GekkoScience Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread

[buckrogers]

You mean a picture like the one in the first post ?  

No that exactly NOT the picture I am looking for. Do you think I might be blind and missed that lol


I am looking for a detailed pic with locations of the potentiometer with each range more or less. Like 90 degrees right is "X" value

90 degrees left is "X" value and so on.

Something like that would be very useful while attempting to narrow in on a specific voltage range.

Thanks!

As you've been told above (and as i've done):
Trial and error.

Blue line is 0.55V
359degres is 0.8V

So that's a range of 0.25V for 360degres
45degres gives you 0.075V

Etc etc

Ok i guess the simplest way to explain it to any newer people is that direct north is 0.55V an dialing to the right will increase voltage to the max of 0.8V until almost back to where you started, and everything in between is a range increasing, and that red line represents a point almost at a full return to 359 degress for a 0.75V reading.

That wasn't so difficult to explain simply...was it?

Oh and since the potemtiometer doesn't have any full stops, and can spin around "as mentioned before" how would you tell without any measuring tools what your current voltage is?

Or it doesn't matter? just use the current location of the dial no matter how many times it spins around....right?

thanks!

[zOU]

Ok i guess the simplest way to explain it to any newer people is that direct north is 0.55V an dialing to the right will increase voltage to the max of 0.8V until almost back to where you started, and everything in between is a range increasing, and that red line represents a point almost at a full return to 359 degress for a 0.75V reading.

That wasn't so difficult to explain simply...was it?

Oh and since the potemtiometer doesn't have any full stops, and can spin around "as mentioned before" how would you tell without any measuring tools what your current voltage is?

Or it doesn't matter? just use the current location of the dial no matter how many times it spins around....right?

thanks!

My apologies I'm not English so I explain as well as I can...

And yes, if you do not have a multimeter, the dial position should give you an estimation of the core V.

As it has been said:
Fire your miner at the freq you want to achieve (usb port power permitting)
Plug the compac stick
And adjust the dial clockwise slowly until you seen no HW error
Plug the next stick and repeat.


See my previous post below about USB power:

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, but that's exceeds the port W.

However I could run 36W/4.5W = 8 sticks and reaching the USB3 max W per port.
If I want to populate all 10 slots, then the power supply is the limit:

36W = 3.6W/port = 216Mhs per stick

Assuming (bad habit) a linear ratio Mhs/W, I could reach 360Mhs for 6W. (my hub PS = 36W, I have 6 sticks, so 6W/stick available)
270Mhs is (I think) the Max achievable on stock USB3 for 4.5W.
If I want to push the sticks higher than 270Mhs, I need to use 2 hubs and a Y cable

I'm not even sure the above makes sense anyway ...

[zOU]

Ok i guess the simplest way to explain it to any newer people is that direct north is 0.55V an dialing to the right will increase voltage to the max of 0.8V until almost back to where you started, and everything in between is a range increasing, and that red line represents a point almost at a full return to 359 degress for a 0.75V reading.

That wasn't so difficult to explain simply...was it?

Oh and since the potemtiometer doesn't have any full stops, and can spin around "as mentioned before" how would you tell without any measuring tools what your current voltage is?

Or it doesn't matter? just use the current location of the dial no matter how many times it spins around....right?

thanks!

My apologies I'm not English so I explain as well as I can...

Also I had my sticks for barely 2 weeks and I did a LOT of searching in the forum and tried and tested 4 computers (1win,3linux) and 5 USB hubs.

And I own a 10$ multimeter which is very convenient.

And yes, if you do not have a multimeter, the dial position should give you an estimation of the core V.

As it has been said:
Fire your miner at the freq you want to achieve (usb port power permitting)
Plug the compac stick
And adjust the dial clockwise slowly until you seen no HW error
Plug the next stick and repeat.


See my previous post below about USB power:

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, but that's exceeds the port W.

However I could run 36W/4.5W = 8 sticks and reaching the USB3 max W per port.
If I want to populate all 10 slots, then the power supply is the limit:

36W = 3.6W/port = 216Mhs per stick

Assuming (bad habit) a linear ratio Mhs/W, I could reach 360Mhs for 6W. (my hub PS = 36W, I have 6 sticks, so 6W/stick available)
270Mhs is (I think) the Max achievable on stock USB3 for 4.5W.
If I want to push the sticks higher than 270Mhs, I need to use 2 hubs and a Y cable

I'm not even sure the above makes sense anyway ...

[pepto]

When adjusting compac frequency using software such as cgminer, or minera cgminer-gekko, or cgminer-gekko-win32, is there an interval that needs to be understood when adjusting?   Can I change from 276 to 277? Or is my 276 already being interpreted as 275 and a change to 276 will make no difference ?


tl:dr  do I have to change frequency in intervals of 5 or 10, or can I 'effectively' make a difference playing with one or two Mhz at a time?

[AJRGale]

When adjusting compac frequency using cgminer, or minera cgminer-gekko, or cgminer-gekko-win32, is there an interval that needs to be
understood when adjusting?   Can I change from 276 to 277? Or is my 276 already being interpreted as 275 and a change to 276 will make no difference ?


tl:dr  do I have to change frequency in intervals of 5 or 10, or can I 'effectively' make a difference playing with one or two Mhz at a time?

there would be little to no notable difference with changing it 1MHz at a time.  changing it 10 at a time till it stops hashing properly or does mostly HW errors, then go back one step and fine tune it via 2-5MHz at a time

[pepto]

When adjusting compac frequency using cgminer, or minera cgminer-gekko, or cgminer-gekko-win32, is there an interval that needs to be
understood when adjusting?   Can I change from 276 to 277? Or is my 276 already being interpreted as 275 and a change to 276 will make no difference ?


tl:dr  do I have to change frequency in intervals of 5 or 10, or can I 'effectively' make a difference playing with one or two Mhz at a time?

there would be little to no notable difference with changing it 1MHz at a time.  changing it 10 at a time till it stops hashing properly or does mostly HW errors, then go back one step and fine tune it via 2-5MHz at a time

OK and yes, I appreciate the rational approach.

[fknight8]

Hi everyone
Got my stickminer form bitshopper.de (easy to order from and quick tracked delivery) and have been playing with Multiminer ever since, as I could not get old/GekkoScience cgminer or bfgminer to even find the stickminer.

My config:
- i3 Ivybridge / 8GBRAM / SSD
- Windows 8.1 Pro
- Multiminer 4.0.4 (latest available on GitHub), incl. bfgminer 4.9.0
- Zadig USB driver removed, so that MultiMiner could find the stickminer on the COM port

Got hashing quickly, but impossible to get the hashing above 4GH/s, although I have:
- Turned the voltage up as per post #1,
- Been using a brand new Y-cable connecting 2 USB 2.0 ports to the stickminer,
- Added --set compac:clock=x0d83 (to boost the clock rate to 175MHz) in the SHA 256 argument of the   Advance Miner setting (I even tried --set compac:clock=x0d83 in the Pool arguments of the pool config!),
- Stopped mining, unplugged stickminer, re-plugged stickminer, re-started mining between config changes.

But no luck so far in getting over 4GH/s on the Home dashboard or in the API monitor...
Any anybody been able to achieve a better rate (no one so far, looking at previous posts)?
If yes, how?

[sidehack]

What versions of BFGMiner have you tried standalone? Only 5.3 and newer have proper Compac support.

[AJRGale]

Hi everyone
Got my stickminer form bitshopper.de (easy to order from and quick tracked delivery) and have been playing with Multiminer ever since, as I could not get old/GekkoScience cgminer or bfgminer to even find the stickminer.

 ...

But no luck so far in getting over 4GH/s on the Home dashboard or in the API monitor...
Any anybody been able to achieve a better rate (no one so far, looking at previous posts)?
If yes, how?

Have you let it run for more then 5-10 minutes I have notice some sticks can take a little bit of time to climb to the speed.

Also this:

What versions of BFGMiner have you tried standalone? Only 5.3 and newer have proper Compac support.

[buckrogers]

Hi everyone
Got my stickminer form bitshopper.de (easy to order from and quick tracked delivery) and have been playing with Multiminer ever since, as I could not get old/GekkoScience cgminer or bfgminer to even find the stickminer.

My config:
- i3 Ivybridge / 8GBRAM / SSD
- Windows 8.1 Pro
- Multiminer 4.0.4 (latest available on GitHub), incl. bfgminer 4.9.0
- Zadig USB driver removed, so that MultiMiner could find the stickminer on the COM port

Got hashing quickly, but impossible to get the hashing above 4GH/s, although I have:
- Turned the voltage up as per post #1,
- Been using a brand new Y-cable connecting 2 USB 2.0 ports to the stickminer,
- Added --set compac:clock=x0d83 (to boost the clock rate to 175MHz) in the SHA 256 argument of the   Advance Miner setting (I even tried --set compac:clock=x0d83 in the Pool arguments of the pool config!),
- Stopped mining, unplugged stickminer, re-plugged stickminer, re-started mining between config changes.

But no luck so far in getting over 4GH/s on the Home dashboard or in the API monitor...
Any anybody been able to achieve a better rate (no one so far, looking at previous posts)?
If yes, how?

I've had the exact same issue. Nothing worked for me except multiminer and had 5 sticks maxing out at 3.5-3.8 Gh/s each. I don't feel as crazy now that someone else has the same issue. If you figure it out. Please let me know. Thanks!

[Jake36]

Hi everyone
Got my stickminer form bitshopper.de (easy to order from and quick tracked delivery) and have been playing with Multiminer ever since, as I could not get old/GekkoScience cgminer or bfgminer to even find the stickminer.

My config:
- i3 Ivybridge / 8GBRAM / SSD
- Windows 8.1 Pro
- Multiminer 4.0.4 (latest available on GitHub), incl. bfgminer 4.9.0
- Zadig USB driver removed, so that MultiMiner could find the stickminer on the COM port

Got hashing quickly, but impossible to get the hashing above 4GH/s, although I have:
- Turned the voltage up as per post #1,
- Been using a brand new Y-cable connecting 2 USB 2.0 ports to the stickminer,
- Added --set compac:clock=x0d83 (to boost the clock rate to 175MHz) in the SHA 256 argument of the   Advance Miner setting (I even tried --set compac:clock=x0d83 in the Pool arguments of the pool config!),
- Stopped mining, unplugged stickminer, re-plugged stickminer, re-started mining between config changes.

But no luck so far in getting over 4GH/s on the Home dashboard or in the API monitor...
Any anybody been able to achieve a better rate (no one so far, looking at previous posts)?
If yes, how?

I've had the exact same issue. Nothing worked for me except multiminer and had 5 sticks maxing out at 3.5-3.8 Gh/s each. I don't feel as crazy now that someone else has the same issue. If you figure it out. Please let me know. Thanks!

Well, the bfg 4.9.0 says it all.
Any thing older than version 5.3 in bfg, doesn't have support for compacs in it.

It's probably using U2 drivers or something.

[buckrogers]

looks like it says compac in there somewhere..hmmm?

[Luke-Jr]

I expect it's probably trivial to upgrade the BFGMiner used by MultiMiner, but I'm not sure how exactly.

The name "Compac" you see is coming from the device itself. Notice the driver is "antminer", which won't necessarily work up to par with Compac.

[pepto]

I had an old burnt up bfl jalapeno, so I took the heat sink fan combo and mounted it onto a GS stick. I also had some stick on heat sinks from the s1s and put them on the back side of the pcb for a little extra cooling. OC is at 400 right now and running smooth for a few hours with 0 hw errors, I will have to mod my usb hub to get any higher clocks but this baby stays cool. I usually see 22 to 28 ghs. This baby will be pushed to the max and hopefully survive, I do have plans of getting a few more and doing other odd ball cooling and OC.

Is this legit for the OC club? 

[heslo]

I have the same hub as you... I've found it to be very good!

But I think you need a bigger heatsink :p

[fknight8]

Many thanks guys for your prompt replies.

@sidehack/Jake36: now I understand the bgfminer version packaged with Multiminer is too old. No point in keeping trying. Thanks for clarifying. I did try bfgminer 5.4 on its own but only clicked on the .exe and entered details as per post #1, but the cmd window just closes immediately. I guess I need to "build" bfgminer first (as per Luke-Jr's detailed instructions)... I'll have a go.
 
@Luke-Jr: I'll try (somehow!) to link bfgminer v5.4 with Multiminer 4.0.4. Probably trivial for you, but I think I have a better chance of reaching the top of mount Everest than achieving this ;-). I'll contact multiminer support first and see if/how they (well, he) can help and/or post on the dedicated Multiminer forum on bitcointalk.

@AJRGale: left it to hash for hours... I does stabilize at 2.1GH/s. Let's see if I still get the same behaviour if I (ever) can get bfgminer working on its own of through Multiminer.

@Buckrogers: your previous post prompted me to join in ;-). There may be others like us (Windows-only literate?) out there to share the "fun". I'll keep you posted if I get any joy. By the way, the Name for my stickminer is showing as !"Antminer USB" on the Multiminer dashboard, maybe because it's bitshopper.de's version.

[buckrogers]

thanks,

Im sure we aren't the only ones experiencing this issue.

If you were ale to upgrade mutiminer and get good results, then i doubt it would be "trivial"

keep me in the loop on your findings.

[nicehash]

Hi, we shared our experience here ... and found out that Bitcoin mining is fun again! https://www.nicehash.com/index.jsp?p=news&id=49

[mindtrip]

thanks,

Im sure we aren't the only ones experiencing this issue.

If you were ale to upgrade mutiminer and get good results, then i doubt it would be "trivial"

keep me in the loop on your findings.

My advise would be to used the minera Operating system on a Raspberry Pi with Compac Support I have dozens of them running over 15GH each for days with no issues with this setup. If you're using the wrong software the system will see it as a U2 stick and not hash at the correct speed

[Searing]

Just a quick question

With bfgminer NOW taking your gekko 8gh btc usb miners, does someone have a more 'simplified' link then the pages of info a couple months ago ..that you all kindly posted on how to get these beasts up on a powered usb hub?

 I could go thru and do it that long involved way with cgminer from 2 months ago..but would (if it makes more sense.. and if the process of putting up bfgminer now that the gekko miners are supported ...and is simplified in some manner) I'd prefer the option of bfgminer..again if it is more 'straight forward' and 'newbie tested' (I"m so 'lame' with linux)

If not I'll simply dig up the old cgminer step by step 'idiot proof' method the last time from back in this thread and limp my way through again.

I DID have the 2 usb sticks working just fine on my 'test' computer at work 2 months ago..and FINALLY life ..has given me enough days off and 'slack' I can put this up
permanently on my 2 laptops 'monitoring' with unbuntu my 2 KNC Titan Machines with  ssh/putty....(what the heck they are on 24/7 anyway)

Anyway if there are better instructions available...bingo bango..then I'd prefer to use bfgmienr...if NOT I will not waste everyone's time and will simply go back to the 10 point list on this thread from back a couple months and 'bootstrap' them up again that way.

thanks


old links to cgminer setup at the beginning of this thread

1st run thru instructions



https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1173963.msg12368480#msg12368480



my reply they did not seem to take

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1173963.msg12377760#msg12377760




additional fix to above so that i the above steps did work (which did work on the test machine 2 months ago)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1173963.msg12377911#msg12377911

additional: Jake36 link he refers to in the above 'tweak of the install instructions' for clarity.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1173963.msg12377870#msg12377870


Again if I can limp my way thru with cgminer above and the 8gh gekko usb sticks......I'll just do the above

If there is a better way (or link) with Bfgminer (now that the gekko miner is supported) I'd prefer that ...and again just asking..I can always do the above

(it should be obvious that I'm clueless on the steps above taken with my original 2 month cgminer install that works....it "takes a village' at least in regards to me and Unbuntu