bfgminer/ASIC-README

SUPPORTED DEVICES

Currently supported devices include the Avalon, the Butterfly Labs SC range
of devices and the ASICMINER block erupters.

The BFL devices should come up as one of the following:

BAJ: BFL ASIC Jalapeño
BAL: BFL ASIC Little Single
BAS: BFL ASIC Single
BAM: BFL ASIC Minirig

BFL devices need the --enable-bflsc option when compiling cgminer yourself.

Avalon will come up as AVA.

Avalon devices need the --enable-avalon option when compiling cgminer.

ASICMINER block erupters will come up as AMU.

ASICMINER devices need the --enable-icarus option when compiling cgminer.
Also note that the AMU is managed by the Icarus driver which is detailed
in the FPGA-README


GETTING STARTED WITH BUTTERFLY LABS ASICS

Unlike other software, cgminer uses direct USB communication instead of the
ancient serial USB communication to be much faster, more reliable and use a
lot less CPU. For this reason, setting up for mining with cgminer on these
devices requires different drivers.


WINDOWS:

On windows, the direct USB support requires the installation of a WinUSB
driver (NOT the ftdi_sio driver), and attach it to the Butterfly labs device.
The easiest way to do this is to use the zadig utility which will install the
drivers for you and then once you plug in your device you can choose the
"list all devices" from the "option" menu and you should be able to see the
device as something like: "BitFORCE SHA256 SC". Choose the install or replace
driver option and select WinUSB. You can either google for zadig or download
it from the cgminer directory in the DOWNLOADS link above.

When you first switch a device over to WinUSB with zadig and it shows that
correctly on the left of the zadig window, but it still gives permission
errors, you may need to unplug the USB miner and then plug it back in. Some
users may need to reboot at this point.


LINUX:

On linux, the direct USB support requires no drivers at all. However due to
permissions issues, you may not be able to mine directly on the devices as a
regular user without giving the user access to the device or by mining as
root (administrator). In order to give your regular user access, you can make
him a member of the plugdev group with the following commands:

 sudo usermod -G plugdev -a `whoami`

If your distribution does not have the plugdev group you can create it with:

 sudo groupadd plugdev

In order for the BFL devices to instantly be owned by the plugdev group and
accessible by anyone from the plugdev group you can copy the file
"01-cgminer.rules" from the cgminer archive into the /etc/udev/rules.d
directory with the following command:

 sudo cp 01-cgminer.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/

After this you can either manually restart udev and re-login, or more easily
just reboot.


ASIC SPECIFIC COMMANDS

--avalon-auto       Adjust avalon overclock frequency dynamically for best hashrate
--avalon-cutoff <arg> Set avalon overheat cut off temperature (default: 60)
--avalon-fan <arg> Set fanspeed percentage for avalon, single value or range (default: 20-100)
--avalon-freq <arg> Set frequency range for avalon-auto, single value or range
--avalon-options <arg> Set avalon options baud:miners:asic:timeout:freq
--avalon-temp <arg> Set avalon target temperature (default: 50)
--bflsc-overheat <arg> Set overheat temperature where BFLSC devices throttle, 0 to disable (default: 90)


AVALON DEVICES

Currently all known Avalon devices come with their own operating system and
a preinstalled version of cgminer as part of the flash firmware, based on the
most current cgminer version so no configuration should be necessary. It is
possible to plug a USB cable from a PC into the Avalon device and mine using
cgminer as per any other device. It will autodetect and hotplug using default
options. You can customise the avalon behaviour by using the avalon-options
command, and adjust its fan control-temperature relationship with avalon-temp.
By default the avalon will also cut off when its temperature reaches 60
degrees.

Avalon commands:

--avalon-auto       Adjust avalon overclock frequency dynamically for best hashrate
--avalon-cutoff <arg> Set avalon overheat cut off temperature (default: 60)
--avalon-fan <arg> Set fanspeed percentage for avalon, single value or range (default: 20-100)
--avalon-freq <arg> Set frequency range for avalon-auto, single value or range
--avalon-options <arg> Set avalon options baud:miners:asic:timeout:freq
--avalon-temp <arg> Set avalon target temperature (default: 50)


Avalon auto will enable dynamic overclocking gradually increasing and
decreasing the frequency till the highest hashrate that keeps hardware errors
under 2% is achieved. This WILL run your avalon beyond its normal specification
so the usual warnings apply. When avalon-auto is enabled, the avalon-options
for frequency and timeout are used as the starting point only.

eg:
--avalon-fan 50
--avalon-fan 40-80

By default the avalon fans will be adjusted to maintain a target temperature
over a range from 20 to 100% fanspeed. avalon-fan allows you to limit the
range of fanspeeds to a single value or a range of values.

eg:
--avalon-freq 300-350

In combination with the avalon-auto command, the avalon-freq command allows you
to limit the range of frequencies which auto will adjust to.

eg:
--avalon-temp 55

This will adjust fanspeed to keep the temperature at or slightly below 55.
If you wish the fans to run at maximum speed, setting the target temperature
very low such as 0 will achieve this. This option can be added to the "More
options" entry in the web interface if you do not have a direct way of setting
it.

eg:
--avalon-cutoff 65

This will cut off the avalon should it get up to 65 degrees and will then
re-enable it when it gets to the target temperature as specified by avalon-temp.

eg:
--avalon-options 115200:24:10:45:282

The values are baud : miners : asic count : timeout : frequency.

Baud:
The device is pretty much hard coded to emulate 115200 baud so you shouldn't
change this.

Miners:
Most Avalons are 3 module devices, which come to 24 miners. 4 module devices
would use 32 here.

Asic count:
Virtually all have 10, so don't change this.

Timeout:
This is how long the device will work on a work item before accepting new work
to replace it. It should be changed according to the frequency (last setting).
It is possible to set this a little lower if you are trying to tune for short
block mining (eg p2pool) but much lower and the device will start creating
duplicate shares.

Sample settings for valid different frequencies (last 2 values):
34:375 *
36:350 *
39:325 *
43:300
45:282 (default)
47:270
50:256

Frequency:
This is the clock speed of the devices. Only specific values work, 256, 270,
282 (default), 300, 325, 350 and 375.

Note that setting a value with an asterisk next to it will be using your
avalon outside its spec and you do so at your own risk.

If you use the full curses based interface with Avalons you will get this
information:
AVA 0: 22/ 46C  2400R

The values are:
ambient temp / highest device temp  lowest detected ASIC cooling fan RPM.

Use the API for more detailed information than this.


BFLSC Devices

--bflsc-overheat <arg> Set overheat temperature where BFLSC devices throttle, 0 to disable (default: 90)

This will allow you to change or disable the default temperature where cgminer
throttles BFLSC devices by allowing them to temporarily go idle.


---

This code is provided entirely free of charge by the programmer in his spare
time so donations would be greatly appreciated. Please consider donating to the
address below.

Con Kolivas <kernel@kolivas.org>
15qSxP1SQcUX3o4nhkfdbgyoWEFMomJ4rZ