Topic: Hacking KNC Titan / Jupiter / Neptune miners back to life. Why not? - page 40. (Read 76589 times)

came across this pic of a jupiter board



the die its self looks to be the same brand and type as the chip on the controller, cant read the part number though.
although i can see that it reads ALTERA
                                            cyclone IV
It just got me wondering if it was possible to purchase and replace a dead die with a new part.
and also what part numbers are used for the dies neptune/jupiter/titan hashing boards.

I know very little about fpga's in general, although after owning a titan I want to learn more.

Status: Had two more Neptune/Titan boards come in, both were solid dead. One is back up and running with the TPS power chip replaced, the second one still does not come up and it looks like the FPGA is shorted. Contacted user to see if they want me to replace the FPGA chip (costs .15btc by itself), will see.

It's looking to be about 50/50 in terms of replacing the power chip vs. the FPGA to fix these Titan/Neptune controller boards.

Now I just need to wait for the postal service to deliver more packages. Then we can start on reflows/rebuilds of the power supplies (bit more fun)

I have a non-functional Neptune cube that I'd sell for cheap if someone wanted to try and repair it, anyone have any interest in it?  IIRC it was recognized but only showed a couple amps on the VRMs in the UI.

PM me.

er...most you can't imho......maybe a complete re-paste of the cube....but not worth the risk imho for 1 die to wipe out the whole cube on a mess up

and MOST NOV Titans 1st batch had flaky cubes usually 1 or 2 dies dead .....this is why knc told all to overclock from 300 to 325 on the firmare they changed it to (was orig 300)...SO
they could say (like they did to me) oh...you only have 1 die dead on a cube because now that you are oc to 325  on the rest and getting 306.1mh we can't/won't do any titans
over 300mh and not do any cubes with only 1 die dead ...fu and hit the road

so they OC the titans past their orig firmware speed setting for the units from 300 mh to 350 mh assuming all your cubes worked....also why they had to use the 2 to 1 16awg split plugs for power....

so anything above 300mh is a gift...orig Titan was set for 250mh (thus the components in such are rated for) they overclocked (because late delivery) to 300mh (because they had that slack in the components) they then because of bad dies overclocked it again (beyond the psu plugs in each cubes voltage/amp rating..thus the psu split cables) so they could not get beat up on RMA's


thus no further way to overclock these Titans (maxed out) and their solution to the bad dies off problems

so repaste....bigger fan.....the heat sink replacement (see Swedish guy videos on such on youtube...just search knc titan they pop right up)

but me...I 'm getting 645mh with 2 dead dies and 1 die at 250 and one die at 275 after 15 months of mining ...am not gonna sweat this (again 2 titans an orig one nov and used on mar 15)

(i do have all the Swedish guys stuff he used on hand thou..in case i have to rescue a cube)

but hell ave is 322.5 per Titan now (was 325) so again imho anything over 300mh is a frigging gift ........(again knc products are evil imho leave them alone an let them mine
if you make direct eye contact or muck with them too much ..they will try to brick themselves out of spite).....its true they are 'evil' I tell you

edit: actually will make up the 5mh have 5 moonlander 1mh usb sticks coming (was 32 bucks each plus 6 bucks shipping ...will never ROI but were cute as heck) so....dumb as it may be

I shall get up to 650mh again (whoo hoo!) (damn that's lame..but they are soooo cute) So FU KNC

I'm not an expert on this specific hardware, but I would imagine so. I think some bottom side heatsinking would be helpful too. Though, if it's dissipating so much in those areas that it melts the solder and causes that kind of discoloring, I'm not sure what extent of cooling modification would be required to keep the board temperatures down...

Back when I reapplied the solder paste on all of them, I remember all the boards looking like that, they all looked burned in those places.

If that is the case for this board, I need to reball the entire ASIC?

I'm beginning to think they are all the same thing, at least since October Jupiters. Check if you can to see if the bottoms of the boards are smoked.

Like this:



That's a Titan board, crashed. Will be working on it.

View it as a smaller image and you can see the discoloration all around the chip. Especially in the corner where the die burned the board, that's where the reflow failure is.

Interesting.

THese aren't Neptunes actually they are Jupiter units. Ill take it apart when I get some free time, right now I got a bunch of these Jupiters all stacked on top of each other hashing away. The one with the dead dies is the unit stacked at the bottom

Easy is relative. Was KNC shipping dead units?

Anyway, pull the board and tell me if there is a big black burn spot on the back. I just got some pictures of a Titan coming over and sure enough it has the same burn pattern as the neptunes.

Interesting.

I tried the lowest voltage and the lowest frequency and they are still dead. Been like this ever since I got the unit. Figured it might of been an easy fix.

I do not know yet. I think part of the problem is that the chips melt the solder under themselves and short. Reflowing with really good flux and proper heat might fix it (it does fix neptunes)

And on a related note the US Postal service has totally failed today. Will try again tomorrow.

No problem. Hopefully all of these posts will help other home miners and small miners continue to keep going (which is my personal goal thing)

I really wish I could chime in and help. These are just too rich for my blood to invest in and tinker with at the moment. Looks like you're doing good work though!

The cube just restarts (or is it BFGMiner?). The fan, controller stays on, but the hash rate goes back to zero until it tries to revive all of the dies. The Cycle continues every 5-0 minutes, so I just keep the dies turned off. I am using KNC's software for this Titan.

How we can wake up
Some dead die. At Titan cubeL

Hm. Weird. Now the Titan chips have a lot more junk on them than the Neptunes (Titans have memory, processors, stuff while Neptunes are barrel rollers all the way) so I wonder if overheating would damage those sorts of things instead of just knocking down some hashing engines.

That said, how does the cube turn off? Does the fan stop and everything, or does it just restart the power supplies? Haven't seen that on a Neptune yet (is this Tarkin's software build)?

lol, no visible insect attacks or droppings. If I set the frequency any higher than 100 MHz, current (A) goes up to roof to 50. Internal failsafe mechanism kicks in (supposedly modules are rated 40 A) and turns off the cube, after a moment it tries to turn the cube back on. Hence constant off and on. Temp stays below 80 or 85 all the time.

Well anyway I have a Titan so not sure if symptoms are the same as the above but here goes......

I have a cube with the same symptoms but 225 and 250 on 2 dies as well. Again mine is a Titan cube....

For me I can seem to run them higher and they do get unstable..but the heat goes up.....I assumed? that it was just in need after running for 15 months straight the mods
posted on here by the swedish guy (links below) and have ordered from ebay and amazon the parts to re-paste the cube and put on the heat sinks and put the better fan on.

I have not got to it yet......(being paranoid with these Titans is prudent ..they are 'evil' they will try to 'brick themselves' on any opportunity at all )

Be sure to also note the comment area below for his info on where and what kind of parts/paste/fans he got for this ....I found equiv (fans) and (paste) on ebay..the heat
sinks I got 2 sets (1 extra for further projects) from the site he mentioned (the tall buggers)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-RBI4am-wY Swedish Video I'd watch 1st more complete better video of parts..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G_zcJ0vbOw English Version

So is my 'theory' correct? If not I await what I should do for a fix along with the above posting fellow above (Hawkfish007)

Anyway others? Your thoughts everyone? (Again have NOT done the mod above yet the 're-paste' but got the stuff in case it all goes further down hill quick....

By the way the above swedish guys video is better on seeing what is going on in the swedish version above FYI then the 2nd link his English video....also more

details on the heat sink mod on the 1st swedish video ( you get to use a HACKSAW)...heh....and no wonder I'm stalling on this 'tweaking of titan cubes'

anyway you are not alone ...same thing with the Titan cube I have

What do you mean by "unstable"? What does it do/not do? Has it ever been hot clocked, run hard, filled with hay and insects (oh ask, do ask :-)?

C

This one is probably ok, but 1 have 2 cubes w/ 2 dies each that won't stay stable even at 100 MHz. If you find a way to fix it, let me know.