GekkoScience 2Pac/Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread

[-ck]

I believe every compac and every 2 pac should point to mmpool.org or ck's solo pool

to point them anywhere else is not a logical economic move.  At mmpool or ck's solo pool the sticks have a chance to turn a profit  since both pools give you a lot if you hit the block.

Thanks for the support of solo. Once I get enough hashrate on my new pool ckpool.org I'm hoping it will become a haven for small miners like this that actually do want to get a payout eventually of some sort, even if it's small.

[1714820818]

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[1714820818]

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[sidehack]

I do all my testing at kano.is right now, but mostly that was because solo stopped working at my location. Course it was my own fault and that's long since resolved, I just haven't changed all the various scripts back over but I've been meaning to start pointing stuff at ckpool.

I've finally got time to work on the updated Terminus layout between 2Pac batches, so hopefully in a few weeks there's more of those can be pointed there as well.

Regarding voltage issues - no, I don't think the pot's busted. If the wiper's wiped out it should default to peak 1.6V, if the pot's disconnected somehow it'd jump to 2.0V. I can't really think of a condition where you'd see less than about 500mV across the string if the buck is working at all. Could be the buck controller somehow got nuked, or a different part busted off.

[xxooss]

Being blind in one eye and hardly seeing out the other I have a bit of trouble being precise in my voltage adjustments...that being said, you might try turning the pot one complete turn either way and starting again...

just had another issue while attempting to adjust voltage. i wanted to get 1.5 exactly so i turned it slightly, it read 1.6, so i turned down the pot again slightly, and now its only reading 0.17v and i cant get it to move from there. did i just break my POT?

[vh]

I believe every compac and every 2 pac should point to mmpool.org or ck's solo pool

to point them anywhere else is not a logical economic move.  At mmpool or ck's solo pool the sticks have a chance to turn a profit  since both pools give you a lot if you hit the block.

Thanks for the support of solo. Once I get enough hashrate on my new pool ckpool.org I'm hoping it will become a haven for small miners like this that actually do want to get a payout eventually of some sort, even if it's small.

I've updated the OP examples to point to the pool version of ckpool.org.   It makes more sense to begin there for small miners.

[buddyleex]

I just got my 2pacs going and I am getting a lot of hardware errors on one of them. I read that it could be that I need to up the voltage? But I'm unsure how to I only see how to change the frequency:

 0: GSD 10011117: COMPAC-2 225.00MHz HW:13 | 25.81G / 24.70Gh/s WU:344.8/m
 1: GSD 10011119: COMPAC-2 225.00MHz HW:0 | 29.89G / 24.21Gh/s WU:338.3/m
 2: GSD 10011118: COMPAC-2 225.00MHz HW:8196 | 43.09G / 24.96Gh/s WU:138.6/m

[vh]

I just got my 2pacs going and I am getting a lot of hardware errors on one of them. I read that it could be that I need to up the voltage? But I'm unsure how to I only see how to change the frequency:

 0: GSD 10011117: COMPAC-2 225.00MHz HW:13 | 25.81G / 24.70Gh/s WU:344.8/m
 1: GSD 10011119: COMPAC-2 225.00MHz HW:0 | 29.89G / 24.21Gh/s WU:338.3/m
 2: GSD 10011118: COMPAC-2 225.00MHz HW:8196 | 43.09G / 24.96Gh/s WU:138.6/m

It involves physically turning the potentiometer.

You should have a tiny screwdriver, a breeze source, steady hands and a multi-meter before going there:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1764803.msg18329630#msg18329630
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1764803.msg17678108#msg17678108

The links are also in the OP in the Q&A section with some other helpful details.

[n_p]

Halve the frequency (75 MHz) and see if they run longer than 6 hours.

No, still having the same problem at about the same frequency (no increase at all in how long they run).

Also (in less than a week) cgminer has crashed four time (I just see "segmentation fault" with the terminal back at the shell prompt.

[vh]

Halve the frequency (75 MHz) and see if they run longer than 6 hours.

No, still having the same problem at about the same frequency (no increase at all in how long they run).

Also (in less than a week) cgminer has crashed four time (I just see "segmentation fault" with the terminal back at the shell prompt.

This is starting to sound similar to what btckess experienced.
Follow his troubleshooting step(s) up to resolution from here to see if any of it relates:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1764803.msg18074121#msg18074121

I'll take a peek a Gentoo this weekend.   
I use to enjoy using that, but have nearly forgotten it still existed these days.

[zumpbond2000]

  So I just have a entire night mining with my 2pac BM1384, it works great.

I would like to ask, I´m running it at 260mhz (havn't measured the voltage, but is as low as it can be) The stick is pluged into my Notebook USB Port, does that means that my notebook usb port can deliver around 2A?
Isn't that too much for a non powered USB Hub?


Another question is, what's the ideal temperature of it? I'm measuring around 50º Celcius(at the dissipator) with my home made Computer Fan

[leowonderful]

So I just have a entire night mining with my 2pac BM1384, it works great.

I would like to ask, I´m running it at 260mhz (havn't measured the voltage, but is as low as it can be) The stick is pluged into my Notebook USB Port, does that means that my notebook usb port can deliver around 2A?
Isn't that too much for a non powered USB Hub?


Another question is, what's the ideal temperature of it? I'm measuring around 50º Celcius(at the dissipator) with my home made Computer Fan

What about HW errors? Likely you are getting a lot of hw errors and bad shares due to that. Ideal temps is anything below 90 Celsius imo, any air over the miner is good below 300 mhz. USB 3 is only capable of .9A on laptops so I am betting that the miner is not truly running as it should at 260mhz.

[zumpbond2000]

So I just have a entire night mining with my 2pac BM1384, it works great.

I would like to ask, I´m running it at 260mhz (havn't measured the voltage, but is as low as it can be) The stick is pluged into my Notebook USB Port, does that means that my notebook usb port can deliver around 2A?
Isn't that too much for a non powered USB Hub?


Another question is, what's the ideal temperature of it? I'm measuring around 50º Celcius(at the dissipator) with my home made Computer Fan

What about HW errors? Likely you are getting a lot of hw errors and bad shares due to that. Ideal temps is anything below 90 Celsius imo, any air over the miner is good below 300 mhz. USB 3 is only capable of .9A on laptops so I am betting that the miner is not truly running as it should at 260mhz.

HW error are near 0, and invalid share next round was 0% of 1,298 valids.
Maybe I have lucky ith this notebook, On my PC, I can't run nothing more than 100 mhz!

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Qrw3aOtMv-djSxQ67OrKZJQKOxgALatQMS1xjU0QL5JeFXcshhn8eru3LSfCETiagEeYfjDGql7q850=w1920-h950-rw
(Actually I tried to post an image)

[vh]

So I just have a entire night mining with my 2pac BM1384, it works great.

I would like to ask, I´m running it at 260mhz (havn't measured the voltage, but is as low as it can be) The stick is pluged into my Notebook USB Port, does that means that my notebook usb port can deliver around 2A?
Isn't that too much for a non powered USB Hub?


Another question is, what's the ideal temperature of it? I'm measuring around 50º Celcius(at the dissipator) with my home made Computer Fan

What about HW errors? Likely you are getting a lot of hw errors and bad shares due to that. Ideal temps is anything below 90 Celsius imo, any air over the miner is good below 300 mhz. USB 3 is only capable of .9A on laptops so I am betting that the miner is not truly running as it should at 260mhz.

I have a old Dell laptop and old Dell PC that can both dish out more than 2A to run a single 2Pac at 275MHz.   The USB 2/3 spec is more of a minimum guarenteed value ( in order to support devices drawing up to that value ).   Though you generally can't expect hosts to go much higher.

Edit:  keep in mind high resistance thin wiring can probably start melting at 2.5A - 4A.

[sidehack]

Before I set up my powered hub for testing, back with the first batch of Compacs, I was using a 6-foot USB extension off an old Dell laptop to test everything. That cable would drop about 800mV at 1A draw but it'd do it. Occasionally when something went wrong I'd see a spike of about 2A off the port before it'd be disabled in hardware and require a restart. I like my system better now, it's much more resilient, but I was surprised a laptop I bought used for $10 would have that stout a port, with protection.

[buddyleex]

What's too hot for these to run at? I'm measuring about ~58*C at the heatsink. Don't really know how to safely get a measurement at the chip.

[vh]

What's too hot for these to run at? I'm measuring about ~58*C at the heatsink. Don't really know how to safely get a measurement at the chip.

The datasheet says chip max tolerance 125ºC, but practically 70ºC is crazy hot and past 80ºC is too hot.

[Biodom]

What's too hot for these to run at? I'm measuring about ~58*C at the heatsink. Don't really know how to safely get a measurement at the chip.

The datasheet says chip max tolerance 125ºC, but practically 70ºC is crazy hot and past 80ºC is too hot.

hmmm, you mean measured at the chip or at the sink? If at the sink, I would agree. 70-80C at the chip should be just fine.
S9 has two temp and it seems to tolerate second temp up to 110-113C. Best info was in Spondoolies, where they gave you on-chip temp that was tied up to the system. Readout of up to 115C was fine, at 120C throttling began.

[vh]

What's too hot for these to run at? I'm measuring about ~58*C at the heatsink. Don't really know how to safely get a measurement at the chip.

The datasheet says chip max tolerance 125ºC, but practically 70ºC is crazy hot and past 80ºC is too hot.

hmmm, you mean measured at the chip or at the sink? If at the sink, I would agree. 70-80C at the chip should be just fine.
S9 has two temp and it seems to tolerate second temp up to 110-113C. Best info was in Spondoolies, where they gave you on-chip temp that was tied up to the system. Readout of up to 115C was fine, at 120C throttling began.

At the heatsick.   I believe sidehack is working on an overtemp shutoff at about 80ºC for the pod/terminus.

[vh]

Halve the frequency (75 MHz) and see if they run longer than 6 hours.

No, still having the same problem at about the same frequency (no increase at all in how long they run).

Also (in less than a week) cgminer has crashed four time (I just see "segmentation fault" with the terminal back at the shell prompt.

This is starting to sound similar to what btckess experienced.
Follow his troubleshooting step(s) up to resolution from here to see if any of it relates:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1764803.msg18074121#msg18074121

I'll take a peek a Gentoo this weekend.  
I use to enjoy using that, but have nearly forgotten it still existed these days.

I got through mkpart partitioning and to the step of building the kernel then it struck me why I never looked back to this flavor on linux  .
Went straight to osboxes, to move things along.  

In any case, I didn't see the same compile complaint you got on my first go at it.

Code:

emerge dev-vcs/git
emerge dev-libs/libusb

git clone https://github.com/vthoang/cgminer.git
cd cgminer
./autogen.sh
CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -march=native" ./configure --enable-gekko
make -j 2

Code:

osboxes cgminer # ./cgminer -n
 [2017-06-04 07:49:34.469] USB all: found 4 devices - listing known devices
.USB dev 0: Bus 2 Device 3 ID: 10c4:ea60
  Manufacturer: 'GekkoScience'
  Product: 'Compac BM1384 Bitcoin Miner'
 [2017-06-04 07:49:34.470] 1 known USB devices

Code:

osboxes cgminer # uname -a
Linux osboxes 4.9.6-gentoo-r1 #1 SMP Tue Mar 21 15:35:56 GMT 2017 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

I'll keep tabs on it anyways and let it run for 48hrs before letting it fade away again.

[n_p]

This is starting to sound similar to what btckess experienced.
Follow his troubleshooting step(s) up to resolution from here to see if any of it relates:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1764803.msg18074121#msg18074121

Not running on a pi (it is a desktop with 12GB of ram - with plenty available, so there is definitely not a shortage of ram).

The hub has nothing but the three miners in it (my usb fan died, so I am running a fan out of the mains at the moment). Would like to move a compaq (running on a different machine for months with absolutely no problems) onto the same hub, but I am not sure that is possible.

I just ordered a usb current measuring device (probably won't arrive for a couple of weeks, but I will see if I can learn any more then).

I do have one question about hardware errors and power (I have actually read this entire thread several times grasping at anything). I am getting maybe one hardware error (on each stick) every two hours (frequency doesn't seem to matter - about the same rate at 75 MHz as 150 MHz). Is that "good enough," or should I try to up the voltage?

I'll take a peek a Gentoo this weekend.   
I use to enjoy using that, but have nearly forgotten it still existed these days.

Thanks. Let me know if you need me to compile cgminer with any flags to help debugging (not really an expert on that, but I should be able to follow simple directions).

[vh]

I do have one question about hardware errors and power (I have actually read this entire thread several times grasping at anything). I am getting maybe one hardware error (on each stick) every two hours (frequency doesn't seem to matter - about the same rate at 75 MHz as 150 MHz). Is that "good enough," or should I try to up the voltage?

Once every few hour should fall into the not noticeable category.

You would want to keep an eye on WU (Work Utility).   
If it is very close to 1.53 x frequency then the HW errors are negligible (~150 default settings). 

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1764803.msg18329715#msg18329715