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Topic: Butterfly Labs - Bitforce Single and Mini Rig Box - page 43. (Read 186944 times)

hero member
Activity: 697
Merit: 500
Or don't run your single in your bedroom. You should be building a shrine somewhere instead. The more Singles the better.
legendary
Activity: 1666
Merit: 1000
Panaflo fans - excellent!
legendary
Activity: 922
Merit: 1003
Problem with any of their product is the noise from the fan means you can't keep it in your bedroom. Water cooling could solve that.

The stock 92mm Panaflow FBA09A12L fans used on the Singles (Rev2 at least; not sure about Rev3) are loud at 27dbA; they are rated for 43CFM and spin at ~2100RPM. It is easy to replace the fan(s) with something quieter, though you are sacrificing CFM. Meaning your Single will run hotter. If it runs too hot, it will throttle down (indicated by the front LED starting to blink) until it cools sufficiently. It may also contribute to an earlier death.

Depending on how hot your particular unit(s) run and your ambient temperature, something like the SilenX EFX-09-12 or more likely the EFX-09-15 can be good alternatives in keeping temperatures below the throttling point (which seems to occur ~75C). Either one of these fans are nearly inaudible in a normal room environment. They may still be too loud for a bedroom, though, depending on personal preferences.

If you want to go this route, you may wish to try a few different fans to find the right balance of silence and cooling. The Antec TriCool, for example, has a switch for 1200RPM, 1600RPM, and 2200RPM.
vip
Activity: 1358
Merit: 1000
AKA: gigavps
Problem with any of their product is the noise from the fan means you can't keep it in your bedroom. Water cooling could solve that.

It will be good white noise to help you sleep.
sr. member
Activity: 448
Merit: 250
Problem with any of their product is the noise from the fan means you can't keep it in your bedroom. Water cooling could solve that.

Yes, and then you could attach it to your waterbed, gradually warming up the waterbed in the process.

Sorry, couldn't resist...   Cheesy
sr. member
Activity: 336
Merit: 250
Problem with any of their product is the noise from the fan means you can't keep it in your bedroom. Water cooling could solve that.
donator
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079
Gerald Davis
sounds like fubar to me. No matter how cool you are able to keep it, it will never go faster than the bitstream thats loaded on it

While that is true a well cooled FPGA should be able to run a faster timed bitstream.  ztex (and others) take this a step further and use dynamic clocked bitstream where the clock is adjusted in realtime depending on error rate.  Cooler board = lower errors = higher clock.

Even if BFL didn't want to go that route there is no reason they "couldn't" (not to say they ever will) offer for multiple bitstreams at different clocks (and thus different power consumption and heat loads).
legendary
Activity: 1379
Merit: 1003
nec sine labore
Exactly. From the looks of things you could put 2 BFL Single sandwiches in a normal BFL chassis. So, 3328 MH/s, 320w all running at 40-50 Celsius in a compact package. I'd pay a price premium for such a "mini mini rig".

I would say Nano Rig ©, then.  Roll Eyes

I would say Water Rig ©, then. Smiley
full member
Activity: 154
Merit: 100
Exactly. From the looks of things you could put 2 BFL Single sandwiches in a normal BFL chassis. So, 3328 MH/s, 320w all running at 40-50 Celsius in a compact package. I'd pay a price premium for such a "mini mini rig".

I would say Nano Rig ©, then.  Roll Eyes
hero member
Activity: 697
Merit: 500
to clarify this argument I guess I would have to see some definition on what exactly this means:

Quote
You could achieve some scary computing densities
Lots of hash in a small box.

Exactly. From the looks of things you could put 2 BFL Single sandwiches in a normal BFL chassis. So, 3328 MH/s, 320w all running at 40-50 Celsius in a compact package. I'd pay a price premium for such a "mini mini rig".
member
Activity: 84
Merit: 10
to clarify this argument I guess I would have to see some definition on what exactly this means:

Quote
You could achieve some scary computing densities

as rjk said, computing density is the amount of instructions processed in an amount of space.  a high computing density is powerful computing power in a small space.  water cooling allows you to almost disregard airflow, so you can put chips/boards closer together, squeezing more in a smaller space.  additionally water cooling hardware generally takes up less space in the box than air cooling hardware.
rjk
sr. member
Activity: 448
Merit: 250
1ngldh
to clarify this argument I guess I would have to see some definition on what exactly this means:

Quote
You could achieve some scary computing densities
Lots of hash in a small box.
hero member
Activity: 896
Merit: 1000
Buy this account on March-2019. New Owner here!!
to clarify this argument I guess I would have to see some definition on what exactly this means:

Quote
You could achieve some scary computing densities
legendary
Activity: 4592
Merit: 1851
Linux since 1997 RedHat 4
sounds like fubar to me. No matter how cool you are able to keep it, it will never go faster than the bitstream thats loaded on it
You can "overclock" an FPGA by adding voltage, same as a GPU. The difference is that it is rarely adjustable without replacing resistors and stuff on the board. You could then program the firmware to go faster.

Keeping stuff cool isn't always about speed though. It dramatically helps the reliability and expected lifespan of most any part.
With the current ztex bitstream you set the clock speed as part of the USB mining I/O interface.
(it's actually part of the interface so you can reduce it when it returns errors - i.e. it's getting too hot)
Thus I guess in that case you could put it up higher if the chips were cooled better.
rjk
sr. member
Activity: 448
Merit: 250
1ngldh
sounds like fubar to me. No matter how cool you are able to keep it, it will never go faster than the bitstream thats loaded on it
You can "overclock" an FPGA by adding voltage, same as a GPU. The difference is that it is rarely adjustable without replacing resistors and stuff on the board. You could then program the firmware to go faster.

Keeping stuff cool isn't always about speed though. It dramatically helps the reliability and expected lifespan of most any part.
hero member
Activity: 896
Merit: 1000
Buy this account on March-2019. New Owner here!!
Is it just me or is this "prototype" photoshopped?

Prototype water block for singles / Mini Rig




Hopefully that becomes a reality. I'd love for a factory waterblock option. Even better would be a factory waterblock option that sandwiched the waterblock with a pair of BFL Singles in a similar manner to the NVIDIA 9800 GX2 and first revision GTX 295. You could achieve some scary computing densities if they were to consider such an option.

sounds like fubar to me. No matter how cool you are able to keep it, it will never go faster than the bitstream thats loaded on it
hero member
Activity: 697
Merit: 500
Is it just me or is this "prototype" photoshopped?

Prototype water block for singles / Mini Rig




Hopefully that becomes a reality. I'd love for a factory waterblock option. Even better would be a factory waterblock option that sandwiched the waterblock with a pair of BFL Singles in a similar manner to the NVIDIA 9800 GX2 and first revision GTX 295. You could achieve some scary computing densities if they were to consider such an option.
hero member
Activity: 588
Merit: 500
I wish they start answering emails at least :/ Even tiny autoresponder would be better then current silence in response
full member
Activity: 154
Merit: 100
Hi guys!

Just finished reading all the threads regarding BFL's single and Rig. I am totally new here, would like to invest in Mini rig or Rig box, but 15 weeks wait time is a little bit scary.

Hopefully at some point BFL will have more reasonable shipping times, or some competitor will come up with a better production and logistic organization.

Subscribed
legendary
Activity: 1379
Merit: 1003
nec sine labore

We have some plans regarding that. Will apply it to the first shipment to EU.



Good Luck,


BFL-Engineer,

are you saying that you found a way to avoid import taxes or that after your first shipment you'll be able to confirm that your 'method' works?

Thanks.

spiccioli.
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