A2 Terminator Scrypt Miner Question | Bitcointalksearch.org

charles2k

sr. member

Activity: 326

Merit: 250

Maybe i will have for sale (EU) some dead A2 boards (but all chips look OK). I dont have time to repair it.
Now I have about six A2-90 (8 chips), five A2-110 (10chips) and two A2-110 (12chips)

Quote from: mjgraham on December 28, 2015, 03:06:05 PM

I'd like to have more of the 12 chip boards I think I found a place over seas that has a 10 pack of chips listed for $80-$110, whether that is real or not hard to say

mjgraham

full member

Activity: 188

Merit: 100

yea that is kind of the plan to locate bad chips, after doing a lot of testing on HW errors , the blue board has one chip that is not totally bad but far worse than any of the rest,on a test of submitting 500k shares @ 1200Mhz that board generated 59 HW errors and that chip had 46 of them.

I'd like to have more of the 12 chip boards I think I found a place over seas that has a 10 pack of chips listed for $80-$110, whether that is real or not hard to say, I only overvolted the green board went from 0.9 to 0.94v just cause I could identify what to do, luckily there was an easy way to mod it, there was an un-populated resistor place in parallel with the 10k so I put a 100k on it to give it a little more, I do know if you put a 10k in there by accident you get 1.17v which it did survive sitting idle for 30 seconds , I was just thinking of reverting them just to test before and after, I got ahead of myself on it and didn't spend a lot of time testing.

The bad thing about the blue boards are of course you need 2 more inches of heatsink if you were going to try and use the other sockets. And heatsinks are my main issue at the moment.

ZeroGee

member

Activity: 92

Merit: 10

Yeah, I think they are A1 boards that were re-purposed. I still would like to have one. Tongue

What did you overvolt them from/to when you made those measurements?

I've yet to do any real testing. I've been out of town away from the lab. I'll poke at it when I get back. I'd figure chip 0 and 6 are closest the to ST uC. Not sure which chain is which though. I'd test it by shorting a serial comm line at some point on the chain effectively bypassing the chips after it. When cgminer attempts to find chips and cores, it would give you an indicator as to which chain you modified.

mjgraham

full member

Activity: 188

Merit: 100

I am the one with the 12 chip board, I don't have any extra chips to populate it but it has everything it needs just have to mount the chips and remove the loop resistor in the chain. I am not sure but I think there adapted A1 mining boards from what I understand .

As for power supplies, I know it is not for everyone but getting away from ATX power supplies would be better and cheaper for sure, those two boards I have I removed the PCI-e power jacks and just mounted a screw terminal header, something that is odd is between the green on and the blue one the +12v polarity is different so you have to watch that.

After measuring power use on the +12 line the green board uses ~16A on the +12 line @ 1200 MHz overvolted it is about +2A more.

A question I have is does anyone know how they counted the chips, I would assume that 1 & 7 are closest to the MCU on the board, of course they report chips on 1-5 and 7-11 with 6 & 12 being 0, what I am wondering on my blue board chip 9 has a very high HW error rate compared to the others about 10x more, just wondering which one to change, which I can figure out but just wondering on some ideas.

QuintLeo

legendary

Activity: 1498

Merit: 1030

Quote from: ZeroGee on December 26, 2015, 05:25:50 AM

12 chip board shown on right: http://photos.mag-productions.com/Hobbies/A2/i-7GJDGgK/0/X2/20151218_121505-X2.jpg
It has matching number of bucks, so theoretically if it was capable of getting enough power and if it were populated correctly it should be usable in both hardware and software.

Was that a production board, or a prototype?

Quote

mine runs on 220V, better check PSU before powering it

Most modern ATX-type power supplies are capable of running on 110 OR 220 volts, some need a switch to do that some DON'T.

rammy2k2

legendary

Activity: 1974

Merit: 1003

mine runs on 220V, better check PSU before powering it

ZeroGee

member

Activity: 92

Merit: 10

Quote from: QuintLeo on December 26, 2015, 03:58:20 AM

There never was a 12 chip design, though the software apparently has the option to support up to 12 chips per hashboard.
The original 88Mh design used 8 chips per hashboard, the 110Mh "Mega" design used 10.

Seasonic X1250 Gold (or the X1200 Platinum) power supplies are a VERY GOOD FIT for A2 Mega units, plenty of power to run them at 1200 Mhz with good efficiency and the cables and fan hole match the case quite well.

The original no-markings black PS seems to be either a 1000 or 1100 watt unit, and tends to be very marginally rated at best.
Also seems to be about Silver efficiency, NOT Gold, in actual usage.
I HIGHLY recommend replaceing the things in any Mega unit even if you're not overclocking/"Turbo" mode at all, and DEFINITELY if you plan to clock higher than 1000 Mhz.

12 chip board shown on right: http://photos.mag-productions.com/Hobbies/A2/i-7GJDGgK/0/X2/20151218_121505-X2.jpg
It has matching number of bucks, so theoretically if it was capable of getting enough power and if it were populated correctly it should be usable in both hardware and software.

That does look very suitable! I may give it a look if I decide not to overvolt it.

QuintLeo

legendary

Activity: 1498

Merit: 1030

Quote from: ZeroGee on December 25, 2015, 07:19:50 AM

Quote from: charles2k on December 25, 2015, 06:34:59 AM

Power consumption depends on PCB version (older-longer boards have in total aprox. 100W less than newer shorter PCB V3 or V4)
But PSU inside are really shit quality. From 12 units after 5 months I have 6 dead...
With original PSUs (black-noname) and older boards is safe to run max. 1100MHz, with PCB V3/V4 max. 1000MHz.

Quote from: ZeroGee on December 25, 2015, 03:01:28 AM

My A2 110 has the same, and it can run on 240V.

And a note from my experience:
In mine I cannot get more than 4 cards to work on that power supply without having the power supply fluctuate and cause cards to cut in and out. It took about 15 minutes for this to happen. I had to run a separate power supply to a few of the cards. Doing some research yields that the power supplies that they ship in them are complete crap. I have not done extended testing running it on 240V, but I did power it with it once. YMMV and mine on.

I forgot to specify speed. I'm running them at 1200MHz to actually get the 110MH/s. I have the 10 chip green boards. V4 if I'm not mistaken. Using the black no-name power supply connected to 4 blades, fans, RPi, controller, I'm reading ~800W from the wall.

I would love to get my hands on a 12 chip board for testing, which I think is the older version.

There never was a 12 chip design, though the software apparently has the option to support up to 12 chips per hashboard.
The original 88Mh design used 8 chips per hashboard, the 110Mh "Mega" design used 10.

Seasonic X1250 Gold (or the X1200 Platinum) power supplies are a VERY GOOD FIT for A2 Mega units, plenty of power to run them at 1200 Mhz with good efficiency and the cables and fan hole match the case quite well.

The original no-markings black PS seems to be either a 1000 or 1100 watt unit, and tends to be very marginally rated at best.
Also seems to be about Silver efficiency, NOT Gold, in actual usage.
I HIGHLY recommend replaceing the things in any Mega unit even if you're not overclocking/"Turbo" mode at all, and DEFINITELY if you plan to clock higher than 1000 Mhz.

ZeroGee

member

Activity: 92

Merit: 10

Quote from: charles2k on December 25, 2015, 06:34:59 AM

Power consumption depends on PCB version (older-longer boards have in total aprox. 100W less than newer shorter PCB V3 or V4)
But PSU inside are really shit quality. From 12 units after 5 months I have 6 dead...
With original PSUs (black-noname) and older boards is safe to run max. 1100MHz, with PCB V3/V4 max. 1000MHz.

Quote from: ZeroGee on December 25, 2015, 03:01:28 AM

My A2 110 has the same, and it can run on 240V.

And a note from my experience:
In mine I cannot get more than 4 cards to work on that power supply without having the power supply fluctuate and cause cards to cut in and out. It took about 15 minutes for this to happen. I had to run a separate power supply to a few of the cards. Doing some research yields that the power supplies that they ship in them are complete crap. I have not done extended testing running it on 240V, but I did power it with it once. YMMV and mine on.

I forgot to specify speed. I'm running them at 1200MHz to actually get the 110MH/s. I have the 10 chip green boards. V4 if I'm not mistaken. Using the black no-name power supply connected to 4 blades, fans, RPi, controller, I'm reading ~800W from the wall.

I would love to get my hands on a 12 chip board for testing, which I think is the older version.

charles2k

sr. member

Activity: 326

Merit: 250

Power consumption depends on PCB version (older-longer boards have in total aprox. 100W less than newer shorter PCB V3 or V4)
But PSU inside are really shit quality. From 12 units after 5 months I have 6 dead...
With original PSUs (black-noname) and older boards is safe to run max. 1100MHz, with PCB V3/V4 max. 1000MHz.

Quote from: ZeroGee on December 25, 2015, 03:01:28 AM

My A2 110 has the same, and it can run on 240V.

And a note from my experience:
In mine I cannot get more than 4 cards to work on that power supply without having the power supply fluctuate and cause cards to cut in and out. It took about 15 minutes for this to happen. I had to run a separate power supply to a few of the cards. Doing some research yields that the power supplies that they ship in them are complete crap. I have not done extended testing running it on 240V, but I did power it with it once. YMMV and mine on.

ZeroGee

member

Activity: 92

Merit: 10

My A2 110 has the same, and it can run on 240V.

And a note from my experience:
In mine I cannot get more than 4 cards to work on that power supply without having the power supply fluctuate and cause cards to cut in and out. It took about 15 minutes for this to happen. I had to run a separate power supply to a few of the cards. Doing some research yields that the power supplies that they ship in them are complete crap. I have not done extended testing running it on 240V, but I did power it with it once. YMMV and mine on.

QuintLeo

legendary

Activity: 1498

Merit: 1030

110 is the norm for the supplies in the A2 models.
Most will accept 220 also though.

Eyedol-X

hero member

Activity: 952

Merit: 508

Quote from: blg42598 on December 24, 2015, 08:29:43 PM

Can it be connected to a 110v outlet? Or is it 220v?

One of mine has this power supply in it, I would assume it can be connected to either even for models that don't have this same PSU.

blg42598

hero member

Activity: 867

Merit: 1000

Can it be connected to a 110v outlet? Or is it 220v?

Topic: A2 Terminator Scrypt Miner Question (Read 903 times)