Official FutureBit Moonlander 2 Driver and Support Thread

[Game_of_Coins]

I lowered it to 540 freq and around .65 core voltage, went well for 2 days. Then the same thing resurfaced.
Multiple errors, but now the hashrate goes even lower ex. 1.5.

It might have been something with the assembly of the ML by the distributor as the large heatsink with fan came loose (heat?) and I had the put it back.
It was already average assembled from start (fan and heatsink were pretty much off target by 0.5cm )

I can't even let it run for 30 minutes now on low freq and voltage or the glue/paste starts to go soft and as I ran the thing horizontal the fan and heatsink would just fall down.

I'm not much of a hardware guy so I'm trying to explain the things as I see them

Thank you!

I don'n know, sounds strange, glue/paste should go soft and starts to peel off at temps when your ML would be dead, at least twice, and it looks like it is alive and hashing with some solvable problems. Maybe you should send it back for repair, it doesn't sounds like something unrepairable but 0.5 cm off target for something 2,5 cm long was red flag from start... Did my best, good luck!

[Finless]

So I decided to add some command line options to my start file that significantly increased the stability, slightly increased the hash rate, and significantly decreased the HW on my old Gridseed Blades, with a few changes.  Lo and behold, the same effect was had on my wonderful Moonlander 2's.  I am running 17 of them at the moment on some pretty good hubs.  I saw a stability increase of a day or so, hash rate increase of 5% and 50% reduction in HW!!!.  Not sure what all of the settings do but hey it really seems to make a difference.  I also always launch Bfgminer with full Admin privileges on Windows, the same effect was had on the Pi 3.

C:\moonlander\bfgminer-5.4.2-futurebit2-win64\bfgminer.exe --scrypt -o stratum+tcp://us.litecoinpool.org:3333 -u worker.1 -p 1,d=4096 -S MLD:all --set MLD:clock=600,baud=23040,chips=1,modules=2,usefifo=0,hotplug=17,thread-concurrency=50000,lookup-gap=0,gpu-threads=1

Cheers and Happy mining




LTC addr : LbDVdRR8dXwS2WrU4dWY6W97bEY7FY1vfn
DOGE addr : D5oSoTJjWLKabTUSCnSRyhgdPJufAkXmT6
BBK addr : BL6EmxG32YptXQTp6KXDqyq3AMHU2UZbk4

Cool man!  This worked.  It dropped my error rate a little and in fact did jump up my hash rate a little.  I was averaging 8,800 and now averaging 9,200 hash rate on my two Moonlanders. Error rate on both sticks was about 1.8% roughly and now both are below 1% (about .95).

Thanks!

Bob

[jstefanop]

I lowered it to 540 freq and around .65 core voltage, went well for 2 days. Then the same thing resurfaced.
Multiple errors, but now the hashrate goes even lower ex. 1.5.

It might have been something with the assembly of the ML by the distributor as the large heatsink with fan came loose (heat?) and I had the put it back.
It was already average assembled from start (fan and heatsink were pretty much off target by 0.5cm )

I can't even let it run for 30 minutes now on low freq and voltage or the glue/paste starts to go soft and as I ran the thing horizontal the fan and heatsink would just fall down.

I'm not much of a hardware guy so I'm trying to explain the things as I see them

Thank you!

How long was it running with a detached heatsink? That should have completely fried it and probably the reason its not working how it should. These heatsinks are impossible to pull off as long as they are attached correctly (15 lbs force for 15 seconds). Sounds like the distributor you got them from didn't attached this one correct. Where did you buy it from?

[jstefanop]

i dont get this hub to work... the PSU is 30A on the 5V side

i get tons on "moonlander has stopped hashing" and "unknown rsponse from moonlander" msg

they work (if) very slow also on this hub and get HOT



any recommendations to get 12 Moonlanders loadet?






greets
mike

Was Having a similar problem trying to run 15 on the big eyeboot hub.  I left the clock at 600 and raised the minimum difficulty to 2048.  While I only get 3.4 Mh, they run much more stable.  I also added some options to the command line that really helped seemed to help.  I also put a some small usb fans in the empty slots on the hub to help move the air.

bfgminer.exe --scrypt -o stratum+tcp://us.litecoinpool.org:3333 -u worker.1 -p 1,d=2048 -S MLD:all --set MLD:clock=600,baud=23040,chips=1,modules=2,usefifo=0,hotplug=17,thread-concurrency=50000,lookup-gap=0,gpu-threads=1

Sounds like a placebo effect  lol

The only option my driver recognizes is "clock=" ...everything else is useless that you have. The only thing that could have made a difference is the d=2048, and those USB fans moving some heat away and causing them to run a bit cooler/more stable.

[cashen]

All I did was plug it in 20 days ago. Haven't touched it since.

[Cursedworm]

Hello miners,

I received my first Moonlander 2 on Friday.
And now the first steps to get into mining world .

I managed to get it up and running for Litecoin and it works perfectly.

But I would like to try it as well for one of following coins:
Doge
Verge
DigiByte

Is there somebody who could give me a hand with this?
Don`t know how to set the bat file properly for these.
Can they be mined on litecoin pool as well?

Thanks for all support and help - send me PM for guidance.

All the best!

[Finless]

https://i.imgur.com/ybYFK9l.png

All I did was plug it in 20 days ago. Haven't touched it since.

Hey!  What is that cool GUI for BFGminer?

Bob

[Bitfort]

All I did was plug it in 20 days ago. Haven't touched it since.

Hey!  What is that cool GUI for BFGminer?

Bob

This is "awesome miner".

[Finless]

https://i.imgur.com/ybYFK9l.png

All I did was plug it in 20 days ago. Haven't touched it since.

Hey!  What is that cool GUI for BFGminer?

Bob

This is "awesome miner".

Yes I just found it.

Studying how to enable the API on this version of BFGminer.
I think all I have to do is pass this in the command line --api-network

Bob

[jstefanop]

Hello miners,

I received my first Moonlander 2 on Friday.
And now the first steps to get into mining world .

I managed to get it up and running for Litecoin and it works perfectly.

But I would like to try it as well for one of following coins:
Doge
Verge
DigiByte

Is there somebody who could give me a hand with this?
Don`t know how to set the bat file properly for these.
Can they be mined on litecoin pool as well?

Thanks for all support and help - send me PM for guidance.

All the best!

Welcome to mining!

You should do some general research on the web for mining, each coin usually has its own pool (for example litecoin pool only mines litecoin obviously, and you can't mine any other coin on there). For example if you want to mine verge, you just edit the bat file and change the pool info to miningpoolhub.com (one of the verge mining pools).

[thomasvk]

I lowered it to 540 freq and around .65 core voltage, went well for 2 days. Then the same thing resurfaced.
Multiple errors, but now the hashrate goes even lower ex. 1.5.

It might have been something with the assembly of the ML by the distributor as the large heatsink with fan came loose (heat?) and I had the put it back.
It was already average assembled from start (fan and heatsink were pretty much off target by 0.5cm )

I can't even let it run for 30 minutes now on low freq and voltage or the glue/paste starts to go soft and as I ran the thing horizontal the fan and heatsink would just fall down.

I'm not much of a hardware guy so I'm trying to explain the things as I see them

Thank you!

How long was it running with a detached heatsink? That should have completely fried it and probably the reason its not working how it should. These heatsinks are impossible to pull off as long as they are attached correctly (15 lbs force for 15 seconds). Sounds like the distributor you got them from didn't attached this one correct. Where did you buy it from?

I didn't exactly know when I first noticed, but I sure can't run it any longer now than 15 minutes without coming loose, so it is pretty useless right now.
I ordered it on Bittawmart.

[Adriano2010]

Why now the shares are lower than yesterday on litecoin pool org?




Edit: is ok. The difficulty rises so the shares comes after more seconds than before.

[Finless]

jstefanop,

Your opinion please on temps.

I have 2 of your sticks.  One I bought from you on Ebay and the 2nd from Holybit.
Both sticks are doing great now that I have spent quite a bit of time tuning them.  FUN hobby to be honest especially for mining n00bs

I am running both at clock of 796.  Using a 6 AMP PS.
Both stick are running .70V on memory (I can get .68 on one) and .79V on core.
Error rate on one is less than 1% and the other is about 1.5%. The one I got from you on Ebay is the better stick.  Not that it mattered really but the error rate is always lower on this one.

I use a heat gun probe tool to measure the small back heat sink and it runs about 153F.  Knowing chips a bit 153F is OK.

So now the question.  When I jump to 832 clock I get an error on both sticks under 3% but both show an error rate of about 2.4ish.
Still all good. BUT the back heat sink runs about 162F.  I think this is pushing it no?  FYI Ambient temp in my room is 75F average right now.

Is 162F OK for the back heat sink?  What is the max temp on this to be careful of reaching?  Back in my old chip days 175F was about it before stuff starts losing a lot of life big time.

Your thoughts on temps please

Thanks jstefanop.  Your stick rocks for the hobbiest and I am loving them.  I just don't want to go to far and I want to be aware of proper temps.  I see some guys running these MAX out and they have to be smoking hot doing so.... Again your thoughts on temps.

Thanks,
Bob

[TimBuck2]

jstefanop,

Your opinion please on temps.

I have 2 of your sticks.  One I bought from you on Ebay and the 2nd from Holybit.
Both sticks are doing great now that I have spent quite a bit of time tuning them.  FUN hobby to be honest especially for mining n00bs

I am running both at clock of 796.  Using a 6 AMP PS.
Both stick are running .70V on memory (I can get .68 on one) and .79V on core.
Error rate on one is less than 1% and the other is about 1.5%. The one I got from you on Ebay is the better stick.  Not that it mattered really but the error rate is always lower on this one.

I use a heat gun probe tool to measure the small back heat sink and it runs about 153F.  Knowing chips a bit 153F is OK.

So now the question.  When I jump to 832 clock I get an error on both sticks under 3% but both show an error rate of about 2.4ish.
Still all good. BUT the back heat sink runs about 162F.  I think this is pushing it no?  FYI Ambient temp in my room is 75F average right now.

Is 162F OK for the back heat sink?  What is the max temp on this to be careful of reaching?  Back in my old chip days 175F was about it before stuff starts losing a lot of life big time.

Your thoughts on temps please

Thanks jstefanop.  Your stick rocks for the hobbiest and I am loving them.  I just don't want to go to far and I want to be aware of proper temps.  I see some guys running these MAX out and they have to be smoking hot doing so.... Again your thoughts on temps.

Thanks,
Bob

I know your question was to jstefanop and I am not trying to answer it, and I am sure he will do that but I just wanted to comment that as I read your post three times to make sure you didn't mention anything about running external fans to cool with.

I am fairly certain that anyone running these things full bore are also running external cooling. I am running these 6 at also 796 Mhz but I have two cheap USB flex fans on them and the hottest temp I got on the back heat sink (side without the fan) is 43° C (109° F) ...  quite a difference just two cheapo USB flex fans can make. 109°F vs 153°F ...


https://www.bit2dollar.com/image/6_796_ML2.jpg


I put that large text up there so I didn't cheat you out of an answer from jstefanop - not to be obnoxious.

[Finless]

jstefanop,

Your opinion please on temps.

I have 2 of your sticks.  One I bought from you on Ebay and the 2nd from Holybit.
Both sticks are doing great now that I have spent quite a bit of time tuning them.  FUN hobby to be honest especially for mining n00bs

I am running both at clock of 796.  Using a 6 AMP PS.
Both stick are running .70V on memory (I can get .68 on one) and .79V on core.
Error rate on one is less than 1% and the other is about 1.5%. The one I got from you on Ebay is the better stick.  Not that it mattered really but the error rate is always lower on this one.

I use a heat gun probe tool to measure the small back heat sink and it runs about 153F.  Knowing chips a bit 153F is OK.

So now the question.  When I jump to 832 clock I get an error on both sticks under 3% but both show an error rate of about 2.4ish.
Still all good. BUT the back heat sink runs about 162F.  I think this is pushing it no?  FYI Ambient temp in my room is 75F average right now.

Is 162F OK for the back heat sink?  What is the max temp on this to be careful of reaching?  Back in my old chip days 175F was about it before stuff starts losing a lot of life big time.

Your thoughts on temps please

Thanks jstefanop.  Your stick rocks for the hobbiest and I am loving them.  I just don't want to go to far and I want to be aware of proper temps.  I see some guys running these MAX out and they have to be smoking hot doing so.... Again your thoughts on temps.

Thanks,
Bob

I know your question was to jstefanop and I am not trying to answer it, and I am sure he will do that but I just wanted to comment that as I read your post three times to make sure you didn't mention anything about running external fans to cool with.

I am fairly certain that anyone running these things full bore are also running external cooling. I am running these 6 at also 796 Mhz but I have two cheap USB flex fans on them and the hottest temp I got on the back heat sink (side without the fan) is 43° C (109° F) ...  quite a difference just two cheapo USB flex fans can make. 109°F vs 153°F ...


https://www.bit2dollar.com/image/6_796_ML2.jpg


I put that large text up there so I didn't cheat you out of an answer from jstefanop - not to be obnoxious.

I have seen your videos and have seen what you have done.  Yea I get it.  I may do the same one day.  THANK YOU!
So since you have been solo mining (per your videos) running these full bore, looking for a lottery hit, have you hit a block yet?

Anyway thanks... I have seen your posts and video... Not ready to go there fully yet but I get it

Thanks,
Bob

[lennyNO]

What usb hub do you use? I have 12 babys and want to squeese the most out of them

Greets
Mike

I have 11 and use the Eyeboot 19 port hub. The reason I bought that one is because better hubs fram Amazon didn't ship to my country. While the hub looks great, and it probably is, I only have trouble with it.
1) I cannot run all 11 at full speed (924Mz), that doesn't work. So I have a mix of frequencies to make it just work. I can live with that
2) The USB ports are just a bit too close so in reality one can use only every other USB port, this seems to be a common issue with many USB hubs, but not all.
3) The USB connectors used on eyeboot hubs seem a bit weak, jstephanop also pointed this out. Because of the constant vibrations from the minifans eventually some may break down. I have at least one where both power pins and data pins suck and connection a/o power gets interrupted. In effect I am loosing more and more USB slots
4) It is hellish expensive

A few pages back someone showed a setup with smaller hubs with 2MLDs per hub and he had four of those hbs daisychained. That seems to me the best solution in terms of cost, reliability and performance.

[lennyNO]

Your opinion please on temps.
... I use a heat gun probe tool to measure the small back heat sink and it runs about 153F.  Knowing chips a bit 153F is OK.
... BUT the back heat sink runs about 162F.  I think this is pushing it no?  
Is 162F OK for the back heat sink?  What is the max temp on this to be careful of reaching?  Back in my old chip days 175F was about it before stuff starts losing a lot of life big time.

Back in the old days people read the instructions first -- see page 1 of this thread:

Even with a fan built in, you can still overheat your Moonlander at higher frequencies. I do not recommend running these past 800mhz unless you can closely monitor temps (if you have a IR temp gun check the top ASIC heatsink, it should not be any hotter than 80C).

Everyone using these beyond 800Mhz uses external cooling (fans). 162F = 72C which is getting borderline, 153F = 67C is really hot. I am running at around 35C = 95F.

[Finless]

Your opinion please on temps.
... I use a heat gun probe tool to measure the small back heat sink and it runs about 153F.  Knowing chips a bit 153F is OK.
... BUT the back heat sink runs about 162F.  I think this is pushing it no?  
Is 162F OK for the back heat sink?  What is the max temp on this to be careful of reaching?  Back in my old chip days 175F was about it before stuff starts losing a lot of life big time.

Back in the old days people read the instructions first -- see page 1 of this thread:

Even with a fan built in, you can still overheat your Moonlander at higher frequencies. I do not recommend running these past 800mhz unless you can closely monitor temps (if you have a IR temp gun check the top ASIC heatsink, it should not be any hotter than 80C).

Everyone using these beyond 800Mhz uses external cooling (fans). 162F = 72C which is getting borderline, 153F = 67C is really hot. I am running at around 35C = 95F.

My bad...  I missed this one line. And yes I have read page one many times.  I just missed the one single line on the temp subject.

"if you have a IR temp gun check the top ASIC heatsink, it should not be any hotter than 80C"

That is 176F and I am far below it at 153F.  To me this seems OK then?  Even at 832 clock and 163F this is still well below 176F.

So why do I need another fan?  I cannot go above 832 clock as I get too many hardware errors (over 10%) on these even cranking up the core voltage.

Bob

[vezpit]

Have a bit of an odd problem.  Just started playing with the ML2 and a Pi3.  Runs ok at 756 freq & have used it on multipools.  Runs fine on port 7777, the multiport, but put in a single coin port like Dnote port 3346 and it displays the blurb 'check address port etc.'  Any one else experience this?  I used the same start file changing the port in terminal & also a copy with the port.  Both are the same about the address error. Change in terminal back to port 7777 and it runs fine.

[lennyNO]

That is 176F and I am far below it at 153F.  To me this seems OK then?  Even at 832 clock and 163F this is still well below 176F.

far below?? well below?? Seriously, all that is given is that the chip hasn't fried itself, just yet. Good luck! You are operating at the edge of it's operating range, and while 153F is within limits by all accounts it is seriously hot. 176F is not a safe operating limit, but a potential fry and die limit. You also have to be aware of changes in ambient temperature, if the ambient rises, so goes the chip temp. In general, even if it runs, you will shorten lifespan if it gets that hot over long time.

So why do I need another fan?  I cannot go above 832 clock as I get too many hardware errors (over 10%) on these even cranking up the core voltage.

When you are overclocking you are on your own, and you want to do everything reasonable to keep the babies alive. Alive==cool. 832 == overclocking. But yeah, it's not that you MUST have cooling. But you should! jstephanop wrote a good comment on this a few pages back, when one guy had 8 MLDs running at 5.5Mh/s or thereabout. You should read it. I run at 924Mhz with about 0.7%HW and ca 45C core. AND extra cooling (usb fans).  Some ppl remove the stock fans --> you are on your own, even at normal clockspeeds. 10% is way too high at normal clockspeeds. You should have less than 1% at 600Mhz.