Butterfly Labs - Bitforce Single and Mini Rig Box - page 34.

Inspector 2211

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Quote from: WhitePhantom on May 03, 2012, 11:33:28 AM

Quote from: Epoch on May 03, 2012, 10:22:23 AM

I'll have to snip the leads to the bottom fan

For simplicity in testing, I'd recommend just taping down the fan blade to keep it from spinning, or another low-tech method of restriction (a piece of chewed gum?). If you get some thermal throttling, it's easy to make it spin again.

I would advise against that - a stuck motor can draw a multiple of the wattage that it normally draws, and thus overheat, even burn out.

Epoch

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Quote from: WhitePhantom on May 03, 2012, 11:33:28 AM

Quote from: Epoch on May 03, 2012, 10:22:23 AM

I'll have to snip the leads to the bottom fan

For simplicity in testing, I'd recommend just taping down the fan blade to keep it from spinning, or another low-tech method of restriction (a piece of chewed gum?). If you get some thermal throttling, it's easy to make it spin again.

Good point. Wink

WhitePhantom

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Quote from: Epoch on May 03, 2012, 10:22:23 AM

I'll have to snip the leads to the bottom fan

For simplicity in testing, I'd recommend just taping down the fan blade to keep it from spinning, or another low-tech method of restriction (a piece of chewed gum?). If you get some thermal throttling, it's easy to make it spin again.

Epoch

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Quote from: rjk on May 03, 2012, 10:49:13 AM

I don't know what brand of fans your unit has, but the ones in mine have a detachable connector at the motor hub as well as at the plug end.

BFL doesn't seem to have a 'standard fan' they use consistently. Some of my units have an OEM Panaflow, some have a Sunon, and the latest batch has a 'no-name' fan. This is for the top 92mm fan.

For my Rev3 units with a 2nd fan attached to the underside of the PCB, I haven't taken a close look at it yet since I need to remove the PCB from the case (a pain). It is very small (40mm?), low-profile, and spins inside a heatsink. It is visible when looking through the ventilation holes at the bottom of the case.

I'll certainly take a closer look, but I know these 2-fan Rev3 units have a single fan cable harness in a Y-configuration; a single connector powering both fans plugs into a single PCB header. One pair of leads goes to the top fan while the other pair goes to the bottom fan. I believe the cable leading to the bottom fan is non-detachable at the fan end, but I'll confirm that. It would be great if it were detachable.

rjk

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1ngldh

Quote from: Epoch on May 03, 2012, 10:22:23 AM

Yes, I will try that on one my units shortly. I'll have to snip the leads to the bottom fan, as the same power connector feeds both top and bottom fans and there doesn't seem to be an easy way to detach power from the bottom fan independently.

Unfortunate; the Rev2 units had 2 independently powered fans (and there are 2 fan headers on the PCB, even the Rev3 ones) so they were easy to swap out. The Rev3 units seem to power both fans from the same cable which makes things easier for assembly, but uglier for maintenance.

I don't know what brand of fans your unit has, but the ones in mine have a detachable connector at the motor hub as well as at the plug end.

Epoch

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Yes, I will try that on one my units shortly. I'll have to snip the leads to the bottom fan, as the same power connector feeds both top and bottom fans and there doesn't seem to be an easy way to detach power from the bottom fan independently.

Unfortunate; the Rev2 units had 2 independently powered fans (and there are 2 fan headers on the PCB, even the Rev3 ones) so they were easy to swap out. The Rev3 units seem to power both fans from the same cable which makes things easier for assembly, but uglier for maintenance.

Inaba

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Epoch: You can remove it if your room is cooler. It's there to, as you surmised, give it more headroom at that hashrate. There's no harm in removing it; try it and see if your unit throttles.

wogaut

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Quote from: Epoch on May 03, 2012, 10:05:46 AM

Question to BFL (or anyone else who has attempted this):

I notice that some of the Rev3 (heatpipe) Singles are shipping with a small fan on the bottom of the PCB, while others do not have that fan (only a passive circular copper heatsink). I'm assuming that the bottom fan on certain units is to give them a bit more thermal headroom.

My question is: How necessary is that bottom fan to the operation of the Single? If the unit is in a cool environment (<72F), and the bottom fan is disabled, would the unit be likely to throttle?

I ask because both the top and bottom fans are fed from the same 12V cable; if I ever decide to change the top fan for something else (say it fails), I'd have to either rewire the connection to the bottom fan (a pain), or loose the bottom fan.

Well, here's the classic BFL answer to this type of question:

Quote from: BFL on April 18, 2012, 02:02:43 PM

Silicon is an organic process giving each chip it's own personality. In the case of the singles, their operational heat signature is slightly different from unit to unit. As we test them, we may place a fan under some units to increase it's thermal range. You can take the fan off if you like.

I should also point out that faster firmware (when released) will perform more reliably in cooler environments.

That answer related to the extra fan underneath the case on some rev 3 units, but I would think that it's also the answer to your question.

Epoch

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Question to BFL (or anyone else who has attempted this):

I notice that some of the Rev3 (heatpipe) Singles are shipping with a small fan on the bottom of the PCB, while others do not have that fan (only a passive circular copper heatsink). I'm assuming that the bottom fan on certain units is to give them a bit more thermal headroom.

My question is: How necessary is that bottom fan to the operation of the Single? If the unit is in a cool environment (<72F), and the bottom fan is disabled, would the unit be likely to throttle?

I ask because both the top and bottom fans are fed from the same 12V cable; if I ever decide to change the top fan for something else (say it fails), I'd have to either rewire the connection to the bottom fan (a pain), or lose the bottom fan.

Epoch

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Quote from: heavyb on May 03, 2012, 09:43:33 AM

he said it would not violate the warranty, my thermal compound was still there.

Two of my Singles also arrived with 1 of the 2 plastic pins holding the heatsink down unclipped ('popped out'). The heatsinks were loose and were moving around when the Single was tilted. I'm assuming they popped out during shipping. Seems to be a few independent reports of this happening now.

I fixed one of them prior to power-on (because I noticed the loose heatsink). But I hadn't noticed it in the second unit and started mining with it. After several minutes of mining, I observed that it was throttling quite frequently and that the exhaust coming out from the top was cool, not warm as expected. Upon closer inspection I noticed it too had a loose heatsink (popped out pin, just like the other one) as well. I popped the clip back in and the unit now seems fine.

heavyb

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he said it would not violate the warranty, my thermal compound was still there.

bitpop

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and what did he say? how do we get new thermal compound?

heavyb

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Quote from: cuz0882 on May 02, 2012, 10:17:08 PM

I just got 2 singles, one came with the heatsink not fastened down. The plastic part holding it down was broken. I don't think it could have happened during shipping, it was packaged pretty well. The other single averages 710 m/hash with cgminer, and runs about 7 degrees hotter. The one with the broken heatsink performances at advertised speeds atleast, around 820 m/hash. Anyone else seeing speeds down at 710 m/hash?

If you have one of these ordered, don't expect a email letting you know when they mail it.

I

He is correct about an email, I didnt receive one either, it was a wonderful surprise to find them at my door though! The heatsink on one of my was unclipped from the motherboard as well. I took it apart and re-attached it and it works fine. Sonny actually called me about it when I emailed them about the issue.

Inspector 2211

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Quote from: cuz0882 on May 02, 2012, 10:17:08 PM

I just got 2 singles, one came with the heatsink not fastened down. The plastic part holding it down was broken. I don't think it could have happened during shipping, it was packaged pretty well. The other single averages 710 m/hash with cgminer, and runs about 7 degrees hotter. The one with the broken heatsink performances at advertised speeds atleast, around 820 m/hash. Anyone else seeing speeds down at 710 m/hash?

If you have one of these ordered, don't expect a email letting you know when they mail it.

I see 710 MH/s AVERAGE for the one Single which is throttling, or I should rather say "saw", as turning off a GPU rig seems to have reduced the room temperature enough for this "problem" Single not to throttle anymore, and for me to keep my shirt on when I work there.

cuz0882

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I just got 2 singles, one came with the heatsink not fastened down. The plastic part holding it down was broken. I don't think it could have happened during shipping, it was packaged pretty well. The other single averages 710 m/hash with cgminer, and runs about 7 degrees hotter. The one with the broken heatsink performances at advertised speeds atleast, around 820 m/hash. Anyone else seeing speeds down at 710 m/hash?

If you have one of these ordered, don't expect a email letting you know when they mail it.

Fefox

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The Bitminter client now supports and auto detects BFL singles, check out https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.877772

have tried it on two system: one with 3 singles, and another with 5 singles and 3 video cards so far so good... (windows 7)

Epoch

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Quote from: heavyb on April 30, 2012, 07:37:28 PM

got it working! Thanks for all the help! happy to see my singles up and running after 2.5 months!

Awesome!

heavyb

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got it working! Thanks for all the help! happy to see my singles up and running after 2.5 months!

heavyb

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it is in COM3. I will try the pause function to see what the error is. Thanks guys!

kano

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Linux since 1997 RedHat 4

Quote from: rjk on April 30, 2012, 06:26:39 PM

Quote from: heavyb on April 30, 2012, 06:25:32 PM

made the batch file and it flashes the command prompt then it disapears, I cannot tell if it has started the single mining or not.

Tried UFAsoft's miner and could not figure out how to set the properties for it to mine. Anyone with code examples they could share would be a big BIG help!

Open a command prompt and call your batch file, then you will be able to see the error that is causing it to close, since the command window will stay open.

Just as I was typing that

Anyway yes add "@pause" on the end.
Also (since that confusion came up before) cgminer will run the BFL and GPU's at the same time (if you have GPUs)
So the --disable-gpu/-G can be removed if you have GPUs also
... and if the COM number is greater than 9 then you have to use exactly \\.\COMnn (where nn is the COM number)

Topic: Butterfly Labs - Bitforce Single and Mini Rig Box - page 34. (Read 186944 times)