[Guide] Dogie's Comprehensive ASICMiner Cube Setup [HD]

[hagenuk]

just <FYI>

installed stratum to ras pi. The python process took up 85-95% of cpu with one cube on low. Ran well 31,000 mhs. however the second cube would not get above 15,000 mhs. I think the raspi was saturated. moved server duty to a real machine, works well now. getting full speed from two cubes while the third is still in low mode due to toy PSU.

bought another powersupply this morning, a thermaltake  850w bronze, it has two cubes in high mode. seems to draw about 770 W according to kill-a-watt meter. a little more than advertised i guess. Not sure if that is accurate.

I better get the seasonic 1050 watt back in service soon!

Why not compile Bfgminer with http-proxy ?

I'm running 4 cube miner with Raspberry PI with Bfgminer as proxy using "--http-port". It only consume about 30% of the CPU for whole week.

[babaji.ca]

One of my cubes is kind of flakey. Works well on my antec 380 watt PSU in low mode. When I try it on a real power supply, like seasonic 1050 or thermaltake 850 it gets all xxxxxxxxxxx's. If I power cycle the thing 20 or 30 time it will eventually catch and start running with all oooooooo's, but there is no rhyme or reason to it. Forget about high speed.

Funny thing is if I move it back to the antec 380 PSU it boots up fine first go.

Any idea what it could be?

[sidehack]

Possibly a brief undervolt condition that's not enough to trip the power supply but enough to keep VRMs from firing up properly and the chips error out because they're taking slightly too long to initialize. The 380 probably isn't nearly as busy inside as the big guys (likely active PFC and a bunch of other mess) so it might have better output capacitors since there's likely more room for them. I'd try the capacitors-wedged-in-the-6pin trick and see if that helps smooth things out.

Otherwise, really no idea why it might work on a low-end PSU but not a big sexy one.

[jesse11]

Hey J_Dubbs, The screws are small phillips head screws, any phillips head screwdriver will work.

[babaji.ca]

Possibly a brief undervolt condition that's not enough to trip the power supply but enough to keep VRMs from firing up properly and the chips error out because they're taking slightly too long to initialize. The 380 probably isn't nearly as busy inside as the big guys (likely active PFC and a bunch of other mess) so it might have better output capacitors since there's likely more room for them. I'd try the capacitors-wedged-in-the-6pin trick and see if that helps smooth things out.

Otherwise, really no idea why it might work on a low-end PSU but not a big sexy one.

Yeah it's a funny one. The capacitors did fix my other issue with the Cubes tripping the Seasonic's breaker, but it only seems to work with one Cube at a time, i could not get it to work with two cubes attached. I am going to RMA it. Not worth the hassle.

I did try the trick with the capicator on this particular cube, but it still has the xxxxxxxxx's. I will try it with the thermaltake, next time it crashed and reverts to xxxxxxxx's  (it working now and I dont want to take it offline)

Thanks for all your help with the Seasonic. It was very educational!

[hagenuk]

Possibly a brief undervolt condition that's not enough to trip the power supply but enough to keep VRMs from firing up properly and the chips error out because they're taking slightly too long to initialize. The 380 probably isn't nearly as busy inside as the big guys (likely active PFC and a bunch of other mess) so it might have better output capacitors since there's likely more room for them. I'd try the capacitors-wedged-in-the-6pin trick and see if that helps smooth things out.

Otherwise, really no idea why it might work on a low-end PSU but not a big sexy one.

Yeah it's a funny one. The capacitors did fix my other issue with the Cubes tripping the Seasonic's breaker, but it only seems to work with one Cube at a time, i could not get it to work with two cubes attached. I am going to RMA it. Not worth the hassle.

I did try the trick with the capicator on this particular cube, but it still has the xxxxxxxxx's. I will try it with the thermaltake, next time it crashed and reverts to xxxxxxxx's  (it working now and I dont want to take it offline)

Thanks for all your help with the Seasonic. It was very educational!

Hi babaji.ca, do you have a photo or diagram to show how to put in a capacitor for Seasonic X750 PSU ? I had the same issues with the cube tripping the my PSU when I power on.

A picture tells a thousand word. 

TIA.

[wedgy2k]

Why not compile Bfgminer with http-proxy ?

I'm running 4 cube miner with Raspberry PI with Bfgminer as proxy using "--http-port". It only consume about 30% of the CPU for whole week.

hagenuk  - do you use any switches to launch your BFGminer Stratum Proxy on your Pi?
I've seen references to  --rt and --nm (midstate data) and --q and I cannot find the readme that details these
I'm using no Switches on my Pi BFGMiner Proxy (apart from --http-port XXXX) and after about 4 hours is reporting the expected 38Ghs now
So seems to be working ok, but if it can work more efficiently..... Then I feel compelled to make it so.

[J_Dubbs]

Hey J_Dubbs, The screws are small phillips head screws, any phillips head screwdriver will work.

Thanks for that info, hopefully mine arrives today...

[hagenuk]

Why not compile Bfgminer with http-proxy ?

I'm running 4 cube miner with Raspberry PI with Bfgminer as proxy using "--http-port". It only consume about 30% of the CPU for whole week.

hagenuk  - do you use any switches to launch your BFGminer Stratum Proxy on your Pi?
I've seen references to  --rt and --nm (midstate data) and --q and I cannot find the readme that details these
I'm using no Switches on my Pi BFGMiner Proxy (apart from --http-port XXXX) and after about 4 hours is reporting the expected 38Ghs now
So seems to be working ok, but if it can work more efficiently..... Then I feel compelled to make it so.

wedgy2k, i uses only --http-port 3333 and also --api-listen --api-network for the PiMiner status on RaspBerryPi LCD display.

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/6263/8l9y.png

[vnhyp0]

For the past few days I've been using bfgminer as a proxy connecting to ghash.io and I've only been getting 32-33gh/s on high.  Today I switched over to slush's pool using his proxy and I'm getting 37gh/s+ no problem.  (speeds are based on miner not pool)

Why is this?

While I've not used BFG extensively, I do think the barebones proxy is simply more efficient.

First off, thanks to everyone for their suggestions and to Dogie for this great guide!

I decided to take my cube and psu to a different friend's house.  It works perfectly there!  It is like Dogie said,  "mysterious network topology" was my issue.  My friend is going to host my cube until I figure this out.  Thanks again.

One thing you can check is any phones connected to your wifi. Not sure how they interfere, but a few users of V1 blades found phones [android?] were preventing it working correctly.

Not sure if my phone's wifi was the case, but I turned it off and got 3 cubes working after messing with the settings and proxy for hours. I am not gonna turn it on to test since I finally got started hashing. Phone could just be a coincidence though...

edit: phone is an android and my problem was with the cubes resetting every ~2min

[babaji.ca]

Possibly a brief undervolt condition that's not enough to trip the power supply but enough to keep VRMs from firing up properly and the chips error out because they're taking slightly too long to initialize. The 380 probably isn't nearly as busy inside as the big guys (likely active PFC and a bunch of other mess) so it might have better output capacitors since there's likely more room for them. I'd try the capacitors-wedged-in-the-6pin trick and see if that helps smooth things out.

Otherwise, really no idea why it might work on a low-end PSU but not a big sexy one.

Yeah it's a funny one. The capacitors did fix my other issue with the Cubes tripping the Seasonic's breaker, but it only seems to work with one Cube at a time, i could not get it to work with two cubes attached. I am going to RMA it. Not worth the hassle.

I did try the trick with the capicator on this particular cube, but it still has the xxxxxxxxx's. I will try it with the thermaltake, next time it crashed and reverts to xxxxxxxx's  (it working now and I dont want to take it offline)

Thanks for all your help with the Seasonic. It was very educational!

Hi babaji.ca, do you have a photo or diagram to show how to put in a capacitor for Seasonic X750 PSU ? I had the same issues with the cube tripping the my PSU when I power on.

A picture tells a thousand word.  

TIA.

Sorry no more pictures. I have RMA'ed that PS. Just too much drama. I found some corsair GS 800's (same like dogie linked to in the OP) on sale today for $65.00. I grabbed three of them 2400 watts combined. All for less than what the seasonic 1050w unit cost. Going to put two of them into service. Also gonna return the thermaltake 850 watt unit that cost 150$. Will keep one GS 'in inventory' for 'future expansion'. The price was just too good to pass by.

As for how to do the capacitor trick. I also wanted pictures, but I got some word help from dmcdad and sidehack go back to post #192 of this thread and start reading from there for some help on how to do it.

[babaji.ca]

just <FYI>

installed stratum to ras pi. The python process took up 85-95% of cpu with one cube on low. Ran well 31,000 mhs. however the second cube would not get above 15,000 mhs. I think the raspi was saturated. moved server duty to a real machine, works well now. getting full speed from two cubes while the third is still in low mode due to toy PSU.

bought another powersupply this morning, a thermaltake  850w bronze, it has two cubes in high mode. seems to draw about 770 W according to kill-a-watt meter. a little more than advertised i guess. Not sure if that is accurate.

I better get the seasonic 1050 watt back in service soon!

Why not compile Bfgminer with http-proxy ?

I'm running 4 cube miner with Raspberry PI with Bfgminer as proxy using "--http-port". It only consume about 30% of the CPU for whole week.

Nice trick. Does that mean you also use bfgminer to mine with the cubes? Or is it just doing a stratum proxy for the cubes to make use of?

[babaji.ca]

Why not compile Bfgminer with http-proxy ?

I'm running 4 cube miner with Raspberry PI with Bfgminer as proxy using "--http-port". It only consume about 30% of the CPU for whole week.

hagenuk  - do you use any switches to launch your BFGminer Stratum Proxy on your Pi?
I've seen references to  --rt and --nm (midstate data) and --q and I cannot find the readme that details these
I'm using no Switches on my Pi BFGMiner Proxy (apart from --http-port XXXX) and after about 4 hours is reporting the expected 38Ghs now
So seems to be working ok, but if it can work more efficiently..... Then I feel compelled to make it so.

I am not sure how that all works.... yet


but the most comprehensive 'guide' i have found so far https://github.com/luke-jr/bfgminer  (scroll down this page for all the fancy switches)

[mogrith]

Not sure what I'm doing wrong.


D:\Coin_Wallets\Miners\bfgminer-3.8.1-win64\bfgminer.exe --http-port 8330 -Q 45 -S noauto -o stratum+tcp://pool1.us.multipool.us:8888 -u name -p pass
 [2013-12-14 17:02:07] bfgminer.exe: --http-port: unrecognized option

Windows or RasPi should I be using an older version?

[babaji.ca]

Not sure what I'm doing wrong.


D:\Coin_Wallets\Miners\bfgminer-3.8.1-win64\bfgminer.exe --http-port 8330 -Q 45 -S noauto -o stratum+tcp://pool1.us.multipool.us:8888 -u name -p pass
 [2013-12-14 17:02:07] bfgminer.exe: --http-port: unrecognized option

Windows or RasPi should I be using an older version?

yeah, me too! I get --http-port: unrecognized option

tried various options when building from git repo in order to enable it in the executable.

[babaji.ca]

Possibly a brief undervolt condition that's not enough to trip the power supply but enough to keep VRMs from firing up properly and the chips error out because they're taking slightly too long to initialize. The 380 probably isn't nearly as busy inside as the big guys (likely active PFC and a bunch of other mess) so it might have better output capacitors since there's likely more room for them. I'd try the capacitors-wedged-in-the-6pin trick and see if that helps smooth things out.

Otherwise, really no idea why it might work on a low-end PSU but not a big sexy one.

Sidehack,

Any chance that it comming up all xxxxxxxx's at boot is a thermal overload protection? (the BFL jalapenos, would vary the number of engines enabled every time after reboot, depending on how the chips did as it booted up)

I have noticed the only  way for me to get it to come up all oooooooooooooooo's (with any consistency)  is to put it in the freezer for 5 minutes then take it out and plug it in.  I have tried this three time in a row, and it worked no fail.

Also if I do a warm reboot, all xxxxxxxxxxxx's again


unfortunately I still can't get it into high speed mode(38ghs) (to be totally honest, I did fluke into high speed twice before,but not sure what i did) anyways not a good batting average in over 100+ tries

[sidehack]

Win64 BFGMiner doesn't have the http option built in, at least as of a week ago.

I'm not entirely convinced that AM stuff has thermal protection on it (at least not convinced based on my work with blades, and a bit with cubes) but I guess it's possible. It could also be a bad connection somewhere, somehow, that shifts into place enough with thermal contraction that it fires up but when it gets warm and things expand it drops back out?

[babaji.ca]

sidehack

thermal contraction, i'll buy that, seems plausible.

[sidehack]

Still kinda weird, especially since it's doing that on multiple but not all cards/chips?

[Singlebyte]

We need USB support, so we can mine stratum.

Does anyone know if any developers/manufacture is working on getting the USB ports up and working?