(OLD) BFGMiner: modular FPGA/GPU, GBT, Stratum, RPC, Avalon/Lnx/OpnWrt/PPA/W64

[bitpop]

Ok thx, ive always liked slush, tried others numerous times but always came back.

[burger]

Thanx for all the progress on your miner software!!!

[kano]

Ok thx, ive always liked slush, tried others numerous times but always came back.

Like most things bad for you - people never kick the habit.

Meanwhile, I don't expect Luke-jr will actually implement stratum since he said it sucks and said no one needs anything but GBT

[Luke-Jr]

I've prepared a pre-beta "stratum" branch on the git repository with some minor cleanups and enhancements.
It also contains a workaround (in the form of improved RPC backward compatibility) for Puppet Master's "switching back and forth between pools rapidly" issue that cgminer has had since adding Stratum support.
Test this at your own risk, and report problems (and successes) on this thread. I probably won't merge it into mainline BFGMiner until the 2.9.0 release.
Windows EXE (drop in directory with the DLLs from the usual 2.8.2 ZIP): http://luke.dashjr.org/tmp/code/bfgminer-ba17775.exe

[dscotese]

I'm helping soniq out, and you asked him to try:
 

Code:

bfgminer -D -T -d

The output is:
 [2012-10-09 14:57:43] bfgminer.exe: -d: requires an argument

[bitpop]

Thank you amazing miner

[dscotese]

Luke, here's the output I got by removing the -d from the command line: http://pastebin.com/6te35me0

We're using the version 2.8.2, and we tried with -dall and -d all but in both cases it said it was an invalid device.  We removed that arg altogether to get the output in that pastebin.  Also, we're on a 64-bit Windows 7 machine, though the BFGMiner says it's for Win32.  That shouldn't be a problem, right?

[Luke-Jr]

I'm helping soniq out, and you asked him to try:
 

Code:

bfgminer -D -T -d

The output is:
 [2012-10-09 14:57:43] bfgminer.exe: -d: requires an argument

There's a question mark in that command:

Code:

bfgminer -D -T -d?

[yigga]

thx, good update

[mezzomix]

I tested the stratum branch with a mix of stratum pools and GBT pools. bfgminer seems to have the same problem as cgminer (see my cgminer post https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=28402.msg1259342#msg1259342). Only the first stratum pool is alive the second one is dead. If the GBT pool ist the first one, both stratum pools are dead.

Mining with the diablo kernel and my test GPU, I started with an intensity of 9. This give me a hashrate of 3MH/s and a CPU utilisation of 70%. Changing the intensity to higher values, I get more hashes and less CPU utilisation with every step. With a intensity of 20 I get 2% CPU utilisation and > 20MH/s. The mining engine seems to run and I get new block updates from time to time, but the miner never finds any share. Compared to cgminer with a hashrate of 11MH/s the hashrate seems to be too high for this my (AMD E350 Zacate). Changing to a GBT pool (elgius.st) does not help - still no shares.

[soniq]

Ok, got my issues resolved with BFG not detecting BFL single, an error in BFL driver install.   

But still having issues with BFG crashing and freezing computer. Seems to be heat related, everytime GPU reach 81C , BFG  shut down GPU's then shuts down or freezes computer.

From what I read 81C is warm, but not hot.  If I keep the GPU temps below 80C(open window wider here in Canada) the miner software runs fine

Is there a way to correct this? would like to close window and heat part of the house with the heat.

Larry

[The00Dustin]

From what I read 81C is warm, but not hot.  If I keep the GPU temps below 80C(open window wider here in Canada) the miner software runs fine

Depends on your GPU.  I have one that locks up before 75C.

[Luke-Jr]

Ok, got my issues resolved with BFG not detecting BFL single, an error in BFL driver install.   

But still having issues with BFG crashing and freezing computer. Seems to be heat related, everytime GPU reach 81C , BFG  shut down GPU's then shuts down or freezes computer.

From what I read 81C is warm, but not hot.  If I keep the GPU temps below 80C(open window wider here in Canada) the miner software runs fine

Is there a way to correct this? would like to close window and heat part of the house with the heat.

I don't think BFGMiner should be trying to shut down the computer by default - are you sure it isn't the GPU hardware overheating and doing crazy things?

[Luke-Jr]

Fixed solo mining via GBT, but it really needs a couple of competent code reviews and some good testing (I suggest on testnet for now).

I've built a Windows ZIP (note that this is NOT compatible with the libblkmaker DLL in 2.8.2!): http://luke.dashjr.org/tmp/code/bfgminer-e333074-win32.zip - the code is in the "gbt_solo" git branch.

To test solo mining, run a recent bitcoind or Bitcoin-Qt (I suggest next-test for longpolling support) and start (this branch of) BFGMiner similar to this:

Code:

bfgminer -o localhost:8332 -O rpcuser:rpcpassword --coinbase-addr 1bitcoinaddress

[hashking]

I was checking with you when you will be including the x6500 in bfgminer. 

[Luke-Jr]

I was checking with you when you will be including the x6500 in bfgminer.

I've been busy with everything a lot over the past few months, but I have the code partially done. As nelisky mentioned, it is a lot of code/work compared to other FPGAs. As soon as I have something usable for mining, I will post a beta. I expect this should be within the next 2 weeks, and will definitely make it a priority to get it done before ASICs.

[cablepair]

possible bug to report:

I am seeing 2.8.2 crash on multiple linux machines about once every 24 hours

by crash I mean it just closes itself one min you see shares being accepted the next min you see  $ command prompt - no error msg given



 dont know if its a segmentation fault or what but it happens once a day

[Mobius]

possible bug to report:

I am seeing 2.8.2 crash on multiple linux machines about once every 24 hours

by crash I mean it just closes itself one min you see shares being accepted the next min you see  $ command prompt - no error msg given



 dont know if its a segmentation fault or what but it happens once a day

You might want to switch to cgminer and avoid these issues https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=28402.0

[Luke-Jr]

possible bug to report:
I am seeing 2.8.2 crash on multiple linux machines about once every 24 hours
by crash I mean it just closes itself one min you see shares being accepted the next min you see  $ command prompt - no error msg given
 dont know if its a segmentation fault or what but it happens once a day

This doesn't help identify or fix the problem at all. Please get some information and open an Issue. I suggest building with CFLAGS="-ggdb -O0" (add this onto the ./autogen.sh line) and running with "ulimit -c unlimited; valgrind bfgminer <your options> --debuglog 2>debug.log"

You might want to switch to cgminer and avoid these issues https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=28402.0

No, most of such issues tend to come from cgminer-originated changes. Also, cablepair is presumably using ModMiner devices, which cgminer doesn't work with at all (because they stopped merging updates to the driver before the production devices existed).

[kano]

...
Also, cablepair is presumably using ModMiner devices, which cgminer doesn't work with at all (because they stopped merging updates to the driver before the production devices existed).

You really should actually check some of the things you say ...
instead of making up stuff ...
You didn't send pull requests for fixing MMQ ...

First Modminer commit merged Tue Jun 12 03:02:39 2012 -0700 from pull request 219
https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/pull/219
https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/commit/76f96f4717a113129b9b3482acae8b40ff45871d

Merge Jun 12 19:55:37 2012 -0700 of pull request 221
https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/pull/221
https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/commit/67611949dcef3a36986c88d894a2c4dd6726ab8c

Merge Jun 13 17:16:27 2012 -0700 of pull request 223
https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/pull/223
https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/commit/8f76d15fae3c3107747691838deb20d4c2ff0696

Merge Jun 19 04:42:32 2012 -0700 of pull request 227
https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/pull/227
https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/commit/f70577b09731b665e46779fe3449edb1d9c20afa

They are the pull requests you sent for MMQ - where are the ones that were rejected?
I checked up to the 23rd of July Pull Request
https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/pull/271

Before I got bored looking for them - were they hidden somewhere after that?