GekkoScience Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread

[Timbo_Slice]

Zadig is a tool used to install libusb "driver" for use with cgminer. Because there is a difference in the way BFGMiner and CGMiner have been written, the tool is NOT used for BFGMiner and you must remove Zadig and reinstall the Silabs cp210x driver for BFGMiner to work with USB devices.

Ok, I didn't know the driver install would negatively effect BFGminer, I guess I need to just stick with one mining software! I installed the Slilabs driver (found a download link by Googling) and now the Compac shows the Slilabs driver when I select the Compac with Zadig (but not installing the WinUSB driver again), but I'm still getting the same error message in BFGminer.

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[Mikestang]

the tool is NOT used for BFGMiner and you must remove Zadig and reinstall the Silabs cp210x driver for BFGMiner to work with USB devices.

You do not remove Zadig, it doesn't even get "installed", it's just a stand alone executable.  If you zadig'd a compac but want to use it with bfgminer now you need to unplug the stick and then go to device manager and turn on hidden devices and then delete the usb stick from the device list.  Then just plug it back in and you are good to go with bfg.

[sidetrax]

Hey there,

I kind of have a problem with my stick (don't know whether it is me or the stick ).
I'm using
- BFGMiner 5.4.1 on Mac OS X 10.11.4. Binary is from FabulousPanda.
- Anker 7-Port with a max of 3000mA output.
- 2 small fans for cooling (should be more than enough)

I'm using the following command to fire up BFGMiner:
./bfgminer -o stratum+tcp://uk1.ghash.io:3333 --set compac:clock=x0c03 -u xxxxxxx.worker1 -p xxxxxxxx

The problem is I can't go higher with the frequency. Adjusting the voltage does not help anything.
If I go higher than 156 Hz, after about a minute the stick becomes unresponsive (no blue light anymore), BFGMiner slowly drops the Gh/s.
Tried this with max voltage. Decreasing the voltage at 156 Hz increases hardware errors, but stick continues to work.

Am I doing anything else wrong?

Thanks for any help.
I looked through most of the thread and used google but did not quite find the solution.
Pointing me in the right direction, or answer is most appreciated. ;-)

[sidehack]

I'm pretty sure that bfgminer suport decimal freq, not hex.

5.4.0+ bfg supports decimal frequencies, 5.3.0 still used hex, so unless he's building an old version yes, it should be decimal.

Probably somewhere to start. It's weird to me how many people still try and use hex for compac clock with BFG though it hasn't been in there for over six months.

If you start BFG without setting the compac clock, what happens? It should default to 225MHz.

[sidetrax]

Thanks for your reply.
Yes, you are right. I read about the hex-dec-thing today but didn't have a chance to try it yet.

When starting BFG without clock settings, it has the same behaviour I just mentioned.
Stick becomes unresponsive. Have to disconnect power and reconnect it.
It runs for about a minute and 20 secs...
Second try: 1 min 8 secs...

[sidehack]

Weird. Sounds heat-related.

[sidetrax]

Unfortunately not heat-related.

At work I checked with a heat sensor. It does not go beyond 5-10 degrees above room temperature (heat sink).
I removed the heat sink and it stays at 45 °C (113 °F) (mesured directly at the chip.

1 min 20 secs. That's the reproducible time at 200 MHz, when the stick becomes unresponsive...

[kahir]

I am really trying to closely watch this thread for nix scripts, (Debian seems popular on OLD notebooks which I have many so no Pi for me) but apologies real life is my priority .. I do intend to run cgminer/BFGMiner under windows and Ubuntu.. well.. soonish

[cityviber16]

Hi there!
I understand this is a topic you've probably gone over a million times but im new to all this and im not quite getting it..
I've got my miner up and running but i'm only getting 6-7Gh/s. Can someone explain how I can get higher numbers? (aiming for 14-16 GH/s if possible.) I'm just trying to learn how it all works and ive tried everything ive found in this thread but nothing seems to work..
thanks for any helpers!
Screenshot
http://s32.postimg.org/5hfddri11/Untitled.png

[Mikestang]

You are probably operating at stock frequency, you need to up the frequency via the command line (and adjust the voltage pot to eliminate HW errors) to see your hash rate improve.  Depending whether you use cgminer or bfgminer the commands are a little different.

[cityviber16]

Thanks for the quick reply!
I use Cgminer 4.9.2. How do I change this? (how do get the command line up and what do I write?)
Sorry for the 'beginner' attitude:D
 

[sidehack]

From the first post of the first page of this thread, which answers most every question a person could possibly ask not caused by faulty hardware:

=========
=How to Run=
=========

GekkoScience cgminer:

./cgminer -o stratum+tcp://stratum.mining.eligius.st:3334 -u 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr --compac-freq 150

===============
=Expected Performance=
===============
The expected performance of the chip is 0.055*MHz=GH.  For example, 200MHz gives 11 GH (max theoretical expectation).

See the --compac-freq 150 there in the sample command line? That sets the Compac's frequency to 150MHz. Which, by the handy formula, gets you 8.25GH

[cityviber16]

Perfect! Got it working slightly faster at 11GH/s! One thing, I went a bit higher at 300 and i got 0GH/s.. and then said Zombie? Is this because the usb on my laptop isnt powerful enough? I'm only using a direct port off my laptop usb 3.0

[vapourminer]

many (most?) laptop usb ports will not give enough power to go much past stock speeds.

to try, crank the voltage pot up a bit, but make sure you have some cooling. past stock speeds compacs need a bit of a breeze.

[ZedZedNova]

Perfect! Got it working slightly faster at 11GH/s! One thing, I went a bit higher at 300 and i got 0GH/s.. and then said Zombie? Is this because the usb on my laptop isnt powerful enough? I'm only using a direct port off my laptop usb 3.0

Yes. It would seem that most people using Compacs beyond the stock settings are using a powered (by an external power supply, not "bus powered') USB hub, and have various fans. Look through the earlier posts in this thread for some pictures. There are some really nice set-ups, and some "Frankenstein" rigs that look really cool. 

I have my Compac in it's own separate/dedicated USB 2.0 hub, and have a USB powered fan running off a second powered USB 2.0 hub that I use for all my other USB devices (phones, tablets, gopro, LED Christmas tree, etc.).

Following the instructions in the OP of this thread I turned up the core voltage to ~0.800v and use cgminer-gekko to run the Compac at 325Mhz which yields a nice stable ~17.9GH/s with no hardware errors.

- zed

[cityviber16]

Bit better in terms of performance! Still tweaking haha
http://s32.postimg.org/74axd429x/IMG_4860.jpg

Thanks for the help you guys:)

[Mikestang]

Bit better in terms of performance! Still tweaking haha
http://s32.postimg.org/74axd429x/IMG_4860.jpg

Thanks for the help you guys:)

Great, now just pick a different pool to mine at, do not support spv mining or empty blocks.

[CjMapope]

Bit better in terms of performance! Still tweaking haha
http://s32.postimg.org/74axd429x/IMG_4860.jpg

Thanks for the help you guys:)

Great, now just pick a different pool to mine at, do not support spv mining or empty blocks.

agreed! and have some fun with it, your honestly gonna bring in like 10,000 satoshi a day or less there at f2pool

check out  http://mining.securepayment.cc/    if you ever wanna play some solo games .  (Phil has hit a peercoin block there with his sticks)
or maybe a multipool? you can get paid in some cool coins!

if you can get powered hub your pic looks like good setup for easy 15-18 gh/s  mine are at 290mh/z 16.5gh/s no errors with powered hub

either way, congrats on STICKIN to mining  ;p haha   

[Shiroslullaby]

Im running two sticks plugged into the motherboard on a VMWare ESXI 5.1 host I have. VM runs Linux 4.2.0-27 generic 14.04.1 Ubuntu.
(It runs a local DNS server so I figured I would get a little more use out of the box and have it mine some USB sticks while it did DNS)

I've been getting pretty decent speeds but I often get the "Gekko detect failed to initialise (incorrect device?). 
when I start mining. (Im testing different speeds etc so I restart a few times a week)

It usually works fine if I restart CGminer a couple times. Is this common or something I can troubleshoot with my setup?

[sidehack]

Could be a power limitation.