient card on the market.

1.Bitcoin Client

The first thing you’ll want is the bitcoin client. Go to this link and get the client for your OS (probably the one ending with win32-setup.exe). Download it and install it. Once the client launches for the first time you might not have a wallet address, if you don’t, click on new and you’ll get your personal address.

You can create as many wallet addresses as you like in the future for any purpose you want but you should be fine with just one for now. You can also choose not to store your Bitcoins in your own wallet, you could use one of the exchanges like MtGox to store your coins. It could be safer, or not, depending on your computers safety.

2.Setting up GPU mining

Now not all graphic cards support mining but if you purchased a medium range or better one the last 1-3 years you should be able to mine. If you have an ATI/AMD card you’ll also need the AMD-APP-SDK, you can download it here.
After it downloaded. Open the file and install it. There’s nothing special in the setup, pressing next and finish where needed will suffice
.
3.Find some mining software.

Any mining software will do. Most people mining in pools already know about these and how to use them. Here are some miners that people use.

4.Setup the .conf file

Now you need to find where the .conf file will go. This stores your local miner info so you can get credit for mining off of your local host address.

You need to create this file by first finding the folder it goes in. It should be hidden in the appdata folder. For example at:

C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Terracoin

or

C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin

Obviously replace YOURUSERNAME with whatever your computer user name is, the name you use when you log on to windows.

Then once you have found the folder for the particular coin you want to mine create a text file and name it bitcoin.conf or terracoin.conf or whatever coin your mining.

For Terracoin the example for what to write in the text file is:

server=1
rpcuser=YOURMINERNAME
rpcpassword=YOURPASSWORD
rpcallowip=127.0.0.1
rpcport=18332

For Bitcoin an example is:

rpcuser=YOURMINERNAME
rpcpassword=YOURPASSWORD

Bitcoin's port is 8332, some coins have a port they usually use. Though any random unused port can be used. So any random set of numbers that are free on local host.

Save the text file as whatever.conf
*Start your Cgminer

You will need to open your wallet first in server mode. To do this go to the folder where you start your wallet. Where the exe file is. Then make a text file in that folder. Name it Server.bat. Change the text file to a .bat file. Then edit it in a text editor to say "bitcoin.exe -server" (replace with the name of whatever wallet exe you are trying to start). Save. Then run the .bat file and it should start the wallet.

Once the wallet is synced open your miner too. Type in your local host info and port. (Some miners do this on two lines, if port isn't asked for assume you need to do both on one line). Like this example for host:

127.0.0.1:18332

Hit enter, then type the user name you put in the .conf file

YOURUSERNAME

Hit enter, then type your password from the .conf file

YOURPASSWORD

Hit enter and you should start mining. You will know it's working after a bit when it says:

New block detected on network (or something like this)

CGminer Example .bat file:

cgminer -o 127.0.0.1:hostnumber -u username -p password

add --scrypt to the line if it is a scrypt coin

When you finally mint coins you will get an accept, just like when you got shares for mining in a pool. So when you notice you have 1 A you have mined a bunch of coins and should have a payout in your wallet program that you kept open this whole time.

If you followed these instructions the only way you will get an error is if you type something wrong, which is easy to do. I have been frustrated a couple times why something wasn't working and then found out I wasn't typing a "." Be meticulous.

The difficulty on some coins is now very high. It may take months, or you could never mints something. It's based on luck and the amount of power you have to mine. The more power you have, the more lottery tickets you get in mining to solve the block. Pool mining is a better option for many coins because it is so hard to solo mine.

*Start Guiminer mining

Once its downloaded, open the file, and extract it to a location which you can remember.
Now go to the extract location and start guiminer.exe

After the application launches you should see the following

Connecting to a pool

As solo mining is very hard to do these days i’ll show you how to set up mining with a pool. If you want to solo mine bitcoins, I advice you to find a guide on google but don’t expect to find any Bitcoins in the coming year if you decide to do so.
To make it easy to setup i’ll show you how to start mining at slush’s pool, this is the default one selected in Guiminer.
Go to the pool’s website: http://mining.bitcoin.cz and click on register in the right top of the page. Here you should be able to enter a username, email and password.
After you registered you will get an activation link in your email. This link should directly bring you to a page with a preconfigured username and password like shown below.

Start mining

Enter the login and password into Guiminer and press start.

You should now see your hashrate on the right bottom. Congratulations! you’re now mining Bitcon on Slush’s pool. You can experiment with the flags, -v -w 128 is good by default for ATI/AMD cards but you can google for more options to maximize your hashrate.
To get your bitcoins you’ll have to login to mining.bitcoin.cz, it’ll show you what you have earned so far. If you, want you can transfer the bitcoin to your own wallet or to an excange like MtGox or Btc-e.

Common errors

Guiminer may fail to launch if you miss Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package. It should be installed on most computers but if Guiminer fails to launch you can try and install it from here: 32bits or here 64bits

Links

MtGox Exchange
Btc-e Exchange
Official guiminer forum thread
AMD APP SDK
Bitcoin website
Mining hardware comparison

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