GekkoScience Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread

[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!

[c0rp0rat353110ut]

So the good news:

Got 3 of my 4 Compacs cranking steadily and stably at 300MHz.

The bad news:

Yeah - just 3.  One of them zombied out.  I would just figure I killed it, but if I fiddle with the voltage, it will catch low GH's but then degrade to MH's and eventually zombie out again.  But most of the time it won't hash.

Also, when I plug into the hub I don't get the nice little Win10 sound.  Doesn't matter which port in the hub or if it's by itself or not, so it's not the hub (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VDVCQ84/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1).

I even scaled back the power and clocks to 275MHz.  Still the same.  When I plug straight into a USB port in my PC tower, it DOES make the Win10 chime, but still doesn't try to hash.

Any advice - or is prolly fried?

Thanks all!

[murasame2003]

So the good news:

Got 3 of my 4 Compacs cranking steadily and stably at 300MHz.

The bad news:

Yeah - just 3.  One of them zombied out.  I would just figure I killed it, but if I fiddle with the voltage, it will catch low GH's but then degrade to MH's and eventually zombie out again.  But most of the time it won't hash.

Also, when I plug into the hub I don't get the nice little Win10 sound.  Doesn't matter which port in the hub or if it's by itself or not, so it's not the hub (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VDVCQ84/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1).

I even scaled back the power and clocks to 275MHz.  Still the same.  When I plug straight into a USB port in my PC tower, it DOES make the Win10 chime, but still doesn't try to hash.

Any advice - or is prolly fried?

Thanks all!

A few questions.

• How are you cooling your mining sticks?
• with 300MHz clock speed, what is vCore voltage reading?

Also a suggestion.

• Instead of using official cgminer releases from ck, use one written by vh, which can be found: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1764803.0
  This cgminer 4.10.0 is for SideHack's new 2PAC sticks but it also works great with original compac USB sticks.

[c0rp0rat353110ut]

So the good news:

Got 3 of my 4 Compacs cranking steadily and stably at 300MHz.

The bad news:

Yeah - just 3.  One of them zombied out.  I would just figure I killed it, but if I fiddle with the voltage, it will catch low GH's but then degrade to MH's and eventually zombie out again.  But most of the time it won't hash.

Also, when I plug into the hub I don't get the nice little Win10 sound.  Doesn't matter which port in the hub or if it's by itself or not, so it's not the hub (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VDVCQ84/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1).

I even scaled back the power and clocks to 275MHz.  Still the same.  When I plug straight into a USB port in my PC tower, it DOES make the Win10 chime, but still doesn't try to hash.

Any advice - or is prolly fried?

Thanks all!

A few questions.

• How are you cooling your mining sticks?
• with 300MHz clock speed, what is vCore voltage reading?

Also a suggestion.

• Instead of using official cgminer releases from ck, use one written by vh, which can be found: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1764803.0
  This cgminer 4.10.0 is for SideHack's new 2PAC sticks but it also works great with original compac USB sticks.

**EDIT**  Tried it by itself again, and at 150MHz.  Recognized through the hub (w/Win10 chime), but still zombie.  HOWEVER, listening closely I now hear a faint high pitched buzz which leads me to believe that there is something amiss with a capacitor or something.  Back up and running with my other (3) Compacs without issue at 300MHz.

Hey, murasame2003.

Pic of my setup:  https://i.imgur.com/eaDaL0o.jpg.  Plenty of fan cooling with zero HW errors since yesterday's post for the three Compacs running between 16.49 and 16.54GH/s each.

Also using cgminer 4.10.0.

Voltages running in the high 0.6's.  Voltmeter not even responding on the zombie.  However, when I plug directly into one of my tower's 3.0 ports, I get the Win10 chime but with no cgminer recognition and the chip starts to heat up immediately (removed after less than 10 sec).  I even removed the heatsink to check the seating of the chip wasn't loose.  Thinking a capacitor or somesuch is blown, but can't tell even with magnification.

[sidehack]

The buzz probably means your regulator's pushing high current. If the chip heats up, it's more likely the chip than a capacitor. Or something's jacked up with the regulator and it's pushing high voltage, resulting in high heat, but it somehow bottomed out in your hub and turned off the buck hence why no Vcore measurement.

[cavaliersrus]

side hack is those 2 compac's i dropped off dead ? or do you think you can revive them sir

[c0rp0rat353110ut]

The buzz probably means your regulator's pushing high current. If the chip heats up, it's more likely the chip than a capacitor. Or something's jacked up with the regulator and it's pushing high voltage, resulting in high heat, but it somehow bottomed out in your hub and turned off the buck hence why no Vcore measurement.

Thanks, sidehack.

I bet it's the regulator, as in the hub it doesn't heat up but sometimes flashes purple for a sec and posts a few HW errors, but directly in the tower USB 3.0 port, it begins to heat immediately.  I may use this stick to eff around with and build skills.  I've only ever frankenstein'd basses and guitars and a couple of A/D audio convertor boxes, so this will be a much smaller/finer challenge.  My (3) compacs are at ~50 GH/s so I'm not cryin'.  Chalk it up to experience.  Maybe a 2PAC in the future once you catch up (or BMJ for double price, lol)

Thanks, sidehack.  You're doing the lord's work (says the atheist, lol)!  But seriously, rock on!

[sidehack]

If you decide you want it looked at, let me know and we can probably work something out. I've got a small stack of warranty work I'm passively avoiding but I can always add enough to it to convince me it needs to be taken care of.

Regarding 2Pacs, I'm planning on a second batch. Also I have some bitshopper "seconds" I'm wanting to get rid of, since I had already assembled some before I realized the PCB had issues. Now I've got to either strip 'em for parts or finish and liquidate.

Also, I've got another interesting project in the works to replace the Biggie pod since that's been shelved. That's all you get though, no real news just a teaser.

[leowonderful]

If you decide you want it looked at, let me know and we can probably work something out. I've got a small stack of warranty work I'm passively avoiding but I can always add enough to it to convince me it needs to be taken care of.

Regarding 2Pacs, I'm planning on a second batch. Also I have some bitshopper "seconds" I'm wanting to get rid of, since I had already assembled some before I realized the PCB had issues. Now I've got to either strip 'em for parts or finish and liquidate.

Also, I've got another interesting project in the works to replace the Biggie pod since that's been shelved. That's all you get though, no real news just a teaser.

Dangit sidehack, you've got to keep everything hidden
Assuming it's because of a lack of chips? I know you were looking for BM1384s recently. Hope it'll be something good... Still hyped for Bitfury gear though ^^