GekkoScience Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread

[zOU]

Put that USB fan on a different power source, somewhere other than your hub. Just to make sure that its not feeding back some weird signals to the hub.

I can only definitely agree with that !

those cheap USB fan are dangerous... one of them just BSOD my computer whenever it's close !

that usb fan is only using very little power and it is in a dedicated "charging" port not any of the data ports, I have run this setup with many other usb miners in the past with zero issues, i will try sidehacks advice to start with turning the flat part of the port to the top right corner on each.

thanks!

That adjustment screw is very sensitive and turns without stop.

So you want to adjust it while the stick is plugged.

This requires nimble fingers to hold your multimeter probes in one hand and adjust the screw with the other hand

At first I expected the screw to have 2 stops (0.55 and 0. but that's not the case.
And my 6 sticks have slightly different sensitivity so I can't judge by the screw position, I have to measure V.

[zOU]

Cgminer on my Windows 7 32 bit pc after nearly 12 hours since last restart showing a pretty constant 16GB a stick and 0 HW errors.

Is the blue LED an artefact of the picture ?
Mine are green and flashing white when hashing...

[hedgy73]

Cgminer on my Windows 7 32 bit pc after nearly 12 hours since last restart showing a pretty constant 16GB a stick and 0 HW errors.

Is the blue LED an artefact of the picture ?
Mine are green and flashing white when hashing...

Yes mine are green and white too but it does seem to give off a blueish light.

[sidehack]

It's an RGB LED not perfectly balanced.

[Mikestang]

Compac and U3 both use CP2102 USB-UART adapters, for one thing. Bitfury sticks usually have a Microchip part for USB-SPI adapter.

So then logic would follow that there is something that some computers don't like when they see the CP2102 USB-UART configuration, and that causes the comm errors.  If I knew anything about hardware other than how to plug it in I would dig deeper, but since it appears to be isolated to certain machines troubleshooting it is difficult.

[chiguireitor]

...
Thank you for taking the time to respond.
So directly plugged on mobo.

Usb3 to get to 0.8 or really good USB2 ?

Real GOOD USB 2.0, i'm currently using some IBM and Dell mobos, and the one that is a "generic" is an Asus. They're built like tanks and the port runs flawlessly for weeks.

[Guruclef]

Hello, I figure this is the right place to ask:

I've been mining for almost two days with my two sticks plugged alone on a powered 10 port orico USB hub.

I noticed during today, that one of the sticks went "zombie". Win32 cgminer (gekkoscience build) showed one of them as "DEAD" on the main screen and "zombie" if I went to the "USB management" screen.

I understand that a miner might fail like this, but my question is the following:
Given that the program can apparently tell when a stick is not working, can I program it to restart sticks that go into this state?

Thanks for your time

[Jake36]

Also when attempting to use bfgminer 5.3.0:



with a config of:

bfgminer -o stratum+tcp://stratum.antpool.com:3333 -u xxx.1 -p x -S antminer:all --set antminer:voltage=x800 --set antminer:clock=x0b83 --set antminer:timing=0.022421

also tried:

bfgminer -o stratum+tcp://stratum.antpool.com:3333 -u xxx.1 -p x -S antminer:all --set antminer:voltage=x800 --set compac:clock=x0b83 --set antminer:timing=0.022421

also tried:

bfgminer --set compac:clock=150 --scan noauto -o stratum+tcp://stratum.antpool.com:3333/ -u xxx.1 -p x -S antminer:\\.\COM26 -d antminer@\\.\COM26 -S antminer:\\.\COM27 -d antminer@\\.\COM27 -S antminer:\\.\COM28 -d antminer@\\.\COM28 -S antminer:\\.\COM29 -d antminer@\\.\COM29 -S antminer:\\.\COM30 -d antminer@\\.\COM30 --api-listen --api-port 4028 --api-allow W:127.0.0.1, -T -q --log 5

no luck on any of those configs....same comms error....so the problem is not my hardware, as it DOES work in Multiminer on an "old version?" of bfgminer..but not any of the current ones....Very Strange.

Plus they all hash much faster in the cli interface than in multiminer.

thanks!


edit: updated screenshot after about 10 minutes..some accepts but many comms errors still:

I'm going to guess it's the -S "antminer" and the "antminer@" that might be your problem.

Try "bfgminer -o stratum+tcp://stratum.antpool.com:3333 -u xxx.1 -p x -S compac:all --set compac:clock=x0b83"

Seeing as voltage is adjusted by the pot, you don't need the voltage and I don't know if you really need the timing part or not. Try it with timing and then without.

[Mikestang]

--set compac:clock=x0b83

For bfg 5.4.0 I believe you can use numeric value for the clock speed instead of the hex value.

-S compac is unnecessary.

[Jake36]

Well, i'm about to give up on the RPI as an ASIC controller/miner.

I've installed ubuntu on a old laptop with a dead screen and I'm currently installing minera + cgminer/bfgminer.

That will allow me to hook up USB3 hubs.

That being said:
Better a USB3 hub (orico A3H10 looks fine)

Or something like these (using a Y cable for the compac sticks)

http://m.ebay.fr/itm/Metal-Case-10-Ports-USB-2-0-HUB-Adapter-For-Industrial-Grade-Class-Production-/331620565421

http://m.ebay.fr/itm/90W-power-20-port-USB2-0-HUB-USB-HUB-Industrial-grade-HUB-for-Bitcoin-mining-/161705822180

Thank you for your advice

I've been testing 1 of these for the last 5 days, got it plugged into a USB 2.0 hub that's plugged into the RPi running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (for the Pi's), with 5 sticks at 325MHz.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013OK10YM?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00

In 5 days I've gotten 2 HW with A 9676736 and R 4544.

EDIT: For a quick check, I just now plugged the Superbpag 7 Port Portable Multi USB Charger 70 Watt 14A with USB 3.0 Hub to the Pi, and it looks like it is working.

So I'm going to let it run for 24 hours and see how it go's at 325MHz.

Update after 24.5 hours on this 3.0 hub hooked to the Pi and 0HW with 5 sticks at 325MHz. So looks like the Pi 2B will work with this USB 3.0 hub.

[AJRGale]

I'll take my issue with the physical side of the sticks is nothing to worry about..

I can get them to hash away, at 8GHs, after many many HW errors and time for the chip to warm up, and set to the maximum obtainable voltage (810mV)..

Oh well, I'll use them for dummy fittings, when I get my watercooling setup going

[zOU]

Hello

The white LED of one of my sticks has decided to stop functioning today.

It's hashing fine though but having to check logs to verify is a hassle.

Ah well...

[sidehack]

Probably that stupid tiny diode I replaced with a better part for the second batch.

[MacEntyre]

For topical reasons: In case you have issues with your EU version Compac miner, it's most likely a driver or mining software issue.
I do a complete burn-in test with all devices after firmware flashing. All devices shipped via the webshop https://www.bitshopper.de or via Amazon are tested working devices.

Send me a PM if you have issues getting it running or post a message here to get indiviual support.

[zOU]

Well I made a few futile attempts to get them to work on a Orico A3H10 hub, not to avail.

Wether directly on a old lenovo laptop or with the hub connected to a usb2 hub: no chance.

I'll do more tests tomorrow or later during the week.

If anyone has them on this Usb3 hub, i'm interested....

[sidehack]

All the GekkoScience sticks are also flashed and burned in on a standard USB2 hub, 200MHz via cgminer-gekko on a Debian 7 system. I just replaced the crappy test hub (it was getting pretty tired after running 600 sticks through it about 8 at a time, among other abuses) with an EyeBoot 49er for the last day's worth of tests. None of my sticks are tested to work on anything USB3, and I don't know anyone else's opinions but I've never recommended their use on a USB3 hub either, reason being they're not USB3 devices and were never tested for compatibility.

[hedgy73]

I've been running 2 sticks on a USB 3.0 Anker 60w 7 port hub 24/7 for 5 days now @ 300MHz. I'll be adding another 3 sticks when they arrive .



Hub is this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Anker%C2%AE-PowerIQ-Charging-Samsung-Motorola/dp/B00VE4UJD4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1447531243&sr=8-1&keywords=anker+60w+7+port+hub

[zOU]

All the GekkoScience sticks are also flashed and burned in on a standard USB2 hub, 200MHz via cgminer-gekko on a Debian 7 system. I just replaced the crappy test hub (it was getting pretty tired after running 600 sticks through it about 8 at a time, among other abuses) with an EyeBoot 49er for the last day's worth of tests. None of my sticks are tested to work on anything USB3, and I don't know anyone else's opinions but I've never recommended their use on a USB3 hub either, reason being they're not USB3 devices and were never tested for compatibility.

Fair enough.

I wanted to use a USB3 hub as they can deliver 900mA/port so I would have avoided getting the USB Y cables to get over the 500mA/port limit of USB2.

Unless I'm completely wrong about the above of course.

About compatibility, USB3 is supposed to be backward compatible so I didn't even think that could be an issue.

I'll have to find the formula and recalculate how many sticks my different hubs can support.

Mine is this one

http://www.amazon.com/Super-Speed-Switch-Aluminum-ORICO/dp/B00CN40X12

Thank you Hedgy.

Anyway, I want want neat and clean miner setup, so I'll figure out something.

[sidehack]

Have you looked up AJRGale's hub modification thread? We used to test 8 sticks at a time on one of those $9 cheapo hubs from eBay that I spent half an hour beefing the 5V lines on and hooked it up to a molex for 5V. Novak had five sticks running 300MHz off it for over a week once, probably over 1.5A per port. I'll be honest, I don't pay much attention to what stuff is rated for because I just build it to do what I want it to do instead. It's usually cheaper and oftentimes better.

[zOU]

I'll have a look there:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1152953.0

And there:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=801230.0

==============
In fact I jus realised where I went wrong in my electricity calculations.

USB2 is 5v and 500mA =2.5W
USB3 is 5V and 900mA = 4.5W

Stick is 0.8V to the BM1384 chip, but still 5V to the stick...
1st post says that 137-150Mhs would use the 2.5W at 0.5V to the BM1384 chip.

Now if I want to run 6@150Mhs, that's 15W, so a 5V/3A I just enough.
But my USB3 hub is 12V/3A so 36W, so 6W per stick, bu that's exceeds the port W.
So in that case, the Y cable is required.


Assuming (bad habit) a linear ratio Mhs/W, I could reach 360Mhs for 6W.
270Mhs is (I think) the Max achievable on stock USB3 for 4.5W.