GekkoScience Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread

[sidehack]

600mV is about right for 100MHz up to maybe 150. Also I misspoke - they're tested to 200MHz at 640-660mV before shipping. A Vcore of 0.6 at 200MHz will return nothing but errors.

Regarding grounding, it depends what you mean by "external reference ground". As long as it's tied to local ground of the stick, it's ground. The Reset pad just need to be taken below about 1V and the chip will reset. This isn't tied into hashing at all though, so it's entirely possible (indeed likely) it won't reinitialize correctly and start hashing.

[ParaplegicRacehorse]

For now, I just want to get it set up for unattended passive cooling so I can goof with it more when I get back home in December. I imagine this will be easier when my hub arrives. It's likely to provide better power.

Also, this is probably the wrong sub-forum to ask this, but how do I get the TUI in cgminer? Both the vh- fork and stock ckolivas give me readouts similar to cpuminer and doesn't accept the menu commands. libncurses5-dev is properly installed (was needed to compile bfgminer). bfgminer displays as per screenshots I've seen posted.

[sidehack]

I've never used BFG so I honestly don't know what you're asking for. CGminer runs pretty much entirely on command-line flags with a basic menu as documented in the README files.

I recommend purchasing a USB power meter that'll display how much current the stick is eating while running. Sounds to me like it's drawing way too much power. For reference I have a stick here cooking at 4.2W and it's too hot to hold onto for very long but not too hot to touch. Appropriate stable voltage for 100MHz should not be uncomfortable. Given the stick is running hot but also throwing errors, I'd consider the voltage is stuck on too-high and it's been run hot for too long so the ASIC is just about dead.

[ParaplegicRacehorse]

I've never used BFG so I honestly don't know what you're asking for. CGminer runs pretty much entirely on command-line flags with a basic menu as documented in the README files.

bfgminer behaved as expected. I did get cgminer TUI sorted. Apparently libncurses had been removed during an autoremove sequence. Oops.

I recommend purchasing a USB power meter that'll display how much current the stick is eating while running. Sounds to me like it's drawing way too much power. For reference I have a stick here cooking at 4.2W and it's too hot to hold onto for very long but not too hot to touch. Appropriate stable voltage for 100MHz should not be uncomfortable. Given the stick is running hot but also throwing errors, I'd consider the voltage is stuck on too-high and it's been run hot for too long so the ASIC is just about dead.

It's on the list but even if ordered today, it's unlikely to arrive before I fly out to work. :sigh: That means it'll have to wait until I get home in December for troubleshooting unless the powered hub I have coming sorts it out, which is possible but unlikely.

As soon as cgminer finishes compiling, I'll get some vcore measurements and fiddle with the pot to see what happens.

[sidehack]

Okay, now I understand what you were looking for on cgminer. Yeah I had the same problem a couple weeks ago while setting up test stations for production 2Pacs.

[ParaplegicRacehorse]

cgminer sorted out.

vcore was way up at 0.78v (meter designed for MUCH higher voltages and currents; only reads to two decimals; first I've ever seen decimals on it - don't usually worry about them when dealing with 6kvAC or 300vDC). Dialed the pot down and was gratified to see the voltage drop. Settled on 0.60v at 150MHz, 8.1-ish GH/s 0HWerr. The heat sink is still too hot to touch for more than 15 or 20 seconds, but I have heat sensitive fingers. I don't have a reliable way to measure the temp but I feel comfortable leaving it here for passive cooling. I'm still hoping moving it to hub with known power ratings will help.

[sidehack]

That sounds about like it's supposed to behave. Glad you got it sorted.

[silentwarrior]

Got my 2 sticks. Working great out of the box at stock frequency with cgminer 4.9.2 master with xnsub patches (initializing as AU3-GS10000). With this setup theyre hashing happily alongside 2 old Rockminer R-Boxes. For a whopping total hash rate of 82G or so.

Probably wont get to tweak them until this weekend. Looking forward to it though.

Hello WBF1, would it be possible to share how you patched cgminer with xnsub or is there any step by step guide you can point me to, I'm new in all of this and still couldn't figure out how to patch. i'm trying to use on nicehash.com

[aarons6]

Got my 2 sticks. Working great out of the box at stock frequency with cgminer 4.9.2 master with xnsub patches (initializing as AU3-GS10000). With this setup theyre hashing happily alongside 2 old Rockminer R-Boxes. For a whopping total hash rate of 82G or so.

Probably wont get to tweak them until this weekend. Looking forward to it though.

Hello WBF1, would it be possible to share how you patched cgminer with xnsub or is there any step by step guide you can point me to, I'm new in all of this and still couldn't figure out how to patch. i'm trying to use on nicehash.com

to be honest it's probably not even worth it.. you dont need xnsub to mine on NH.

[c0rp0rat353110ut]

So... new to the forum and the Bitcoin lottery chase, and I wanted to say thanks to everyone here for being such a great resource!!!

I took me only 45 minutes to set up my 4 sticks in my Anker hub w/usb fan (under my home-studio worktable).  Using cgminer 4.10 after Zadig-ing my sticks.  Created a simple windows batch file to run from.  Currently at 225Mhz nice and cool.  Monitoring for a week or so and then may overclock even further.

https://i.imgur.com/eaDaL0o.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/hSxn9Er.png

Again - I found everything I needed right here - just too cool.

[c0rp0rat353110ut]

So... new to the forum and the Bitcoin lottery chase, and I wanted to say thanks to everyone here for being such a great resource!!!

I took me only 45 minutes to set up my 4 sticks in my Anker hub w/usb fan (under my home-studio worktable).  Using cgminer 4.10 after Zadig-ing my sticks.  Created a simple windows batch file to run from.  Currently at 225Mhz nice and cool.  Monitoring for a week or so and then may overclock even further.

https://i.imgur.com/eaDaL0o.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/hSxn9Er.png

Again - I found everything I needed right here - just too cool.

And with a little voltage adjustment, up to 275MHz.  They are warm but not hot - the fan is doing it's job.

https://i.imgur.com/JwnQZBb.png

[c0rp0rat353110ut]

Regarding HW errors: 

- How long should I give my current 275MHz OC before upping the freq even more? 
- I have zero errors so far after a couple of hours. 

My goal is 300MHz.

Thanks, all!

[leowonderful]

Regarding HW errors: 

- How long should I give my current 275MHz OC before upping the freq even more? 
- I have zero errors so far after a couple of hours. 

My goal is 300MHz.

Thanks, all!

Depends how much power each port supplies. Depending on how much it is, a Y cable might be required to provide enough power to the ASIC. After that 300mhz+ is easily reachable provided you have the right frequency settings.

[c0rp0rat353110ut]

cgminer sorted out.

vcore was way up at 0.78v (meter designed for MUCH higher voltages and currents; only reads to two decimals; first I've ever seen decimals on it - don't usually worry about them when dealing with 6kvAC or 300vDC). Dialed the pot down and was gratified to see the voltage drop. Settled on 0.60v at 150MHz, 8.1-ish GH/s 0HWerr. The heat sink is still too hot to touch for more than 15 or 20 seconds, but I have heat sensitive fingers. I don't have a reliable way to measure the temp but I feel comfortable leaving it here for passive cooling. I'm still hoping moving it to hub with known power ratings will help.

As a day-1 newbie, I can tell you that a hub with a supplemental usb-powered fan makes all the difference in the world.  I am currently running (4) of these little guys in an 10-port powered Anker hub with zero errors at 275Mhz, 15gH/s each.  Haven't used my voltmeter yet, but the sinks and PCB under the chip are very warm but not hot at all.  Going to up the freq +5MHz daily until I draw errors or hit 300MHz, whichever comes first.

This forum, along with the README for cgminer made it surprisingly simple.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

My Compac runs @ 312.5MHz with 1 HW error maybe every 2 days. Decent USB charging hub that is supposed to provide up to 2.5A per-port groups, 7 ports for total of 60W. It's also feeds 2x of Sidehack's (Gekko)  2PAC sticks

Yes, even with a fan blowing on them they are quite warm but then again, seems mining ASICS love high temps.

[ppetrovic68]

cgminer sorted out.

vcore was way up at 0.78v (meter designed for MUCH higher voltages and currents; only reads to two decimals; first I've ever seen decimals on it - don't usually worry about them when dealing with 6kvAC or 300vDC). Dialed the pot down and was gratified to see the voltage drop. Settled on 0.60v at 150MHz, 8.1-ish GH/s 0HWerr. The heat sink is still too hot to touch for more than 15 or 20 seconds, but I have heat sensitive fingers. I don't have a reliable way to measure the temp but I feel comfortable leaving it here for passive cooling. I'm still hoping moving it to hub with known power ratings will help.

As a day-1 newbie, I can tell you that a hub with a supplemental usb-powered fan makes all the difference in the world.  I am currently running (4) of these little guys in an 10-port powered Anker hub with zero errors at 275Mhz, 15gH/s each.  Haven't used my voltmeter yet, but the sinks and PCB under the chip are very warm but not hot at all.  Going to up the freq +5MHz daily until I draw errors or hit 300MHz, whichever comes first.

This forum, along with the README for cgminer made it surprisingly simple.

Until someone with more experience with stick OCing jumps in I guess you could try upping the frequency until you start getting HWs and then upping the vcore just enough to stop getting HWs.
The goal is, as I understood it, to have the lowest vcore possible for target frequency (with higher frequencies requiring higher voltage, obviously).

[c0rp0rat353110ut]

cgminer sorted out.

vcore was way up at 0.78v (meter designed for MUCH higher voltages and currents; only reads to two decimals; first I've ever seen decimals on it - don't usually worry about them when dealing with 6kvAC or 300vDC). Dialed the pot down and was gratified to see the voltage drop. Settled on 0.60v at 150MHz, 8.1-ish GH/s 0HWerr. The heat sink is still too hot to touch for more than 15 or 20 seconds, but I have heat sensitive fingers. I don't have a reliable way to measure the temp but I feel comfortable leaving it here for passive cooling. I'm still hoping moving it to hub with known power ratings will help.

As a day-1 newbie, I can tell you that a hub with a supplemental usb-powered fan makes all the difference in the world.  I am currently running (4) of these little guys in an 10-port powered Anker hub with zero errors at 275Mhz, 15gH/s each.  Haven't used my voltmeter yet, but the sinks and PCB under the chip are very warm but not hot at all.  Going to up the freq +5MHz daily until I draw errors or hit 300MHz, whichever comes first.

This forum, along with the README for cgminer made it surprisingly simple.

Until someone with more experience with stick OCing jumps in I guess you could try upping the frequency until you start getting HWs and then upping the vcore just enough to stop getting HWs.
The goal is, as I understood it, to have the lowest vcore possible for target frequency (with higher frequencies requiring higher voltage, obviously).

Yeah, I have 2.1a/port so power draw shouldn't be an issue.  Just gonna +5/day until I either hit an error wall, or reach 300.

[silentwarrior]

Got my 2 sticks. Working great out of the box at stock frequency with cgminer 4.9.2 master with xnsub patches (initializing as AU3-GS10000). With this setup theyre hashing happily alongside 2 old Rockminer R-Boxes. For a whopping total hash rate of 82G or so.

Probably wont get to tweak them until this weekend. Looking forward to it though.

Hello WBF1, would it be possible to share how you patched cgminer with xnsub or is there any step by step guide you can point me to, I'm new in all of this and still couldn't figure out how to patch. i'm trying to use on nicehash.com

to be honest it's probably not even worth it.. you dont need xnsub to mine on NH.

Thank you aarons6 for the advice, but I'm simply testing with software and pools to understand and figure out the whole bitcoin thing how it works from one pool to the other, which i can have some experience since I'm new to the whole thing, so that to know how to invest in bitcoin mining hardware before spending a lot of money.

[c0rp0rat353110ut]

Got my 2 sticks. Working great out of the box at stock frequency with cgminer 4.9.2 master with xnsub patches (initializing as AU3-GS10000). With this setup theyre hashing happily alongside 2 old Rockminer R-Boxes. For a whopping total hash rate of 82G or so.

Probably wont get to tweak them until this weekend. Looking forward to it though.

Hello WBF1, would it be possible to share how you patched cgminer with xnsub or is there any step by step guide you can point me to, I'm new in all of this and still couldn't figure out how to patch. i'm trying to use on nicehash.com

to be honest it's probably not even worth it.. you dont need xnsub to mine on NH.

Thank you aarons6 for the advice, but I'm simply testing with software and pools to understand and figure out the whole bitcoin thing how it works from one pool to the other, which i can have some experience since I'm new to the whole thing, so that to know how to invest in bitcoin mining hardware before spending a lot of money.

I would say - and take this for what it's worth being this is only day 2 of my mining (was a big F@H'er in the past) - that you'll want to keep it as simple as possible.  If you're using cgminer, maybe just play around with all the commands that would apply to you, and create/test different .bat files to boot from , config files for all your different workers, etc.).  Worked for me so far.  Got my Compacs up to 281 MHz with no HW errors today.  Still relatively cool to the touch.  Gonna try 290 tomorrow.

[c0rp0rat353110ut]

My Compac runs @ 312.5MHz with 1 HW error maybe every 2 days. Decent USB charging hub that is supposed to provide up to 2.5A per-port groups, 7 ports for total of 60W. It's also feeds 2x of Sidehack's (Gekko)  2PAC sticks

Yes, even with a fan blowing on them they are quite warm but then again, seems mining ASICS love high temps.

Yeah, I noticed there seems to be a warmup period and that over the first couple of hours they continue to slowly creep up in hashrate (my (4) currently hashing at combined 61+ average).  I was going to just keep them all at the current voltage (been too lazy to apply my voltmeter as the setup is under my worktable and a PITA to work on) and find my ceiling, but if these temps continue, I seem to have more headroom than I thought.  300+ would be sweet!