Topic: Which USB hub to use with Block Erupters | NanoFury NF1 | BPMC Red Fury | Ant U1 - page 36. (Read 128592 times)

Might it be that the hub draws on the 12V rail and then transforms it to 5V?
Very many newer PSUs have less and less output on 5V.

holy moley... the AX750 i got is  rated for +5V@25A (125W) on ATX... how the hell is it working then with 2.5W*49  122.5W ? Huh???

platinum wont change anything. new psus just sux at 5V bcoz its not used anymore to anything except usb
try to find something old like Fortron FSP400-60PFN with 40A on 5V
or something new like Silverstone Strider 1500W or Thermaltake Toughpower 1500W

Hello all, I already posted this in the newbie section though to get the proper exposure I'm posting it here..

A co-worker and myself recently picked up two of the Satechi 10 port hubs to test out some of the ASICMiner USB Block Erupters and seem to be having nothing but issues so I was wondering if anyone else out there has used them with success?

Basically the situation goes like so:

With one block erupter it will run for a little over an hour and then I'll get the solid green light and CGMiner spams Comms Error.

With two or more block erupters they run for maybe 30 seconds if that and then I get solid green lights on random units, sometimes they will come back online and then just go back offline, same deal with CGMiner spamming Comms Error.

I then took my D-Link DUB-H7 hub and connected it to the Satechi 10 port with one erupter in the D-Link hub and now it has been running for days without issue.

I have contacted Satechi and they pretty much have said they have never heard of ASICMiner products and assume they will not work on their hub...

Also as a frame of reference, I have tested this on Windows 7, Windows 8 and even my Raspberry Pi running MinePeon, all of them run into the exact same issue.

I had assumed that being a 10 port hub with a 5V 5A power supply it would be perfect for a USB mining rig though it looks like at this point I was wrong.

Anyways, just wanted to let others know as I haven't seen anyone else testing these hubs.

Just so there is no confusion, there seem to be two versions of this hub.  one with an aluminum enclosure
http://usb.brando.com/usb-20-port-hub_p03123c039d015.html  <- this is the one I actually bought, and that does not work with more than 12 miners.
(the one I purchased with 1 spot for a power adapter)
and there is another one that just has support plates, that has 2 AC adapter plugs available, but I do not have that one to determine if that one has the capability to run 20 miners at once.
similar to http://usb.brando.com/industrial-usb-16-port-hub_p01936c039d015.html but I have not been able to find a place to purchase it from that is reasonable.

Hmmm I thought I had order a usb 2.0 hub. It came today and the RPi refused to mate with It is a very nice well made unit tho.

20 hrs running OK with the replacement PSU... the ATX cable is warm, so the draw is high... lets see how long this gold rated Corsair 750 holds up for

I may have to go to platinum next... might do it anyway... don't like it when wires are warm...

I figured it in amps, but similar result - 49 Erupters * 0.5A = 24.5amps, not including however much the Hub Controller(s) are drawing.  Most ATX power supplies are +5V@30A or _less_.  My 450W(+5v@30A) has been shutting down intermittently while fully populated.  When I backed it down to 44 Erupters, the problems went completely away.



This may be a YMMV situation.  I started this thing on a oc'd 3770k/z77 chipset with Win7.  Clearly device detection sucks in Windows, and I did have only 14 ports init on POST.  But after Win7 booted, it always picked these up for me given some delay (sometimes a few mins) while it farted around.  I did not have to pull erupters or reinstall drivers every time.  I did have to press the reset button on the hub periodically to get windows to detect everybody. 


Agreed on the novice statement.  I've now got this running on a headless xubuntu nettop running latest cgminer/anubis/mineninja.  Absolutely perfect w/ 44 erupters for the past 30 hours.  I will not be plugging it back into a Windows box anytime soon.

Ouch! And I thought the previous price was steep! Updated.

batt01, don't RPi only support USB 2.0 hubs? Tell us how it goes.

I've updated my review of the 49 port hub: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2771960
PSU had issues

Nemo, you should update the price on this thing, you have the wrong price.  the price you have is for the charging station ONLY version of this hub.  it has no communications on it.

This hub, is more expensive since it's not just a power charging station.  Price: $1,160 + shipping so it's $23.67 per port!!!

I just ordered the Juiced Hub. I want the try it on my RPi. Currently I am using the DLink 7 port hub. I would like something that holds a few more and I dont really like that the DLink has side mounted ports rather than top.

Juiced is better than the new 9 port anker, but one should be aware that when you need to unplug a miner, you're bound to bump it into the miner behind it or in front of it.  you have to be super patient and have small fingers not to physically damage your miners when you need to unplug them from a full hub. thermal density is not an issue but it's a matter of understanding it and having an appropriate amount of air movement.  it would still be less and quieter than GPUs obviously.  physical access is the biggest issue with very dense hubs.

Thank you for the comparisons, CanaryInTheMine!
I've added the 9-port Anker to the table. I can add that it comes out more expensive in $/port.

Thanks for testing out the new Anker Canary.  I'm sad to see they made it smaller and lost a port. Was afraid that last port would be just charging.

I don't know. I find the Juiced hub to be just right. I can place a 120mm fan on top of the miners and it will cover all of them perfectly. Each miner also has a fair amount of space between each other. Theres no danger I see of a miner touching an adjacent one unless the usb hub is defective/malformed port.

I don't have a very favorable opinion (access: spacing and resulting thermal density) about the new Anker 9 port hub and the Juiced 10 port hub as they compare to the prior Anker 10 port physically:

Juiced and new Anker are much denser than original 10 port Anker and leave very little space between ports.

So you might want to put a little more air movement and you need to be extra careful unplugging the USB miners, otherwise you will physically damage them and warranty is voided.
the charge port on the Anker is for charging only, there's no communication on it

top view:


another top view:


side view:


another side view:

Update 7/21/13: The Antec 550 PSU this came with has died.  I went and got an Corsair 750 and got all 49 miners going again.  Not a pleasant experience.  this hub is difficult to work with in Windows.

DS-IP-SC-49 Draft Review:

http://www.cambrionix.com/cambrionix_products/large-capacity-charge-and-sync-station-professional-series-a6/
http://www.ipadcarts.com/solutions/DS-IP-SC-49.htm

I have received 1 unit of DS-IP-SC-49 to test and review.  I have not gotten it for free, I paid for it, so that there's no bias.  I also needed something like this for branding Eligius branded ASICMiner USB Eruptors.

I tested it with a 3 yr old toshiba laptop running Win 7 64-bit running "bfgminer.exe -S all"

Packaging: --- Simple and functional  box padded with foam, well designed.

Power: --- This is a bit of a headache.... It came with a Gold rated Antec 550W PSU, which died on me 12 hours into operation.  When I would try to get it going again, the fan would jolt, immediatly stop and a clicking noise can be heard and nothing... I ran out to a local Fry's and picked up a Gold rated Corsair 750W (too much but they had a good deal on it), connected the ATX24 5V 28A and was back in business.   More on the power issue: xjack pointed out to me that this 5V 28A ATX connector delivers 140W (is my math right?), however 49 miners, use 2.5*49= 122.5W, so 122.5/140= 87.5% load...  This is the load on the mobo ATX connector, not the whole PSU... I think this is pushing it and the manufacturer should consider utilizing one more power connector from the same PSU (it is modular afterall) to deliver more power so that there isn't such a high load on the single ATX power connector.  maybe i'm wrong in this assessment, but 87.5% load is beginning to push things.

Installation: --- It is very difficult to operate this hub with all 49 USBs populated with ASICMiner Block Eruptors.  This 49 port hub actually consists of 7 hubs linked together from the point of the device manager.  If you plugin this 49 port to your computer USB interface and all 49 ports are populated with miners, only 14 are recognized and the rest don't even power on.  I'm not sure what happens but the driver installation when detecting this hub with all ports populated does not work well at all on Windows.  The solution, or the proper way to bring online is as follows:
-boot up
-connect the empty 49 port hub
-insert miners one at a time, till you see a message that the device is ready
-repeat above line 49 times
-start mining
in case you need to restart the computer, you need to unplug all Eruptors and repeat above steps.
if you reboot with everything connected, most of the miners will not be recognized and you will need to "uninstall" each of the 7 generic USB hubs listed in Device manager.  only after that, your will need to repeat above steps.  I've battled with these steps for a good 5 hours.. it's a pain, but if you follow these steps, it works just fine.

Design: --- physically it's excellent!  I think the manufacturer chose the ATX power because it makes the power on button easy to operate.  But another power connector should have been added in addition to single ATX.  I had an issue with 1 USB port which due to me pulling out and re-inserting the miners became too lose and I had to bend the edges inward to create a tighter fit, otherwise the miner was wobbly and didn't have a good connection to power on.  but I don't think this is a countable negative...

Pros: real estate compactness/ dense, less wires, power strips etc... Fantastic spacing between ports for thermal characteristics (heat dissipation).  access to plug and unplug USB miners by having good access to do so without touching or bumping other USB miners while they operate. Rock-solid design, not flaky, can take abuse, wear and tear.  ports are pretty sturdy, do not sink or bend.

Cons: Price!!  $23 per port.  the system I tested has an issue if you plug in all 49 usbs and connect the unit to the computer.  I don't expect this to be an issue in Linux however.  Maybe it's a Windows thing with that many devices.  I believe it has to do more with the driver for the miners and not the 49 port hub itself.

Conclusion:  A very good hub to run 49 miners in a small amount of space (but it is not for a novice and I mean no disrespect by this!)  It would really be good to test it while mining on Linux, but I'm not  going to do it.  The only thing I use this on Linux for is to brand the Eruptors for Eligius mining pool.  I don't mine on Linux.

To Do:  Contact manufacturer, explain bitcoin market, suggest higher production to reduce price and release in bitcoin market.  Request a 64 port (8x8) USB 3.0 hub to be made.  Reduce cost by dropping PSU, you all have a box of them lying around anyways...

Geek Porn:

With 49 Erupters:





Mining with bfgminer:

Yeah sorry, they are 5 amps, not 4 amps. I misread your initial post thinking you said volts, not amps.



And USB miners working.

Good that at least your miners didn't burn. I've update the table with 5 as the upper limit.

update: tech republic 7 port burns up the power adapters with 6 filled, going back down to 5 each. They are sending replacements power adapters for free though so not a huge loss. I have one hooked up to psu power with all 7 filled and works so far. I will report back in a couple weeks when I'm fairly certain its ok, and before converting the others to molex connectors