Monday 18 November 2013

How to mine Litecoins


(user and password = crypto)

I've included here two folders with the necessary files to start mining Litecoins right away. Update 1, 15 December, 2013: If after downloading the file you see it has no extension, append .zip to its name or open it as a .zip file.

If you've never mined Litecoins before, you can follow these steps to test your hardware:


- If you want to mine Litecoins with your CPU, double click on the file "MineWithCPU.bat" from the folder "Mine Litecoins with CPU". If your hardware can handle it, your computer will begin mining Litecoins for a test worker I've set up at the mining pool POOL-X. It could take several minutes before you get a share though. Mining Litecoins with your CPU isn't very effective, but you can experience how it works by executing this file.




- If you want to mine Litecoins with your GPU, double click on the file "MineWithAMDGPU.bat" from the folder "Mine Litecoins with GPU/AMD" if your graphic card has been manufactured by AMD (Ati). If your card has been made by Nvidia, double click on the file "MineWithNvidiaGPU.bat" from the folder "Mine Litecoins with GPU/Nvidia". If your hardware can handle it, and the miner I've included recognizes correctly the graphical card you've got on your computer, it will begin mining Litecoins for another test worker I've set up at the mining pool POOL-X. It could take minutes before you get a share though. Mining Litecoins with your GPU is the way to go nowadays. There are people who have several graphic cards set up to mine Litecoins at the same time, so it might take you several days to get an entire Litecoin with a single GPU. You can experience how GPU mining works on your card by executing the corresponding file though.




Now that you have tested your hardware and know you can mine Litecoins correctly, you may join a mining pool and change the name of my workers and the URL of POOL-X which you can see if you edit the files "MineWithCPU.bat" and "MineWith(AMD/Nvidia)GPU.bat". Write instead the names of the workers you created on your pool of choice and its URL:port so as you can mine Litecoins for yourself (this URL:port information is given to you when you make an account on a mining pool).

If you don't know how to join a mining pool, read (it's for Bitcoin, so don't follow it, just READ it, since all pools work the same way) my tutorial on this topic: How to Join a Mining Pool

If you want to mine Litecoins solo (it's a possibility if you have VERY good hardware), follow these steps:

- Copy the file "litecoin.conf" provided in this package to your Litecoin working directory (most likely "C:\Users\YOURNAME\AppData\Roaming\Litecoin"). Now navigate to the directory where Litecoin was installed (most likely "C:\Program Files (x86)\Litecoin\") and execute litecoin-qt.exe. Wait until you are fully synchronized with the network.

- Execute the file "SoloMineWithCPU.bat" from the folder "Mine Litecoins with CPU", the file "SoloMineWith(AMD/Nvidia)GPU.bat" from the folder "Mine Litecoins with GPU/(AMD/Nvidia)" or both of them. Your computer resources will begin mining Litecoins. It could take you a LOT of time before you find a full block. Or maybe you are extremely lucky and find one in one minute. It's impossible to know!




Note 1: the miner provided for CPU mining is Pooler's CPUminer 2.3.2, the one for AMD GPU mining is CGMiner 3.7.2 and the one for Nvidia GPU mining is CudaMiner-2013-11-15. Other miners exist which might suit your hardware better and increase your mining speed.

Note 2: some antivirus programs consider all cryptocoin miners malware. They are not! The problem is that some bad people included them inside other legit packages of software so as they would mine for them on other computers without their owner's knowledge. When they were found, antivirus companies labeled them as malicious software.


Good luck!

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