LightningAsic usb miners based Gridseed GC3355 Tech Support Thread

[Xell]

On a $/hash basis, the ASIC are cost competitive. R9 280x are around $450-$500 now and hash around .730Mhs, so for 3.5Mhs, you are looking at $$2,750-$3,000 for the cards only.

I hope these aren't the kind of calculations you do when working out potential returns. Not only do your numbers actually give $2150-$2400 for the cards needed, but I doubt many intelligent people pay $500 for r9 280x. Dock the $240-480 you think the cards will be worth in the end and the savings are still enough to power your cards for quite a long time (your numbers give $100/month as the difference in energy costs, giving 'free GPU running time' of 3.5-8 months worth using your numbers. I pay <$350 for 280x, I imagine most do, so there is another few hundred bucks for CPU/RAM/Mobo and still more spare for yet more electricity).

If you think these Scrypt coins will last more than a few months, then maybe this is for you. But I don't think they'll keep their value much longer, and soon people will move onto n factor or something else because Scrypts main draw is lack of ASICs. The bottom line is you need to have your 3.5MH/s ASIC hashing away for half a year before you can save as much on electricity as the extra you spent on your miners. Will Scrypt last that long? Will these ASIC chips last that long?

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[FreeJack2k2]

If you think these Scrypt coins will last more than a few months, then maybe this is for you. But I don't think they'll keep their value much longer, and soon people will move onto n factor or something else because Scrypts main draw is lack of ASICs. The bottom line is you need to have your 3.5MH/s ASIC hashing away for half a year before you can save as much on electricity as the extra you spent on your miners. Will Scrypt last that long? Will these ASIC chips last that long?

This makes no sense. When Litecoin came along, it was to give GPU miners something to mine as Bitcoin shifted to predominantly ASIC-driven mining. This didn't cause Bitcoin to lose its value, suddenly. The introduction of ASIC to the world of Scrypt coins is not suddenly going to make them lose their value. Most likely, it'll cull the chaff in Scrypt and we won't have a new Scrypt clone introduced every week, because ASICs can easily kill them off immediately. Only the strong will survive and those that do will be successful.

History will repeat itself again. Litecoin/Dogecoin/etc... will grow to be predominantly ASIC-mined coins, while Vertcoin and its inevitable clones will attract the GPU miners. However, I personally don't know that making a coin that JUST caters to miners and really offers nothing else to distinguish itself from other crypto-currencies is a recipe for success. Litecoin offered some clear differences from Bitcoin, beyond the algorithm used to hash it. Faster transactions, higher coin limit. Vertcoin, to me, is nearly a carbon copy of Litecoin, except for the hashing algorithm and that's strictly for the miners's benefit.

We'll see. But I don't think ASIC being introduced for Scrypt coins is going to see the demise of their value. It's just going to see a culling of the herd, which is a good thing. Having so many random coins out there is not healthy for the widespread adoption of crypto, IMO.

[Xell]

We'll see.

I think you're right but I think things will change much faster once they get properly started, and that will make it really hard to get in on the ASIC rush and get an actual return before their hardware is outdated.

PS hope you're right about vertcoin and my GPU is being put to good use at the mo!

[eightcylinders]

Well, mine went "offline" after 2 days of mining and nothing I can do will bring them back on.  The original thing that worked (disconnecting power, and reconnecting one by one) doesn't work.  Clearly there is a bug in the code dealing with the USB bus:

[2014-02-24 19:44:25] All process shutdown - dual 1
[2014-02-24 19:44:25] Close the USB controller power
[2014-02-24 19:44:26] Open the USB controller power
 
[repeated ad nauseum]

Without root access to the controller, these things are poor space heaters at best.

Disappointing.  Hopefully the controller update will fix things and hoping that comes very soon.

[worldlybedouin]

Hopefully the controller update will fix things and hoping that comes very soon.

Wasn't the new controller firmware supposed to be released today?  Or so I recall reading on another thread somewhere.

[richmke]

So far, impossible to run cpuminer directly on units from Linux.

Any of this useful in getting them to work on Linux?

https://github.com/gridseed

[FreeJack2k2]

Hopefully the controller update will fix things and hoping that comes very soon.

Wasn't the new controller firmware supposed to be released today?  Or so I recall reading on another thread somewhere.

That's what I was told on the LightningASIC technical support Skype yesterday.

[richmke]

Not only do your numbers actually give $2150-$2400 for the cards needed

I was off by one card. But it also did not include the PSU, MB, CPU, RAM, disk.

but I doubt many intelligent people pay $500 for r9 280x. ...I pay <$350 for 280x, I imagine most do, so there is another few hundred bucks for CPU/RAM/Mobo and still more spare for yet more electricity).

That seems like prices for used cards, which is fine. But, I was comparing new to new.

Dock the $240-480 you think the cards will be worth in the end ...If you think these Scrypt coins will last more than a few months,

Like I said, if Scrypt coins don't last, then how can you expect people to pay $240 for a used GPU card?

1) Nvidia cards with the same gaming performance are much cheaper
2) There will be a flood of used mining cards on the market as people decommission their mining rigs.

There is only so much demand from gamers. The current price skew on AMD (not Nvidia) cards is because of mining.

I think LTC will last as long as BTC. Don't know about all the other coins. If BTC/LTC busts, I'm guessing the high end GPU cards will be worth $100. Which, I admit is still more than the value of the ASICs, but nothing close to $240-$480 that you are guessing. BTW: Why would it be worth $480 if you are only willing to pay <$350 for one today?

There are a lot of posts of people running into power limits in their house. I personally have a noise limit. If I can get these to run silently, then I can fill a room with them. I wouldn't be able to fill a room with GPUs. I can put 150 to 200 units on one 15 amp circuit. I would need 150 amps (typical power draw for an entire house) plus cooling, for an equivalent GPU setup.

[PGomer]

Is the Gridseed controller required to run these units or can I run 10 of them from a PC using USB hubs?

[worldlybedouin]

Hopefully the controller update will fix things and hoping that comes very soon.

Wasn't the new controller firmware supposed to be released today?  Or so I recall reading on another thread somewhere.

That's what I was told on the LightningASIC technical support Skype yesterday.

Just skyped with their tech support guy...the dev who's supposed to release this isn't around so it may get pushed to tomorrow.

[worldlybedouin]

Is the Gridseed controller required to run these units or can I run 10 of them from a PC using USB hubs?

You can connect these to a windows PC and run the custom version of cpuminer so no you don't need the controller, but for the extra $ it's worth it considering how many watts a PC uses...that and you'd have to run like 10-MS DOS windows of cpuminer which is just a clutter on your desktop if you're actually also using the computer for non-mining stuff.

[Xell]

Like I said, if Scrypt coins don't last, then how can you expect people to pay $240 for a used GPU card?
...
I think LTC will last as long as BTC. Don't know about all the other coins. If BTC/LTC busts, I'm guessing the high end GPU cards will be worth $100. Which, I admit is still more than the value of the ASICs, but nothing close to $240-$480 that you are guessing. BTW: Why would it be worth $480 if you are only willing to pay <$350 for one today?

$240-480 is combined for all the cards in the rig (you were the one that priced them used at 50-100$), and no - nobody pays $500 for new 280X's to mine. I pay <350$ new - obviously.

[FreeJack2k2]

Is the Gridseed controller required to run these units or can I run 10 of them from a PC using USB hubs?

You can connect these to a windows PC and run the custom version of cpuminer so no you don't need the controller, but for the extra $ it's worth it considering how many watts a PC uses...that and you'd have to run like 10-MS DOS windows of cpuminer which is just a clutter on your desktop if you're actually also using the computer for non-mining stuff.

My understanding, too, is that if you mine with your PC using the custom cpuminer, the bitcoin cores will stay active and draw power...so if you only want to mine Scrypt coins with them, you'll be paying more in power to run them that way.

[testthewhiterabbit]

Does anyone know of a way to setup a backup pool in the controller (this is a non-LighteningASIC version, I'm waiting on an order from asiabtc now)?

Right now I can only setup a single pool, which means no backup.

[gigq]

Anyone found a manageable way to keep these things running?

I have mine monitored and I get an alert if they stop mining but when I'm at work I'm unable to do the power cycling required to get them back up they just site there unused.

As a temporary fix I bought one of these, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007SP64SM/, to setup an automated power cycle.  I also ordered additional controller hardware (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005VEJ3GM/) and I'm hoping I can install openwrt on it and get the cgminer from wiibox running directly on it so I can have better control of the mining (separate frequencies per miner, better monitoring, multiple pools, etc).

I'll let you guys know if I have any success with that.

[worldlybedouin]

Anyone found a manageable way to keep these things running?

I have mine monitored and I get an alert if they stop mining but when I'm at work I'm unable to do the power cycling required to get them back up they just site there unused.

As a temporary fix I bought one of these, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007SP64SM/, to setup an automated power cycle.  I also ordered additional controller hardware (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005VEJ3GM/) and I'm hoping I can install openwrt on it and get the cgminer from wiibox running directly on it so I can have better control of the mining (separate frequencies per miner, better monitoring, multiple pools, etc).

I'll let you guys know if I have any success with that.

Nope but the automated power cycle switch you linked looks pretty good!

Will you try to flash the wiibox.net controller firmware on it instead?  I'd be curious to see how the "stock" Gridseed developed wiibox.net firmware works against the firmware that LighteningASIC is shipping out.  I'll happily sacrifice a bit of hashing performance if it means stability and not babysitting these damn things.

[gigq]

Nope but the automated power cycle switch you linked looks pretty good!

Will you try to flash the wiibox.net controller firmware on it instead?  I'd be curious to see how the "stock" Gridseed developed wiibox.net firmware works against the firmware that LighteningASIC is shipping out.  I'll happily sacrifice a bit of hashing performance if it means stability and not babysitting these damn things.

My plan was to upload the compiled cgminer from http://www.wiibox.net/down/v2.0.1.zip into a linux distro running on the same MIPS hardware.  No clue if that'll work but worth a try.  This way I can script cgminer directly instead of dealing with these terrible controller interfaces.

[worldlybedouin]

Nope but the automated power cycle switch you linked looks pretty good!

Will you try to flash the wiibox.net controller firmware on it instead?  I'd be curious to see how the "stock" Gridseed developed wiibox.net firmware works against the firmware that LighteningASIC is shipping out.  I'll happily sacrifice a bit of hashing performance if it means stability and not babysitting these damn things.

My plan was to upload the compiled cgminer from http://www.wiibox.net/down/v2.0.1.zip into a linux distro running on the same MIPS hardware.  No clue if that'll work but worth a try.  This way I can script cgminer directly instead of dealing with these terrible controller interfaces.

Have you considered working with DrFranz and Chirale?  They're currently working on porting the controller software to Rasberry Pi via their Scripta project.  I've seen Scripta screenshots and it looks quite nice...I've ordered a 1M5 device from Beekeeper (LTCGear.com) and it's supposed to have Scripta as the "controller"...so I'm looking forward to it on both of these machines.

[gigq]

Have you considered working with DrFranz and Chirale?  They're currently working on porting the controller software to Rasberry Pi via their Scripta project.  I've seen Scripta screenshots and it looks quite nice...I've ordered a 1M5 device from Beekeeper (LTCGear.com) and it's supposed to have Scripta as the "controller"...so I'm looking forward to it on both of these machines.

Yeah I reached out to both of them when I first got my units and just today DrFranz PMed me back on the litecoin board.  Apparently they are going to release the minerd binary and patch soon to have it run on a raspberry pi directly.  If that's the case that would work perfectly for me as I already have a few raspberry pi boxes that I used to run BFL hardware.

[bobby35ny]

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81411088/20140224_233421.jpg

Well its running!!!
Very unstable!
reboots itself every 15min.

Seems that out of the 10, 2 never hash, Power cycle or whatever, a random 2 will not hash.


-bobby