Bitmain AntMiner U1 Tips & Tricks

[chadgroover]

I gave up on the bitmaintech branch because of some of the other changes they made to cgminer and pulled the latest ckolivas 3.9.0 repository, merged the bmsc driver and posted it to https://github.com/fractalbc/cgminer.git

This is very interesting.

Can you just clarify what you did when you "merged the bmsc driver"

The bitmain version of cgminer is terribly unstable and doesn't work with the adafruit piminer lcd scripts because of the API changes Bitmain have made so id be keen to replicate what you have done.

I cloned the official cgminer repository and added the bmsc driver to it without the other cruft from the bitmaintech branch.  It might be worth testing your piminer with that branch to see if it works.

As a side note I tested a blue fury and it crashed after a couple of hours.  This happened twice.  I will test the blue fury by itself on a stock 3.9.0 build to figure out if it is something I did or not.

Brilliant, thanks.

Have done this through the evening and am having at about 1ghs faster with your build. Plus, as a bonus, the LCD works again due to the api.c file being standard. Im still testing for stability obviously but im just running with the 3 ants in here, left my BE's out for now.

Awesome news that the LCD is working for you! I'm having a few issues getting the latest version to make on my Pi, though;

Code:

  CC     cgminer-driver-bmsc.o
In file included from driver-bmsc.c:46:0:
usbutils.h:14:20: fatal error: libusb.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
make[2]: *** [cgminer-driver-bmsc.o] Error 1

I'm just git cloning from https://github.com/fractalbc/cgminer.git, then;

./autogen.sh
./configure --enable-bmsc
make

Is there anything else in particular I should be doing? I definitely have libusb-1.0-0.dev installed. Just tried building a fresh clone of the bitmaintech branch and that went through fine.
Linux noob here, so please be gentle!

[nwoolls]

Cross posting this since there's some discussion going here as well:

If anyone feels like testing out the latest AntMiner U1 code, it now supports both over-clocking and running side-by-side with Block Erupters.

Code:

git clone -b feature\/antminer-u1-support https://github.com/nwoolls/bfgminer.git bfgminer-npw
cd bfgminer-npw
./autogen.sh
./configure
make

Make sure you see a driver-antminer.c before compiling and a driver-antminer.o after.

Probing is done similarly to the Block Erupter:

Code:

bfgminer -S antminer:all -S erupter:all

And you can overclock using --set-device:

Code:

bfgminer --set-device antminer:freq=4F02

Windows binaries:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z29x4n6ng510joi/bfgminer-npw-antminer.7z

Tested on Windows, OS X, and Raspberry Pi (using MinePeon)

It Works For Me™

[cs2000]

I gave up on the bitmaintech branch because of some of the other changes they made to cgminer and pulled the latest ckolivas 3.9.0 repository, merged the bmsc driver and posted it to https://github.com/fractalbc/cgminer.git

This is very interesting.

Can you just clarify what you did when you "merged the bmsc driver"

The bitmain version of cgminer is terribly unstable and doesn't work with the adafruit piminer lcd scripts because of the API changes Bitmain have made so id be keen to replicate what you have done.

I cloned the official cgminer repository and added the bmsc driver to it without the other cruft from the bitmaintech branch.  It might be worth testing your piminer with that branch to see if it works.

As a side note I tested a blue fury and it crashed after a couple of hours.  This happened twice.  I will test the blue fury by itself on a stock 3.9.0 build to figure out if it is something I did or not.

Brilliant, thanks.

Have done this through the evening and am having at about 1ghs faster with your build. Plus, as a bonus, the LCD works again due to the api.c file being standard. Im still testing for stability obviously but im just running with the 3 ants in here, left my BE's out for now.

Awesome news that the LCD is working for you! I'm having a few issues getting the latest version to make on my Pi, though;

Code:

  CC     cgminer-driver-bmsc.o
In file included from driver-bmsc.c:46:0:
usbutils.h:14:20: fatal error: libusb.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
make[2]: *** [cgminer-driver-bmsc.o] Error 1

I'm just git cloning from https://github.com/fractalbc/cgminer.git, then;

./autogen.sh
./configure --enable-bmsc
make

Is there anything else in particular I should be doing? I definitely have libusb-1.0-0.dev installed. Just tried building a fresh clone of the bitmaintech branch and that went through fine.
Linux noob here, so please be gentle!

Personally, when I ran ./autogen.sh it moaned there was no configure file therefore I downloaded CGminer 3.9.0 from git and copied this to the place where I had pulled fractalbc's version, then ran it and all was good.

If anyone's bothered, I can see about getting the SD card image uploaded to somewhere (probably MEGA). All you would need to do is use win32 disk imager and then edit the cgminer.config file with your pool details. Its not running minepeon though, its raspbian.

Fractalbc's code base seems about as stable as my previous version was, on the first boot ir runs for about 20,000 shares (around 1.5-2hrs) then crashes, but reboot it and it will run all day no problems. Points to driver issues to me rather than Cgminer but its great to have the screen back.

[rothnarge]

Cross posting this since there's some discussion going here as well:

If anyone feels like testing out the latest AntMiner U1 code, it now supports both over-clocking and running side-by-side with Block Erupters.

Code:

git clone -b feature\/antminer-u1-support https://github.com/nwoolls/bfgminer.git bfgminer-npw
cd bfgminer-npw
./autogen.sh
./configure
make

Make sure you see a driver-antminer.c before compiling and a driver-antminer.o after.

Probing is done similarly to the Block Erupter:

Code:

bfgminer -S antminer:all -S erupter:all

And you can overclock using --set-device:

Code:

bfgminer --set-device antminer:freq=4F02

Windows binaries:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z29x4n6ng510joi/bfgminer-npw-antminer.7z

Tested on Windows, OS X, and Raspberry Pi (using MinePeon)

It Works For Me™

http://www.nwoolls.com/othercontent/AntMiner-U1-bfgminer-MinePeon.png?1

Nice this works with your MultiMiner too, just copied zip files contents to the one in MultiMiner. Nice GUI but I like the terminal look in bfgminer. I'll have to try to set up Minepeon on my RPi.
Thanks

[fractalbc]

I gave up on the bitmaintech branch because of some of the other changes they made to cgminer and pulled the latest ckolivas 3.9.0 repository, merged the bmsc driver and posted it to https://github.com/fractalbc/cgminer.git

This is very interesting.

Can you just clarify what you did when you "merged the bmsc driver"

The bitmain version of cgminer is terribly unstable and doesn't work with the adafruit piminer lcd scripts because of the API changes Bitmain have made so id be keen to replicate what you have done.

I cloned the official cgminer repository and added the bmsc driver to it without the other cruft from the bitmaintech branch.  It might be worth testing your piminer with that branch to see if it works.

As a side note I tested a blue fury and it crashed after a couple of hours.  This happened twice.  I will test the blue fury by itself on a stock 3.9.0 build to figure out if it is something I did or not.

Brilliant, thanks.

Have done this through the evening and am having at about 1ghs faster with your build. Plus, as a bonus, the LCD works again due to the api.c file being standard. Im still testing for stability obviously but im just running with the 3 ants in here, left my BE's out for now.

Awesome news that the LCD is working for you! I'm having a few issues getting the latest version to make on my Pi, though;

Code:

  CC     cgminer-driver-bmsc.o
In file included from driver-bmsc.c:46:0:
usbutils.h:14:20: fatal error: libusb.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
make[2]: *** [cgminer-driver-bmsc.o] Error 1

I'm just git cloning from https://github.com/fractalbc/cgminer.git, then;

./autogen.sh
./configure --enable-bmsc
make

Is there anything else in particular I should be doing? I definitely have libusb-1.0-0.dev installed. Just tried building a fresh clone of the bitmaintech branch and that went through fine.
Linux noob here, so please be gentle!

I'll fix that.  You can work around this by enabling any other device that needs USB, like  avalon bitforce bitfury modminer bflsc icarus hashfast klondike or drillbit even if you don't need it.

I.E.

./configure --enable-bmsc --enable-icarus

[pgminer01]

 does this support bi*fury as well ? I have U1 , erupter and bi*fury , now I have to run in separate machine ... I have compile the ant U1 from git hub , and if using --icarus , it will failed , I am configure with --enable-bitfury and --enable-bmsc ,thanks

[cs2000]

OK, so here it is for anyone that wishes to use it.
This is the image just taken from my Raspberry pi which uses fractalbc's version of CGMiner 3.9.0 compiled to work with BlockEruptors and Antminer U1 USB miners simultaniously. My image runs Raspbian and is fully up to date as of the time of this post.

This version also works with the adafruit 16x2 lcd, correctly showing mining stats as per their PiMiner tutorial.

You need to be using a 4GB (or larger) SD card to fit the image onto it and you need to get hold of Win32 Disk Imager from http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/ to image the SD card. You also need access to the Pi, either via Putty or direct on the device.

Note: I really struggled to find somewhere that allows uploads of large files for free and that give decent bandwidth. MEGA allowed enough upload, but had a tiny allowance of downloads. If the link below goes down, il TRY to find somewhere else unless someone has an FTP they could put this on. I have no idea how many times the service i've used will allow this file to be downloaded, compression is as good as i can get however, 3.7GB file compressed to under 900MB.

Instructions
1. Download img file

Code:

https://bft.usu.edu/2qysd

Open with winrar and extract the img file.

2. Open Win32 Disk Imager & select your device, then the location of the image you downloaded and finally click "Write". Insert the SD back into the Raspberry Pi once complete.

3. Gain access to the device, either by your keyboard & screen directly or use Putty to SSH to it.

Code:

Username: pi Password: raspberry

4. Run the following command & edit the pool details at the top of the script.

Code:

sudo nano /cgminer.conf

Once done, hit CTRL+x to exit, then y and enter to save the file.

5. Run the following command & check you are happy with the current launched version of CGMiner

Code:

sudo nano /etc/rc.local

Option 1 runs the sticks at their stock speed, option 2 overclocks them to ~2ghs and option 3 runs the standard BitMain version of CGminer but you lose support for the Adafruit LCD. Once done, hit CTRL+x to exit, then y and enter to save the file.

6.Lastly, enter the command below

Code:

sudo reboot

And wait for the pi to come online. You should see your IP address, then "Connecting to CGMiner..." and the finally your Antminers should start blinking and stats show on the screen within 30 seconds

I'm hashing with 3 AntMiner U1 at stock speeds and 2 Block Eruptors at somewhere around 5.4Ghs, sometimes slightly above, sometimes slightly below. With overclocks i could be around 6.5 however you do get many more HW errors with mixed devices. Currently at 1.7% but with just AntMiners i stay well under 0.04%, plus sometimes the BlockEruptors stop and start again. I recommend just using Antminers for now.

Oh, and of course this STILL isn't 100% stable. I've compiled 3-4 different versions of CGminer and tried various methods and CGMiner still crashes sometimes, sometimes after 10 mins, sometimes it can run for 8-9 hrs and then I restarted it to try another version! The fault lies with the driver itself but that's BitMains issue, we're all just working with what we have been given and this is by far the most stable one I've tried so far.

That's it really. If you have any issues just post and hopefully il see it. Any beer tokens you wish to send my way will of course be hapilly received to "1MA58F5ctQxZuaeaVuSVC2d6SSnKGNbw4f" & of course, thanks to fractalbc for creating this custom version of CGminer.

Thanks.

[chadgroover]

Not too sure what on earth I'm doing wrong here, but my Adafruit display STILL isn't working after building fractalbc's latest version! It has to be something stupid at my end... It just has to be!

Going to try cs2000's image now just to finally see the LCD in action (hopefully!)

/edit
Thanks cs2000 and fractalbc - my two new heroes!

I had quite a bit of customisation done to my Pi install though, so I'll probably tar up the files from cs2000's image then go back to my own one and try to figure out where I went wrong...

With regards to the stability issue, I'll probably just knock together a little script which checks if cgminer is running every 5 minutes, and if not restarts the Pi... (kind of brute force I admit, but it should get the job done!!!)

[pumawolf]

am i suppose to install both CP210xVCPInstaller_x64.exe  and CP210xVCPInstaller_x86.exe   , i could only install 86  and cgminer wont detect the ants.

[argakiig]

CGMiner is working fine in windows 8, Unable to get bfgminer to recognize Antminer using preocompiled binaries or mingw compiled from nwoolls antminer-U1 -S antminer:all switch in my bat file. bfgminer will load but will not detect antminers. any ideas.


/edit fixed. had to remove the zadig driver and reinstall the cp210xvcp driver. worked fine afterwards. Found fix in Bfg Miner 3.9.0 thread

I used the Zadig tool thingy, or is this not needed?

There's your problem.  You f**cked it by using that.  You'll have to remove all the drivers for the Antminers in Device Manager, then reinstall the VCP drivers.  Step away from zdiag.

[cs2000]

Not too sure what on earth I'm doing wrong here, but my Adafruit display STILL isn't working after building fractalbc's latest version! It has to be something stupid at my end... It just has to be!

Going to try cs2000's image now just to finally see the LCD in action (hopefully!)

/edit
Thanks cs2000 and fractalbc - my two new heroes!

I had quite a bit of customisation done to my Pi install though, so I'll probably tar up the files from cs2000's image then go back to my own one and try to figure out where I went wrong...

With regards to the stability issue, I'll probably just knock together a little script which checks if cgminer is running every 5 minutes, and if not restarts the Pi... (kind of brute force I admit, but it should get the job done!!!)

Glad its working and you tried my image. Id say its a 50/50 build. To me, fractalbc did all the hard work with the compiling of his version of CGminer, I just installed it on mine where i already set up adafruit LCD support and created the SD card image really

The stability thing is weird, I have remote access to another machine in my house and earlier today I saw on slushs pool that my hash rate had dropped to 0. So I accessed the other box and tried to SSH to the Pi, but no response. Pinged its IP, dead as a doornail. Im not sure HOW it locks up, does CGminer crash and lock up the entire RPI, or does the RPI itself crash, I just know sometimes it does. that said, its been running for about 5 hrs stable now but ive gone back to stock clock speeds on the ant's to see if the overclock was causing issues.

[darcimer]

am i suppose to install both CP210xVCPInstaller_x64.exe  and CP210xVCPInstaller_x86.exe   , i could only install 86  and cgminer wont detect the ants.

If you are using cgminer, I believe you need to se the Zadig utility to install the winusb drivers after you install the CP210 drivers.  It was a pita for me using windows 7.

[wwwin]

am i suppose to install both CP210xVCPInstaller_x64.exe  and CP210xVCPInstaller_x86.exe   , i could only install 86  and cgminer wont detect the ants.

Depends on if you have a 64bit or 32bit OS...you are supposed to install only one not both.

[pumawolf]

i one stick to run, then i plug two more in and nothing is  detected?  i read the thread hope something would work ,im stuck now.

[pumawolf]

do i need to re install the drivers one by one everytime i restart, i restarted my cpu and it couldnt detect it any more

[BotwinBG]

Cross posting this since there's some discussion going here as well:

If anyone feels like testing out the latest AntMiner U1 code, it now supports both over-clocking and running side-by-side with Block Erupters.

Code:

git clone -b feature\/antminer-u1-support https://github.com/nwoolls/bfgminer.git bfgminer-npw
cd bfgminer-npw
./autogen.sh
./configure
make

Make sure you see a driver-antminer.c before compiling and a driver-antminer.o after.

Probing is done similarly to the Block Erupter:

Code:

bfgminer -S antminer:all -S erupter:all

And you can overclock using --set-device:

Code:

bfgminer --set-device antminer:freq=4F02

Windows binaries:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z29x4n6ng510joi/bfgminer-npw-antminer.7z

Tested on Windows, OS X, and Raspberry Pi (using MinePeon)

It Works For Me™

Do you have it available via Homebrew?

[nwoolls]

Do you have it available via Homebrew?

Not until my pull request has been merged in with bfgminer proper.

[BotwinBG]

Do you have it available via Homebrew?

Not until my pull request has been merged in with bfgminer proper.

I get this :

./bfgminer -d?
dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/lib/libblkmaker_jansson-0.1.0.dylib
  Referenced from: /Users/xxxx/cgminer/cgminer/bfgminer-npw/./bfgminer
  Reason: image not found
Trace/BPT trap: 5

Any pointers on where I might look?

[pumawolf]

whats the most g/hashes  u guys think i can over clock these suckas with fan  of course, i want them to last at least 4 months ,if it frys after that then so be it.

[captplanet]

I'm getting a bunch of hardware errors on only one U1. However, it's different every time I start it up. I'm using the version of bfgminer that was posted in this thread