- Released in Dec 2022, Gekkoscience Terminus R909 is the newest addition to the terminus pod-miner line and their most powerful miner yet.
- Stock hashrate of 1.6 Terahash with only 70 Watts of power and completely silent. With sufficient cooling, the performance can be increased up to 2.1 TH by adjusting the clock rate and core voltage.
- Whisper quiet operation with cooling from an 80mm fan.
- Ideal for home miners and lottery mining.
- Equipped with six AntMiner BM1397 ASIC chips, also used in the well-known AntMiner S17 and S17 Pro.
- A custom version of CGMiner mining software with GekkoScience drivers is available for download. This allows for frequency adjustment using console parameters.
- In addition, a voltage regulator knob is installed on the miner.
- Needs an external controller running cgminer, with USB connection to the miner.
- A 6-foot USB cable is included with the purchase.
- A 120W 12V DC PSU is available for purchase with R909. This high quality PSU has a 6-pin PCIe power connector that can supply upto 10 Amps for overclocking the miner.
- Like all GekkoScience products, the Terminus R909 is designed and assembled in USA.
Setup Instructions
1. Click here to download cgminer and Zadig winUSB driver installer.
2. Unzip the .zip file. You now have access to CGMiner, Zadig and batch files.
3. Connect your Terminus R909 miner to your computer using the USB cable.
4. Open Zadig application and click Options -> List All Devices
5. Select R909 Bitcoin Miner, and then click “Replace Driver”
6. If it is successful, you will see the following message
7. Locate the start-r909.bat file in and right-click “edit” :
8. In notepad, edit the *.bat file and add your own mining details (pool, username/wallet address and clock frequency) as shown below. Close and save your changes.
-o (mining pool url):(port)
-u (your username here) -p (your password here)
9. Run the start-R909.bat file and cgminer will open automatically and start mining. If it is successful, you will see a screen like this one:
Building CGMiner
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt-get install -y build-essential autoconf automake libtool pkg-config libcurl4-openssl-dev libudev-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libncurses5-dev zlib1g-dev git
cd
git clone https://github.com/kanoi/cgminer.git
cd cgminer
CFLAGS="-O2 -march=native -fcommon" ./autogen.sh --enable-gekko --enable-icarus
make
sudo apt-get install -y openjdk-8-jre-headless
Running CGMiner
./cgminer -o stratum+tcp://stratum.kano.is:3333 -u 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr -p x --suggest-diff 442
if you get “USB init, open device failed, you don’t have privilege to access” error try appending sudo to elevate access. Your run command will then look like this
sudo ./cgminer -o stratum+tcp://stratum.kano.is:3333 -u 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr -p x --suggest-diff 442
Building cgminer on MacOS using Brew – tested on Big Sur 11.16
————————————————————–
Install Apple Command Line Tools:
this can take 10 or more minutes to download from Apple
xcode-select --install
Install Brew
this should take about 5-10 minutes on a recent mac with MBit internet
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
brew analytics off
Build cgminer:
brew tap kanoi/cgminer
brew install cgminer
If you already had brew installed, you should instead do the following steps:
brew analytics off
brew doctor
brew update
brew upgrade
brew cleanup
brew tap kanoi/cgminer
brew install cgminer
To install minor updates to cgminer, if you already have upgraded everything
brew reinstall cgminer
Accessing the API (for advanced users)
—————–
To access the API it is easiest to install Java
https://java.com/
Ensure you have enabled the API e.g.
–api-enable –api-allow “W:127.0.0.1”
Then in a terminal after installing and running cgminer:
cd Library/Caches/Homebrew/cgminer–git/
java API estats
Older macs
———-
If you are running an older mac without proper multitasking,
you may need to add the option –mac-yield when running cgminer with a gekko miner
Frequently Asked Questions
This is a learning device aimed at makers, tinkerers and hardware enthusiasts. Low noise and the ability to run this on residential power, makes this an ideal home miner. Profitability will depend on many factors such as power cost, bitcoin price etc.
Cgminer is not a virus. This is a false positive. All versions of cgminer are often flagged as suspicious by virus scanners. Simply google ‘cgminer false positive virus scan’ for more information.
Default settings are 400Mhz clock frequency and voltage potentiometer set around 11 O’clock position. This setting provides about 1.6 Th hashrate.
This miner is built to be overclocked, it is not stable under 300 Mhz clock frequency.
Start with default clock frequency of 400Mhz and you should get about 1.6 Th hashrate. Then increase clock frequency 25 Mhz at a time, until you reach your desired overclocking target. If the miner fails to reach target frequency, increase the voltage by turning the voltage potentiometer clockwise by 30 degrees and try again.
This device can be safely overclocked to about 550Mhz (2.0 Terahash hashrate) without any hardware modifications. You may be able to overclock further with increased cooling.
It is the blue knob on the back, adjacent to the PCIe power connector.
Voltage Regulator (also called voltage potentiometer or v-pot) is the small blue adjustable screw knob on R909. It can be turned using a small Phillips-head screwdriver. The flat part on the circular dial determines the voltage setting. These settings are analogous to clock bearings with 9 o’clock position being the lowest voltage setting and 3 o’ clock being the highest voltage setting. Most R909 miners are set between 11 0’clock and 1 o’clock position from the factory.
You might have to increase voltage to support higher clock frequencies. It is recommended to turn the dial in 30-degree increments. Higher voltage while necessary to support overclocking, will produce more heat and reduce mining efficiency.
There are two LED indicators. One is pink, the other is white. Solid pink LED light indicates your miner is getting power. White LED blinks when the miner is hashing, with the blinking frequency proportional to the hashrate.
R909 does not have a temperature sensor, so chip temp is not displayed on cgminer terminal. The rule of thumb for checking temperature is just that. If the heat sink is not too hot to touch with your thumb, the chip temperature is OK.
Although most of the hashing computation is done on the R909, the device does use some CPU computational power to run cgminer. In our tests here’s the number of R909s that can be run on various computers
Raspberry pi4: 2
PC with 6th gen Core i3 CPU: 4
PC with 9th gen Core i5 CPU: 5
PC with 10th gen Core i5 CPU: 6
PC with 12th gen Core i5 CPU: 9
The minimum payout on most bitcoin mining pools is too large for sub petahash mining operations. Gekkoscience devices are better suited for lottery mining for a chance at winning 6.25 BTC block reward on solo mining pools like ckpool and kano pool.
Gekkoscience is an electronics hardware manufacturer based in north-central Missouri. The company was started by legendary bitcointalk member ‘sidehack‘ at Missouri University of Science & Technology in Rolla. Gekkoscience is focused on manufacturing ASIC miners for home mining. Their miners are whisper-quiet and run on common household electrical service.
Gekkoscience is focused on manufacturing high quality bitcoin miners. Marketing, social media promotion and technical support for their products are handled by their distributors.
You can support sidehack’s mining hardware development by sending donations to: 1BURGERAXHH6Yi6LRybRJK7ybEm5m5HwTr
K Oscar –
Fast shipping. The included PSU goes well over 120w for overclocking.
J Suarez –
2.1 T at 550 Mhz!