5. Basic Troubleshooting (Q&A)
Q:My moonlander does not start up,or stops hashing after a while
While its normal for the ASIC to stop working randomly after extended periods of time, you
should have no issues running them for days. If you see that you have to restart them ever few
hours or sooner, or it does not start hashing at all on startup its most likely because of two main
reasons:
1) Your hub/USB port is not providing enough power for the given frequency/voltage. Try lower-
ing your frequency and core voltage so less power is drawn, or use aport/hub that can provide
at least 2A of continues current.
2) You have set your memory voltage too low. While lowering memory voltage can reduce pow-
er draw, it also can increase instability in the device which will cause it to need to be restarted
often. Trying increasing memory voltage to .9v for best reliability.
Q:Whydoes my X hub not work with my Moonlanders?
Most USB 2.0 and alot of 3.0 powered USB hubs will NOT work with these sticks. Powered
USB hubs need to meet two requirements to reliably support the high current these sticks draw.
First they need to have aclean high quality power supply that can output at least 1A PER port.
To run the sticks at full speed you need at least 2A per port. Second they need to comply with
USB standards which ALOT of cheap HUBs don’t...which causes alot of EMI issues and
disconnects. Unfortunately its trial and error to figure this out. From my testing the Superbpag 7
port hubs seems to be the best for this type of application and provides lots of power per port
and works under all three OSes. Eyeboot also makes great hubs for these.
Q:Bfgminer detects my moonlander but nothing happens when it connects to my pool
Don’t forget that even though this is avery powerful scrypt miner for its size, its still “slow” when
compared to other ASICS which most pools are optimized for these days. Some pools have a
scrypt difficulty default of 4k or higher, in which case it could take up to an hour for your moon-
lander to find and submit ashare. Even if you don’t see ashare submission, you’ll know your
stick is hashing correctly right away because the ASIC diff on device is set really low, so you
should be able to see ~2red LED flashes asecond. If you want afaster pool submission rate
(again slow shares DOES NOT effect profitability, since each share is just worth more), set your
diff to 1k or lower, contact your pool operator for what diffs they have set for each port.
OS it will be cu.SLAB_USBtoUARTx.
Q:How can I set frequency to a particular stick in a mutistick setup under
bfgminer?
If you want to specify frequencies for each individual miners you can point which frequency gets
set to which miner by changing the global --set MLD:clock=144
to --set MLD@/dev/ttyUSB0:clock=600 (note Ihaven’t really tested if you can keep the global
option and lets say just set one stick to adifferent frequency...if you do it this way you might
have to specify frequencies for each miner port individually even if some of them are the same,
since the global option might override individual frequencies).
So if you have two sticks and want two different frequencies your options might look like this:
Code:
./bfgminer --scrypt -o stratum+tcp://us.litecoinpool.org:3333 -u jstefanop.1 -p 1,d=256 -S MLD:/
dev/ttyUSB0 -S MLD:/dev/ttyUSB1 --set MLD@/dev/ttyUSB0:clock=600 --set MLD@/dev/
ttyUSB1:clock=648
Q:My Moonlander 2 is not working with Mac OS 10.13
New security features in Mac OS 10.13 prevent the sililabs UART driver from loading. Until they
provide afix, please use the following workaround:
The workaround is to disable the SIP, installed the driver then enable the SIP.
-Shut down the Mac, start with Cmd-R depressed to boot to the Recovery Partition that will
display the System Utilities.
-Open the Terminal and issue the command csrutil status and you will see SIP is enabled. To
disable the SIP issue the command csrutil disable and then restart the Mac.
-You can then download and install the latest driver from Silicon Labs, you have the new USB
to UART driver installed, and should work with the moonlander now
-Shut down and boot to the System Utilities and issue the command csrutil enable and restart.
-The csrutil disable and csrtil enable can only be issued from the Terminal while booted to
Recovery Partition. Yes, this is aPITA but it works.
Bfgminer by default operates with strict coinbase checks, which most
mutlipools don’t adhere too, to disable this check simply add #skipcbcheck
at the end of the pool URL like so:
stratum+tcp://prohashing.com:3333/#skipcbcheck
Q: Im using windows and nothing happens when i click the
start_moonlander.bat file
Your anti-virus software most likely deleted bfgminer.exe when you
extracted it. Make sure you setup a rule so it does not do this.
Q: What frequencies can I set my moonlander?
The moonlander 2 has a list of hard coded frequencies to ensure maximum
performance for a given frequency. Below is a list of valid frequencies you
can use currently:
Quote
384, 450, 480, 540, 576, 600, 612, 625, 636, 648, 660, 672, 684, 700, 720, 744,
756, 768, 796, 832, 852, 876, 900, 924, 954
You can change the frequency by editing the Start_Moonlander.bat under
windows or .sh file under Mac and editing the number after “--set
MLD:clock=”
Q: How can I run different sticks to different pools/coins?
If you want to mine one stick to one pool/coin and another stick to a different
pool/coin you will have to setup two separate bfgminer instances. You do
this by having separate startup scripts (the start_moonlander.bat/.sh file). In
each one specific the different pool, then modify the -S all options to point
to different sticks. For example if you have to sticks at COM0 and COM1,
change “-S all” to “-S \\.\COM0” in one file, and “-S \\.\COM1” in the second.
If you have more sticks, just keep adding “-S \\.\COMx” to specify the
number to sticks you want the specific bfgminer instance/pool to run. This
formate is for windows, for linux it will be /dev/ttyUSBx and Mac OS it will be
cu.SLAB_USBtoUARTx.
Q: How can I set frequency to a particular stick in a mutistick setup under
bfgminer?
If you want to specify frequencies for each individual miners you can point
which frequency gets set to which miner by changing the global --set
MLD:clock=144
to --set MLD@/dev/ttyUSB0:clock=600 (note I haven’t really tested if you can
keep the global option and lets say just set one stick to a different
frequency...if you do it this way you might have to specify frequencies for
each miner port individually even if some of them are the same, since the
global option might override individual frequencies).
So if you have two sticks and want two different frequencies your options
might look like this:
Code:
./bfgminer --scrypt -o stratum+tcp://us.litecoinpool.org:3333 -u jstefanop.1 -p
1,d=256 -S MLD:/dev/ttyUSB0 -S MLD:/dev/ttyUSB1 --set MLD@/dev/
ttyUSB0:clock=600 --set MLD@/dev/ttyUSB1:clock=648
Q: My Moonlander 2 is not working with Mac OS 10.13
New security features in Mac OS 10.13 prevent the sililabs UART driver from
loading. Until they provide a fix, please use the following workaround:
The workaround is to disable the SIP, installed the driver then enable the
SIP.
-Shut down the Mac, start with Cmd-R depressed to boot to the Recovery
Partition that will display the System Utilities.
-Open the Terminal and issue the command csrutil status and you will see
SIP is enabled. To disable the SIP issue the command csrutil disable and
then restart the Mac.
-You can then download and install the latest driver from Silicon Labs, you
have the new USB to UART driver installed, and should work with the
moonlander now
-Shut down and boot to the System Utilities and issue the command csrutil
enable and restart.
-The csrutil disable and csrtil enable can only be issued from the Terminal
while booted to Recovery Partition. Yes, this is a PITA but it works.
Last updated: 31/10/2018
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MOONLANDER 2 USB Stick Miner User Guide
