USB ASIC ERUPTER - Setup & Config. BCG Miner, cgminer & Hubs "Oh Pi"!

[friedcat]

I think these puppies will overclock fine with an innovative cooling solution.

From what I can tell, we'll need some type of software interface to make overclocking possible. 
I believe this was previously accomplished with GPUs through the use of OpenCL.  So we'd need info/etc from ASICMiner on how/if this is possible.

ck or kano can likely clarify.

No possible because the oscillator for the USB is a fixed frequency one. The voltage is also fixed at the lowest possible for the current frequency to match the 500mA spec of USB ports.

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[LaserHorse]

No possible because the oscillator for the USB is a fixed frequency one. The voltage is also fixed at the lowest possible for the current frequency to match the 500mA spec of USB ports.

Ah - thanks for that insight.

[CommanderVenus]

I have been running my Raspberry Pi with cgminer 3.1.1 and just one block erupter. Does the pi give the erupters high hardware failures for everyone?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fpxc6q94gqix9zl/RPi-CGMiner-1Erupter-1Hour.png

I see <1% errors usually, with peaks around 1%.  I saw >1% before I found a good cooling solution.

How hot is your erupter getting?  Can you hold your finger on the heat shield?

CGminer 3.2.1 fixed whatever was giving me problems with HW failure.
This is a screenshot of cgminer with an uptime of about 1 day 2 hours 35 minutes.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/h0cen93laqkyh3e/cgminer3.2.1.png

[os2sam]

My Mother Board has 6 USB ports on the back.  It's an MSI 870-G45.

Is it safe to plug in 6 USB Block Erupters into it?  I don't see anything in the manual as to what the total power/current draw is.
Thanks,
Sam

[nubbins]

My Mother Board has 6 USB ports on the back.  It's an MSI 870-G45.

Is it safe to plug in 6 USB Block Erupters into it?  I don't see anything in the manual as to what the total power/current draw is.
Thanks,
Sam

I've heard ~2.5W per unit being mentioned.

[bystander]

What speeds are you guys holding? Mine is at 330.5Mh/s. Been going a since Wednesday. About 3.5HW errors an hour.

So far it's steady around 334.2Mh/s.  I finally got 99 of them working with CGMiner 3.1.1 this evening on a Win7 laptop.

Had a lot of trouble with 3.2.1 crashing on Win7 after about 6 detections, so I decided to roll it back and try my luck with 3.1.1.  Missed the hotplug aspect of 3.2.1, but being able to specify each com## worked out well.   Running 10 Anker hubs with 9 usb miners with arctic fans, and 1 Anker hub without the fan.  For some reason one of the ports isn't working on the 11th, so 100 has been elusive.  

Ran a copy of CGMiner for each Anker hub and hopefully this will stay up.  With BitMinter, I had to restart a couple of workers every so often, so CGMiner has been great.

A big thanks to MikeMike for starting this thread and to everyone who has posted.

[CommanderVenus]

Earlier in this thread, Rounder gave me instructions on how to install and configure cgminer 3.1.1 in linux. I updated them a little bit to get the newest cgminer which plays much more nicely with the block erupter.

This page has a good overview of how to build cgminer:
http://techblog.sethleedy.name/?p=24276

1. Install the dependencies using apt-get
2. clone git://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer.git
4. cd cgminer
5. ./autogen.sh
6. ./configure --enable-icarus
7. make
8. sudo make install
9. sudo cgminer

If you get errors in any of the autogen/configure/make steps, it's likely there is a missing dependency that needs to be installed with apt-get.

(If anyone sees a wrong command or anything, feel free to quote and fix it. Im still kinda new to linux.)

[mr_john]

Nice!

For completeness: That's what I did on my raspberry:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=223573.msg2376165#msg2376165

[os2sam]

My Mother Board has 6 USB ports on the back.  It's an MSI 870-G45.

Is it safe to plug in 6 USB Block Erupters into it?  I don't see anything in the manual as to what the total power/current draw is.
Thanks,
Sam

I've heard ~2.5W per unit being mentioned.

That's .5 Amp.  So you think that can be delivered by all 6 ports?  I do have some USB hubs on the way but the Block Erupters will probably be here first.
Thanks,
Sam

[maxpower]

What speeds are you guys holding? Mine is at 330.5Mh/s. Been going a since Wednesday. About 3.5HW errors an hour.

So far it's steady around 334.2Mh/s.  I finally got 99 of them working with CGMiner 3.1.1 this evening on a Win7 laptop.

Had a lot of trouble with 3.2.1 crashing on Win7 after about 6 detections, so I decided to roll it back and try my luck with 3.1.1.  Missed the hotplug aspect of 3.2.1, but being able to specify each com## worked out well.   Running 10 Anker hubs with 9 usb miners with arctic fans, and 1 Anker hub without the fan.  For some reason one of the ports isn't working on the 11th, so 100 has been elusive.  

Ran a copy of CGMiner for each Anker hub and hopefully this will stay up.  With BitMinter, I had to restart a couple of workers every so often, so CGMiner has been great.

A big thanks to MikeMike for starting this thread and to everyone who has posted.

How are your error rates with the Arctic fan? I was running one on an Anker as well, but it seemed like it wasn't big enough to get airflow to the USB ports at the edges. On the other hand, right now I have an 8" desk fan pointed at the hub and miners, and I'm seeing about 1% errors, so I'm not convinced that that's much better than the Arctic.

[ashpooler]

Well hopefully the new version of cgminer (3.2.1) that has a significant bugfix for these devices will allow people to move to it instead of sticking to the old version.

Compiled it on my Pi and it looks like as if it does perform much better with lesser HW errors still on diff 1 (check my previous post). Also, no need for additional options just like with 3.2.0. Thanks ckolivas and kano for the fast cgminer updates. Here's an addition to my previous post to get my test build to 3.2.1. Stop cgminer and do this:

Code:

cd ~/src/cgminer
make clean
git pull
./autogen.sh
CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -march=native" ./configure --enable-bflsc --enable-icarus --enable-bitforce --enable-modminer --enable-ztex
make

What does this do?

CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -march=native"

CFLAGS is used to pass arguments to the compiler. In this case "-O2" for optimization (enables various optimization flags) of the generated code, "-Wall" enables various warning flags and "-march=" selects for which processor architecture you'd like to compile, "native" determines the processor type of the compiling machine.

You can find most flags explained i.e. here.

[nubbins]

That's .5 Amp.  So you think that can be delivered by all 6 ports?  I do have some USB hubs on the way but the Block Erupters will probably be here first.
Thanks,
Sam

y'know, i'm really not sure. add them one at a time until things stop working

[bystander]

What speeds are you guys holding? Mine is at 330.5Mh/s. Been going a since Wednesday. About 3.5HW errors an hour.

So far it's steady around 334.2Mh/s.  I finally got 99 of them working with CGMiner 3.1.1 this evening on a Win7 laptop.

Had a lot of trouble with 3.2.1 crashing on Win7 after about 6 detections, so I decided to roll it back and try my luck with 3.1.1.  Missed the hotplug aspect of 3.2.1, but being able to specify each com## worked out well.   Running 10 Anker hubs with 9 usb miners with arctic fans, and 1 Anker hub without the fan.  For some reason one of the ports isn't working on the 11th, so 100 has been elusive.  

Ran a copy of CGMiner for each Anker hub and hopefully this will stay up.  With BitMinter, I had to restart a couple of workers every so often, so CGMiner has been great.

A big thanks to MikeMike for starting this thread and to everyone who has posted.

How are your error rates with the Arctic fan? I was running one on an Anker as well, but it seemed like it wasn't big enough to get airflow to the USB ports at the edges. On the other hand, right now I have an 8" desk fan pointed at the hub and miners, and I'm seeing about 1% errors, so I'm not convinced that that's much better than the Arctic.

Currently getting about 1%+ with the Arctics.  While the ones on the edge feel a bit warmer, the error rate is actually on par with the interior ones so I've been thinking about getting a desk fan to increase the overall airflow.

[maxpower]

What speeds are you guys holding? Mine is at 330.5Mh/s. Been going a since Wednesday. About 3.5HW errors an hour.

So far it's steady around 334.2Mh/s.  I finally got 99 of them working with CGMiner 3.1.1 this evening on a Win7 laptop.

Had a lot of trouble with 3.2.1 crashing on Win7 after about 6 detections, so I decided to roll it back and try my luck with 3.1.1.  Missed the hotplug aspect of 3.2.1, but being able to specify each com## worked out well.   Running 10 Anker hubs with 9 usb miners with arctic fans, and 1 Anker hub without the fan.  For some reason one of the ports isn't working on the 11th, so 100 has been elusive.  

Ran a copy of CGMiner for each Anker hub and hopefully this will stay up.  With BitMinter, I had to restart a couple of workers every so often, so CGMiner has been great.

A big thanks to MikeMike for starting this thread and to everyone who has posted.

How are your error rates with the Arctic fan? I was running one on an Anker as well, but it seemed like it wasn't big enough to get airflow to the USB ports at the edges. On the other hand, right now I have an 8" desk fan pointed at the hub and miners, and I'm seeing about 1% errors, so I'm not convinced that that's much better than the Arctic.

Currently getting about 1%+ with the Arctics.  While the ones on the edge feel a bit warmer, the error rate is actually on par with the interior ones so I've been thinking about getting a desk fan to increase the overall airflow.

Interesting, maybe I should switch back to an Arctic. I get a little under 1% with a desk fan, but not much under 1%. The big problem with my desk fan, at least, is that it's just wide enough to cover all my Erupters, but there's a big airflow dead spot in the middle where the fan's axle is. So the BE in the center of the hub runs slightly hotter and has a slightly higher error rate than the rest.

I have a couple of these on order, maybe they'll work better: http://amzn.com/B00080G0BK

[8-bit]

don't mean to re-ask a question, but im holding 330 mh/s in my cgminer window, but when I check my pool stats page (coinotron.com) my reported hash rate is much lower at times and also much higher, ive seen it anywhere from 100kh to 500 kh/s

just wondering if that normal and reason behind it. thks

[LaserHorse]

don't mean to re-ask a question, but im holding 330 mh/s in my cgminer window, but when I check my pool stats page (coinotron.com) my reported hash rate is much lower at times and also much higher, ive seen it anywhere from 100kh to 500 kh/s

just wondering if that normal and reason behind it. thks

I can't offer an explanation, but I see similar variance in my hashrate on slush's pool.
Doesn't seem to be a problem.

[os2sam]

That's .5 Amp.  So you think that can be delivered by all 6 ports?  I do have some USB hubs on the way but the Block Erupters will probably be here first.
Thanks,
Sam

y'know, i'm really not sure. add them one at a time until things stop working

Yep, that's the plan.  I'm just worried about stressing or frying the M/B or having the current on the hairy edge and start having flaky problems.  Hopefully I'll find out tomorrow night.
Thanks,
Sam

[bystander]

What speeds are you guys holding? Mine is at 330.5Mh/s. Been going a since Wednesday. About 3.5HW errors an hour.

So far it's steady around 334.2Mh/s.  I finally got 99 of them working with CGMiner 3.1.1 this evening on a Win7 laptop.

Had a lot of trouble with 3.2.1 crashing on Win7 after about 6 detections, so I decided to roll it back and try my luck with 3.1.1.  Missed the hotplug aspect of 3.2.1, but being able to specify each com## worked out well.   Running 10 Anker hubs with 9 usb miners with arctic fans, and 1 Anker hub without the fan.  For some reason one of the ports isn't working on the 11th, so 100 has been elusive.  

Ran a copy of CGMiner for each Anker hub and hopefully this will stay up.  With BitMinter, I had to restart a couple of workers every so often, so CGMiner has been great.

A big thanks to MikeMike for starting this thread and to everyone who has posted.

How are your error rates with the Arctic fan? I was running one on an Anker as well, but it seemed like it wasn't big enough to get airflow to the USB ports at the edges. On the other hand, right now I have an 8" desk fan pointed at the hub and miners, and I'm seeing about 1% errors, so I'm not convinced that that's much better than the Arctic.

Currently getting about 1%+ with the Arctics.  While the ones on the edge feel a bit warmer, the error rate is actually on par with the interior ones so I've been thinking about getting a desk fan to increase the overall airflow.

Interesting, maybe I should switch back to an Arctic. I get a little under 1% with a desk fan, but not much under 1%. The big problem with my desk fan, at least, is that it's just wide enough to cover all my Erupters, but there's a big airflow dead spot in the middle where the fan's axle is. So the BE in the center of the hub runs slightly hotter and has a slightly higher error rate than the rest.

I have a couple of these on order, maybe they'll work better: http://amzn.com/B00080G0BK

You're probably going to be better off with the Thermaltakes on order, the arctic fans aren't cutting it right now.  After more than 24 hours the HW errors are piling up, it's jumped to over 10% error rates.   Thanks for the link, might just get a couple of thermaltakes as well.  

[MikeMike]

What speeds are you guys holding? Mine is at 330.5Mh/s. Been going a since Wednesday. About 3.5HW errors an hour.

So far it's steady around 334.2Mh/s.  I finally got 99 of them working with CGMiner 3.1.1 this evening on a Win7 laptop.

You're probably going to be better off with the Thermaltakes on order, the arctic fans aren't cutting it right now.  After more than 24 hours the HW errors are piling up, it's jumped to over 10% error rates.   Thanks for the link, might just get a couple of thermaltakes as well.  

"snipped"

It could be the hub itself.
On main page info of lesser error D-Link hub.
Also calculate how many watts you are using to not over draw from hub.
don't put hub on flat surface as heat builds up.
Put hub low in altitude as it's a few degrees cooler on the floor.
Just a word from the blind...
 

[bystander]

What speeds are you guys holding? Mine is at 330.5Mh/s. Been going a since Wednesday. About 3.5HW errors an hour.

So far it's steady around 334.2Mh/s.  I finally got 99 of them working with CGMiner 3.1.1 this evening on a Win7 laptop.

You're probably going to be better off with the Thermaltakes on order, the arctic fans aren't cutting it right now.  After more than 24 hours the HW errors are piling up, it's jumped to over 10% error rates.   Thanks for the link, might just get a couple of thermaltakes as well.  

"snipped"

It could be the hub itself.
On main page info of lesser error D-Link hub.
Also calculate how many watts you are using to not over draw from hub.
don't put hub on flat surface as heat builds up.
Put hub low in altitude as it's a few degrees cooler on the floor.
Just a word from the blind...
  

It's true the hubs can make all of the difference, I had been running 10-port Manhattan hubs with many problems it powering off intermittently.  Decided to go all Ankers which have been rather stable in comparison.  Appreciate the suggestion on the draw and placement, will give it a try!