GekkoScience has a new stickminer that does 300+GH

[Wikiz]

Hello there, dont know if this is the right place, but since I've managed to get a futurebit apollo, I think I'm going to sell my compac F (and also I can get rid of usb hub etc, just the pod miner with my rasp )

[poonasor]

Hello there, dont know if this is the right place, but since I've managed to get a futurebit apollo, I think I'm going to sell my compac F (and also I can get rid of usb hub etc, just the pod miner with my rasp )

any chance you have a gekkoscience hub?

[Cas1m1r]

I just recently purchased "3 x GekkoScience COMPAC F with Fan Upgrade + Bitcoin Merch® 7-Port USB Hub - COMBO Up to 1.05+TH/s" from Bitcoin Merch and I am not getting the 1.05+TH/s stated.  Instead I am getting at total of 291.4g from all 3 miners (each miner @ around 93.59g).  Can anyone tell me why this is?  Is it because of the 7-port USB Hub not providing the required power?  Here are the commands I am using to start cgminer:  

cgminer -O stratum+tcp://us-east.stratum.slushpool.com:3333 -u xxxxx -p xxxxx x --suggest-diff 442 --gekko-serial "GS-100xxxxx,GS-100xxxxx,GS-100xxxxx" --gekko-compacf-detect --gekko-compacf-freq 400 --gekko-start-freq 400 --gekko-mine2 --gekko-tune2 60

Thanks.

I have the same setup from the same supplier purchased with the Raspberry Pi 4b 2GB running all 3 sticks running at 400hz.  Slushpool reported a maximum 5min rate of 1.047 TH/s and a 24hr rate of 775 GH/s.  What computer are you using??

[Cas1m1r]

When entering the below command the response is --gekko-mine2  unrecognized command

cgminer -O stratum+tcp://us-east.stratum.slushpool.com:3333 -u xxxxx -p xxxxx x --suggest-diff 512 --gekko-compacf-detect --gekko-compacf-freq 500 --gekko-start-freq 400 --gekko-mine2 --gekko-tune2 60

I am running cgminer version 4.12.0

Please advise what is wrong and how to correct this.

[nullama]

When entering the below command the response is --gekko-mine2  unrecognized command

cgminer -O stratum+tcp://us-east.stratum.slushpool.com:3333 -u xxxxx -p xxxxx x --suggest-diff 512 --gekko-compacf-detect --gekko-compacf-freq 500 --gekko-start-freq 400 --gekko-mine2 --gekko-tune2 60

I am running cgminer version 4.12.0

Please advise what is wrong and how to correct this.

Seems like you didn't build it with gekko support.

As seen in the README and kano's instructions here, you need to build cgminer with --enable-gekko, something like this for example(not sure why kano uses --enable-icarus, it doesn't seem to be needed):

CFLAGS="-O2 -march=native -fcommon" ./autogen.sh --enable-gekko
make

[Cas1m1r]

So I got the three Ferrari's without the "kano" gekko support on a flashed sd card that came from the BitcoinMerchant kit.  They are running just fine at -freq 400 as advertised.  I don't yet have the skills or experience to flash my own cards so my best option is to purchase a new sd card with the kano support. (preferred)  Where can I buy this?

When entering the below command the response is --gekko-mine2  unrecognized command

cgminer -O stratum+tcp://us-east.stratum.slushpool.com:3333 -u xxxxx -p xxxxx x --suggest-diff 512 --gekko-compacf-detect --gekko-compacf-freq 500 --gekko-start-freq 400 --gekko-mine2 --gekko-tune2 60

I am running cgminer version 4.12.0

Please advise what is wrong and how to correct this.

Seems like you didn't build it with gekko support.

As seen in the README and kano's instructions here, you need to build cgminer with --enable-gekko, something like this for example(not sure why kano uses --enable-icarus, it doesn't seem to be needed):

CFLAGS="-O2 -march=native -fcommon" ./autogen.sh --enable-gekko
make

[os2sam]

So I got the three Ferrari's without the "kano" gekko support on a flashed sd card that came from the BitcoinMerchant kit.  They are running just fine at -freq 400 as advertised. 

If you are mining with the Ferrari's then you have the "kano" supported version of CGMiner.  That is the only version that supports these.  And you say they are working fine.  So what is the problem?

[Wikiz]

Hello there, dont know if this is the right place, but since I've managed to get a futurebit apollo, I think I'm going to sell my compac F (and also I can get rid of usb hub etc, just the pod miner with my rasp )

any chance you have a gekkoscience hub?

Nope, i've tried a few hubs and the closest one to 2.4A was the amazonbasics, with this i've managed to get 160-170GH

I saw the "right" hub in bitcoinmerch i think, but it said it does not ship to my country (spain)

[poonasor]

The Pi won't be the issue here; in fact, it's much better than using a Windows host.
However you must ensure that a) you get enough power out of the ports and b) the power is dissipated.
The former can be solved by a good hub and PSU (which you have) and the latter by good cooling.

However, you can also aid both of those at the same time by lowering the power consumption by veeeeeeeeery slightly reducing the core voltage using the screw in the bottom right corner. Since the sticks are tuned to run at 400MHz, they may not be exactly 100% perfectly set up for the absolute maximum overclock and there might be some performance to be squeezed out using this technique.

thanks for this, which direction would i be turning? and which side of the miner would be the top?

[n0nce]

The Pi won't be the issue here; in fact, it's much better than using a Windows host.
However you must ensure that a) you get enough power out of the ports and b) the power is dissipated.
The former can be solved by a good hub and PSU (which you have) and the latter by good cooling.

However, you can also aid both of those at the same time by lowering the power consumption by veeeeeeeeery slightly reducing the core voltage using the screw in the bottom right corner. Since the sticks are tuned to run at 400MHz, they may not be exactly 100% perfectly set up for the absolute maximum overclock and there might be some performance to be squeezed out using this technique.

thanks for this, which direction would i be turning? and which side of the miner would be the top?

Turn it clockwise. But really barely turn it; if you see the screw turn it's almost too much already. If that wasn't enough, you can repeat it 2 or 3 times, but I think you don't want to turn it more than like 1/8th turn from how it ships, at maximum.
The heatsink is on top if you plug them into e.g. the GekkoScience hub.

[poonasor]

The Pi won't be the issue here; in fact, it's much better than using a Windows host.
However you must ensure that a) you get enough power out of the ports and b) the power is dissipated.
The former can be solved by a good hub and PSU (which you have) and the latter by good cooling.

However, you can also aid both of those at the same time by lowering the power consumption by veeeeeeeeery slightly reducing the core voltage using the screw in the bottom right corner. Since the sticks are tuned to run at 400MHz, they may not be exactly 100% perfectly set up for the absolute maximum overclock and there might be some performance to be squeezed out using this technique.

thanks for this, which direction would i be turning? and which side of the miner would be the top?

Turn it clockwise. But really barely turn it; if you see the screw turn it's almost too much already. If that wasn't enough, you can repeat it 2 or 3 times, but I think you don't want to turn it more than like 1/8th turn from how it ships, at maximum.
The heatsink is on top if you plug them into e.g. the GekkoScience hub.

thank you so much! I finally got it hitting 500 Mhz - quick question what would happen if i moved the screw more than 1/8th from its stock position? I'm just wondering if I would be able to hit the 800 frequency since the hub has 6a per 2 ports

[n0nce]

~

Turn it clockwise. But really barely turn it; if you see the screw turn it's almost too much already. If that wasn't enough, you can repeat it 2 or 3 times, but I think you don't want to turn it more than like 1/8th turn from how it ships, at maximum.
The heatsink is on top if you plug them into e.g. the GekkoScience hub.

thank you so much! I finally got it hitting 500 Mhz - quick question what would happen if i moved the screw more than 1/8th from its stock position? I'm just wondering if I would be able to hit the 800 frequency since the hub has 6a per 2 ports

Great, glad to hear this! Well the more you turn it, the more power the stick pulls. It's not really an issue of overloading the GekkoScience hub's maximum power rating, instead it's mostly a cooling issue. You could definitely mount some tiny water blocks to the sticks, after removing the stock heatsinks, and hook up a watercooling loop. Then they should run at even higher power and clock speeds.
People have literally had components fall off the PCBs by not having adequate cooling, therefore I'm emphasizing to be super careful and only increase the core voltage by however much is needed to just hit the target speed and not overdo it.

If you're confident in your cooling setup, feel free to further increase frequency, until it gets unstable, then adjust core voltage again to get it stable. But it's all out of warranty I'm sure, since we're overclocking them obviously.

[nullama]

These miners are awesome.

I have an Arctic Breeze Mobile fan which is keeping things cool, but it's a bit noisy.



Now I'm on a mission to reduce the fan noise as much as possible. I wonder if it would be possible to run them with a passive heatsink like this one:



Probably mechanical stability would be the main issue with that one! 

[RKG456]

Hi,

i also got 2 of the sticks. And still have a lot of NewPacs. I am using an Raspi 3b+ Now my Problem.:
I can add 11 sticks to my hubs and everything works fine.
At the moment i put the 12th stick in, i get an error: failed to initialize....
Doesn't matter which frequency or which sticks i put in. So there is no Problem with the Power.
I guess it have something to do with the USB Bandwidth, Maybe anyone knows how i can fix the Problem and add more sticks?

I would be very happy if somene can help.

Peace

To really exclude the possibility of this being a power issue, I recommend hooking up one of the hubs to a different computer.

Thanks for your answer, but if i use 1 Hub, i can fill it with 7 sticks without problems. (i use the "original 7+1 port hub) and have an 1200W Power supply it can also run my T9+.
So it does not matter where i put the sticks just the number of devices matter. Before i used an older Raspberry and only 8 sticks where running, number 9 get me trouble.
Now with the 3B+ 11 sticks are running fine and number 12 will bring trouble.

Usually on the 7+1 or 7+3 hubs  the +# port is a fast charging port and may be acting differently. Than the others.
If you are running more than one hub are they daisy chained on the same USB port or is each hub plugged into a separate USB port on the RPi3b+? 
Is it always the same USB miner that is the 12 stick and fails to initialize?  If 11 run ok, have you tried taking out one of the original 11 and putting in what would be 12 as the 11th stick to see if the issue follows the stick with only 11 running?

[RKG456]

Hello I am a noob here. I saw some other threads that mentioned asking Gekkoscience related questions in this thread.  If this needs to be a separate thread please let me know.  Since am using Compac F miners in the mix this may be the correct place. 
My guess would be the "Where do I start" question comes up a lot.  I am just trying to find tutorials to figure out where to start.  I bought some GekkoSience USB Miners and never got around to using them. I recently moved and am looking at finally getting them up and running but again not sure where to start.

On Hand currently I have 1 Newpac I got off of EBay over a year ago and never messed with. I also have 1 Compac F I ordered from Bitcoinmerch last year and have not messed with yet.
I also have this these HUBs on hand:
1 - BitcoinMerch.com - Powered 7-Port USB Hub USB 3.0, Upgraded 65W Compatible w/USB Miners Newpac, Twopac, Moonlander, Antminer, US Plug
1 - Sipolar-USB Hub- 10 Ports USB Data Hub-Industrial USB Powered Hub - USB 2.0 Hub for Mining, Bitcoin Miner

I also have many computers sitting around largely not being used (Linux, and Windows and Raspberry PI 4s, a RPi400, some Zero's, ZeroWs, ZeroW 2s and 2 Radxa Zeros). What I don't use for this project may go toward setting up some RPIs for mining Monero.

Items on Order arriving in a week or so:   
1 - SABRENT 60W 10-Port USB 3.0 Hub Includes 3 Smart Charging Ports with Individual Power Switches and LEDs + 60W 12V/5A Power Adapter (HB-B7C3)
1 - HPE 511778-001 750watt Gold Power Supply (renewed) and expansion PCI-e board - to power the Terminus R808
I have ordered another Newpac and a Terminus R808 off of ebay that should be here in a week (lets hope they work)  as well as another new Compac F off of Amazon (also from Bitcoinmerch).   

I know this USB mining is very small chance of getting any rewards, but I have all of this stuff that is just sitting doing nothing most of the time. If I can join these to a pool and by chance something comes of it so be it. If not at least I can say at least I tried.

So my questions to the Gekkoscience community are:
1. What is the best tutorial to follow to get cgminer up and running on a Raspberry Pi 4 so that it works with the miners I will be using? (I have come across mentions of needing specific versions of cgminer based on what USB Miner I have.)  The Bitcoinmerch site lists a few commands but I do not know if that is for the best version of cgminer.
2. Should I attempt to try and run these all on the same RPI 4 or should I split them up and do a few on one RPI 4 and a few on another RPI 4?
3. Regarding the Raspberry Pi 4, does the amount of Ram make a difference? ( I have 4gb and 8gb RPIs).
4. Should I attempt solo mining or do a pool? Its all a lottery with these right?
5. I have seen references about running a full node. I even saw some videos a while back on Youtube mentioning you can possibly get rewarded by hosting a node but again not sure how that works.  I have many computers options on hand to choose from for a node (Linux, and Windows and Raspberry PI 4s, a RPi400, some Zero's, ZeroWs, ZeroW 2s and 2 Radxa Zeros), only I am so green I am not sure if running a node makes sense.  For a node, don't I have to guarantee that is always on and connected to the blockchain?

Thanks in advance.
RKG456

[nullama]

~ snip ~
So my questions to the Gekkoscience community are:
1. What is the best tutorial to follow to get cgminer up and running on a Raspberry Pi 4 so that it works with the miners I will be using? (I have come across mentions of needing specific versions of cgminer based on what USB Miner I have.)  The Bitcoinmerch site lists a few commands but I do not know if that is for the best version of cgminer.

You need to get a version of cgminer that supports the compac f, which currently is kano's fork. Here are the instructions from kano himself (Note that probably you don't need to pass --enable-icarus):

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y

sudo apt-get install -y build-essential autoconf automake libtool pkg-config libcurl4-openssl-dev libudev-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libncurses5-dev zlib1g-dev git

cd
git clone https://github.com/kanoi/cgminer.git
cd cgminer

CFLAGS="-O2 -march=native -fcommon" ./autogen.sh --enable-gekko --enable-icarus

make

Then you should have cgminer binary ready to be used. Check that it runs with:

./cgminer --help

It should list all the commands.

2. Should I attempt to try and run these all on the same RPI 4 or should I split them up and do a few on one RPI 4 and a few on another RPI 4?

That's up to you. You can rum them all in one, or separately.

3. Regarding the Raspberry Pi 4, does the amount of Ram make a difference? ( I have 4gb and 8gb RPIs).

Not really. This will just use a bit of CPU to communicate with the device and the pool, etc, but all the work is done by the devices themselves. I've ran this on older pis absolutely fine.

4. Should I attempt solo mining or do a pool? Its all a lottery with these right?

Again up to you. You can always do solo mining with these for example at ckpool solo, and you will be running a lotto every day. That works, but very small chances to win. You can set it up in a pool, or nicehash maybe, but you will be paid very, very little per day, say dozens or hundreds of sats or less, and that's assuming the pool allows you to provide such a small hashrate.

5. I have seen references about running a full node. I even saw some videos a while back on Youtube mentioning you can possibly get rewarded by hosting a node but again not sure how that works.  I have many computers options on hand to choose from for a node (Linux, and Windows and Raspberry PI 4s, a RPi400, some Zero's, ZeroWs, ZeroW 2s and 2 Radxa Zeros), only I am so green I am not sure if running a node makes sense.  For a node, don't I have to guarantee that is always on and connected to the blockchain?

Thanks in advance.
RKG456

Running a node is different than mining, any PC can do that. You just need a lot of space, say 500GB at a minimum for the full blockchain, and increasing. Just download Bitcoin Core and run it. You will be able to connect to your own Bitcoin node when it finishes updating in a few days. Running this node doesn't affect CPU too much. Running your own node helps you with better privacy, you also don't have to trust other nodes, and you can learn a bit more about Bitcoin. You don't have to be connected all the time, but you should be connected most of the time. Otherwise you will need to wait until it updates the blocks you missed while you were offline. About the rewards you mention, that's probably someone talking about a lightning node, which runs on top of a Bitcoin node. You can earn some sats by routing lightning payments. That one should be online all the time to make sure the routing goes through.

I hope that helps you. Happy USB mining!

[kurutoga]

Just received the 3 COMPAC F kit and got the miners up and running. Currently have all three humming along at 400MHz after some troubleshooting with various forum threads. I tweaked the voltage using the bottom right screw, but ultimately think downloading the latest gekko driver settings to ramp up the chips would have solved it.

I wanted to confirm that my settings look correct in the first screenshot in order to keep these little guys on long term as a lotto play. difficulty 442, 400MHz, pool connection, correct cgminer version, correct github fork, etc.

1st screenshot
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h7KF64IuJRoiHuoPwviInEfbiboNpXGU/view?usp=sharing

I had issues with one of the sticks constantly disconnecting (my words) and trying to ramp back up to the set frequency. This eventually went away, but I don't know why, so I wanted to post a few screenshots of it happening to see if anyone can identify what I'm doing wrong.

Screenshot of the miner ramping up to 335MHZ (after I set it to 400 and it ramped itself back down)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CC2OqcTJgFEsykyG-L3g8h6cNWNSCEWh/view?usp=sharing

Screenshot of the miner going offline (my words, not sure what its doing)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bojODP0cBQY0mq5JcQbWVT84ltCq9idH/view?usp=sharing

Screenshot of the miner w/ logs of it coming back online starting at 200MHz
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OeUtVoLrbNG7_RGnphmxN1WPeUIGDL2L/view?usp=sharing

Lastly, I understand these miners are for fun and could maybe get 20-25 cents in a shared pool. However, I'm trying to understand if they even have a chance at hitting a block solo (I know the chances are 1 in 220million or something). Does my overall hash rate have to be a minimum of the current difficulty 29.79T to even have a chance? Just trying to understand the relationship of hash rate and difficulty.

TIA

[nullama]

~snip~

I had issues with one of the sticks constantly disconnecting (my words) and trying to ramp back up to the set frequency. This eventually went away, but I don't know why, so I wanted to post a few screenshots of it happening to see if anyone can identify what I'm doing wrong.

Since you're running up to around 400MHz you're pushing the limits of what your USB hub can provide, so they reset and start all over again.

I'm assuming you're using the BitcoinMerch USB hub:



That USB hub is quite alright, much better than most, but it has a limit of 2.4A per port. You're hitting that limit when getting towards 400MHz, so try setting it a bit lower, say 380MHz or so. Note that it might be the combined power that is tripping the hub as well, so check your power supply to see how much it is providing. Experiment with different values per miner. You should be able to get up to around 480MHz with a single miner connected.

You can confirm this by connecting one of those cheap USB measuring devices like this one:



Keep going up towards 400MHz and you'll see that when it reaches 2.4A it will reset.

It's really difficult to find a USB hub with data and power with more than 2.4A. The recommended one is the GekkoScience USB hub which is custom made for USB mining. It's pretty expensive and hard to find though.



That one will allow you to go higher than 400MHz with no issues.

If you do manage to get that one, make sure to have excellent cooling as it will get really hot.

~snip~

Lastly, I understand these miners are for fun and could maybe get 20-25 cents in a shared pool. However, I'm trying to understand if they even have a chance at hitting a block solo (I know the chances are 1 in 220million or something). Does my overall hash rate have to be a minimum of the current difficulty 29.79T to even have a chance? Just trying to understand the relationship of hash rate and difficulty.

TIA

It's all probability, so think of it as a lottery. You have an extremely small chance of finding a block with these guys, but you definitely can. Sledge0001 found a block with one of those Compac F miners: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5237323.msg59084637#msg59084637

The more hashrate you have, the more chances you have. But anyone mining can find a block, even on your first try!.

[Powell]

Finally done for a little bit with my Ferrari collection lol.  Quiet, low power and maybe one day I'll hit the lotto LOL!

Raspi4 (8gb)
Noctua NF-A12x25 (x3)
Noctua NF-A4x20 (x6 (Don't really need anymore)
Gekkoscience Hubs (x4 (I have a 5th but the horizontal shared 6A port is burnt up so I use that now for testing)
EVGA Gold 800W PSU (had it just sitting around)
The Egorlabs PMD is reading EVERYTHING but the Pi itself.

Single PCIe to the PSU with splitters to connect the hubs.  Since I have 4 hubs I just jumped 3 together and they all go to the Pi on 1 USB.  Clocks are at 550MHz, all sticks are at 2.9X-3.0X amps and are intendent of sharing any power.

Pardon some of the mess, this is in my garage/shop area kind of in a temporary home.







182-184W of power between all 12 sticks, 4 Hubs, and all the fans.  Pi4 is still on a USB-C to plug.



Been chugging along 3 days now!

[nullama]

Finally done for a little bit with my Ferrari collection lol.  Quiet, low power and maybe one day I'll hit the lotto LOL!

Raspi4 (8gb)
Noctua NF-A12x25 (x3)
Noctua NF-A4x20 (x6 (Don't really need anymore)
Gekkoscience Hubs (x4 (I have a 5th but the horizontal shared 6A port is burnt up so I use that now for testing)
EVGA Gold 800W PSU (had it just sitting around)
The Egorlabs PMD is reading EVERYTHING but the Pi itself.

Single PCIe to the PSU with splitters to connect the hubs.  Since I have 4 hubs I just jumped 3 together and they all go to the Pi on 1 USB.  Clocks are at 550MHz, all sticks are at 2.9X-3.0X amps and are intendent of sharing any power.

Pardon some of the mess, this is in my garage/shop area kind of in a temporary home.







182-184W of power between all 12 sticks, 4 Hubs, and all the fans.  Pi4 is still on a USB-C to plug.



Been chugging along 3 days now!

Great setup!.

I've been looking at those noctuas to make my miners as silent as possible. How's the noise level with so many fans?

Also, where did you get that mount for the fan attached to the heatsink?. I haven't found a proper solution for that yet.