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

[Kergekoin]

: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?

Yes, thanks. Looks like my previous download was somehow falty.

[wolfey2014]

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!

Don't let the one forum member who is very vocal on his preference of cpuminer convince you that it is better. cgminer is generally far better than cpuminer. I have witnessed a general pattern with this forum member on various topics that his way of doing things is superior to any other way. He adds value (in his own way) so I resist hitting ignore on his comments but it has been a great exercise of restraint to not respond to some of his posts...LOL. In life we learn to deal with people of different and sometimes combative/strong personalities so it's all good.  

Cartman is right. cpuminer is superior to cgminer, obviously, as it forked from cpuminer in the first place ;p!  

No, really. I have only ever stated how much I LOVE cpuminer and anyone using it will surely agree, especially now since Sandor111's recent upgrades to it at the request of several other users on here who also feel it is the best of all the other programs.
I am entitled to my opinions and assertions etc.

It is clearly up to each individual to make up their own mind, of course! I mean after all,  it's only a natural inclination, anyway! Right?

But, in my opinion, if you decide to just trust and go with cpuminer, you will have made a great if not perfect and totally 'safe' first time decision! Especially if you are a noob! Trust me on that!

As to the rest of Cartman's comment, 'why, what ever do you mean?' ;p

[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!

Don't let the one forum member who is very vocal on his preference of cpuminer convince you that it is better. cgminer is generally far better than cpuminer. I have witnessed a general pattern with this forum member on various topics that his way of doing things is superior to any other way. He adds value (in his own way) so I resist hitting ignore on his comments but it has been a great exercise of restraint to not respond to some of his posts...LOL. In life we learn to deal with people of different and sometimes combative/strong personalities so it's all good.  

Cartman is right. cpuminer is superior to cgminer, obviously, as it forked from cpuminer in the first place ;p!  

No, really. I have only ever stated how much I LOVE cpuminer and anyone using it will surely agree, especially now since Sandor111's recent upgrades to it as the request of several other users on here who also feel it is the best of all the other programs.
I am entitled to my opinions and assertions etc. It is clearly up to each individual to make up their own mind, of course!

But, in my optinion, if you decide to just trust and go with cpuminer, you will have made a great if not perfect and totally 'safe' first time decision! Especially if you are a noob! Trust me on that!

As to the rest of Cartman's comment, 'why, what ever do you mean?' ;p

OMG, LOL! How'd you catch that before I deleted it...

Here are my results of using sandors cpuminer. You can see a much lower (perhaps over half) DOA/stale rate:


http://xpool.net:9555/static/

[nst6563]

I haven't seen this anywhere but is there a benefit to raising the 'baud rate' of the gridseed port above 115200?

[Kergekoin]

OK, looks like im going to stay on Sandor cpu miner with my 80 miners.
I wonder how is the most efficent way to run them. Perhaps 10 per miner and worker? Or is there any difference at all running 10 per worker/miner or 20 per worker/miner?
Perhaps someone has more experience to share regarding this?

[wolfey2014]

I haven't seen this anywhere but is there a benefit to raising the 'baud rate' of the gridseed port above 115200?

As I recall, Gridseed spec's the comm port speed to be run at a default speed of 115200 baud.
I am sure this is way more speed than the seed needs. At least a 5 chip seed.
Now, a 40 or 80 chip seed may benefit from it but I don't have it's specs' in front of me so I don't know for sure. Just guessing here.

The benefit of having all comm port FIFO buffers turned OFF is becoming well established! Especially with Sandor111's recent cpuminer upgrades that just flat don't use FIFO buffers in the first place. Just wide open free flowing two way data! Cool!

[sandor111]

OK, looks like im going to stay on Sandor cpu miner with my 80 miners.
I wonder how is the most efficent way to run them. Perhaps 10 per miner and worker? Or is there any difference at all running 10 per worker/miner or 20 per worker/miner?
Perhaps someone has more experience to share regarding this?

No difference long term, better to stick to one miner process.

I haven't seen this anywhere but is there a benefit to raising the 'baud rate' of the gridseed port above 115200?

Gridseed spec says it only supports up to 115200, so going above that is pointless.

[nst6563]

Works for me!  I just wanted confirmation of the question.  Thanks

[Kergekoin]

OK, looks like im going to stay on Sandor cpu miner with my 80 miners.
I wonder how is the most efficent way to run them. Perhaps 10 per miner and worker? Or is there any difference at all running 10 per worker/miner or 20 per worker/miner?
Perhaps someone has more experience to share regarding this?

No difference long term, better to stick to one miner process.

Thanks for answer.
Another question. It seems that minerd is perfoming a lot worse that cgminer did, despite of minerd  having higher clocks on my gridseeds. Testing with 12 units, cgminer and pool reported around 4.7mhs after few hours. Now with minerd, pool is only reporting around 4.0mhs and minerd reports around 4050/3800khs after 8 hours.

Is this false reading or not? im confused because looks like on every accepted, theres sinlge reading around 402khs for each miner. That should be 12 x 402 = 4824khs or so as a total.
Can usb2 hub become bottleneck with 20+ miners on single usb port?

Thanks again for your good work on this miner. When i finally get all my miners running, im going to donate MINT/DOGE/BTC to you. Please PM me your MINT, DOGE or BTC address.  

[RowanX]

Last night one of my two gridseeds just stopped. Lights still flashing but CPUminer not talking to it anymore.

In over a month of mining, that never happened  to me with CGMiner.. just saying. I've only been using CPUMiner since yesterday.

Sandog is there any way to debug this e.g. save CGMiners output to a text file or something (minerd.exe > log.txt?). I can see from the pool it died around 2:30am but obviously I can only see that last minute or so of work in CPUMiner's console window.

FWIW I have FIFO buffers disabled and baud rate of the COM ports set to max (128000 baud).

Anyway, I power cycled it and restarted CPUminer this morning and that has brought it back to life.

[wolfey2014]

Last night one of my two gridseeds just stopped. Lights still flashing but CPUminer not talking to it anymore.

In over a month of mining, that never happened  to me with CGMiner.. just saying. I've only been using CPUMiner since yesterday.

Sandog is there any way to debug this e.g. save CGMiners output to a text file or something (minerd.exe > log.txt?). I can see from the pool it died around 2:30am but obviously I can only see that last minute or so of work in CPUMiner's console window.

FWIW I have FIFO buffers disabled and baud rate of the COM ports set to max (128000 baud).

Anyway, I power cycled it and restarted CPUminer this morning and that has brought it back to life.

You should reset your comm port speed back down to 115200... That is the maximum port speed allowed on our GS3355 USB miners. There's no point trying to run higher speeds. It's impossible.

[Kergekoin]

No difference long term, better to stick to one miner process.

Thanks for answer.

Got it working now with a single minerd for all gridseeds. Hash rate looks to be almost same as with cgminer. Hopefully later it grows even bigger, since many miners will likely clock higher than 950mhz.

I tried running without powered hubs. Looks like unpowered hubs will result with more errors in shares and lower hash rate on average.

Some miners still reporting around 330khs in minerd after couple of hours running. Any idea why it is so? They all should do around 400-415.

[sandor111]

No difference long term, better to stick to one miner process.

Thanks for answer.

Got it working now with a single minerd for all gridseeds. Hash rate looks to be almost same as with cgminer. Hopefully later it grows even bigger, since many miners will likely clock higher than 950mhz.

I tried running without powered hubs. Looks like unpowered hubs will result with more errors in shares and lower hash rate on average.

Some miners still reporting around 330khs in minerd after couple of hours running. Any idea why it is so? They all should do around 400-415.

It's better to turn off autotune now that you can set the chip frequency, this will lead to a more consistent hashrate.

[Kergekoin]

No difference long term, better to stick to one miner process.

Thanks for answer.

Got it working now with a single minerd for all gridseeds. Hash rate looks to be almost same as with cgminer. Hopefully later it grows even bigger, since many miners will likely clock higher than 950mhz.

I tried running without powered hubs. Looks like unpowered hubs will result with more errors in shares and lower hash rate on average.

Some miners still reporting around 330khs in minerd after couple of hours running. Any idea why it is so? They all should do around 400-415.

It's better to turn off autotune now that you can set the chip frequency, this will lead to a more consistent hashrate.

I quess autotune itself shouldnt decrease perfomance?
Also, do i need to adjust in STM virtual port settings to get more consistant perfomance?

[Dabs]

For about 2 weeks, my miners were running on 9600 baud. Ive since upped that to 115200. Made no difference, but Im still using an older cpuminer with one instance each, one worker each.

i'll figure out how to work the new cpuminer, and if not i'll let you guys know.

[primer10]

Switched to bfgminer .. more stable than cgminer

[Kergekoin]

10 hours of running new cpuminer now.
27 miners @  950mhz gives average of 9300khs on poolside. Its less than it should be. 27x400= 10800.
Is this only my cpuminer problem or it should be that low?
Im out of ideas how to increase perfomance of miners which report 300-360khs with that cpuminer.
With cgminer, all miners reported 400-415.

[sunderstan]

ok I finally giving up running CPUMiner on Windows 7 and switched to Raspberry pi for some testing. Let's see if it will stop sending shares after a few minutes. So far they're running for 120+ minutes and doing fine. However I noticed a little drop of mining performance reported from pool side. Anyone using Raspberry pi for mining now? It it normal?

[reactor]

ok I finally giving up running CPUMiner on Windows 7 and switched to Raspberry pi for some testing. Let's see if it will stop sending shares after a few minutes. So far they're running for 120+ minutes and doing fine. However I noticed a little drop of mining performance reported from pool side. Anyone using Raspberry pi for mining now? It it normal?

+1 to this.  Been running a blade for a few days now with mixed results.  Windows seems to top out at bursts over 4MH but averaging slightly under, nowhere near advertised clock speed.  Put both halves on separate pools to test results to see if it is the unit in question or an individual blade side. 

For RPi, are people using the ZH image, image from another vendor, etc.?  Setting up the ZH image right now so I can test with that.

Out of curiosity, what freq are people finding most reliable?  I've read through this thread a bit and want to try out the jmordica cgminer fork (see people mentioning 838 freq a few times), but all-in-all the hardware just appears to be underperforming right now and I can't quite crack why due to lacking software support.

[sunderstan]

ok I finally giving up running CPUMiner on Windows 7 and switched to Raspberry pi for some testing. Let's see if it will stop sending shares after a few minutes. So far they're running for 120+ minutes and doing fine. However I noticed a little drop of mining performance reported from pool side. Anyone using Raspberry pi for mining now? It it normal?

+1 to this.  Been running a blade for a few days now with mixed results.  Windows seems to top out at bursts over 4MH but averaging slightly under, nowhere near advertised clock speed.  Put both halves on separate pools to test results to see if it is the unit in question or an individual blade side. 

For RPi, are people using the ZH image, image from another vendor, etc.?  Setting up the ZH image right now so I can test with that.

Out of curiosity, what freq are people finding most reliable?  I've read through this thread a bit and want to try out the jmordica cgminer fork (see people mentioning 838 freq a few times), but all-in-all the hardware just appears to be underperforming right now and I can't quite crack why due to lacking software support.

I'm using Rasperian with a web based management interface which use CPUMiner. It has been 3 hrs now and pool side reports a more stable but slightly lower hash rate (8.9Mh/s~11Mh/s). I'm running 10x gridseed USB Miner plus a G-blade (2 instance) with auto-tune mode ON, plus 5x GTX 750 Ti at default speed (Result in a total of around 1.3Mh/s). The hash rate is kind of low isn't it?