GekkoScience 2Pac/Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread

[Spiritminer]

I did read the spec sheet for the BM1384 chip and I see where you pointed that it is specific for bitcoin mining.  Is it still possible to mine other SHA-256 coins?


Thanks

spiritminer

[sidehack]

Yes, and only SHA256 coins. ASICs are hardware implementations of particular algorithms and therefore can only do one thing.

[arlininger]

Forgive me if this has already been answered. I've spent the last couple days searching with little luck.

I just purchased a GekkoScience 2Pac. It's up and running using cgminer (version 4.9.2 shipped with MacMiner). However, the hash rate seems to be relatively stuck around 500 Mh/s. It will peak higher, but not for long.

Code:

(5s):1.222G (1m):516.7M (5m):502.7M (15m):500.6M (avg):531.2Mh/s

Right now I'm using this for a command:

Code:

cgminer <hiding pool info> --au3-freq 200

I've attempted building the custom cgminer from https://github.com/wareck/cgminer-gekko on a linux VM, but had troubles getting it to recognize the Gekko 2Pac.

Is there a recommended setup to get a hash rate closer to advertised? I'm running it off a laptop for now, but will be moving to a powered hub and rpi setup soon.

Thanks for the help

[NotFuzzyWarm]

...
Page 1, 1st post of this thread has all the answers.
Main problem is you need different cgminer from vh that has the 2pac driver in it.

[arlininger]

I just tried building the custom version from the first post on an ubuntu 16 VM. It errors out immediately, missing libusb-1.0.so.2.

Code:

$ cgminer -n
cgminer: error while loading shared libraries: libusb-1.0.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

[sidehack]

Did you install that library?

[arlininger]

I did install libusb, but apparently it was linked against a different version than was installed. Not sure why.

Updated status in debugging efforts:

I completely rebuilt the VM from scratch. It is a fresh Ubuntu 16.04 install.

I followed the build instructions from the first post exactly...with one exception. When came time to run autogen.sh, it errored complaining of a couple missing packages. I installed those and re-ran. All appeared successful. Attempting to run cgminer results in the following errors being repeated printed.

Code:

 [2017-08-08 12:44:09.941] GekkoScience detect (2:5) failed to initialise (incorrect device?), resetting
 [2017-08-08 12:44:09.941] failed usb_init
 [2017-08-08 12:44:16.944] GekkoScience detect (2:5) failed to initialise (incorrect device?), resetting
 [2017-08-08 12:44:16.944] failed usb_init

I have the Gekko attached to the VM in Vmware Fusion. I'm wondering if there is some incompatibility with using the gekko with a virtual machine. Has anyone successfully done this? If not, I'll just hold off until I get a Rpi and go straight to that solution.

Thanks

[sidehack]

Could be a permissions issue. See the first post.

[arlininger]

I'm running as root, so I doubt a permissions issue. Just for good measure, I did add my unprivileged account to the plugdev group and added the udev rules. Re-tested after a reboot...no change.

More testing...

Turns out I get differences from one attempt to the next, even with no change in configuration. This somewhat makes sense as

cgminer -n

was giving me TIMEOUT errors. As things stand now, I have about a 1 in 3 chance that any given attempt to run will work. If it fails, un-associating the Gekko and re-associating it to the VM has about a 50% chance to make it work again.

I'm going to chalk this up to timing sensitivity in the Gekko or the driver, combined with latency between the virtual machine and physical device. Hope it won't be an issue when I move to a Rpi instead of the VM.

Thanks for the help. I'm up and running at roughly 14 Gh/s at the moment.

[IsolatedCurrent]

https://preview.ibb.co/hjO5Ev/IMG_0112.jpg

Shout out to @sidehack @novak @kano @ck @vh. Long time reader first time poster. Bitcoin was not something new to me, heard about it first somewhere in 2010 and never payed much mind. Wish I had gotten into it back then. Hindsight 20/20.  Bought some btc a few weeks before the split and made a bit of playing money. Bought a few of these sticks to play with, not expecting roi just learning. I have to say I am very impressed with them. Took a while to get them up and stable but now running @275 totaling 175g/hs. Quickly approaching @300. As you can see like everyone else I had to address the heat issues, nothing a big heat sink can't fix lol. And power I had two superbpag hubs that I bought for another project which were reused with some y usb cables. A Frankenstein machine at its best. Currently they are mining away at Kano with solo ck as backup. Keep up all the hard work and hope to hear from you all.

[Biodom]

nice pic!

Shout out to @sidehack @novak @kano @ck @vh. Long time reader first time poster. Bitcoin was not something new to me, heard about it first somewhere in 2010 and never payed much mind. Wish I had gotten into it back then. Hindsight 20/20.  Bought some btc a few weeks before the split and made a bit of playing money. Bought a few of these sticks to play with, not expecting roi just learning. I have to say I am very impressed with them. Took a while to get them up and stable but now running @275 totaling 175g/hs. Quickly approaching @300. As you can see like everyone else I had to address the heat issues, nothing a big heat sink can't fix lol. And power I had two superbpag hubs that I bought for another project which were reused with some y usb cables. A Frankenstein machine at its best. Currently they are mining away at Kano with solo ck as backup. Keep up all the hard work and hope to hear from you all.

kano has an excellent pool, but I suggest not mine to it with sticks as they produce too low payments per each pay period (dust) that he may or may not distribute at some point (could be much later).
Try ckpool, maybe, or Slush's (slushpool).

[IsolatedCurrent]

kano has an excellent pool, but I suggest not mine to it with sticks as they produce too low payments per each pay period (dust) that he may or may not distribute at some point (could be much later).
Try ckpool, maybe, or Slush's (slushpool).

I had no doubt this would not make me rich by any means getting into this project. After moving it around on a few pools this machine only makes .15c a day. Cost me .20c to run. Like you said (dust) lol more like deficet. That said I originally had it mining as a lotto machine on solo ck. I will take your advice and put it back there. I will play the odds like a few others, even though they are not good there is still a chance. I will tweak it a bit more to see what it can really do. @sidehack what is a realistic overclock for these sticks where they are still stable. I was thinking I could push them to about 325 but i don't know if that is realistic. Power and heat seem ok at the moment but I will eventually tap out the superbpag's.

[Biodom]

kano has an excellent pool, but I suggest not mine to it with sticks as they produce too low payments per each pay period (dust) that he may or may not distribute at some point (could be much later).
Try ckpool, maybe, or Slush's (slushpool).

I had no doubt this would not make me rich by any means getting into this project. After moving it around on a few pools this machine only makes .15c a day. Cost me .20c to run. Like you said (dust) lol more like deficet. That said I originally had it mining as a lotto machine on solo ck. I will take your advice and put it back there. I will play the odds like a few others, even though they are not good there is still a chance. I will tweak it a bit more to see what it can really do. @sidehack what is a realistic overclock for these sticks where they are still stable. I was thinking I could push them to about 325 but i don't know if that is realistic. Power and heat seem ok at the moment but I will eventually tap out the superbpag's.

ckpool is NOT lottery, solo.ckpool.org IS lottery.
15c a day now maybe more in the future, but, who knows.
re overclock, i wouldn't push them too hard (although you have a big heatsink there) if you have five or more on the superbpag already, but I digress.

[IsolatedCurrent]

If you look close one superbpag only runs 3 miners. Right now they are only half loaded. My cal around 7 amps.  Thanks you also for the info on ckpool. Not solo pool. I did some reading and it might be the perfect spot for this puppy.  

[RoadStress]

Hello. What is the maximum speed if I plug it in a normal USB port from my PC?

[xhomerx10]

Hello. What is the maximum speed if I plug it in a normal USB port from my PC?

USB 2.0 allows for 500mA (or 2.5 Watts) max so theoretically 50 MHz max
USB 3.0 allows for 900 mA (or 4.5 Watts) max so theoretically 125 MHz max (on lowest voltage setting of V_core 1.26)
If you aren't using a powered hub, it's probably best not to test these limits.

 I'm using a powered USB 3.0 hub with three 2Pacs plugged in running at 175 MHz. Each one is drawing 1.36A giving a power draw of 7 Watts each and I haven't had an issue yet.  The brick supplying the hub is 12V 4A.  I have run them at higher speeds but the fan I'm using is a cheap USB fan and it doesn't keep the 2Pacs as cool as I would like at the higher speeds.



 

[Biodom]

I'm running as root, so I doubt a permissions issue. Just for good measure, I did add my unprivileged account to the plugdev group and added the udev rules. Re-tested after a reboot...no change.

More testing...

Turns out I get differences from one attempt to the next, even with no change in configuration. This somewhat makes sense as

cgminer -n

was giving me TIMEOUT errors. As things stand now, I have about a 1 in 3 chance that any given attempt to run will work. If it fails, un-associating the Gekko and re-associating it to the VM has about a 50% chance to make it work again.

I'm going to chalk this up to timing sensitivity in the Gekko or the driver, combined with latency between the virtual machine and physical device. Hope it won't be an issue when I move to a Rpi instead of the VM.

Thanks for the help. I'm up and running at roughly 14 Gh/s at the moment.

somebody told me as far as VM goes, Debian with 2pac works really well.

[usao]

How frequently is getting a HW error a problem?
Im running at 150 and get about 1-2 per second on one of the 2pac sticks, but others are good to about 200 before getting HW errors.
What is an acceptable rate for getting HW errors?
At 100, I dont get any.
Is it possible to run this single stick at a lower freq than the others?

[sidehack]

Yes, and how to do so is explained at least once in this thread.

There's also the consideration of turning up the core voltage a bit, if you have available power. That's also explained how to do.

[usao]

Yes, and how to do so is explained at least once in this thread.

There's also the consideration of turning up the core voltage a bit, if you have available power. That's also explained how to do.

Thats good to know that the HW error rate is ok. Ill keep it going as fast as I can and keep the HW error rate around 1-2 per second.