Topic: Announcing GekkoScience's new USB stick miner, the aptly-named NewPac - page 2. (Read 27870 times)

Are there any plans for restocking NewPac?

Is it a hardware question or a software question?

Hi Everyone,

I need to contact VH or Sidehack for a dev question on GekkoScience Mining USB stick.
is it possible than they contact me?

Many Thanks for your help
Near

Thanks Sidehack!
Poor communication on my part
I can't run beyond one hub is how it should have read
I limit 6 six sticks per hub with two USB fans in my configuration of the hubs with the Newpacs
The Pi 4 freaks out if I plug in more hubs including the one with the two 2-Pacs while the first one is running
If I boot with all hubs attached, cgminer boots and freezes, in turn freezing the Pi4
I was able to exit once and the exit screen was full of kernel panics
I can copy the folder onto a usb key but unsure how to recompile with the Pi4
As per your previous suggestion, I am running the Newpacs at a higher rate (300mhz) and they run perfectly
Heat sink temps are around 88F
All help appreciated, thanks again!  

If you've already downloaded it to the 3b+, just copy the folder across and recompile.

Also, depending on what your speed settings are, it's difficult to run more than 6 sticks on a Gekko hub anyway because the D/1 port power also powers the hub electronics so if you pull too much there the hub's brain will start flaking out. Something like 400MHz on near-stock voltage should be possible but it depends on the chips.

@vh
Just purchased a Pi 4 to run the 18 Newpacs & two 2-pacs on 4 Gekko hubs but having some grief
Git pull & install was easy as with the 3b+ as outlined from Page 1 on the other main forum
However I have problems running beyond 6 Newpacs on one Gekko hub
Freezing, kernel panics, etc
The Pi 4 setup is from Canakit & the 4gb version
Is it possible to download the cgminer from around March 07, 2019 for installation on the Pi4 to try?
3b+ back online hashing perfectly with that version.

@merlin3650
I had some measurements a little further into the thread.  
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.47766551
I'll bring some of those numbers back to the first post in a moment or two.


@evade_57
For each device, cgminer spins up a dedicated set of supporting threads.  So they are suppose to work like their own instances.

In general, it's okay to mix until you run out of share resources, (cpu, memory, bandwidth, power).

A miner that doesn't behave can potentially draw resources away from healthy ones which:
- can affect other miners sharing the same regulator.
- can affect other miners sharing the same cgminer instance.

Probably good to group them in a meaningful way to control the collateral devices that are effected, should you need to:
- troubleshoot / tune a miner.
- restart cgminer.
- move the hub.
- change pools.
- restart the computer.

"Each USB connection is a separate device."
Thanks sidehack!  

@ merlin - 141W here using 18 NewPac's at 250Mhz and two 2-Pac's at 100Mhz for 1.043T/hs. I use two Arctic USB fans on each GS hub. One RP3+ is runnnig all four GS hubs using a passive USB 2 hub to hook up everything. Easy on the ears and the power bill....

Had to laugh about the blinky lights, best selling factor!  Hmmm miss those light shows.

Thanks for the response. And yes, I too saw the graph at the beginning of this thread. I was just wondering how much power peoples home mining rigs used.

I was just about to say something snarky about there being a table in the NewPac Support thread (https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/gekkoscience-newpac-terminus-r606-bm1387-official-support-thread-5053833) but it only goes up to about 300MHz so that's not directly helpful.

However, since most sticks will run up to 400-500MHz on the stock voltage setting, you can probably extrapolate fairly accurately. At 300MHz it's listed as about 6.8W so 400MHz would be about 9W and 500MHz at 11.3W
For a typical stick, 15W should be enough to get past 600MHz though you might have to up the Vcore a little for stability.

The actual power draw will depend a lot on the efficacy of your cooling, as demonstrated by that the passive-cooled power draw at 125MHz is larger than the cooled draw at 200MHz. These sticks like to be kept cold.

SO, now that everyone has had a chance to overclock the NewPacs, can someone tell me how many watts are needed at the 400-500mhz setting?

Each USB connection is a separate device.

The pool sees a single miner because there's one instance of cgminer with a single connection to the pool as a single worker. If you used multiple instances pointed to the same worker it'd be the same. If you use different pool workers, one for each instance of cgminer, you can get per-connection stats.

The R606 is capable of higher speeds than six NewPacs even on a GS hub. The Vcore regulator on the R606 is good for 20A while the NewPac's main regulator can run 17A (at a bit lower efficiency), and NewPacs shouldn't be run at more than 3A input current, meaning more power is available to the chips in the R606 so the theoretical peak hashrate is higher.

VH can answer the question about mixing on hubs better, but overall it shouldn't have much effect. The main limits are power and USB throughput. Both sticks can draw the same power so that's not an issue. NewPacs run a higher hashrate so USB throughput is increased, but hubs use a bit more efficient packet structure so it shouldn't be possible to hit the throughput cap with only stickminers on a single hub, especially if you're using an ASICBoost-capable pool because that reduces USB traffic to AB-enabled devices by about 70%. As long as you keep everything cool there shouldn't be a problem.

---

@ vh regarding CGminer and GS devices
Does one instance of CGminer running many Newpacs equate to one device to the CGminer itself internally?
Or is it the string of chips that determine one device?
The pool sees it as one miner o/c
I'm assuming the R606 is more powerful & efficient with 12 chips in series as compared to 2 chips in series times 6 on one GS hub
Does the mixing of Newpacs & 2-Pacs on the same GS hub impact performance on hashing or should they be run separately with another Pi? The numbers look fine
Newbie questions  

The GS hub neither draws power from the upstream bus, nor returns power to the upstream bus.

Does it matter if the 4 port USB hub have external power with 3 GekkoScience hubs plugged into it?
The 4 port hub is plugged into a RPI3+
Seems to be a some issues with 3rd party hubs back powering the RP
I unplugged the 4 port hub to let it hash overnight with the eighteen NP's
Nothing else will be plugged into the 4 port hub
I don't want to damage the PP or the GS hubs

Yes that was a typo, glad you got the right one in the end. A happy mistake which means you're on the road and hashing away.

On closer inspection it seems you are correct. I requested a usb 3.0 type b cable from my local hardware shop but they seem to have given me a usb 2.0 type b cable instead. Not complaining though since it is exactly what i needed.  


Maybe you meant usb 3 type B connector?

I think youre a bit confused. The usb2 type B connector is what is fitted to the hub. Sidehack doesnt make simple mistakes like that. So either youve got a usb2 type B or its been mislabelled, as you can see from the pictures in the link above that the usb3 type B has an “extra” bit on the too which would not fit the hub.

Just bought a USB 3.0 A-B connecter and it seems to be working with the gekko hub. Cgminer is picking up both my newpacs and they are running fine so far. I have to say though the "USB 2" label on the gekko hub is a bit misleading because if someone actually tried to use a USB 2.0 A-B connector it would not fit into the usb port on the hub. Maybe it should be relabelled to "USB 3.0" in future versions?