GekkoScience 2Pac/Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread

[sidehack]

That really depends on how hot you're running them.

[marousi]

Just received 2 new 2pacs, put in 60watt anker hub, cooling fan on, but after a short while the 2pacs go "OFF". What is this?

[der_wasi]

That really depends on how hot you're running them.

I don´t know already. With the new setup I try to keep them cooler as with the current arctic breeze fans. But I want to turn up the voltage and frequency as well until I´m at the limit of the 30 W hub on each stick. I have about 5 W spare on each hub. I´m running at 80 Gh/s now with both sticks. I hope I reach an even 100 Gh/s.

[NoComply]

If it was running without cooling and you unplugged it while very hot, that can cause damage to the ASICs.

Just noticed this interesting tidbit.
I'm using fans to keep them at a 'warm' level, can you elaborate on why unplugging while hot can damage the ASICs? Is it due to the sudden mechanical movement or something related to removing the electrical charge & temperature?
Cheers

[sidehack]

I would guess it's got to do with thermal expansion and contraction. All I know is, back in the Compac days we set up some test sticks running cranked up and they worked just fine for weeks (though quite warm), but after being pulled some of them never worked again. Never had the issue with sticks that weren't run hot so I assume that's what done it. 2Pacs are probably even more susceptible because they've got 2 chips under the same size heatsink, which means potentially twice as much heat trying to dissipate. For super high overclocks I'd recommend finding a more efficient heatsink to reduce the chances of a chip getting cooked.

[lok8nusa]

If it was running without cooling and you unplugged it while very hot, that can cause damage to the ASICs.

Just noticed this interesting tidbit.
I'm using fans to keep them at a 'warm' level, can you elaborate on why unplugging while hot can damage the ASICs? Is it due to the sudden mechanical movement or something related to removing the electrical charge & temperature?
Cheers

When I have to pulls sticks, I terminate the process running them, then let them sit in the hub for about 30 seconds with the fan still blowing.
This gives everything a chance to cool before you jostle and bump it.

Just received 2 new 2pacs, put in 60watt anker hub, cooling fan on, but after a short while the 2pacs go "OFF". What is this?

I just got 2Pacs in, as well. One zombies after a few hours, with no HW errors. Another throws >than 1 error/second. To make them work like the rest of the slaves, I have to tune them.
(The one that has the error issues? I'm using it as a test mule for hardware development later.)

[sidehack]

I wouldn't have shipped anything that threw more than 2 errors per hour. What speed are you running it, that you're seeing multiple per second?

[lok8nusa]

I wouldn't have shipped anything that threw more than 2 errors per hour. What speed are you running it, that you're seeing multiple per second?

I've got everything running 206.25 MHz.
I also noticed the heat sink on this unit is about 1mm off center.

[sidehack]

Ah yeah, that'll definitely require more voltage. Seconds, like everything else, are tested at 100MHz.

[lok8nusa]

Ah yeah, that'll definitely require more voltage. Seconds, like everything else, are tested at 100MHz.

206.25. That's why I'm not having a fit, sir. I know I'm way overclocked on that one. (I read the forum posts before I got into these.)
The other one I mentioned will get a voltage adjustment later.

BTW, I really appreciate your concern. Makes me pleased to do business with you.  

[marousi]

At 300 mhz, the 2pacs require much baby sitting

[der_wasi]

Not if they´re set up correctly. Mine are running at 350 MHz for weeks now without any issues. And if you would read some of the answers you got, you would know how to set up them correctly.

[marousi]

Ok. the 2 pacs are mounted on 60 watt anker usb hubs, the hubs are plugged into the PC ( not daisy chained), and fan cooled. Holding the 2pac with the usb port at the top, I assume max voltage is at 1-2 o clock. Is this correct or what have I done wrong? BTW how to attach photo.

[crypto_curious]

Not if they´re set up correctly. Mine are running at 350 MHz for weeks now without any issues. And if you would read some of the answers you got, you would know how to set up them correctly.

Can you share cgminer screenshot with them running at 350?

Ok. the 2 pacs are mounted on 60 watt anker usb hubs, the hubs are plugged into the PC ( not daisy chained), and fan cooled. Holding the 2pac with the usb port at the top, I assume max voltage is at 1-2 o clock. Is this correct or what have I done wrong? BTW how to attach photo.

Send your photos to https://imgur.com/ and share link here.

[sidehack]

Also if you start referencing pot position with the USB jack at the bottom like has been mentioned several times, everything you read about pot positions will start making sense instead of being exactly wrong.

[marousi]

der_wasi  - can you answer my post above, please?

[lok8nusa]

Update on the one stick that had so many errors: just to get it running, I gave it 1/8 turn clockwise on the pot, dropped the freq to 193.75 MHz, and it's been running half an hour with no errors.    (I know that luck is involved here)

Also, just for kicks, I ran 6 sticks on two Anker 10-port, 60W hubs (3 per hub) - chained.  They worked.
I've since returned the hubs to separate ports on my laptop.

As soon as I get my work vehicle fixed, I should have the time to work with each stick individually with a voltmeter. I'd like to have all of them play together at about 250 MHz with hw errors popping up a couple times per hour, per stick.

[der_wasi]

Can you share cgminer screenshot with them running at 350?

Sure.
https://imgur.com/70pTepd

der_wasi  - can you answer my post above, please?

I don´t know what you´re doing wrong. I posted a discription a few posts ago. If you follow that you will be able to set them up or to see where the problem is. You need to do a little troubleshooting yourself.

[marousi]

der_wasi - is this the post?

I accidently told you, if they go zombie, to turn up the voltage. That was wrong. That should be a power issue. I had the same problem with my two 2Pacs in a 30 W hub. I wanted to turn them up to 300 MHz. Of course they got HW errors. So I needed to turn up the voltage until the HW errors stopped inceasing. I did that for every stick alone in the hub. But then, when I turned on the hub, one ran and one went zombie. Then I could plug it out an in into the same port or another. One of them always went zombie.
So what you shoul do is to decide for a frequency, e.g. 200 MHz. Then put one stick alone into the hub. If you get HW errors, turn up the voltage until it stops increasing. If there are no HW errors, turn the voltage down until they start increasing. If they do, turn the voltage back up until it stops again.
The goal is to set the voltage high enough to get no HW errors and low enough to save power.
When you got all sticks set up this way (always one alone in the hub) you can put them in one after another. When you reach the point that one goes zombie, that´s the limit your hub can provide. Then you can buy another hub or repeat this procedure with a lower frequency.

I will do this!

[neowhere]

Hello everyone, newbie here.

I was wondering if anyone else was having issues with cgminer looping the "GSD X failure, disabling!" indefinitely when you try to run more than one 2Pac. I have been able to get up to 2 running simultaneously by plugging them in sequentially while cgminer is running, but any more than that and it ZOMBIEs the last one I plugged in and gives me the "failure" message over and over as it tries to find successive sticks.

Anyone seen this and/or figured out a cure? I would like to get more than one stick running at time!

Just for reference:
- I followed the instructions in this post to compile my own build (Windows) so it's current (and works just fine with the single stick)
- My USB hub is externally powered and I have tried multiple hubs and configurations - I don't think it's a power issue
- I've tried running each stick individually, so it's not a bad stick

Any help would be appreciated!

What is the hub you are using?

I've tried on an Anker 10-port 60W 3.0 hub (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VDVCQ84/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and on an Anker 7-port 2.0 hub (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00R5ZA20G/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1).

But I've also tried just plugging two into my computer directly and I have the same issue.

Check out this note by NotFuzzyWarm on the hub thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1779423.msg17921042#msg17921042

Perhaps the hub internal layout are similar?

Yeah, I took a look at that article just before I posted here. I'm not sure of the internal layout, but I have tried just about every combination of sticks/ports to see if that was the issue. I even tried running one stick from one hub and one stick from another and running one stick from the hub and one from my PC. I get the same thing every time. I do have another hub coming in today. I am going to try it and see if maybe it will work, but then I'm fresh out of ideas.

So, I got my new USB hub in and gave it a shot over the last few days (Anker 13 port 12V/5A). No dice. I'm fairly convinced it's not a power issue anymore as yesterday I ran cgminer with only two sticks in my USB hub, after setting both of them to the lowest power setting I could without them giving me hardware errors and running them at only freq 100. Even so, I can only get them to run for about 2-3 hours, after which one of the sticks goes ZOMBIE, which then cascades to all the sticks except one (when using more than 2). This is what it looks like in cgminer:

https://i.imgur.com/SkpNks8.jpg

You can see from the image that cgminer keeps trying to reinitialize the stick, but just fails over and over and over. In this case 5,222 times (I was gone all afternoon). Any ideas?

I have been going over this conversation that was started by thehypnominer.  I have a situation that precisely mirrors this person's issue, but after going through this thread I don't see that his issue was resolved.  I have an ongoing problem that my miners go into a ZOMBIE mode, and sometimes an OFF mode.  But most of the time it is ZOMBIE.

It happens anywhere from 1 hour to 12 hours after I plug them in.  I have tried different computers and different USB hubs.  I have not increased the voltage and don't even know how at this time.  They are running at 100 MHz.  And I have even decreased the freq parameter down to 100 in cgminer.  Whether I plug in both USB miners at the same time, or separately, this happens. 

The only thing that I can think of is that there must be some recommended USB hubs that I should be using.  I have read that some USB hubs don't give the amount of power that they seem to tout on their packaging.  If that is the case, can you please suggest a particular USB hub that I should purchase?  If this is not the solution, could you please let me know what to do?   Like thehypnominer, I had been planning to buy 10 or more of these things, but the first 2 that I purchased seem to give me a never ending road block.