Topic: Hacking KNC Titan / Jupiter / Neptune miners back to life. Why not? - page 14. (Read 76765 times)

Reseated two of the data cables now all four are working . 

It works.....well at least three of the four of the boards work. LOL

Er you are using y adapters on your cubes right?

That's bad. But be incredibly happy it didn't take out every cube on the controller. When the power PCIe Molex pin heats up, the resistance increases which causes it to draw more current. Which heats it up more. Eventually a pin opens and the other 2 pins have to take all the power and they heat more. When you run out of pins, it will try to pull power from the 10 pin ribbon cable. This will destroy the cube, the controller, and potentially every other cube on the controller (as the current draw will try go go through their 10 pin ribbon cables to their PCIe plugs.

Solution: Run your cubes at about 60mh, not 80mh each.

In the meantime if you would like me to take a look at this burned board send me a PM. If the controller and other cubes were still hashing while the 10 pin ribbon cable was plugged in it might be possible that it can be fixed. But slow down the other cubes (250mhz seems to be a good selection); it would be sad to burn the house down.

If you have burnt connectors..this trick works with KNC y adapter..I've been running 2 this way for months.....

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.13872248

I think this is the fix you are looking for bracket wise with the repaste

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/wts-knc-titan-4-point-cooler-mount-modification-bracket-kits-taco-preventer-1423042

As to repaste (i use gelin extreme thermal paste 10oz I think it is) and I'd get the maxumark replacement bracket (in the above thread I think)

Also the dc/dc small heatsink replacement is very helpful on heat. I saved 10c temp per die with the above and a Noctura 3000 rpm replacement fan

anyway contact folk on here for more details or pm

IF the cube has been run for one year ....and is probably really dirty inside..you need to do some of this ..probably a repaste for sure and clean the cube
of dirt with alcohol and qtips

anyway other tips folks here can chime in on ..this should get you started


also depending on the PSU's you have Corsair and Seasonic allow you to buy replacement (or spares) less then 10 bucks.....probably other mnfg do as well

good luck

Hello, maybe somebody got a hint what I will expect if I open up my titan cube?

Today I looked at my mining pool and one of my 3 titans were hashing significantly lower, so I checked all 3 miners -> 1 cube was dead out of 4. So I went to the attic and found black cables from the power supply (I was lucky that my PSU did not give up, rather used the cables as fuses) and burned molex. I did not reconnect, because I need a more stable environment.
The molex was completly melted from the upper 2 connections.

1234
5678

The cables from 1 and 2 were completely broken (fused), black, melted and done. on the back I have seen some black dust, because the fan did not work anymore. I have it sitting in my workshop now waiting for surgery.

Thanks for any responses

I flashed with kncminer-101 to my new micro-sd card.

I wanted to flash with then kncminer image just to make sure everything works.

Success!!

It boots!!

I started to reassemble but I ran out of thermal grease. LOL

Only have the BBB connected to the controller board with power from the molex from the power supply and either-net plugged in but it works.

I need to finish mounting everything back into the case and then see if the asic boards work.

Amazon Prime 2 day shipping...pays for itself..if you buy enough techie stuff

order thermal paste while you are at it ..i'd use gelin extreme gomes in 10oz I think is the large size....re do all the neppie cubes (hobby or not its what i'd do)

I dissembled it completely to clean it out and have a look at the bottom of all four boards.

Its pretty clean with just a light amount of dust.

Three of the four boards have zero discoloration from heat and the one that does its just discolored slightly.

The thermal paste on all the boards is hard and flaky.

But compared to some of the picks in this thread the boards look really great so hopefully it will work once I re-flash the BBB.

But I still have not gone to town to get a micro-sd card yet, I live in the middle of nowhere, its an hour round trip to go to the closest Walmart.
  

Thanks will give that a try once I dig up a microsd card, but since I removed the Beagleboard and have it connected to my Ubuntu 16.04 pc via a usb cable can I install that way?

I just started playing with it and its a very cool little device!!  

Damn another toy to play with LOL.

Here is whats on the Beagleboard:

yeah the jupiter image on an SD card and it  should be good to go.....I have a couple sitting about not used (1st made me 53 btc ..my baby) Anyway
for tinkering that is what you need to do

others can chime on here, but from what I can guess at this time

later

Probably. Give a Titan miner code release a shot first. They should be able to run Jupiter boards.

I just received a KNC Jupiter today and its was supposed to be in working condition, I got it real cheap mainly for the case for a project but this thing is pretty cool and you know how it goes once you start to tinker with something.......

Anyway I plug the power to it and the lan activity lights work and the Beagleboard seems to work ok, displays a Beagleboard web page, but the Jupiter controller board does not light up either the red or green lights.

So I removed the controller card/Beagleboard from the case with only the molex power plug and Ethernet cable plugged in I can access the Beagleboard on my lan and it displays the Beagleboard web interface not a KNC miner web interface.

One of the things it shows is this:

"Your board is connected!
BeagleBone Black rev 00C0 S/N 3615BBBK01FF running BoneScript 0.2.4 at 192.168.1.168"


So... is it just a matter of finding a KNC recovery image and copying it to a microsd card and then reinstalling that or is it more than likely a hardware issue?
 

I'll PM you shipping information.

C

What should i Do?

Might be able to fix the first cube and stabilize the second die. Send the boards on over, I'll take a look.

C

Hello lightfoot,

i have a Special Job for you, i hope you can help me. I have a Titan Miner with at the Moment 2 connected cubes.
The first Cube is dead, in the second cube are 2 Dies "flapping".
I already set it to factory Default, i started with 50 MHz, but no success.
The boards are clean, no burning, nothing. I also replaced the thermal compound and i wasn't chintzy with it 

Here are the screenshots
http://imgur.com/XgKW210


Best regards

Zimbo

That temp in the pics is not bad. Try running die 0 with slightly more voltage (-.02something) and 50mhz. Then try 100.

Or shut down that die and run the other three at full speed (325). Reason is the weak point is the power connector; it melts and burns at over 60-65mh. But you can run three dies at full speed if the fourth is dead. I don't recommend running all 4 dies at full speed, all 4 at 250-275 is more than enough for long and happy lives.

Clean out the units. I recommend using isopropyl alcohol in a little sprayer (95%) with Q-tips to clean the crap out. Someone once sent me miners that were running in a barn, I cleaned those in my shed as I didn't want European horse crap in my house :-)

I like Corsair 750 watt supplies myself, one per cube. You can run 2 cubes on a supply, but that's it.

Replace burned plugs. If the plug burns the resistance goes up and eventually it goes open circuit. If the neutral opens before the positive side does then the miner will pull full power from your control lines and the signal ground on the 10 pin connector. This will ruin your miner, controller, and possibly other miners on the same power supply. Very bad, big hellacious mess.

The Molex plugs are a bitch to replace, the trick is you must pre-heat the board, then tin the solder with lead, then remove the pins, suck out the solder, and put new plugs in. I kind of like the gold plated plugs, that's an interesting idea. I can swap them for .12 btc each. Note if you just use an iron you risk de-laminating the interconnects on the board and wrecking the miner.

C

Hi, thanks for info.

1) I took a look with a torchlight and found that a lot of dust will come to my attention if I will open them up
2) Some cables went brown and have decent temperature, also some plugs are melted together iiiiiiihhhh.
3) They are in such a bad, dark and spidery location that I do not want to touch them (but I have to)

Actions for me to take:

1) I will take one by one off grid, dismantle them and redo a couple of things like:
        a) clean/wash the boards and all components included heatsinks
        b) New thermal compound
        c) Maybe new MC14 BGA Memory Heatsinks for the DC/DC converters

2) Think about:
       a) another cooling solution: silent and all covered: got something in my mind -> NOVEC 649
       b) another power solution: PC Power supplies suck the hell out of my patience. One On/Off cycle takes 2min to depower them totally to get my DCDC's back -> possible a Meanwell 12V 1200W or such ...
           wondering if such a PSU will do? https://de.aliexpress.com/item/Best-quality-output-12V-125A-1500W-Switching-Power-Supply-Driver-for-LED-Strip-AC-110v-or/32689983532.html?spm=2114.010208.8.18.KgfAb7 since I don't know how great the tolerance on KNC's Miner Cubes are?
       c) Solder golden connectors (MOLEX) to the boards to reduce conducting resistance (something I need to know before I do it?) http://www.mouser.at/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=172064-0006virtualkey53850000virtualkey538-172064-0006 Will do?
      
Btw: here is the evidence of what I have, just in case if I did not explain myself.
https://image.ibb.co/mca15a/KNCAdvanced.png

Another thing: What voltage do you want me to try to set? and which direction less/more now I have -0.0366. More less or more more, please specify the value ! Thx


All the best
KNCLER
Tried to bind in the image but couldn't do it. Also hyperlinks some short descriptions?

What is the temps on the cube that throws the errors. If the CPU temps are shooting up quickly past 40-45c, you might have an issue with the thermal interface between die and heat sink. Removing the heat sink, cleaning off all the old compound, putting a thin layer of new HS compound on, then putting back on the sink could fix things.

Another possibility is the chip got hot enough underneath to de-flow the solder a bit. Solution there would be a reflow but that is hard to do.

Another possibility: Have you tried running that die at a slightly higher voltage and lower (like 100mhz) clock speed? You might be able to pick up a few MH that way without fixing anything else, probably the most economical option.

Meantime run your cubes at 60-70mh and not full bore at 80. Helps them to last longer.

C