Official FutureBit Moonlander 2 Driver and Support Thread

[catcorp]

I added the code at the end of the line and it seems to be discarding the stale ones, but right now the Moonlander is giving me lots of discarding messages after eachother and just 2.8 mhs instead of the 4 Mhs just 10 minutes ago.
Why is the mhs going down and why do i still get those messages? Gulden not the right coin?

http://i68.tinypic.com/2cx8ak8.png

It looks like you're running into the dreaded "stick died and didn't auto restart" problem.

Is the red light blinking on the stick?

It probably isn't.

You should restart the miner (either press <S> then <B> and then <Y> or press <Q> to quit and then rerun the startup script)

If it still doesn't blink the red light, pull the stick out and then plug it back in and restart the miner.

If it still doesn't work, your settings probably need to be adjusted. Check the "Tuning" section for details.

Still nothing after 6-8 minutes it starts to go wrong:
stale detected, discarding
and then: detects new block and immediatly  sets another difficulty.
Mhs goes down to below 1. Red flashing stops.


It looks like a hash to coin problem because when i switch to coinpool i get no errors...
Could it be something with the difficulty or the pool itsself there?

[thebosz]

Still nothing after 6-8 minutes it starts to go wrong:
stale detected, discarding
and then: detects new block and immediatly  sets another difficulty.
Mhs goes down to below 1. Red flashing stops.


It looks like a hash to coin problem because when i switch to coinpool i get no errors...
Could it be something with the difficulty or the pool itsself there?

I've been watching my miner all day and I think you're right about hash-to-coins. They're doing something that's causing the miner to lock up after a while.

I did notice that on the site, it listed the difficulty as 1024. I wonder if their vardiff calculation is bad.

Well, for now I've switched to only mine at mining-dutch. I'm steady at 5Mh/s there.

[mrgoldy]

static diff
stratum+tcp://hash-to-coins.com:4444

works fine for mine

d=512 in the worker password field  and  in -p d=512

[lennyNO]

I'm not sure where you're located, but Holybitcoin has them in stock and shipping in 24 hours if you wanted to pick up some more. I just bought a third myself.

That's a god price they have, but they only allow to order 2 at a time   Problem is that while all prices are quoted in USD it seems you have to pay in BTC? That's a pain. (right now I prefer to hold on to my BTC)

Located in Norway, so shipping costs are bad as they are, import duty is worse. In this country it can only be a hobby. That's fine too. The german distributor (forgot so quickly the name) only sends to EU, not to Norway. They have good prices too but it doesnt help me.

[nechi4]

Total noob question here.
How do we set these up to mine for us? I'm coming from the world of GPU miners where I choose a pool, software, and just edit a config file w my wallet or login info.
What do I need to do on these to set them up? Got 10 and plan on giving them away at Xmas.
Plugged on in on my Mac and looks like it's working. But don't know what to edit...
Thank you!!!

Its the same as GPU mining.

You download the special build of BFGMiner from the link in the first post. There's a batch file/shell file (if you're on *Nix) that has the command line to run.

You change the command line to your pool and username (and password) and run it - from then on, you're mining.

Thanks for the fast reply. I think I got it. Got one testing now.

Hi "jstefanop"
I need your help if you don't mind.
I'm quite new to mining stuff.
I bought 2 moonlander but I don't know how to configure them.
Can you help me make the setup? I understand that I have to use my wallet address, username, and password.
Can you give me some ideas of other configuration for mining?
As I said, I don't have experience but I want to learn. I already read all the 31 pages of this post, and I didn't find information about that.
I will appreciate a lot your help.
Thanks.

[Bitfort]

Total noob question here.
How do we set these up to mine for us? I'm coming from the world of GPU miners where I choose a pool, software, and just edit a config file w my wallet or login info.
What do I need to do on these to set them up? Got 10 and plan on giving them away at Xmas.
Plugged on in on my Mac and looks like it's working. But don't know what to edit...
Thank you!!!

Its the same as GPU mining.

You download the special build of BFGMiner from the link in the first post. There's a batch file/shell file (if you're on *Nix) that has the command line to run.

You change the command line to your pool and username (and password) and run it - from then on, you're mining.

Thanks for the fast reply. I think I got it. Got one testing now.

Hi "jstefanop"
I need your help if you don't mind.
I'm quite new to mining stuff.
I bought 2 moonlander but I don't know how to configure them.
Can you help me make the setup? I understand that I have to use my wallet address, username, and password.
Can you give me some ideas of other configuration for mining?
As I said, I don't have experience but I want to learn. I already read all the 31 pages of this post, and I didn't find information about that.
I will appreciate a lot your help.
Thanks.

First you need to register within some pool. Try https://www.litecoinpool.org (your LTC address goes to account settings/Payment address field)
Visit the help section to see how configure miner.

Are you windows user? If so then you just download the bfg miner ( see OP) and you only need to edit the start.bat file. Put in your credentials (username and pass) as per help page on the pool. Everything else you can keep.
If you are linux, i saw some guide few pages back.

[Game_of_Coins]

These are so fun... I have no powered hub at all. It works out-of-the-box on my 3.0 laptop port at suggested 600MHz. Only one FB2 connected. 5y old Acer running linux Mint.  No problems whatsoever. Getting about 3,33Mh/s. It even runs on my headless Pi Zero 1.3 running latest stretch lite+zero4U hub+wifi dongle, all powered only by Emtec U500 powerbank(!)... so, I have the first mobile mining unit, not that envion guys...

[jstefanop]

The fans  on these sticks  may not be  good.

One now shudders making noise  and vibrating the stick.

I pull the two fans and now use external fans  all is well in fact better then when I ran with the little fans  also not as loud.

I can not find it  but someone else  said their fan  became unbalanced and vibrated.

This happens even though  the fan screws are tight and correctly installed,

I have similar issue with fan ( only one of the 3 sticks ordered ).
Time to time starts making really annoying noise ... i also think is's increasing in speed as the noise level is increasing as well (and i can feel unusual vibrations when touch it) but after restarting the miner it's back to normal.
I also tried to tighten/loose the screws but that just change the noise frequency (pitch or what it's called)   ... I have quite wide range of fans on hand so will try to find some that fits ... so no big issue.

But have other question.
Wanted to put one of sticks on USB cable and put it between window frames to keep it cold ( i have double windows in my house ) ... miner recognize the stick (green led is on) but won't show any hashrate (just zeros).
Can be the long cable cause of this issue? It's 2 meters long. I tried it with shorter one (1 m) and that works well.

Anyhow, OP you did a great job, thanks for these awesome miniminers.

yeah trying to figure out how many of us  have this fan issue.

and it looks like  that stick  has more issues.

I seem to have 1 good one and one bad one.

Try to loosen the screws. I originally had mine too tight and the fans would be very loud, but if I loosened them a lot, it definitely helps.

Keep in mind the are not the highest quality fans unfortunately. When I decided to add the fan thermal setup halfway in development I didn't have the funds to buy higher end ball bearing fans. These have a sleeve bearing, which after it wears in has the side affect of increasing the fan speed. They are supposed to spin at 10k RPM, but I have measured some that spin up to 13-15k, so at those speeds they get noisy and vibrate more.

[catcorp]

static diff
stratum+tcp://hash-to-coins.com:4444

works fine for mine

d=512 in the worker password field  and  in -p d=512

Going to try this out this afternoon, thanks!
Maybe a bit offtopic, or not, but if i'd not specify the difficulty and just leave in password, will it use the default 8192 difficulty?
What would be pro and cons about using 8192 instead of the 512 you mention?

For now it's hashing 4.33 Mhs on 768 mhz

[jstefanop]

static diff
stratum+tcp://hash-to-coins.com:4444

works fine for mine

d=512 in the worker password field  and  in -p d=512

Going to try this out this afternoon, thanks!
Maybe a bit offtopic, or not, but if i'd not specify the difficulty and just leave in password, will it use the default 8192 difficulty?
What would be pro and cons about using 8192 instead of the 512 you mention?

For now it's hashing 4.33 Mhs on 768 mhz

it will just take 16x as long on average to submit a share to your pool. On average you will be hashing at 4.33MH but if you look short term you'll see crazy swings from like 20MH down to .5MH on pool side.

This is the same reason some newer people think they are not working, because most pools have initial diffs set to 8k or higher for larger ASICS so takes forever to submit first share to pool(or 256k like nicehash had...guess we don't have to worry about them anymore  )

[gnh5002]

I've received my four and they seem to be working ok, but they are dying occasionally. Like this morning two of three I have plugged into one comp were just not hashing, but had been working for the whole day while I was awake yesterday. When I restart bfgminer they're working fine though. Is this related to using higher frequency? Higher frequency without tuning voltage? Computer not splitting enough current? Something else?

Did you change from stock setting? You get zombie state if USB port can't provide enough amperage. On multiple devices, if one device acts up, that can't affect the other ones. Single stock is most stable but multi stock you should expect them to zombie hopefully later than sooner.

I did increase clock frequency to 700-something. Two are plugged directly into mobo and one in USB on front side of comp. I'll try to go back to stick and see if they can work uninterrupted for couple days at least. This is on Windows 7 computer.

Im working on a fix to keep the alive automatically. The current dead/restart logic is bugged in bfgminer, so I'm going to implement it directly in the driver. Should have a new release out in the next few days.

any idea when the driver release may be available with auto-restart? once my hub comes i'm thinking about just loading minera on my raspberry pi but until then...

[ethernaly]

With litecoinpool.org is very unstable. With default settings it starts at 3.5MH and after a couple of hours I get 0.1-0.3 MH.

Can someone help me to configure it at maximum? With stable performance?

An other things I got this warning:
I saw a warning: failed to sanity check in lowl-vcom.c windows_usb_get_string():508


Edit:
OS: Windows 10 64Bit

[Patjebitcoin]

I've received my four and they seem to be working ok, but they are dying occasionally. Like this morning two of three I have plugged into one comp were just not hashing, but had been working for the whole day while I was awake yesterday. When I restart bfgminer they're working fine though. Is this related to using higher frequency? Higher frequency without tuning voltage? Computer not splitting enough current? Something else?

Did you change from stock setting? You get zombie state if USB port can't provide enough amperage. On multiple devices, if one device acts up, that can't affect the other ones. Single stock is most stable but multi stock you should expect them to zombie hopefully later than sooner.

I did increase clock frequency to 700-something. Two are plugged directly into mobo and one in USB on front side of comp. I'll try to go back to stick and see if they can work uninterrupted for couple days at least. This is on Windows 7 computer.

Im working on a fix to keep the alive automatically. The current dead/restart logic is bugged in bfgminer, so I'm going to implement it directly in the driver. Should have a new release out in the next few days.

any idea when the driver release may be available with auto-restart? once my hub comes i'm thinking about just loading minera on my raspberry pi but until then...

Hi all,

I have a little question about minera.. Every time I go to the website of minera I get this virus pop up from Symantec  "PUA.JScoinminer" are there more people getting this message in there virus program.

Thx. in advance.

Grtz Patrick

[Megaquake]

 I have found a fix for most users that are experiencing issues with the miners just stopping!

 if you use the conf file and you add more than 1 pool the miners will all stop when network difficulty information is gathered from the other pools.

 Fix: set 1 pool in your conf and remove the pool from the cmd/bat file, if you leave the same pool in the cmd/bat file it still treats it like having 2 pools.

my bat file:

bfgminer.exe --scrypt -S MLD:all
pause
exit


hope that helps!

[Lercker]

Hi all,

I have a little question about minera.. Every time I go to the website of minera I get this virus pop up from Symantec  "PUA.JScoinminer" are there more people getting this message in there virus program.

Thx. in advance.

Grtz Patrick

I've been getting that but not from minera. Symantec only seems to catch the problem but not solve it. I had to run the Microsoft Windows malicious software removal tool to get it to stop. I think that has been going around he web some.

[catcorp]

static diff
stratum+tcp://hash-to-coins.com:4444

works fine for mine

d=512 in the worker password field  and  in -p d=512

Going to try this out this afternoon, thanks!
Maybe a bit offtopic, or not, but if i'd not specify the difficulty and just leave in password, will it use the default 8192 difficulty?
What would be pro and cons about using 8192 instead of the 512 you mention?

For now it's hashing 4.33 Mhs on 768 mhz

it will just take 16x as long on average to submit a share to your pool. On average you will be hashing at 4.33MH but if you look short term you'll see crazy swings from like 20MH down to .5MH on pool side.

This is the same reason some newer people think they are not working, because most pools have initial diffs set to 8k or higher for larger ASICS so takes forever to submit first share to pool(or 256k like nicehash had...guess we don't have to worry about them anymore  )

Thanks for clearing that up! I'm currently in coinpool.nl and haven't had a single (afaik) stale one! Where hash to coins gave me lots of problems, errors, HW errors and the ML fell completely silent this pool seems to be working just fine.
I'm awaiting two more ML's and another 2 in february , you think around 20 mhs will be better in hash to coins?

[tgz]

If your windows is stopping in the middle of the night, make sure you've disabled the "Smart" power management for USB hubs.

Here's a guide:
https://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/prevent-windows-from-powering-off-usb-device/

If you are SSH(putty) into a raspberry pi the "Smart" power management may give problems to that connection also..
I'm logging into my RPI 3 "headless" using putty from a Win 7 CPU on my local net. Just got my new sticks running last night *yahoo* - and after my Win 7 CPU "slept" all sticks were not hashing next morning.

I'm running six Moonlander2s on two "Plugable" 7 port Charging/Data Hubs. I inspected the board in these and they DO NOT have three control chips on them. 1,2,3 are on one chip and 4,5,6,7 is on a second. I think these are a newer model where they have planned a cheaper way of making them. We had extra time waiting on shipping so I also ordered six "Y" USB cables, they are 12" long with two male ends - one is Data & power while the other is only power - they both go to a USB female socket for the Moonlander2 to plug in. Hoping I now have up to 3 Amps available for each stick. The RPI is loaded with Raspbian Stretch-Lite. I'm still running stock except for clocking to 756 and raising diff to 256. I WILL be tweaking these up over time.

Is it true that default diff of 128 is best for running one stick and we need to raise this some when running multiple moonlanders (like my example of six)?

Thanks to jstefanop for all your efforts & wish me luck with mining *red-flash* *red-flash*..

Thanks also to Astrali for the Raspberry pi guide - helped me a lot..

[tgz]

Here is a question for our Linux/Raspbian crowd:

My plan was to run this off my RPI 3 as a headless system. I can putty in, do admin tasks, start, etc.
Trouble starts when I try to figure out how to log out & leave the pi mining.
Anyone have a good method for this?

I tried some tests with nohup command:
nohup ./startmoonlander.sh &
-
This does load bfgminer in background (with red LEDs flashing),
But not sure how to bring if forward again and worse the mining still stops when I close putty session.

[dem0nlord]

how to log out & leave the pi mining.
Anyone have a good method for this?

Install screen.
Then once you log in run screen which will just give you a new shell.
Anything you have running in screen will remain running if you get disconnected.
When you have to reconnect just run screen -r and you'll be right back in your previous session.

[bittawm]

Head to www.bittawmart.com to get some of these little beasts ! preorder open