So, perhaps I can get this post moved from the newbies forum over to the appropriate one at some point. But in the interim, I'd like to post some of the issues that I've been experiencing with the Block Erupter Cube.
For the last couple of weeks, the cube had been operating just like it was supposed to. I was channeling it through a bfgminer proxy, and all was well. I started noticing that it was resetting itself to the "Low" clock speed, and after attempting to set it "High" and not having it stick for more than a few hours, I just let it continue running on "Low"
Another week passes, and I notice one morning that the cube isn't running. The power supply that feeds it is happily spinning its fan, and the "SB PWR" light is lit on the cube, but nothing else seems to be. I toggle the power off and on, and cube boots up and begins running again, hashing at the normal rate just like it should. But around five hours later, it's off again.
I read on here that some of the blades of the cube might be misaligned and indeed they did appear to be nudged outside of their intended grooves in the case. So I took everything out (including the "Block Erupter" sticker which had for some reason fallen inside) made sure nothing looked burnt, replugged all the cards, and carefully slid it all back into its case. I swapped from the old fuse to the other one (nice of them to send along two), and powered it up.
Five minutes later, it's off. It never even got warm!
So I begin the task of trying to debug the thing further. I perform a factory reset (just hold down the reset button while it's powered on and wait until it flashes) and let it sit running but idle on my desk, just to observe it.
After around 60 seconds, I notice the activity light start flashing, and then there is an audible "click" and the unit powers off. The case is cold to the touch (since it never even started hashing, I didn't have it plugged into the network). The big fan is still running, the "SB PWR" light is on, but for all other intents and purposes the unit lies dead. I repeat this a few times just to verify it's going to continue shutting itself off cold, and indeed it does.
So I've ruled out overheating. The power supply is good (but just in case I did indeed try another one temporarily). Cooling is adequate. The bloody thing just won't stay running!
Now, there's a USB port on the back of this thing which the promotional material label as "for debugging and firmware updates". However, I notice there is a distinct lack of information on just what "debugging" entails.
Has anyone gotten some sort of console or memory dump via USB? What did you do?
I see that some other people are experiencing the "click of death" on their cubes as well. Many are reporting "X" on the status interface. In the short amount of time that I can actually access the status page, I don't see anything marked as "X".
I'm going to try removing all of the blades and replacing them one at a time to see if I can narrow it down to either an individual blade, or an individual slot that causes the failure.
The software that is actually running on the cube SEEMS to be shutting it down deliberately (at least that's what I take the flashing of the status light to mean, before it clicks and shuts down). I would love to be able to debug a REASON from the machine. And the only method of debugging is that USB port and its mysterious uses!
