My rig works on Linux but doesn't work on minerstat. What can I do?

You have created a worker, flashed an image of the OS to the drive, trying to boot it on a known working machine - but the worker doesn't come online or is stuck restarting. In this article you can see most of the available options that will help you diagnose and fix the issue.

Note Keep in mind that not all Linux distros are the same as each OS developer is solving and approching different things differently - so one system can work on one OS and doesn't work on other and vice-versa.

BIOS

As most rigs should be able to boot most of the current versions, the place to start is in the BIOS, by checking if there is an update available for it and verifying the configured settings, such as:

  • PCI-E Link Speed Gen2 for all GPUs, and Gen3 for splitters
  • Above 4G Decoding Enabled
  • Primary Graphics Adapter PEG (PCI-E Graphics)
  • Integrated Graphics Disabled
  • Boot type: UEFI
  • Secure / Fast Boot Disabled
  • CSM might be worth toggling between on/off states.

Some motherboards might also perform better with Serial, Audio ports disabled. If still unable to boot, make sure the drive flashed correctly — we recommend using balena Etcher, which automatically verifies the contents of the drive after flashing it. If the OS you flashed the drive on suggests formatting the drive right after you flashed it, do not format, instead you can use this article to sign in into the worker when you boot up.

OS Version and drivers

There are some recommendations and some special cases.

Newer motherboards usually work best with 1.7.x releases — which come with latest networking drivers (especially important when using Wi-Fi), GPU drivers for AMD's 6000 series and older cards, and latest stable Nvidia's drivers, with RTX and CMP cards supported as well as older GPUs.

Mining motherboards are often recommended to keep on 1.4.x line of releases, latest release comes with support for AMD's 5000 and older cards and same Nvidia's drivers as 1.7.x.

Switching driver or OS version

If you want to update/try another version of the drivers (for example, using 6000 series cards on a mining-specific motherboard with 1.4.x version of the OS), you can use amd-update and nvidia-update commands, as explained in this article

It is also possible to flash the rig with the necessary OS version using mreflash command or by flashing the rig with a different version from the archive manually.

Special cases

Some of the older motherboards might be unable to boot with the 1.4 line. In that case, 1.2 or even 1.1 versions of msOS can be used, flashing manually from the archive is recommended in this case. See archive of versions

Networking

Next thing to check is the networking. You can use command netcheck to test the network connection, dhcp for automatic network configuration (used by default), static IP NETMASK GATEWAY for manual static configuration, and mwifi for setting up wireless network instead.

Wired is preferred, and if the wireless network adapter is not detected and you're already on 1.7 version branch, you might need to use a wireless to wired adapter that would connect to the wireless network and provide RJ45 (Ethernet/LAN) ports as output to connect the rig to or check how to install the network adapter drivers for your device for ubuntu 18.04.

If the networking in inacessible on wired, it might be worth trying to set static configuration on both the router's side, and on the rig itself, by entering the configured values via command static IP NETMASK GATEWAY

OC Settings

Last, but not least, when using a different version of the kernels/drivers, different OC may be needed. If rig's unstable, but is generally working, it might be worth trying to use the reference clocks, at least initially, as explained in this article

Support

If you're still encountering issues, and are sure there there is nothing else to check — a hardware inspection might be necessary, and you can contact us, explaining the issue you're experiencing by joining our Discord server, via emailing us at support@minerstat.com or using Live chat, when available.

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