GekkoScience Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Did you let it run for very long, or turn it off immediately? I got the same error testing 2Pacs on solo.ckpool, but after a minute or so it started accepting shares regularly. Not sure what's the cause.

I let it run for about a minute or two. I'll try letting it run for longer to see if there's a change.

EDIT: I've left it running for about 10-15 minutes now with no change.

Then something else is up outside of my realm. I don't use CGminer though the new sticks look like I'll have to for them. The delay should only be a few min or less. I think with mine and BFGminer it's like a min or 2.

edit: and if you try BFG - remove the Zadig USB driver that CG requires. As I recall it and the one built into BFG do not play well together.

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[gorillazilla9]

Did you let it run for very long, or turn it off immediately? I got the same error testing 2Pacs on solo.ckpool, but after a minute or so it started accepting shares regularly. Not sure what's the cause.

I let it run for about a minute or two. I'll try letting it run for longer to see if there's a change.

EDIT: I've left it running for about 10-15 minutes now with no change.

Then something else is up outside of my realm. I don't use CGminer though the new sticks look like I'll have to for them. The delay should only be a few min or less. I think with mine and BFGminer it's like a min or 2.

edit: and if you try BFG - remove the Zadig USB driver that CG requires. As I recall it and the one built into BFG do not play well together.

I let it run in BFG for a little bit and got one share to go through so far, which is better than I've done in the last 5-6 hours of trying to troubleshoot so thank you

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Yer welcome.
With BFG you can play with clock speed on the fly. Press M for manage device, C for clock speed. With mine and a tiny fan blowing on it I use 317. Press enter to escape and all done. Let it run for a bit and play with speed (higher) until you are still comfortable with HW error rate and temp.

[gorillazilla9]

I think the one accepted share was a fluke. It's only sent one other accepted share and is reading 0.00GH/s. Here's a screenshot.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5ko7f3wzre25x2n/Capture.JPG?dl=0

EDIT: After ten minutes it started operating normally. That's one hell of a start-up time but I'll take it over a dud unit.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

I think the one accepted share was a fluke. It's only sent one other accepted share and is reading 0.00GH/s. Here's a screenshot.
<snip>
EDIT: After ten minutes it started operating normally. That's one hell of a start-up time but I'll take it over a dud unit.

Well once running, play with speed. Mine is at work but methinks 317MHz gives at least 12GHs for last number. Over a day or so of running the 1st number (highest) is around 19.6 or so. Check the OP for speeds that can be used without a fan or high power hub.

[hurricandave]

You guys are overlooking the stats. He is mining to a pool that has set the MINUMUM Share difficulty over 2000.  Many pools won't lower the Min until you hit it at least once. His miners BEST SHARE so far in the screenshot is 75. He's got a ways to go. Now some pools will start hiding work if you don't submit a valid share fast enough, while others will begin lowering diff after a certain amount of time. What mmpool's strategy is I wouldn't know because I've not used it. The message "Share Above Target" really means that your miner submitted work that is not above the minimum share difficulty ie. 1/1 and 2/1 when what you need at mmpool was at least 2.5k/2.5k Diff.

[sidehack]

That's not a general-case truth. I see that error on solo.ckpool with a suggest-diff 4, it calls "share above target" for all submitted shares initially (and all submitted shares are at least diff 4, which the pool is asking for). I also don't see that error on Eligius with an initial diff of 4096 when the stick is only submitting a couple shares an hour.
Seems like "share above target" for a share not above target is a really poorly named error message, so either I'm misunderstanding your explanation or it's incorrect.

Also, admittedly, I've never used BFG. The only time I've ever seen "share above target" was on VH's cgminer fork when mining at ckpool. I don't know how BFG behaves. And honestly anymore I recommend VH's cgminer as outlined in the 2Pac thread; Novak's original Compac code was a rehash of the Icarus driver, and the BFG driver isn't much different, but VH's Gekko driver for cgminer is fully custom-built and handles the sticks much better overall.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

You guys are overlooking the stats. He is mining to a pool that has set the MINUMUM Share difficulty over 2000.  Many pools won't lower the Min until you hit it at least once. His miners BEST SHARE so far in the screenshot is 75. He's got a ways to go. Now some pools will start hiding work if you don't submit a valid share fast enough, while others will begin lowering diff after a certain amount of time. What mmpool's strategy is I wouldn't know because I've not used it. The message "Share Above Target" really means that your miner submitted work that is not above the minimum share difficulty ie. 1/1 and 2/1 when what you need at mmpool was at least 2.5k/2.5k Diff.

Ah... Yes, that will certainly do it. Most pools disconnect slow btc miners.

Point at solo.ckpool.org or AntPool's solo pool. They will take all comers but of course the payout is an all-or-nothing lottery.

[hurricandave]

That's not a general-case truth. I see that error on solo.ckpool with a suggest-diff 4, it calls "share above target" for all submitted shares initially (and all submitted shares are at least diff 4, which the pool is asking for). I also don't see that error on Eligius with an initial diff of 4096 when the stick is only submitting a couple shares an hour.
Seems like "share above target" for a share not above target is a really poorly named error message, so either I'm misunderstanding your explanation or it's incorrect.

Also, admittedly, I've never used BFG. The only time I've ever seen "share above target" was on VH's cgminer fork when mining at ckpool. I don't know how BFG behaves. And honestly anymore I recommend VH's cgminer as outlined in the 2Pac thread; Novak's original Compac code was a rehash of the Icarus driver, and the BFG driver isn't much different, but VH's Gekko driver for cgminer is fully custom-built and handles the sticks much better overall.

 Best that I can put it is Kano once said High Hash = Low Diff, thus I "THINK" the reason "share above target" something about the number of zero's or lack of.
  and a lot of pools simply ignore  suggested-diff, Like I said each pool kinda handles things differently but the target message is a term that comes from the code maybe -ck could shed some light on it.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

And honestly anymore I recommend VH's cgminer as outlined in the 2Pac thread; Novak's original Compac code was a rehash of the Icarus driver, and the BFG driver isn't much different, but VH's Gekko driver for cgminer is fully custom-built and handles the sticks much better overall.
   

Which is why I will use it once I get the new sticks.

Just like when I gave Linux a try again after IBM cut the support cord for OS/2 Warp so long ago <sniff>, trying CGminer back in Feb 2014 left me profound sense of - frustration -- whereas BFG was easy-peasy plug and play for my lil BFL cubes and now my Compac.

[vh]

I just purchased and installed this miner and I've gotten it to run in cgminer, however trying to mine only ever creates rejected shares with the description "Share above target". I'm completely new to cgminer (and to Bitcoin mining in general, I've been dabbling in GUI mining with Nicehash) and am totally baffled as to why this is happening or what to do about it. I've tested multiple mining pools and they all produce the same result.

"share above target" - reject
    the message is the pool saying I don't want what you submitted.

    the pool and the mining software negotiates and settle at a minimum difficulty level at start-up.
    for now, ignore the first hand full of these messages.


no accepted shares -
    if your WU value is above 0, then you just need to wait until it finds a nonce with diff above what the pool is asking for.
    i would assume WU is above 0 as your software tried to submit low diff shares.
    most pools will eventually start asking less of you while you are connected (can take a while)
    some pools will let you set a value for your miner in there interface.
    on cgminer, you can tag a suggested diff to try to use during startup negotiating.
        --suggest-diff 32

[vh]

... The only time I've ever seen "share above target" was on VH's cgminer fork when mining at ckpool.

Back in december (coincidental timing), -ck changed the starting diff of solo.ckpool.org to 4000.   Somewhere between cgminer startup and settling at the suggested-diff, some low diff shares make it through where submitted nonce is > suggested-diff, < 4000, and you get a few of these messages.

[Biodom]

in any case, i remember researching this and slush's was 10gh minimum:
https://slushpool.com/help/#!/first-aid/troubleshooting

so, slushpool should work just fine, especially if several sticks=1 worker

[gorillazilla9]

You guys are overlooking the stats. He is mining to a pool that has set the MINUMUM Share difficulty over 2000.  Many pools won't lower the Min until you hit it at least once. His miners BEST SHARE so far in the screenshot is 75. He's got a ways to go. Now some pools will start hiding work if you don't submit a valid share fast enough, while others will begin lowering diff after a certain amount of time. What mmpool's strategy is I wouldn't know because I've not used it. The message "Share Above Target" really means that your miner submitted work that is not above the minimum share difficulty ie. 1/1 and 2/1 when what you need at mmpool was at least 2.5k/2.5k Diff.

Probably a stupid question but is there any way to increase the difficulty on my stick? It starts out around 20 but then over time increases drastically (currently 829 after 5 minutes). Is there any way to accelerate that process? I'm very new to this so I don't completely understand what the difficulty factor is related to (I assume it has something to do with hashrate).

EDIT: I learned a little more by playing around with it. I'm using slushpool now for its very low minimum share difficulty of 9 and I'm submitting shares at a rate of about one per second. However, something like 80-90% of the shares the stick tries to send are still below the minimum difficulty. Is there a way to prevent it from even attempting to work on shares below the minimum difficulty? It seems like a waste of power and efficiency.

[leowonderful]

in any case, i remember researching this and slush's was 10gh minimum:
https://slushpool.com/help/#!/first-aid/troubleshooting

so, slushpool should work just fine, especially if several sticks=1 worker

I've run on slush with block erupter sticks just a week ago so there is definitely almost no minimum as long as a device can hit the minimum share difficulty.

[philipma1957]

You guys are overlooking the stats. He is mining to a pool that has set the MINUMUM Share difficulty over 2000.  Many pools won't lower the Min until you hit it at least once. His miners BEST SHARE so far in the screenshot is 75. He's got a ways to go. Now some pools will start hiding work if you don't submit a valid share fast enough, while others will begin lowering diff after a certain amount of time. What mmpool's strategy is I wouldn't know because I've not used it. The message "Share Above Target" really means that your miner submitted work that is not above the minimum share difficulty ie. 1/1 and 2/1 when what you need at mmpool was at least 2.5k/2.5k Diff.

Probably a stupid question but is there any way to increase the difficulty on my stick? It starts out around 20 but then over time increases drastically (currently 829 after 5 minutes). Is there any way to accelerate that process? I'm very new to this so I don't completely understand what the difficulty factor is related to (I assume it has something to do with hashrate).

EDIT: I learned a little more by playing around with it. I'm using slushpool now for its very low minimum share difficulty of 9 and I'm submitting shares at a rate of about one per second. However, something like 80-90% of the shares the stick tries to send are still below the minimum difficulty. Is there a way to prevent it from even attempting to work on shares below the minimum difficulty? It seems like a waste of power and efficiency.

Can you toss a pair of dice  and always go over 7?

Nope

Same with a stick or any asic.

They will toss small shares.

[-ck]

   some pools will let you set a value for your miner in there interface.
    on cgminer, you can tag a suggested diff to try to use during startup negotiating.
        --suggest-diff 32

This will work on any ckpool based pool such as solo.ckpool.org .  I'm not sure how much vh's cgminer fork varies from the master cgminer but it should work, worst case scenario it might take up to a minute to negotiate the diff, and solo does a redirect after a successful share so it may happen twice. There is no lower limit on hashrate to work on solo and there are many very low hashrate stick miners there.

[leowonderful]

You guys are overlooking the stats. He is mining to a pool that has set the MINUMUM Share difficulty over 2000.  Many pools won't lower the Min until you hit it at least once. His miners BEST SHARE so far in the screenshot is 75. He's got a ways to go. Now some pools will start hiding work if you don't submit a valid share fast enough, while others will begin lowering diff after a certain amount of time. What mmpool's strategy is I wouldn't know because I've not used it. The message "Share Above Target" really means that your miner submitted work that is not above the minimum share difficulty ie. 1/1 and 2/1 when what you need at mmpool was at least 2.5k/2.5k Diff.

Probably a stupid question but is there any way to increase the difficulty on my stick? It starts out around 20 but then over time increases drastically (currently 829 after 5 minutes). Is there any way to accelerate that process? I'm very new to this so I don't completely understand what the difficulty factor is related to (I assume it has something to do with hashrate).

EDIT: I learned a little more by playing around with it. I'm using slushpool now for its very low minimum share difficulty of 9 and I'm submitting shares at a rate of about one per second. However, something like 80-90% of the shares the stick tries to send are still below the minimum difficulty. Is there a way to prevent it from even attempting to work on shares below the minimum difficulty? It seems like a waste of power and efficiency.

Can you toss a pair of dice  and always go over 7?

Nope

Same with a stick or any asic.

They will toss small shares.

That's pretty odd- running a Compac at 300mhz, I get plenty of high shares and I can hit around one or two 2000 shares every now and then. It is true small miners like small share numbers but they also get higher shares every now and then. Even if the min diff is a little high your stick will still hit the share in time.

[philipma1957]

You guys are overlooking the stats. He is mining to a pool that has set the MINUMUM Share difficulty over 2000.  Many pools won't lower the Min until you hit it at least once. His miners BEST SHARE so far in the screenshot is 75. He's got a ways to go. Now some pools will start hiding work if you don't submit a valid share fast enough, while others will begin lowering diff after a certain amount of time. What mmpool's strategy is I wouldn't know because I've not used it. The message "Share Above Target" really means that your miner submitted work that is not above the minimum share difficulty ie. 1/1 and 2/1 when what you need at mmpool was at least 2.5k/2.5k Diff.

Probably a stupid question but is there any way to increase the difficulty on my stick? It starts out around 20 but then over time increases drastically (currently 829 after 5 minutes). Is there any way to accelerate that process? I'm very new to this so I don't completely understand what the difficulty factor is related to (I assume it has something to do with hashrate).

EDIT: I learned a little more by playing around with it. I'm using slushpool now for its very low minimum share difficulty of 9 and I'm submitting shares at a rate of about one per second. However, something like 80-90% of the shares the stick tries to send are still below the minimum difficulty. Is there a way to prevent it from even attempting to work on shares below the minimum difficulty? It seems like a waste of power and efficiency.

Can you toss a pair of dice  and always go over 7?

Nope

Same with a stick or any asic.

They will toss small shares.

That's pretty odd- running a Compac at 300mhz, I get plenty of high shares and I can hit around one or two 2000 shares every now and then. It is true small miners like small share numbers but they also get higher shares every now and then. Even if the min diff is a little high your stick will still hit the share in time.

Sorry I was trying to answer the question how to prevent small shares. The answer I gave was not clear enough .

The best way to explain this is any miner will toss little shares and you can not prevent that.

I left this part out any miner will toss medium size shares and large shares.

It is the nature of the random al- gore-rhythm that the ASIC is using to toss shares at random within the guidelines of the coin.

[gorillazilla9]

Thanks guys I'm understanding all this now. I've been playing around with the clock settings and voltage, and after dialing the voltage to .77V (I don't have a voltmeter on me so that's based off the picture at the beginning of this thread) I was able to hold 300 MHz for ten minutes before the stick seemingly crashed and couldn't be recognized as a device by both cgminer and Windows. After unplugging it for a little bit I got it working again and it's been humming along at 290MHz with no issues for well over an hour now.

I've seen plenty of posts where people get their compacs to run at 20GH/s (I'm sitting at 15GH/s) so I'm wondering what I'd need to do to get it there without crashing. Do I need to dial up the voltage more? Or is the current draw insufficient (I have it in a 3.0 USB port on the front of my desktop)?