The combined sidehack-novak usb stick review thread. AKA GekkoScience BM1384

[TheRealSteve]

Still hashing away very stable after 1 day, 10 hours (123456 seconds because why not).  Tamb=24.5°C, Tdev=39.0°C.  I still think the USB resets ('X' figure in that screenshot) are software-avoidable, related to it expecting a U3, but I'm not touching that code any time soon

[wlefever]

Still hashing away very stable after 1 day, 10 hours (123456 seconds because why not).  Tamb=24.5°C, Tdev=39.0°C.  I still think the USB resets ('X' figure in that screenshot) are software-avoidable, related to it expecting a U3, but I'm not touching that code any time soon

Very nice. I couldn't even get my U3 to hash for that long!  Okay, sometimes it would but i'd rather have this bad boy running.

[TheRealSteve]

Well, cgminer (my build - shouldn't matter, but just putting that out there) eventually hit a bump (apparently about an hour ago).  Pool sent a new block notification and cgminer exited with "Failed to create restart thread".  Number of USB resets was just under 50 - and none were on the screen before the error - so one potential culprint -ck mentions in a thread doesn't seem like it should apply (though I only count USB resets due to no valid hashes, and not restart_threads() counts, so who knows)

Regardless, not a problem with the stick itself - I've set it to hum along comfortably at 200MHz = 11Gh/s so I can do some other testing at some point
Edit: I should point my Block Erupter USBleep at it so next time I'll know it stopped because things stopped beeping..incessantly..and annoyingly.

[philipma1957]

Well, cgminer (my build - shouldn't matter, but just putting that out there) eventually hit a bump (apparently about an hour ago).  Pool sent a new block notification and cgminer exited with "Failed to create restart thread".  Number of USB resets was just under 50 - and none were on the screen before the error - so one potential culprint -ck mentions in a thread doesn't seem like it should apply (though I only count USB resets due to no valid hashes, and not restart_threads() counts, so who knows)

Regardless, not a problem with the stick itself - I've set it to hum along comfortably at 200MHz = 11Gh/s so I can do some other testing at some point
Edit: I should point my Block Erupter USBleep at it so next time I'll know it stopped because things stopped beeping..incessantly..and annoyingly.

I had this happen on a ck build of cg 4.9.2 running 1 u2 on solo.ckpool.org

so it is not your build and it is not the sidehack stick.

since I was using a u2  and ck's stock build from his download of 4.9.2

but it is an antminer product to the fault may be with antminer chip.  note the u2 is the 1382 chip

and the sidehack stick is the 1384 chip. 

I am running the sidehacks on mmpool has not hit a block in 2 months

I am running the u2 on solo.ckpool has not hit a block in a few days.

if either pool hits a block and this happens I will post back.

[sidehack]

My two sticks running on a customized linux build of 4.9.0 (the only real changes were to U3 frequencies available in the Icarus driver) at 300MHz ran for about eleven days without any known hiccups - until, it looks like internet dropped out at the shop this afternoon so now I gotta go fix it. Grumble grumble.

[sidehack]

Luke-Jr has requested a stick, so we'll probably see BFGMiner support. That's good news for y'all what use BFGMiner.

[hedgy73]

Can anyone please tell me for 5 or 10 of the units would a powered usb hub be ok to power them and what specs would it need to be?

Also any recommendations on a make/model would be greatly appreciated .

[TheRealSteve]

copy/paste it is;

Can anyone please tell me for 5 or 10 of the units would a powered usb hub be ok to power them and what specs would it

Depends on how hard you want to run them.  At its slowest (presuming it is the slowest), it'll work off of a standard 500mA port.  Fastest I've run it (16.5Gh/s), it needed just shy of 1.3A.  10 units at 1.3A and you're looking at a 15A-20A hub.. not exactly something you'll find at your local Currys.
Unless you want to put something together yourself / wait for sidehack's hub work, I've seen some recommendations for the Dipo 19-port 20A hubs.  iirc they do have individual limiting fuses so you might have to split the load across more than one port.. somebody who's used/has one can probably clarify, or ask the user 'klintay', he used to sell them over on eyeboot.com
He's still selling a 10-port, 2A/port, 10A total one; http://www.eyeboot.com/10-port-usb-hub

[Searing]

copy/paste it is;

Can anyone please tell me for 5 or 10 of the units would a powered usb hub be ok to power them and what specs would it

Depends on how hard you want to run them.  At its slowest (presuming it is the slowest), it'll work off of a standard 500mA port.  Fastest I've run it (16.5Gh/s), it needed just shy of 1.3A.  10 units at 1.3A and you're looking at a 15A-20A hub.. not exactly something you'll find at your local Currys.
Unless you want to put something together yourself / wait for sidehack's hub work, I've seen some recommendations for the Dipo 19-port 20A hubs.  iirc they do have individual limiting fuses so you might have to split the load across more than one port.. somebody who's used/has one can probably clarify, or ask the user 'klintay', he used to sell them over on eyeboot.com
He's still selling a 10-port, 2A/port, 10A total one; http://www.eyeboot.com/10-port-usb-hub

I'll raise you my copy/paste to your copy paste (this could get silly)

Can anyone please tell me for 5 or 10 of the units would a powered usb hub be ok to power them and what specs would it

Depends on how hard you want to run them.  At its slowest (presuming it is the slowest), it'll work off of a standard 500mA port.  Fastest I've run it (16.5Gh/s), it needed just shy of 1.3A.  10 units at 1.3A and you're looking at a 15A-20A hub.. not exactly something you'll find at your local Currys.
Unless you want to put something together yourself / wait for sidehack's hub work, I've seen some recommendations for the Dipo 19-port 20A hubs.  iirc they do have individual limiting fuses so you might have to split the load across more than one port.. somebody who's used/has one can probably clarify, or ask the user 'klintay', he used to sell them over on eyeboot.com
He's still selling a 10-port, 2A/port, 10A total one; http://www.eyeboot.com/10-port-usb-hub

heh no need to overclock them....according to www.tradeblock.com at current 288 usd btc price I will make (wait for it) $5.00 usd for the YEAR (yeah baby $5 bill baby)
if I use ONE of my TWO sticks at 8gb and it cost me nothing and the unit had free electric with 0% pool fee to boot


whoo who....

so the need to OVERCLOCK THEM is probably moot ...just saying

[hedgy73]

Thanks very much .

[TheRealSteve]

I'll raise you my copy/paste to your copy paste (this could get silly)

Yeahhh let's not

Let's instead see if MrTeal and CanaryInTheMine can post with their feedback?

[ManeBjorn]

I have not been on much with the new baby coming a couple weeks ago but I am getting back into things now.
I am setting up the stick so I can give my feedback as well.

Zadig is a pain in the butt on the Win 7 setup with these that is for sure.  I will let you know how it goes. cgminer is not finding it right yet but I will fiddle with it and get it going.

Nice work Sidehack and Novak. I am glad to see the sales thread as well.

[philipma1957]

I have not been on much with the new baby coming a couple weeks ago but I am getting back into things now.
I am setting up the stick so I can give my feedback as well.

Zadig is a pain in the butt on the Win 7 setup with these that is for sure.  I will let you know how it goes. cgminer is not finding it right yet but I will fiddle with it and get it going.

Nice work Sidehack and Novak. I am glad to see the sales thread as well.

congrats on the baby!

as for zadig  I was able to run it as admin with a right click.  I then had all other programs turned off. this got it to load the correct driver.

I then ran cgminer 4.9   I also got cgminer 4.9.2 to work.

as for getting stick recognized try turning the little pot .

  +       <   the pot has the phillips screw  so do a ¼ turn   If you have the gold model heatsink turn it counter clockwise  

also use freq 150 to start  if it starts and tosses hardly any HW errors turn the pot ⅛ clockwise while running then see if lot of HW's occur.

[ManeBjorn]

Thank you.

Very cool on the pot by the way. I am going to have fun with this. 
I think the drivers are being a pain with Zadig. I used admin mode as a matter of course. I will take it all down and make sure nothing is in the background running. Should help.

Thanks again I will post my results once I get this going.

I have not been on much with the new baby coming a couple weeks ago but I am getting back into things now.
I am setting up the stick so I can give my feedback as well.

Zadig is a pain in the butt on the Win 7 setup with these that is for sure.  I will let you know how it goes. cgminer is not finding it right yet but I will fiddle with it and get it going.

Nice work Sidehack and Novak. I am glad to see the sales thread as well.

congrats on the baby!

as for zadig  I was able to run it as admin with a right click.  I then had all other programs turned off. this got it to load the correct driver.

I then ran cgminer 4.9   I also got cgminer 4.9.2 to work.

as for getting stick recognized try turning the little pot .

  +       <   the pot has the phillips screw  so do a ¼ turn   If you have the gold model heatsink turn it counter clockwise  

also use freq 150 to start  if it starts and tosses hardly any HW errors turn the pot ⅛ clockwise while running then see if lot of HW's occur.

[vapourminer]

I think the drivers are being a pain with Zadig. I used admin mode as a matter of course. I will take it all down and make sure nothing is in the background running. Should help.

congrats on baby!

I got zadig to run no problems (except one that was my fault; see below) on vista 32 ultimate, win7 starter, win764Pro, and XP (use a special XP version of zadig). its wasnt sidehack stuff it was other USB controlled miners with the same controller chip as sidehacks.

protip: dont replace your HID keyboard driver with zadig

aside to above I do full image backups on dedicated miner computers (well all my boxen actually) once everything is confirmed to be working. then anything at all goes into the weeds just restore form latest backup. saved me from myself a few times, as I regularly forget how stupid I can be heh.

[philipma1957]

I think the drivers are being a pain with Zadig. I used admin mode as a matter of course. I will take it all down and make sure nothing is in the background running. Should help.

congrats on baby!

I got zadig to run no problems (except one that was my fault; see below) on vista 32 ultimate, win7 starter, win764Pro, and XP (use a special XP version of zadig). its wasnt sidehack stuff it was other USB controlled miners with the same controller chip as sidehacks.

protip: dont replace your HID keyboard driver with zadig

aside to above I do full image backups on dedicated miner computers (well all my boxen actually) once everything is confirmed to be working. then anything at all goes into the weeds just restore form latest backup. saved me from myself a few times, as I regularly forget how stupid I can be heh.

see bolding

Yeah I am so guilty of this.

[vapourminer]

protip: dont replace your HID keyboard driver with zadig

aside to above I do full image backups on dedicated miner computers (well all my boxen actually) once everything is confirmed to be working. then anything at all goes into the weeds just restore form latest backup. saved me from myself a few times, as I regularly forget how stupid I can be heh.

see bolding

Yeah I am so guilty of this.

heh.  I chalk it up to alltimers - er Alzheimer's. yeah yeah thats the ticket.. anything to excuse my errors ya know

[TheRealSteve]

Throwing this back on-topic a bit - have been playing with pushing the Compac a little harder.

Here's a video of it hashing away at ~20.39Gh/s @ 375MHz.  Might want to mute audio, unless you're OZR from our good friends over at the main Russian Bitcoin forum - he seemed to enjoy the fan noise last time, throwing in a little extra in this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjA-m1DbRf8

Quick grab of those stats before I hit post (edit 2: updated again, ~20.59Gh/s as early errors have less influence.  Shutting it down at this point to go add some test points to my power injection board):

Code:

cgminer version 4.9.2-compac - Started: [2015-08-13 20:55:07]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(5s):22.72G (1m):20.78G (5m):20.53G (15m):20.56G (avg):20.60Gh/s
A:407269  R:208  HW:5228  X:4  T:142  GN:409896  WU:284.15/m  WE:98.76% HE:99.86% cf:375.00 ch:20625.00 t:86554
Connected to pool0.btcdig.com diff 16 with stratum as user BEUSB@gscompac
Block: ca71b6ee...  Diff:52.7G  Started: [20:44:21]  Best share: 571K
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[U]SB management [P]ool management [S]ettings [D]isplay options [Q]uit
0: AU3 0       : 375MHz 775mV            | 21.09G / 20.59Gh/s WU:284.1/m
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2015-08-14 20:53:40] Accepted 0fbb57a5 Diff 16/16 AU3 0
[2015-08-14 20:53:44] Accepted 0e0283d5 Diff 18/16 AU3 0
[2015-08-14 20:53:53] Accepted 09b62e96 Diff 26/16 AU3 0
[2015-08-14 20:53:54] Accepted 098a39fc Diff 27/16 AU3 0
[2015-08-14 20:54:00] Accepted 20a4a0bd Diff 2.01K/16 AU3 0
[2015-08-14 20:54:00] Accepted 0d55b105 Diff 19/16 AU3 0

temp ambient: 26.2°C
temp heatsink: 44.3°C
temp delta: 18.1°C
( Fan center ~9cm above Compac - got bumped a bit trying to get the Block Erupter USBleep to pick up the blue flashes  )

[Meech]

Throwing this back on-topic a bit - have been playing with pushing the Compac a little harder.

Here's a video of it hashing away at ~20.39Gh/s @ 375MHz.  Might want to mute audio, unless you're OZR from our good friends over at the main Russian Bitcoin forum - he seemed to enjoy the fan noise last time, throwing in a little extra in this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjA-m1DbRf8

Quick grab of those stats before I hit post (edit: updated, ~20.55Gh/s as early errors have less influence):

Code:

 cgminer version 4.9.2-compac - Started: [2015-08-13 20:55:07]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 (5s):22.89G (1m):20.00G (5m):20.33G (15m):20.51G (avg):20.55Gh/s
 A:55576  R:0  HW:843  X:1  T:19  GN:56590  WU:282.92/m  WE:98.55% HE:99.64% cf:375.00 ch:20625.00 t:12001
 Connected to pool0.btcdig.com diff 14 with stratum as user BEUSB@gscompac
 Block: 85c07331...  Diff:52.7G  Started: [23:56:34]  Best share: 63.1K
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [U]SB management [P]ool management [S]ettings [D]isplay options [Q]uit
 0: AU3 0       : 375MHz 775mV            | 25.56G / 20.55Gh/s WU:282.9/m
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [2015-08-14 00:12:01] Accepted 11bff14e Diff 14/14 AU3 0
 [2015-08-14 00:12:03] Accepted 123cb1e4 Diff 14/14 AU3 0
 [2015-08-14 00:12:03] Accepted 0dfbc5a0 Diff 18/14 AU3 0
 [2015-08-14 00:12:03] Accepted 09f74f57 Diff 26/14 AU3 0
 [2015-08-14 00:12:05] Accepted 03e510c3 Diff 66/14 AU3 0

temp ambient: 26.2°C
temp heatsink: 44.3°C
temp delta: 18.1°C
( Fan center ~9cm above Compac - got bumped a bit trying to get the Block Erupter USBleep to pick up the blue flashes  )

Wow.. I thought the flashy lights were annoying.
But you aren't running a fan for cooling?

[sidehack]

Nice. I was just talking to someone about BM1384 performance on the S5, and mentioned that Novak and I had talked about freezing a Compac (maybe oil immersion or something) and seeing how far the chip would go before it crapped itself. I don't know about init bursts (which a better driver will fix, and is on our to-do list in progress) but the buck should be good for steady-state currents well in excess of 400MHz. The inductor is rated for about 17A, which a BM1384 should draw less than 13A at 400MHz/0.8V