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Author Topic: Getting inconsistent speeds with my Ant Miner U1 USB ASIC (OSX)  (Read 1432 times)
film2240 (OP)
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February 16, 2014, 02:06:48 PM
 #1

Hi,
I bought an Ant Miner ASIC a while ago and while i managed to get everything up and running on my MacBook Pro (with Retina Display,late 2013 model) at around 2GH/s,the speeds keep fluctuating wildly (the range will make some of you laugh/wonder) most of the time now from 900Mh/s to briefly hitting 4GH/s.The reason this is a problem for me is because I mine other currencies as well as selling off mining contracts for this Ant miner so it's important that the speeds are reasonably consistent (to avoid overdelivering without extra revenue or underdelivering and charging too much kind of issues).

It's plugged into a USB 3 port since MBPs from 2012 all have USB3 ports only.I don't have a fan as I'm not sure how this'll help the situation.The answer may be really obvious but it seems like I'm missing something.

For those of you who want to know about the rMBP (MacBook Pro with retina display),here are the basics:
OS-OSX 10.9.1 Mavericks
16GB RAM
512GB SSD (I wanted a 1TB SSD but couldn't afford it at the time)
2 GPUs (Iris Pro and NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2GB)
Asteroid 0.96

I don't overclock my ASIC intentionally due to concerns about stability/longevity (maybe Asteriod miner is doing this on the fly like CPUs do when they manage power use).

Anyway can someone on here help me get the hashrate to settle down as it'd help me a lot?Thanks Smiley

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OliRS
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February 16, 2014, 06:20:56 PM
Last edit: February 16, 2014, 06:35:55 PM by OliRS
 #2

Firstly, Asteroid is rubbish and really buggy I find, what your seeing with the fluctuations is normal for Asteroid as far as my experiences are concerned. I tested it on my Mac with my rig of Antminer U1's and it did the same. The latest version of Asteroid has the proper support for Antminers so it utilises the higher clock speeds automatically, but as you have found it goes up and down a lot. You should ditch Asteroid and install Bfgminer on your Mac for much more reliable hashing. There are plenty of set up guides for Bfgminer and the U1's.

My Antminers are all controlled via a Raspberry Pi now which stays on 24/7 and uses a LOT less electricity than leaving your Macbook on all the time. You should consider something similar as you're probably paying more on electric than your getting selling 2GH/s mining contracts. But on my Mac while testing Bfgminer with my U1's using the x0981 clock setting I get a reliable and constant 2.0 GH/s. When you first start Bfgminer and it starts mining, it's normal for the GHS to spike to very high, as much as 8 or 9 GH/s in some cases, or it may start really low with a few hundred MHS, this is normal and it levels off after a few minutes.

Secondly, you say you are selling mining contracts, with a single 2GH/s Antminer?! Are people actually silly enough to pay for 2GH/s mining?!  Huh
film2240 (OP)
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February 16, 2014, 06:51:19 PM
 #3

Firstly, Asteroid is rubbish and really buggy I find, what your seeing with the fluctuations is normal for Asteroid as far as my experiences are concerned. I tested it on my Mac with my rig of Antminer U1's and it did the same. The latest version of Asteroid has the proper support for Antminers so it utilises the higher clock speeds automatically, but as you have found it goes up and down a lot. You should ditch Asteroid and install Bfgminer on your Mac for much more reliable hashing. There are plenty of set up guides for Bfgminer and the U1's.

My Antminers are all controlled via a Raspberry Pi now which stays on 24/7 and uses a LOT less electricity than leaving your Macbook on all the time. You should consider something similar as you're probably paying more on electric than your getting selling 2GH/s mining contracts. But on my Mac while testing Bfgminer with my U1's using the x0981 clock setting I get a reliable and constant 2.0 GH/s. When you first start Bfgminer and it starts mining, it's normal for the GHS to spike to very high, as much as 8 or 9 GH/s in some cases, or it may start really low with a few hundred MHS, this is normal and it levels off after a few minutes.

Secondly, you say you are selling mining contracts, with a single 2GH/s Antminer?! Are people actually silly enough to pay for 2GH/s mining?!  Huh


I would use a better alternative except that they're all terminal based and as a busy pro filmmaker I really can't afford to waste any time whatsoever.

I'll update Asteroid too as it's worth doing to see if it improves.Running my MBP with an Ant Miner uses very little energy (less than 15w combined) compared to using my mining PC with the asic which would burn though over 130W for the same task,without a GPU.

The mac also let's me use a scrypt based miner as I figured out how to make it work whereas no Raspberry Pi OS supports both BTC/Scrypt ASICs yet.

I would use a raspberry pi except that I don't know how to set one up and read my first point for the rest of it.Too time consuming as none of the guides mention how to flash the OS onto its sd card on a mac.

As for revenue,let's just say I'm doing quite well in revenue and electric costs when selling a mining contract,I've had a few customers already so it can't be that bad can it?I want to use the extra money in funding an important film project as well as invest in upgrading mining equipment to sell more mining contracts.

If you or someone can create an easy to understand guide for flashing the OS and setting up the Raspberry Pi for asic mining,that'll be great. I find most guides on here too much of a pain without images to explain and actually show me what to do along with good instructions which is what puts me off the Raspberry Pi route/after hearing reports that MinePeon may have a security vulnerability that causes a users hash power to be redirected somewhere else without the user knowing.

I'll hold off a Raspberry Pi until the dust settles in this. Smiley

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OliRS
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February 16, 2014, 06:59:36 PM
 #4

Firstly, Asteroid is rubbish and really buggy I find, what your seeing with the fluctuations is normal for Asteroid as far as my experiences are concerned. I tested it on my Mac with my rig of Antminer U1's and it did the same. The latest version of Asteroid has the proper support for Antminers so it utilises the higher clock speeds automatically, but as you have found it goes up and down a lot. You should ditch Asteroid and install Bfgminer on your Mac for much more reliable hashing. There are plenty of set up guides for Bfgminer and the U1's.

My Antminers are all controlled via a Raspberry Pi now which stays on 24/7 and uses a LOT less electricity than leaving your Macbook on all the time. You should consider something similar as you're probably paying more on electric than your getting selling 2GH/s mining contracts. But on my Mac while testing Bfgminer with my U1's using the x0981 clock setting I get a reliable and constant 2.0 GH/s. When you first start Bfgminer and it starts mining, it's normal for the GHS to spike to very high, as much as 8 or 9 GH/s in some cases, or it may start really low with a few hundred MHS, this is normal and it levels off after a few minutes.

Secondly, you say you are selling mining contracts, with a single 2GH/s Antminer?! Are people actually silly enough to pay for 2GH/s mining?!  Huh


I would use a better alternative except that they're all terminal based and as a busy pro filmmaker I really can't afford to waste any time whatsoever.

I'll update Asteroid too as it's worth doing to see if it improves.Running my MBP with an Ant Miner uses very little energy (less than 15w combined) compared to using my mining PC with the asic which would burn though over 130W for the same task,without a GPU.

The mac also let's me use a scrypt based miner as I figured out how to make it work whereas no Raspberry Pi OS supports both BTC/Scrypt ASICs yet.

I would use a raspberry pi except that I don't know how to set one up and read my first point for the rest of it.Too time consuming as none of the guides mention how to flash the OS onto its sd card on a mac.

As for revenue,let's just say I'm doing quite well in revenue and electric costs when selling a mining contract,I've had a few customers already so it can't be that bad can it?I want to use the extra money in funding an important film project as well as invest in upgrading mining equipment to sell more mining contracts.

If you or someone can create an easy to understand guide for flashing the OS and setting up the Raspberry Pi for asic mining,that'll be great. I find most guides on here too much of a pain without images to explain and actually show me what to do along with good instructions which is what puts me off the Raspberry Pi route/after hearing reports that MinePeon may have a security vulnerability that causes a users hash power to be redirected somewhere else without the user knowing.

I'll hold off a Raspberry Pi until the dust settles in this. Smiley

I followed the tutorial by Adafruit and adjusted it to my requirements. It's a very easy to follow tutorial which you can alsmot just copy and paste the commands if you like. I did it all on my Mac, they have instructions for Win or OSX Smiley

http://learn.adafruit.com/piminer-raspberry-pi-bitcoin-miner/initial-setup-and-assembly
film2240 (OP)
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February 16, 2014, 08:30:30 PM
 #5

Got an update for you.I've managed to update Asteroid and the hashrate is much more stable,in fact it's fixed my issue more or less (meaning that I can sell contracts again without worrying about misrepresentation issues caused by unstable hashrates).Would would have thought that a software update was all that was needed? Now I don't have to waste time with any other approaches.

It doesn't reach beyond 2GH/s anymore but I'm sure they can still be overclocked (but first get a fan) for a better hashrate.

Thanks for the suggestions though. Smiley

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OliRS
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February 16, 2014, 10:45:43 PM
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Got an update for you.I've managed to update Asteroid and the hashrate is much more stable,in fact it's fixed my issue more or less (meaning that I can sell contracts again without worrying about misrepresentation issues caused by unstable hashrates).Would would have thought that a software update was all that was needed? Now I don't have to waste time with any other approaches.

It doesn't reach beyond 2GH/s anymore but I'm sure they can still be overclocked (but first get a fan) for a better hashrate.

Thanks for the suggestions though. Smiley

Glad to hear the update fixed it for you, as I said I tried it and it was very buggy, would never close down properly etc after mining and sometimes wouldn't let me start at all. They must have fixed it.

Have you felt how hot it gets running at 2.0? I would still use a fan, with a simple USB fan they stay barely warm to touch, without they are too hot to touch almost. For longevity a fan is a good idea. Look on eBay for Arctic Breeze USB fan, very cheap but very useful. Smiley
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