GekkoScience has a new stickminer that does 300+GH

[Mining21BTC]

BTW I have another Compac F here, it’s hard to repair this? Or it’s not possible?

https://yourimageshare.com/ib/YOTMCmGJVz.jpeg

It just came off? It is pretty easy to get it back on, but if you don't have experience with SMD soldering, just bring it to a nearby board-level repair shop and they will be able to do it for you.

Yeah! This was my first one and I used this one without cooling at the first time… too hot = part gone
But it’s running smooth now too, so idk if I should use it … no soldering skills here and no station around me

[cygan]

^^ remember that the max current per-pair of USB ports in each row of a Gekko hub is 6A so having 2 sticks on 1 pair with each pulling 3A or more will make the regulator for that pair of ports shut down and then hopefully restart again. My stick is pulling a safe 2.85A @ 575MHz so when I eventually get a 2nd I'd still be good with 2 in a row.

Yup thank you for pointing that out because I was thinking in my case where until I got new gekko hubs I had to double up at share the 6A which at 550MHz I had all sharing plenty happy with head room.

I have a few that run perfect at 2.85-2.9A but like 2 of them are just bastards that won't be stable unless they jump between 2.98-3.08A.  Those I have labeled in case one of the hubs has to be doubled up for that exact reason.

as you can see here i have only one stick with one fan connected to each pair:

✂

Code:

0: GSF: port 7 (compac f) <-> port 6 (fan)
1: GSF: port 5 (compac f) <-> port 2 (fan)
2: GSF: port 4 (compac f) <-> port 3 (fan)

✂
I am running 12 sticks all at 575MHz, as you can see in my previous pictures only 5 or 6 have Noctua fans, the rest are only cooled by a Noctua fan on top of them blowing down.
✂

which usb ports do you have the big fans connected to?
as i can see from your pictures, they are not connected to the gekko usb hub
and unfortunately i do not own an usb meter and therefore cannot measure the voltage

[n0nce]

and unfortunately i do not own an usb meter and therefore cannot measure the voltage

Honestly for this 'Ferrari' stick they're really a must-have. Shouldn't run you more than 10 bucks online and really help dial in the overclock.
Too much voltage on the core, and the stick gets too hot and / or you exceed your power supply; too little voltage and it will be unstable.

How much you're actually pulling though, can only be measured with such a meter.


Keep in mind this meter measures the supply voltage and amps on the USB, so voltage will always be 5V and you see the current change, even though the pot on the board regulates the ASIC core voltage. This is of course normal since due to Ohm's law, more voltage on the core is directly proportional to more current going through the fixed-voltage power supply.

You can either look at current or power draw; doesn't matter since 5V supply voltage is fixed, so just try to stay below 3A or 15W per USB port.

[sidehack]

Also we tend to over-build, so it'll probably still work without that part.

eeeehhh yes and no.... I assume that is a large value cap in parallel with the bank of lower value caps right? Ja the ASIC chip may still be operating because the DC is 'reasonably clean and good enough' but it would be interesting to probe there and at the chips power pads to look at the switching spikes with and w/o that cap...

It is far too common for power supply designers that want to feed high current/high speed digital circuits to neglect the fact that chip switching speeds are deep into the RF spectrum making the DC power planes feeding them a transmission line. The end result is that as the gates inside of the chip switch the signal and DC power voltages at the chip pins can/will be quite different than what you probe and see as you get away from the chip.

Point is ya should verify the at the chip itself that the Vcore referenced to its return pads along with the data eyes into/out of the chip look solid even without the cap.  Neglecting that is one of the things that back in early 2014 killed Bitmine.ch's based Coincraft miner using their A1 chip that they paid Innosilicon to design and work with a Foundry(TSMC) to source. Well, that and totally neglecting the fact that that you also need sizeable heat sinks on top of the ASIC's... The folks that did things right used the same A1 chip in their legendary Dragon miners had great success with them...

There's 300uF (minus DC bias derating) of ceramics and a 470uF tant/poly at the regulator output, and then another 330uF tant/poly for bulk plus some 4.7uF and 0.1uF ceramics for high frequency bypass right at the power pads of the ASIC. It would probably run fine with either of the tant/poly missing, but not both.

[Powell]

which usb ports do you have the big fans connected to?
as i can see from your pictures, they are not connected to the gekko usb hub
and unfortunately i do not own an usb meter and therefore cannot measure the voltage

I don't get any power for my fans from the Gekko hub.  I use my PSU's 4pin plugs and power all of them off of those.  

And as posted above, if you are not going to buy a USB meter I wouldn't suggest pushing it to those speeds.  You can get them on Amazon for less than $20 and they are Amazon prime.  I got mine the following morning.

[Mining21BTC]

You think that’s enough possible GH/s for my Compac F? Or should I try to get more? Because its very stable atm.


(5s): 291.7G (1m): 218.6G (5m):212.8G (15m):213.2G (avg): 199.8Gh/s
A:1513361 R:4153 HW: 816 WU:2791.1/m
Connected to solo.ckpool.org diff 154 with stratum as user
Block: 145b2d6f...
Diff:28.4T Started: [05:59:50.966] Best share: 10.9M
O: GSF 10051760: BM1397:01+ 340.00MHz T:340 P:339 (37:19)
100% WU: 100% | 291.7G / 199.8Gh/s WU:2791.1/m

[cygan]

which usb ports do you have the big fans connected to?
as i can see from your pictures, they are not connected to the gekko usb hub
and unfortunately i do not own an usb meter and therefore cannot measure the voltage

I don't get any power for my fans from the Gekko hub.  I use my PSU's 4pin plugs and power all of them off of those.  

And as posted above, if you are not going to buy a USB meter I wouldn't suggest pushing it to those speeds.  You can get them on Amazon for less than $20 and they are Amazon prime.  I got mine the following morning.

this is a very good idea.
could i also connect the fans to my breakout using a 4 pin - 6 pci-e adapter (if there is one)?
i have now also ordered an usb meter

[Powell]

this is a very good idea.
could i also connect the fans to my breakout using a 4 pin - 6 pci-e adapter (if there is one)?
i have now also ordered an usb meter

If you are using a server PSU you can.  I have one that I bought from Parallelminer or whatever the company is.  Mine is powered by a server PSU and a breakout board now as well.  I was originally just using a normal PSU for temporary but I had some extra server PSU from gpu mining so I swapped over to that. 

[n0nce]

You think that’s enough possible GH/s for my Compac F? Or should I try to get more? Because its very stable atm.


(5s): 291.7G (1m): 218.6G (5m):212.8G (15m):213.2G (avg): 199.8Gh/s
A:1513361 R:4153 HW: 816 WU:2791.1/m
Connected to solo.ckpool.org diff 154 with stratum as user
Block: 145b2d6f...
Diff:28.4T Started: [05:59:50.966] Best share: 10.9M
O: GSF 10051760: BM1397:01+ 340.00MHz T:340 P:339 (37:19)
100% WU: 100% | 291.7G / 199.8Gh/s WU:2791.1/m

It's up to you how much time and effort you're ready to put into fine tuning, but as even the title here says, these sticks can usually hit 300+ GH/s.

~snip~
this is a very good idea.
could i also connect the fans to my breakout using a 4 pin - 6 pci-e adapter (if there is one)?
i have now also ordered an usb meter

4-pin fans use PWM so you wouldn't need an adapter but technically, a PWM fan controller that takes 12V through a PCIe plug. I haven't yet seen something like this specifically, but you could get a Noctua NA-FC1, 4-Pin PWM Fan Controller for 25$ and a SATA to PCIe adapter for 5$. Or maybe skip the latter, just cut a spare PCIe cable and solder it to one of the NA-FC1's supplied 12V power input cables.
But I don't understand why wouldn't you just get a DC fan and plug it into the GekkoScience fan output or with a (easily to DIY) adapter into one of the extra USB ports? A fan pulls barely any power; probably around 1W, in case that's a concern.

[cygan]

✂

~snip~
this is a very good idea.
could i also connect the fans to my breakout using a 4 pin - 6 pci-e adapter (if there is one)?
i have now also ordered an usb meter

✂
But I don't understand why wouldn't you just get a DC fan and plug it into the GekkoScience fan output
✂

i didn't think of that
i will do it this way and connect my 140x140mm noctua fans to the gekko hub via the usb port provided.

[Cas1m1r]

In June I purchased the bitcoin merchant 3x Gekko Compac F combo with Raspberry Pi 4 preinstalled with cgminer.  I set and ran them at 400 MHz for two months before one mining stick failed.  I have since rotated their positions in the USB hub and the stick is still failed with blue on, red on, white off lites.  Is there additional troubleshooting?  Is there any warranty? Can the stick be repaired or should I just replace?  I am at 37,690 satoshi on Slushpool and can continue with the two stick miners.  I am a novice at desktop BTC mining.

[n0nce]

✂

~snip~
this is a very good idea.
could i also connect the fans to my breakout using a 4 pin - 6 pci-e adapter (if there is one)?
i have now also ordered an usb meter

✂
But I don't understand why wouldn't you just get a DC fan and plug it into the GekkoScience fan output
✂

i didn't think of that
i will do it this way and connect my 140x140mm noctua fans to the gekko hub via the usb port provided.

As long as they're 3-pin fans, they will plug straight into the hub's fan output - that will run them at full speed. To run at roughly half speed (5V instead of 12V) you can solder them to the end of a USB cable and plug them into USB. But you could also use a Noctua low-noise adapter instead, that is usually shipped with them.

Keep in mind if they're 4-pin, you will need a PWM fan controller of any kind.

[nullama]

~snip~
As long as they're 3-pin fans, they will plug straight into the hub's fan output - that will run them at full speed. To run at roughly half speed (5V instead of 12V) you can solder them to the end of a USB cable and plug them into USB. But you could also use a Noctua low-noise adapter instead, that is usually shipped with them.

Keep in mind if they're 4-pin, you will need a PWM fan controller of any kind.

Noctua has its own PWM fan controller, and it's awesome. The NA-FC1, it works really well. You can connect multiple fans to it, runs off 12V, you can control the fans either with a PWM signal or by hand turning the knob, and it takes very little space:

[n0nce]

~snip~
As long as they're 3-pin fans, they will plug straight into the hub's fan output - that will run them at full speed. To run at roughly half speed (5V instead of 12V) you can solder them to the end of a USB cable and plug them into USB. But you could also use a Noctua low-noise adapter instead, that is usually shipped with them.

Keep in mind if they're 4-pin, you will need a PWM fan controller of any kind.

Noctua has its own PWM fan controller, and it's awesome. The NA-FC1, it works really well. You can connect multiple fans to it, runs off 12V, you can control the fans either with a PWM signal or by hand turning the knob, and it takes very little space:

I know, I already recommended it!

you could get a Noctua NA-FC1, 4-Pin PWM Fan Controller

[algKS]

So I have my hands on 2 of these but I cannot get them to work.  My newpac's run fine and CGMiner will list them but not activate them.  I'm using an M1 MAC maybe out dated CGMiner?  Version is 4.11.1?  if that's it where are some good instructions on lasers version with Gekko compac f support? - Thanks!

[os2sam]

So I have my hands on 2 of these but I cannot get them to work.  My newpac's run fine and CGMiner will list them but not activate them.  I'm using an M1 MAC maybe out dated CGMiner?  Version is 4.11.1?  if that's it where are some good instructions on lasers version with Gekko compac f support? - Thanks!

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5355470.msg58200639#msg58200639

When in doubt read the top post.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

So I have my hands on 2 of these but I cannot get them to work.  My newpac's run fine and CGMiner will list them but not activate them.  I'm using an M1 MAC maybe out dated CGMiner?  Version is 4.11.1?  if that's it where are some good instructions on lasers version with Gekko compac f support? - Thanks!

As OS2sam said, read the top post. Full install instructions are here
on page 3 of this thread.

Ja your main problem is the old copy of cgminer as it does not have the driver (which Kano wrote) for the chip the F uses. His official git with his most recent update for it is here. In that update he also cleaned up code for the earlier Compacs as well as a few general cgminer bits.

[cygan]

so somehow the same third gekko compac f miner does not want to go to the desired mhz number.
when i start all 3 miners go in 5mhz steps up to the desired number and at some point the third miner stops (and that always at different mhz) and when he reaches the set mhz it does not take long and he falls back to the 200mhz again

now i also have a usb meter and all ports have <3a and all 3 miners are on 3 different rows - what else can i do so that the third miner can run stable?

Code:

0: GSF 10051796: BM1397:01+ 550.00MHz T:550 P:550 (23:12)  |  100% WU:100% | 417.4G / 349.3Gh/s WU:4880.2/m
1: GSF 10051622: BM1397:01+ 405.00MHz T:405 P:398 (31:16)  |  100% WU:100% | 274.7G / 234.3Gh/s WU:3273.2/m
2: GSF 10051619: BM1397:01+ 550.00MHz T:550 P:550 (23:12)  |  100% WU:100% | 368.8G / 366.9Gh/s WU:5125.7/m

[sidehack]

Make sure it's staying cool
Turn up the voltage a bit

If you know you have adequate power and your controller is strong enough to run three sticks, that's the bulk of it.

[cygan]

Make sure it's staying cool
Turn up the voltage a bit

If you know you have adequate power and your controller is strong enough to run three sticks, that's the bulk of it.

how can i turn the voltage higher and what do you mean by the controller?
the gekko usb hub or the power supply?
and all 3 gekkos are cooled individually