Pages:
Author

Topic: A4 Dominator - Pre-Order Group Buy - 280mh, roughly 1000w, $1800 + shipping - page 47. (Read 122577 times)

full member
Activity: 243
Merit: 108
Innosilicon ASIC official representative
Well it has been a rough day for the A4.  Dropping cards, crash and rebooting many times.  Couple of power cycles involved to get it back online.    I am not a very happy camper at the moment.  Miner just crashed and rebooted again....  I don't know how many times it has done that today. 

It is far worse over on Prohashing than it is on Litecoinpool due to the coin switching.  I think I will put it back over on Litecoinpool until some of the firmware updates happen.  I hope Inno is monitoring this thread and taking note.  Crashing miners and dropping cards is not "Keeping their promises to the mining community"  They need to get this fixed and not try to keep telling us how stable the A4 is...

Inno's web site has been down all day.  I know a couple of users here have gotten a copy of the latest firmware.  I am hoping to hear from some of them to tell us what they are seeing with the update.   

Hi this is Chloe from Innosilicon. I just saw all these feedback and thank you all for these feedback. We have noted the software problem and we are working on it. Your firmware is not the latest version, I will send the latest version to you by email. I've asked my colleague to upload it to Dropbox or somewhere you can access online, but it will take some time.

No worries, we will fix everything asap.
copper member
Activity: 2898
Merit: 1465
Clueless!
Just an aside. But I passed on some A4's in the group buy, so I looked them over, due to the fact I was the middle man escrow on a group buy of 6 cubes.  Looking at the enclosed PI case. (I did not look inside). IF and I really mean IF it uses standard ports on the Pi for the case. And or is some kinda ribbon arrangement for the ports. Or heck  you could rig up even 1 port per cube with a cable if that was the best standard adapter you could find to hack this. Anyway if that is the case if I owned one I'd make a PI set up for EACH cube. Would only cost about 50 bucks for cables etc to do with the Proper PI and a say SanDisk 8gb class 10 SD card with the the IMG backup file. You could get lucky and the only 'non-standard' part could be the plastic case itself on the controller unit.


Even my Titan cubes run more stable and faster when it is only ONE Cube per controller. Can't afford to do that, we can't hack out controllers easy. Anyway you could get lucky and have an option to do this. May help your speed a bit and or down time being only 1/2 on the various reboots till they get the firmware tweaked. Something to look at and go 'hmmmmm' imho


Later
hero member
Activity: 833
Merit: 1001
that would make sense since rpi could be the culprit too... please try and let us know.. also what are your power+speed settings?

I have 3 units. I have all 3 on litecoinpool. I have the single on its own controller and it is much better then the 2 on one controller. The single I am getting 135Mhs but on the 2 unit I am only getting 245Mhs. I might try swapping around my miners and see if having 2 on one controller makes any difference.. It just seems strange that my single unit hashes much better the the dual. They are both plugged into the same network 5 port bridge out in my garage
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 517
Well it has been a rough day for the A4.  Dropping cards, crash and rebooting many times.  Couple of power cycles involved to get it back online.    I am not a very happy camper at the moment.  Miner just crashed and rebooted again....  I don't know how many times it has done that today. 

It is far worse over on Prohashing than it is on Litecoinpool due to the coin switching.  I think I will put it back over on Litecoinpool until some of the firmware updates happen.  I hope Inno is monitoring this thread and taking note.  Crashing miners and dropping cards is not "Keeping their promises to the mining community"  They need to get this fixed and not try to keep telling us how stable the A4 is...

Inno's web site has been down all day.  I know a couple of users here have gotten a copy of the latest firmware.  I am hoping to hear from some of them to tell us what they are seeing with the update.   
full member
Activity: 136
Merit: 100
I have 3 units. I have all 3 on litecoinpool. I have the single on its own controller and it is much better then the 2 on one controller. The single I am getting 135Mhs but on the 2 unit I am only getting 245Mhs. I might try swapping around my miners and see if having 2 on one controller makes any difference.. It just seems strange that my single unit hashes much better the the dual. They are both plugged into the same network 5 port bridge out in my garage
hero member
Activity: 833
Merit: 1001
These things definitely need firmware update cause mine still dropped speeds after hashing for about 1.5 days. Something is not right at power level cause its either some sort of leak or just capacitor giving false signals and then safety feature kicks in. Heat is not an issue as mine are in labrador and its currently very cold over there.
hero member
Activity: 952
Merit: 508
Has anyone installed the firmware update yet?  Any updates or reports with the new firmware? 

Has the firmware been posted somewhere? I'm happy to test it out.
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 517
Has anyone installed the firmware update yet?  Any updates or reports with the new firmware? 
hero member
Activity: 952
Merit: 508
Well here is a new issue... I happened to look over at my miner to see if I had lost any boards and the miner crashed while I was watching it.  It was hashing at 262mh on the miner side at the time of the crash.  Suddenly the screen goes blank and indicates it cannot connect:

Here is the error:
Error getting version for 127.0.0.1:4028 ERR: socket connect(127.0.0.1:4028) failed

It tried to auto restart and it came up with only 1 board hashing.  So I tried to stop it in the web interface and restart it.  So far that didn't work.  Looks like I will need to go power cycle it.  I just saw an email from tbly13 he recieved his with a cut power cord to the fan on one of his.  He is reaching out to Chloe now.  I need to open by second A4 to make sure everything is OK there.

Interesting - exactly the same error recently sighted when an A2 crashed (reported at Prohashing).
https://forums.prohashing.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=988


I read about this one, my A2's never had an issue at PH but they both have ANX Firmware.

I really hope someone out there can get a modded one out soon. I know Emdje posted about wanting one to modify... I doubt he can do much more than fix up the GUI without actually having an A4 in his possession.
member
Activity: 96
Merit: 10
Well here is a new issue... I happened to look over at my miner to see if I had lost any boards and the miner crashed while I was watching it.  It was hashing at 262mh on the miner side at the time of the crash.  Suddenly the screen goes blank and indicates it cannot connect:

Here is the error:
Error getting version for 127.0.0.1:4028 ERR: socket connect(127.0.0.1:4028) failed

It tried to auto restart and it came up with only 1 board hashing.  So I tried to stop it in the web interface and restart it.  So far that didn't work.  Looks like I will need to go power cycle it.  I just saw an email from tbly13 he recieved his with a cut power cord to the fan on one of his.  He is reaching out to Chloe now.  I need to open by second A4 to make sure everything is OK there.

Interesting - exactly the same error recently sighted when an A2 crashed (reported at Prohashing).
https://forums.prohashing.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=988
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 517
Yes, if he is in a hurry he could just solder and heat shrink it.  He is asking Inno for help at the moment.  So we will see how this goes.

To hear comments that Inno thinks these things are stable and we won't see many updates is a little frustrating.  They are not stable, and they are going to need some help.  So I hope they are listening here and paying attention.  I would be glad to give them feedback and any info they need.  I will point the miner at a pool of their choosing just so they can watch what happens.  So I will be glad to be the "test" subject if it will help them gather the details the need to correct these issues.

I just looked at my second A4 and it visually looks OK.  Won't know the operational for another day or two until I get cables for my PSU.

hero member
Activity: 952
Merit: 508
Well here is a new issue... I happened to look over at my miner to see if I had lost any boards and the miner crashed while I was watching it.  It was hashing at 262mh on the miner side at the time of the crash.  Suddenly the screen goes blank and indicates it cannot connect:

Here is the error:
Error getting version for 127.0.0.1:4028 ERR: socket connect(127.0.0.1:4028) failed

It tried to auto restart and it came up with only 1 board hashing.  So I tried to stop it in the web interface and restart it.  So far that didn't work.  Looks like I will need to go power cycle it.  I just saw an email from tbly13 he recieved his with a cut power cord to the fan on one of his.  He is reaching out to Chloe now.  I need to open by second A4 to make sure everything is OK there.

I did a thorough inspection of mine when I received it... While I appreciate efficient packaging methods, they could definitely do a better job packing these things IMO.

if the cord is just cut, he should be able to resolder/heatshrink it.
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 517
Well here is a new issue... I happened to look over at my miner to see if I had lost any boards and the miner crashed while I was watching it.  It was hashing at 262mh on the miner side at the time of the crash.  Suddenly the screen goes blank and indicates it cannot connect:

Here is the error:
Error getting version for 127.0.0.1:4028 ERR: socket connect(127.0.0.1:4028) failed

It tried to auto restart and it came up with only 1 board hashing.  So I tried to stop it in the web interface and restart it.  So far that didn't work.  Looks like I will need to go power cycle it.  I just saw an email from tbly13 he recieved his with a cut power cord to the fan on one of his.  He is reaching out to Chloe now.  I need to open by second A4 to make sure everything is OK there.
full member
Activity: 136
Merit: 100
I mean, I still would love to buy one of these, but i dont like wire transfers. I would happily buy one if they took paypal. I cant imagine how many customers got turned away because of them only taking wire transfer. The main thing that is there is no security as a buyer. how do i know that the miner wont die on the 46th day after i receive it! If someone here knows a way i can wire transfer with credit card/debit card (No, im not going to pay someone random or spend $2400-$2600 to buy one unit on a reseller site) please tell me.
You can purchase one with a credit card through aliexpress. But they are re-sellers so they are only responsible for getting the machine to you. If you have problems I am sure they will prob just refer you to innosilicon
member
Activity: 77
Merit: 10
My PC just sees it as an ISO file. I don't know of any way to examine the contents of an ISO file. I think you have to get into the pi and then edit the files there.

try opening the iso with winrar. if its not illegal, maybe "accidently" upload the software and let people figure it out
I dont have an a4 so this may not work, but i think it will.

when you open it, try this *****MAKE A BACKUP OF THE SD CARD FIRST!!!!!********

Open the iso with WinRAR

go to cmdline.txt on sd card

add this to the end of the line "init=/bin/sh" (without quotes)

save it, save the iso

put the sd card back in the pi

(I dont have an a4, but im guessing its a normal pi so you can just plug a monitor into it)

login user is "su"

no password

now make a new user and enable ssh and give it root  privileges

turn off the pi and put the sd card back into the computer

open the iso, then go to cmdline.txt

remove the "init=/bin/sh"

save it

put sd card back into the pi


now try to ssh or login with that new user Cheesy



BTW if you want to setup file access through ssh, use filezilla and use "SFTP". Then just put your ssh details and you should be able to access the filesystem in filezilla


if it worked pls tell me

(If it wont let you change anything, run this command "mount -o remount,rw /" without quotes)



member
Activity: 77
Merit: 10
My PC just sees it as an ISO file. I don't know of any way to examine the contents of an ISO file. I think you have to get into the pi and then edit the files there.

try opening the iso with winrar. if its not illegal, maybe "accidently" upload the software and let people figure it out
member
Activity: 77
Merit: 10
inno just told me that it automatically restarts itself when a board dies. is that true? and also have you been able to edit the software?

The boards are disappearing completely in the console.  Once it gets to that point I had to restart the miner.  I had one case last night where I am working with the Prohashing folks I setup the miner there and a board stopped hashing, but it didn't disappear.  So I waited for several hours and it eventually picked up work and started hashing again.  The pool operator has some ideas on how to tweak things so we will see.  If the card vanishes however I have not seen it come back. 


Intersting. Have you been getting 270mhs? I saw you were talking about 250 but is that pool side or miner side?

On litecoinpool what the miner reports is much higher than what the pool reports.  And it is fairly consistent on litecoinpool on the pool side hashing.  The hash rate settles in at 240-250ish.  So really not that impressive at the moment.  On Prohashing it is impossible to tell what you are hashing at because it is constantly switching coins and the hash rate is all over the place.  So the baseline is litecoinpool to see what the miner hashes at over time.  So the miner side on litecoinpool is 260-270mh range and on the pool we are seeing 240-250.  So about a 20mh difference from the rated specs.  The miner may start up hashing at an even higher rate than the specs, but it quickly starts to sink and keeps dropping.  So there is some tweaking needed both on the pool side and on firmware it appears.
Now that they are getting miners out I am confident we will see tweaks to the firmware to maximze the potential of these machines.

as nice as that seems, i asked inno about when they will update the current software. They said that its "stable" and there wont be very many updates :/
legendary
Activity: 1174
Merit: 1001
inno just told me that it automatically restarts itself when a board dies. is that true? and also have you been able to edit the software?

The boards are disappearing completely in the console.  Once it gets to that point I had to restart the miner.  I had one case last night where I am working with the Prohashing folks I setup the miner there and a board stopped hashing, but it didn't disappear.  So I waited for several hours and it eventually picked up work and started hashing again.  The pool operator has some ideas on how to tweak things so we will see.  If the card vanishes however I have not seen it come back. 


Intersting. Have you been getting 270mhs? I saw you were talking about 250 but is that pool side or miner side?

On litecoinpool what the miner reports is much higher than what the pool reports.  And it is fairly consistent on litecoinpool on the pool side hashing.  The hash rate settles in at 240-250ish.  So really not that impressive at the moment.  On Prohashing it is impossible to tell what you are hashing at because it is constantly switching coins and the hash rate is all over the place.  So the baseline is litecoinpool to see what the miner hashes at over time.  So the miner side on litecoinpool is 260-270mh range and on the pool we are seeing 240-250.  So about a 20mh difference from the rated specs.  The miner may start up hashing at an even higher rate than the specs, but it quickly starts to sink and keeps dropping.  So there is some tweaking needed both on the pool side and on firmware it appears.
Now that they are getting miners out I am confident we will see tweaks to the firmware to maximze the potential of these machines.
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 517
inno just told me that it automatically restarts itself when a board dies. is that true? and also have you been able to edit the software?

The boards are disappearing completely in the console.  Once it gets to that point I had to restart the miner.  I had one case last night where I am working with the Prohashing folks I setup the miner there and a board stopped hashing, but it didn't disappear.  So I waited for several hours and it eventually picked up work and started hashing again.  The pool operator has some ideas on how to tweak things so we will see.  If the card vanishes however I have not seen it come back. 


Intersting. Have you been getting 270mhs? I saw you were talking about 250 but is that pool side or miner side?

On litecoinpool what the miner reports is much higher than what the pool reports.  And it is fairly consistent on litecoinpool on the pool side hashing.  The hash rate settles in at 240-250ish.  So really not that impressive at the moment.  On Prohashing it is impossible to tell what you are hashing at because it is constantly switching coins and the hash rate is all over the place.  So the baseline is litecoinpool to see what the miner hashes at over time.  So the miner side on litecoinpool is 260-270mh range and on the pool we are seeing 240-250.  So about a 20mh difference from the rated specs.  The miner may start up hashing at an even higher rate than the specs, but it quickly starts to sink and keeps dropping.  So there is some tweaking needed both on the pool side and on firmware it appears.
legendary
Activity: 1109
Merit: 1000
My PC just sees it as an ISO file. I don't know of any way to examine the contents of an ISO file. I think you have to get into the pi and then edit the files there.
Pages:
Jump to: