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Topic: GridSeed 5-chip USB miner voltage mod - page 3. (Read 156980 times)

hero member
Activity: 700
Merit: 500
So, the ultimate mod is replace the resistor and soldering a 49.9K without the two solder like the image below?  

ZiG
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
Hello All,
I've been catching up on this thread for the last week.  And jumped into voltmodding while teaching myself to solder.  I  ttstarted off with a 47k axial resistor and the r52/139 mod.  All went well on both of my newly acquired seeds.  Unfortunately I couldn't hit my target goal of 1MH combined hashrate with cgminer gridseed version.  I was able to hit it with sandors miner but barely.  So back to radio shack i went to pickup some 49k resistors,  which they didnt have.  I decided to get some 3k resistors to run in series.   30 minutes later one seed was remoded and hashing away.  2 hours later I gave up on the second one.  For some reason I am completely unable to get any solder to stick to the spot where i originally removed the resistor at r139/52.  Ive spent the better part of the last day looking for a solution and have came up empty handed.  So I turn to you guys hoping you have the answer.   My thoughts and questions are as follows...

Is there some trick to be able resolder to the original position that isn't taking solder?  Or is there another point i can solder to that will accomplish the same mod?

Can I use ZIG mod with the 47k+3k resistor series instead of the 16.9/17k?  I am under the impression that his mod is intended to work in series with the normally existing 33k resistor at r139.  Which in my case is no longer there, so will the circuit? be complete without it?

Also, how heat sensitive is the "mod area"  I'm concerned that I may have heated things up to much in the general area of the point i was attempting to solder.

Any input that can help me get this miner up and running would be helpful.  I'm a bit out of my depth.

Thanks
CIRE

If you could post some pictures...it'll be easier to help...

ZiG
full member
Activity: 140
Merit: 100
Try to get a little blob of solder on that spot to rebuild the pad.
I'd put a bit of flux on the spot then just touch the fine tip iron to it at the same time as putting the solder wire there.  All very quickly.

The spot might be concave now and, as was explained to me here, the PCB has a coating that prevents solder from sticking.  If the pad is a little below the PCB coat you need to rebuild the pad.

After you rebuild the pad then you should be able to solder the resistor.
newbie
Activity: 4
Merit: 0
Hello All,
I've been catching up on this thread for the last week.  And jumped into voltmodding while teaching myself to solder.  I  ttstarted off with a 47k axial resistor and the r52/139 mod.  All went well on both of my newly acquired seeds.  Unfortunately I couldn't hit my target goal of 1MH combined hashrate with cgminer gridseed version.  I was able to hit it with sandors miner but barely.  So back to radio shack i went to pickup some 49k resistors,  which they didnt have.  I decided to get some 3k resistors to run in series.   30 minutes later one seed was remoded and hashing away.  2 hours later I gave up on the second one.  For some reason I am completely unable to get any solder to stick to the spot where i originally removed the resistor at r139/52.  Ive spent the better part of the last day looking for a solution and have came up empty handed.  So I turn to you guys hoping you have the answer.   My thoughts and questions are as follows...

Is there some trick to be able resolder to the original position that isn't taking solder?  Or is there another point i can solder to that will accomplish the same mod?

Can I use ZIG mod with the 47k+3k resistor series instead of the 16.9/17k?  I am under the impression that his mod is intended to work in series with the normally existing 33k resistor at r139.  Which in my case is no longer there, so will the circuit? be complete without it?

Also, how heat sensitive is the "mod area"  I'm concerned that I may have heated things up to much in the general area of the point i was attempting to solder.

Any input that can help me get this miner up and running would be helpful.  I'm a bit out of my depth.

Thanks
CIRE
ZiG
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
full member
Activity: 140
Merit: 100
Thanks. I'm there!
sr. member
Activity: 252
Merit: 254
I started a Fury thread (I suppose the Blizzards would apply too).

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/furyblizzard-tuning-and-mods-644921
sr. member
Activity: 252
Merit: 254
-snip-

Anyway...here's a pic where you can see the voltage test points and added heatsinks.

What happened to your heatsinks? It looks like they got run over by a truck...

LMAO! Well...yes and no....I had a fight with them.  They weren't agreeing to be cut up and it was the last heatsink I had of that variety that would fit with the height I had to work with.  Busted my last dremel cutoff wheel, so had to resort to the air powered metal saw I have...which the blades aren't that great for.  Didn't have a vice hear it, so I has holding the heatsink with pliers and a death grip.  In the end though...it's not the looks but the functionality I was after, an the scratches and marks just add to the effective surface area.  

I measured the 1.2vc mark and it reads 1.26v.  So if the chips were originally spec'd at 1.3v, there's some room to play with.  

As for IC's....I don't have a camera other than the one on my htc....but around the choke are all the same type of mosfet with the markings:
2R030
PEM
1349A6
4214

The other chip that looks to control the voltage is marked with:
0193
391
CCON

Since this is a Fury, there are NO markings on any of the ASIC IC's themselves.  The only other IC with markings is the Silab's USB interface - which from my understanding can support up to 1Mbps transfer rate however the Fury/Blizzard have it limited to 115200Kbps (could there be some performance gained by upping this limit??  It appears that the chips themselves are daisy chained to a nonce solved by the last chip in the chain has to travel through each chip before it and then to the interface....it could be possible that more data is flowing through the port than 115200Kbps can effectively handle I suppose).

:EDIT:  So it looks like the 0193 chip is possibly this TPS40193:  http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/slus719e/slus719e.pdf 
sr. member
Activity: 378
Merit: 250

Thanks for the info, guys...

Nice picture...and a nice beginning of the next journey to the "VoltMod Land"... Grin

Any ideas about the power section...chip(s), ...schematics...etc...

Let's start another thread...if interested... Wink


ZiG

Smells like more magic black smoke is on the horizon!  Grin
full member
Activity: 140
Merit: 100
here's the post re: Zeus voltage https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=16301.msg177074#msg177074

Quote
it's possible for a physical mod. if change some of the resistors to get it to work at 1.2 ish V, you save some more power there comparing to 1.3.

power consumption is related to voltage it's running on, which is tunable with hardware mods.

nst6563's photo shows 1.2v printed, I wonder if the voltage is already upped a bit?
newbie
Activity: 38
Merit: 0
-snip-

Anyway...here's a pic where you can see the voltage test points and added heatsinks.

What happened to your heatsinks? It looks like they got run over by a truck...
ZiG
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250

Thanks for the info, guys...

Nice picture...and a nice beginning of the next journey to the "VoltMod Land"... Grin

Any ideas about the power section...chip(s), ...schematics...etc...

Let's start another thread...if interested... Wink


ZiG
sr. member
Activity: 252
Merit: 254
We should start a new Fury/Blizzard thread for those of us with those devices.  I thought about doing it, but haven't had the chance to really sit down and compile the information and stuff.

These things do run hot, and if you look at the circuit board, there are some test points with voltage markings next to them.  I have a good idea that the points are labeled for core voltage, bus voltage, etc.  If you check some of the pics on this link you can see in the upper left there is a point labeled 1.2vc...I would assume that stands for 1.2v core.  There are some other points on the other side of the board labeled 3.3vb and two labeled 1.2vb.  I haven't measured them yet though.

So far I've been trying to reduce the number of errors with settings and cooling.  I found some discussion on litecointalk where they mentioned that the speed 336 combined with higher difficulty reduces the number of errors.  I set the speed to 336, and at least on Manicminer pool the diff is set to 256 (or close to it) and so far out of 650 accepted shares, I have 29 hardware errors and 0 rejects (4.4%?! if my math is right...I'm tired as hell)

I also added some extra cooling.  The back of the board is smeared with a VERY thin layer of thermal paste...and it actually was making hardly any contact with the heatsink.  They should have used more paste or a thermal pad.  So I put dabs of paste on the backside of the board where the chips are, and added some heatsinks to the tops of the chips as well as the mosfets.  After the added thermal paste on the backside of the board the heatsink is noticeably warmer indicating more heat is being transferred to it from the board....so that's good.  The heatsinks on the top of the chips don't do a lot of good by themselves unless there's a fan pushing air through the case over them but that's for another time.  I have a second Fury coming so I could slap them together and make sort of a blade configuration with a fan on one end blowing over all of it.

Anyway...here's a pic where you can see the voltage test points and added heatsinks.
full member
Activity: 140
Merit: 100
The Fury needs a voltmod!   5% hardware errors is "normal" right now.
Had you asked me this morning I would have said forget it.  I'm not used to so many rejects and hardware errors.  The gridseeds run way more stable.
But, this afternoon someone on Litecointalk released a first attempt of BFGMiner and it's a big improvement.  Still 5% HW errors but hardly any rejects.

There should be some overclock room.  The 328 clock that most seem to run results in about 230kh/s per chip.  That's already a bit of an overclock from 210khs (300 clk) which would be what Zeus last spec'd the chips at.  These chips started off being promoted as 300kh/s chips way back.  The problem is power consumption of 8 watts per chip now at around 230kh/s.

I'm running the Fury at 340 clk which should be around 238 kh/s x 6 chips = maybe 1.4Mh/s with 5.7% HW errors.  48.75 watts for just the device itself.  I'm waiting for 24hr poolside results then I'll adjust up or down.

Remember how the voltmods really seemed to stabilize the Gridseeds?  That's what I think the Fury needs right now - get it stabilized. But, because it already using 50 watts there might not be much to gain. Who knows? Maybe half a volt more would stabilize these things.

I'm not 100% sure but I think Terry from Zeus mentioned 1.3 volts as the voltage in a post on Litecointalk.  Fury's & Blizzards might have potential for a volt mod.  Zeus needs to leak a schematic so the pros here can figure it out.  The 12v 5A power supplies that come with them are already maxed out though.  I used the same type of plug as I used with my gridseeds.




ZiG
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
MoonShad0w384 - have you tried Sandors cpuminer-gc3355 ? https://github.com/siklon/cpuminer-gc3355

Note: You'll want your fan running before you do  Wink

I have two unmodified pods doing 396.1 kh/s & 397.1 kh/s on cpuminer-gc3355.  I just haven't gotten around to volt modding these yet.  My other pods are vmod3

I curious to see what Sandors cpuminer-gc3355 + vmod1 would do.  Anyone here have that combo?

At some point we might all have to revert to vmod1 to save a few watts.  One profitability calculator I used today said my Fury wouldn't cover the cost of electricity to run it by next Feb!

Hey Happydaze,

How is the Fury...?

Is it overclockable...?

Time for a new Volt Mod... Wink

Cheers,
ZiG
full member
Activity: 140
Merit: 100
MoonShad0w384 - have you tried Sandors cpuminer-gc3355 ? https://github.com/siklon/cpuminer-gc3355

Note: You'll want your fan running before you do  Wink

I have two unmodified pods doing 396.1 kh/s & 397.1 kh/s on cpuminer-gc3355.  I just haven't gotten around to volt modding these yet.  My other pods are vmod3

I curious to see what Sandors cpuminer-gc3355 + vmod1 would do.  Anyone here have that combo?

At some point we might all have to revert to vmod1 to save a few watts.  One profitability calculator I used today said my Fury wouldn't cover the cost of electricity to run it by next Feb!
newbie
Activity: 38
Merit: 0
Did the 2-bridge mod and replaced the thermal pad with some paste and mine is running stable fanless at 950MHz (~403kh/s). Thanks!

I also had to shift the heatsink vanes slightly, so that the top half didn't collide with the bottom half. Otherwise it would not have made good contact with the chips.
full member
Activity: 141
Merit: 100
Looks like another zero value ...........



If you have a multimeter measure it on your other Gridseed to be sure. 

The zero value looks to be confirmed in the comments here: http://cryptomining-blog.com/1839-another-new-voltmod-update-for-the-gridseed-5-chip-btcltc-asic-miners/

Quote
Just as a side note, on this new voltmod, we aren’t replacing the R52 resistor (that should be 0 ohm)
measured it and its zero
full member
Activity: 141
Merit: 100
legendary
Activity: 2044
Merit: 1055
I need fb23/24. the pdf says: 2300ohm@100MHz,3A
but I think the 2 is a typo, I can not find 2300ohm fb for sale anywhere. I found 300ohm beads, but don't know what size to order. Where did you guys order your ferrite beads?  thanks


AFAIK you need these fellows:

742792121, FERRIT, SMD 300OHM, 3A 1206, RoHs http://r.ebay.com/mDsXD1
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