Topic: Avalon ASIC users thread - page 216. (Read 438602 times)

Yes.

Mighr be a stupid question but are you sure that your office isn't doing anything on the network that might be giving you an issue?  Like proxy server settings?

Again, no, it was not hashing.  Avoid speculating wildly based on a tiny subset of hundreds of variables.

Hmm but you said MHs isn't changing i.e. that hash rate isn't dropping.
Check "Total MH" which should be increasing.

Edit: yes it may not *actually* be hashing, but the driver module may think it is and isn't getting an error from the devices and thus assuming it is hashing and thus it's effectively saying that it's just not finding any nonces.
i.e. it's able to send the work and the expected responses are coming back, but without any nonces.

No, not hashing.

i.e. still hashing, still getting work, but not sending anything back to the pool/bitcoind.
So either there's an issue of heat causing bad/no nonces to come back or there's some failure to send out the answers (failure to send is unlikely)

Counting the amount of work done is up to the driver supplying a response back to the call to scanhash()
Is Hardware Errors increasing?

... and yes the driver module can reply in such a way as cgminer thinks it is working but no nonces are being found.
Since a work item doesn't have to find a none (they only average one per nonce range as you know) if it isn't actually returning any nonces then that would also match your description (i.e. due to some over heat MCU/whatever issue that might happen on occasion and the reboot fixes it)

Edit: this happens with Icarus on rare occasions

Still having some amount of reliability problems.  Moving the miner in the office helped a great deal.  However, still seeing machine restarts for unknown reasons (note: must ping support, inquire about reboot logging).

And right now, the miner is in a strange state where the controller (running Linux) and cgminer are alive, but fans are not running, and no work is occurring:


And the pool agrees that no shares are incoming.

I believe you mentioned you had it plugged into an APC backUPS 550. if its like my APC backUPS ES-550, it only trickle charges the battery when power is on. normally your avalon will be running on wall power with only surge suppression.

also if your avalon draws 600+ watts it wont power your avalon when the powers out. the ES-550 only delivers 330 watts when in battery backup mode.

this is if its plugged into the battery backup outlets of course. there are surge suppression only outlets on the ES-550 too.

jeff, you should verify your measurement (with load and without load) without ups asap.

No one (but Avalon) has any source code yet ...

I guess the point people menioned about the power can be pointed to as this. When BFL missed estimates they didn't say they used a laptop PS that was 80% efficient and their box had fans so those take power, plus they needed additional fans. They said it uses 80 Watts (at the wall) and people checked at the wall to verify power claims.

Why didn't Avalon at least list their system by their actual draw? because 400 sounds wayyyyy better then 600. It is easy enough to plug in and verify. This is the cost in power the customer pays for is the one that would matter not that the modules apparently take 2/3rds of the power.

Now do I care if the unit is stand alone. No. Do I care about power draw. Yes. Why because I can run linux on a Rpi at ~5W and some BFL gear for less watts (if the numbers are off by 800%) and have less cooling required through the hot part of the year.

To me the fact that the main face of Icarus and Lancelot trolled BFL over being wrong about power use makes me wonder why such a great and honest person wouldn't publish an accurate power consumption figure for a unit that actually plugs into the wall. It isn't difficult. It is expected that the power use listed for a device with 1 power plug will include the power burned up by the Power supply, the hubs, the Open WRT, the fans and anything else in the case that would be powered to use the device.

Maybe I missed the part where other companies forgot to take into concideration their Power supplies or fans for a boxed unit. Maybe the Avalon team was inexperienced with this as the previous offerings where not as complete of a unit. I don't know.

There is a second stage of DC-DC conversion where the 12V output from the ATX power supply is further reduced, adding another layer of loss.

At least he gets dinner. Unlike at "Chez Papillon" where they're seating guests while the kitchen is still waiting for ingredients.

Jeff,

You can take a look here:

https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/commit/7e2b1e80aafc431f8572ad57bb012f2dfe7f7c97


I am testing this on my openwrt and i am having zero memory leaks for almost 10 hours. I guess when you mine with stratum, Avalon memory will be exhausted very soon, which can cause system reboot.

Are you having cgminer patches (source) related to avalon?
Someone from Avalon team has to send you recompiled/updated cgminer package probably.

Stratum, with "+8" (difficulty 8.0).  Stratum seems to work better in general, with Avalon's modified cgminer 2.10.4.

In addition to that - serious miners are already running a beefy system as a host to control mining equipment... the simple fact is... unless you want to be physically close to your mining location, you need a machine to remote into and control your power switches and other gear. If you're running a big enough farm - it's also going to be your bitcoind node.

Slapping openwrt on a device doesn't make it easier to administer remotely - why expose your avalon (or any mining machine) to potential intrusion via forwarded ports? It makes no sense, you'll have a secure vpn link to a machine on that local subnet.

Are you using getwork or stratum on p2pool? Did you try both? Any difference between the two?

This is a 91% efficiency power supply. So even if that was "normal" 620W AC is ~565W DC.  565W DC > 400W DC.

Also remember the 400W number comes from the product listing for the entire unit.  It is "strange" for a company to have all the specs related to the entire unit except the power which just happens to be just the chip (not even the total DC wattage).  Now for the module only listing putting a wattage of ~180W DC would be realistic. 

Still even if you take 620W AC remove the PSU inefficiency getting 565W DC then drop out 25W for the host and 3 5W fans = 540W not 400W.  A single module by itself has to be pulling ~180W ea (3x180 = 540) not ~133W ea (3x133W=400W).   So the 400W number is dishonest, there is no way or reason to spin that.  The sad thing is first out the door @ 180W per module and 620W per unit is still impressive.  It is dishonesty that isn't even needed.

Unless you want Inaba to eat you alive, never quote that reality, ever again.

By the way, if BFL overclocks, it will raise even that amount by a bit more. Adding the host just raises it further.

I was too sad to go to bed so I finished the post. Beware! It's nearly 4am and there will be typos.

http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2013/02/98-asic-choices-avalon-update.html