Topic: Asteroid -- a new Mac mining client (0.9.7) - page 5. (Read 46449 times)

Version 0.9.3 now out -- download

Should fix the problem with USB-based miners not generating all the work they should be due to flaky libusb libraries interacting with cgminer on Mac OS.  I've actually had to downgrade the version included with Asteroid, but it seems to work well.  You can expect ~40% more credit from pools and more consistent hashrates.  Although please let me know how it goes

Still some known issues, the biggest of which are a couple of UI issues surrounding multiple identical devices (even though Asteroid says it's not working, it really is -- check the miner console), and adding a device while Asteroid is running.

I intended helping with the beta, but I never got my Hackintosh working properly. 

But, good news is I just ordered a MacBook Pro, which should be here tomorrow.  I'll certainly be trying out Asteroid with some Block Erupters as soon as I can.

Asteroid is now in public beta!
Thank you to all the private beta testers who helped get Asteroid to where it is now!  I'm constantly blown away by all the emails and texts I get from people interested and offering to help.

You can download the latest version here.

Biggest new feature is MobileMiner support!  Now you can monitor Asteroid and all your devices from your iOS or Android-based smartphone.  Here's a screenshot of MobileMiner showing stats from Asteroid:



Automatic software updates will keep you up to date with Asteroid automatically.  Also, use the in-app "Send Feedback" command to send me any bugs, comments, and/or suggestions, as that will also automatically include the relevant debugging log files I need to solve any problems.

There are a few major known bugs with this current release:

1) Some USB-based devices are generating about 60% of the work they should be, despite showing a normal hashrate in Asteroid.  This is the biggest development priority right now, and with help from the cgminer devs I've tracked the error down to an included library that I'm currently putting through the wringer.  Asteroid will alert you after hashing for 30 minutes if it detects you are subject to this bug, with a few questions to help me narrow down the problem.  You may also check your pool's stats page to see if they're seeing the same hashrate as Asteroid tells you, or if it is low and therefore subject to this bug.

1) UI bug when plugging in new USB-based devices.
Workaround: Plug in device before starting Asteroid, or ignore the problem for now

2) UI bug with multiple identical mining devices
Workaround: none, but rest assured that Asteroid is still mining with them (see the in-app miner console for details)

I've also updated the first post with more screenshots.

Sent a PM, very interested to beta test and dig into the software's functionnality to eventualy make it crash then bug report.

Please get back to me :)

I have a ModMiner Quad device that I'd test the software on. Let me know how to get the software if you want me to test it.

I'd like to beta test if spots are still open

Will do. The different hashing rates is with ASICs. CGMiner was producing hash rates around 330 Mh/s per ASIC, but the pool was reporting rates about 60% of that figure.

Am interesting in testing. i have 2 ATi 7950 working in a Mac Pro..

Thanks.

Hey, interesting to hear about the different hashing rates, is this with ASICs or GPU mining, and what rates were you seeing with cgminer?

The 1.4.6 beta version of MacMiner updates bfgminer to a version slightly newer than the 3.1.3 release (as a few bugs were fixed afterwards) and BFG Miner and FPGA/ASIC Miner should automatically restart if it stops unexpectedly. Please give that a shot and let me know how it goes for you!

It appears the BFGMiner definitely has better performance in terms of what it's reporting to the pools, but it's still a bit slow.

Within the miner I'll get 660-680 MH/s, but only about 580-600 are getting reported by the pool.

This is observed using MacMiner 1.3.17 (which may not be the latest build or official release version).

In MacMiner, the FPGA/ASIC miner works great except that every once in a while it'll just stop. I can set up a notification for idle workers but it always happens when I'm at work and can't take the hour round trip to restart the buggers.  

Hopefully the BFGMiner will run with greater stability, even if I'm losing several dozen hashes/second. Better that than huge swaths of downtime.

ive been finding bfgminer has better performance on mac aswell

I've seen a similar problem.  I only have 1 usb asic, when running under asteroid or cgminer on osx the pool gets only about 1/2 speed, but if I take the same asic & run it on my PC I get full speed out of it.  Looks to me the problem is with cgminer and number of asics doesn't matter.  I will be trying bfgminer on osx this evening if time allows.

Well, this didn't take long. Plugging the "slow" device directly into the USB port on the laptop had no effect on the speed reported to the pool.

I guess the next step is to swap the two devices to see if one of them is defective in some fashion... 

This may or may not help the search for answers, but here's a further observation.

My "slow" USB device is running off of a powered hub (USB 2.0) hooked into a MacBook Pro (mid-2009 15" 2.8 GHz).

My other USB device is running off of a MacBook Pro (early 2013, 13"), no hub, and seems to be reporting the correct hash rates to the pool.

I'm going to plug the "slow" one directly into the mid-2009 MacBook Pro and see if it's any different. I'll report back what I find.

Enjoy the time away! 

I'm going to have a go at running the "slow" miner through a local stratum proxy, too - see if that helps? 

Yeah, I agree, although it's proving difficult to pinpoint how/why the number of shares produced is lower, especially when the local hashrates are just fine.  I've got a few more ideas I'm following up on.

I could be away for up to four days this weekend, but development will resume asap. 

OK, plugged the miner in to a USB2 port before I left for work this morning.  BTCGuild is now reporting 233MH/s, so it looks like the miner is working better in a USB2 port.

Must be a USB driver issue... 

Correct.

Hardware is: AMD [email protected], 8GB DDR3-1600 RAM, Asus SABERTOOTH 990FX, Windows 7 x64.  Erupter is plugged in to a USB3 port, which on this board runs off an ASMedia chip.

Mining all night on BTCGuild sees 91MH/s, cgminer reports 333MH/s. 

I've not had a chance to fire up my Hackintosh to try Asteroid.

Just so I understand, are you seeing half the hashrate reported by your pool, but full speed reported by your miner?  And what mining hardware are you using if you don't mind the question?

Now that's rather odd. You'd think given Windows's prevalence that folks would be discussing it already, but maybe very few have two USB miners plugged into the same computer. Fortunately, I've been able to plug one into the laptop at home and one into the laptop at work, so I'm covered.

Edited to add: Still, each hardware device is reporting roughly half speed to the pool, even from separate computers. Sorry for the confusion!