[GUIDE] GridSeed 5-Chip USB, Blade & Black Miner Support/Tuning

[gtraah]

Someone read the article about removing the thermal pad and put the paste in order to have better overclock?  It's this one: http://gridseed-blog.com/gridseed-overclocking-1000-mhz-without-voltmod/

Well, I suggest to avoid it because as I've thought the 5 chips and some others component aren't perfectly on the same plane, so the result is that one or more chips will not be even in contact with the thermal paste...WATCH OUT!

You can cleary see from this photo:


I've evenly tightened the screws more that one time but still there is a gap on most of the chips, in this case the U20 6pin chip is the culprit, it's a bit more high than other components so the heatsink surface touch only that chip.

I knew the pasty mod of Zig's was totally unworkable! There in your picture, is the proof!
Use the factory pads. They work fine! Simply torque all 4 screws evenly and snugly.
My miners all have factory pads on them and they all work perfectly!

Wasn't Zigs mod the R46 Pads, I thought Many people said to use thermal paste not sure it was just zig

[gtraah]

And yes, as maxzilla pointed out, it doesn't go back to check the previous pool if the current pool is working.

I dont know why people have not developed On top of Cgminer? I mean it already has the awesome interface, It has the perfect failover system, it has easy access and use and much clearer view than cpu miner... It has individual local hash rates as well as Getwork Failure, HW errors Total and for each miner....

All it needs is someone to make it so you can have interactive startup so you can have all your miners plugged in and when you start cgminer thet all start, not important but better, and you can add the autotune feauture, I mean plenty of the Cgminer forks already have this for the GPU version.

[Mr. Jinx]

I dont know why people have not developed On top of Cgminer?

What do you mean? There are plenty forks of cgminer that support gridseed.
However, cgminer is not running very stable for most people (correct me if I'm wrong here).

The most popular cgminer forks are from dtbartle (https://github.com/dtbartle/cgminer-gc3355) and girnyau (https://github.com/girnyau/cgminer-gc3355).
If you search you will also find Windows binaries for these.

[Mr. Jinx]

Someone read the article about removing the thermal pad and put the paste in order to have better overclock?  It's this one: http://gridseed-blog.com/gridseed-overclocking-1000-mhz-without-voltmod/

They didn't say you should remove the pads. Just use thermal paste on the chips to get EXTRA contact with the thermal pads.
By removing them you would shorten some components.

ps: Opening a pod / device is not good for the thermal pads. The pads will be damaged a little after opening, which is not good for heat transfer. Best thing would be to use new thermal pads + paste, but then again, is it really necessary for 10W?

[gtraah]

Someone read the article about removing the thermal pad and put the paste in order to have better overclock?  It's this one: http://gridseed-blog.com/gridseed-overclocking-1000-mhz-without-voltmod/

They didn't say you should remove the pads. Just use thermal paste on the chips to get EXTRA contact with the thermal pads.
By removing them you would shorten some components.

ps: Opening a pod / device is not good for the thermal pads. The pads will be damaged a little after opening, which is not good for heat transfer. Best thing would be to use new thermal pads + paste, but then again, is it really necessary for 10W?

Exactly right it is not necessary... Only if you are volt modding

[maxzilla]

Someone read the article about removing the thermal pad and put the paste in order to have better overclock?  It's this one: http://gridseed-blog.com/gridseed-overclocking-1000-mhz-without-voltmod/

They didn't say you should remove the pads. Just use thermal paste on the chips to get EXTRA contact with the thermal pads.
By removing them you would shorten some components.

ps: Opening a pod / device is not good for the thermal pads. The pads will be damaged a little after opening, which is not good for heat transfer. Best thing would be to use new thermal pads + paste, but then again, is it really necessary for 10W?

Exactly right it is not necessary... Only if you are volt modding

If you like cgminer, then try BFGMiner instead (made by the same devs and looks and can be configured exactly the same way), there is a windows build 3.99.0, which runs good

http://cryptomining-blog.com/1883-download-the-latest-bfgminer-3-99-0-for-windows-with-gridseed-asic-support/

[Kergekoin]

I need some help please.

I have 80 5 chip miners. Going to run them on powered hubs and a single PC.
Whats the best OS and miner? Need to be able to remote control over internet (either web control panel or RDP)
Theres lots of guides in forums but i failed to find any guide which has all the info needed. All guides are incomplete in that sense.

[suchmoon]

I need some help please.

I have 80 5 chip miners. Going to run them on powered hubs and a single PC.
Whats the best OS and miner? Need to be able to remote control over internet (either web control panel or RDP)
Theres lots of guides in forums but i failed to find any guide which has all the info needed. All guides are incomplete in that sense.

With that number of miners I would strongly suggest Linux and girnyau cgminer. I did a little roundup a while ago, it is a bit outdated now (newer versions of software have been released) but most of it still stands:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=494625.msg5976681#msg5976681

[RowanX]

Trouble switching from CGminer to CPUminer?

I think I figured it out.. thanks to some advice from Pete @ Zadig.

Problem: After running Zadig to get CGMiner working... I couldn't get my Virtual COM ports back to a "virgin state", i.e. to appear under "Ports" section in Device Manager, show a COM number, and allow changing COM number and disabling FIFO buffers etc....

Removing the COM ports from Device Manager and even ticking "delete driver software" when doing so wasn't having the desired effect.

Solution: If like me you'd had the gridseeds (via USB hub or not) plugged into more than 1 USB port at any one time.. then you need to uninstall the STM32 driver (Add/Remove Programs), then plug the gridseed back into every USB port of your PC you ever used them in, systematically, and go to Device Manager each time to uninstall the COM ports that appear (usually under "USB Devices", if you had used Zadig to set WinUSB as the driver). After you've done them all, plug the gridseed(s) back in (I think they still appear under USB devices at this point..) then install the STM32 driver... and voila... back to normal, and CPUminer works.

p.s. with both CGminer and CPUminer I find that I sometimes have to unplug other USB devices from my system (mouse and keyboard lol) before they will find the gridseeds and start mining. Only sometimes however. I can plug them back in after mining starts, without problems.

p.p.s. it would be really great if CPUminer could be improved to show stats at the top like CGMiner does. Also.. as it takes ages to fine tune the chips.. is there any way to store that info or does it have to restart the whole tuning process every time you restart the software? Sandor?

[sandor111]

Support for individual chip frequency is added. It’s possible to run regular USB miners and G-Blades on a single instance, because the number of chips is now auto detected.
Binaries (Win, Rpi) have been updated.
I'm still working on a summary like cgminer, almost done, but it feels like I'm reinventing the wheel.

[jamieb81]

Support for individual chip frequency is added. It’s possible to run regular USB miners and G-Blades on a single instance, because the number of chips is now auto detected.
Binaries (Win, Rpi) have been updated.
I'm still working on a summary like cgminer, almost done, but it feels like I'm reinventing the wheel.

Nice work Sandor, when I have some spare BTC I'll send you some to take a beer or two

[sandor111]

I haven't tested it with a G-Blade yet, but it should work if the firmware version is the same for all.

[Kergekoin]

I need some help please.

I have 80 5 chip miners. Going to run them on powered hubs and a single PC.
Whats the best OS and miner? Need to be able to remote control over internet (either web control panel or RDP)
Theres lots of guides in forums but i failed to find any guide which has all the info needed. All guides are incomplete in that sense.

With that number of miners I would strongly suggest Linux and girnyau cgminer. I did a little roundup a while ago, it is a bit outdated now (newer versions of software have been released) but most of it still stands:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=494625.msg5976681#msg5976681

I have never used linux from terminal, so this is way too complicated for me without guide. All guides i have seen are old and aged.
Somehow i got cgminer from gridseed git compiled but im clueless what to do next.

[wolfey2014]

Support for individual chip frequency is added. It’s possible to run regular USB miners and G-Blades on a single instance, because the number of chips is now auto detected.
Binaries (Win, Rpi) have been updated.
I'm still working on a summary like cgminer, almost done, but it feels like I'm reinventing the wheel.

Yo Sandor!
Your latest cpuminer single pane version (pun intended) / auto freq', is working great!
I finally figured out the cryptic explanation you sent me re: what everything on the green line means which is cool. But based on the order the pods have been assigned their comm port number, it's hard to tell right off the bat which pods are working and which ones aren't. Not without squinting and scrolling a bit.
Could you add a line at the top that shows, 'in order' installed, the pod number that is working in green and the ones that aren't in red ... A line like pod 1-2-3-5-8-6-7-9-0-4... In real time of course
Looking forward to further cpuminer updates and improvements!
Thanks pal!
Wolfey2014

[csmflynt3]

Awesome cannot wait to try this out

[suchmoon]

I need some help please.

I have 80 5 chip miners. Going to run them on powered hubs and a single PC.
Whats the best OS and miner? Need to be able to remote control over internet (either web control panel or RDP)
Theres lots of guides in forums but i failed to find any guide which has all the info needed. All guides are incomplete in that sense.

With that number of miners I would strongly suggest Linux and girnyau cgminer. I did a little roundup a while ago, it is a bit outdated now (newer versions of software have been released) but most of it still stands:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=494625.msg5976681#msg5976681

I have never used linux from terminal, so this is way too complicated for me without guide. All guides i have seen are old and aged.
Somehow i got cgminer from gridseed git compiled but im clueless what to do next.

If you have it compiled then I think you're 80% there. You need to start it:

Code:

~/cgminer-gc3355/cgminer your-usual-cgminer-params-go-here

I'd suggest to use a config file, i.e. cgminer -c config_file_name

If your cgminer is not in the cgminer-gc3355 folder obviously you'll need to adjust the command above. For gridseeds you'll need at least:

Code:

{
"pools" : [
        {
                "url" : "stratum+tcp://poolname.com:3333",
                "user" : "workername",
                "pass" : "workerpassword"
        }
]
,
"gridseed-options" : "baud=115200,freq=800",
"hotplug" : "5",
"queue" : "1",
"scan-time" : "30",
"scrypt" : true
}

Adjust frequency to your liking. Once you get that running, try:

Code:

/usr/bin/screen -dmS cgminer /your_path_to_cgminer/cgminer -c /your_path_to_config_file/config_file_name

This will run cgminer in the background. Use the following to look at it:

Code:

/usr/bin/screen -x cgminer

Ctrl+A, Ctrl+d to disconnect

Then if it's all working add the startup command to /etc/rc.local to start it on boot.

I think that's it. If you run into any issues - ask.

[CartmanSPC]

I dont know why people have not developed On top of Cgminer?

What do you mean? There are plenty forks of cgminer that support gridseed.
However, cgminer is not running very stable for most people (correct me if I'm wrong here).

The most popular cgminer forks are from dtbartle (https://github.com/dtbartle/cgminer-gc3355) and girnyau (https://github.com/girnyau/cgminer-gc3355).
If you search you will also find Windows binaries for these.

cgminer works great with gridseeds on Linux! It's the way it handles USB on Windows that is the problem. I switched from Windows because of this. Resisted for years but am glad I did. The learning curve is medium to high though.

cgminer was forked from cpuminer. It has advanced quite a bit and I too feel sandor should be building off the latest version of cgminer with scrypt added back in. He's not kidding when he said he feels like he is reinventing the wheel

That being said I have been using sandors cpuminer for the last day with great results so far!

[sandor111]

I dont know why people have not developed On top of Cgminer?

What do you mean? There are plenty forks of cgminer that support gridseed.
However, cgminer is not running very stable for most people (correct me if I'm wrong here).

The most popular cgminer forks are from dtbartle (https://github.com/dtbartle/cgminer-gc3355) and girnyau (https://github.com/girnyau/cgminer-gc3355).
If you search you will also find Windows binaries for these.

cgminer works great with gridseeds on Linux! It's the way it handles USB on Windows that is the problem. I switched from Windows because of this. Resisted for years but am glad I did. The learning curve is medium to high though.

cgminer was forked from cpuminer. It has advanced quite a bit and I too feel sandor should be building off the latest version of cgminer with scrypt added back in. He's not kidding when he said he feels like he is reinventing the wheel

That being said I have been using sandors cpuminer for the last day with great results so far!

I love CGMiner, but the main intention was to build a Gridseed miner for Tp-link 703N/Wiibox, it had to be faster and consume much less memory than CGminer and able to run many (100+) miners on a single instance to combat the limitation of 32MB of RAM, but I ended up adding a lot of stuff to it that I hadn't planned for, for the better.

[sandor111]

:loop
minerd.exe --gc3355=\\.\COM4,\\.\COM5,\\.\COM6,\\.\COM7,\\.\COM8,\\.\COM9,\\.\COM10,\\.\COM11 --gc3355-autotune --gc3355-chips=40 --freq=825
minerd.exe --gc3355=\\.\COM4,\\.\COM5,\\.\COM6,\\.\COM7,\\.\COM8,\\.\COM9,\\.\COM10,\\.\COM11 --gc3355-autotune --gc3355-chips=40 --freq=825
goto loop
pause

Im getting error "unrecognized option: --gc3355-autotune.
  

When i delete autotune, it will work fine.

I see nothing wrong here, are you using the latest build (https://www.dropbox.com/s/ttqa9p851siz8oi/minerd-gc3355.zip) ?
Could you post the full command line?

[CartmanSPC]

I dont know why people have not developed On top of Cgminer?

What do you mean? There are plenty forks of cgminer that support gridseed.
However, cgminer is not running very stable for most people (correct me if I'm wrong here).

The most popular cgminer forks are from dtbartle (https://github.com/dtbartle/cgminer-gc3355) and girnyau (https://github.com/girnyau/cgminer-gc3355).
If you search you will also find Windows binaries for these.

cgminer works great with gridseeds on Linux! It's the way it handles USB on Windows that is the problem. I switched from Windows because of this. Resisted for years but am glad I did. The learning curve is medium to high though.

cgminer was forked from cpuminer. It has advanced quite a bit and I too feel sandor should be building off the latest version of cgminer with scrypt added back in. He's not kidding when he said he feels like he is reinventing the wheel

That being said I have been using sandors cpuminer for the last day with great results so far!

I love CGMiner, but the main intention was to build a Gridseed miner for Tp-link 703N/Wiibox, it had to be faster and consume much less memory than CGminer and able to run many (100+) miners on a single instance to combat the limitation of 32MB of RAM, but I ended up adding a lot of stuff to it that I hadn't planned for, for the better.

Oh yea, forgot. Heh...keep up the good work!