Bitmain AntMiner U1 Tips & Tricks

[sauliusbig]

ok
New results from  overclocking attempts:

I upgraded my 4 Anminers with 10K and 2.5K  Resistors, and  connected only one antminer first.
Finaly i  managed to  get  very stable 2,4-2,5 GHS from one miner.
The overclocking procedure is not straight forward.

The antminer SilLab microcontroller seems to store some kind of calibration table  , which he uses to control PWM of the DC/DC converter and adjust the voltage for  TXO ( Frequency).
After you change the voltage output of the DC/DC converter those calibration values didn't match with reality, so you just cant start with high frequencies, the error is too high.
Instead start with  lowers  GHS possible: 1.4 GHS.
Wait until it stabilize, and increase the frequency by one value.
Step by step I managed to run Antimner at  0B81, which gave me about 2,5 GHS.

After i plugged the second  calibrated miner into USB3.0 HUB (4A max), the speed of the 1st miner  gone to 2.1 GHS, and the second  one gave 1.9 GHS.  The third miner just gone zombie...
Seems like there is not enough  power? But funny enough I got the same 2.5 GHS result from  USB2.0 PC port.... so current shouldn't be a problem here, probably....

I am, not quite sure WTF is wrong with AntimnerU1. Maybe some kind of connection/synchronisation errors with cgminer...


I tried to run  BFG miner, but it couldnt find any device at all....even after i deinstall zadig drivers.
Moreover CGMINER cant find a device directly from USB3.0 (my USB3.0 hub is connected to the USB2.0 Port) port.


I will purchase a PCI USB2.0 extension card with separate powersupply from the main PSU. Costs only 10 Euro, so i give it a try, in case there is not enough  current...

Seems like there is not enough  power- IMHO this is answer, maby hub (dead on arrival) are consume large amounts of power.

[chromosoma]

Can someone please explain how to use bfgminer with antminer?
I have the  nwools version, but it just dodnt find any device.
I deinstalled ZADIG drivers and only sintall the SILabs serial drivers

[cool77]

Can someone please explain how to use bfgminer with antminer?
I have the  nwools version, but it just dodnt find any device.
I deinstalled ZADIG drivers and only sintall the SILabs serial drivers

I uninstalled driver from devices/printers menu. Reboot Windows then plug back my Antminer. It will reinstall SIlabs drivers.

Then run this command line :

bfgminer.exe --set-device antminer:freq=0981 -o http://stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333 -O User:Pass -S antminer:all

It works but can't overclock right now. Trying to figure that out... Some got it working with Win7 X86. I have win7x64.

I'm pretty new so I might have done some mistakes.

Good Luck!

[chromosoma]

Thanks , will try it .
CGMINEr  just runs  not stable enough. Sometimes  he losts connection to miners, or work with high HW rate, sometimes  it goes perfect. depends on luck.

[cool77]

Can someone please explain how to use bfgminer with antminer?
I have the  nwools version, but it just dodnt find any device.
I deinstalled ZADIG drivers and only sintall the SILabs serial drivers

I uninstalled driver from devices/printers menu. Reboot Windows then plug back my Antminer. It will reinstall SIlabs drivers.

Then run this command line :

bfgminer.exe --set-device antminer:freq=0981 -o http://stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333 -O User:Pass -S antminer:all

It works but can't overclock right now. Trying to figure that out... Some got it working with Win7 X86. I have win7x64.

I'm pretty new so I might have done some mistakes.

Good Luck!

Ok M. nwools did it.

We need to change the set parameter to :

--set-device antminer:clock=x0981


I can now overclock with bfgminer.


But... one of my antminer is still showing HW error when overclocking it.

Any suggestion to minimize it other than downgrade oc.  Can I damage the device with a 14% HW?

I have a 4 usb hub 5v 3.5A and a fan over my antminer.

Thanks!

[chromosoma]

Tnx, after tweaking  with ports i  run all4 antminers  form BFGMINER @2GHS
I noticed that  Antimmer behave differently with  it. With bfginer the WORK LED only light up  when it sends result, while with CGMINER it blinking like crazy.
It is very interesting that i get almost ZERO HW!!
Now it is time  for  hardware hacking, again....

BTW
I overclock using "--set-device antminer:freq=0981" command

[davebodger]

I have had trouble with a pi, basically high usb traffic can cause the ethernet controler to drop out. I have a 20 port usb 2 hub plugged into the pi, and it will run for a while then randomly the ethernet driver starts getting errors and drops out.

This is a known issue with the pi, something to do with voltage drops. In any event i ended up using a spare old pc and throwing centos on it. USB issues gone

Ive tried doing firmware updates on the pi, and there is a kernel boot option for the nic but these make no difference.

I used to get lockup and dropout problems with my pi which I eventually solved by buffering the power through an extra usb hub which has no usb sticks in it.

So I now have a powered Plugable 7 port hub plugged into the pi and the pi takes it's power from a USB port on that.

Then I have several powered D-Link 7 port hubs plugged into the Plugable hub, with all the usb sticks plugged into them.

I believe this prevents any power fluctuations from the D-Link hubs reaching the pi through upstream power connections.

Whatever it does, it seems to work.

[nwoolls]

I put together an article that walks through the steps needed to start mining with the AntMiner U1 on OS X:

How-to mine with AntMiner U1

[chadgroover]

I have had trouble with a pi, basically high usb traffic can cause the ethernet controler to drop out. I have a 20 port usb 2 hub plugged into the pi, and it will run for a while then randomly the ethernet driver starts getting errors and drops out.

This is a known issue with the pi, something to do with voltage drops. In any event i ended up using a spare old pc and throwing centos on it. USB issues gone

Ive tried doing firmware updates on the pi, and there is a kernel boot option for the nic but these make no difference.

I used to get lockup and dropout problems with my pi which I eventually solved by buffering the power through an extra usb hub which has no usb sticks in it.

So I now have a powered Plugable 7 port hub plugged into the pi and the pi takes it's power from a USB port on that.

Then I have several powered D-Link 7 port hubs plugged into the Plugable hub, with all the usb sticks plugged into them.

I believe this prevents any power fluctuations from the D-Link hubs reaching the pi through upstream power connections.

Whatever it does, it seems to work.

Interesting... I might take a look into that at some point. Currently using a spare Blackberry charger (0.7a) for the Pi, which has always worked fine when running them headless.
Watchdog seemed to catch a lockup earlier on today and automatically restart, so as a short term workaround it definitely seems to be worth trying that. (I've set it restart if load is over 70 for 5 mins)
I've also set up a cron job to ping my router and restart the Pi if that fails, and one to check if a cgminer process is running and restart if not... Quite a lot of effort, but it seems to be working OK so far

[fractalbc]

I have had trouble with a pi, basically high usb traffic can cause the ethernet controler to drop out. I have a 20 port usb 2 hub plugged into the pi, and it will run for a while then randomly the ethernet driver starts getting errors and drops out.

This is a known issue with the pi, something to do with voltage drops. In any event i ended up using a spare old pc and throwing centos on it. USB issues gone

Ive tried doing firmware updates on the pi, and there is a kernel boot option for the nic but these make no difference.

I used to get lockup and dropout problems with my pi which I eventually solved by buffering the power through an extra usb hub which has no usb sticks in it.

So I now have a powered Plugable 7 port hub plugged into the pi and the pi takes it's power from a USB port on that.

Then I have several powered D-Link 7 port hubs plugged into the Plugable hub, with all the usb sticks plugged into them.

I believe this prevents any power fluctuations from the D-Link hubs reaching the pi through upstream power connections.

Whatever it does, it seems to work.

Interesting... I might take a look into that at some point. Currently using a spare Blackberry charger (0.7a) for the Pi, which has always worked fine when running them headless.
Watchdog seemed to catch a lockup earlier on today and automatically restart, so as a short term workaround it definitely seems to be worth trying that. (I've set it restart if load is over 70 for 5 mins)
I've also set up a cron job to ping my router and restart the Pi if that fails, and one to check if a cgminer process is running and restart if not... Quite a lot of effort, but it seems to be working OK so far

An alternative is to cut the red wire in the usb cable between the pi and your hub.  That too will prevent any power fluctuations from your hubs from reaching your pi.  Be sure to leave the other three wires intact.

[chromosoma]

Update on my overclocking saga:)
With  BFGminer and  2.2K and 100 K combination i  got very good results:


This is Antminer @0A81 CONFIGURATION:   ZERO Hardware Error.
The cool thing is, that  my mining pool really  measured 2.3 GHS from my worker, so it is real deal:)


The problem is, that two completely different  USB3.0-HUBS could not support more then 1 Antminer, even though the could provide 4A. I am not sure why.
I will  wait for  my USB2.0 PSU powered  PCI card. That must provide enough power from my  600W PSU.

[darcimer]

The anker hub can smoothly run 6 antminers at 0981/2ghs, or 12 ghs total and a fan in the bottom port.  Been solid for 48 hours using nwools version, however it will crash if you try to M "+" "all".

[cs2000]

I have had trouble with a pi, basically high usb traffic can cause the ethernet controler to drop out. I have a 20 port usb 2 hub plugged into the pi, and it will run for a while then randomly the ethernet driver starts getting errors and drops out.

This is a known issue with the pi, something to do with voltage drops. In any event i ended up using a spare old pc and throwing centos on it. USB issues gone

Ive tried doing firmware updates on the pi, and there is a kernel boot option for the nic but these make no difference.

I used to get lockup and dropout problems with my pi which I eventually solved by buffering the power through an extra usb hub which has no usb sticks in it.

So I now have a powered Plugable 7 port hub plugged into the pi and the pi takes it's power from a USB port on that.

Then I have several powered D-Link 7 port hubs plugged into the Plugable hub, with all the usb sticks plugged into them.

I believe this prevents any power fluctuations from the D-Link hubs reaching the pi through upstream power connections.

Whatever it does, it seems to work.

Interesting... I might take a look into that at some point. Currently using a spare Blackberry charger (0.7a) for the Pi, which has always worked fine when running them headless.
Watchdog seemed to catch a lockup earlier on today and automatically restart, so as a short term workaround it definitely seems to be worth trying that. (I've set it restart if load is over 70 for 5 mins)
I've also set up a cron job to ping my router and restart the Pi if that fails, and one to check if a cgminer process is running and restart if not... Quite a lot of effort, but it seems to be working OK so far

An alternative is to cut the red wire in the usb cable between the pi and your hub.  That too will prevent any power fluctuations from your hubs from reaching your pi.  Be sure to leave the other three wires intact.

Il give this a shot tonight. Sure this will work though? Were talking about cutting the red wire (which is the +ve wire) that takes power from the pi's USB ports to the hub, correct? I suppose that's logical really, power can be back syphoned to the RPI through that USB socket so I guess it can also pull it the other way, also, the hub is powered, so you don't need to be sending it another 5V...

Alternatively, il need to look into cron jobs and watchdog services as chadgroover has done, but that's new territory for me. I suspect it is probably power related however as when the mining stops I cannot ping the RPI from my desktop machine. I know the Ethernet is just a USB > Ethernet adaptor so really should have thought about this one before...

Its just so unpredictable! sometimes it can be 5-10 mins, other times its 12+ hrs before it locks up! Im preparing a cable now to test when im back home, fortunately my work has thousands of USB A-B cables.

[BITCOIN-PIZZA-DAY]

My miners went sick and dead after a while when I used cgminer. Deleted drivers and started up bfgminer and now works perfect.

Also had some problems with my USB 3.0 hub make sure you have the drivers for that installed.

[chadgroover]

@cs2000

The cron jobs are nice to have, but it looks like watchdog is the one that's helping me out the most, so I'd definitely advise trying that out.
Just Google "watchdog raspberry pi" and you'll find a few tutorials. Instead of using 1 min/24 load, I changed mine to 5 min/70 load.
I've now been mining for about 18 hours with 2 auto reboots thanks to Watchdog.

[cs2000]

@cs2000

The cron jobs are nice to have, but it looks like watchdog is the one that's helping me out the most, so I'd definitely advise trying that out.
Just Google "watchdog raspberry pi" and you'll find a few tutorials. Instead of using 1 min/24 load, I changed mine to 5 min/70 load.
I've now been mining for about 18 hours with 2 auto reboots thanks to Watchdog.

Great

Ive prepared a USB cable now so il try that first and then the watchdog if not.

It is interesting though as a power issue wouldn't cause high CPU usage which is what your watchdog is rebooting upon... odd indeed.

[chadgroover]

Yeah, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense!!
I also unplugged my LCD display this morning to see if that makes a difference (also because my GF wasn't particularly happy with my dodgy soldering being plugged in 24/7!!)

[retrogeek]

just a short note to say that both the bitmaintech and fractalbc antminer branches of cgminer will compile fine on Max OSX -

you'll need to install greadlink (via coreutils) and replace the "readlink" in autogen.sh with "greadlink"

... or at least it worked for me!

[cs2000]

Yeah, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense!!
I also unplugged my LCD display this morning to see if that makes a difference (also because my GF wasn't particularly happy with my dodgy soldering being plugged in 24/7!!)

Ive now got a watchdog running as I got fed up with the manual morning and evening reboot and the downtime in between!

Looks like I can remove a single line to stop the service and test this customised USB cable. I mean, either way, the cable seems a good idea anyway to be fair.

[chromosoma]

Ok, I measured  the current with 2.2K&10K configuration.
@ 0681 it is 0.7Amp!!
@ 0781 it is already 0.8Amp

I presume @0981 it is more then 1 Ampere pro miner.
No wonder  my hubs couldn't support more then 1.5 miners.