Topic: GekkoScience NewPac / Terminus R606 (BM1387) Official Support Thread - page 104. (Read 61318 times)

So I'm debating on building a GekkoScience "kit" and thought I would test the waters, gauge the interest of the community.

Anyone have an interest in a bundle of 6 NewPacs, GekkoScience Hub, Power supply, cooling fans and fan stand? all tested and verified to say, 100Gh/s per miner? It would be a plug and go kit with minor assembly required (for shipping).

When we had some test sticks with a built-in temperature sensor, VH started noticing hashing problems when the board in the vicinity of what is now the large SOIC IC got to around 120F.

In general, the ambient temperature of miners should always be maintained below ~35°C / ~95°F.

The ASIC used in the NewPac is the BM1387, which was primarily used in the Bitmain Antminer S9 miners. According to their data, upper temp limit on the PCB board should not exceed 85°C / 185°F. For the ASIC itself, temps should not exceed 125°C / 257°F. There are two ASIC chips on the NewPac, and they are located on the backside of PCB board (in between the PCB board and heatsink, with thermal paste). These are the very upper limits as described by ASIC manufacturer. It's always best to keep the sticks cool as possible! Temperature will also effect performance, and as it goes up, so does power consumption. Lastly, the manufacturer of the NewPac may have different limits on temperature, so use the numbers provided here with caution until confirmed or changed by sidehack!

Here is a picture showing location of both ASIC chips:



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Here are pictures of the actual ASIC chips on the NewPac (with the heatsink off):



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Wow those hubs look well thought out.

Anyone had any luck running NewPac & Moonlander 2 together?  I got a pi hooked to a usb hub & they both work fine alone but if I run NewPac miner it kills the Moonlander miner if it's already running or it reports no devices found if run after.  Errors make it seem USB ports are taken over.  For now I just moved my NewPac to a PC but have plenty of room on my hub so sure would live to be running them all together if possible.

GekkoScience Hubs are up and in stock!
https://www.419mining.com/shop/cables/gekkoscience-7-port-base-hub/
make sure you get a power supply for them as well.
We currently have 7A hubs in stock, while you cant max out 6 sticks at at 650Mhz, it should get you up there. As soon as we finish our testing, i can post more specifics.
https://www.419mining.com/shop/power-supply/12v-7amp-power-supply-for-gekkoscience-products/

9A would be idea, but make sure you get good quality. or run on a 6pin computer power supply.

eBay - https://www.ebay.com/itm/254034955561
Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MK5CLMB

Dont forget, buy from 419mining.com online store and earn loyalty points for future discounts!

I will give that a go over the next few days when im home for an extended period. Cheers for the suggestion as always vh.

What is the PCB heat threshold for these devices?  What temp do I need to start worrying about long term damage to chip/components?

Thanks!

Once you have hit the limit of the existing hub's power (which you may be getting close), you can also try turning the pot down.

Counter intuitively, turn the pot back to 3 o'clock.  
Look like you can squeeze out another 15% in energy reduction if you are at or under 500MHz.

You might lose some stability with more HW errors, but still keep the expected overall higher hashrate.

Be prepared to set it back towards default if your hashrate looks off or when you get the shiny new gekkoscience hub.

Well just thought I would update everyone. Everythjng seems to have settled down. Both sticks running 450m now with no “missing nonces”. Tried the asic boost option and they didnt like it even though im connected to a pool using the system. So im a happy camper at the moment. Going to try and get them upto 500m over the next couple of days but aslong as im hitting my 100gh goal then its all good. Thank you to everyone for the help, im looking forward to purchasing a few more sticks and one of sidehacks bulletproof hubs to run them on  

If you get around to more tweaking, watch your cable quality/length and various adapters along the way.

voltage loss = (current x resistance)

It can subtly create a current limit like scenario and drop voltage.

5V may end up being 4V when it arrives at a miner trying to use 2Amp+.
This can also cause the effect you are seeing.

A 2pac table but still relevant for the NewPac at higher frequencies:



Higher frequency will amplify resistance based voltage loss.

I've been inching the hashrate on my Newpac slowly every couple days.  I'm at 450 MHz and getting ~93 Gh/s now.  My goal is either 100 GH/s stable or 600 MHz stable.
Active cooling, and directly powered by a 5V 60A power supply instead of USB's current limiting features.  (EDIT: Newpac has stock voltage set.)
At 400 MHz it was still slightly cooler than the 2pacs and Compac running at 200 MHz I have on the same setup.  Haven't checked at 450 MHz yet, as i just upped that today.

Edit:  seems like it doesn't like 450 MHz. - 400 MHz gave me ~90 Gh/s.  93 @ 450 isn't as good of a jump as i expected.  Upped it to 500 MHz but was getting 41 Gh/s.  getting stable ~98 Gh/s at 425 Mhz, so that's where i'll stay at for now until i can adjust the voltage setting (and confirm temps).

The best mass-stable results I got when load-testing my hub was six sticks each set to 860mV (stock is 830) and all six were stable at or above 600MHz.

Note that S9 stock settings would be closer to 900mV for 600MHz and up (14TH S9 clocks at 650MHz) to guarantee stability across chip batches, so to hit the higher speeds on this still a bit of overvolting is to be expected.

I usually look for 98-99% target hashrate. Over 99% is going to have an unfavorable power tradeoff (more than 1% increase in heat for that 1% increase in effective hashrate) but below 98% probably means something's wrong.

I would be skeptical of a Plugable 7-port being able to handle 4 sticks at 600MHz, given that it only has 3 regulators so somewhere you have to double up. If one will handle two sticks, they all will, so it'd be capable of six sticks if you had a strong enough 12V brick. However, even with AB the best-case power draw at 600MHz is about 12.5W and the rated load for one Plugable regulator is 4A, so 20W peak.
The best I'd expect for two sticks per regulator would be more like 475MHz (with AB enabled). Note that gives you a max utilization of the Plugable 7-port with six sticks for a total of 650GH, though that's dependent on the power load required for the hub chips. I haven't tested the limits of that hub so this is conjecture based on available data.

Looks like I will have to buy some more sticks then. I was hoping for a nice 100ghs each and run 5 on sidehacks new hub eventually.

I thought I would make this image to help new users learn how to control the voltage on their sticks. As vh pointed out in an earlier post, there is a potentiometer that controls the voltage (it looks like the head of a screw), and is located on the PCB board. If you pay close attention, you will notice a flat section along the outer perimeter of the screw head. Use that flat part for reference as you increase and/or decrease the voltage to meet your needs. Please note, even the slightest movement of the pot will affect the voltage, so only turn the screw head in very small increments.



- click to enlarge -

So one thing I had to work through was that not all chips are made the same. they cant ALL hit 650Mhz, its overclocked after all.  For my personal rig, I start with a single stick and work that up to as high as I can slowly tweaking over days at a time, most (but not all) can get to 600 Mhz stable. I take a magic marker and write the max hashrate on the side and set it off for later use. do this with each stick you want in your rig till they are all done. You can either then run multiple cgminers targeting the individual sticks, or just a single copy, set the to the max frequency of your lowest unit. (the second is what I do, I'm to lazy to deal with multiple copies).

Watch your USB hub too, the plugable your running on should be able to run 4 at 600Mhz before it maxes out the power, but that's if they all are running at top efficiency and cooled perfectly.

Thanks 419. Just trying to bump them up today. Seen 400m stable but 450 i kept getting them resetting and the hashrate dropping off.

The stock voltage should get you to or atleast close to 600Mhz. Watch your hashrate as you ramp up and your base should be  0.228 * MHz but leave room for error at higher frequencies. I usually estimate around 95% return, so at 600Mhz, you should see around 130 Gh/s. I know Sidehack likes to see 99.5% return, but that does require a little tweaking, millimeter turns of the adjustment pot, and test for days before another adjustment.

I put an order in on the 8th with ASICPuppy, the status says processing, asked when it will ship no reply are there any problems?

At what freq would you need to start tweaking the voltage up?

Thank you for the quick update. Will try it in the morning so i can monitor it closely.

There was a script posted earlier for setting up a 6-hour restart have you tried it with any of these builds?
Curious to see if there are any known conflicts or benefits in using it.

Update: Have been running the new build while using the script to restart every 6 hours. Averaging 98% hashrate over last 16 hours. The restart script worked without a hitch and I have not noticed any downsides or conflicts.

Looking forward to the new GS hubs!