GekkoScience Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread

[sloopy]

To quote myself from a post on the previous page made some three days ago:

regarding turning up the pot, there's no way to break the ASIC unless other things are going seriously wrong. You can spin the pot screw in circles and you'll only ever get between 550 and 800mV, which is a completely safe range. The only problem would be if you took the voltage all the way up and then ran it without a fan might damage something, but you'll easily notice that the heatsink is getting very toasty.

One thing to note is this:



0.77V is about right for if you're planning on running up around 375MHz. Sticks come off my bench about 610mV and Novak runs 'em at 200MHz off that voltage. Errors are probably around a couple percent; it's hard to get an accurate read with the 512 vardiff we end up with but according to Bitmain's chip data 650mV is good for clean at that speed.

Sounds like your ASIC is damaged. Drawing excess current could be a bad FET on the buck or a near-shorted load downstream of it. If the heatsink is getting hot that means it's taking most of the power, which indicates the buck is probably working right but the ASIC isn't.
Another thing to consider is the buck isn't working right and is overvolting the ASIC, which is shunting the excess power and cooking that way. The real test is going to be measuring the Vcore and seeing what you find. If you can do that and let me know what it looks like would be a good first step. A different good first step would be to send it back for a replacement. I don't like selling things that break.

Regarding using cgminer to generate a config file, well that'd be something Novak'd have to look at. I've never used a cgminer config file, outside whatever's autogenerated by internal controllers on things. I've always run command line, or a batch file on rare occasions.

I read your answer to alh but hadn't remembered it when I posted. Thank you for the refresher and appreciate the further clarification. I understand what vcore is and that I did not need to have it set that high for running 200 or 250 but as I was playing and since I have played with many other devices which utilize a vcore I didn't see an issue with leaving it set higher than needed. I understand it burns more power and heats things up, but didn't think it would be an issue since I had a good fan and ac on the situation.
I actually hadn't given it much thought at all because what I'd read from the Compac threads I didn't see a red flag with using a maximum vcore adjustment with a low frequency.
I am assuming this is the root of my failure.
Too hot:


I don't know how I did it and will be using a couple of more fans when I actually perform real overclocking with my survivors. I examined my running pieces with a nice lighted magnifier and do not see anything on those two which resembles the damage in the picture above. Hopefully it was a fluke.

The vcore measures .86 to 1.1 and bounces between those values.
As a reference I measured one of the living sticks while hashing and it was at .663 rock solid.

If you do want it back confirm the ship to via PM and I will send it out.

 

I was working late the past few nights so am just installing these tonight.

I think the other 3 for the 5 looks very nice and they are running great.

That is what I call customer service man, and I respect and appreciate it when that happens consistently.

I am running them at 175 for a warm up run, have an arctic cooler fan blowing on them, and I am going to put a 120 mm fan on them before I go any higher.

I found a rhythm to installing these when using Zadig, I believe I've seen more than a couple of people mentioning hot plugging. Novac did as well.
I installed one at a time and let it be recognized by windows.
I reinstall Zadig Win USB driver on every Compac in the list (Have list all devices selected)
I start Cgminer batch file or however you select your settings
While CG miner is running take the compac out, wait a few seconds and plug it back in the same slot.

Never had that fail

Seriously, I appreciate good work and decisions. Thanks guys.

[1714688270]

1714688270

[sidehack]

Oh yeah, I took a look at the one you shipped back and the issue is pretty bizarre. I haven't figured it out yet. The 2V reference coming out of the buck chip was reading 2.7V which was pulling the adjustment range high causing the output to pull high. The bizarre thing is I swapped a different buck chip on it and it still behaved the same way, so the issue is actually outside the chip but I don't know where. Seriously weird, because nothing else ties to that pin, the traces, nothing.

[chiguireitor]

I have been trying to push these sticks as far as i can and there's one question: I have been able to get 400Mhz with 0.8 vcore on one stick, however, on another one at the same settings, same cooling, etc it has been impossible to push it past 375, is there something else i should be looking at to get them past that mark besides voltage and power consumption on the hub?

[sidehack]

What's the 5V look like coming out of your hub? I've seen it happen that the voltage will briefly sag under load, and if it goes below 4V the buck chip will reset power. When we were testing out some high-frequency sticks on my hub, we noticed some ports would work and some wouldn't because some of them had a slightly better connection to the 5V than others and didn't undervolt like that.

It's a problem I'll fix on the next version, if we make a next version.

[chiguireitor]

What's the 5V look like coming out of your hub? I've seen it happen that the voltage will briefly sag under load, and if it goes below 4V the buck chip will reset power. When we were testing out some high-frequency sticks on my hub, we noticed some ports would work and some wouldn't because some of them had a slightly better connection to the 5V than others and didn't undervolt like that.

It's a problem I'll fix on the next version, if we make a next version.

I think i saw that behavior "slightly warming up and then reseting". I'll be sure to check it this monday.

The next version should be the pod man, these sticks are hot sellers, the pods should fly off the shelves!

[sidehack]

My next project is prototyping a pod, but practically speaking, there'd be no new products (pod or stick or whatever) without new chips. BM1384 aren't really cost-effective for new designs, being almost a year old, and I can't get enough of them to merit a batch anyway.

[philipma1957]

I suggest trying a live usb of Debian - https://www.debian.org/.   With live usb you can run off a usb stick and not even have to do a install on HD.

But I found windows to be a pain with drivers I used 7 and 8.  Went to debian and no issues.   Then I went to RPI and raspbian (which is built off debian) and still working great.   

With linux just no messing with the drivers and very very nice.

Okay I loaded wheezy to an i5 4570t

and the pc will only run the sticks.


so how do I load software like  cgminer.

what link is good to load?

I am running just regular 4.9.2 with Icarus.  You can get a guide pretty close on here - http://blog.phrog.org/2013/07/06/simple-debian-cgminer-asicminer-block-erupter-usb-setup/

Before it try in terminal - apt get upgrade
That will upgrade a lot of things.

Some commands might require sudo in front as root access.   I even went overboard and ran cgminer as root.

I also looked at guide in this thread and added the following to make sure I had all possible things needed.   Again it's overboard if someone takes time they could clean it up for sure.
sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake libtool libcurl4-openssl-dev pkg-config libncurses5-dev libudev-dev

Also used icarus cgminer running not the old cgminer it mentions on that guide something like:
./cgminer -o stratum+tcp://stratum.mining.eligius.st:3334 -u 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr --au3-freq 150

okay so my run time on debian is about 2 minutes life time starting today.

the guide reads


3) apt-get stuff.
apt-get install autoconf gcc make git libcurl4-openssl-dev libncurses5-dev libtool libjansson-dev libudev-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev

First things first, open terminal

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade   (this will update the the system) it will ask do you want to continue y/n hit y and enter.

After it updates,  sudo reboot  (to be sure updates are active).

Then in terminal window again

sudo apt-get install autoconf libusb-1.0-0-dev libusb-1.0-0 libcurl4-openssl-dev libncurses5-dev libudev-dev libtool automake pkg-config libjansson-dev
(you may get a message saying you need another package installed to install some of the above, if you do, just add it to the above)

Again y/n hit y enter
After it's done,

wget http://gekkoscience.com/misc/cgminer-gekko.tar.gz   (fixed)

tar xvzf cgminer-gekko.tar.gz                                           (fixed)

cd cgminer-gekko                                                           (fixed)

./autogen.sh

./configure --enable-gekko --disable-libcurl    (cgminer doesn't need it, but linux does to build)

sudo make install   (you don't have to do the install)

While still in the cgminer-gekko dir,

sudo cp 01-cgminer.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/   (if it does not copy,  sudo su enter then  cp 01-cgminer.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/   )

sudo usermod -G plugdev -a whoami        (whoami= your user name you setup)

sudo reboot

After it restarts open terminal

cd cgminer-gekko

sudo ./cgminer -o stratum+tcp://solo.ckpool.org:3333 -u 1JiWuyX94wrCr7JhkAn7x5qNMCEef1KhqX.philipma1957sticks --compac-freq XXX

Not familiar with wheezy, but you might be able to copy/past the comands and then just fill,answer,hit enter when it asks.

EDIT: fixed

bumped for reference as I had a blackout and system crashed.

[SlimePuppy]

Philip posted links for a Mean Well 5V 40A PSU to run hubs somewhere (I'll link it when I find it )

TRC Electronics won't have the PSUs back in stock until mid-Nov.  In the meantime, Mouser has them:

http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=LRS-200-5virtualkey63430000virtualkey709-LRS200-5


In other news, I've found that the pair of Compacs running on my Win 7/64 box do not like it when I use my Logitech webcam.  Decisions, decisions: mining or Skype?

[Ecnad]

Got a raspberry pi to try and run more than 2 sticks, and downloaded the cgminer for gekko, but am a pi noob and can' figure out hot to run it. Anyone with the know how and patience to tell me?

[sidehack]

Have you read through this thread yet? It's likely most of the questions you may have have been answered at least once already.

[VirosaGITS]

Got a raspberry pi to try and run more than 2 sticks, and downloaded the cgminer for gekko, but am a pi noob and can' figure out hot to run it. Anyone with the know how and patience to tell me?

The first post in this thread has the solution to your problem. There is an image premade for the sidehack stick that you just slap on it. I think it was from edonkey? Anyways the link is in OP.

[edonkey]

Got a raspberry pi to try and run more than 2 sticks, and downloaded the cgminer for gekko, but am a pi noob and can' figure out hot to run it. Anyone with the know how and patience to tell me?

Did you download the Minera image that I posted? That's the easiest way to go. Basically you image it, boot, then set your pools. The link is in the first post.

Otherwise if you want to run on your own Pi image, you'll have to build cgminer gekko. Instructions can be found earlier in this thread, like sidehack said.

[Ecnad]

Got a raspberry pi to try and run more than 2 sticks, and downloaded the cgminer for gekko, but am a pi noob and can' figure out hot to run it. Anyone with the know how and patience to tell me?

Did you download the Minera image that I posted? That's the easiest way to go. Basically you image it, boot, then set your pools. The link is in the first post.

Otherwise if you want to run on your own Pi image, you'll have to build cgminer gekko. Instructions can be found earlier in this thread, like sidehack said.

Trying minera now... got too many errors with my attempt at building and got tired with typing in a long string to run it just to have it fail


You is my hero! Up and running, 3 sticks at 16GHs each. My hub can't seem to support more than that power-wise, so I will get a better one, but very pleased with the pi/minera set-up so they are hashing away on the side but I can control them from main PC.

[philipma1957]

Philip posted links for a Mean Well 5V 40A PSU to run hubs somewhere (I'll link it when I find it )

TRC Electronics won't have the PSUs back in stock until mid-Nov.  In the meantime, Mouser has them:

http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=LRS-200-5virtualkey63430000virtualkey709-LRS200-5


In other news, I've found that the pair of Compacs running on my Win 7/64 box do not like it when I use my Logitech webcam.  Decisions, decisions: mining or Skype?

okay I have some of these http://www.trcelectronics.com/View/Mean-Well/LRS-150F-5.shtml  they were a direct fit in my 19 port hubs

https://www.trcelectronics.com/ecomm/pdf/lrs150f.pdf   85% eff

they can do 16 sticks at 200 freq in a stud hub

they replace this psu


https://www.trcelectronics.com/ecomm/pdf/nes100.pdf   78% eff


so if you have any hub using a 5 volt dc plug   https://www.trcelectronics.com/ecomm/pdf/lrs150f.pdf  this can do 16 sticks at freq 200 with 0 errors.

set it at 5.3 volts via the pot  and it will only drop to 5.1 volts if you are running 16 sticks at freq 200.

I have a better psu  that is  over 90%    but not yet tested. so I am not sure .

To sum up:

 This one is original        I tested it and it is okay   this claims 78% https://www.trcelectronics.com/ecomm/pdf/nes100.pdf

this one is really good   and I tested it  with 16 sticks at freq 200  this claims 85% https://www.trcelectronics.com/ecomm/pdf/lrs150f.pdf  I had a big improvement on the meter  almost 15 watts less power then the stock one.


this one should be better yet I have it on hand and I am yet to test it.  this claims 90%  https://www.trcelectronics.com/ecomm/pdf/hsp150.pdf

[AJRGale]

Oh yeah, I took a look at the one you shipped back and the issue is pretty bizarre. I haven't figured it out yet. The 2V reference coming out of the buck chip was reading 2.7V which was pulling the adjustment range high causing the output to pull high. The bizarre thing is I swapped a different buck chip on it and it still behaved the same way, so the issue is actually outside the chip but I don't know where. Seriously weird, because nothing else ties to that pin, the traces, nothing.

I don't quite know how the buck is laid out, but you do use ceramic caps and resistors to controls the voltage? maybe one of them is cracked and changing the way the buck is running?

[toptek]

anyone inrtrested or having issue with getting BFG 5.3 to work i had to use this

bfgminer -S all -o stratum+tcp://stratum.mining.eligius.st:3334 -u your BTC -p x --set compac:clock=0x0782


with these driver  http://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Pages/USBtoUARTBridgeVCPDrivers.aspx


They work fine with windows 10 , I m trying to get to it work with minera with BFG 5.3 as the main BFG miner now not using the custom folder in minera .

[sidehack]

AJR - what makes it bizarre is this chip takes direct output feedback and a divided reference rather than an internal reference and divided feedback like almost every other buck IC. The 2V reference is internally generated and I use a resistor divider including the pot to feed it into the error amplifier's reference input on the IC. Nothing else touches that part of the circuit, so I don't know what's causing the IC to put out 2.77V on the 2.0V reference. I assumed the buck chip was hosed but the second one I put on behaved exactly the same way, which means something that doesn't touch that subcircuit is either touching that subcircuit when it's not supposed to or is causing the IC to freak out from somewhere else with the reference screwup as a weird side-effect.

[Mikestang]

anyone inrtrested or having issue with getting BFG 5.3 to work i had to use this

bfgminer -S all -o stratum+tcp://stratum.mining.eligius.st:3334 -u your BTC -p x --set compac:clock=0x0782

I can get bfgminer to see the sticks, but regardless of what I put into the 'clock' field the sticks run at "default" 225 freq.  I also get comms errors {CBM 0: Comms error (werr=1)} with bfg that I do not get with cgminer.

[AJRGale]

AJR - what makes it bizarre is this chip takes direct output feedback and a divided reference rather than an internal reference and divided feedback like almost every other buck IC. The 2V reference is internally generated and I use a resistor divider including the pot to feed it into the error amplifier's reference input on the IC. Nothing else touches that part of the circuit, so I don't know what's causing the IC to put out 2.77V on the 2.0V reference. I assumed the buck chip was hosed but the second one I put on behaved exactly the same way, which means something that doesn't touch that subcircuit is either touching that subcircuit when it's not supposed to or is causing the IC to freak out from somewhere else with the reference screwup as a weird side-effect.

I would say check the pot and resistor, pop the buck off and test the pad(s) that dives that reference, if its direct grounded( 0 Ohms) or higher then normal ohms, that may be the issue.

now how's the CP2012? is it hot to the touch? that could be throwing the voltage input off, if its shorted dead.

anyone inrtrested or having issue with getting BFG 5.3 to work i had to use this

bfgminer -S all -o stratum+tcp://stratum.mining.eligius.st:3334 -u your BTC -p x --set compac:clock=0x0782


with these driver  http://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Pages/USBtoUARTBridgeVCPDrivers.aspx


They work fine with windows 10 , I m trying to get to it work with minera with BFG 5.3 as the main BFG miner now not using the custom folder in minera .

never played with minera, but if BFG works with win10 and eligius pool, yes? but it cannot do it on CK's solo?

should be as simple as

Code:

bfgminer -o http://pool:port -u username -p password

so

Code:

bfgminer -o stratum+tcp://solo.ckpool.org:3333 -u 1JiWuyX94wrCr7JhkAn7x5qNMCEef1KhqX.toptekstick -p x

[edonkey]

anyone inrtrested or having issue with getting BFG 5.3 to work i had to use this

bfgminer -S all -o stratum+tcp://stratum.mining.eligius.st:3334 -u your BTC -p x --set compac:clock=0x0782


with these driver  http://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Pages/USBtoUARTBridgeVCPDrivers.aspx


They work fine with windows 10 , I m trying to get to it work with minera with BFG 5.3 as the main BFG miner now not using the custom folder in minera .

As far as I know, the bfgminer that's included with Minera is not new enough to support the sticks. Also, when I last tried to build bfgminer 5.3 on a RPi, it had a messed up version number. This apparently was a known problem at the time.

In the end I gave up on bfgminer for the Pi and concentrated on building cgminer-gekko and getting it running as a custom miner under Minera. That has worked perfectly and is very stable.

Note that my info on bfgminer might be dated at this point. I never bothered to circle back after I got cgminer-gekko working so well.

If you're interested, I posted a Minera image that includes cgminer-gekko. All you have to do is copy the image to your SD card, boot, then set your pools. The download URL is in the first post.

The only negative aspect of my posted image is that that version of cgminer-gekko doesn't really support any other mining hardware. Ideally it would support all the normal hardware, including U3's. Unfortunately there are compile conflicts when you enable both icarus and gekko.

At some point when the cgminer sources are cleaned up, I plan to rebuild cgminer-gekko and re-post the Minera image. However, if gekko support finds its way into the main cgminer sources sooner than that, and if the Minera author rebuilds and reposts, then there will be no need for me to continue to update the image that I posted. At that point it will be part of the main Minera image.

Hopefully the above makes sense. Let me know if you have questions.