FPGA/Asic Plug n Play Utility for CGMiner / BFGMiner

[infamousdutch]

FPGA/ASIC Port Scanner Mining Utility v. 0.39 by infamousDutch

This software is for miners mining on Windows that would like to use CGMiner or BFGMiner and enable it to scan for idle devices.
I know eventually they will add this functionality to already great software packages for Windows users, but if you do not want to wait until then (like me), use this.

This code is provided entirely free of charge by the programmer in his spare
time so donations would be greatly appreciated. Please consider donating to the
address below.

1M8VMoxLoDXJMAR1xM189Amo7UtofuE5Ff

Scans for idle devices(currently only BFL's Bitforce, but I will add more upon request) every 2 minutes and fires up a miner to start mining.
Currently supports cgminer and bfgminers.
Takes one parameter, the miner and mining parameters you wish to start up when a port is found to be open.

Example: fpgaScanner cgminer -c cgminer.conf --disable-gpu

Just copy fpgascanner.exe to the same folder as cgminer or bfgminer and start it with your miners configuration.

Software Requirements
Windows XP or newer
.NET Framework 4.0 Runtime  


Source code available here
https://github.com/infamousdutch/FPGAScanner

All feedback is appreciated, and I expect there to be a bug or two.
Post bugs and feedback here.

[1715672736]

1715672736

[Turbor]

Does this scan my wallet.dat too ?

[rjk]

Sauce pls

[danieldaniel]

Does this scan my wallet.dat too ?

LOL.  Probably.

[infamousdutch]

Does this scan my wallet.dat too ?

No man, this is just a super simple .net app that has a timer that scans all available com ports, if it finds one idle, it queries it and if the device returns "bitforce" then it fires up the parameter you specified.  I've been using the last week and thought I'd share.  I'll be throwing the source up on github later today and you guys can pull/compile that.

[infamousdutch]

Git repo now available at https://github.com/infamousdutch/FPGAScanner

[rjk]

Git repo now available at https://github.com/infamousdutch/FPGAScanner

I took a quick peek through the source, and it looks good. I'll compile it and give it a shot; looks like a useful tool.

[P_Shep]

Why don't you add it to cgminer?

[infamousdutch]

Why don't you add it to cgminer?

I never really thought about it. 

This was a quick utility to see if I could identify an idle mining device.  CGMiner already has a port scanner, but the code has not be adapted to run in Win32 land.  I'm willing to give you a hand with this, but my C++ is a little (meaning VERY) rough.   I could probably hack out the code needed to iterate through the ports and feed them to the existing code.  I think I would need help with the timer thread.

[rjk]

Yeah C# is a bitch to port over to a multiplatform C/C++ codebase unless you feel like rewriting all the associated libraries too.

[infamousdutch]

Yeah C# is a bitch to port over to a multiplatform C/C++ codebase unless you feel like rewriting all the associated libraries too.

It's really just identifying the win32 library to retrieve all active serial ports and iterate through them, calling CreateFile to identify which devices are idle, and then sending a message to the device and reading it's response to see what type of device....  I'll hack it if someone else doesn't step up.

[P_Shep]

Look at the cgminer code, there's a lot already there.

[infamousdutch]

I updated the utility to be compatible with BFL's new asic line, as the return string has changed with their new product line.  Please let me know if anyone wants me to add support for any other hardware.