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I've started to mine some Primecoin on a couple of spare VPS's, and it's turning out to be profitable. I'm also mining a bit on my laptop when I'm not using it (e.g. during lunch break).
Will mining wear down (or have any other adverse effects on) the CPU over time? Does the number of cores used during mining (I'm using 2/4) affect this at all?
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Its mostly the heat...if it is running quite hot, which most laptops tend to do, it IS damaging the CPU. Try a good cooling mat if you really want to do it. Also, using 2 of 4 cores WILL run cooler than using all 4. But I guess I could repeat everyone else' advice: "Mining is no longer profitable on the CPU, don't do it." (Even though I do a little bit.)
Thanks! Will the damage be permanent? – Alfred Xing – 2013-12-11T21:37:22.157
1No longer profitable with Bitcoin; some of the alt coins might be a different story. – Highly Irregular – 2013-12-11T21:40:10.303
True. Very true. (I am considering CPU-mining some altcoin...) – BenjiWiebe – 2013-12-11T21:44:03.210
1@AlfredXing Overheating a CPU wears it down sooner. I've never heard of hardware damage that isn't permanent. – BenjiWiebe – 2013-12-11T21:44:36.540
@BenjiWiebe As I said in my question, Primecoin mining has been profitable so far. I've mined for a week and earned ~$6 worth (at $4/XPM). – Alfred Xing – 2013-12-11T21:59:36.800
@AlfredXing today i tried to mine darkcoins using all my 8 cores + 2 cores on another machine (CPU not GPU), after 8 hours mining at http://www.drkpool.com/ i have 0.0006 darkcoins: all day my pc very hot just for roughly 1 US$Cent. So it is not worth it, the power for sure costs more. I purchased some AntMiner hardware with which I will experiment mining PeerCoins, and I hope that is better.
– user193655 – 2014-05-27T15:27:39.760