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Topic: Hacking a BFL Jalapeno to 32GH and beyond....(???) - page 10. (Read 54272 times)

legendary
Activity: 3094
Merit: 2239
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
An H11. The old 11/03 in a 4 slot chassis. Yep, good little system; I ran a 4 user BBS using MU-BASIC back in the day.

Interesting note: I may have hit my first problem: My 7 chip air cooled jally was reporting 300gh speed, 26gh accepted. Slightly odd from the POV of BFGminer but when I unplugged it and plugged in again one chip didn't come up. Shut down, started again, back to 26gh.

I might be banging into a limit here. Without watercooling; maybe I should buy a small block for this one, or that one with only 5 chips....

C
full member
Activity: 238
Merit: 100
Those are very old Smiley ALR was PPro hex and quads era. Big Tower cases.

""Finishing up our PDP-11 tour are two more LSI-11 (microcomputer) based PDP-11's. One is a very special machine to my friend Hannes. It is the H11, a joint effort of Digital Equipment and Heathkit.""

Heathkit, love the things...


""KS10[edit]
 
The KS10 design was crippled to be a Model A even though most of the necessary data paths needed to support the Model B architecture were present. This was no doubt intended to segment the market, but it greatly shortened the KS10's product life.""

Must have been for a small business model, or ?

On Soldering, this tut is over a hour, many may find the whole page very informative.
It did not go into BGA tho, but after the movie, some links did, not as good as this one, really eye opening for me. I was always trying to heat with no solder flooding to remove, ha ! flood it and a little heat it comes right off, then clean up. He make it look so easy Smiley

http://projectklondike.org/how-to-build

If I find any good sinks sizewise, I will pm and send you one my dime, thanks for the info.
legendary
Activity: 3094
Merit: 2239
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
You are having to much fun Smiley
Great pictures, can you give dimensions of PCB of Jally boards, I saw 1/2 inch uncovered on the air cooled one right by where you said the mosfets were getting heat from the back plate >

I have a few 40ft storage bins of old computers and NOS servers and parts, I never throw anything away, and at the time the stuff was so hard to find (best of the best) NOS I hate to sell any of it. It is irreplaceable no longer on Bay or elsewhere, ALR I collected for years.

I think I have some 30+ HUGE Copper xeon Intel sinks, may work for Jallys, need to know the size of the bottom plate (PCB).
About 2 lbs or so each 1/2 inch pure copper. (Old Skool).
Sure I'll measure the sides tonight. Oddly enough the holes in the corner fit the corsair PC mounting bracket with just the smallest amount of filing, so it's pretty close to a standard. The key is to cool the back of the board, the chips can deal with a heat sink.

I've got some old hardware myself, mostly pdp11's. For awhile there I kept the mit-ai.arpa system safe and sound before sending it over to Paul. Still have a KS10 out in the shed, I fire it up every once in awhile and think about what might have been....
legendary
Activity: 3094
Merit: 2239
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
BADASS  Shocked

Just out of curiosity, do both new and old style asic chips go on with the same technique? do you have to vary it between the two?
Thank you! These things are definitely doing well, and once I get this other jally running (maybe) I will see about taking the two of them to 8 chips. Which will basically give me a single/60. :-)

As for the chips: I have had issues with the old style chips, specifically I was shorting one of them because heating from the top caused the solder holding the chip to the board to go molten. That's a big problem; it implies that one needs to use a reflow oven instead of a rework gun since the chip and carrier do not conduct the heat to the pads. However I am also finding out that leaving the board at 375f on the pre-heat board is enough to make the components almost "jiggly" so that even a small amount of heat can blow a component off the board. It might be possible to preheat the board to hell, then use something like 375c air to melt the balls. Maybe.

member
Activity: 79
Merit: 10
BADASS  Shocked

Just out of curiosity, do both new and old style asic chips go on with the same technique? do you have to vary it between the two?
sr. member
Activity: 266
Merit: 250
Nice hack, congrats!

full member
Activity: 238
Merit: 100
You are having to much fun Smiley
Great pictures, can you give dimensions of PCB of Jally boards, I saw 1/2 inch uncovered on the air cooled one right by where you said the mosfets were getting heat from the back plate >

I have a few 40ft storage bins of old computers and NOS servers and parts, I never throw anything away, and at the time the stuff was so hard to find (best of the best) NOS I hate to sell any of it. It is irreplaceable no longer on Bay or elsewhere, ALR I collected for years.

I think I have some 30+ HUGE Copper xeon Intel sinks, may work for Jallys, need to know the size of the bottom plate (PCB).
About 2 lbs or so each 1/2 inch pure copper. (Old Skool).
legendary
Activity: 3094
Merit: 2239
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
This is a Jalapeno running 7 chips, 28gh mining speed. Air cooled, 70c temp:



This is a Jalapeno running 7 chips, 28gh mining speed, water cooled, 40c temp.







I think if there's a Bitcoin conference I'd be happy to give a talk on hacking your bitcoin miner to full power. :-)

Actually maybe I should write something up and submit it to Defcon this year. It's fun, and they love this sort of stuff....
legendary
Activity: 3094
Merit: 2239
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
Could you please clarify 0.05 screen and 0.045 balls? You don't mean 0.5mm screen and 0.45 balls? If what you said originally is correct I can seem to find the supplies on eBay. Congrats on the water cooling!!! Kinda thinking, I didn't go this way but on eBay they have water blocks for like 10-15$ Hook um all up with a pump and a big enough rad and that's pretty tits. Just an idea as I know those self contained units arn't cheap on their own.  Check out the water cooling they did with the 60 Ghs models.

FYI I have 8 12v rails 25A, 2 jalapenos a piece. My custom 16 gauge wires are a little warm on the 2 jalapenos 1x6 chips 1x4 chips. The 18 gauge wires from the power supply are actually warm-hot to the touch. The insulation isn't melting yet but I think I need to pull the weak link out.  6 chips still running magical under 60c on air..........
Yep, added an extra zero. .5 screen, .45 balls. Or maybe they are .5 balls but I think they're a bit smaller. Works well enough. Don't use too much heat to melt them on; I really cooked a few off on my second reballing. Oh well, clean and try again.

Double up the wires coming from your power supply; I tripled the 18 gauge wires together and they seem to hold. But the Corsair has 16 gauge wire by default and that thing runs all sorts of stuff. It's got an 8 chip chili, 7 chip air cooled, and 5 chip jalapeno. I think I'll move the water cooled 7 chip in there as well, or maybe another 5 chip unit. It's a very good power supply.

Wish I could get the danger jally up and going, seems to just fast-flash. Might be a firmware problem, I'll check that next.

C
full member
Activity: 123
Merit: 100
Could you please clarify 0.05 screen and 0.045 balls? You don't mean 0.5mm screen and 0.45 balls? If what you said originally is correct I can seem to find the supplies on eBay. Congrats on the water cooling!!! Kinda thinking, I didn't go this way but on eBay they have water blocks for like 10-15$ Hook um all up with a pump and a big enough rad and that's pretty tits. Just an idea as I know those self contained units arn't cheap on their own.  Check out the water cooling they did with the 60 Ghs models.

FYI I have 8 12v rails 25A, 2 jalapenos a piece. My custom 16 gauge wires are a little warm on the 2 jalapenos 1x6 chips 1x4 chips. The 18 gauge wires from the power supply are actually warm-hot to the touch. The insulation isn't melting yet but I think I need to pull the weak link out.  6 chips still running magical under 60c on air..........
legendary
Activity: 3094
Merit: 2239
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
Lightfoot, I just got 4 jalapenos and I have gotten the hackit-to-go-faster bug.  Already changed out the 7k resistor with a larger one to get more voltage to the

ASICs.  This reduced the errors by 1% and increased the speed by 500Mhs.  Thinking about putting maybe two more chips in each unit.  Do you know where the early type

(no laser etch on top) chips can be obtained? Smiley
Hm. If you want to reball them, I have at least three. .02btc each, unknown if they work (two probably do).

Quote
maybe 8-10A each?  Running at little single speeds (250Mhz+), maybe 12-15A.  If you install 8 chips, run them at 200Mhz, this should yield 24Ghs if

All 15 engines are enabled.  I do not know the current usage on the chips vs speed. Just guessing here.  I figure the longboard in the single/little single is different
They seem to pull about 12-13 watts each, which at 1 volt is 12-13a. The original chip specs were supposed to be 8-10 watts each, that's where they ran into trouble. 8 10 amp units is 80a, 8 13a units is 104a. Big difference for power and heat dissipation.

Quote
than the jala board.  Otherwise BFL would just plop a 8 chip jala board in the little single and call it a day.  Maybe the VRM on the longboard has a higher current rating? Seems like I read somewhere that the longboard can do 100A@1Vdc.
The longboard has more space, better cooling, and FETs that can work together to share the load. Even with that they limit to 60gh, that's fair enough. But running the little single with 7 chips requires literally water cooling to handle the load.

I'd recommend not going past 5 chips to be honest. Six is do-able if you get heat sinks for the FETs. Seven rocks.

C
legendary
Activity: 3094
Merit: 2239
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
Well..... I've had a productive day.

First I added a second chip to my friend's jally, bringing it to 16gh. However this chip was a reballed unit; I used one of my old wrecked chips to learn on, figured out how to use the reballing tool and .050 screen (that's it) with .045 balls (bit smaller means less chance of shorting the damn thing), then took a chip I screwed up, reballed it, and put it on.

Worked perfectly.

Then I took another unit up to 6 chips, no problems, then took my air cooled jalapeno (the one with the cooler master fan) to 7 chips. Note: water cooling kicks more ass than God. I put a small piece of electrical tape over the vias, and just mounted the IBM X46 heat sink to the whole bottom of the board, and put the cooler master on top. It's running at 70c with all that sinking. The water cooled unit with *one* fan running on the radiator is at 45c.

Moral: Screw air cooled heat sinks. However this one is working, both are hashing at 27-28gh, and I'm done for the day. I still have two more chips I can reball, not sure where I will put them. I need more jallies. (no no no no no). :-)

So there you go: 6 chips can be handled by the stock fan and custom power supply. 4 chips is the max for the stock PS. Seven chips is for the men.

C
hero member
Activity: 650
Merit: 500
Pick and place? I need more coffee.
Lightfoot, I just got 4 jalapenos and I have gotten the hackit-to-go-faster bug.  Already changed out the 7k resistor with a larger one to get more voltage to the

ASICs.  This reduced the errors by 1% and increased the speed by 500Mhs.  Thinking about putting maybe two more chips in each unit.  Do you know where the early type

(no laser etch on top) chips can be obtained? Smiley

To answer you question in the above post the schematic indicates 75-80A on the main 1V supply.  I would guess in their totally stock trim (180Mhz), these chips use

maybe 8-10A each?  Running at little single speeds (250Mhz+), maybe 12-15A.  If you install 8 chips, run them at 200Mhz, this should yield 24Ghs if

All 15 engines are enabled.  I do not know the current usage on the chips vs speed. Just guessing here.  I figure the longboard in the single/little single is different

than the jala board.  Otherwise BFL would just plop a 8 chip jala board in the little single and call it a day.  Maybe the VRM on the longboard has a higher current

rating? Seems like I read somewhere that the longboard can do 100A@1Vdc.
legendary
Activity: 3094
Merit: 2239
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
Nice cooling!  Are you going to include pics of this monster?

Need to wait for the sun to come up for a better picture, but you can see all seven lights a blinking....



Thinking about going to 8 this morning: The issue is the bottom of the board under the FETs is still hot. I mounted the block so that it uses the default BFL holes and the fan as the other side against the AL heat sink (brilliant!) however this requires a piece of electrical tape in there to insulate those stupid VIAs. That's cutting down on the block's cooling ability. But still I am concerned about the FETs going to 8. This might be as far as I want to go right now; if I blow the unit I lose 28gh of power.

Maybe I'll try boosting the air cooled one. BFL people: Any thoughts on how much more those FETs can handle?

Hm.... A thought: I wonder if I could tie two jallies together, one with only 4 chips, the other with 8 to balance the 1 volt loads. Why not?

Maybe I'll do that: Focus on getting the danger jally and the melted jally working, then try tying their power grids together.

C
hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
Was running 75-80 with the bottom sink and top. Shut it down.

Now running at 40c. With a Corsair 100 water cooling block on the bottom.

This um.... solves the heat problem. The mounting is actually quite clever. Will go to 8 tomorrow.

Water is without a doubt the only way to fly.
Nice cooling!  Are you going to include pics of this monster?
legendary
Activity: 3094
Merit: 2239
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
Was running 75-80 with the bottom sink and top. Shut it down.

Now running at 40c. With a Corsair 100 water cooling block on the bottom.

This um.... solves the heat problem. The mounting is actually quite clever. Will go to 8 tomorrow.

Water is without a doubt the only way to fly.
legendary
Activity: 3094
Merit: 2239
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
Well, 2 more chips went on the five chip jally taking it to seven. Yes, 28gh. Yes, insane. Thoughts:

With 6 chips on the board I was hashing a good sold 24gh, and was able to keep the system cool with the aluminum heat sink, stock fan pointing down, and a bottom plate. Temps in the 60's. Note I have large heat sinks on the FETs and a fan pointing at the FETs and the FTDI chip.

With 7 chips, forget it. Temps were between 75 and 85 at which my BFGMiner throttles the work. Shut it down, put it on the Copper heat sink plate, fired it up. Temps now between 70 and 75, very hot but still running.

There is little doubt I need more cooling. Might try swapping the AL heat sink for the copper heat pipe one on my old 5 chip jally. 20gh is suddenly a lot slower, and now that I run it open as well, temps are not a problem. This though is really generating some warm.

We do need water cooling here to get to that magical 8 chips. It's funny seeing all the lights but one on the back of the jally burning brightly, that last LED is so lonely being off....

C
legendary
Activity: 3094
Merit: 2239
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
This one that blew up had the older style chips. no 5v at the 5v test point.
Out of curiosity I checked my other Jally that has two of the new style of chip. That one has 5v present at the 5v test point.
Hm. I've seen that too. My weird jally didn't have 5 volts but it seems to be running well now. Maybe they put it in sometimes.
Quote
I think i'll just RMA it.

I have 5 ASIC chips on the way so i'll pop 3 on the replacement and two on my other one. (this is how i came accross this thread in the first place. I remembered the post with the blown u15 pics)
That sounds best. I've got 4 chips outside in the mailbox I think; I'll put one of them on my weird jally, taking it to 5 and the other on my other new jally taking it to six on an old-style heat sink. I think that might wind up being a problem, but my water block is not coming till Monday at the earliest.

And I get to look at another blown board. Fun!

Speaking of chip placements, put another one on a 2 chip jally for a friend, no problems. I'm actually waiting 5 minutes with preheat now, until I see the faint wisp of smoke/flux come up, then a count to 90 with the air tool at 450c. The hardest part is placing the chip perfectly on the balls, but I have had a 100% success rate since I started using a loupe to verify all the balls.

C
member
Activity: 79
Merit: 10
This one that blew up had the older style chips. no 5v at the 5v test point.
Out of curiosity I checked my other Jally that has two of the new style of chip. That one has 5v present at the 5v test point.

I think i'll just RMA it.
Thankyou for all your help anyway.
I have 5 ASIC chips on the way so i'll pop 3 on the replacement and two on my other one. (this is how i came accross this thread in the first place. I remembered the post with the blown u15 pics)
legendary
Activity: 3094
Merit: 2239
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
OK at the test points I have: 1.01V, 0.0001V, 0V, 13.1V
should I have 5v?
Eh. I think the 5 volt circuit was on some boards and not others. Technically it's only needed for the LCD display, whatever that was. However lack of 3.3 volts will end it.

Quote
Resistance between ground and:
1v = 41ohm
3.3v = 0.20 ohm
5v = 2.9k ohm
12V = 2k ohm
Yep, confirmed short on the 3.3 volt line. Given that all of the chips use 3.3 volts it could be anything. I'd say do an RMA on it, but I do wonder what blew up the 3.3 volt line.

C
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