Topic: Bounty[PAID OUT] : a bitstream for better utilizing the Cairnsmore1 157-294.5btc (Read 21992 times)

The makomk bitstream don't work for both Icarus FPGA's, but you can try a mix of original icarus bitstream on the first fpga and makomk to the second one or vise versa. This could work.

The makomk bitstreams have the RX/TX changed for the second fpga, as this was the fault of CM1.

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Sounds about right...  You can try and flash the 220 version to your Cairnsmore for that extra 10MH/s

Hmm damn.. I get about 420MH/s from the Cairnsmore (one pair of spartan 6) but only 380MH/s from one Icarus..

From what I can tell, they used the bitstream which was originally used for them as a base and modified it for the specific needs of this board.
So no it wouldn't work any more.

Will this bitstream also work with the "classic" Icarus Boards ?

Thank you. I'll have to turn them on long enough to see his. 

Mine's a bit annoying in that you can't actually build it from source and get the same level of performance that the released bitstreams reach. There's a source archive in the dcmwd4e release, and if you unpack that, download and unpack the .ncd from http://www.makomk.com/~aidan/shortfin_dcmwd4e_ed_ncd.7z, and add the unpacked .ncd to the supplied project as a SmartGuide file (right-click fpgaminer_top in the left pane in ISE, select SmartGuide, point it at that file) you ought to be able to get speeds that are good enough for testing purposes. If you're willing to do a long SmartXplorer run you ought to be able to get the speeds up to release levels; I didn't because it's a bit hit and miss and would delay the release by quite some time.

Edit: As I've said before, honestly you might be better off using the hexanchus branch if you want to build from source right now ("git clone https://github.com/makomk/Icarus.git; cd Icarus; git checkout -b hexanchus origin/hexanchus"). Slightly slower than the released bitstream, but I think it's the fastest of mine that can actually be built from source, and you should literally just be able to open the project file up in ISE and build it.

Edit 2: hexanchus requires different DIP switch settings though; on all the FPGAs where you'd normally set switch 2 to off, you also need to set switch 4 to off as well.

It's in his signature

Yes it does. Thank you.

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edit: I'll just search this thread to find the git link.

For hashvoodoo, I still need to flesh out the documentation a bit more. But the project files and all required metadata are included in the github, the release is fully opensource.

Using Xilinx ISE 14.1 just clone the git repo, open the project, and synthesize/implement the project. All settings and whatnot are included in the project file already.

Eventually I'll flesh out some documentation on how to do that in detail, but ultimately that's getting into the grey area of using ISE in general, and being familiar at least on some level with FPGA development.

I also believe Makomk's version includes the same project files, but not 100% sure.

I've also included an NCD/NGD of the built version, and the project is setup to use smartguide so you at least get "close to useful" performance...

If you have specific questions, I'll do my best to answer for now, and soon we'll update the docs with more details. But even with the current release, it is a fairly straightforward process to *build* it. The problem is making a release worthy (ie: with useful performance) bitstream isn't a straightforward process regardless of how well we document it. There is a fairly steep learning curve to working with FPGAs in general versus for example compiling a C program.

Does that help?

This question is directly related to 'the bounty'.
Maybe there are still a few loose threads to be resolved.

Even though the bounty has been paid, IIRC, one of the conditions was that it be solved by an open-source solution with a clearly defined tool-chain and build process.

Have those conditions actually been met?
If so, I'm having a bit of a problem chasing down the info.

Can we have some 'close-out' posts summarizing all that, please.

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I'm not saying I don't appreciate all y'all's hard work to date, but I am interested into digging into the guts of this stuff myself.

Link:

 - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/cairnsmore1-quad-xc6slx150-board-78239

Oh, BTW, thank you Glasswalker and makomk.

Once I actually *have* some of these boards, I'll send some BTC to y'all.

(And, TheSeven. Which is high time since I'm using MPBM with my BFL Single. And I've enjoyed hacking the Python some myself.)

Is it now time to close/lock this thread and redirect all conversation over to "Quad XC6SLX150 Board - Initial Price £400/$640/520€"?

I'm in favor of having one less thread to watch.

all stable now with <1% errors...I added "--icarus -timing long" and now have stabilised 2 CM1s at 380~399MHs...very happy camper

I can confirm that I've received my portion of this. Thank you!

Indeed, though there's probably not going to be any huge performance improvements from my end of things in the immediate future. The latest dcmwd4e bitstreams are already into ztex territory speed-wise, even though getting your rigs there requires more manual fiddling than it ought to.

Hey, just wanted to say on behalf of Makomk, TheSeven and Myself, thank you all for your support and contributions!

I wanted also to confirm reciept of 200BTC for the bounty payment.

I have redistributed it in the way that makomk, TheSeven and myself discussed:
90BTC was sent to Makomk via TXID: d7381ae9e651f18d8ecb65b98e8d87f77010336b248dca13c97bf09f49ae585b
20BTC was sent to TheSeven via TXID: 063beec9f0cf6cfc602e0e734054d9ff3d9daeaf628d975ce0eb8d6e6d87789d

Bounty has officially been distributed.

Development will of course continue, and we hope to improve features, reliability and peformance significantly over the next little while.

Thanks again!

after 14 hours 16/18 pairs running the new 210 bitstream on cg 2.6.something are reporting U between 5.46 and 5.72, which seems to be falling into the range of +/- 7% that i have been seeing with the streams.

2 pairs are reporting 3.95 and 4.8, which i will test the 200 stream on on monday to see if I can bring that up to the low 5's.

assuming it's only p3 on the pairs that are failing, that means 94% stable w/ the 210 on 9 boards, though they're only producing ~200mh/s.

nice work guys, keep it up.

Bounty transferred: 200 BTC sent to 1KqMBXSmZDFzCsZqp84mNB3QM3t2bV3BaB
Transaction: 2a6823eb8a6c578e5c66f6f9af94fae952acf1329e28b609c9ae09d2a006a707


Thank you all for the support. And of course thanks to Glasswalker, makomk, TheSeven, and all others for their enormous effort.

Yep, that's all true.

My statement is based on the observations I have with some of my boards running makomk's latest 200MHz bitstream. To be safe on the timeout value on SW side, I always run cgminer with --icarus-timing long, which effectively prevents FPGAs from running out of work and idling. What I observe are boards (that always have been 'problematic') flash their orange LED quite often (in the range of every 2 to 5 seconds), which I interpret as watchdog restart. The calculated hashrate for those boards is obviously inaccurate, i.e. the relation between U and MH/s does not match the 71.6 ratio in the long run (12h+).