GekkoScience NewPac / Terminus R606 (BM1387) Official Support Thread

[Psychopathic]

Woo, got my NewPac today and accidentally got myself a birthday present!

It's hashing happily and I'm gonna be adding my 2Pac in once I'm sure the NewPac is stable, but I do have a question on the NewPac:
No matter what USB port I plug it into on my PC or the Plugable Powered 7-Port USB Hub from 419Mining, when it's initially plugged in, both status lights are on, the green and the white. It mines no problem, so I guess it's fine?

Also, using the cgminer-4.11.1-windows-gekko-9e51f0b build, does autotune also apply to a 2Pac if it's also connected? I read through the first 20 pages of this topic and scrolled through the last 28 and didn't see any info pertaining to the 2Pac question and I'd rather not fry another one.

/edit I've got the NewPac autotuning on the 7-port hub and earlier in the thread I saw vh mention that 275MHz will pull 7W and max it out...tuner has the NewPac at 431.25MHz right now, is it gonna kill the hub right away, or was the 275MHz metric for a 2pac? **I found the answer to this, 300MHz is 6.795W** I'm not getting any nonce or errors except for the ever-present (since I've started mining with 2Pacs like a year and a half ago) "Share Above Target"

[1714057993]

1714057993

[os2sam]

I read some posts where some of you were having good luck with Pi 4's.

Where are you guys getting the Pi 4 from?  Newegg doesn't have them and that is where I usually buy my tech from since they accept Bitcoin.

[syn00ack]

Just jumped in the bandwagon
I received the Newpac and followed the first few posts. Got Zadig USB to recognize the NewPac.
Ran the gekko cgminer with this command line:

Code:

cgminer.exe -o stratum+tcp://sha256.usa.nicehash.com:3334 -u 3AJKKwAXidCh2ujrMgvbyUoYQomCJxTJ36 -p x

But I just get "stratum from pool detected new block" and it keeps repeating that and nothings hashing.
Here is a CMD shot:
Any advice?  

Code:

 cgminer version 4.11.1 - Started: [2019-07-12 11:55:03.572]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 (5s):18.98G (1m):22.65G (5m):17.52G (15m):8.836G (avg):22.43Gh/s
 A:0  R:0  HW:0  WU:313.5/m
 Connected to sha256.usa.nicehash.com diff 500K with stratum as user 3AJKKwAXidCh2ujrMgvbyUoYQomCJxTJ36
 Block: 1dd327d9...  Diff:9.06T  Started: [12:01:14.523]  Best share: 6.87K
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [U]SB management [P]ool management [S]ettings [D]isplay options [Q]uit
 0: GSH 10032248: BM1387:02  100.00MHz T:100 P:100 (94:188) |  100% WU: 99% | 20.13G / 22.44Gh/s WU:313.5/m
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [2019-07-12 12:00:24.207] Stratum from pool 0 detected new block at height 9058144
 [2019-07-12 12:00:34.384] Network diff set to 477M
 [2019-07-12 12:00:34.384] Stratum from pool 0 detected new block at height 9058145
 [2019-07-12 12:00:37.784] Network diff set to 607M
 [2019-07-12 12:00:37.784] Stratum from pool 0 detected new block at height 9058146
 [2019-07-12 12:00:51.883] Network diff set to 584M
 [2019-07-12 12:00:51.883] Stratum from pool 0 detected new block at height 9058147
 [2019-07-12 12:01:00.705] Network diff set to 561M
 [2019-07-12 12:01:00.705] Stratum from pool 0 detected new block at height 9058148
 [2019-07-12 12:01:02.396] Network diff set to 540M
 [2019-07-12 12:01:02.396] Stratum from pool 0 detected new block at height 9058149
 [2019-07-12 12:01:06.339] Network diff set to 519M
 [2019-07-12 12:01:06.339] Stratum from pool 0 detected new block at height 9058150
 [2019-07-12 12:01:12.845] Network diff set to 499M
 [2019-07-12 12:01:12.845] Stratum from pool 0 detected new block at height 9058151

[mstrozier]

I read some posts where some of you were having good luck with Pi 4's.

Where are you guys getting the Pi 4 from?  Newegg doesn't have them and that is where I usually buy my tech from since they accept Bitcoin.

Haven't had a chance yet to test with a Pi 4.  Most seem to be out of stock as they are selling fast lol. I do have a Odroid xu4 on order and 'should' be here by July 19th.  Looking forward to testing it.  As for the Pi 4  https://www.adafruit.com/product/4295?src=raspberrypi  is one site I usually check for SBC's and other items to tinker with.  And here is a listing of other locations that possibly may have some:  https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/

I really hope they fixed some of the issues experienced with the Raspberry Pi 3 b+.   Bandwidth is the issue with the Pi from what I have experienced both using it as a controller for the r606 in mining and now as a NAS. The Gigabyte Fast Ethernet is rated at 300MB/s however I am not getting anywhere near that.  I tested after setting this up by uploading a 1.7GB zip file to the Pi NAS.  Since the Pi defaults to Gigabytes Fast Ethernet speeds would range from 40Mb/s when it started up and then drop down to an average of 1 - 2 MB/s transfer speed.  With many ups and downs in the transfer with a few times hitting 0 for a few seconds and then firing back up again.   I believe these stutters are possibly the issue some of us miners had with the Pi.

I made a change that made the transfers a bit more stable (didn't drop down to 0 as the default setup does) however is a bit slower.   If someone wants to test the following changes in mining  I'd appreciate it.  As it's a bit much effort for me to clear out and rebuild this all over again

First:

Code:

sudo apt install ethtool

Once you have this installed you will need to determine what your ethernet device name is.  It 'should' be eth0.   However not always the case.  Since I reformatted my Pi with Open Media Vault and they are using Armbian 5.46 (GNU/Linux Stretch) instead of raspberian, my device name was different.  To determine what your device is do the following:

Code:

dmesg | grep eth

For me I received the following:

Code:

root@raspberrypi:~# dmesg | grep eth
[    3.321603] lan78xx 1-1.1.1:1.0 enxb827eb604bd5: renamed from eth0
root@raspberrypi:~#

And this shows that my device was renamed from eth0 to enxb827eb604bd5.   Hopefully if you are using raspberian or NOOBS it'll remain eth0.

Now do the following:

Code:

sudo ethtool -s DEVICENAME speed 100 duplex full

This reduces it from 1000 to 100.  I noticed better performance going backwards    Transfer speeds this route averaged at 11 mb/s so it's not great. However no stutters and it never dropped to 0 as it did at it's defaulted state.  You can always change it back to 1000 or just simply reboot for it to use the standard defaulted speeds.  I'm just curious if this would normalize some of the r606 mining.

** edit**  

I may end up redoing this anyway and testing.  Figured while I have the time I'll go ahead and make a video 'how to' on the newpac installs for Raspberry.  Can give this a test as well while doing so.


** Edit ** 7/13/19

Ok reformatted my micro SD and instead of using Raspberry NOOBS for the OS I loaded Raspbian.   Reinstalled all of the latest gekko software and fired up both the newpacs and the r606's.   Before making any tweaks I ran the miners as is.  The newpacs, no issues, even at 450mhz.  Although one wanted to keep restarting.  It didn't do this on my linux desktop however.  So not sure what to think on it as of yet.   The r606's same as my earlier posts in this thread.  One thing I did notice, I use prohashing as the pool, it would take forever to get a share.  And speeds would reach up to 550 (I had it set to 700 and volt 6) and back down to mid 400s on the r606 machines.

Next I stopped the miners and changed the eth to 100 duplex full.   Mixed results with this.  The pros.  Started picking up shares on both the newpacs and r606 almost immediately.  Made it up to 600Mhz @ 805Gh/s average and they appear to be stable.      The cons.... Had them both clocked at 700MHz on volt 6.  One dropped to 584Mhz (better than original test dropping to mid 400s).  And 2nd r606 stayed at 600MHz.  On the Pi even with this tweak they wouldn't hit their mark.  

So at this point I believe there are still some limitations with both the processing power of the Pi and it's bandwidth.  Dropping to 10/100 instead of 10/1000 did see improvements however.

And my recommendations remain, if you only have newpacs, the Raspberry P 3 B+ or earlier models would be ok.   If you are planning on running R606's or both, then I highly recommend a devoted desktop with a modern CPU and RAM to handle them.  Or possibly a stronger SBC.  There is the new Raspberry Pi 4 that has just been released that a few others are testing out soon.   I will have a Ordroid XU4 by end of next week with it's 8 core cpu (although still ARM based) and 2GB of RAM.   Will update with results as they come available for those looking to have smaller controllers.


And those like me that will have a Raspberry Pi just sitting around, they make a decent controller for a home NAS setup (instead of using 'the cloud').  Using USB sticks for the storage in a raid setup for those of us that have plenty of those just collecting dust.  Or usb HDD (external power source however) and have a 'home cloud' setup

Thanks

[419mining]

[...]

syn00ack, welcome to the group!

So you are hashing but your mining on nicehash and they are autosetting your difficulty to around 500M. From you post your best share so far was  6.87K so unless your work share is greater than 500M, you wont see a submission.

[mstrozier]

I have tried Nicehash a couple of times and like 419mining said, pretty much won't get any shares.  I've never had any luck with them.  so routed my miners to prohashing.com.

[419mining]

... Where are you guys getting the Pi 4 from?  Newegg doesn't have them and that is where I usually buy my tech from since they accept Bitcoin.

I have a bulk on order from Newark, but they are always on back order right now.
https://www.newark.com/MarketingProductList?orderCode=02AH3161,02AH3162,02AH3164&ICID=HP-LB-Raspberry-Pi-4-Launch-Buy-Now

[joe7893]

Couple of Question.

1. When you guys use fans over the hub are you pushing air down or pulling air up?

2. Once you move on to a 2nd hub can you daisy chain them together or does each hub need to go to a USB port on your controller (PC in my case currently)?

Thanks,

[419mining]

The fans push down, moving as much as as possible over the NewPac heat sinks. As for the hubs, don't daisy chain or you will end up having USB bandwidth issues which cause missing nonces.

[syn00ack]

syn00ack, welcome to the group!

So you are hashing but your mining on nicehash and they are autosetting your difficulty to around 500M. From you post your best share so far was  6.87K so unless your work share is greater than 500M, you wont see a submission.

But i haven ancient Radeon R9's and even Intel I3 CPU's that are hashing for me and giving me at least .0029 mBTC daily running on their NiceHash Legacy miner. The new GekkoScience NEWPACS are ASICS and have much more hashing power than the CPU hashing I'm doing.

If nicehash accepts my old CPU's H/s hashes, why won't they allow my 22 GH/s hashes from the ASICS?

Remember, my cpu's aren't actually mining, i'm doing their "sell your hash power" program, and I'm trying to get my NEWPAC to participate in that same program. They do have a webpage devoted to using your SHA256 ASICS and selling their hash power, so I know ASICS are supported in their sell your hash power program.

[419mining]

If nicehash accepts my old CPU's H/s hashes, why won't they allow my 22 GH/s hashes from the ASICS?

Remember, my cpu's aren't actually mining, i'm doing their "sell your hash power" program, and I'm trying to get my NEWPAC to participate in that same program. They do have a webpage devoted to using your SHA256 ASICS and selling their hash power, so I know ASICS are supported in their sell your hash power program.

sorry, if I  wasn't clear. Nicehash is accepting hashes from your ASICs when your ASIC submits a share that is above the pools minimum share size. So the current difficulty is 9.06T   and the pool says, "I wont accept anything less than 500M", your ASICs are still working, they just haven't found anything over 500M YET. the Best Share listed on the cgminer screen is the best hash you have submitted so far since cgminer started.

I always recommend new miners read a few articles on how hash mining works, here are a few of my favorites to get you started

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=238418.msg2527325#msg2527325 - CGMiner "Best Share"

https://blockgeeks.com/guides/what-is-hashing/
https://www.bitcoinmining.com/what-is-bitcoin-mining-difficulty/
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty

https://btc.com/stats/diff - current difficulty

[demagogue]

Hi Everyone,

I believe this is my first post, but I'm just jumping back into mining after a few years hiatus - got burned by Butterfly Labs and MTGOX a few years back and called it quits for a while.

I'd been researching for a good quiet home miner setup and settled on the Terminus R606 (actually planning on up to 5 over a few months) and a RPi3 SBC to start, later ramping up to an octo-core ARM SBC or Intel Nuc of some kind running debian or ubuntu.

Just got my R606 yesterday, hooked it up, had cgminer 4.11 (gekko build) installed and preconfigured.

The miner ran great, around 628Mhz on voltage 5 in a ~70-75F condo (ground floor on concrete pad, shaded) overnight.

Went to work, got home, miners are not blinking.

Tried to SSH into the Pi, unresponsive.

Rebooted the Pi, restarted cgminer and got this output:

Code:

cgminer version 4.11.1 - Started: [2019-07-12 18:36:51.907]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 (5s):8.065G (1m):5.580G (5m):1.683G (15m):605.4M (avg):8.070Gh/s
 A:0  R:0  HW:8  WU:102.0/m
 Connected to stratum.slushpool.com diff 512 with stratum as user demagogue.pim1
 Block: d874076c...  Diff:9.06T  Started: [18:36:51.908]  Best share: 103
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [U]SB management [P]ool management [S]ettings [D]isplay options [Q]uit
 0: BAJ 0       : max 38C 0.99V           | 7.695G / 7.711Gh/s WU:98.8/m
 2: AMU 0       :                         | 363.1M / 345.1Mh/s WU: 3.3/m
 4: GSI 10040137: found 0 chip(s)                                         | OFF
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [2019-07-12 18:36:49.038] Started cgminer 4.11.1
 [2019-07-12 18:36:49.039] Loaded configuration file /home/pi/cgminer-gekko-4.11/cgminer.conf
 [2019-07-12 18:36:49.039] Probing for an alive pool
 [2019-07-12 18:36:49.417] Pool 0 difficulty changed to 8192
 [2019-07-12 18:36:50.589] 0: GSI 0 - Toggling ASIC nRST to reset
 [2019-07-12 18:36:51.907] 1: GSI 0 - R606 Bitcoin Miner (10040137)
 [2019-07-12 18:36:51.908] Network diff set to 9.06T
 [2019-07-12 18:36:56.908] API running in IP access mode on port 4028 (16)
 [2019-07-12 18:37:12.562] GSI 0 failure, disabling!
 [2019-07-12 18:37:14.333] 0: GSI 0 - Toggling ASIC nRST to reset
 [2019-07-12 18:37:19.928] Hotplug: GekkoScience added GSI 1
 [2019-07-12 18:37:25.998] Pool 0 difficulty changed to 1638
 [2019-07-12 18:37:25.999] Stratum from pool 0 requested work restart
 [2019-07-12 18:37:40.606] GSI 1 failure, disabling!
 [2019-07-12 18:37:42.353] 0: GSI 0 - Toggling ASIC nRST to reset
 [2019-07-12 18:37:42.948] Hotplug: GekkoScience added GSI 2
 [2019-07-12 18:37:56.287] Pool 0 difficulty changed to 512
 [2019-07-12 18:37:56.287] Stratum from pool 0 requested work restart

Eventually cgminer gives up and gives me this status for the device:

Code:

4: GSI 10040137: found 0 chip(s)                                         | OFF

Verbose Output in cgminer gives me floods of this:

Code:

 [2019-07-12 18:40:59.366] GSI2: GetResults (amt=0 err=-7 ern=110)
 [2019-07-12 18:40:59.387] GSI2: GetResults (amt=0 err=-7 ern=110)
 [2019-07-12 18:40:59.406] GSI2: GetResults (amt=0 err=-7 ern=110)

And this:

Code:

 [2019-07-12 18:42:31.746] GSX looking for GSD 10c4:ea60 but found 0424:7800 instead
 [2019-07-12 18:42:31.746] GSX looking for GSE 10c4:ea60 but found 0424:7800 instead
 [2019-07-12 18:42:31.746] GSX looking for GSH 0403:6015 but found 0424:7800 instead
 [2019-07-12 18:42:31.746] GSX looking for GSI 0403:6015 but found 0424:7800 instead
 [2019-07-12 18:42:31.746] GSX looking for BSC 10c4:ea60 but found 0424:2514 instead
 [2019-07-12 18:42:31.746] GSX looking for BSD 10c4:ea60 but found 0424:2514 instead
 [2019-07-12 18:42:31.746] GSX looking for BSE 10c4:ea60 but found 0424:2514 instead
 [2019-07-12 18:42:31.746] GSX looking for GSC 10c4:ea60 but found 0424:2514 instead
 [2019-07-12 18:42:31.746] GSX looking for GSD 10c4:ea60 but found 0424:2514 instead
 [2019-07-12 18:42:31.746] GSX looking for GSE 10c4:ea60 but found 0424:2514 instead

So unless there's some sort of soft reset on the miner that can possibly get it back up and running I'm looking at a warranty replacement?  Does anyone have any tips to troubleshoot this sort of issue?  I've been roaming back and forth in this thread trying things and nothing's worked so far.  I've done all the simple stuff like repeated power cycling of the r606 and tried to hook it up to my windows gaming rig but even after running Zadig it wouldn't even display the GSI device, much less give me a status or miraculously recover it.

It really seems like the controller is initializing and identifying properly on the USB bus, but it's not able to enumerate or initialize any of the actual ASICs.

Well, maybe I can alibaba some replacement BM1387's and reflow solder the board if all else fails.

[os2sam]

Did you try running the R606 by itself?  If not try that to verify it work's.  The Block Erupter and Jalapeno don't bring anything much to the party anyway.

[demagogue]

Yep, tried running it by itself on the Rpi, same issue.  After posting last night I also:

-Redownloaded the gekkoscience 4.11 cgminer build and only plugged the terminus into it.  Same issue
-Re-formatted and installed raspbian onto the Pi, installed latest updates, and then reinstalled the gekkoscience build.  Same issue.
-Downloaded cgminer 4.9.2 and built with gekko support flag.  Same issue.

The fan on the R606 spins up, orange lights power up, and the white LED blinks while the Pi attempts communication, but cgminer gives up after 4 tries and marks the device as Zombie, then Dead.

Regarding the old stuff, yeah, I know.. It was more of a sanity test to make sure the other subsystems were still functioning properly at that point.   

[os2sam]

I would NOT download CGMiner from anywhere but a trusted source, vh in this case, so I have no idea where you would have gotten the 4.9.2 as ck doesn't provide the old versions anymore, that I'm aware of anyway.  So please be careful to not get hacked versions.

Anyway it sounds like you need to contact your reseller for some testing steps.

-Redownloaded the gekkoscience 4.11 cgminer build and only plugged the terminus into it.  Same issue...

Did you build this instance with only the gekko option?

[demagogue]

Yep, just the gekko option, and without any of the other miners plugged in.

[os2sam]

Yep, just the gekko option, and without any of the other miners plugged in.

It would probably be prudent to test it on another machine if you have a Winblows on Linux desktop available.  But it sounds like it's time to contact your reseller  if you haven't already.

[DieselWeaseI]

FWIW...my Odroid N2 only has USB 3.0 ports on it and I can crank my Newpacs and R606 to the moon on it using the Gekko USB hub. Never once had an issue pop up and have run my 606 all the way up to 775MHz for a few days without cgminer tuning it down.

I'm currently running the R606 at 700MHz and 2 Newpacs at 500MHz. WU is at 100%.

[cliftonk]

FWIW...my Odroid N2 only has USB 3.0 ports on it and I can crank my Newpacs and R606 to the moon on it using the Gekko USB hub. Never once had an issue pop up and have run my 606 all the way up to 775MHz for a few days without cgminer tuning it down.

I'm currently running the R606 at 700MHz and 2 Newpacs at 500MHz. WU is at 100%.

Like @DieselWeaseI, my Odroid N2 has been running flawlessly for three weeks, but with three R606s instead of one -- mine are trying to run @575MHz though, and all at 100% WU. The first R606 can only do 538 MHz @ Volt setting 4, the other two run @ 575 Mhz -- no problem.  The Odroid N2 has six cores (4x1.8 and 2x1.9) and 4Gb of ram  -- very nice little SBC running Ubuntu Mint.

[rockmoney]

Thanks for help ! But i dont see website for shipping to Vietnam I need to buy it !

MinersSupply also provides shipping to Vietnam through our Amazon listings. Feel free to check out our storefront here: MinersSupply Storefront.

We also have a website coming fairly soon, and offer discounted direct sales pricing, by sending invoices from our payment provider. Please email rocky@execs.com detailing the items you want, your shipping zip code (please send entire address for International inquiries), and we will get back to you quickly with a quote.