Synchronising the node can take a few days. You could also download the blockchain and import it into the node, but sync is probably faster. If you want to start right away, you can get an online wallet on mymonero.com
CPU hash speed depends mainly on the amount of cache memory, you can check that in the task manager. On i7 you can get 200-300 h/s i guess. But you would have to use Claymore CPU miner or something similar, start 1 thread for every 3MB of cache your cpu has.
There are a few recommended miners, i'm using claymore cpu miner myself, check the "getting started" page on my mining pool https://moneropool.nl to get started.
Basic questions about monero node and wallet and pool mining
chuckw posted this 6 years ago
I have downloaded the full node and I am successfully running monerod. I also started the command line wallet. This all seems to be working, but not very well. I have a Dell i7 computer running Windows 10 connected to a 10Mbps network. I started monerod yesterday in the afternoon and there were in excess of 1100 days to catch up on. This morning (about 16 hours later) it's only down to 832 days. I was expecting it to be much faster.
Does this seem to be correct?
Can I get a measure of the hash speed? What would be typical for an i7 CPU?
If I want to mine through a pool, can I do it with the full node? If not, what is the recommended way?
Thanks for your insight! and good luck to all.