Topic: GekkoScience 2Pac/Compac BM1384 Stickminer Official Support Thread - page 62. (Read 177422 times)

Turning off the USB hub is electrically equivalent to unplugging and replugging.

The biggest issue causing zombies is due to the two ASICs being powered in series. If they get too unbalanced (which could happen due to semiconductor spec, heat differentials, an uneven distribution of work or bad timing) one chip will get starved for power and lock up the whole works. This is less of a problem with wider strings because they'll tend to average out, but since this is one chip wide there's nothing to buffer except the node-level capacitors. When that happens, the options are to manually reset the string (which is difficult since there's no reset pad on this version) or unplug/replug (which is to say, power-cycle).

Any reasonably well-made OS will quickly realize a USB device has been disconnected when that USB device has all power cut off. If you can unplug an active device and your computer thinks it's still attached, you might consider hitting your computer with a bat.

If you read back a few pages, Sidehack says the sticks have a regulator on them. If that is tripped, the only thing you can do is unplug it to reset it. Now turning off the USB hub might also do that (try it), but if you just restart the controller (the Pi), it definitely won't reset them.

I'll give it a try and let you know in a few weeks. I'm pretty sure when I turned off the USB HUB manually, the MacBook Pro lost connection with the ASiC and cgminer went silent.

im not going to say it wont work, but the reason it might not work is because the computer still thinks its attached, there for turning off the hub and back on wont give it a new device id.. and in linux it will say the usb is already being used.

This devices turns off the USB HUB and makes the ASIC power off. Why wouldn't what I say work? It is like unplugging and plugging back in.

Often when a stick goes Zombie, I've needed to pull it out of the USB hub and press it back in. A restart doesn't fix it for me.

If you are running into ZOMBIE 2pac, try a power timer on/off switch. I'm going to try it and have it power the hub on & off every hour. The laptop stays on, but this means at most ZOMBIE will at most one hour unless my MacBook Pro has a cgminer segmentation fault which does happen.

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Thank you, that resolved it

I'mma guess...

I made the updates and upgrades per the instructions,  but I received a configuration error when executing the 'CFLAGS' command.  It did not create the executables so './cgminer' file or command not found.

I read it is 200W for 20 ports, 10W each. It that enough wattage for you? I notice some push upwards of 12W, so I'm not sure I could push all the 2Pacs to their max? This is nicer though than having to buy a bunch of Pluggable HUBs.

Me too! I pm'd ya

Who did you buy from? Those things carry a manufacturer warranty, so I'm surprised the seller didn't ask for it back.

Got an issue I believe I've not seen covered in this thread yet, maybe you guys have some insight.

I got a stick that when I plug it in at lowest volt setting 1.26v cgminer at 200,150,100, even 50mhz, I get an erratic white flashing (more than what is normal), with cgminer reporting hotplug then returning COMPAC-0 then 1 then 2 then 3 then numbers bounce from 1 randomly thru 60+, then stick goes zombie and cgminer throws a hardware error.

If I turn the voltage up even slightly off from the 1.26v min, then stick stays green and does not get a detect.

Windows 10 environment does see the stick, and Zadig reports correct driver installed even after Zadig driver re-install i get this action.

Any ideas? I'm pretty sure its a dead stick, but just in case any of you have ran across this and have any repair suggestions, I'm all eyes!!!

Currently a replacement is being sent, but if I can get this puppy running, then I can save the seller from being out a stick purchase. He's treated me very fairly, and I'd rather get this stick working and pay him for the replacement. If not then the Jeep gets a cool mirror dangler!

Cheers I.G.

It's still a work in progress.  It is a Sipolar 20 port USB 3.0 hub, with fans for days! Pushing air is not an issue!

Currently stuck on what kind of material to use to as a heat shield between sticks.

First need to figure out what kind of temperature limit I'm working with, then what is best to use to make as a kind of heat shield .

I'm now thinking of some kind of fibreglass or silicon or possibly igneous rock based material, like exhaust wrap for automotive applications. basically something i can sandwich between sticks that's thin, yet non conductive.

I know I wont completely prevent heat transfer between sticks, I just want to limit said transfer as much as possible, and with the sticks being right up against one another, finding a solution is tricky.

First is first though, what is my upper temp limit... then I can better choose heat shield material. fibreglass tape/mat seems good at first, but is spongy and may encroach on heat-sink too much. There is igneous rock tape, nice and thin, but glue may melt and cause a mess, plus not sure how conductive igneous rock is if at all. starting to lean towards silicon based, but again how conductive, if at all?

Simple solution may be to just double space rows and get another hub, but want to see if I can maximise usage of hub first.

Can you post a picture of this setup?!

I'm sure it was covered already, but for the life of me, I can't find it. What is the recommended running temperature upper limit for these key running 24/7/365? I finally have a temp probe solution running and want to make sure I am running these withing tolerance.

Especially as I'm close to having a full array with these suckers pretty much right up against one another, I want to keep them all running in an efficient, productive, yet healthy manner.

Cheers I.G.

Are you using vthoan's cgminer 4.10? I know with the official ckolivas cgminer 4.10, USB device is detected as UMO (?) and gives half the hash rate. 100 Mhz should give you around 10 GH/s on correctly recognized device. Unless the hardware is defective, it could be a the wrong cgminer.

Thanks for the help. I'm rebuiding cgminer and try again.

I don't mind slow shipping within 8 weeks. I just had some bad experience with China and product not being what was advertised (incorrect wiring, miss parts, bad glue job)... but what can I expect for $1.50 right?


Are you using vthoan's cgminer 4.10? I know with the official ckolivas cgminer 4.10, USB device is detected as UMO (?) and gives half the hash rate. 100 Mhz should give you around 10 GH/s on correctly recognized device. Unless the hardware is defective, it could be a the wrong cgminer.


Usually 5V and 0.04A is when the device is in zombie mode. Try inserting the stick in and out of USB port and see if amps change (without cgminer running). You should get 0.5A (500 mA) as the base amps. It should raise when you are running cgminer. Also, if potentiometer has been turned clockwise too much, then it sort of goes into no-mans land until you turn it back so you are back in AMP range that gekko recognizes.

And do you get HW errors?