How to use ASICMiner Block Erupters with CGMiner on Windows 7

[KyrosKrane]

Interesting, it's not showing up an AMU at all... nothing matches AMU 10c4:ea60

I checked the BE device properties in Device Manager, and I did see those bytes (10c4:ea60) in the various device setting strings.  So Windows itself is identifying the device correctly and loading the right driver.

If it helps you debug this further, the motherboard I'm using is a Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H.  Is there anything further I can do to help resolve this, or do we just have to wait for whoever is in charge of libusb development to add support for this motherboard/chipset/whatever the root cause is?

Hmm there are some usb3 ports that are apparently not working with libusb, perhaps you have some. Try different ports or a hub or something to see if that's it?

Unfortunately, I've tried with both the USB 2 and USB 3 ports on my PC, as well as a USB 2 hub plugged into both ports. No joy I don't have a USB 3 hub to test with, but I doubt it matters at this point.

I'm shifting my efforts towards mining with a Raspberry Pi, but that has its own issues - the Pi doesn't seem to recognize all the Erupters, and the whole Pi seems to freeze up after about five minutes. Still trying to figure out why and get a reproducible crash before I ask for help on that. Still, if I can get all 30+ Erupters mining successfully off an RPi, that would be the ideal scenario.

[kano]

... 2 AMUs solo mining on an RPi Raspbian using 1.7% CPU ...
Gotta do something with these worthless pieces of ...

[JBT]

... 2 AMUs solo mining on an RPi Raspbian using 1.7% CPU ...
Gotta do something with these worthless pieces of ...

was actually pondering getting a rasp and running the whole thing plus 10 sticks of batter/solar......meaning running cost will be free

[mdude77]

I updated the first post to clarify version info, and to add info on how to use 3.4.2, plus a sample config file for those that are completely new.

I switched to 3.4.2 and it was about as seamless as it could get.  I had two machines configured identically, complete with UART and USB drivers.  One had all my erupters, the other had none.  So I removed the UART driver from the one without erupters, rebooted, put cgminer 3.4.2 in a new folder, made a new script to start cgminer, and plugged all my erupters in.  I did one hub at a time to make sure it worked, and it worked.  No more COM port madness.   I think I'm getting 335MH/s per device now, compared to 333, and I think my hardware errors are lower.  I checked to see what I had on the old machine, and I think I was running around 7%, but I may have had an error in my math.  I'm running about 1.2% with 3.4.2.

M

[JBT]

using bfgminer -q is that only for the que  of how many bits of work to dl to do?

ed: also what is good q to set?

[daddyfatsax]

I having an issue with cgminer 3.4.2 restarting every 24 hours. Running windows 7 with 20 erupters. I am using cgwatcher, so whenever the miners stop watcher will make sure it starts again. Is there something I am missing that is causing cgminer to reset? I have 3.3.1 running scrypt on my gpu rig, and it has been running non stop for over a month now.

[mdude77]

I having an issue with cgminer 3.4.2 restarting every 24 hours. Running windows 7 with 20 erupters. I am using cgwatcher, so whenever the miners stop watcher will make sure it starts again. Is there something I am missing that is causing cgminer to reset? I have 3.3.1 running scrypt on my gpu rig, and it has been running non stop for over a month now.

3.4.2/3 crashes on me after a period of time.  Anywhere from a few days to close to a week.  Haven't seen a pattern, other than it always crashes in winsock.  On win7, with scrypt, cgminer hangs after about 3 days, presumably because the lousy AMD driver resets.

M

[rivanj]

Hi,

I've followed the instructions and read through the pages to try and solve the current issue I'm having, (uninstalled old drivers, used zadig, etc).

Currently in cg 3.4.2 (Win7 64bit) I'm getting AMU 0 - 7 displaying and hashing correctly (Using 13 USB erupters in total). The problem is I get repeating messages (that are pushing any display/setting option I try to look at) as follows:

"Icarus detect (1:3) failed to initialise (incorrect device?)
USB init, open device failed, err -12, you need to install a WinUSB driver for - AMU device 1:3" over and over again o_o;

I have them all display on my device manager, though 4 show as "Unknown device" whereas the others will have a different title in unison. I've hit a wall here since I can get them all working on bitminter, but I'd rather have them all running in cg.

o_o Derp. Nevermind. I had one plugged into a 3.0 USB port (Asrock extreme 4 mobo). Plugged it into 2.0 and everything is running as it should be *fingers crossed*

Thanks for the helpful (newbie friendly) thread >.<

[mdude77]

Hi,

I've followed the instructions and read through the pages to try and solve the current issue I'm having, (uninstalled old drivers, used zadig, etc).

Currently in cg 3.4.2 (Win7 64bit) I'm getting AMU 0 - 7 displaying and hashing correctly (Using 13 USB erupters in total). The problem is I get repeating messages (that are pushing any display/setting option I try to look at) as follows:

"Icarus detect (1:3) failed to initialise (incorrect device?)
USB init, open device failed, err -12, you need to install a WinUSB driver for - AMU device 1:3" over and over again o_o;

I have them all display on my device manager, though 4 show as "Unknown device" whereas the others will have a different title in unison. I've hit a wall here since I can get them all working on bitminter, but I'd rather have them all running in cg.

o_o Derp. Nevermind. I had one plugged into a 3.0 USB port (Asrock extreme 4 mobo). Plugged it into 2.0 and everything is running as it should be *fingers crossed*

Thanks for the helpful (newbie friendly) thread >.<

I've found two systems now 3.4.3 won't find the miner on.  One is an older motherboard with USB 2.0 ports.  Another is a laptop with newer USB 3.0 ports.  Two other computers work just fine.  It seems the direct USB support is still a bit spotty.

M

[rivanj]

I'm setting up a second mining rig, only two 2.0 ports on it, so will be trying to get the 3.0 ports working properly.
On second attempt with one usb erupter I managed to get it recognized, then after about 20 minutes it does the repeating errors again o_O

[EfterlysT]

I have only used bitminters own software to run my usb eruptors earlier without any problem. Now i want to put all my usb devices to mine in another slush pool with cgminer.

I dont get it to work at all. I am using Win 7 32bit version.

If i try the 3.1.1 version of cgminer it only tells me it dont find any devices.

If i try the 3.5.0 version of cgminer i get:


Everything fires up without problems with bitminter client.

Does anyone know what to to to get it work with cgminer ? I have tried like all win7 guides i have found without luck. I guess the problem lies with the winusb driver ?

[rpg]

I'm running 3.6.4 on win7 64 with about 45 sticks and I'm finding that sometimes when a stick goes zombie all the others go sick. Because of that I started running 4 instances with 12 sticks each as to not affect the hash rate that much. Has this been reported? Is zombie a real zobie and killing everyone :-) Now serious, could it be the thread manager going crazy?

[mdude77]

I'm running 3.6.4 on win7 64 with about 45 sticks and I'm finding that sometimes when a stick goes zombie all the others go sick. Because of that I started running 4 instances with 12 sticks each as to not affect the hash rate that much. Has this been reported? Is zombie a real zobie and killing everyone :-) Now serious, could it be the thread manager going crazy?

we're not sure why some machines get zombified and some don't.  I have one machine it works fine on with 36, another machine (much newer and more powerful) I get errors and zombies left and right.  if are one of the unlucky ones, try an earlier version until you get one that works.

M

[-ck]

I'm running 3.6.4 on win7 64 with about 45 sticks and I'm finding that sometimes when a stick goes zombie all the others go sick. Because of that I started running 4 instances with 12 sticks each as to not affect the hash rate that much. Has this been reported? Is zombie a real zobie and killing everyone :-) Now serious, could it be the thread manager going crazy?

we're not sure why some machines get zombified and some don't.  I have one machine it works fine on with 36, another machine (much newer and more powerful) I get errors and zombies left and right.  if are one of the unlucky ones, try an earlier version until you get one that works.

M

Yah I've been busting a gut left right and centre trying to find a common reason and fix for all of them on all OSs. My most recent bugfix for this very problem was only uploaded 2 hours ago, along with en experimental .exe using the bugfix.

[mdude77]

I'm running 3.6.4 on win7 64 with about 45 sticks and I'm finding that sometimes when a stick goes zombie all the others go sick. Because of that I started running 4 instances with 12 sticks each as to not affect the hash rate that much. Has this been reported? Is zombie a real zobie and killing everyone :-) Now serious, could it be the thread manager going crazy?

we're not sure why some machines get zombified and some don't.  I have one machine it works fine on with 36, another machine (much newer and more powerful) I get errors and zombies left and right.  if are one of the unlucky ones, try an earlier version until you get one that works.

M

Yah I've been busting a gut left right and centre trying to find a common reason and fix for all of them on all OSs. My most recent bugfix for this very problem was only uploaded 2 hours ago, along with en experimental .exe using the bugfix.

I appreciate your efforts.  I'd help test if I had the problem.  The rig in the basement with these works fine with 3.6.4+.  The fans are too noisy to run them up here on the machine that regularly has the problems.

M

[Illutian]

Whelp,

3.6.6

And I'm staring 18 "CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller" 's in Windows 8.1's Device Manager.

And "No devices detected!" in CGminer.  

[mdude77]

Whelp,

3.6.6

And I'm staring 18 "CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller" 's in Windows 8.1's Device Manager.

And "No devices detected!" in CGminer.

There seems to be something wrong. 

I get this when I have my erupters plugged into a blue USB 3.0 port.  have any 2.0 ports to plug them into?

M

[Illutian]

Whelp,

3.6.6

And I'm staring 18 "CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller" 's in Windows 8.1's Device Manager.

And "No devices detected!" in CGminer.

There seems to be something wrong.  

I get this when I have my erupters plugged into a blue USB 3.0 port.  have any 2.0 ports to plug them into?

M

They're USB 3 hubs plugged into a USB 2 port. Apparently I had to not only REBOOT. But I also had to unplug and re-plug the entire Hub assembly....why I would need to do that after rebooting is beyond me. Seeing as nothing else was done and I rebooted just for shits 'n giggles.

Now CGminer-nogpu sees them


...and promptly crashes after running them for 3secs.

WTF is wrong now....

EDIT:

Oh and unless someone can tell me how the hell to run 'cgminer.exe' with a no GPU flag I won't bother. It causes my Nvidia Drivers to crash.


EDIT #2:

But MultiMiner uses CGminer 3.6.6 just fine...

[mdude77]

Whelp,

3.6.6

And I'm staring 18 "CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller" 's in Windows 8.1's Device Manager.

And "No devices detected!" in CGminer.

There seems to be something wrong.  

I get this when I have my erupters plugged into a blue USB 3.0 port.  have any 2.0 ports to plug them into?

M

They're USB 3 hubs plugged into a USB 2 port. Apparently I had to not only REBOOT. But I also had to unplug and re-plug the entire Hub assembly....why I would need to do that after rebooting is beyond me. Seeing as nothing else was done and I rebooted just for shits 'n giggles.

Now CGminer-nogpu sees them


...and promptly crashes after running them for 3secs.

WTF is wrong now....

EDIT:

Oh and unless someone can tell me how the hell to run 'cgminer.exe' with a no GPU flag I won't bother. It causes my Nvidia Drivers to crash.


EDIT #2:

But MultiMiner uses CGminer 3.6.6 just fine...

BTW, I'm using cgminer-nogpu 3.6.6 on a win8.1x64 box with 36 erupters with no problems.  I don't know why it works for some people and not others.

M

[forzendiablo]

working good.

which USB hub would u suggest?