GekkoScience 2Pac/Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread

[sidehack]

Did you accidentally switch to stock cgminer instead of one compiled with the Gekko driver?

[derbx]

Hello!

Do you know if there is any way to disable the LEDs on the Gekko?

[leowonderful]

Hello!

Do you know if there is any way to disable the LEDs on the Gekko?

This isn't the technical way to do so and I'm not sure if it's possible to disable it otherwise, but one guy that sold me a Compac (not a 2pac) put some dark nail polish on the LED and it barely shines through. No electrical issues on the stick with it on to my knowledge. Dark tape might work too.

[sidehack]

Interestingly enough, searching "disable LED" in this thread turns up the same question from 3 weeks ago, followed by basically the same answer and then a post by the software guy explaining how the LED works.

[jadders]

Thanks for the help guys, i finally have it working. Definitely had some facepalming confusion about the setup, but realized its basically impossible not to set it up through the precompiled folder.

Just a quick question, how long can i leave it running without a fan, and will a usb fan work as a valid form of cooling? If so, would i be able to leave it on 24/7 with a usb fan? Thanks guys

[jadders]

and one more questions, how long do you think it would take for me to get a payout from ckpool using just this usb asic miner?

[jadders]

okay, so now i've just tried to run cgminer again after turning it off overnight, and it's not recognizing the usb asic miner anymore?Do i have to reinstall the drivers and compiled folder every time or something?

[sidehack]

Did you try unplug/replug? Made sure it's the right cgminer.exe?

[wavelengthsf]

Thanks for the help guys, i finally have it working. Definitely had some facepalming confusion about the setup, but realized its basically impossible not to set it up through the precompiled folder.

Just a quick question, how long can i leave it running without a fan, and will a usb fan work as a valid form of cooling? If so, would i be able to leave it on 24/7 with a usb fan? Thanks guys

If you run it over stock settings (100 on the frequency), you need some fan. A USB fan works for most people.

and one more questions, how long do you think it would take for me to get a payout from ckpool using just this usb asic miner?

CK's solo pool or CK's normal pool? If its the solo pool, it'll likely be never. If its the normal pool, your payout will be very very tiny and it'll depend on them finding blocks. So far, I don't think they've found many.

okay, so now i've just tried to run cgminer again after turning it off overnight, and it's not recognizing the usb asic miner anymore?Do i have to reinstall the drivers and compiled folder every time or something?

If you're running the same cgminer, from the same folder, it should just work. It is possible your USB hub has died due to the power the sticks were pulling - this is especially seen with the USB3 hubs without external power supplies (like the Superbag ones)

[jadders]

it's just plugged into the usb port on my pc, but the led is still showing that it's connected. I even tried to reinstall the driver and unzip the cgminer again, but it still keeps saying no usb devices found.


Also (when i manage to get it working), what pool would you suggest i use?

[sunk818]

it's just plugged into the usb port on my pc, but the led is still showing that it's connected. I even tried to reinstall the driver and unzip the cgminer again, but it still keeps saying no usb devices found.

Your first concern should be that your hardware is working okay. Check if your USB port is working okay. Plug a USB mouse, flash drive, or something in the same USB port.

You can also see if your gekko is recognized on a different USB port plugged in directly into the computer without any cables, USB hubs etc in between.

[sunk818]

and one more questions, how long do you think it would take for me to get a payout from ckpool using just this usb asic miner?

I was trying multipool.us but the difficulty of 8000 just makes it hard to get an accepted hash before the new block comes online. Tried zpool.ca made like a penny a day on difficulty 64, but now I'm reading the pool operator is alledgly skimming 20% from payouts. This asic is good to learn about mining but I don't think you'll ever make your money back, unless the coins you mine somehow miraculously increases in value 100x

[sidehack]

This asic is good to learn about mining but I don't think you'll ever make your money back

Yep.

[rockmoney]

This asic is good to learn about mining but I don't think you'll ever make your money back

Yep.

I was not aware about the zPool operator allegedly skimming 20% - do you have proof/sources? As a frequent user of the pool, I will be looking into that myself for sure, but please elaborate if possible.

I use sidehack's 2PAC's to mine new and/or lower difficulty coins (primarily on zPool), and have done quite well. It can be easy to stack coins up like that, although it can be risky. I mined a good number of coins like HUSH, ZCL, KMD, QRK, HAL, BSD, XVG, BCC, AUR, etc. in their early phases (even going back to when I was using COMPACS), and most were not worth much at the time. Now, many of them have seen astronomical price increases, which I call MAKING MONEY. In that sense (and with some diligent research), you should be able to easily make your money back and then some!

Pools like zPool make it easy to "convert" your algorithm so you can essentially (and easily) mine any algo coin with sidehack's miners. Of course it works best when mining newer, lower difficulty, (and therefore riskier) coins like mentioned above so it doesn't take weeks to mine 0.1 DASH (depending on how many sticks you are running).

I recently jumped on a new, interesting project called BitcoinZ (which uses equihash algo) right after zPool added it, and I have already accumulated tens of thousands. Now I will hodl, hope for the best, and hopefully profit.

Other options include using sidehack's sticks to mine on MultiPools with automatic profit switching. Generally, you can not do this with larger miners (like the Antminer) because the pools often switch coins too fast, resulting in the miner shutting down. iSpace Mining Pool currently has a zero fee MultiPool with about ~40 TH/s of power.

Anyway, my point is simple - if used correctly, there should be no problems seeing a ROI within a reasonable amount of time using either of sidehack's USB miners  (especially for the VERY LOW purchase price)!

[Valnurat]

Small question.

Could someone explain how I setup my RPi to run with my 2 2PACs?
Is it the Raspbian Stretch with desktop or is it Raspbian Stretch Lite you install on the RPi?

I have hooked my 2PACs onto my powered hub. The same as the one NotFuzzyWarm has.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1779423.msg17921042#msg17921042

Br
Valnurat

[sunk818]

I was not aware about the zPool operator allegedly skimming 20% - do you have proof/sources? As a frequent user of the pool, I will be looking into that myself for sure, but please elaborate if possible.

Starts around post #63. I haven't done the math myself, and will give the operator the benefit of the doubt (for now). I'm not going to accuse someone in public unless I'm 100% confident.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1951402.0;topicseen

[Valnurat]

Does the windows installation in post #2 still work?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1764803.msg17624477#msg17624477

======================
= cgminer on Windows =
======================

(!)... If you have access to linux, use the mxe based cross compile example in the post above.

(!)... If you just want the windows executable, read a little past the cross compile section in the post above for a pre-built cgminer.exe.


Building the cgminer.exe binary for windows on windows can be a bit tricky (not for beginners).

Follow the steps below in exact order.  If a step fails, most steps after it will fail also.

Once you have a successful binary, zip up the whole C:\MinGW folder for safe keeping.  
Chances are these instructions won't work, as is, a few months from now due to normal updates, but you might still be able to git pull and build updates.

Environment Used:
Windows 7, (should work for all WinOS supported by MinGW & Git)
MinGW Installation Manager (0.6.2-beta-20131004-1 - Tested)
Git for Windows (2.11.0 - Tested)



MinGW Installation Manager
http://www.mingw.org/ : Download installer : mingw-get-setup.exe

    Install Options:
    default all - "C:\MinGW\"
    Mark for installation - "mingw-developer-toolkit", "mingw-base"
    Installation -> "Apply Changes"

From Windows Explorer: (or you'll get errors later)
C:\MinGW << Security (Edit)<< Users << Full Control  
    
Paste the following into Windows+R to get a MINGW32 shell and init the home directory: "C:\MinGW\msys\1.0\msys.bat"

From MINGW32 shell:

Code:

echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/opt/git/bin:/opt/git/mingw64/bin:/opt/git/usr/bin/' > ~/.profile
mkdir /opt
exit

Install Git for Windows
https://git-for-windows.github.io/

    Install Options:
    "C:\MinGW\msys\1.0\opt\git"
    "Use Git from Git Bash only"
    default everything else -->>>
    

Return to MINGW32 shell and complete the build.

Code:

#--- From MINGW32 shell: "C:\MinGW\msys\1.0\msys.bat"

mingw-get install mingw32-libpdcurses mingw32-pdcurses

curl -O http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/binaries/win32/dependencies/pkg-config_0.23-3_win32.zip
curl -O http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/binaries/win32/dependencies/pkg-config-dev_0.23-3_win32.zip
curl -O http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/binaries/win32/glib/2.28/glib_2.28.1-1_win32.zip
curl -k -O https://curl.haxx.se/gknw.net/rm/7.33.0/dist-w32/curl-7.33.0-devel-mingw32.zip

unzip pkg-config_0.23-3_win32.zip -d pkg-config
unzip pkg-config-dev_0.23-3_win32.zip -d pkg-config
unzip glib_2.28.1-1_win32.zip -d glib
unzip curl-7.33.0-devel-mingw32.zip -d curl

cp pkg-config/bin/pkg-config.exe /mingw/bin/
cp pkg-config/share/aclocal/pkg.m4 /mingw/share/aclocal/
cp glib/bin/libglib-2.0-0.dll /mingw/bin/
cp "C:/MinGW/bin/libintl-8.dll" "C:/MinGW/bin/intl.dll"

cp curl/curl-7.33.0-devel-mingw32/bin/* /mingw/bin/
cp -r curl/curl-7.33.0-devel-mingw32/include/* /mingw/include/
cp -r curl/curl-7.33.0-devel-mingw32/lib/* /mingw/lib/

rm -rf glib*
rm -rf pkg-config*
rm -rf curl*

#--- Going to intrusively tweak Mingw here.  Good time to have a backup of C:\MinGW.

sed -r "s/lcurl$/lcurl \-lcurldll \-lssh2 \-lidn \-lrtmp \-lssl \-lcrypto \-lgdi32 \-lz \-lwldap32/" /mingw/lib/pkgconfig/libcurl.pc -i

sed -r "s/winsock.h/winsock2.h/" /mingw/include/ptw32_errno.h -i
sed -r "s/0x0501\)/0x0001\)\n#include <ptw32_errno.h>\n/" /mingw/include/ws2tcpip.h -i
sed -r "s/__struct_timespec_defined/_TIMESPEC_DEFINED/" /mingw/include/time.h -i
sed -r "s/\_UWIN \*\//\*\/\n\nstatic char* strtok_r(char *s, const char *d, char **n) { char *r; if (s == NULL) s = *n; s += strspn(s, d); if (*s == '\\\0') return NULL; r = s; s += strcspn(s, d); if (*s) *s++ = '\\\0'; *n = s; return r; }\n/" /mingw/include/string.h -i

#--- Install libusb

mkdir /opt/src
cd /opt/src


git clone git://git.libusb.org/libusb.git
cd libusb
./autogen.sh --prefix=/mingw --disable-log
make & make install

#--- Build cgminer

cd ~
mkdir -p git/vthoang; cd git/vthoang
git clone https://github.com/vthoang/cgminer.git
cd cgminer

autoreconf -fvi
CFLAGS="-O2 -msse2" ./configure --enable-gekko

make -j 2

cgminer.exe --help

Everything works until:
$ git clone git://git.libusb.org/libusb.git
Cloning into 'libusb'...
fatal: unable to connect to git.libusb.org:
git.libusb.org[0: 212.116.89.126]: errno=Invalid argument

[sidehack]

Are the prebuilt downloadable Windows binaries not working for you?

[Valnurat]

   cross-compiled cgminer.exe binaries

    Apr 29, 2017 @ 495461c - cgminer-4.10.0-windows-gekko-495461c.7z
    Apr 20, 2017 @ b682468 - cgminer-4.10.0-windows-gekko-b682468.7z
    Apr 02, 2017 @ 3094f39 - cgminer-4.10.0-windows-gekko-3094f39.7z
    Mar 23, 2017 @ b756f23 - cgminer-4.10.0-windows-gekko-b756f23.7z
    Mar 22, 2017 @ 4fc8783 - cgminer-4.10.0-windows-gekko-4fc8783.7z
    Mar 09, 2017 @ 2a41ffb - cgminer-4.10.0-windows-gekko-2a41ffb.7z

Is this these?

I tried to download this Apr 29, 2017 @ 495461c , but that contained a virus.

[hurricandave]

   cross-compiled cgminer.exe binaries

    Apr 29, 2017 @ 495461c - cgminer-4.10.0-windows-gekko-495461c.7z
    Apr 20, 2017 @ b682468 - cgminer-4.10.0-windows-gekko-b682468.7z
    Apr 02, 2017 @ 3094f39 - cgminer-4.10.0-windows-gekko-3094f39.7z
    Mar 23, 2017 @ b756f23 - cgminer-4.10.0-windows-gekko-b756f23.7z
    Mar 22, 2017 @ 4fc8783 - cgminer-4.10.0-windows-gekko-4fc8783.7z
    Mar 09, 2017 @ 2a41ffb - cgminer-4.10.0-windows-gekko-2a41ffb.7z

Is this these?

I tried to download this Apr 29, 2017 @ 495461c , but that contained a virus.

Virus detection software is lazy and flags cgminer because virus and Trojan software would include it with their software. Its well documented and commented on here in the forum HUNDREDS of times. Building it yourself won't change the outcome for you either.