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Topic: Asteroid -- a new Mac mining client (0.9.7) - page 6. (Read 46464 times)

newbie
Activity: 52
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Excellent news!
wlwesq, are you using Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) on those machines?

No, just 10.8.4. I haven't felt the urge to get into the OS X beta (yet).  Cool
hero member
Activity: 1246
Merit: 501
I'm getting half the hashrate issue with cgminer 3.3.1 on Windows (downloaded from the official place earlier this evening).  Maybe it's just a cgminer issue rather than your build?

member
Activity: 109
Merit: 10
But let me ask since you brought it up, and I'm honestly very interested, what do you find you like in bfgminer that you don't see in cgminer?

Well, for me it is simply that I have an ASIC and corresponding drivers installed, so I can freely switch between bfgminer and BitMinter client, but as soon as I want to use cgminer, I have to remove kernel extensions and reboot, which is a little bit inconvenient Smiley
The next version of Asteroid will offer to temporarily disable those drivers on the fly, and then re-enable them for you when you quit.  No restarting, no mucking with files, all automatic. Cheesy

In the meantime I saved the relevant code as an applet for yourself or others to turn on/off the com.silabs.driver.CP210xVCPDriver drivers without rebooting.  It works quite well!  I use it for testing Asteroid and how it plays with other miners.  You can download it here: Toggle USB to UART.app.
member
Activity: 109
Merit: 10
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Excellent news!
wlwesq, are you using Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) on those machines?
newbie
Activity: 52
Merit: 0
Yes, the rate displayed in Asteroid is just a UI bug due to multiple identically-named miners.  The half-hashrate being reported to the pool (only with USB devices) seems to be a problem with my cgminer binaries and is definitely a serious bug for anyone doing USB-based mining with Asteroid now.  However, I've narrowed down the problem and should have a fix ready soon! Smiley

I'll roll it out to the cgminer for Mac OS X binaries I maintain for the community too.

Excellent news!
member
Activity: 109
Merit: 10
Yes, the rate displayed in Asteroid is just a UI bug due to multiple identically-named miners.  The half-hashrate being reported to the pool (only with USB devices) seems to be a problem with my cgminer binaries and is definitely a serious bug for anyone doing USB-based mining with Asteroid now.  However, I've narrowed down the problem and should have a fix ready soon! Smiley

I'll roll it out to the cgminer for Mac OS X binaries I maintain for the community too.
newbie
Activity: 52
Merit: 0
Just a quick update. For grins I switched mining pools to BTC Guild, and the "only half the hash rate is showing up" experience remains. The console shows otherwise, but both Asteroid and the pool are reporting roughly half of the rate the console reports.

So, at least we know it's not something tied to a particular pool (unless both Eligius and BTC Guild have the same issue, whatever it is).
newbie
Activity: 52
Merit: 0
It is interesting, definitely, and curious. The miner output window shows everything is kosher. Yet the pool (and the Asteroid GUI) show half of the hash rate. Doesn't make sense, and I'll look forward to what you find out. Thanks!  Smiley
member
Activity: 109
Merit: 10
Interesting, thanks for the update wlwesq.  I think you're on to something, as I seem to confirm it here as well (normal hash rates reported, but only half being reported by the pool).  I spent most of yesterday trying to isolate the problem and will continue looking today as well. Smiley  Signs point to perhaps my compilation of cgminer, which I'm currently troubleshooting.  Asteroid itself (the GUI) doesn't seem to have a direct effect at all.  I'll let you know, and thanks again!

EDIT: The cgminer build used by MacMiner appears to have the same issue.  Bfgminer seems to be unaffected.  Still investigating...
newbie
Activity: 52
Merit: 0
To help illustrate, here's the link to my stats where you can see the 600-700 range using MacMiner's FPGA/ASIC option and then the lower range using Asteroid and cgminer.

http://eligius.st/~wizkid057/newstats/userstats.php/1BoCjgNQmsc8EK3Fmo1QgBjwuUTsy5ys66

I'll try to quiet down and be less of a pest now.  Wink
newbie
Activity: 52
Merit: 0
I'll do some tests on the rates reported by the pools, although it's been my experience that they typically under-report hash rates and shouldn't be seen as very accurate.  Have you seen accurate hash rates reported by that pool with those same devices in other mining programs?   Your logs show you averaging 625MH/s and the number of submitted shares looks good for your hash rate.  Nonetheless, I'll of course double check.  Thanks again! Cheesy

Oops, forgot to answer this question!

Yes, hash rates reported by Eligius (and other pools) with these devices in MacMiner have reported in the 660 Mh/s range (2x330).

But, the rates in MacMiner were using the FPGA/ASIC miner that he has built in, not cgminer. Perhaps that's the difference?
newbie
Activity: 52
Merit: 0
Here's some more info, which I think is good.

On a whim (and on a different laptop, the one at home) I plugged one miner in, launched Asteroid, and fired it up. After it was up and running, I plugged the second one in.

At this point, the Asteroid window went kablooey--the two miner bars got written on top of the overall bar, so it's a bit messed up UI wise. But, the console shows definitely higher hash rates more along the lines of what I have seen using Bitminter, for example.

So, other than the UI problem that I "discovered" I'd say things are looking up!  Grin
member
Activity: 109
Merit: 10
Oh, forgot to mention--if I have just one of the miners plugged in, it runs at about 250 Mh/s rather than 300+.

Very strange indeed!
Awesome, thanks for the reports and log files!  It looks like they're mostly UI bugs.  With what you provided I should be able to clean it up easily enough (looks like it just gets confused with identically internally named devices).

I'll do some tests on the rates reported by the pools, although it's been my experience that they typically under-report hash rates and shouldn't be seen as very accurate.  Have you seen accurate hash rates reported by that pool with those same devices in other mining programs?   Your logs show you averaging 625MH/s and the number of submitted shares looks good for your hash rate.  Nonetheless, I'll of course double check.  Thanks again! Cheesy
newbie
Activity: 52
Merit: 0
Oh, forgot to mention--if I have just one of the miners plugged in, it runs at about 250 Mh/s rather than 300+.

Very strange indeed!
newbie
Activity: 52
Merit: 0
OK, here's something odd I've observed running on two different Macs.

I'm using a pair of the USB miners. In the "Asteroid" window, both ASICMINER options are checked.

The lower one is labeled 1, the upper is labeled 2.

I start the mining, and things spin up (so to speak).

Block 1 shows it is tooling along at around 300+ Mh/s. Block 2 shows it is "starting."

If I uncheck Block 2, everything comes to a halt--zero Mh/s on both, and they both show "stopped."

Yet, the Miner Console shows the thing is still working.

Odd, no?

Here's the other weird thing. I would expect that if both miners are running that the speed would be 600+ Mh/s, but the pool stats show it's only half that amount.

I'll send a bug report directly to you, Karin.
member
Activity: 109
Merit: 10
I've had a bunch of requests in the last couple hours, you should all have received invites now.  And thanks! Smiley
newbie
Activity: 52
Merit: 0
If you're in need of more beta testers, I've got a couple of MacBook Pros that I can test on, along with two of the ASIC USB miners.
member
Activity: 109
Merit: 10
But let me ask since you brought it up, and I'm honestly very interested, what do you find you like in bfgminer that you don't see in cgminer?

Well, for me it is simply that I have an ASIC and corresponding drivers installed, so I can freely switch between bfgminer and BitMinter client, but as soon as I want to use cgminer, I have to remove kernel extensions and reboot, which is a little bit inconvenient Smiley
Fair enough!  I actually am in the same boat with one of my mining machines, as I have other USB devices that need to run (unrelated to mining).  I think I know of an elegant way to handle this though.  I'll see what I can include in the next version Wink
full member
Activity: 140
Merit: 100
But let me ask since you brought it up, and I'm honestly very interested, what do you find you like in bfgminer that you don't see in cgminer?

Well, for me it is simply that I have an ASIC and corresponding drivers installed, so I can freely switch between bfgminer and BitMinter client, but as soon as I want to use cgminer, I have to remove kernel extensions and reboot, which is a little bit inconvenient Smiley
member
Activity: 109
Merit: 10
Will you add bfgminer support too?
Asteroid has all the hooks for multiple miners, and it's not the first time I've been asked about it, but it would require additional time to maintain a universal binary version of bfgminer and some time to test compatibility.  Time that would take me away from maintaining cgminer and Asteroid.  But that being said I'm not averse to doing so if the demand is there.

The other side of that is a smooth user experience for the target audience, which are everyday users who don't need to be saturated with details (I'm thinking similar to the BitMinter audience, but on any pool and a cleaner UI).  Again, that's somewhat of a cop-out but I can't ignore that KISS is a strong design principle for this project.

But let me ask since you brought it up, and I'm honestly very interested, what do you find you like in bfgminer that you don't see in cgminer?
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