Strange Block Erupter Problem

[notbatman]

I'm wondering if anybody has any ideas on what's going on here...

Hoping to win the lotto I'm trying to solo mine BTC with 12x USB Block Erupters. I had my hopes on a 2Th/s miner from Black Arrow but they just stole my money like most ASIC companies do, anyways...

I've got them plugged into 2x Treefrog USB hubs and they've been solo mining for the last month without any problems. But a few days ago I noticed the Erupters on one of the hubs were bugging out, blinking weird etc.

So I unplugged them and swapped the AC power adapters. It turned out one of the AC adapters had gone flaky but not completely dead. I searched for a replacement but couldn't find one so I left the 6x Erupters on the one hub off-line and continued to mine with the remaining 6x (it's not like 2Gh/s is going make a difference at 34.7G).

Yesterday the remaining 6x Erupters bugged out with the same symptoms. So I figure the hub manufacturer had designed the AC power adapters to burn out after a certain amount of usage. Kind of like what auto manufacturers do.

So I chopped the cables to the AC adapters and spliced them onto the 5V lines from an old Compaq desktop switching PSU.

I then plugged it all in and fired up Bitcoin Core, the miner and all 12x Erupters hashed away with no problems...

...however, after about an hour I noticed them start to bug out again. They're currently still working but I'm getting a 70% HW error rate.

I can't figure out what's going on. I made no changes to my software or hardware setup prior to the problem and the Erupters are cooled with a fan so I doubt the problem stems from overheating.

[notbatman]

I've reduced the number of BE's to 5x per hub and they're now hashing without any problems. I'm still confused as to how 6x per hub were able to run for an hour before flaking out and why both of the AC adapters failed.

[DebitMe]

Can you link to amazon which hub you are using?  The problem is probably not with the power cord but with the hub.  Unfortunately I do not know which hub the "TreeFrog" is, but if you link it I can tell you more about it.

You are probably trying to pull too many amps and/or volts through your hub.  I had the same problem when I first got my block eruptors and had 5 of them on a crappy little USB hub (Did not know about the power requirements and figured they would run anywhere).  They ran fine for a few days, then started having the same problems your describing, basically I melted some of the interior components of the USB hub by pulling too much power through them.

That would be my guess and would explain why when you reduce the number of units (less power being pulled) they all work again.  I would go out and find a 10 port Rosewill hub (they are like $10 now on amazon) and that should work fine to run 9 units no problem.

[notbatman]

http://www.shoptoit.ca/tree-frog-usb-10-port/27150845/#STIDetailedSpecs

I've been running the BEs with these hubs since October 2013 with no issues.

[DebitMe]

Hmm, I kind find the specifications for that anywhere. Does the side of the box say the number of amps and volts that it can support?

[notbatman]

Hmm, I kind find the specifications for that anywhere. Does the side of the box say the number of amps and volts that it can support?

Nothing on the hub itself but the old AC adapter says 5V * 3.5A =  17.5W.

Perhaps the BEs were drawing more power than the AC adapter was rated for, for too long.

This is the best explanation I can come up with, but it really doesn't explain everything going on here. It really seems like the BEs are using a lot more power this last week for some reason.

Since I dropped the number of BEs to 10x 5 hours ago they've been hashing flawlessly (0.5% HW error) with the desktop PSU powering the hubs. The PSU is at least 350W so I can't understand how 12x BEs are too much for it.

[notbatman]

3.33Gh/s now running 13.5 hours with a 0.53% HW error rate. BS:1.93M.

I'm going to put on my tinfoil hat for a minute...



There's a lot of unseen energy that surrounds $10k worth of BTC, the unobservable energy is rooted in the electromagnetic spectrum and can and does interact with electrical equipment.

It's possible I'm about to hit a block and that this is the cause of my unusual power supply issues. I'm game for a more rational explanation though.

I'll post a screenshot as soon as it hits. 

[hotwired007]

Could be heat? have you got fans blowing on the miners?

[Daengineer]

Could be heat? have you got fans blowing on the miners?

You'd see a great decrease in processing speed across the board. Sounds like you are overloading your power-supply if your AC adapters fired out

[vm1990]

i got the same problem with cheap dlink hubs. turns out one of the ports on the hub went flaky. takes a while normally a few hours for the port to crap its self out. i personally have them wired into a 550w PSU, but at the same time i also know that alot of hubs simply cant handle the amount of current going through all the ports when bitcoin mining with USB ASICs. so it could be a faulty port or it could be the simple fact the USB hubs have said enough is enough im not working at 100% anymore go stuff yourself... after all mining tests and stresses all hardware to the limits and beyond.

[hotwired007]

Can you post a pic of your setup?

[FUR11]

Huh, really seems like the power supply isn't powerful enough to support your setup! The most common issue with weirdly malfunctioning USB miners is a malfunctioning or under-performing power supply. Maybe your new setup was working initially but then the PSU got too hot or other components began to draw more power from it?