Official FutureBit Apollo II/BTC Software/Image and Support thread

[MrMik]

What this photo shows in relation to entire board? Sorry I can't imagine which part of the device this is exactly.

Looking in through the opening at the rear:
Locate the two large silver square components.
And the 2 tall cylindrical components, also silver.
The hot buck regulator fets are the small black flat components (with white writing on them), located between the tall cylindrical ones and between the 12V power connectors and the big square components.

[crypto_curious]

What this photo shows in relation to entire board? Sorry I can't imagine which part of the device this is exactly.

Looking in through the opening at the rear:
Locate the two large silver square components.
And the 2 tall cylindrical components, also silver.
The hot buck regulator fets are the small black flat components (with white writing on them), located between the tall cylindrical ones and between the 12V power connectors and the big square components.

Thanks. Now it makes sense. I even glued two small Raspberry heatsinks to two square components (SMD resistors?), I had them lying around, now they are employed Buck regulators will have to stay naked as they are too small for any modification I think.
I use 125W low power mode inside PC case as shown in previous pictures, without Apollo case. All components are ok to touch, no overheating. PC is well ventilated, probably better than the original Apollo case would provide on its own.

Current stats:

Code:

Apollo Miner
Hashrate: 2003 GH/s
Error rate: 0.4%
Power draw: 125 W
Temperature: 57°C
Fan: 2103 RPM
Uptime: 4d:16h:52m 
Process memory: 5.8 MiB

Solo CKpool stats
7d hashrate: 1.93TH/s
1d hashrate: 1.93TH/s
Luck: 0.05%
Bestever luck: 0.12%

[MrMik]

Thanks. Now it makes sense. I even glued two small Raspberry heatsinks to two square components (SMD resistors?), I had them lying around, now they are employed Buck regulators will have to stay naked as they are too small for any modification I think.

I think that could potentially have the opposite effect to what you want to achieve, because these extra heatsinks will reduce the airflow around the hottest parts (the buck regulator fets).

A fan would be better, but you don't need it anyway at your power settings.

I am systematically testing various fan temp settings at 100% power (3.7TH/s) at the moment and will write it up when it's done.

[x3t9fi]

@Apollo Team

I am disappointed with the quality. After about 2 months of operation in an air-conditioned building, the small fan starts to rattle, two months later the big one. Bought about 8 months ago.

Now the Apollo stands still. The small fan was replaced by the dealer, but had to wait a good month for it. Where can I get an original or equivalent replacement fan for the big one?

[maxfunky]

Hey !

The 500G SSD included in my device is now full so I need to upgrade with a bigger M.2 SSD.
Will a Kingston 1TB NV2 M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD be compatible even if the old drive is PCIe 3.0 ?  

[crypto_curious]

Hey !

The 500G SSD included in my device is now full so I need to upgrade with a bigger M.2 SSD.
Will a Kingston 1TB NV2 M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD be compatible even if the old drive is PCIe 3.0 ?  

Yes, it should be. Faster SSDs are backwards compatible.

[ReaperOfMars17]

Hi team,

Complete newbie to ASIC mining and got a Apollo BTC miner to dip my toes.

Last week my miner started playing up. It's chugging along fine and then all of a sudden it stops hashing and the miner unit fan turns off. The temperature increases to 80 degrees celsius and the miner makes some loud and concerning sounds. First time this happened I shut it down and unplugged everything. Booted it back up and the fan worked and it started hashing again. It worked for two days and then the same thing happened again. While in this state sometimes it does start hashing for a short period of time but only 400ish GH/s but the miner fan still doesn't turn on.

Just some additional context.. I have been running it in ECO mode since September with no issues. I then decided to bump it up to Balanced mode for a bit to see the hash rate increase. At the same time as switching it Balanced I was prompted to update the miner. I did the first update and was then prompted to update Ubuntu version. I initially selected yes and it downloaded some files etc. It then prompted me saying the update would take hours and do I want to proceed. I didn't have the time to monitor it while it updated so I selected No and then it said that the version remain as it was.

Balanced mode worked for a full 24 hours and then I started having the issues described above. After doing a hard reboot I switched it back into ECO mode which worked for two days before running into the same issue.

Does anyone have any advice on how to troubleshoot this issue? Much appreciated. Apologies if this issue has been addressed before.

[MrMik]

Hi team,

Complete newbie to ASIC mining and got a Apollo BTC miner to dip my toes.

Last week my miner started playing up. It's chugging along fine and then all of a sudden it stops hashing and the miner unit fan turns off. The temperature increases to 80 degrees celsius and the miner makes some loud and concerning sounds. First time this happened I shut it down and unplugged everything. Booted it back up and the fan worked and it started hashing again. It worked for two days and then the same thing happened again. While in this state sometimes it does start hashing for a short period of time but only 400ish GH/s but the miner fan still doesn't turn on.

Just some additional context.. I have been running it in ECO mode since September with no issues. I then decided to bump it up to Balanced mode for a bit to see the hash rate increase. At the same time as switching it Balanced I was prompted to update the miner. I did the first update and was then prompted to update Ubuntu version. I initially selected yes and it downloaded some files etc. It then prompted me saying the update would take hours and do I want to proceed. I didn't have the time to monitor it while it updated so I selected No and then it said that the version remain as it was.

Balanced mode worked for a full 24 hours and then I started having the issues described above. After doing a hard reboot I switched it back into ECO mode which worked for two days before running into the same issue.

Does anyone have any advice on how to troubleshoot this issue? Much appreciated. Apologies if this issue has been addressed before.

That sounds like it is related to the software update.

Unfortunately updates to the FutureBit version of the Armbian OS still brick the Apollo most of the time, but maybe yours was put into an 'intermittent brick state'! 

Did you do the update just before the problems started?

In short, you will need to re-flash the SD card with the FutureBit software and then NOT update it.

Or you can install an Armbian system following n)nce's guide here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5401729.msg60310467#msg60310467

Start reading this thread from page 1, you will soon find the relevant information for how to re-flash the SD card.

[ReaperOfMars17]

Hi team,

Complete newbie to ASIC mining and got a Apollo BTC miner to dip my toes.

Last week my miner started playing up. It's chugging along fine and then all of a sudden it stops hashing and the miner unit fan turns off. The temperature increases to 80 degrees celsius and the miner makes some loud and concerning sounds. First time this happened I shut it down and unplugged everything. Booted it back up and the fan worked and it started hashing again. It worked for two days and then the same thing happened again. While in this state sometimes it does start hashing for a short period of time but only 400ish GH/s but the miner fan still doesn't turn on.

Just some additional context.. I have been running it in ECO mode since September with no issues. I then decided to bump it up to Balanced mode for a bit to see the hash rate increase. At the same time as switching it Balanced I was prompted to update the miner. I did the first update and was then prompted to update Ubuntu version. I initially selected yes and it downloaded some files etc. It then prompted me saying the update would take hours and do I want to proceed. I didn't have the time to monitor it while it updated so I selected No and then it said that the version remain as it was.

Balanced mode worked for a full 24 hours and then I started having the issues described above. After doing a hard reboot I switched it back into ECO mode which worked for two days before running into the same issue.

Does anyone have any advice on how to troubleshoot this issue? Much appreciated. Apologies if this issue has been addressed before.

That sounds like it is related to the software update.

Unfortunately updates to the FutureBit version of the Armbian OS still brick the Apollo most of the time, but maybe yours was put into an 'intermittent brick state'! 

Did you do the update just before the problems started?

In short, you will need to re-flash the SD card with the FutureBit software and then NOT update it.

Or you can install an Armbian system following n)nce's guide here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5401729.msg60310467#msg60310467

Start reading this thread from page 1, you will soon find the relevant information for how to re-flash the SD card.

Thanks for the quick response. Yes I initiated the update and then decided to back out. The issues then started 24 hours later. The timing does seem too coincidental.

I had read about brick units but I was confused that my miner seems to work for a bit and then goes inactive. But then can start working again after a reboot.

As you said, because I backed out of the full OS update it's put it into the 'intermittent brick state'.

I'll undertake the SD card re-flash process and go from there.

Again, I really appreciate the help.

[MarcusMK]

Brand New Setup, multiple issues.

Resolved Issue
First one was Router/ Ethernet connection did not work - Netgear Router completely stopped working now, does not allow Reset. Whatever. Now logged in direct with TV HDMI. My sincere apologies for inconveniencing your Twitter DM Support.


Current Issue 1:
Now getting failure messages on disk space:
I have Rebooted and now it says

"Low Disk Space. This computer has only 0 bytes disk space remaining."

At "System Utilization" it says:
Disk / Usage                       13.88GB/ 14.05GB
Disk/ media/ name usage     7.3GB/ 915GB



Issue 2:
At the "Pools" tab I have my Braiins details entered and saved (took saving 3 times before it stuck; have checked the Braiins details multiple times and all characters are correct.

But at Miner>Dashboard>Pools it says:
btc.viabtc.com:3333 Username port forwarded.futurebit

Checking at my pool.braiins.com Dashboard, my Hashrate is not being registered.

What is happening? Why am I not getting my Hashrate to my Pool, it instead going to FutureBit???
I have completely Rebooted and also that did not resolve issue.

[MrMik]

Until you get an official reply, my suggestion is to use a new SD card and 'etch' the FutureBit OS image on it and try again with that.

Sounds like the SD card is not operating properly, but I'm no expert.

On page 1 of this thread are instructions for how to write the FutureBit OS to an SD card. Make sure you pick the correct version (there are 2 versions) by looking at the OrangePi board to identify which one you have.

[crypto_curious]

Current Issue 1:
"Low Disk Space. This computer has only 0 bytes disk space remaining."

Issue 2:
Hashrate is not being registered.

Issue 2 could be due to Issue 1 still not resolved. Find out first what took entire SD card space. Ubuntu most likely has a visual tool to check free space, if not, do quick search to find out what tool you can use. I personally use Filelight tool to check occupied space by any file or folder. But with zero free space you may not be able to install it.

[NotATether]

Current Issue 1:
"Low Disk Space. This computer has only 0 bytes disk space remaining."

Issue 2:
Hashrate is not being registered.

Issue 2 could be due to Issue 1 still not resolved. Find out first what took entire SD card space. Ubuntu most likely has a visual tool to check free space, if not, do quick search to find out what tool you can use. I personally use Filelight tool to check occupied space by any file or folder. But with zero free space you may not be able to install it.

A long time ago, I made a bash script that sorts the folders of a particular path by largest usage, but it's on my PC somewhere, and I need to look for it. But it will do the job if he's only got the CLI - it only uses stock GNU commands.

[n0nce]

Brand New Setup, multiple issues.

Where did you buy it (new or used)?
And did you try reflashing the microSD card?

This is not the first time I've heard something about the OS in Futurebit miners acting as if it was infected.. Like, taking down your home network? That should never happen with stock Linux OS.
Any Armbian release is also much smaller than 13.88GB, so that would support my hypothesis that this is pre-owned (and maybe pre-infected).

[jstefanop]

Brand New Setup, multiple issues.

Resolved Issue
First one was Router/ Ethernet connection did not work - Netgear Router completely stopped working now, does not allow Reset. Whatever. Now logged in direct with TV HDMI. My sincere apologies for inconveniencing your Twitter DM Support.


Current Issue 1:
Now getting failure messages on disk space:
I have Rebooted and now it says

"Low Disk Space. This computer has only 0 bytes disk space remaining."

At "System Utilization" it says:
Disk / Usage                       13.88GB/ 14.05GB
Disk/ media/ name usage     7.3GB/ 915GB



Issue 2:
At the "Pools" tab I have my Braiins details entered and saved (took saving 3 times before it stuck; have checked the Braiins details multiple times and all characters are correct.

But at Miner>Dashboard>Pools it says:
btc.viabtc.com:3333 Username port forwarded.futurebit

Checking at my pool.braiins.com Dashboard, my Hashrate is not being registered.

What is happening? Why am I not getting my Hashrate to my Pool, it instead going to FutureBit???
I have completely Rebooted and also that did not resolve issue.

Sounds like there is an issue with your nvme drive and node is syncing to the SD card. Have you reached out to support via email?

[unicornmangle]

dont buy this hardware over a year of empty promises futurebit as a company in new york should say it all. scam central this decive still doesnt do half of what it claimed it was going to do and this guy rolls in over a year later saying he rewrote a 5 year old softare as if java is out of data.

this is a pieced together miner mostly useless to anyone its not more efficient than miners from 2017 do not waste your money. just another crypto company taking advantage of regular people. let us see what happens next.

people paid a premium for a mediocre turn key solution and got a dev kit that doesnt relaly do anything you cant do on your own with a t9+ ($100 with power supply) and an old laptop. these are the companies that are killing crypto do not support futurebit.

[cd1177]

Ive have 3 standards and a full node.  they have all ran fine for quite awhile.  the full node and 1 standard are first batches and i have since upgraded the ssd.  like i said they have all ran fine for months.  one of the standards stopped and won't ever start back up.  i power it down and restart and it will go through the process but eventually it will just completely stop and stay that way.  tried restarting the whole thing numerous times as a reboot usually seems to fix any issues.  but not with this one standard unit.  any ideas?  thanks

[MrMik]

Ive have 3 standards and a full node.  they have all ran fine for quite awhile.  the full node and 1 standard are first batches and i have since upgraded the ssd.  like i said they have all ran fine for months.  one of the standards stopped and won't ever start back up.  i power it down and restart and it will go through the process but eventually it will just completely stop and stay that way.  tried restarting the whole thing numerous times as a reboot usually seems to fix any issues.  but not with this one standard unit.  any ideas?  thanks

Are you connecting all the standards to the Full package Apollo via USB?

I find that the USB connection on my Full packages is very sketchy.

You could try to connect just the faulty Standard unit, or swap the order in which connect them to USB, maybe another one starts to malfunction then.

When I suspect USB issues, I disconnect the USB hub before rebooting the Full package unit, then reconnect the USB hub and standard unit after it has booted up.

Changing the USB port also helps sometimes, there seems to be no rhyme nor rhythm to it, just that once one of the USB ports is having a dummy spit, it causes weird issues until it is allowed to power up without a load on it.

[MrMik]

people paid a premium for a mediocre turn key solution and got a dev kit that doesnt relaly do anything you cant do on your own with a t9+ ($100 with power supply) and an old laptop. do not support futurebit.

My Apollo's mine using 77W/TH but a T9+ uses 136W/TH.

They are also much smaller, quieter and more versatile for use in locations where most would not want to run a T9+.

However, you are correct that most of the promises are not fulfilled, especially that it is insecure because software updates brick it, so the full node and lightning wallet etc are really a bad idea to run on a stock Apollo.

But, the build quality is very good as far as I can see. I'd call it a premium dev kit. It's true, it costs much more than what could be used instead, but would I ever have taken the plunge?

The Apollo's are doing wonders for my Linux skills and my knowledge about Bitcoin is improving much faster than before I started mining. I doubt I would have jumped in to mining without the Apollo offer.

I got the basics covered now (Armbian OS properly updating thanks to n0nce's guides and very effective additional cooling for quiet operation, with 3D printed parts made from fire retardant polycarbonate) and will continue to install a full note and a wallet and Lightning wallet and whatever else I want on the Apollo.

Now that I know a lot more, I am starting to buy larger used miners to continue building my skills tapping in to every bit of stranded energy that I can get my grubby paws on. 

[HippiePyro]

I cant seem to download the OS image from the OP, it starts to load the page but never finishes. id there another location for the file?
nermind, finally got the page to load