GekkoScience Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread

[bitsolutions]

FWIW, the Compac driver in BFGMiner is heavily integrated with the "Icarus" driver, so what Kano is saying makes sense to me.

Future devices using a new protocol should probably get a separate driver from the Compac anyway.

I agree, IMO the best way to do it is to separate all drivers by protocol, if it uses the icarus protocol put it in the icarus driver otherwise separate it out so that it doesn't get too hard to maintain in mainline, separating by manufacturer is IMO more complex and confusing if say an icarus protocol specific bug needs to be dealt with. Multiple protocols within the same driver sounds confusing and hard to maintain. Cgminer binaries(at least for windows) should be compiled with most of the configure flags for usb miners enabled anyways and everything should just get autodetected, otherwise it's easy enough to just flag both at the same time for linux.

Novak, would you mind doing a branch with the gekko driver within icarus for mainline cgminer inclusion or hardware sending dev samples to kano and/or ck so they can do it?

[Jake36]

One thing more we'd need to know, what cgminer version you are using and what compile flags you used (--enable-icarus, --enable-gekko, etc).

I think I used just the 'enable gekko' command. I ran through the thorough instructions that Novak gave on the first page of this thread. I'll quote everything he posted :

Here's what you'd do to get cgminer on linux going:
1. Open a terminal.

2. wget http://gekkoscience.com/misc/cgminer-gekko.tar.gz            

3. tar -xvzf cgminer-gekko.tar.gz

This extracts the files. which are compressed (like a zip file for linux)

4. cd cgminer-gekko
 
Enters the cgminer-gekko folder you just extracted.

5. sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake libtool

You need to install the dependencies for cgminer.

6. ./autogen.sh

This will generate a configure script for you which will set up compiling for your system.

7. ./configure --enable-gekko

This will configure the build.  This is the most likely place to have anything go wrong, if it does, let me know exactly what's up.  Odds are it would be some package that you should have installed.

8. make

Performs the build.  If you get an error there- again, let me know details.

The steps from around the first page was missing a few things (unless novak edited them in).

From updated steps posted later on:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1173963.msg12468048#msg12468048

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 other package's 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

tar xvzf cgminer-gekko.tar.gz

cd cgminer-gekko

./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://whateverpool:XXXX -u poolusername.andworkerifyouwant --compac-freq XXX

These should get you up and running.

[msaleh]

Hello All,
Just wanted to report that I'm running The GekkoScience Stickminer with the official Minera (0.6.2) using cgminer and did not do any other options or settings and all is working great.
I did have an issue with one of the stickminers but a small tweek to the voltage regulator/control fixed the issue.

one thing is the identifier of the GekkoScience Stickminers is given as "AU30" and "AU31". I'm new to all this so I don't know if this is correct or not.
I'm now getting an average of 12 GH/s per stick which is the average of what everyone is getting (right).

Thanks to all. 
 

[cavaliersrus]

yea they show up as au3 nothing bad though it happened to my minera installation

[Jake36]

Hello All,
Just wanted to report that I'm running The GekkoScience Stickminer with the official Minera (0.6.2) using cgminer and did not do any other options or settings and all is working great.
I did have an issue with one of the stickminers but a small tweek to the voltage regulator/control fixed the issue.

one thing is the identifier of the GekkoScience Stickminers is given as "AU30" and "AU31". I'm new to all this so I don't know if this is correct or not.
I'm now getting an average of 12 GH/s per stick which is the average of what everyone is getting (right).

Thanks to all. 
 

yea they show up as au3 nothing bad though it happened to my minera installation

With just the plain cgminer the sticks list as au3's. With cgminer-gekko they list as compac's.

As for hash rate, it all depends on what freq their running at. But for just plugging them in, 12GH/s is good.

I've got some running freq 310 @ ~ 17GH/s and some at freq250 @ ~ 13.7GH/s. You can push them up to over 20GH/s with the right set-up (which I still need to get around to for "all" the stick's, 1 of these days).

[cavaliersrus]

how are you running them at different speeds ? different cgminers or different rigs ?

[notlist3d]

how are you running them at different speeds ? different cgminers or different rigs ?

You can do multiple cgminers pretty easy.  Then you can specify the usb spot for each miner.  Having 2 would not be to bad to do.

I actually ran 2 on for a while as I had these that have the nice gekko-cgminer, but I had some prototypes and europe one I ran as Icarus.

[toptek]

Code:

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 other package's installed to install some of the above, if you do, just add it to the above)

I ended up doing the some thing to get Rev 2 to work and compile .


ended up adding more in case

Code:

sudo apt-get -y install git-core build-essential autoconf automake libtool pkg-config libcurl4-gnutls-dev libjansson-dev uthash-dev libncursesw5-dev libudev-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libevent-dev libmicrohttpd-dev

[Jake36]

how are you running them at different speeds ? different cgminers or different rigs ?

You can do multiple cgminers pretty easy.  Then you can specify the usb spot for each miner.  Having 2 would not be to bad to do.

I actually ran 2 on for a while as I had these that have the nice gekko-cgminer, but I had some prototypes and europe one I ran as Icarus.

Yes, just add "--usb :#" to the comand line, on 1 of my Pi-2's, my rc.local file looks similar to this

sleep 8s
cd /cgminer-gekko
sudo ./cgminer -o pool:3333 -u XXXXX --usb :1 --compac-freq 250 --suggest-freq 8 --widescreen --worktime -o pool:3333 -u XXXXXXX
sleep 8s
sudo ./cgminer -o pool:3333 -u XXXXX --usb :4 --compac-freq 250 --suggest-freq 24 --widescreen --worktime -o pool:3333 -u XXXXXXX
sleep 8s
sudo ./cgminer -o pool:3333 -u XXXXX --usb :5 --compac-freq 350 --suggest-freq 50 --widescreen --worktime -o pool:3333 -u XXXXXXX

--usb :1 finds and runs only 1 stick, --usb :4 finds and runs only 4 sticks, and --usb :5 finds and runs only 5 sticks (I don't really need the --usb :5 on the last one, it would just find how ever many sticks that's left not running and use them).

By the way, the "sleep 8s" is just an 8 second pause between booting up and between cgminer starts, just a little extra time to be fully booted and each cgminer to be started. And because it's in the rc.local file, as soon as the Pi boots, it starts mining.

[cavaliersrus]

interesting going to have to test this out very soon first i need to figure out why my pi is shutting down it will run for a bit then shut off... then i have to power cycle it

i think its cause of how cold it is oustide lately but i dont know if its the pi or if its the sd card having issues

[notlist3d]

interesting going to have to test this out very soon first i need to figure out why my pi is shutting down it will run for a bit then shut off... then i have to power cycle it

i think its cause of how cold it is oustide lately but i dont know if its the pi or if its the sd card having issues

I don't know about that.  I have a 2 RPI's in my mining area with pretty cold winter air and they are not effected on my Avalon's I run off of them.   I would look and see if there is another possible cause.

I could just be lucky but cold does not seem to effect my RPI's.  (Granted high 30-40's F is coldest it's gotten so nothing to crazy yet on winter).

[jstncheney]

One thing more we'd need to know, what cgminer version you are using and what compile flags you used (--enable-icarus, --enable-gekko, etc).

I think I used just the 'enable gekko' command. I ran through the thorough instructions that Novak gave on the first page of this thread. I'll quote everything he posted :

Here's what you'd do to get cgminer on linux going:
1. Open a terminal.

2. wget http://gekkoscience.com/misc/cgminer-gekko.tar.gz            

3. tar -xvzf cgminer-gekko.tar.gz

This extracts the files. which are compressed (like a zip file for linux)

4. cd cgminer-gekko
 
Enters the cgminer-gekko folder you just extracted.

5. sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake libtool

You need to install the dependencies for cgminer.

6. ./autogen.sh

This will generate a configure script for you which will set up compiling for your system.

7. ./configure --enable-gekko

This will configure the build.  This is the most likely place to have anything go wrong, if it does, let me know exactly what's up.  Odds are it would be some package that you should have installed.

8. make

Performs the build.  If you get an error there- again, let me know details.

The steps from around the first page was missing a few things (unless novak edited them in).

From updated steps posted later on:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1173963.msg12468048#msg12468048

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 other package's 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

tar xvzf cgminer-gekko.tar.gz

cd cgminer-gekko

./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://whateverpool:XXXX -u poolusername.andworkerifyouwant --compac-freq XXX

These should get you up and running.

You, my friend, are a saint. Thank you so much.  So one more question. I have two of them plugged in right now. If I were to shutdown the mining, and plugged in another, would i need to change any of my info again? or just retype the cgminer server and username info and start it right up?

[Jake36]

One thing more we'd need to know, what cgminer version you are using and what compile flags you used (--enable-icarus, --enable-gekko, etc).

I think I used just the 'enable gekko' command. I ran through the thorough instructions that Novak gave on the first page of this thread. I'll quote everything he posted :

Here's what you'd do to get cgminer on linux going:
1. Open a terminal.

2. wget http://gekkoscience.com/misc/cgminer-gekko.tar.gz            

3. tar -xvzf cgminer-gekko.tar.gz

This extracts the files. which are compressed (like a zip file for linux)

4. cd cgminer-gekko
 
Enters the cgminer-gekko folder you just extracted.

5. sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake libtool

You need to install the dependencies for cgminer.

6. ./autogen.sh

This will generate a configure script for you which will set up compiling for your system.

7. ./configure --enable-gekko

This will configure the build.  This is the most likely place to have anything go wrong, if it does, let me know exactly what's up.  Odds are it would be some package that you should have installed.

8. make

Performs the build.  If you get an error there- again, let me know details.

The steps from around the first page was missing a few things (unless novak edited them in).

From updated steps posted later on:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1173963.msg12468048#msg12468048

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 other package's 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

tar xvzf cgminer-gekko.tar.gz

cd cgminer-gekko

./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://whateverpool:XXXX -u poolusername.andworkerifyouwant --compac-freq XXX

These should get you up and running.

You, my friend, are a saint. Thank you so much.  So one more question. I have two of them plugged in right now. If I were to shutdown the mining, and plugged in another, would i need to change any of my info again? or just retype the cgminer server and username info and start it right up?

Hot-plug it in (just plug it in) and cgminer will/should just add it, without shutting anything down. But if you do shut down, just start it normally (no need to change anything).

[hedgy73]

Just wondering if an S5 runs 60 chips for total 1150GH/s = 1150/60 = 19.16GH/s.

Whats the optimal settings to achieve this or higher because I'm struggling?

If an S5 can do it then we should be able to .

[aarons6]

Just wondering if an S5 runs 60 chips for total 1150GH/s = 1150/60 = 19.16GH/s.

Whats the optimal settings to achieve this or higher because I'm struggling?

If an S5 can do it then we should be able to .

the s5 is default at 350..

keep in mind you need 2A or so on the 5v line to achieve this.

[hedgy73]

Just wondering if an S5 runs 60 chips for total 1150GH/s = 1150/60 = 19.16GH/s.

Whats the optimal settings to achieve this or higher because I'm struggling?

If an S5 can do it then we should be able to .

the s5 is default at 350..

keep in mind you need 2A or so on the 5v line to achieve this.

Cheers bud perhaps thats what I'm struggling with .

[sidehack]

The S5 is also 12V/15 or 800mV, which is the highest voltage setting possible on an unmodified Compac. That said, I and others have run unmodified Compacs over 400MHz without issue.

[philipma1957]

Just wondering if an S5 runs 60 chips for total 1150GH/s = 1150/60 = 19.16GH/s.

Whats the optimal settings to achieve this or higher because I'm struggling?

If an S5 can do it then we should be able to .

the s5 is default at 350..

keep in mind you need 2A or so on the 5v line to achieve this.

Cheers bud perhaps thats what I'm struggling with .

  so you use a y- cable to 2x your power?

[Biodom]

Just wondering if an S5 runs 60 chips for total 1150GH/s = 1150/60 = 19.16GH/s.

Whats the optimal settings to achieve this or higher because I'm struggling?

If an S5 can do it then we should be able to .

the s5 is default at 350..

keep in mind you need 2A or so on the 5v line to achieve this.

Cheers bud perhaps thats what I'm struggling with .

 so you use a y- cable to 2x your power?

exactly...I am trying to gear up for using Y cables on a Superbpag hub, which by itself is already 2A/slot, so i got some 3A Y's (with a very thick cord)...holding one stick back until i finally setup Debian on a PC in a double boot mode, then it is a go time, hopefully tomorrow.
This stick would be "experimental". Other eight chug along at default (~11GH).
Question to stick gurus: would it be theoretically possible to combine two Y's into a super Y? Essentially combining four slots to power one stick?

[user356546]

exactly...I am trying to gear up for using Y cables on a Superbpag hub, which by itself is already 2A/slot, so i got some 3A Y's (with a very thick cord)...holding one stick back until i finally setup Debian on a PC in a double boot mode, then it is a go time, hopefully tomorrow.
This stick would be "experimental". Other eight chug along at default (~11GH).
Question to stick gurus: would it be theoretically possible to combine two Y's into a super Y? Essentially combining four slots to power one stick?

Could you link the Y-cables? The ones I have all lower my voltage and amperage so it would be great to get something beefier. Thanks!