GekkoScience NewPac / Terminus R606 (BM1387) Official Support Thread

[DireHavok]

I assume you mean running 1 stick while inserted in hub? I can try that today and allow to run at same 200mhz as a control experiment. I will report later when I get back from work.

The Zombie doesn't occur right away.  I varies, It runs normal for a few hours sometimes other times it seems to happen within minutes, totally random. I check temp from time to time (37c-39c). So Thermal runaway may not be an issue.

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[os2sam]

I assume you mean running 1 stick while inserted in hub?

Yes, that is what I meant.  The announcement post states that these consume less than 5Amps 5Watts which would imply to me that they use over 4Amps 4Watts.  So I wouldn't expect your 8Amp power supply to more than one ? stick miner since the hub probably consumes some power for itself.

It's a good starting point to check.

[minefarmbuy]

Hello All, I am new to using Newpac. I am running 5 total using gekkoScience hub and power brick 8Amp. I find when mining whether it is at 100,200 or 300 it always Zombies. It tries to recover and does a few times but when I come home cmd script is closed and no longer running. Can it be that they are not getting enough power? And if I were to tweak voltage pot is there a way to read what the voltage change is anywhere?

Are you actively cooling the sticks?

[DireHavok]

Are you actively cooling the sticks?

I am, and it so happens its a USB Arctic Fan. So its another amp draw on power source. I remote into miner, so I can still see the 1 stick is still running. I’m guessing 8amp brick power supply was never intended to power this many stick miners. So solution maybe to connect using alternative PC powersupply 8 pin connection. Will report back in a few hours as to 1 stick status.

[419mining]

these numbers are rough, not accurate, but close.

The 8A 12V power supply is enough to run multiple units, 8A 12V offers a power output of around 96 Watts. When converted to 5V at the USB ports, that offers around 19 amps of power at the USB ports. If you remove 10% for loss (and thats ALOT more than real numbers) you still have 17.28 Amps of power.

At the default frequency of 100MHz, the NewPac runs at 22.8 GH pulling 3.5Watts or 0.7Amps, less if you add cooling. long story short, at default frequencies, you can run a full gekkoscience hub (6 units) without a problem.
When properly cooled, the power draw is actually less. when cooled to the point you can actually hold onto the unit, at 200Mhz, it pulls somewhere around 1 amp per unit. again, more than enough for 6 units.

just remember the Units should be in 2 -7. use ports 1 and D for accessories (fans).

[os2sam]

I re-read the announcement post and it says 5 Watts not 5 Amps.  My bad.

But, it would still be a good test.  If one works reliably then add one at a time.

[DireHavok]

I have 5 sticks all together, all plugged into 2-5 port 1 has fan. At 100 it Zombies and resets, zombies again and resets, then on 3rd time it will shut down. I tried on 200mhz and 300mhz and same result. My single stick test seems to be running fine currently, has been online with no issue for 3 hrs now. It is set at 300mhz with 69 gh/s and seems stable. Unfortunate I’m not in front of it to take thermals. Probably 36 degrees C. They never seem to go much above this. Will attempt to use another method of measuring later. Any insite to what may be cause of Zombie with 5 sticks @419mining?

[419mining]

its hard to say, trial and error are you best option, if one stick works fine, add a second, then a third and so on till you find a combination that causes the issue your seeing. It may be a bad miner unit, a bad port on the hub, a bad usb cable or even a bad network connection. zombies are often caused by missing nonce restarts, and missing nonce restarts are often caused by the individual chips (there are 2 on each unit) either A, not getting enough power, or B not responding in a timely manner to cgminers request for work. This can be caused by data interruptions anywhere along the chain because of bad equipment or even just overloaded equipment.

Once you isolate the issue, we can work at finding the cause of the issue and correct it. it may be as simple as using a different USB port on the PC or replacing a USB miner that interrupting the data flow but thats a step later. First, we have to find the cause, then we find the solution.

[DireHavok]

Thank You @419mining. I am in process now starting adding sticks 1 by 1 and monitoring. Will keep yo posted. So far 1 stick ran 8 hrs without errors.

On a side note. How can I measure voltage changes using potentiometer adjustments? Not saying I will adjust it, but just curious what to watch as far as changes while adjusting voltage adjustment screw.

[sidehack]

The two square bare pads above center on the stick will get you voltages across the two chips.

A lot of sticks now are tested at the factory using GS hubs and run for 24 hours at 200MHz, usually 7 to a hub. The fact you're running Windows 10 and it's having trouble when the hub is full, I'd bet it's an OS thing similar to the issues folks had running R606 on Windows 10. VH put in some testing options to help people with setups like that, and the diagnostic dialogue is recorded somewhere in this thread.

[DireHavok]

Thanx for that info. I will search this thread for the info on my OS. I may consider setting up a RaspberryPI 4 to run script. will be less issues I'm sure.

[Dub4the20]

How would I type the command to use the boost? Also, how would I add other sticks to the command?

[419mining]

How would I type the command to use the boost? Also, how would I add other sticks to the command?

The current build we use for cgminer (posted on the front page, or downloaded from your supplier) have these automatically tuned on by default now. Unless you are having a problem that requires this to be turned down or off, no additional switches are required.

If you look at your cgminer window, you can see that AsicBoost is enabled by the + symbol at the end of the miner name.

[Dub4the20]

Hey 419! Thanks for the reply. I bought these from you guys actually and I got 5 more coming in today or tomorrow! So I'll have a total of 6 soon. I had did everything from the front page and I already got one stick running. I built my command line myself and got my stick to mine fine. My Questions are; how to put more than one stick in the command lines in the .BAT file. Also, I don't see a '+' symbol at the end of my miner name in cgminer. How do I enable this?

Thanks,

Cole

[os2sam]

My Questions are; how to put more than one stick in the command lines in the .BAT file. Also, I don't see a '+' symbol at the end of my miner name in cgminer. How do I enable this?

You don't do anything to your command line.  Just plug in more miners and CGMiner will add it in automagically.

The + shows up after the number of chips.  Such as:

"0: GSI 10040114: BM1387:12+"

If the plus isn't there then your pool may not support ASIC Boost.

[Dub4the20]

Os2sam,

I just tried to add the --gekko-newpac-boost and it won't open the cmd window, I took the command out and it opened again so I take it that my pool doesn't support it. I'm using Slush Pool. as for the extra sticks, good to know. I was a little confused to how to set the clock speeds for each one.

0: GSH 10034928: BM1387:02+ is what I'm showing, not to sure what this all means haha, I'm barely new to this so I'm learning as I go.

Thanks,

Cole

[sidehack]

For that device, it means it's showing 2 functional BM1387 chips, and ASICBoost is working, and it's bearing the serial number 34928.

[419mining]

Hey 419! Thanks for the reply. I bought these from you guys actually and I got 5 more coming in today or tomorrow! So I'll have a total of 6 soon. I had did everything from the front page and I already got one stick running. I built my command line myself and got my stick to mine fine. My Questions are; how to put more than one stick in the command lines in the .BAT file. Also, I don't see a '+' symbol at the end of my miner name in cgminer. How do I enable this?

Thanks,

Cole

As to what the others have said, your up and running with AsicBoost correctly, as you add more units to your build, make sure you run zadig driver update with all the new units plugged in. Once they have the USB driver, cgminer will pick them up on the next startup without adding anything extra to your command line.

[Dub4the20]

Sidehack,

Thanks for clarifying that! I have been sitting here over a week looking at this command prompt trying to figure out what all these abbreviations and numbers mean. As far as I know, it is creating Bitcoins, so I'm happy there, but it would be a lot cooler if I knew what kind of algorithms are we calculating and for what?

Thanks again,

Cole

For that device, it means it's showing 2 functional BM1387 chips, and ASICBoost is working, and it's bearing the serial number 34928.

[os2sam]

Os2sam,

I just tried to add the --gekko-newpac-boost and it won't open the cmd window

That is not a valid command.  ASIC Boost is enabled by default.  There are only commands to throttle it or disable it if need be.