GekkoScience NewPac / Terminus R606 (BM1387) Official Support Thread

[Mrdeere]

You want to be careful you don’t pop your usb hub when OCing. I’m running mine 6x newpacs at 625m on the gekko hub and wouldn't go any higher as I could well cause some damage (and thats after sidehack tried to make it as bulletproof as possible). No idea how that anker 60w is laid out. Just something to keep in mind  

Yeah that's my biggest concern and the main reason I haven't tested anything above 500 yet. I'm definitely picking up a gekko hub asap the layout, the fan header, the juice. I need one haha. What kind of GH/s do you achieve at 625mhz?

This anker's specs are meh:

■ Each data port provides up to 0.9A current.
■ The 10th port delivers a full speed charge of up to 1.5A to BC 1.2 specification-compliant devices. Refer to the table below for popular compatible models.

A BC (Battery Charging) 1.2 port delivers fast charge (up to 1.5A) to your USB-enabled device. Charge speeds are even faster (up to 2.0A) when the hub is disconnected from a computer.

Not sure if the 10th port also transfers data, but if it does its the only port on the whole that delivers above .9A. Ill test it later, from reading I believe i'm not actually supposed to be powering the Pi from the charge port, that's a bummer. (Hub must be powered by both a power adapter and an active PC/laptop USB port.) Makes it sound like it gets extra juice from the usb port as well.

Do these units operate on 5.5 or 12v?

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[klintay]

the 10th port on anker hub is charge only, I would grab a Gekkoscience USB hub from Amazon instead:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PP9SJ1R
https://www.ebay.com/itm/113517422577
https://www.eyeboot.com/gekkoscience-8-port-usb-huh.html

USB devices work on 5V, even if the usb hub sometimes have 12V power supply. Running the Pi on the same hub as your miners can create a negative feedback look and most of the new Pi versions are really power hungry (2+ amps).

[gt_addict]

Yeah that's my biggest concern and the main reason I haven't tested anything above 500 yet. I'm definitely picking up a gekko hub asap the layout, the fan header, the juice. I need one haha. What kind of GH/s do you achieve at 625mhz?

I get around 140-142ghs per stick at 625m.

[Mrdeere]

USB devices work on 5V, even if the usb hub sometimes have 12V power supply. Running the Pi on the same hub as your miners can create a negative feedback look and most of the new Pi versions are really power hungry (2+ amps).

Ok, That's what I had figured but just wanted to check. Also placed the Pi back on its own supply. I did test the 10th port, it transfers data but I noticed it has a charge mode light and a data light. I have to assume I don't receive the extra amps with a data device hookup up. When i plug my phone in it switches to fast charging mode without data.

gt_addict those are some awesome numbers. Its amazing to see how little the diminishing returns are in terms of Mhz and gh/s.

It makes me curious as to how far the chip and unit could be pushed with adequate power and cooling.

[gt_addict]

I remember someone hooking up a direct 5v supply to a stick (compac/2pac) and managing to get some really impressive numbers with decent cooling. Its probably somewhere in the forum but a search didn't reveal anything within the first few pages of results.

[zyzzyva]

Hey all, I have an R606 and I like it a lot. Right now, though, I can only run it during the day because the bright, blinky LED annoys my neighbors, and I don't have a windowless room in my apartment where I can set it up. (Even with the shades down, it looks like a nightclub in my house. That's a seriously bright LED.)

Has anyone succeeded in disabling, disconnecting, dimming, or covering up the LED, without obstructing airflow? If it weren't for the fans, I'd just put together an enclosure.

[sidehack]

Easiest thing would be to put sharpie on the LEDs. Second to that, pop off the SOT23 NFET just off the corner of the microcontroller, nexto the LEDs.

Or if you got a PIC programmer, I can conjure up a version of the firmware that doesn't flash the LED or flashes it only briefly so it's not as intense.

Or, you can tell your neighbor to stick it or hang a curtain or something because it's not your job to change your private environment to increase the comfort of his private environment. But then again, maybe you like your neighbors. I don't really even like the concept of neighbors close enough to be annoyed by anything I do.

[Mrdeere]

If you neighbors spend enough time looking at or through your windows to be annoyed with what you do or don't have going on, Id be me more worried about the peeping toms next door. lol.

[zyzzyva]

Easiest thing would be to put sharpie on the LEDs. Second to that, pop off the SOT23 NFET just off the corner of the microcontroller, nexto the LEDs.

Or if you got a PIC programmer, I can conjure up a version of the firmware that doesn't flash the LED or flashes it only briefly so it's not as intense.

Hey, thanks! I'll try one of the low-tech solutions before I try to get my hands on a PIC programmer.

Your Sharpie idea jogged my memory that I used to tone down the LEDs on the Gekko Compac sticks by putting a blob of black nail polish on them. Would that work on the R606, or would I be risking getting nail polish somewhere I shouldn't?

If you neighbors spend enough time looking at or through your windows to be annoyed with what you do or don't have going on, Id be me more worried about the peeping toms next door. lol.

Haha, it's the price of living in the city. My neighbors' windows are like 6 feet away from mine.

[sidehack]

My neighbor's windows are about 200 yards from mine, across a horse pasture. The other side neighbors are twice as far away with trees inbetween. It's nice. Quite an upgrade from the four-plex apartment on a tight cul-de-scrote where I lived for most of the last six years.

Not sure nail polish can hurt anything on the board, as long as you keep it off anything that looks like it gets hot.

[Mrdeere]

So my testing today hit a snag, Cant seem to get the Newpac past 512mhz. It down-clocks itself to 506 then runs fine. Not sure if its a lack of power from my hub, or the limits of my chip? turned it back down to 500 since I know its stable there.

Bread boarded a temp sensor and stuck it the side of the heat sink, works good. at 500mhz the heat-sink doesn't reach above 24c. Thinking about loading obs onto the Pi, and starting a 24/7 Newpac stream. Thats about the only thing I could come up with for time being to utilize the Pi a bit more.

Edit: Got a stream going ( https://www.twitch.tv/can_man ) its almost 2 am and I can't get obs to see an audio device. So no sound. Ill fix that tomorrow with some proper mining music.

[GetUrBitsOnR606]

Sounds to me like he's mining the alt's with CPU cores.

That's correct.  Sorry if I didn't make myself clear.  It wasn't worth the effort in figuring out how to set the Pi up to mine XMR considering how it negatively effected the hashrate of the R606, but if I didn't try I would never know and I don't like not knowing.

1TH on power level 3? That's a pretty sweet unit you got.

That's a pretty sweet unit you built!  I was pretty disappointed at first because I wanted that 1TH but I couldn't get it on the 3B I had laying around so I took the recommendations of others and got the Pi4.  That really woke it up so I screwed around with the power levels and did some math here and there and found my unit works most efficiently on power level 3 and gives me the 1TH average I was looking for.  It does dip down below 1TH from time to time but it also exceeds it from time to time and whenever I check on it the daily average is just barely over 1TH.  Usually around 1.02TH.  I'm a really happy camper.  Thanks for your product.

[sidehack]

I think the newest batch of chips I got are a substantial improvement over the originals. My efficiency estimations were done a year ago, after all. Maybe I should re-test.

Glad you like it!

[darkdude]

hello everyone!

I have been mining eth on my gpu rigs since mid 2018, never did any btc mining cause I did not want to spend $3000 on a single asic that did just one thing and had low resale value once I can no longer use it.

Recently I started to be more interested in BTC mining as eth is talking more and more about PoS (and not PoW).  I came across this thread which really peaked my interest.  Relatively low cost investment, largely plug and play and it mines BTC

I really want to ask some questions to clear things up for me before I buy some NewPac units and a powered USB hub.

When I do the math.  One NewPac can do 130 GH and consumes 5w power, at current prices it looks to be about breakeven or a tiny loss :

https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/btc?HashingPower=130&HashingUnit=GH%2Fs&PowerConsumption=5&CostPerkWh=.1&MiningPoolFee=1

I want to know if I am making a mistake in my observation?  I can get a rasberry pi 4 for $50, get powered hub for $100 and buy say four of these units @ $50 each, but if I spend a total of $350 to mine, it would seem, it would be better to just take the $350 and buy btc?

Dont get me wrong, I WANT to buy these, as I love HW and hacking around and playing with configs and tweaking, but I dont want to do so if after all that work, I am better off buying BTC? 

Thoughts? 

[sidehack]

That 130GH happens at more like 12-14W, really. So your numbers are probably going to be even worse.

These things were unprofitable toys well before the halving. Use it to play around, use it to learn the concepts, use it as a lottery ticket with a chance at a block every 10 minutes. But if you're looking to turn a profit, yeah you'd be better off buying coin directly and waiting for it to appreciate.

There's also the option of using it to mine other SHA256 coins that may have a better return, at least in the short term. I don't care for altcoins or the trading/pump-and-dump markets but there's plenty of info around if you look for it.

[darkdude]

Thank you very much for the quick response!

[ninja966]

Hello everyone i follow this forum from first pages, happy owner of 2 newpac since two years for fun.

They worked fine@275 mhz. on my Pi3 B+ Buster OS, cgminer, powered USB-hub, and Arctic usb fan.

But from 2 day ago have some trouble of frequency...found 0 chip(s) or frequency jump to 200 Mhz.. im going crazy

I tried to many solution: change usb port, replace Newpac termal paste, update cgminer, downgrade the frequency to 90 Mhz... but nothin to do.. Thanks.

Code:

cgminer version 4.11.1 - Started: [2020-06-11 22:16:17.345]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 (5s):44.92G (1m):10.12G (5m):2.233G (15m):757.0M (avg):19.53Gh/s
 A:0  R:8192  HW:0  WU:296.3/m
 Connected to eu.stratum.slushpool.com diff 8.19K with stratum as user xxxxxx
 Block: 1176a68d...  Diff:13.7T  Started: [22:16:17.346]  Best share: 224
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [U]SB management [P]ool management [S]ettings [D]isplay options [Q]uit
 0: GSH 10030339: BM1387:02+ 200.00MHz T:200 P:152 (94:94) | 76.2% WU:^47% | 45.35G / 21.21Gh/s WU:296.3/m
 1: GSH 10032695: found 0 chip(s)                                          |  0.000 /  0.000h/s WU:  0.0/m
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [2020-06-11 22:16:15.461] Started cgminer 4.11.1
 [2020-06-11 22:16:15.462] Probing for an alive pool
 [2020-06-11 22:16:15.750] Pool 0 difficulty changed to 8192
 [2020-06-11 22:16:15.882] Rejected untracked stratum share from pool 0
 [2020-06-11 22:16:16.727] 0: GSH 0 - Toggling ASIC nRST to reset
 [2020-06-11 22:16:17.081] 0: GSH 0 - Toggling ASIC nRST to reset
 [2020-06-11 22:16:17.344] 0: GSH 0 - NewPac Bitcoin Miner (10030339)
 [2020-06-11 22:16:17.344] 1: GSH 1 - NewPac Bitcoin Miner (10032695)
 [2020-06-11 22:16:17.346] Network diff set to 13.7T
 [2020-06-11 22:16:29.961] 0: GSH 0 - asic plateau: (1/3) 193.75MHz
 [2020-06-11 22:16:29.961] 1: GSH 1 - asic plateau: (1/3) 193.75MHz
 [2020-06-11 22:16:30.254] 1: GSH 1 - NewPac Bitcoin Miner (10032695)
 [2020-06-11 22:16:45.092] 1: GSH 1 - asic plateau: (2/3) 193.75MHz

Or

Code:

cgminer version 4.11.1 - Started: [2020-06-11 22:14:34.310]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 (5s):321.7M (1m):1.580G (5m):525.7M (15m):191.6M (avg):3.604Gh/s
 A:0  R:8192  HW:0  WU:50.4/m
 Connected to eu.stratum.slushpool.com diff 1.64K with stratum as user xxxxxx
 Block: 1176a68d...  Diff:13.7T  Started: [22:14:34.311]  Best share: 71
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [U]SB management [P]ool management [S]ettings [D]isplay options [Q]uit
 0: GSH 10030339: BM1387:02+ 200.00MHz T:188 P:52  (12:94) |  6.5% WU:^ 9% | 465.0M / 3.604Gh/s WU: 50.4/m
 1: GSH 10032695: BM1387:02  200.00MHz T:181 P:0   (10:94) |  0.0% WU:  0% |  0.000 /  0.000h/s WU:  0.0/m
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [2020-06-11 22:15:02.222] 1: GSH 1 - NewPac Bitcoin Miner (10032695)
 [2020-06-11 22:15:04.612] 0: GSH 0 - asic plateau: (2/3) 193.75MHz
 [2020-06-11 22:15:14.652] Pool 0 difficulty changed to 1638
 [2020-06-11 22:15:14.653] Stratum from pool 0 requested work restart
 [2020-06-11 22:15:16.964] 1: GSH 1 - asic plateau: (3/3) 193.75MHz
 [2020-06-11 22:15:16.965] 1: GSH 1 - plateau adjust: target frequency 200.00MHz -> 187.50MHz
 [2020-06-11 22:15:17.268] 1: GSH 1 - NewPac Bitcoin Miner (10032695)
 [2020-06-11 22:15:22.016] 1: GSH 1 - plateau adjust: target frequency 187.50MHz -> 181.25MHz
 [2020-06-11 22:15:22.312] 1: GSH 1 - NewPac Bitcoin Miner (10032695)
 [2020-06-11 22:15:22.353] 0: GSH 0 - asic plateau: (3/3) 193.75MHz
 [2020-06-11 22:15:22.353] 0: GSH 0 - plateau adjust: target frequency 200.00MHz -> 187.50MHz
 [2020-06-11 22:15:22.651] 0: GSH 0 - NewPac Bitcoin Miner (10030339)

and after several minutes

Code:

cgminer version 4.11.1 - Started: [2020-06-13 17:34:53.511]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 (5s):36.77G (1m):37.02G (5m):19.95G (15m):8.512G (avg):21.95Gh/s
 A:3584  R:8192  HW:1  WU:309.4/m
 Connected to eu.stratum.slushpool.com diff 512 with stratum as user xxxxxx
 Block: b02a0af3...  Diff:13.7T  Started: [17:37:41.594]  Best share: 46.4K
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [U]SB management [P]ool management [S]ettings [D]isplay options [Q]uit
 0: GSH 10032695: BM1387:02+ 106.25MHz T:106 P:102 (355:177) | 96.2% WU:^53% | 27.10G / 12.86Gh/s WU:179.6/m
 1: GSH 10030339: BM1387:02+ 68.75MHz T:69  P:69  (550:274)  |  100% WU:^59% | 17.11G / 9.290Gh/s WU:129.8/m
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [2020-06-13 17:38:02.030] 0: GSH 0 - plateau adjust: target frequency 118.75MHz -> 112.50MHz
 [2020-06-13 17:38:02.322] 0: GSH 0 - NewPac Bitcoin Miner (10032695)
 [2020-06-13 17:38:27.343] 0: GSH 0 - plateau adjust: target frequency 112.50MHz -> 106.25MHz
 [2020-06-13 17:38:27.638] 0: GSH 0 - NewPac Bitcoin Miner (10032695)
 [2020-06-13 17:38:29.370] 1: GSH 1 - plateau adjust: target frequency 75.00MHz -> 68.75MHz
 [2020-06-13 17:38:29.662] 1: GSH 1 - NewPac Bitcoin Miner (10030339)
 [2020-06-13 17:39:21.816] Accepted 0ce71fca Diff 5.08K/512 GSH 0
 [2020-06-13 17:39:29.294] Accepted 11f38113 Diff 3.65K/512 GSH 1
 [2020-06-13 17:40:16.580] Accepted 46c60240 Diff 926/512 GSH 1
 [2020-06-13 17:40:41.644] Accepted 016972ef Diff 46.4K/512 GSH 1
 [2020-06-13 17:41:07.650] Accepted 018802a9 Diff 42.8K/512 GSH 0
 [2020-06-13 17:41:26.245] Accepted 6633f913 Diff 641/512 GSH 0

It all with follows script

Code:

#!/bin/sh

echo "Restarting cgminer every 24 hours"
while true
do
sleep 4
 lxterminal -e /home/pi/git/vthoang/cgminer/cgminer -o stratum+tcp://eu.stratum.slushpool.com:3333 -u xxxxxx -p x --gekko-newpac-freq 100 --suggest-diff 128
 sleep 86400
 pkill -f cgminer
 echo "Restarting cgminer..."
 sleep 4
done

[jasemoney]

Just a heads up that for me, updating from 0.19.0.1 to 0.20.0 bitcoin core gave this error in cgminer 4.11.1, "JSON failed to decode GBT". Im just running the NewPac against local wallet so anyone else doing the same may have trouble if they update the local wallet.

[o_solo_miner]

Just a heads up that for me, updating from 0.19.0.1 to 0.20.0 bitcoin core gave this error in cgminer 4.11.1, "JSON failed to decode GBT". Im just running the NewPac against local wallet so anyone else doing the same may have trouble if they update the local wallet.

Yes, you are right, I can confirm, core did a change in response of gbt.
This afect not only cgminer (vh) also the original and ckpool.
I switched back to 19.1 and wait for core 0.20.01  

[minefarmbuy]

Yea, I'm not sure what version ck is using for our pool and his. I'll look to confirm if it's information we can share publicly.