Author

Topic: Dead Modminer Quads (Read 978 times)

sr. member
Activity: 420
Merit: 250
September 25, 2013, 10:09:15 AM
#6
As a fan of FPGA hardware I've picked up my share off offloaded hardware.  The chips alone are worth salvage in any case.  I've obtained two MMQ units.  Both suffering from the same issue.  A 100% dead board.  Or what appears to be a 100% dead board. Little infomation is provided on cures.  Has anyone played with these things as far as a refurbish?

Yes, I've mucked about with them.

A common failure for them is the DC-DC converter in the middle of the board burns out, and the chips no longer get the ~1.2v rail.  The symptom of this is the board being alive and looking like it's working, but finding zero FPGAs when probed (bfgminer -d? --detail) will show you the FPGA probing step, and if you get zero on a board that has cards, the DC-DC converter is bad.

If the board is /totally/ dead, and doesn't power on the fans or start flashing the red "alive" LED, the fuse on the backside is likely blown - I've seen this more than once, and I believe it to be the result of an insufficient power supply.  Voltage sags, amperage increases, the 5A fuse blows.  Jumper it or replace it.

I have spare parts around and a bunch of known good parts if you're interested in having me test a few, or just selling them without having to remove the FPGAs.  I used to swap dead MMQs for working ztex 1.15y clones, but I'm running out of those.

PM me if you're interested.
legendary
Activity: 2128
Merit: 1005
ASIC Wannabe
September 25, 2013, 09:13:25 AM
#5
Willing to donate to The Bitcoin Musem?

you should remove the FPGA chips (curious - what sort of monetary value is in them now?), then send chip-less units for the museum Wink
hero member
Activity: 896
Merit: 532
Former curator of The Bitcoin Museum
September 15, 2013, 06:25:34 AM
#4
Willing to donate to The Bitcoin Musem?
sr. member
Activity: 336
Merit: 250
September 15, 2013, 12:57:51 AM
#3
That might be more productive - pull the chips and put them in a known working board. If the FPGA itself works you are golden - as far as being able to chuck then in a dev board or something else.
sr. member
Activity: 336
Merit: 250
September 15, 2013, 12:22:54 AM
#2
Are you getting any power on the boards? You could check the voltage at the voltage regulator to see if it hasn't blown and supplying power to the rest of the board.

If it does get power, you then check on from there.
sr. member
Activity: 574
Merit: 250
September 14, 2013, 06:34:05 PM
#1


 As a fan of FPGA hardware I've picked up my share off offloaded hardware.  The chips alone are worth salvage in any case.  I've obtained two MMQ units.  Both suffering from the same issue.  A 100% dead board.  Or what appears to be a 100% dead board. Little infomation is provided on cures.  Has anyone played with these things as far as a refurbish?
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