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Topic: BFL board project COINTAMINATION - EU facility - ORDERS OPENED for Chili - page 5. (Read 73081 times)

full member
Activity: 128
Merit: 100
What are the heatsink dimensions in your coolers?
You can use socket 115x coolers. My favorite ist teh Zalmyn CNPS10X Performa.
newbie
Activity: 59
Merit: 0
Update on my one running board.

It ran around 24-28ghs for about an hour the first day - right up until it just disappeared from the peon.

I reset a time or two and couldn't get it to run for a more than a minute at that point. I redid all the cooling and moved it to a windows box -reflashed the fw to the 1.1v limiting version. I was having tons of stability issues after that. I couldn't do anything to keep it hashing for more than 30 seconds. Hairdryer, nothing. {I also was getting some weird comm port issues, but I think that was the windows machine puking}

I moved it to a different host again (same psu) and decided to reflash back to the "normal" Chili14e fw. After that, things seemed to work much better for me. Huh I do have to do the hairdryer trick to get it running. And it's hanging upside down with a cardboard shroud over the caps & fets - with the backside open to allow a small usb arctic fan on blast on the back of the pcb - it's a headache, but it's been hashing between 32-34ghs for about 18 hours like this reporting about 6% errors.  Seems the temp in bfg stabilizes at 70c when you get the airflow just right - then it runs.

Still waiting on replacement capacitor to fix the other one.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/img_host/20140131_234257.jpg
https://s3.amazonaws.com/img_host/20140131_234307.jpg
https://s3.amazonaws.com/img_host/20140131_234339.jpg
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 1000
What cpu coolers do you guys use with these boards?

Any cooler would work?

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099

What are the heatsink dimensions in your coolers?

lots of info on this thread:-  https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.4865297
legendary
Activity: 2702
Merit: 1468
What cpu coolers do you guys use with these boards?

Any cooler would work?

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099

What are the heatsink dimensions in your coolers?
hero member
Activity: 686
Merit: 500
A pumpkin mines 27 hours a night
Lucko & MrTeal, are you looking into producing boards and products for the new ASICMiner chips (https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/annasicminer-publicly-looking-for-potential-customerspartners-for-new-chips-438359), as well?
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 1000

Actually, the plan with 14g is that it will limit based on current as well as voltage, so if you are nearing the current limit of the PSU it will reduce frequency/voltage to keep the regulator from reaching its current limit fault. It's then dynamic based on operating conditions.

Hi MrTeal

Your plan for 14g version sounds good.

With your voltage control tool, that will allow us to customise each device to its best condition, also to take advantage of the quality of each PSU as well.(mix and match)
legendary
Activity: 1274
Merit: 1004
I got my boards back from ChipGeek and got the first one assembled. It does a very slow ramp up on the volts but as soon as it hits 1.1v it crashes.
I've some  which have >= 25 engines. I do not active cooling strong the psr chip area so the temperature will limit the voltage below 1.13 V. Mine mostly crash above but not below. So mostly they are stable hashing now.

And yes, we are need a voltage limit for boards above 25 Engines. Maybe we can have a small formula which will calculate the endvoltage maybe if engines > 24 then 1.16 V - (noOfEngines-24) * 0.02 V elseif <=24 1.16 V else 1.1 V or so ;-)

Another way is to store the voltage at the crash, decrease it a little bit and use this as a new upper limit at next time. In this case we need only one fw for all boards.

Cheers...
Actually, the plan with 14g is that it will limit based on current as well as voltage, so if you are nearing the current limit of the PSU it will reduce frequency/voltage to keep the regulator from reaching its current limit fault. It's then dynamic based on operating conditions.
full member
Activity: 128
Merit: 100
For the limiting firmware, there is a 14g under development now that besides having several features and enhancements for everyone includes some that should specifically help your run of boards. The slow ramp to help heat the boards will be more efficient and will be active at the time instead of just on the startup. As well, the board will drop to idle voltage (0.9V) if there is no work and then slowly ramp back up. That should help prevent resets in the case where the board cools due to lack of work and then starts back up.
The maximum voltage will also be configurable through a z command, so a user can tweak that parameter on their own rather than having different firmwares for different voltage limits.
These are really great news. I'd like to pretest ;-)

Cheers...
full member
Activity: 128
Merit: 100
I got my boards back from ChipGeek and got the first one assembled. It does a very slow ramp up on the volts but as soon as it hits 1.1v it crashes.
I've some  which have >= 25 engines. I do not active cooling strong the psr chip area so the temperature will limit the voltage below 1.13 V. Mine mostly crash above but not below. So mostly they are stable hashing now.

And yes, we are need a voltage limit for boards above 25 Engines. Maybe we can have a small formula which will calculate the endvoltage maybe if engines > 24 then 1.16 V - (noOfEngines-24) * 0.02 V elseif <=24 1.16 V else 1.1 V or so ;-)

Another way is to store the voltage at the crash, decrease it a little bit and use this as a new upper limit at next time. In this case we need only one fw for all boards.

Cheers...
sr. member
Activity: 359
Merit: 250
What is the planned production schedule for batch 3?
Not sure what you mean with batch 3. But I'm currently at 38,5C... So I'm out cold to... Will do my best to send some boards tomorrow but we are snowed in at the moment so not sure if I will be able since it was snowing like crazy whole day and it is still snowing... I'm working on a first in first out bases... Unfortunately you are second to last in this "batch 3" if I understood that question right...

Would be cool to get them as soon as possible... a huge thanks for your work.
hero member
Activity: 826
Merit: 1000
What is the planned production schedule for batch 3?
Not sure what you mean with batch 3. But I'm currently at 38,5C... So I'm out cold to... Will do my best to send some boards tomorrow but we are snowed in at the moment so not sure if I will be able since it was snowing like crazy whole day and it is still snowing... I'm working on a first in first out bases... Unfortunately you are second to last in this "batch 3" if I understood that question right...
legendary
Activity: 966
Merit: 1000
What is the planned production schedule for batch 3?
newbie
Activity: 59
Merit: 0
Got this first board together with the Evo212 and it's hashing between 30-32GHS.

Heatsinks for the backside delayed so running without - but it is upside down in 14.4C ambient.   Grin

Figured I'd try my luck on minepeon, not optimistically -- but it fired right up and ramped up to here. Temp in peon showing 51C. Don't want to jinx it for now, so just gonna watch it for a while. I'll reseat the heatsinks move it to another machine I can tweak and will push it later, but seems a decent set of chips so far... Glad it's alive!  Grin

Nice board. Thanks Lucko!
newbie
Activity: 59
Merit: 0
Damn! That was fast.  Grin

Thank you very much MrTeal!
legendary
Activity: 1274
Merit: 1004
I have found a local shop that has almost everything I needed to get my boards repaired from shipping.  Getting them interested in bitcoin now, too... Cool

We have one of my boards fixed up and ready to go. Putting cooling on and powering it up tonight - everything looks ok this far.

One of the capacitors for the other one was damaged beyond repair though. The contacts were bent badly when it came off the board. It wouldn't make good contact that way so had to try to straighten it a little. Snapped it the rest of the way trying...

My shop doesn't have these exact caps at hand, but they gave me a part # for it to order a few.

Lucko, MrTeal or ChipGeek - would one of you be able to recommend a proper source/part # for getting these?

EDIT: I'll take any recommendation from this crowd - I trust a lot of you more than myself, but I figured I'd ask the gurus first...
This is the exact part. PCG1C681MCL1GS They aren't standard eletrolytics, they're aluminum polymer.
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Nichicon/PCG1C681MCL1GS/?qs=%2fha2pyFaduiCPnNwcYiq3wyCZT%2fFH59hIv%2ftueWLy54uR%252b1NvJOoUQ%3d%3d
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/PCG1C681MCL1GS/493-3100-1-ND/1662570
newbie
Activity: 59
Merit: 0
I have found a local shop that has almost everything I needed to get my boards repaired from shipping.  Getting them interested in bitcoin now, too... Cool

We have one of my boards fixed up and ready to go. Putting cooling on and powering it up tonight - everything looks ok this far.

One of the capacitors for the other one was damaged beyond repair though. The contacts were bent badly when it came off the board. It wouldn't make good contact that way so had to try to straighten it a little. Snapped it the rest of the way trying...

My shop doesn't have these exact caps at hand, but they gave me a part # for it to order a few.

Lucko, MrTeal or ChipGeek - would one of you be able to recommend a proper source/part # for getting these?

EDIT: I'll take any recommendation from this crowd - I trust a lot of you more than myself, but I figured I'd ask the gurus first...
hero member
Activity: 826
Merit: 1000
I have 4 chips on batch 2 and 4 chips on batch 3. any updates on the status?
One post up(MrTeal). The rest was on a mail...

EDIT: I'm currently "suffering" from sick daughter and girlfriend so I'm alone in taking care of them(not that I'm 100%) and a bit slower...
donator
Activity: 164
Merit: 100
I have 4 chips on batch 2 and 4 chips on batch 3. any updates on the status?
legendary
Activity: 1274
Merit: 1004
I got my boards back from ChipGeek and got the first one assembled. It does a very slow ramp up on the volts but as soon as it hits 1.1v it crashes. After a bit it resets itself and does it all over again. It doesn't force cgminer to crash though. So forgive me but what "trick" should I be doing to keep it hashing?

I have 2 boards that need some "draft protection" over the power modules but still need additional underside cooling.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/a5t436j4y788r7p/2014-01-28%2021.46.42.jpg (any moving air over the modules and it crashes)

If its reaching 38Gh it will need the voltage limiting software

"Draft Protection" nice call I moved it away from the fan and it is holding steady right now at 32GH/s at 1.06v. I got them both assembled and they are both holding at 1.06v the other hashes at 35GH/s.

Question for Lucko: Did you test each board and decide the optimal firmware (I know, a lot of work) or are you putting the same firmware on all boards?

I too am pleasantly surprised I expected a host of issues and really have had none (except for damage from shipping) other than moving one out of the way of the fan.

Thanks...

EDIT: Oh by the way the damn red led lights made my heart jump when I first powered it up. I thought uh oh that doesn't look right...
I think your problem is too low ambient temperature. I'm doing this at home now not in a workshop so I get them tested at lower temperature. I also asked if I could get slow rise 1.1V limiter firmware but didn't get it. I think that one would help your board. I did test boards wit a lot of different PSU(they also affect them how they work) and range of conditions. And put on what looks to be working best. Unfortunately Mrteal did not make the firmware that would work best with yours.

Yes read leds are in BOM. If you had a green ones it was a mistake done in first assembly if I'm not mistaken... You can read that in Chili tread...
The LEDs were green throughout the Chili run. We were originally going to switch back to red so they would be brighter, but in the end we decided to just keep it continuous instead of having two different styles. I actually like the green ones in there being dim. It reduces the number of bright LEDs that are on all the time. I love the Antminers I have, but those LEDs are obnoxious.

For the limiting firmware, there is a 14g under development now that besides having several features and enhancements for everyone includes some that should specifically help your run of boards. The slow ramp to help heat the boards will be more efficient and will be active at the time instead of just on the startup. As well, the board will drop to idle voltage (0.9V) if there is no work and then slowly ramp back up. That should help prevent resets in the case where the board cools due to lack of work and then starts back up.
The maximum voltage will also be configurable through a z command, so a user can tweak that parameter on their own rather than having different firmwares for different voltage limits.
hero member
Activity: 826
Merit: 1000
I got my boards back from ChipGeek and got the first one assembled. It does a very slow ramp up on the volts but as soon as it hits 1.1v it crashes. After a bit it resets itself and does it all over again. It doesn't force cgminer to crash though. So forgive me but what "trick" should I be doing to keep it hashing?

I have 2 boards that need some "draft protection" over the power modules but still need additional underside cooling.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/a5t436j4y788r7p/2014-01-28%2021.46.42.jpg (any moving air over the modules and it crashes)

If its reaching 38Gh it will need the voltage limiting software

"Draft Protection" nice call I moved it away from the fan and it is holding steady right now at 32GH/s at 1.06v. I got them both assembled and they are both holding at 1.06v the other hashes at 35GH/s.

Question for Lucko: Did you test each board and decide the optimal firmware (I know, a lot of work) or are you putting the same firmware on all boards?

I too am pleasantly surprised I expected a host of issues and really have had none (except for damage from shipping) other than moving one out of the way of the fan.

Thanks...

EDIT: Oh by the way the damn red led lights made my heart jump when I first powered it up. I thought uh oh that doesn't look right...
I think your problem is too low ambient temperature. I'm doing this at home now not in a workshop so I get them tested at lower temperature. I also asked if I could get slow rise 1.1V limiter firmware but didn't get it. I think that one would help your board. I did test boards wit a lot of different PSU(they also affect them how they work) and range of conditions. And put on what looks to be working best. Unfortunately Mrteal did not make the firmware that would work best with yours.

Yes read leds are in BOM. If you had a green ones it was a mistake done in first assembly if I'm not mistaken... You can read that in Chili tread...
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