Posts Tagged ‘Gridseed’

Impressions from the Newer 5-chip Gridseed Scrypt ASIC Devices

12, Mar 2014

gridseed-5-chip-asic-new-version

In our article about our first impressions from the Gridseed 5-chip Scrypt Asic earlier this month we were not very happy with our initial experience from the device. It seems we’ve got one of the earlier builds that were not very well built and the software for using them was also at a very early stage. Today however things look much better, we just got a new unit that we have ordered and it is much better built and uses the STM32 Virtual COM port driver instead of the CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller that our previous unit had.

cgminer-gridseed-stm32

We have tested the new ASIC device and it works just fine with the STM32 drivers installed with the modified for low power usage cpuminer for Scrypt mining by giving the virtual COM port number of the device. The ASIC also worked just fine when we have replaced the STM32 vitual cOM Port driver with WinUSB using Zadig to use cgminer 3.7.2 for Scrypt mining on the ASIC. We still haven’t tried using the new 5-chip Gridseed ASIC device to work in dual mining mode with TLC and BTC mining running at the same time as apparently the dual mining method that have already described for our older ASIC using the CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller is not working for devices with STM32 Virtual COM port drivers, so we’ll be getting back with more details on that later on when we figure it out.

For the moment however we are much more satisfied with the newer revisions of the 5-chip Gridseed LTC/BTC ASIC devices, especially when we take into account the improvement of the software support side for them in the last few days.

Checking Out the MarketsCX Litecoin Cloud Mining Service

10, Mar 2014

markets-cx-litecoin-cloud-mining-service

If you were looking for the Litecoin alternative of the CEX.io Bitcoin cloud mining and trading service then you may not have to wait much more. We have just found out about a new service that looks and functions very much like CEX, however it is designed only for LTC cloud mining. This new service that has launched just a few days ago is called Markets CX and has started just about a week ago with a month before that for closed beta testing according to the available information. It seems that the service is based somewhere in Asia and to be more precise in mainland China according to the not so man details published about the operation. Furthermore the cloud mining hashrate being offered is apparently provided by 5-chip Gridseed ASIC devices and there is even an option to redeem your cloud mining hashrate for actual hardware (300 KHS per device).

markets-cx-litecoin-cloud-mining-service-2

Of course we have decided to give the service a try as something new and interesting in our search for a good Litecoin cloud mining service. It seems like the most promising and well made from what we have tried for mining Litecoin, so we have decided to start by depositing 5 LTCs and purchasing Scrypt mining hashrate with them. We started with 1 LTC initially just to test and soon after that moved another ~4 Litecoins and the total hashrate we have purchased with them was about 120 KHS. We liked that the deposit confirmations require only 3 confirmations on the network, so you can quickly have the LTCs available on the exchange to buy hashrate with. The current price per 1 KHS is 0.0410 LTC with already over 40000 KHS (40 MHS) available on the exchange, so there is plenty of hashrate available for sale at the moment. We however do recommend to start small as we did and we usually do with new services that we are trying out and if everything works well out for you you can later on buy more hashrate. The good news is that we already got a few hourly earnings credited to our account and we can withdraw them, though we’ll probably reinvest them for more hashrate. We expect that soon the exchange rate will start to get higher as currently the available on the market KHS are probably offered by the service provider at a lower rate and with more demand the price will start to get high. This will allow you to buy now cheaper and sell more expensive later on to get some extra profit if you do not want to invest on the long run.

markets-cx-litecoin-cloud-mining-service-3

And while this new service for LTC cloud mining does seem to look very similar to CEX.io the two are not run by the same people. This new Litecoin cloud mining platform does not yet have a public mining pool where you can mine with your own hardware, or even some real time information about what and how your purchased cloud mining hashrate is performing. For the moment you can only see every hour what your earnings are on the account Balance page, so there is more to be desired here, especially considering that this piece of information is not well described and you need to figure it out by yourself.

markets-cx-litecoin-cloud-mining-service-4

Markets CX does offer a Mining Profit calculator that can give you an idea about when you can expect to break even in. The average return of investment according to the profit calculator is 6-7 months and that does sound pretty good, but the time required to get your invested LTC back can vary. The maintenance fee for the cloud mining hashrate you purchase is currently 7.5% and you can see how much from your earnings are deducted each hour when you get your mining profit credited to your account. So far we are excited by the potential we see in this Litecoin cloud mining service, so we do recommend to take a look at it if you are interested in LTC cloud mining. You can try it out with just a few KHS like we did and we’ll keep you updated on our experience and results from using this new Litecoin cloud mining and trading service. Note that we do recommend to proceed with caution though and not invest a lot of coins initially and give the service some time to prove itself first!

– For more information about the Markets CX Litecoin cloud mining service and to try it out…

How to Mine Both BTC and LTC on Gridseed 5-chip GC3355 ASIC

6, Mar 2014

gridseed-dualmining-on-windows-success

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.

zadig-gridseed-dualminer-usb-config

– 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.


top