Bitmain AntMiner U1 Tips & Tricks

[philipma1957]

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.

easy 2gh after that it becomes harder to do.  you may need to solder a different resistor  and have a very good hub.  but 2 gh was easy been running 37 sticks with no issues on a 49 port hub. I am getting about 1.92 a stick.  I have 1 zombie  just too lazy to find it. can't complain with my in house  operation

 3 pc's  
 1)  running ltc
 2) running ant miners and  ltc
 3) running ant miner ice fury and ltc.

total power 900 watts round up to 1 kwatt  or 720 k watts a month = .20 x 720 = 144 usd for  electric bill worth about 30 off my heating bill so 114 a month  to run it all.

 the  ltc  is .5 a day or about   350 usd a month - 114 to run it = 235 a month profit before the sticks.  the sticks are about 120gh thats about 1.25 btc in a month or 1000 usd.  so for the next month I should pull in 1250 mining. not bad.

All my gear has been roi'd .

[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.

easy 2gh after that it becomes harder to do.  you may need to solder a different resistor  and have a very good hub.  but 2 gh was easy been running 37 sticks with no issues on a 49 port hub. I am getting about 1.92 a stick.  I have 1 zombie  just too lazy to find it. can't complain with my in house  operation

 3 pc's  
 1)  running ltc
 2) running ant miners and  ltc
 3) running ant miner ice fury and ltc.

total power 900 watts round up to 1 kwatt  or 720 k watts a month = .20 x 720 = 144 usd for  electric bill worth about 30 off my heating bill so 114 a month  to run it all.

 the  ltc  is .5 a day or about   350 usd a month - 114 to run it = 235 a month profit before the sticks.  the sticks are about 120gh thats about 1.25 btc in a month or 1000 usd.  so for the next month I should pull in 1250 mining. not bad.

All my gear has been roi'd .

thanks phil,and i also read ur comments on  buy just .1 g/h so u can mine a cex to maxiumize profit, it was very inciteful, thanks for that.   and can i change the  command line freq  while its mining? will it even do anything

[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!!!)

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.

Yeah, it totally froze up on me again just now after about 5 mins of uptime - couldn't reconnect and had to pull the power cable in the end!
I ran ps -ef a short while before this happened and cgminer did seem to be using up a very high amount of CPU (around 78%, whereas it usually sat at between 0%-2% on my build)
I've just checked again and it's showing the following;

root      2111  2109 25 07:45 ?        00:01:05 python PiMiner.py
root      2112  2109 64 07:45 ?        00:02:44 ./fractalbc/cgminer..........................

Not sure if it's something unique with your build, or perhaps this is usual when PiMiner is actually working?... My CPU usage was never that bad anyway, so I'd say I'll ditch the LCD and go back to my image for the time being. I've had a handful of lockups before, but they've never happened so quickly - they're usually after running overnight.

[cs2000]

I tend to get the same, first lock up after around 5-15 mins and the next one after a reboot around 9 hrs later.

Im just gonna deal with it for now until CGMiner fully supports these. I really cant be bothered formatting the SD card, following the adafruit tutorial and getting CGMiner working again.

Just ran PS -ef on mine and also see high CPU useage

Code:

root      2108  2106 28 04:50 ?        01:06:53 python PiMiner.py
root      2109  2106 70 04:50 ?        02:44:05 ./fractalbc/cgminer/cgminer --co

Perhaps its due to how I run cgminer. (nohup) is there a better way to spawn a process that keeps running all the time?

[tparidae]

I have 2 antminers (from seperate resellers) but I can't get any of them working.

I followed the manual, uninstalled and installed the cp2102 driver several times including the reboots, nothing.

In debugging I get the following type of messages:

USB scan devices: checking for BTM devices
BTM looking for BMS 0403:6602 but found 8086:1e2d instead

Any idea?

[volosator]

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™

RPI build: here
dpkg -i %package%

works on my rpi with 7x ANT U1 sticks. ADL disabled, supports for all other ASICs enabled.
Took ~ 45 minutes to build it on Rpi.

Tips: 1Eq1VLJfk6ZmpjY6Hy6BetHmWtvoKJJ3bF

[chromosoma]

Ok guys. I tried to overclock Antminer u1  according to  the official   guide.
I replaced  resistors  to 10K and 4.7K, to set the voltage near 1.2V ( I am sure the exact R Value is not necessary)
As  result I couldn't set any operating frequency  with  "nonce timeout" Error.

Then I replaced the R1 to 3.5K, that allowed me to  use  Antminer at 225 MHZ (all frequencies over it caused nonce timeout).
Instead  of getting 1.8 GHS I got  about 2.3 GHS but  too much  HW, so I lowered  R1 to  1.5K.
 That allowed me to run Antminer at max. 250MHZ, but getting  again about 2,3 GHS  with acceptable HW rate.Still  the miner got pretty hot, so i replaced the resistors back to the original state.
I also tried to vary   Timeout parameter   by setting it to higher values(from 20 to 100), that allowed me to start  Antminer at R1=3.5K R and 250MHZ, but still it acted VERY weird. The  "work" LED   was permanently "ON" and the miner delivered only hardware errors.


Can anyone explain my WTF? Who the hell posted this PDF with overclock instruction? What am i doing wrong?

PS
The test U1 was  powered through USB3.0 Hub  with max output current of 4A.

[chromosoma]

BTW
Running at 2 GHS  at chip Temp.  just 40 C°  (room temp 21 C°)
Passive cooling FTW=)

[Mudbankkeith]

Ok guys. I tried to overclock Antminer u1  according to  the official   guide.
I replaced  resistors  to 10K and 4.7K, to set the voltage near 1.2V ( I am sure the exact R Value is not necessary)
As  result I couldn't set any operating frequency  with  "nonce timeout" Error.

Then I replaced the R1 to 3.5K, that allowed me to  use  Antminer at 225 MHZ (all frequencies over it caused nonce timeout).
Instead  of getting 1.8 GHS I got  about 2.3 GHS but  too much  HW, so I lowered  R1 to  1.5K.
 That allowed me to run Antminer at max. 250MHZ, but getting  again about 2,3 GHS  with acceptable HW rate.Still  the miner got pretty hot, so i replaced the resistors back to the original state.
I also tried to vary   Timeout parameter   by setting it to higher values(from 20 to 100), that allowed me to start  Antminer at R1=3.5K R and 250MHZ, but still it acted VERY weird. The  "work" LED   was permanently "ON" and the miner delivered only hardware errors.


Can anyone explain my WTF? Who the hell posted this PDF with overclock instruction? What am i doing wrong?

PS
The test U1 was  powered through USB3.0 Hub  with max output current of 4A.

Take a look at the info supplied by nwoolls:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=168174.msg4416439#msg4416439

https://github.com/AntMiner/AntGen1/blob/master/manual/AntMiner-U1%20user%20guide.pdf?raw=true

[chadgroover]

I tend to get the same, first lock up after around 5-15 mins and the next one after a reboot around 9 hrs later.

Im just gonna deal with it for now until CGMiner fully supports these. I really cant be bothered formatting the SD card, following the adafruit tutorial and getting CGMiner working again.

Just ran PS -ef on mine and also see high CPU useage

Code:

root      2108  2106 28 04:50 ?        01:06:53 python PiMiner.py
root      2109  2106 70 04:50 ?        02:44:05 ./fractalbc/cgminer/cgminer --co

Perhaps its due to how I run cgminer. (nohup) is there a better way to spawn a process that keeps running all the time?

I dunno... I normally just go with a basic script file placed in /etc/init.d and then run "update-rc.d <scriptname> defaults"

I decided to just bite the bullet and start from scratch anyway... Started with a clean Raspbian install (07/01/14 image)
Built cgminer with the following (dropped into a script and ran that as sudo);

Code:

apt-get update
apt-get install git pkg-config libtool autoconf automake libcurl4-openssl-dev libncurses5-dev libudev-dev -y
git clone https://github.com/fractalbc/cgminer.git cgminer-fractalbc
cd cgminer-fractalbc
./autogen.sh
./configure --enable-bmsc --enable-icarus --enable-bitfury
make

Started cgminer without even touching a .conf file;

Code:

sudo ./cgminer --bmsc-options 115200:20 -o eu-stratum.btcguild.com:3333 -u xxxxx -p xxxx --bmsc-freq 0881 --api-listen

Then followed the steps from the following to make sure that the plate was working OK;
http://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-16x2-character-lcd-plus-keypad-for-raspberry-pi/usage

Then git clone https://github.com/adafruit/PiMiner.git
And finally, sudo python PiMiner/PiMiner.py &

At first it went straight from showing the IP address to "connecting to cgminer" (which might sound bad, bit was more promising than my last efforts!)
So I tried killing cgminer and launching again with  "--api-allow 0/0" at the end of the command line, and hey presto it finally worked!
The bizarre thing is, I haven't really done anything differently to last time! Go figure!

Running for 20+ minutes now and cgminer has been perfectly stable with 0%-1% CPU usage whenever I check (PiMiner consistently seems to take up 28%-30%, but I can live with that!)

Thanks again to fractalbc for stepping up and doing an awesome job, and thanks to cs2000 for showing me the light at the end of the tunnel!

http://s23.postimg.org/umauhwo6j/2014_01_10_22_45_38.jpg

[cs2000]

Hey guys,
      Well, i know i said i was just going to deal with it and wait for propper CGMiner support for these, but, i got bored so about 2 hrs later i have a fresh build.
      
Set-up is the same as before with regards to how the system works, but i beleive i may have introduced some instability on my previous image due to me copying the configure file from standard CGMiner, the one on this new image was created by autogen.sh from scratch and is currently mining for me at 6.2GH's.

I have updated my previous post here with the new image link https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=390929.msg4416810#msg4416810 ,but to save you going back, the new link & slightly tweaked instructions are below...

This version ONLY support the AntMiner U1 sticks and NOT BlockEruptors as im sure that wasnt helping.

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, as standard, the overclock setting is on which runs the Ant's at ~2GHS. The Option above this runs the sticks at their stock speed, just comment out one line or the other.

Code:

sudo nano /etc/rc.local

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 overclockeds at somewhere around 6Ghs, sometimes slightly above, sometimes slightly below.

Oh, and of course this STILL isn't 100% stable even after the further changes. It still crashes sometimes, sometimes after 10 mins, sometimes it can run for 8-9 hrs.

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.

Any beer tokens you wish to send my way will of course be hapilly received to "1MA58F5ctQxZuaeaVuSVC2d6SSnKGNbw4f" & of course, thanks to fractalbc for creating the custom version of CGminer.

Thanks.

[cs2000]

Running for 20+ minutes now and cgminer has been perfectly stable with 0%-1% CPU usage whenever I check (PiMiner consistently seems to take up 28%-30%, but I can live with that!)

Maybe your on to something here.

With my fresh built image ive just done (as per the post above) I still saw ~60% cpu usage by CGMiner.

Have just commented out that line in etc/init.d and rebooted and am instead running it with

Code:

sudo ./fractalbc/cgminer/cgminer --bmsc-options 115200:20 --bmsc-freq 0981 -o stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333 -u XXXXX-p XXXXX --api-listen --api-allow 0/0

And im seeing 1% usage. I wonder if its a specific option, or indeed the config file itself that's causing high CPU utilisation....

Gonna leave mine hashing overnight, if its still running tomorrow then il be 95% sure its the config file that's causing issues. Il slowly try removing lines and options until the CPU usage drops to these levels, or I cant remove anymore! I just prefer using the config file as it means the launch code is cleaner

[Jay_Pal]

My Ants are hashing away!!!
Great job, Fractalbc!

Code:

 cgminer version 3.9.0 - Started: [2014-01-10 21:55:18]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 (5s):16.34G (avg):14.60Gh/s | A:21640  R:0  HW:196  WU:190.9/m
 ST: 2  SS: 0  NB: 15  LW: 32992  GF: 0  RF: 0
 Connected to  10 with stratum as user 
 Block: 1e6f9473...  Diff:1.42G  Started: [23:33:09]  Best share: 30K
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [P]ool management [S]ettings [D]isplay options [Q]uit
 ANT  0:                | 2.851G/1.999Gh/s | A:3290 R:0 HW:25 WU: 27.7/m
 ANT  1:                | 2.836G/2.038Gh/s | A:3130 R:0 HW:34 WU: 28.2/m
 AMU  1:                | 335.6M/335.7Mh/s | A: 590 R:0 HW: 3 WU:  4.5/m
 AMU  3:                | 446.9M/446.5Mh/s | A: 660 R:0 HW:35 WU:  6.1/m
 BAJ  0:  max 35C 0.99V | 4.725G/4.690Gh/s | A:7170 R:0 HW: 0 WU: 63.9/m
 ANT  2:                | 2.956G/2.006Gh/s | A:3120 R:0 HW:30 WU: 27.8/m
 ANT  3:                | 3.086G/1.968Gh/s | A:2650 R:0 HW:25 WU: 27.2/m
 AMU  4:                | 341.9M/337.4Mh/s | A: 440 R:0 HW: 3 WU:  4.5/m
 AMU  6:                | 335.7M/335.3Mh/s | A: 470 R:0 HW: 4 WU:  4.7/m
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [2014-01-10 22:08:27] Accepted 11a8d1ea Diff 14/10 ANT 1 pool 0
 [2014-01-10 23:44:46] Accepted 014ee59e Diff 196/10 BAJ 0 pool 0
 [2014-01-10 23:44:49] Accepted 03bfa8c9 Diff 68/10 BAJ 0 pool 0
 [2014-01-10 23:44:51] Accepted 0fa3d8e2 Diff 16/10 BAJ 0 pool 0
 [2014-01-10 23:44:51] Accepted 078e37fb Diff 34/10 ANT 3 pool 0
 [2014-01-10 23:44:54] Accepted 0905f4e8 Diff 28/10 ANT 0 pool 0
 [2014-01-10 23:44:55] Accepted 03044c6e Diff 85/10 ANT 0 pool 0
 [2014-01-10 23:44:55] Accepted 024e0ade Diff 111/10 ANT 3 pool 0
 [2014-01-10 23:44:56] Accepted 0590e3cc Diff 46/10 ANT 0 pool 0
 [2014-01-10 23:44:56] Accepted 0b3d0bbb Diff 23/10 ANT 1 pool 0
 [2014-01-10 23:44:58] Accepted 0129b83f Diff 220/10 ANT 1 pool 0
 [2014-01-10 23:45:02] Accepted 11eceea4 Diff 14/10 ANT 2 pool 0
 [2014-01-10 23:45:07] Accepted 0a2cd497 Diff 25/10 AMU 3 pool 0

[Xbits]

I was a noob and couldn't post here yet but, this is how I managed to get all 3 U1s running on the same machine with 7 BEs using both versions of cgminer.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=406307.new#new

[rothnarge]

Thank you nwoolls for bfgminer support.
Thank you MineForeman for MinePeon.
Both work together like a charm on RPi.
Thanks to this post on MinePeon forum. http://minepeon.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1213&start=30

IMO bfgminer works better than cgminer, I've been running it for 12h so far no crashes 27 rejects and only 1 HW error. Wasn't the case with cgminer.

[chadgroover]

Running for 20+ minutes now and cgminer has been perfectly stable with 0%-1% CPU usage whenever I check (PiMiner consistently seems to take up 28%-30%, but I can live with that!)

Maybe your on to something here.

With my fresh built image ive just done (as per the post above) I still saw ~60% cpu usage by CGMiner.

Have just commented out that line in etc/init.d and rebooted and am instead running it with

Code:

sudo ./fractalbc/cgminer/cgminer --bmsc-options 115200:20 --bmsc-freq 0981 -o stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333 -u XXXXX-p XXXXX --api-listen --api-allow 0/0

And im seeing 1% usage. I wonder if its a specific option, or indeed the config file itself that's causing high CPU utilisation....

Gonna leave mine hashing overnight, if its still running tomorrow then il be 95% sure its the config file that's causing issues. Il slowly try removing lines and options until the CPU usage drops to these levels, or I cant remove anymore! I just prefer using the config file as it means the launch code is cleaner

Hate to throw a spanner in the works, but I've tried it with a config file too and that's been working perfectly for the past hour, so I'm kind of stumped now! (the config file was written from within cgminer while using the command line in my post above, so it could possibly be worth trying that to generate a fresh config file if you haven't done that already)

Mine is as follows if that's any help;

Code:

{
"pools" : [
        {
                "url" : "pool1",
                "user" : "user1",
                "pass" : "pass1"
        },
        {
                "url" : "pool2",
                "user" : "user2",
                "pass" : "pass2"
        }

]
,
"api-listen" : true,
"api-mcast-port" : "4028",
"api-port" : "4028",
"expiry" : "120",
"hotplug" : "5",
"failover-only" : true,
"log" : "5",
"no-pool-disable" : true,
"queue" : "1",
"scan-time" : "60",
"shares" : "0",
"kernel-path" : "/usr/local/bin",
"api-allow" : "0/0",
"bmsc-options" : "115200:20",
"bmsc-freq" : "0881"
}

[Laxe]

I have 4 U1's but I consistently have problems getting them to hash even at a consistent 1.6 Gh/s.  I've tried OC'ing but the hash rate just drops to around 1 Gh/s or below.  Do I need to cool them or just a better hub?  I've got one attached to my laptop's USB port and 3 on a Belkin 7 port, powered hub.

I'm using the newer BFG Miner posted on this thread.

Any help is appreciated.

[pumawolf]

I have 4 U1's but I consistently have problems getting them to hash even at a consistent 1.6 Gh/s.  I've tried OC'ing but the hash rate just drops to around 1 Gh/s or below.  Do I need to cool them or just a better hub?  I've got one attached to my laptop's USB port and 3 on a Belkin 7 port, powered hub.

I'm using the newer BFG Miner posted on this thread.

Any help is appreciated.

some dude in this thread had  a similar prob , think he was using the old bfg tho , he couldnt get the cgminer to work the first time, but ended up getting it to work and problem solve for him.

[pumawolf]

will we get a better hash rate if i use 3.0 port hub, but im pluggin it in a 2.0 port tho.

[eroxors]

Ok guys. I tried to overclock Antminer u1  according to  the official   guide.
I replaced  resistors  to 10K and 4.7K, to set the voltage near 1.2V ( I am sure the exact R Value is not necessary)
As  result I couldn't set any operating frequency  with  "nonce timeout" Error.

Then I replaced the R1 to 3.5K, that allowed me to  use  Antminer at 225 MHZ (all frequencies over it caused nonce timeout).
Instead  of getting 1.8 GHS I got  about 2.3 GHS but  too much  HW, so I lowered  R1 to  1.5K.
 That allowed me to run Antminer at max. 250MHZ, but getting  again about 2,3 GHS  with acceptable HW rate.Still  the miner got pretty hot, so i replaced the resistors back to the original state.
I also tried to vary   Timeout parameter   by setting it to higher values(from 20 to 100), that allowed me to start  Antminer at R1=3.5K R and 250MHZ, but still it acted VERY weird. The  "work" LED   was permanently "ON" and the miner delivered only hardware errors.


Can anyone explain my WTF? Who the hell posted this PDF with overclock instruction? What am i doing wrong?

PS
The test U1 was  powered through USB3.0 Hub  with max output current of 4A.

USB 3 was acting weird for me w/these. It sounds like cooling might be an issue for you. You can leave these heatsinks on and add another heatsink to them for extra cooling.... or just a large piece of metal. Mind showing pics of the resistors soldered? I have the big resistors but I don't think I can get them on such a small lead.