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

[Shaker242]

Examples
Cube Config Screenshot:
http://www.brokejoker.com/cubeproblem/cubeinfo-bottom.jpg



8.8.8.8 is one of Google's public DNS servers.  If you are routing to a name... just like you do when you put in "http://bitcointalk.org" in your browser, DNS will have to convert it into a valid IP address in order to find and locate that destination on the Internet.  If you use 192.168.1.1, then your router must forward DNS to something else; your router will likely have DNS servers plugged in for that purpose.  However, if you are in doubt, you can change both DNS locations to somewhere... OpenDNS, UltraDNS, Google etc and bypass your router all together.  However, you can also just manually lookup the IP address, and put all zero's in as the DNS servers.  

Since I'm using a local proxy, this is what my settings look like:
http://s7.postimg.org/5owg9v67f/BE_Cube_Miner_2.png

[Shaker242]

if anyone has fixed the random restarting please tell me I will pay a donation I have 3 restarting cubes and I have reasembled them all with no fix please help

I have also seen reports that a failing fan (not drawing enough power, I suppose) will cause random restarts - it's worth trying if you're out of other ideas.

You know, I bet your on to something.  The Cubes might be restarting because they're over heating, it makes perfect sense.  I've actually been considering flipping my fan around so that the draw is actually from the back; the purpose for this is simply to make it easier for me to properly position the cubes within a datacenter, and not get all tangled up with the power and network cables.  Doing this, I might have to upgrade the fans... so I'm about to purchase these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608009.  The new fans will be >90CFM, which should do the trick nicely.

[BrandonMcPherson]

Is a fan pushing 58 CFM enough? I'm not sure how the stock fans rate.

[BrandonMcPherson]

After several hours of running with a Scythe Gentle Typhoon AP-15 (58.x CFM), I saw a performance slowdown of roughly 8%. While I had thought the airflow coming from the front of the Cube was similar to the stock fan, it was noticeably warmer air coming out.

So, I used twist ties to attach another fan to the front. The result is hideously ugly, louder, but still much quieter than the stock fan, and is definitely putting out more air flow. It still feels warm, but I'm not using thermometers to measure this stuff.

There is also zero back flow out of the back where the fan is supposed to go. With both the stock fan and my Scythe replacement by itself, I was getting some back flow.

So far, my missing performance is back.

I'd appreciate anyone's insight on all this.

[Shaker242]

After several hours of running with a Scythe Gentle Typhoon AP-15 (58.x CFM), I saw a performance slowdown of roughly 8%. While I had thought the airflow coming from the front of the Cube was similar to the stock fan, it was noticeably warmer air coming out.

So, I used twist ties to attach another fan to the front. The result is hideously ugly, louder, but still much quieter than the stock fan, and is definitely putting out more air flow. It still feels warm, but I'm not using thermometers to measure this stuff.

There is also zero back flow out of the back where the fan is supposed to go. With both the stock fan and my Scythe replacement by itself, I was getting some back flow.

So far, my missing performance is back.

I'd appreciate anyone's insight on all this.

Using a wind meter, I just checked the velocity of one of my cube fans... It's showing about 20fps, or 40CFM. So not the best fan's in the world to begin with.  I am not having any heating issues, but I've installed my cubes into some datacenter space where the ambient cool air is ~65degrees.  I wanted to check the air volume so that I could gauge what level of fan I need to upgrade too since I am about to flip the fans around.  I thought everyone might find my results interesting and/or helpful.

If you have  your cubes installed at your home, it's likely the ambient temperature is more like 70 or higher degrees.  This would then be just pumping warm air over hot heat sinks so doubling the air flow would almost be completely necessary since it'll dissipate less heat as the air passes over the blades.  

[Bitweasil]

I've replaced all my fans with some spare 120mm fans I had laying around that pull ~0.3A and move a good bit more air than the stock ones.  I have some better ones on order as well.

Has anyone had luck adding heatsinks to the front side of the chips as well for cooling?  I don't know if it will make a big difference or not, but as two of my Cubes will not run reliably in the high clock setting, I figured it would be worth playing with.

[Celeris]

I have 1 card that is half full of x's in low clock mode (x x x x x x x x o o o o o o o o). If I switch to high clock mode and restart, it goes to all o's. But when I switch back to low and restart, the x's return.

Anyone know what's going on or how to fix it?

Also, is it normal to always get these "WARNING proxy getwork_listener._on_submit" messages? I seem to be getting a lot of work accepted (27 gh/s on slush's pool), but I'm getting lots of WARNING spam.

[subvolatil]

Great guide thanks.

[Shaker242]

I have 1 card that is half full of x's in low clock mode (x x x x x x x x o o o o o o o o). If I switch to high clock mode and restart, it goes to all o's. But when I switch back to low and restart, the x's return.

Anyone know what's going on or how to fix it?

Also, is it normal to always get these "WARNING proxy getwork_listener._on_submit" messages? I seem to be getting a lot of work accepted (27 gh/s on slush's pool), but I'm getting lots of WARNING spam.

Sounds like the card might not be seated well, and restarting the cube (regardless of clock mode changes) must give it a bit more (or less) signal.  I'd double check that the card is seated. 

As for slush's pool, your running this through a stratum proxy right?  If you use the old get-work network, you're wasting your time since they've actually discontinued it.

[BrandonMcPherson]

Using a wind meter, I just checked the velocity of one of my cube fans... It's showing about 20fps, or 40CFM. So not the best fan's in the world to begin with.  I am not having any heating issues, but I've installed my cubes into some datacenter space where the ambient cool air is ~65degrees.  I wanted to check the air volume so that I could gauge what level of fan I need to upgrade too since I am about to flip the fans around.  I thought everyone might find my results interesting and/or helpful.

If you have  your cubes installed at your home, it's likely the ambient temperature is more like 70 or higher degrees.  This would then be just pumping warm air over hot heat sinks so doubling the air flow would almost be completely necessary since it'll dissipate less heat as the air passes over the blades.  

Thanks for the info, Shaker242. It's appreciated.

[Celeris]

I have 1 card that is half full of x's in low clock mode (x x x x x x x x o o o o o o o o). If I switch to high clock mode and restart, it goes to all o's. But when I switch back to low and restart, the x's return.

Anyone know what's going on or how to fix it?

Also, is it normal to always get these "WARNING proxy getwork_listener._on_submit" messages? I seem to be getting a lot of work accepted (27 gh/s on slush's pool), but I'm getting lots of WARNING spam.

Sounds like the card might not be seated well, and restarting the cube (regardless of clock mode changes) must give it a bit more (or less) signal.  I'd double check that the card is seated.  

As for slush's pool, your running this through a stratum proxy right?  If you use the old get-work network, you're wasting your time since they've actually discontinued it.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah I'm running it through the stratum proxy from Slush's pool here: http://mining.bitcoin.cz/mining-proxy-howto. I just followed the guide in the OP, set up the miner and run mining_proxy.exe with no parameters. Is that the old get-work network?

Also, I took all the cards out, tightened the heat sink screws and reseated all the cards. But that didn't seem to fix the 8 x's problem. Any other ideas?

Oh and all the cards had some crusty blotches of film on them, like somebody sneezed all over them and there's a bunch of dried mucus leftover. What is that about?

UPDATE: Well now the card stays half full of "x" in both low and high clock modes.

[Nyihm]

Ok, I've got the cube and everything seems to be fine but i cannot connect to the configuration page, does anyone have any idea why that might be? Also what does the status light indicate, it is usually straight red and then flashes occasionally.

Thanks Nick

[badbonez]

I can get my cubes to work using BFGMiner but I'm Having a problem using the mining_proxy.exe.  My batch file setting is:

Code:

mining_proxy.exe -o stratum+tcp://us2.eclipsemc.com -p 3333 -gp 8330 -q

(and yes, mining_proxy.exe is in the same folder as the .bat file.)

Here is my miner settings:



And this is the error messages:




(And to restate - I can get this to work with BFGminer, I am trying to figure out mining_proxy.)

Any ideas?  Thanks.

[TheWoodser]

(And to restate - I can get this to work with BFGminer, I am trying to figure out mining_proxy.)

Any ideas?  Thanks.

Your Gateway is blank....Needs to be your router IP address....

[Celeris]

Ok, I've got the cube and everything seems to be fine but i cannot connect to the configuration page, does anyone have any idea why that might be? Also what does the status light indicate, it is usually straight red and then flashes occasionally.

Thanks Nick

It's most likely because your default gateway is 192.168.1.254, which is the same as the cube's IP. I also had that issue, and somehow I was able to connect to the cube by just refreshing the miner IP several times (192.168.1.254:8000). Then you can change the miner IP to something unique.

So try to just keep refreshing and refreshing until you get it to come up. It worked for me, somehow.

[Henchman24]

I can get my cubes to work using BFGMiner but I'm Having a problem using the mining_proxy.exe.  My batch file setting is:

Code:

mining_proxy.exe -o stratum+tcp://us2.eclipsemc.com -p 3333 -gp 8330 -q

(and yes, mining_proxy.exe is in the same folder as the .bat file.)

Here is my miner settings:



And this is the error messages:




(And to restate - I can get this to work with BFGminer, I am trying to figure out mining_proxy.)

Any ideas?  Thanks.

In addition to the gateway change, you'll need to change your proxy line to

Code:

mining_proxy.exe -o us2.eclipsemc.com -p 3333 -gp 8330 -q

[macsheadroom]

Unfortunately the C10 cap popped on one of my cube boards today:



I was powering it up after rearranging some cables and saw the flash of light and heard an audible pop.

It sounds like the resellers don't yet have a warranty swap supply from Friedcat, so fingers crossed here that gets figured out ASAP.

The good news is, as dogie said, the cube hashes just fine with missing cards (with 1/6 less hashing goodness, of course).

BTW, I noticed while I was inside the cube that some of the boards were not seated in the casing slots (probably popped out during shipping). I also was missing a heat sink screw and some of the other heat sink screws were pretty loose. Be careful tightening them though -- heat sinks are pretty easy to strip.

-dmc

Was this repaired or replaced?

This happened to me today on first power up. Not as bad but its burnt around the trace and pad. Boards were jammed in there real good too, I had to remove the front and push them out.

I'd try to fix it but I don't want to screw up any warranty I might have.

[twib2]

Looking at your settings and your proxy - you are having your proxy pass through the user names in your cubes rather than defining it proxy-wide, via the "-cu" and "-cp" switches.  You can do that of course, but then you have to be sure that the usernames in your cube setups will work on the pool directly.

Hope this helps!
- Tye

I can get my cubes to work using BFGMiner but I'm Having a problem using the mining_proxy.exe.  My batch file setting is:

Code:

mining_proxy.exe -o stratum+tcp://us2.eclipsemc.com -p 3333 -gp 8330 -q

(and yes, mining_proxy.exe is in the same folder as the .bat file.)

Here is my miner settings:



And this is the error messages:




(And to restate - I can get this to work with BFGminer, I am trying to figure out mining_proxy.)

Any ideas?  Thanks.

[badbonez]

Looking at your settings and your proxy - you are having your proxy pass through the user names in your cubes rather than defining it proxy-wide, via the "-cu" and "-cp" switches.  You can do that of course, but then you have to be sure that the usernames in your cube setups will work on the pool directly.

Hope this helps!
- Tye

I don't know how to use the -cu or -cp switch.  Can you give me an example?  Thanks!

In addition to the gateway change, you'll need to change your proxy line to

Code:

mining_proxy.exe -o us2.eclipsemc.com -p 3333 -gp 8330 -q

Your Gateway is blank....Needs to be your router IP address....

Thanks, Gents!  One or both of these got me mining!  Cheers!

Wait, I'm going to take a longshot here, -cu is <username> and -cp <password>?  I'll try that...

EDIT:  Well, I tried that as in: -cu username -cp password but the mining did not register on the site.  If I use my username/password in the settings panel, it works.  But I'd like the functionality of using a command line version.  If someone can give me an example in syntax.  Thanks.

[twib2]

Looking at your settings and your proxy - you are having your proxy pass through the user names in your cubes rather than defining it proxy-wide, via the "-cu" and "-cp" switches.  You can do that of course, but then you have to be sure that the usernames in your cube setups will work on the pool directly.

I don't know how to use the -cu or -cp switch.  Can you give me an example?  Thanks!

You got it right with your guess.  Here's what I use when I want the proxy to send a user/pass combination for all devices that are being proxied versus what's in the cube/blade config:

Code:

mining_proxy -q -rt -gp 8330 -o server.address.com -p serverport -cu worker.name -cp worker.pass

(I don't use the .exe since I linux but the structure's the same)

The result should be that all devices using the proxy show up under whatever worker name you set up in the mining proxy with "-cu"  This of course can be problematic for trouble-shooting, but if you switch coins a lot like I do, it's easiest.  If not, it's best to do it in the cube/blade configuration.  I have my cubes/blades set up with miners for ghash.io and only use the -cu/-cp switches when I go to other pools where my worker names don't match.