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The 5-chip Gridseed GC3355-based ASIC devices that support Dual Mining for Bitcoin and Litecoin are not that easy to be used in the Dual Mode, because you need to have two different software miners running at the same time. There is a bit of specifics in what and how you need to do in order to mine both BTC and LTC at the same time and after a bit of tinkering we have managed to finally make things work as they should under Windows. You need to download a special modified version of cpuminer for Scrypt (LTC) mining and a modified version of cgminer for SHA-256 (BTC) mining. We have compiled the two software miners and you will find the download links below. You will also need the Zadig software in order to replace the virtual USB to COM driver with WinUSB driver for the cgminer to detect and work with the BTC mining side of the ASICs.
– Download and run the latest version of Zadig
– From the Zadig interface select Options and choose List All Devices
– From the Dropdown list of devices select CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller and click on Replace Driver with the WinUSB driver selected
– If you have multiple 5-chip GC3355 DualMiner USB devices connected you may need to repeat the procedure for all of them
– Download, edit and run the BTC.bat file from the modified cgminer 3.8.5 for the Gridseed ASICs to start the miner working on BTC
– Download, edit and run LTC_ONLY.bat file from the modified cpuminer for Gridseed ASICs to start mining for LTC (check what your COM port is and edit it). You need to add the parameter “dual” (without the quotes and two dashes in front) to the command line in order for the Dual mode mining to start working
It seems that there are some ASIC devices that may be using different virtual USB to COM drivers other than the CP2102 that our unit has (for example ST32 Virtual COM Port), unfortunately we don’t have any of those to test with. You can however try to make things work by replacing the other driver with WinUSB, just select the right name from the dropdown box (do not try to rename drivers, it is pointless) and Replace it with WinUSB (you may need to unplug and plug the USB cable to the miner after that). If after installing the WinUSB driver over the virtual USB to COM driver the ASIC does not work with cgminer, you just need to uninstall the driver from the Device Manager and unplug/plug the USB cable to the device for it to install the original USB to COM driver and it should be functioning again with cpuminer (note that this way you may have it running on a new COM port).
This is it, you should have the miner running both SHA-256 (BTC) and Scrypt (LTC) mining withe the two software miners and the total power consumption should be about 60W. Note that you may need to lower the operating frequencies a bit for when mining the Dual BTC/LTC mode as the chips get hotter. If you want to mine only BTC you can stick only with running the modified cgminer, for LTC only you need the modified cpuminer without the dual option in the command line. The most attractive aspect of the Gridseed 5-chip GC3355 ASIC however remains their very low power consumption for Scrypt mining only mode, so think again if you really wan to run them in the Dual Mining more or for BTC only and not in LTC only mining mode instead.
- In: General Info
- Tags: 5-chip Dual Miner, 5-chip Dual Miner ASIC, bitcoin asic, BTC ASIC, cpuminer ASIC, Dualminer ASIC, DualMiner first impressions, DualMiner review, DualMiner test, DualMiner USB, DualMiner USB ASIC, DualMiner USB Scrypt ASIC, GC3355, Gridchip, Gridchip GC3355, Gridchip USB ASIC, Gridseed, Gridseed ASIC, Gridseed GC3355, Gridseed Golden Orb, gridseed usb asic, Lightning asic, Lightningasic, Lightningasic DualMiner, Lightningasic miner, Litecoin ASIC, LTC and BTC ASIC, LTC ASIC, Scrypt ASIC, Scrypt USB ASIC, SHA-256 and Scrypt ASIC, SHA-256 and Scrypt USB ASIC, SHA-256 ASIC, USB ASIC
A few days ago we have published a version compiled for windows of the cpuminer for the 5-chip Gridseed ASICs that fixed the power consumption when using the devices for Scrypt mining only (6-8W power consumption). This version has allowed the user to set the operating frequency of the chips inside up to 900 MHz and our unit seem to work best at 850 MHz as at 900 MHz is seems to have more HW errors. That however did not stop us from modifying the cpuminer to allow for even higher operating frequencies of the Gridchip GC3355 processors, so now we release an OC Edition of the cpuminer that will allow you to go all the way up to 1200 MHz operating frequency.
The OVERCLOCK EDITION we have made allows you to go for higher operating frequency above 900 MHz – you can try running the chips at 950, 1000, 1100 and 1200 (use the –freq=xxx command line parameter to set these frequencies). We have found our test miner to perform best with 850 MHz, however yours might be able to function at higher frequency without problems (many HW errors), so you might want to try higher than 900 MHz all the way up to 1200. At 1000 MHz the device consumes about 9W and at 1200 MHz the power consumption might go as high as 10W, so there should be no problem with the cooling, however the chips might not be able to run well at so high frequencies and can give more or only HW errors.
– You can download the cpuminer OC Edition for the 5-chip GC3355 ASICs for Windows OS here…
- In: Mining Software
- Tags: cpuminer, cpuminer download, cpuminer fixed, cpuminer fixed power usage, cpuminer GC3355, cpuminer GC3355 download, cpuminer GC3355 windows, cpuminer GC3355 windows download, cpuminer Gridseed, cpuminer gridseed download, cpuminer gridseed fixed, cpuminer gridseed windows, cpuminer gridseed windows download, cpuminer oc edition, cpuminer windows, cpuminer windows download, GC3355 overclock, Gridchip GC3355, Gridchip overclock, Gridseed, Gridseed ASIC, Gridseed GC3355, Gridseed overclock, Lightning asic, Lightning asic overclock, overclock edition
The DualMiner USB Scrypt ASICs using a single GridChip GC3355 processors do come with a modified version of cgminer 3.1.1 supporting the device, but this is already quite old version of the software. There is a newer version of cgminer 3.5.0 modified for use with with the single chip DualMiner USB Scrypt ASIC that we have compiled it for windows users and you can download it form the link below. This new version provides more up to date features and should be more stable and user friendly for use, but there is one important difference in the way you need to access your single chip Gridseed USB ASIC with the new cgminer 3.5.0. Have in mind that this version of cgminer 3.5.0 is compiled only for use for scrypt mining with the single chip DualMiner USB Scrypt ASIC devices, it will not work on video cards or other ASCI devices. Note that this version of cgminer miner is also NOT compatible with the 5-chip GridChip GC3355 ASIC miners!
With cgminer 3.1.1 you had to select the virtual COM port that the USB ASIC attaches to when you install its drivers, but the new cgminer 3.5.0 does not use virtual COM port, but addresses the device as a USB one and should be able to autodetect it. In order for this to work properly you will need to replace the USB to COM driver with the WinUSB driver by using the program Zadig. What you need to do is to the following:
– Download and run the latest version of Zadig
– Select Options and choose List All Devices
– From the Dropdown list of devices select Dual RS232-HS (Interface 0) and click on Replace Driver with the WinUSB driver selected
– From the Dropdown list of devices select Dual RS232-HS (Interface 1) and click on Replace Driver with the WinUSB driver selected
– If you have multiple 1-chip GC3355 DualMiner USB devices connected you may need to repeat the procedure for all of them
– Edit and run the included LTC_ONLY.bat file from the cgminer 3.5.0 archive provides, it should autodetect the available devices and start mining on them
– You can download cgminer 3.5.0 for DualMiner USB Scrypt on Windows OS here…
- In: Mining Software
- Tags: cgminer 3.5.0, cgminer 3.5.0 download, cgminer 3.5.0 windows, cgminer 3.5.0 windows download, cgminer dualminer, cgminer dualminer asic, cgminer dualminer asic download, cgminer dualminer download, dualminer cgminer scrypt, dualminer cgminer windows, gc3355 cgminer, gridchip cgminer, gridseed cgminer, scrypt asic cgminer