GekkoScience 2Pac/Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread

[haleyma]

Thanks so much for all the information in this forum.  

I bought two 2PACs a couple of months ago and have been running them on a Raspberry Pi 3, with a powered USB hub and a cooling fan.  This morning all was fine, then they weren't running.

I checked my power connections, updated and upgraded my Pi, read through these forums, update cgminer and MAKE'd it again.  

Now, one of them is running and the other is not.  The light is green.  I tried adjusting the potentiometer a bit, tried different USB ports but there is no change.

The terminal cgminer readout showes the stick is seen, but is OFF.    

Any idea if this is a set up issue that I can troubleshoot...and how?
Or a stick problem?
Thanks
haleyma

That´s very odd. If they worked it shouldn´t be a usual issue like to less power. Is it always the same stick, that isn´t working? Died you try this one alone in the hub? What happens if you switch the OFF stick to ON inside the cgminer usb options?
What setup are you running, or were you running before it crashed? What frequency? Did you use cooling?

Thanks for your answer.  It is always the same stick.  I did try this one alone in the hub - same outcome.
Can you give me some help in switching the OFF stick to ON inside the cgminer usb options?  I don't know how to go about that.
My set up is a raspberry Pi 3, separate/powered USB hub, both sticks were at 100MHz, I use a fan for cooling.

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[der_wasi]

I have been using two GekkoScience 2Pac BM1384 Stickminers for about two months now on a Raspberry Pi, and recently purchased two more, plus a 5-amp 10-port USB 2.0 hub, however...

I can only seem to recognize a maximum of two miners simultaneously, on the 10 port hub.

If I set up a second powered hub (the original one that I have been using all along), I can get three out of four operational, at the same time. This particular hub has the ports positioned too closely to connect more than two stick miners, simultaneously.

Are there any tips/tricks I might try, to get all three miners working, on the 10 port hub?

Also, unrelated: One of the two new miners lights up bright white, and won't recognize at all...Upon close inspection, one of the chip components appears to be mis-aligned...I will probably attempt to exchange it with the vendor for a new one.

Edit: the miner that appeared dead spontaneously woke up, and now appears to be functioning normally...go figure...

You can reduce the voltage an the frequency. That causes less power consumption but also less hashrate.
Buy the 5A hub a second time and put in the other two sticks. 5A at 5V is 25W. That´s not enough for so many sticks.

Thanks for your answer.  It is always the same stick.  I did try this one alone in the hub - same outcome.
Can you give me some help in switching the OFF stick to ON inside the cgminer usb options?  I don't know how to go about that.
My set up is a raspberry Pi 3, separate/powered USB hub, both sticks were at 100MHz, I use a fan for cooling.

Inside cgminer just press U for USB Management and E for enable device. Then insert the GSD number of the off listed stick. But I´m afraid it won´t work.
Did you try starting cgminer without any sticks and then hot plug the one causing problems?

[Nut110]

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen,

My setup was described in page 79.
Simply assure that I have very solid power supply and moded hub to have more than enough current and power.
And I tuned up Vcore up to 0.715V @200MHz now.
Big fans blowing all the time.
I go to check about every 12 hours morning and night.
Windows 10 Home in PC-stick.

Still get random Zombie, sometimes 1 sometimes 2 out of 3.

But one observation I have noticed is that there is 1 out of 3 2-pac that rarely gets Zombie.
The random Zombie that I meant usually occur to 1 among 2, or both, except the 3rd one.

The difference of the frequent Zombie 2 vs stable 1 is the Vcore of the 2 chips.
The stable one has the same Vcore no matter how much I tune.
The 2 Zombie have about 0.015V different Vcore.
Now both Zombie 2-pac with different Vcore are set at Vcore 0.7V and 0.715V.
The stable 2-pac is at 0.7V for both chips.

Not sure if this would help improving 2-pac.
Or if you guys already know this then please consider my comment as one more confirmation.

[sidehack]

It does go with something I've been saying since we started manufacturing them, that Zombies are caused when the miner goes unstable in part due to unbalanced loads by the two chips not being exactly matched for specs. Hence why the first advice when someone has Zombie issues is "turn up the voltage a bit", because adding a bit of extra juice can help make up for the weakness in the weaker chip.

It's a fundamental drawback in single-wide chip strings. Nothing can be done about it except individually testing and binning every single chip to match them on a per-stick basis, which, from where I'm sitting, is in no way worth the time, effort and equipment required.

[GEBucky]

Holy cow batman!!  I had some reservations about plunking down $260 for an Eyeboot USB hub, but I somehow ended up (thank you, Mr. Martini) ordering 12 2Pacs over the course of past few months. Thankfully I had an old 110V power cord from one of my Antminers (those all now go on 220V) so was able to get it up-and-running. It does not come with a power cord. I am running 12 2Pacs on it at 200 on a Raspberry and it's absolutely flying without a hiccup. Have two usb fans in front of the sticks. Was using a Sipolar 10 port before before with 4 of the 2Pacs and a single fan at 150. They are running WAY faster on this beast. Not sure the math works given you can get a S9 for about $2500 with PSU shipped, but this scratches a different itch, and I can run them in the house. Try that with 6 S9s and 6 L3s and see how long your wife sticks around . I love the 2Pacs, and the Moonlanders for that fact. Much more fun to tinker with, and double word score that you don't have to deal with Bitmain to get them.
One big lesson learned is to occasionally do an Raspberry update and re-pull the CGminer build. I hadn't done that in awhile and was rebooting every day. Now - haven't touched them in 24 hours - not a single Zombie, nothing. Hashing well north of 300G on Multipool pointed at Digibyte port. If your going to go big with the 2Pacs I couldn't recommend this thing more. I opted for the black one with build in PSU - that Orange one is all kinds of ugly (but has seperate PSU so has some advantages, but it is definitely ORANGE.
I have sent about 8 hubs back to Amazon trying to crack the code, and kept coming up short. This is a case of you get what you pay for. And you do pay for it.
Guess I need me a few more 2Pacs and then flip this thing to 220V. Actually turning into an "mini adult" hashing rig. Would still take 3 more of these hubs to hold the 50 so of these you would need to get to an S9 so not going there. But just can't live with those empty slots. It looks like I can probably run 16 of them on this - using every other slot and every other row to allow for airflow, with the front row for fans. Could probably go to 20 and put the fans on separate USB in front of the Eyeboot. Not sure putting them closer together is a good idea. Going to let it run for another day or two the give 250 a whirl.

[haleyma]

I have been using two GekkoScience 2Pac BM1384 Stickminers for about two months now on a Raspberry Pi, and recently purchased two more, plus a 5-amp 10-port USB 2.0 hub, however...

I can only seem to recognize a maximum of two miners simultaneously, on the 10 port hub.

If I set up a second powered hub (the original one that I have been using all along), I can get three out of four operational, at the same time. This particular hub has the ports positioned too closely to connect more than two stick miners, simultaneously.

Are there any tips/tricks I might try, to get all three miners working, on the 10 port hub?

Also, unrelated: One of the two new miners lights up bright white, and won't recognize at all...Upon close inspection, one of the chip components appears to be mis-aligned...I will probably attempt to exchange it with the vendor for a new one.

Edit: the miner that appeared dead spontaneously woke up, and now appears to be functioning normally...go figure...

You can reduce the voltage an the frequency. That causes less power consumption but also less hashrate.
Buy the 5A hub a second time and put in the other two sticks. 5A at 5V is 25W. That´s not enough for so many sticks.

Thanks for your answer.  It is always the same stick.  I did try this one alone in the hub - same outcome.
Can you give me some help in switching the OFF stick to ON inside the cgminer usb options?  I don't know how to go about that.
My set up is a raspberry Pi 3, separate/powered USB hub, both sticks were at 100MHz, I use a fan for cooling.

Inside cgminer just press U for USB Management and E for enable device. Then insert the GSD number of the off listed stick. But I´m afraid it won´t work.
Did you try starting cgminer without any sticks and then hot plug the one causing problems?

Again, thank you for your assistance.
So, I tried adjusting the USB management options with no success.
I also tried hot plugging just the one plug causing the problem - no luck.
Then, I tried restarting cgminer with just the 'bad' stick in the USB...it started briefly, then went off.  I haven't been able to reproduce that.

So, I looked in my config files to see if there was some problem...and I had a bunch of files that were added when I pulled the new cgminer update.  Not sure what to remove...I removed my cgminer directory and files...then recloned the directory and re-make'd cgminer.  No change.
The one stick works fine, the other one is read ("GekkoScience added GSD 2"), has a GSD number, but is always OFF.

Any other thoughts?

[sidehack]

Have you looked at any of the troubleshooting steps from the first post?

[GEBucky]

I have been using two GekkoScience 2Pac BM1384 Stickminers for about two months now on a Raspberry Pi, and recently purchased two more, plus a 5-amp 10-port USB 2.0 hub, however...

I can only seem to recognize a maximum of two miners simultaneously, on the 10 port hub.

If I set up a second powered hub (the original one that I have been using all along), I can get three out of four operational, at the same time. This particular hub has the ports positioned too closely to connect more than two stick miners, simultaneously.

Are there any tips/tricks I might try, to get all three miners working, on the 10 port hub?

Also, unrelated: One of the two new miners lights up bright white, and won't recognize at all...Upon close inspection, one of the chip components appears to be mis-aligned...I will probably attempt to exchange it with the vendor for a new one.

Edit: the miner that appeared dead spontaneously woke up, and now appears to be functioning normally...go figure...

You can reduce the voltage an the frequency. That causes less power consumption but also less hashrate.
Buy the 5A hub a second time and put in the other two sticks. 5A at 5V is 25W. That´s not enough for so many sticks.

Thanks for your answer.  It is always the same stick.  I did try this one alone in the hub - same outcome.
Can you give me some help in switching the OFF stick to ON inside the cgminer usb options?  I don't know how to go about that.
My set up is a raspberry Pi 3, separate/powered USB hub, both sticks were at 100MHz, I use a fan for cooling.

Inside cgminer just press U for USB Management and E for enable device. Then insert the GSD number of the off listed stick. But I´m afraid it won´t work.
Did you try starting cgminer without any sticks and then hot plug the one causing problems?

Again, thank you for your assistance.
So, I tried adjusting the USB management options with no success.
I also tried hot plugging just the one plug causing the problem - no luck.
Then, I tried restarting cgminer with just the 'bad' stick in the USB...it started briefly, then went off.  I haven't been able to reproduce that.

So, I looked in my config files to see if there was some problem...and I had a bunch of files that were added when I pulled the new cgminer update.  Not sure what to remove...I removed my cgminer directory and files...then recloned the directory and re-make'd cgminer.  No change.
The one stick works fine, the other one is read ("GekkoScience added GSD 2"), has a GSD number, but is always OFF.

Any other thoughts?

A couple of suggestions/thoughts"
 - have you updated your Pi OS and done a recent pull of VTH CGminer? I was having some bizarre issues and that really helped stabilize
- doesn't sound like that hub is powerful enough for that many sticks.
- for the problem stick, I would isolate it. If CGminer doesn't pick it up on it's own, you may want to play with voltage. Not sure what frequency you are running, or if you have a voltage meter. But you can just try a small (1/8 turn max) adjustment to see if that helps. I run at 200 and had a new stick that need the voltage turned up (clockwise) a little bit to get picked up by CGminer.
- You may want to try turning you frequency down to 100 and see if that helps. Hash rate will suffer but will pull less power.
- Rasps aren't great with multiple USB inputs so in my opinion you are best served gettin them on one hub. I have 12 running on an Eyeboot and no problems. You don't need a 60 amp hub for 4 or 5 sticks but from what I see you are going to have a hard time running 4 on hub you listed. There is a separate thread (link buried in this thread somewhere) that's dedicated to hubs. Sipolars are great but hard to find. Eyeboots are amazing but expensive and probably overkill unless you are going to add more. Look at their site - they may have smaller one's now.

Hope it works out!

BTW - I have one that has the "white light" - it's been running fine for two months and both Asic chips are operational. In some/many cases it means one of the two Asic chips are dead. Playing with voltage might help.

[der_wasi]

Voltage and frequency would be my next suggestion either.
The voltage pot has a flat side. With the usb port on bottom and view on the electronic side of the stick, what time does the pot show? Try 2 or 3 o´clock and a freqency of 100 MHz.

@GEBucky: I cannot confirm problems with the pi and multiple usb ports. Mine is running for weeks now with 2 hubs on 2 pi usb ports and one stick in each hub. Maybe an issue of older versions?

[marousi]

With the usb port on bottom and view on the electronic side of the stick, what time does the pot show? 5 o clock for 250 mhz. fan cooled.

[der_wasi]

Try 2 or 3 o´clock at 100 MHz first to avoid any heat issues. That´s the factory setting if I remember correctly.

[GEBucky]

Voltage and frequency would be my next suggestion either.
The voltage pot has a flat side. With the usb port on bottom and view on the electronic side of the stick, what time does the pot show? Try 2 or 3 o´clock and a freqency of 100 MHz.

@GEBucky: I cannot confirm problems with the pi and multiple usb ports. Mine is running for weeks now with 2 hubs on 2 pi usb ports and one stick in each hub. Maybe an issue of older versions?

Interesting and thanks for the clarification - I handn't tried again in a couple of months. I had my issues trying to run 2 hubs with Moonlanders not 2pacs now that I think of it. I did some digging and read that pi's don't like 2 USB inputs in general but that may either have been in context of BFGminer, or it's an issue that's been resolved on Pi. That's really good news as will save people a lot of money - it's sort of like 6-8 ports ....  or 49 . Not a lot in the middle. I think it's a conspiracy as now that I have the 49 port Eyeboot I had to order a bunch more 2Pacs to see how many I can getting running on it. Uggg - it's like a sickness. I have a ton of Antminers running so not exactly sure what I am trying to accomplish - I think getting a TH of hash out of USB sticks would be an accomplishment, however. Thank god they didn't have a 400 port hub or I would need 6 more Artic Breeze fans and a new power circuit for my back office.

Pretty cool though as 12 2Pacs running without a hiccup for 3 days now. Think I have earned something like 12 DGB, so I am getting close to that pack of gum I have been dying for.

[sidehack]

One of these days I'll get back around to working on my own USB hub. It'd only be 8 ports, 7 with signal and one dummy port which would be good for a fan or Pi, and good for up to 3A per port with a user-adjustable cutoff. Hopefully that's available this summer. I should have a better stickminer around then as well.

By the way, it's been mentioned elsewhere but I have opened general 2Pac sales (with limited stock refreshed weekly) so resellers are no longer the only option. If you're interested, email Laura the awesomely delightful salesperson laura@gekkoscience.com
She's talked about setting up a forum account for improved communication but I don't think it's been done yet.

I've got three Eyeboot hubs we use for 2Pac initial testing, two of the orange ones and one black. I don't know if it's the hub or the computer it's attached to, but the black one is the least stable. I don't know what the voltage is on it though, and since the two others have external power supplies I have it pushed up a little bit so that could be a part of things. The black one is pretty sexy though.

[haleyma]

I have been using two GekkoScience 2Pac BM1384 Stickminers for about two months now on a Raspberry Pi, and recently purchased two more, plus a 5-amp 10-port USB 2.0 hub, however...

I can only seem to recognize a maximum of two miners simultaneously, on the 10 port hub.

If I set up a second powered hub (the original one that I have been using all along), I can get three out of four operational, at the same time. This particular hub has the ports positioned too closely to connect more than two stick miners, simultaneously.

Are there any tips/tricks I might try, to get all three miners working, on the 10 port hub?

Also, unrelated: One of the two new miners lights up bright white, and won't recognize at all...Upon close inspection, one of the chip components appears to be mis-aligned...I will probably attempt to exchange it with the vendor for a new one.

Edit: the miner that appeared dead spontaneously woke up, and now appears to be functioning normally...go figure...

You can reduce the voltage an the frequency. That causes less power consumption but also less hashrate.
Buy the 5A hub a second time and put in the other two sticks. 5A at 5V is 25W. That´s not enough for so many sticks.

Thanks for your answer.  It is always the same stick.  I did try this one alone in the hub - same outcome.
Can you give me some help in switching the OFF stick to ON inside the cgminer usb options?  I don't know how to go about that.
My set up is a raspberry Pi 3, separate/powered USB hub, both sticks were at 100MHz, I use a fan for cooling.

Inside cgminer just press U for USB Management and E for enable device. Then insert the GSD number of the off listed stick. But I´m afraid it won´t work.
Did you try starting cgminer without any sticks and then hot plug the one causing problems?

Again, thank you for your assistance.
So, I tried adjusting the USB management options with no success.
I also tried hot plugging just the one plug causing the problem - no luck.
Then, I tried restarting cgminer with just the 'bad' stick in the USB...it started briefly, then went off.  I haven't been able to reproduce that.

So, I looked in my config files to see if there was some problem...and I had a bunch of files that were added when I pulled the new cgminer update.  Not sure what to remove...I removed my cgminer directory and files...then recloned the directory and re-make'd cgminer.  No change.
The one stick works fine, the other one is read ("GekkoScience added GSD 2"), has a GSD number, but is always OFF.

Any other thoughts?

A couple of suggestions/thoughts"
 - have you updated your Pi OS and done a recent pull of VTH CGminer? I was having some bizarre issues and that really helped stabilize
- doesn't sound like that hub is powerful enough for that many sticks.
- for the problem stick, I would isolate it. If CGminer doesn't pick it up on it's own, you may want to play with voltage. Not sure what frequency you are running, or if you have a voltage meter. But you can just try a small (1/8 turn max) adjustment to see if that helps. I run at 200 and had a new stick that need the voltage turned up (clockwise) a little bit to get picked up by CGminer.
- You may want to try turning you frequency down to 100 and see if that helps. Hash rate will suffer but will pull less power.
- Rasps aren't great with multiple USB inputs so in my opinion you are best served gettin them on one hub. I have 12 running on an Eyeboot and no problems. You don't need a 60 amp hub for 4 or 5 sticks but from what I see you are going to have a hard time running 4 on hub you listed. There is a separate thread (link buried in this thread somewhere) that's dedicated to hubs. Sipolars are great but hard to find. Eyeboots are amazing but expensive and probably overkill unless you are going to add more. Look at their site - they may have smaller one's now.

Hope it works out!

BTW - I have one that has the "white light" - it's been running fine for two months and both Asic chips are operational. In some/many cases it means one of the two Asic chips are dead. Playing with voltage might help.

Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions.  I think my posts and another's got kinda mixed together.
So, currently, these two miners of mine are working - YAY!  I'm not sure what actually did the trick.
Yes, I did read the first post about voltage and many, many of the posts on this forum before asking.
Oddly, the 'bad' stick functioned a few moments when I started cgminer with it in the usb port, but then stopped.
Before I did multimeter checks again, I did use the "flat side to 3 o'clock" suggestion and, at the same time, I have been adding the "--gekko...150" parameter to my start command.  (I've been trying all possibly combinations of things.)  So, with both sticks' potentiometers at 3'oclock, trying to start at 150MHz, they are both running, BUT the cgminer display in the terminal says they are both running at 100MHZ.   I'm happy, though, they are working.  Thanks again.

[sidehack]

Are you passing in --gekko-2pac-freq or gekko-compac-freq? Because these are 2Pacs so they want the 2Pac flag.

[haleyma]

Are you passing in --gekko-2pac-freq or gekko-compac-freq? Because these are 2Pacs so they want the 2Pac flag.

I believe I have been doing it wrong.  I saw other posts, but in reading the parameter in the troubleshooting section on the first post, I didn't realize it was written two different ways.  I'll make the change and see how it turns out.  Thank you.

[rodders73]

Evening all

I new to so peleae go easy with me

I am trying to get a 2pac bm1384 working on a windows 7
 
I am trying get the usb miner working but I have had no enjoy.
Is there an easy guide any were to set this usb miner
Me and my son spent two days trying to get working I have a window 7 pc. I would like to get running on a Mac in the end .
I have download the cgminer in the thread
I was going to miner Peercoin as this a smaller coin so he can see a whole get mined
I have a usb power supply that it is plug into
I can see the 2pac bm1384 in the windows  com port file

Thank In advance for the help

[sidehack]

The first post of this thread is the guide for setting it up.

[crishouse]

My R PI cannot seem to run for more that 24 hours without freezing. It's running the https://github.com/vthoang/cgminer miner. Once it crashes, I obviously cannot ssh into it. I just cycle the power on it and restart the miner program. It's kind of annoying.

I find the thermal sink to be warmer than usual. I have tried a fresh install with a nicer SD card, but it didn't help. I also run BFG miner running moonlanders which has never crashed in the weeks I've been running it. Are there other miner programs I could use to run Gekko 2Pacs? Any other ideas to improve the stability would be much appreciated. I have dealt with USB power issues, but I don't think that would cause the RPI to lock up.

[rem26]

My R PI cannot seem to run for more that 24 hours without freezing. It's running the https://github.com/vthoang/cgminer miner. Once it crashes, I obviously cannot ssh into it. I just cycle the power on it and restart the miner program. It's kind of annoying.

I find the thermal sink to be warmer than usual. I have tried a fresh install with a nicer SD card, but it didn't help. I also run BFG miner running moonlanders which has never crashed in the weeks I've been running it. Are there other miner programs I could use to run Gekko 2Pacs? Any other ideas to improve the stability would be much appreciated. I have dealt with USB power issues, but I don't think that would cause the RPI to lock up.

Which distribution are you running on your pi, and what kind of power supply are you running the _pi_ with.  I assume you have the 2pacs in a seperate, powered hub (2Pacs NOT plugged into the RPI, but plugged into a hub).