GekkoScience Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread

[sidehack]

When you say "other devices" are they USB2 devices?

Do a quick search in this thread and you'll find a bucket of discussion on hubs and configurations. I don't care at all about USB3 for stick miners, since the data throughput is less than USB1.1 standard and the increased power of USB3 is mostly just a paperwork thing (I've pulled 3A per port through well-built USB2 hubs). But there is a lot of info on good hubs in this thread.

[Percivul]

I did, but admittedly I'm a bit lost with the sheer volume of info.

Perhaps you could simply give me a recommendation on a good powered hub to get?  Preferably with 6-10 ports?

Or if you can point to a place in the forums where people are talking about such things, I'll happily go read that.

To answer your question, the devices I've had connected are things like mouse, keyboard and usb 3 HD's (powered off the hub).

It's only been the Gekko sticks that have not wanted to cooperate.

Thanks for the fast response.

[sidehack]

The search bar visible while navigating the thread should search only within the thread. I don't really have recommendations for hubs myself, since except for a 49-port from Klintay for testing batches I've only used cheapo $8 hubs hacked for higher current. Phil and some others have had extensive talks in this thread about hubs; it might not be the best single source for hub advice but since this is about the only stickminer from the last two years and also about the most watt-hungry stick ever made, this thread probably has the best recent info.

[Percivul]

Actually, in talking to you and giving it further thought, I did find a work around.  The anker 10 port 60W USB 3.0 hub works, but the trick is to make certain that the root connection is only attached to a USB post that is 2.0 or lower.  Letting Windows install the default (generic USB Hub) drivers basically turns the hub into a no name 2.0 powered hub.  Now the chip is humming along so I finally get to play with voltage and frequency settings.  Thanks for the help.

Oh, I should not for anyone else looking at this, if you check power consumption under windows, it's only going to report that the port is running at 500ma but the hub itself supplies higher than this so it looks like it's working as intended, even if it doesn't report the proper voltage to the OS (proper as in what is ACTUALLY being used).

[philipma1957]

Actually, in talking to you and giving it further thought, I did find a work around.  The anker 10 port 60W USB 3.0 hub works, but the trick is to make certain that the root connection is only attached to a USB post that is 2.0 or lower.  Letting Windows install the default (generic USB Hub) drivers basically turns the hub into a no name 2.0 powered hub.  Now the chip is humming along so I finally get to play with voltage and frequency settings.  Thanks for the help.

Oh, I should not for anyone else looking at this, if you check power consumption under windows, it's only going to report that the port is running at 500ma but the hub itself supplies higher than this so it looks like it's working as intended, even if it doesn't report the proper voltage to the OS (proper as in what is ACTUALLY being used).

yep  good work on your part.

back in the day when I used to run 50 to 100 sticks. the original asic miner sticks.

I had a hub  that would let me hook up to 7  sticks it was  best hub  ever  for adding more hubs  I would put  7 usb3 hubs in it and all problems were solved.

[Percivul]

In my case, I'm kind of on a mission to see if there's ANY pools out there that are still somewhat profitable, or at least able to break even on cost at a years time.  The one thing I have in my favor is a limitless energy supply at no cost (which is why I even got into it).

As of now, I have the 1 Gekko and have been slowly upping the volts on it to find what the max is this baby will take (with a fan, of course).  I THINK the Anker block should be able to hold at least 5 or possibly 6 of these and at least 1 fan.  If I can work that part of it out, I may then start working on a Rpi build but I'll probably need to get another hub all together as it simply will not recognize the hub at all (even though it is capable of switching to USB 2.0 mode).

Does anyone have any suggestions on decent pools?  Or at least pools that still pay at a fair rate for shares?  I know it's a long shot, but there we are.

[philipma1957]

In my case, I'm kind of on a mission to see if there's ANY pools out there that are still somewhat profitable, or at least able to break even on cost at a years time.  The one thing I have in my favor is a limitless energy supply at no cost (which is why I even got into it).

As of now, I have the 1 Gekko and have been slowly upping the volts on it to find what the max is this baby will take (with a fan, of course).  I THINK the Anker block should be able to hold at least 5 or possibly 6 of these and at least 1 fan.  If I can work that part of it out, I may then start working on a Rpi build but I'll probably need to get another hub all together as it simply will not recognize the hub at all (even though it is capable of switching to USB 2.0 mode).

Does anyone have any suggestions on decent pools?  Or at least pools that still pay at a fair rate for shares?  I know it's a long shot, but there we are.

I think bitminter may allow you to accumulate your earnings .

A lot of pools won't work with 50gh or lower

[Percivul]

Right, I was reading that somewhere.  The goal I have is to fill at least one USB hub (4 or more) so I should have a combined hash of at least 60-75.  With the one stick running at 15.28 GH/s I'm thinking I should be able to at least see some shares coming in.  Again, I'm not worried about making a living on this by any means and I'm fully prepared to never even see a complete return on the investment, but I'm one of those guys who likes to see what I can do with what I have.

I'll give bitminter a look.  If you have any other suggestions, I'm always open.  Thanks.

[Percivul]

Ok guys, something really weird is going on here.

So I elected to go with Nicehash and they require you to use bfgminer in order to use their stratum.  Fine.

So, I go through their info, setup the commands for bfgminer (I was careful to double check and verify the clock speed and setting being that it's in hex).

Started out with comm errors and disconnects but then all of a sudden, my mining hash jumped to something around 95 GH/s and of course, errors started creeping up.

I went back and double checked the settings again.  The hex is correct (  { 250,          0x0982 }  ) but it's still WAY too high up there and it shouldn't be.

So, when I put in the switch --set compac:clock=x0982 shouldn't that have locked the chip speed at 250?  I expect to see hashes around 14-16 GH/s with those settings, but not 4 times that amount.

I've shut the miner down and am on another one for the time being (which is using CGMiner and working fine) but I'd like to get back to Nicehash or at the very least, try to figure out why I'm suddenly turbo charging the chip when I'm not wanting to do that.

Any thoughts guys??

[aarons6]

Ok guys, something really weird is going on here.

So I elected to go with Nicehash and they require you to use bfgminer in order to use their stratum.  Fine.

So, I go through their info, setup the commands for bfgminer (I was careful to double check and verify the clock speed and setting being that it's in hex).

Started out with comm errors and disconnects but then all of a sudden, my mining hash jumped to something around 95 GH/s and of course, errors started creeping up.

I went back and double checked the settings again.  The hex is correct (  { 250,          0x0982 }  ) but it's still WAY too high up there and it shouldn't be.

So, when I put in the switch --set compac:clock=x0982 shouldn't that have locked the chip speed at 250?  I expect to see hashes around 14-16 GH/s with those settings, but not 4 times that amount.

I've shut the miner down and am on another one for the time being (which is using CGMiner and working fine) but I'd like to get back to Nicehash or at the very least, try to figure out why I'm suddenly turbo charging the chip when I'm not wanting to do that.

Any thoughts guys??

i dont think you need hex for bfgminer anymore.. just --set compac:clock=250 should work.. also these things are too slow for NH..
if you want to use with a multipool try zpool.ca it pays more then NH too..

[sidehack]

Yeah, the latest version or two use integer frequency instead of hex. Check the changelogs.

[zOU]

but if the difficulty is still 8192, won't cgminer just do the same thing in a few mins without shares submitted even IF he just "replugs the miner"?
cause isn't it doing that because of the high dif?
just saying, telling someone to "reboot it" dosen't really give a solution is all haha

my advice has been proven to be a solution several times already.

search the thread for "unplug" and you'll see.

[gt_addict]

Just adding to the thread really and have no advice to give about the above issues, but my two gekkos #10000031 and #10000566 just got a 143M bestshare.  

[jamesyarno]

I'm using cgminer just fine with with nicehash...

cgminer.exe -o stratum+tcp://sha256.usa.nicehash.com:3334 -u 1Jqh3TxH4VFHuU84NJUN3VvYSNfXnWuSU -p x --compac-freq 200

[Percivul]

If you don't mind my asking, are you having to deal with constant drops or anything like that with them?

I'm liking the way they do their pay system so I'd like to stick with them, if possible.

[Percivul]

Hey Sidehack, could I impose upon you to compile a gekko version of cg miner for windows that includes the xtranonce support?

I found a github repost about it but I'm absolute rubbish at compiling and whatnot.  I'd love to see support for this option with the Gekko miner.

Thanks in advance.

https://github.com/nicehash/cgminer-ckolivas/pull/13

[aciphexdnb]

Hello guys,

Rescently i've obtained my Compac stick, and ever since i have not gotten it to work up to satisfaction. Here's what I've tried.

- Running it on Windows, Ubuntu, Raspbian and Minibian without luck.
- Running all the clock speeds
- Running all voltage settings, at the moment i'm approximately on 7,8v
- Suggesting different difficulties with the --suggest-diff flag
- Mining on different pools (Slush's, BCMonster and Bitminter)

The white and purple light are constantly illuminated, but the stick does get warm. I have gotten it to hash on the windows machine, but after 10 or so seconds it stopped and just gave me the LIBUSB_SUCCESS message again.

Could anyone give me a pointer on what to try next, or is my stick just dead?

I can provide logs later if anyone is interested.

Cheers.

[aarons6]

Hello guys,

Rescently i've obtained my Compac stick, and ever since i have not gotten it to work up to satisfaction. Here's what I've tried.

- Running it on Windows, Ubuntu, Raspbian and Minibian without luck.
- Running all the clock speeds
- Running all voltage settings, at the moment i'm approximately on 7,8v
- Suggesting different difficulties with the --suggest-diff flag
- Mining on different pools (Slush's, BCMonster and Bitminter)

The white and purple light are constantly illuminated, but the stick does get warm. I have gotten it to hash on the windows machine, but after 10 or so seconds it stopped and just gave me the LIBUSB_SUCCESS message again.

Could anyone give me a pointer on what to try next, or is my stick just dead?

I can provide logs later if anyone is interested.

Cheers.

how many and what hub are you using?

i have 5 of them on an anker 10 port 60w hub running at .650mv @ 225.. unfortunately this is right at .98A and any more then that makes the hub reboot.

this hub
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005NGQWL2/ref=psdc_281413_t1_B00VDVCQ84

[aciphexdnb]

I'm currently using this one https://www.amazon.com/Transcend-Information-SuperSpeed-USB-TS-HUB3K/dp/B005D69QD8 with only one stickminer attached. I wanted the anker one as well but couldn't get it in my region.

Cheers.

[aarons6]

I'm currently using this one https://www.amazon.com/Transcend-Information-SuperSpeed-USB-TS-HUB3K/dp/B005D69QD8 with only one stickminer attached. I wanted the anker one as well but couldn't get it in my region.

Cheers.

do you have it plugged into the fast charging port??

it doesnt say what the other ports power limit is.. the fast charging one, with the lightning bolt, might not work with the usb stick.. those are made for iphones and ipads..

the other ones might only do .9 amps... so you would be limited to 225 @ 650mv