Hacking a BFL Jalapeno to 32GH and beyond....(???) - page 9.

godsdog

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Quote from: lightfoot on January 08, 2014, 09:17:44 PM

I'm wondering: Does BFL want the old power supply back when they RMA, or will they just send a new one out?

C

Lightfoot client here. sent Rma pending approval no mention of return psu... BFL>"Once your RMA is approved, no further action is necessary on your part, and a new PSU will be sent to the shipping address in your order. "
just want to Thank lightfoot and promote his work Cheesy

Drug5bitz

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Quote from: bcp19 on January 08, 2014, 09:49:41 PM

Quote from: lightfoot on January 08, 2014, 09:17:44 PM

And in the really interesting news, I had a unit come in with a power supply that went *bad*. Jalapeno, ran it with 3 chips, checked in and saw that it had a massive amount of errors going on. Shut it down, put it on the bench supply, worked fine. Tested the power supply and I see 60 volts between negative and AC neutral.

Glad I have an isolated power supply on my miner. I'm wondering: Does BFL want the old power supply back when they RMA, or will they just send a new one out? I would really like to "interrogate" this one and see if it has the same blown caps as the one from England.

Good news: No damage to the jalapeno. In fact it's now hashing at 14gh with a second added (client provided) chip, much better than the 5.4 it came in with (it has two lousy chips on it and two very good ones).

C

I've heard both... apparently the right and left hands aren't talking... so maybe it depends on if you are wearing matching socks and Mars is in the shadow of Venus...

I honestly can't see them needing the PSU back, it's not like you could fix it and reship it.

^^^ Yes, Thank you.

freddyfarnsworth

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Quote from: lightfoot on January 08, 2014, 10:18:51 PM

On another side note I finished reviewing a blown board that was given to me which had a complete blow-out of the 1 volt FETs due to a short.

Micro-summary: It's destroyed. Not because of the FETs; I got those off easily and cleared the shorted 1 volt lines. It's the fact that the whole 3.3 volt line is shorted as well; I was trying to figure out where that went bad and found out there was a nice bubble in the board by the chips. Apparently the 1 volt line not only shorted but it burned inside the board, shorting the 3 volt supply to ground.

Not good :-) So if you blow the FETs, repairs would require board-level digging, not something I would do for a $200 part. I may fiddle with it some more, but for the moment I will classify this as "toast". :-)

C

Getting to the real cause of all the problems, board traces not heavy - thick enuf for the extra amps even if the chips can deal with it,
I noticed alot of MBmakers went to heavy coppertraced boards a few years ago, when OC became the norm.

I wanted to know if you have made any progress on finding replacement chips at 80-100a or so (what ever would still have some headroom for what is on it and adding 8 chips.
But hell, if the boards are to thin....

Maybe they can sell you fresh PCB's ? or evenmake better ones ? They would not be interested - they must be tired of fixin em by now tho .
Or make you and friends a official repair center

Lots to ponder, thank you

freddy

synapse

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Quote from: lightfoot on January 08, 2014, 10:18:51 PM

On another side note I finished reviewing a blown board that was given to me which had a complete blow-out of the 1 volt FETs due to a short.

Micro-summary: It's destroyed. Not because of the FETs; I got those off easily and cleared the shorted 1 volt lines. It's the fact that the whole 3.3 volt line is shorted as well; I was trying to figure out where that went bad and found out there was a nice bubble in the board by the chips. Apparently the 1 volt line not only shorted but it burned inside the board, shorting the 3 volt supply to ground.

Not good :-) So if you blow the FETs, repairs would require board-level digging, not something I would do for a $200 part. I may fiddle with it some more, but for the moment I will classify this as "toast". :-)

C

To be honest I contribute a lot of that to the tightly packed nature of the board. If anything blows it has a high chance of taking something else close-by with it.
glad I didn't try and fix my 3.3v shorted one.

lightfoot

legendary

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I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)

On another side note I finished reviewing a blown board that was given to me which had a complete blow-out of the 1 volt FETs due to a short.

Micro-summary: It's destroyed. Not because of the FETs; I got those off easily and cleared the shorted 1 volt lines. It's the fact that the whole 3.3 volt line is shorted as well; I was trying to figure out where that went bad and found out there was a nice bubble in the board by the chips. Apparently the 1 volt line not only shorted but it burned inside the board, shorting the 3 volt supply to ground.

Not good :-) So if you blow the FETs, repairs would require board-level digging, not something I would do for a $200 part. I may fiddle with it some more, but for the moment I will classify this as "toast". :-)

C

lightfoot

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I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)

Quote from: bcp19 on January 08, 2014, 09:49:41 PM

I honestly can't see them needing the PSU back, it's not like you could fix it and reship it.

They are total crap. Crap crap crap. Good for nothing but cutting the power cords off for connection to real power supplies.

I'll check on the BFL forums. Still do not have my PCIe power cable whips.....

C

bcp19

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Activity: 532

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Quote from: lightfoot on January 08, 2014, 09:17:44 PM

And in the really interesting news, I had a unit come in with a power supply that went *bad*. Jalapeno, ran it with 3 chips, checked in and saw that it had a massive amount of errors going on. Shut it down, put it on the bench supply, worked fine. Tested the power supply and I see 60 volts between negative and AC neutral.

Glad I have an isolated power supply on my miner. I'm wondering: Does BFL want the old power supply back when they RMA, or will they just send a new one out? I would really like to "interrogate" this one and see if it has the same blown caps as the one from England.

Good news: No damage to the jalapeno. In fact it's now hashing at 14gh with a second added (client provided) chip, much better than the 5.4 it came in with (it has two lousy chips on it and two very good ones).

C

I've heard both... apparently the right and left hands aren't talking... so maybe it depends on if you are wearing matching socks and Mars is in the shadow of Venus...

I honestly can't see them needing the PSU back, it's not like you could fix it and reship it.

lightfoot

legendary

Activity: 3164

Merit: 2258

I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)

And in the really interesting news, I had a unit come in with a power supply that went *bad*. Jalapeno, ran it with 3 chips, checked in and saw that it had a massive amount of errors going on. Shut it down, put it on the bench supply, worked fine. Tested the power supply and I see 60 volts between negative and AC neutral.

Glad I have an isolated power supply on my miner. I'm wondering: Does BFL want the old power supply back when they RMA, or will they just send a new one out? I would really like to "interrogate" this one and see if it has the same blown caps as the one from England.

Good news: No damage to the jalapeno. In fact it's now hashing at 14gh with a second added (client provided) chip, much better than the 5.4 it came in with (it has two lousy chips on it and two very good ones).

C

lightfoot

legendary

Activity: 3164

Merit: 2258

I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)

Interesting. I had another unit in here, little single, with a complete load of everything but the hashing chips on the other side. Even had the 1 volt power regulators, no problems adding chips if we wanted too. I guess BFL made some units with half a load, and some with a full set of supporting chips.

C

Delarock

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I figured this would be the case, but it's a good learning experiment. As far as I know, there is some issue with this unit where it was hashing at ~26 at one point. No clue how to fix it. As far as I'm concerned, what goes on in between the side plates is pure magic. That's why I put the screwdrivers away and went to the post office.

This is possibly the most fascinating thread on the boards, so I wanted to participate somehow.

Photon939

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BCP is correct. I have a little single with Rev A chips running at 31GH/s, but the other half of the board is almost completely unpopulated. The vcore regulator is unpopulated with the exception of some electrolytic capacitors. It's not entirely impossible to get it going, but you'll need to make a decent order from mouser/digikey to get anywhere.

bcp19

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Quote from: lightfoot on January 08, 2014, 10:50:48 AM

Quote from: Delarock on January 07, 2014, 08:46:26 PM

Sending Lightfoot a 25 GH BFL single tomorrow with some PSU's. This unit is underperforming at ~23 GH, so I figured it would be best to get the expert under the hood to tinker and see what he can find, maybe add a few chips into it.

Post pics, tell us what you find. Cheesy

Will do! I'm looking forward to it; one question to start with is do the singles contain the supporting hardware to add chips. If they do it's a matter of adding a heatsink (of which I have... several :-) and chips to boost performance.

Should be interesting.

C

Looking at my Little Single I would have to say no, there is no supporting hardware.

lightfoot

legendary

Activity: 3164

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I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)

Quote from: Delarock on January 07, 2014, 08:46:26 PM

Sending Lightfoot a 25 GH BFL single tomorrow with some PSU's. This unit is underperforming at ~23 GH, so I figured it would be best to get the expert under the hood to tinker and see what he can find, maybe add a few chips into it.

Post pics, tell us what you find. Cheesy

Will do! I'm looking forward to it; one question to start with is do the singles contain the supporting hardware to add chips. If they do it's a matter of adding a heatsink (of which I have... several :-) and chips to boost performance.

Should be interesting.

C

Delarock

sr. member

Activity: 388

Merit: 250

Sending Lightfoot a 25 GH BFL single tomorrow with some PSU's. This unit is underperforming at ~23 GH, so I figured it would be best to get the expert under the hood to tinker and see what he can find, maybe add a few chips into it.

Post pics, tell us what you find. Cheesy

lightfoot

legendary

Activity: 3164

Merit: 2258

I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)

Quote from: Brassguy on January 07, 2014, 12:26:51 PM

True story! I had the bottom plate on mine as well... didn't want to have to clean and regrease it... too lazy to do it right the first time, so ended up doing it twice!

I'm using an IR station, but I concur... bottom heat is critical to a good chip installation.

Hee hee he... It's amazing how much use I am getting out of this dopey little pre-heater. Using it on big boards is much harder, but on the little single boards it does shine. And when I reflowed the chip the result was perfect (and now it's at a solid 60c, I think the heat sink was being lifted off other chips due to the high chip)

I thought about buying an IR station, but then I realized that the trick to using air is to lower the blow speed down so much it's almost like a little cushion of hot air over the end of the heating element. Then the air stays at the right temperature, doesn't go everywhere blowing things off the board, and acts more like what you see with IR. Using the thing as a blowtorch is not the idea.

Live and learn. Now I want to get a Monarch to take apart, but $2,000 is a bit rich for my taste. :-)

C

Brassguy

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Quote from: lightfoot on January 07, 2014, 12:53:40 AM

Update: Found my chip map. #6 is the chip top right with the board pointing up, power plug bottom left.

And like I'm going to sleep on this :-) Pulled the heat sink, sure enough chip 6 was the one that didn't float well enough. Due to having the back plate on when I soldered it. Moral: Bottom pre-heat is incredibly important. Cleaned the heat sink crap, put some liquid flux under it, 375 preheat then 450c for 90 seconds. Chip dropped as it should, is same plane as the others. Successful boot with the little power supply, remounted sinks, hashing happily at 27gh.

Thanks for the help. I'll always remember to ensure that plate is off...

C

True story! I had the bottom plate on mine as well... didn't want to have to clean and regrease it... too lazy to do it right the first time, so ended up doing it twice!

I'm using an IR station, but I concur... bottom heat is critical to a good chip installation.

lightfoot

legendary

Activity: 3164

Merit: 2258

I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)

Update: Found my chip map. #6 is the chip top right with the board pointing up, power plug bottom left.

And like I'm going to sleep on this :-) Pulled the heat sink, sure enough chip 6 was the one that didn't float well enough. Due to having the back plate on when I soldered it. Moral: Bottom pre-heat is incredibly important. Cleaned the heat sink crap, put some liquid flux under it, 375 preheat then 450c for 90 seconds. Chip dropped as it should, is same plane as the others. Successful boot with the little power supply, remounted sinks, hashing happily at 27gh.

Thanks for the help. I'll always remember to ensure that plate is off...

C

lightfoot

legendary

Activity: 3164

Merit: 2258

I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)

Quote from: Brassguy on January 06, 2014, 06:53:09 PM

Probably not... I had something similar on one of my 6 chip jallys.... one chip had poor contact to the board. I had the corresponding led flashing, and the hashrate on cgminer was showing like 125gh... in my case the chip was disabled after power cycling. A reflow fixed the error and has been hashing steady for 9 days now at ~24gh.

Well darn, chip light 6 is unhappy. Where is that really nice map of all the chips again; I drew my own but I can't find it now.

C

lightfoot

legendary

Activity: 3164

Merit: 2258

I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)

Quote from: Brassguy on January 06, 2014, 06:53:09 PM

Probably not... I had something similar on one of my 6 chip jallys.... one chip had poor contact to the board. I had the corresponding led flashing, and the hashrate on cgminer was showing like 125gh... in my case the chip was disabled after power cycling. A reflow fixed the error and has been hashing steady for 9 days now at ~24gh.

It's possible: I checked my notes and that jally had the back plate on it when i went from 6 to 7 chips. I use heat sink compound to put on the back plates, and in that case I forgot to remove it. So it got less pre-heat from the heating table, and it did take longer to make the chip "drop" into place. If it happens again I'll rework it, thanks to your diagram it's easy to find the right chip.

However it's at a happy 27gh for now so I'll let it be.

Thank you!

Brassguy

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Quote from: lightfoot on January 06, 2014, 05:49:47 PM

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

Probably not... I had something similar on one of my 6 chip jallys.... one chip had poor contact to the board. I had the corresponding led flashing, and the hashrate on cgminer was showing like 125gh... in my case the chip was disabled after power cycling. A reflow fixed the error and has been hashing steady for 9 days now at ~24gh.

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