Bitcoin Mining Network: A High Schooler's Endeavor (help me)

[bitcointycoon]

Hi everyone!

I am trying to set up a computer network to mine bitcoins. The computer network is my school division's. I understand the electricity costs will likely exceed the profit from bitcoins created, that is not an issue. Overall, I want to download some bitcoin mining program and the bitcoin wallet program on all the computers in the network. I would then want all of the bitcoins mined by the computers to be forwarded to one central computer that would store them. Besides my specific questions, if you have any input, advice or ideas please let me know!! Any answers to any questions will be much appreciated! My specific questions are:

1. What mining software do you recommend? (The computers aren't fancy, just regular one's you'd find in a public high school)

2. How would I send a command to hundreds of computers on the whole school system's network to have all the computers download that software? (So I don't have to go computer to computer downloading the software)

3. Would a standard virus scan of the software be enough to convince the school systems IT people the software is safe?

4. How would I set the computers to mine from 4:00pm to 6:00am every day when they're not being used by someone?

5. Would this likely overload the school system's network and how do I find out if it will or not?

6. Should I set up a bitcoin mining pool instead of having the computers mine individually? How would I set a mining pool up? Would it be more profitable than the computers mining individually?

 

[PCunicorn]

If the computers are anything like my school, the power will FAR exceed the profit. The computers will draw a lot of power, let's say 250W x lets say 350 computers. Even if your schools PCs are newer, maybe i3s, they will almost for sure not have dedicated GPUs (which are important for mining, CPUs suck for mining). It will take a long time for even all those PCs to mine a coin, and while a single coin may be worth $100 ATM it could take hundreds of dollars worth of power to mine one.

1. GUIMiner
2. IDK, probably impossible
3. Probably not, it depends on your school of course.
4. IDK
5. Probably not, Bitcoins don't really need great internet, I mined and it didn't slow down the internet.
6. Yes, set a pool up. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=56068.0

 

[bitcointycoon]

Awesome. Thanks for the suggestions!

I found the answer to 4. I just have to use Task Scheduler. Idk how to use it on one computer that tells the rest in the network what to do.

I could have ~4,000 computers (or more) mining at the same time.

Are there any other electronic decentralized currencies like bitcoins that could be mined and exchanged for primary currencies (dollars, euros, yen, yuan)? Also, are any of them easier to mine?

Is GUIMiner easy to use for a complete programming nub-cake (super noob) like myself?

 

[PCunicorn]

GUIMiner is easy enough. Yes there are some, and some that are easy enough to mine, but are worth much less. Listen, I don't think you understand. Without energy efficient GPUs, power will, by far, exceed profits. Your school will not be happy they went through all that work to loose hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars.

 

[lucasbytegenius]

Sounds like you're trying to hack the school network in order to profit yourself.

 

[PCunicorn]

I doubt it, notice how he asks about the virus scan and IT Team?

 

[zeppelin04]

I doubt it, notice how he asks about the virus scan and IT Team?

Can also be a round about way to ask if the program will show up during a scan. I have always felt better about programs that do not show up. Out of sight out of mind.

 

[voyagerfan99]

Drop a few hundred bucks on a bitcoin mining machine. You'll only use $20 worth of electricity and probably mine about 3 bitcoins a month.

 

[Geoff]

As someone who works in a public school system's IT department, I can pretty much guarantee you that no IT department or school administrators would allow you to do this. School budgets are already tight, and allowing all the computers to be on running near 100% load all night would never fly. If anyone found out that tax payer money was being spent on powering computers that allowed a student to benefit from financially, all Hell would break lose.

What does the school benefit from here? Why would they allow you to do this?

 

[bitcointycoon]

I wouldn't profit from it. From my reading, the electricity costs would far outweigh the profits. If it was profitable however, the profits would go to the school system directly. If it was profitable, I was planning on using my school district as a prototype, then expanding it to other school districts that I would seek profit from. I might switch this to looking at protein folds instead of mining bitcoins because it won't be profitable.

I could still try it because it'd up the school districts reputation. Also, I'm not a hacker!! I don't know much about computers anyways haha I'm just looking for an enterprise

Do you think using pc power to work on protein folds for cancer research would be better or work? What are your thoughts on it?

 

[voyagerfan99]

Do you think using pc power to work on protein folds for cancer research would be better or work? What are your thoughts on it?

I Boinc and Fold mostly for fun and just do it on my desktop

 

[Geoff]

I wouldn't profit from it. From my reading, the electricity costs would far outweigh the profits. If it was profitable however, the profits would go to the school system directly. If it was profitable, I was planning on using my school district as a prototype, then expanding it to other school districts that I would seek profit from. I might switch this to looking at protein folds instead of mining bitcoins because it won't be profitable.

I could still try it because it'd up the school districts reputation. Also, I'm not a hacker!! I don't know much about computers anyways haha I'm just looking for an enterprise

Do you think using pc power to work on protein folds for cancer research would be better or work? What are your thoughts on it?

I Boinc and Fold mostly for fun and just do it on my desktop

As voyagerfan99 said, do it for fun. Even though the idea behind folding is good I highly doubt you would be able to convince a school district that spending thousands of dollars a year on extra electricity is worth it.

Costs aside, as I mentioned earlier, I work in IT at a public school system. The work involved to setup and maintain the computers for folding would put more of a burden on an already overworked IT department, and would interfere with routine maintenance, re-imaging, and so forth that typically goes on. I know if I need to re-image a lab of 25 computer, I'm not going to want to spend hours reconfiguring the machines for folding.

 

[PCunicorn]

Drop a few hundred bucks on a bitcoin mining machine. You'll only use $20 worth of electricity and probably mine about 3 bitcoins a month.

What would work is getting a few $20 ASIC miners, they have a good mHASH/s to price ratio, and they use a very low amount of electricity.

 

[FuryRosewood]

As someone who works in a public school system's IT department, I can pretty much guarantee you that no IT department or school administrators would allow you to do this. School budgets are already tight, and allowing all the computers to be on running near 100% load all night would never fly. If anyone found out that tax payer money was being spent on powering computers that allowed a student to benefit from financially, all Hell would break lose.

What does the school benefit from here? Why would they allow you to do this?

I dont see benefits either...its basically school hardware and electricity thats going into his pocket...so i do not recommend doing this. Basically theft IMO.

 

[Geoff]

I dont see benefits either...its basically school hardware and electricity thats going into his pocket...so i do not recommend doing this. Basically theft IMO.

Yup, even if the school or district approved it, if the tax payers found out what their money was going to, I'm sure they wouldn't be happy.

 

[JasonJohnston09]

Your school computers would never find enough blocks to make profit, as their graphics cards are integrated. The school would see little to no profit and huge bills.

 

[Geoff]

Your school computers would never find enough blocks to make profit, as their graphics cards are integrated. The school would see little to no profit and huge bills.

That's kind of a generic statement, if they have Mac's a lot of the higher end iMac's and MacBook Pro's have dedicated video cards, not to mention most schools have graphic design labs, CADD labs, etc. But I do agree that overall, the computers are underpowered compared to what you or I may have.

 

[Agent Smith]

CPU minning will net you nothing with the current difficulty. ASIC is where it's at right now.