Topic: Cointerra Hardware Support **Unofficial - page 21. (Read 56948 times)

I solved my own problem and so far it looks incredible, better that factory shipped. Here are some details I will share. Facing the unit head on

CTA0 Left Board (furthest from power supply)
CTA0 CPU Core1 (front of the unit)
CTA0 CPU Core2 (rear of the unit)

CTA1 Right Board (closest to the power supplies)
CTA1 CPU Core1 (front of the unit)
CTA1 CPU Core2 (rear of the unit)

When I opened the unit I noticed corrosion in the corner near the radiator and then saw the tube had a pin size leak. This also happened to be the tube that cooled the overheating core (cta1 cpu core1) so I am assuming this hole caused a loss of pressure and could not properly cycle the coolant. I went to homie depot and got some tubing (1/4" ID 1/2" OD) and a couple house clamps. Local computer store had coolant, a big syringe to fill the radiator, and the liquid pro which has been recommended many times. Came home and removed the cooling blocks to discover a worthless shit job of applying thermal grease. I used isopropanol and lots of q-tips to clean up this worthless lazy crap job cointerra did. Also cleaned the bottom of the cooling block. Both surfaces cleaned to a shine perfectly. Emptied the old radiator fluid , hoses, and block. Put the new tube on clamped it down and filled it with the new red fluid the best I could trying to leave no air bubbles inside. (the air seen in the pic does not seem to be causing any problems so far). Applying the liquid pro with the provided q-tips was tricky at first but after a couple times it was easy, just had to go slow, steady and take my time. A very small amount about half the size or less of a bb. I used a very light smear and pat technique to make sure I covered the entire surface. The finished job should look like a mirror. I did not apply any to the cooling block. Below are photos of the process as I did this job. I hope this helps others because Cointerra is not doing jack shit for anyone and an RMA offer by them is not an option when time is of the essence here. My total down town was about 4 hours and now my units cores are all running at 50c-60c. A huge change from before and even better then out of the box. Even the two brand new units that I just got have started hitting ~85c and I will be doing this process to them as well.

http://i.imgur.com/lC2E914l.jpg
^^^^ High temps, 113c would hit 120c and shutdown ^^^^
http://i.imgur.com/CdgEXjVl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/lkIOIC6l.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/4UPdLIfl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/NWvmTgkl.jpg
^^^^ A small green dot can be seen from where the coolant was leaking ^^^^
http://i.imgur.com/QOe6HSWl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/lbGhJ1zl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/a7vw2wvl.jpg
^^^^ Cointerras crappy ass fucked up worthless job using cheap grease applied by a monkey ^^^^
http://i.imgur.com/chJPqJjl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/kjV3zLMl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2AzWdx3l.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/bQCGtu3l.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2ONVRUIl.jpg
^^^^ Clean GoldStrike chips ready for liquid pro ^^^^
http://i.imgur.com/qKcijrll.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Va8fZfQl.jpg
^^^^ Liquid pro applied ^^^^
http://i.imgur.com/yQOVVz1l.jpg
^^^^ New hose with coolant ^^^^
http://i.imgur.com/33etg7Rl.jpg
^^^^ Low temps maintaining ^^^^

That's the thing I'm not sure about. I email Marshall from Cointerra Tech Support and he told me board 0 was the one right above the Beaglebone Black controller. But when I asked him which core was 1 and which was 2 he told me he couldn't comment on that. So your guess is as good as mine. If you figure it out let me know. Looks like my temps have came up a few degrees. Anywho, off to drink a few beers. Post your results please after its ran a few hours.

I wouldnt RMA it either thats just downtime with difficult increasing. If these machines are not online its a loss. I just bought two cool laboratory syringes from the local store and will apply this to the cpu core. I understand that CTA1 is furthest from the power supply (when facing the front of unit its the left board) but which cpu is cpu core1, is it labeled on the board?

I have got that same email and sent them my stats and was told they looked good. Then I took a screen shot of my temps when they hit 113° and they asked if I would like to RMA the machine and I told them I would try to get the temps down with fans. The reason I didn't RMA the machine is I seen on Cointerras forum where quite a few customers sent their units back for RMA and when they got them back the unit ended up doing whatever it was doing before they sent it in. I just kept them as cool as I could until my warrant expired and tried to fix it myself. One more thing I forgot to mention is after I removed the water blocks I took a brand new Stanley knife blade and scraped it across the tops of the chips to see how much of the thermal paste was left behind to get an idea of how much Liquid Pro to add. If you do that you will see the chips are not level.

I did watch some videos and comfortable with this. Ive been building my own computers since early 90s so this is right at home. Just never used thermal pro always high end grease. I wont blame you for anything that goes wrong, just a thank you if it works. Strangely Cointerra emailed me back this morn with this email below and I responded letting him know I have the latest firmware and attached the pdf for all 3 of my units because the brand new ones that just arrived yesterday are hitting ~90c. This is such B.S.

Hello ,

Firstly, have you updated to the most recent firmware? Oftentimes this solves minor issues: http://cointerra.com/firmware-downloads/

If so, can you please go to the ADVANCED tab on the Control Panel, expand the four sections (+ icon) and either save as a .pdf from your browser (preferred) and attach to your reply, or copy and paste all the stats into a reply to this email, and we will work with you to diagnose the issue ASAP.

Thank you and feel free to contact us with any other questions,
Richard
CoinTerra Support

Make sure you watch all the youtube videos on how to spread it and get an idea on how to do it. That's what I did. You have to spread it with the Q-tips it does not spread like regular thermal paste. When I put it on the water block I put just enough to cover it. After applied to the water block I held it vertical and made sure it didn't run (like paint will do if you put to much on a wall). On the chips I put about half the size of a BB or so. Just so you know I was just sharing what I did to mine that helped my temps and I'm no way responsible if you screw up your Terraminer doing this. APPLY AT YOUR OWN RISK. As for my temps so far so good. Think I might wait one more day before going to power step 9. I was getting high temps (90°+) on power step 7 which is what I'm on now and temps are 50's-60's. I just hope my temps don't start creeping up like they were doing. Will find out after a few days of running I guess.

I just ordered one syringe, how much of this works for a single core? How is your core doing? Mine has already begun to hit 120c and restart. This seems to be a endless loop its doing. The other core stays at 70c. In my two other brand new machines the cores are ~85c

I just watched videos on youtube and went from there. But here's what I did. I just put some on the bottom of the water block with the bottom of the block turned up and flat so the Liquid Pro don't roll off. On the bottom of my water blocks I could see the outline of the chip and I just spread it were the dies would make contact ( a square about 26mm x 26mm). Then I applied it to the chips. After applying it to the chips I put a drop in the center of each one. I used a little bit more than 1 syringe (think I should have used a little more since I still have two chips at 57° while the rest are in the 40's). Anywho gonna let it run for a few hours then step it up to 9.

Edit: Just make damn sure to be careful and not get it anywhere but on the chips and block. This stuff is highly conductive.

I want to try this can you give any advise for applying this to the cointerra?

I have been battling this issue also for quite some time. Well today I switched thermal compound. I applied this http://www.frozencpu.com/products/3784/thr-26/Coollaboratory_Liquid_PRO_Thermal_Interface_Material.html?tl=g8c127s451 and so far my temps are way down. Before I was using MX-4 and my temps were in the 90's-100's. Now the hottest chip is 58°. I also removed the screen in front of the fans. Just got to be careful with the Liquid Pro its highly conductive.

Edit: I am only on power step 7 so far which is where it was before I changed to Liquid Pro. Will try 9 after it runs a while.

My cointerra has been operating for two months. CTA1 Core Temp 1 has been steadily climbing in temp over the past few weeks. Its now at ~112c but is still hashing 809 Gh/s. Temp sometimes drop to 98c, 105c even hit 114c. CTA0 cores are at ~75c. The ambient room temp is about 75f with good ventilation. I just added 2 more terraminers to the room and their core temps are ~75c. Ive emailed and called cointerra multiple times with no response or help from them. Not sure what to do here. Let the miner keep hashing or what? I heard it shuts down at 120c.

Thanks for the info. Ill give that a try and hopefully that solves my problem.

I have applied thermal compound about 5 times so far with different results each time. If you don't get enough paste on them they will get hot and to much and they get hot. If the chips get to hot they are going to shut down. So the board you have that's down could be from the chips getting to hot. Reason I say that is one time after I reapplied the paste I had a chip shut down as soon as the stats came up from getting to hot. I redid the paste once again and it came back. Finding the right amount of paste is the trick since the four die's are not level. I'm yet to get it right.

I am in a similar situation as you. I applied arctic silver and now one board has the status lights on constantly. Is there a way of knowing what is causing the problems from the status lights?

I thought I'd share my experience troubleshooting a very hot miner. Although temperamentally slowing down, this miner would perform at 100% after a reset, usually staying there for a day or so. I thought I'd replace the thermal paste with some arctic silver to see if it brought down the temperatures from ~90C. Long story short, it did not. Now one board isn't responding, and the other has overheating problems. Disregarding my extreme stupidity, it was a valuable education in the unit's operation. Here's a video I shot of it in operation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nqr9Dsli24

Note the orange and red status lights on each board. I'm assuming those are individual core hashing status. The "bad" board (on the left) would simply flash the orange lights as shown in the video, then reset itself (the fans go to maximum briefly then reduce in speed).

It would be really nice if they released the source code for the firmware used in the TI microcontroller they're using. I'm guessing they don't because yahoos like me would change some setting that would definitely fry the chips or electronics unintentionally. I don't blame them, but still want it. What the device does can be partly ascertained from the cgminer source code, but all that is pretty high level message passing which mainly involves reporting of values, and not setting of them.

Considering how bad they are, I wouldn't replace them with the same model.

EK blocks should fit but I'm yet to install it (it might require some modifications but nothing complex).

which part did you replace it with? the block is a custom one (i asked coolIT who made it but they dont sell them and said id need to contact cointerra support) and i couldnt find any alternative blocks with integrated 3 pin pumps that looked decent or have you just got an external pump?

I just replaced the water cooling block on mine.  CTA0 for me was the board closest to the 2 power supplies(right hand side when facing the front).  CTA1 was the board furthest away from the power supplies(left hand side when facing the front). 

Good luck.

Marshall from Cointerra Tech Support told me board 0 was the board above the Beaglebone Black controller.