Topic: Hacking KNC Titan / Jupiter / Neptune miners back to life. Why not? - page 41. (Read 76589 times)

Hm. Looks like the waas command is similar, I wonder if it can support a titan:

const char *get_str_from_board_type(brd_type_t brd_type)
{
        switch (brd_type) {
        case ASIC_BOARD_TITAN:
                return brdtypestr_TITAN_ERICSSON;
        case ASIC_BOARD_NEPTUNE:
                return brdtypestr_NEPTUNE_ERICSSON;
        case ASIC_BOARD_JUPITER_REVB:
                return brdtypestr_JUPITER_REVB;
        case ASIC_BOARD_JUPITER_ERICSSON:
                return brdtypestr_JUPITER_ERICSSON;
        case ASIC_BOARD_JUPITER_REVA:
                return brdtypestr_JUPITER_REVA;
        default:
                return "";
        }
}

While waiting for the parts (got a number of boards here, so I overnighted some more chips) I figured I would think about the whole Titan/Neptune/Pi/BeagleBone thing and I'm wondering if I can control a Titan with a BB board. Maybe, maybe not.

What I do have is a first generation Rpi board which I loaded the 2.0 firmware on. Oddly enough it boots, but seems to shut itself down and reboot after a few minutes. My guess is it's got a daemon trying to find something on the board and throwing a reboot when not found. First step is to find that daemon and kill it, then look at all of the scripts.

Edit: Heh. I'm good.

Now for the fun: This thing seems to have all the code for how to build the libs and a very nice file called
-rw-rw-r--. 1 pi pi 341359 Feb 27  2015 spimux.rbf
-rw-rw-r--. 1 pi pi 352743 Feb 27  2015 spimux-titan.rbf

Ok, so we have the spimux-titan file. And a bunch of goodies. I think I'm going to try and port this mess.

At this point I don't know, haven't seen that in a Neptune and not enough Titan data points. But a question: How much performance would you gain vs. the downtime?

Can this be fixed? If you increase MHz any greater than 275 and 225 of the first two dies, the cube becomes unstable. If it is fixable, I have a couple like this which I can send for repair.

Just got the first Titan controller boards in for repair, this is the status:

Board 1: Shorted cap took out the high side FET in the TPS. Will replace chip.
Board 2: Different: Powering the board causes the TPS chip to get *hot* to the touch. Trying to read status gets me the following:

TPS65217 error: Bad ID 0xFFFFFFFF
TPS65217 TEST failure

I think the whole chip is shot. Will replace chip.

Next up: Wait for parts delivery.

hopefully this helps...how to do such with wires rather then a daughter board (don't have mine yet so no clone board no pics so is is)

The questions I ask and the thread starts here.....the guys involved are who you should ask on this ...there likely IS a work around ..but all that was way above my understanding

link below..should give you a good start on this

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.13181015

again if NOTHING else ...wired up in a manner w/o the bridge board..with a pi ..with the titan sd firmware and with say an lcd on the board YOU SHOULD at least tell

by the LCD and the GUI if it ACTS like it is gonna work or not w/o sacrificing a 'titan cube' yet (ie golden goose eggs so to speak).....so hell with a 'revamped' neptune board

not a lot of risk...likely if it did not work it would just pretend it was a 'brick' anyway

anyway start at that link and scroll down to replies......way to technical for me but what you may be looking for as a contact on this idea


edit: a sidenote but cute project Indiegogo :Tixie BTC Ticker thingy...I got one of these on order ..a combo clock/btc ticker/temp etc (see video) the 1st 50 get for $69 ( plus $10 buck shipping to USA) a bitcoin labeled usb stick and a T-shirt and the device..anyway just thought people may be interested started a thread here and links etc
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/indiegogo-tixie-btc-tickerclocktemp-bitcoin-ticker-push-and-play-69-bucks-1313405 its off topic I know but damn it is kinda cool

Searing:

I'm pretty positive a Rpi plus bridge board can work on either a Neptune or Jupiter (late) board. There are several people running the earlier jupiter boards (4 connectors instead of 6, dual LED thingie, etc) with Titans for it to be some sort of really magical thing on the actual FPGA equipped board. KNC just isn't that "make changes to something that sort of works"...

So the fun part is "what do you *NEED* in a bridge board?" If we take out fluff like "light status LEDs" and "control the on-board fan plug" and frippery like that you're down to the essentials. Which might just be power for the board (5v) and spi signal to the fpga and the TPS chip. Maybe serial lines to program the FPGA, not sure about that.

If anyone wants to pull their bridgeboard and take detailed pics and post them I might be able to figure most of it out.

I have a gen 1 Rpi sitting here that I used to use as a bitcoin controller, I'd be happy to see if it reflashes with the KNC code set. If so I would then be fine with building a helliacious set of jumpers to see if I can get the fpga loaded and TPS powered up.....

In the meantime working on a few things with a couple of systems in transit. One is a Neptune board, fails TPS powerup, pulled bad cap and the TPS chip, will put a new one on as soon as the next shipment arrives. It also has a bad beagle-bone (failed from another board) but to be honest beagle-bones are $50 bucks tops and not worth fixing. Odd though that this one fires up the 3.3v supply on the board, so it's not a power issue and seems to pull 120ma so something is there. Just will not boot or run any of the 4 status lights.

The fact that the DC-DC converters are showing voltage means they are probably working. If they were shorted you would see 0 volts on that die. My guess is nothing is pulling power from those particular ones, that's why they are cold.

Ergo, chip problem. You can try a low frequency on those dies, see if they respond to that.

a guy on the Swedish ASIC thread has made such a bridge to compensate for that..he made 10 he has 3 bad bridges on some titans the other 7 are to cover his costs

there is talk on that thread on IF you took a pi the above cloned adapter and plug'd it into a neptune board 6 port card using the pi with that bridge..
...if viola it was a titan with the firmware on sd etc..you'd have a titan controller board

if you got a working Neptune board contact me I can point you the links etc.....or whatever..he may be crazy enough to let you try a bridge and see if it works


you guys would make a lot more coin on revamping Neptune boards to Titan boards.. if that was the case...it may even work on Nov and Oct jupiter 6 port boards...but I'd test it with
a neppie board first..in that is most current version before Titan came out.

the thoughts are KNC being LAZY likely DID NOT change the 6 port board (thus the bridge and the pi and the firmware) but someone has to be 'crazy' enough to plug this in and see what is what ..not a lot of titan folk want to do that now ..making yet 400 bucks a month on LTC say per titan...so ie NO BALLS moment for most of us...

anyway let me know or not...but it is a match made in heaven....you have revamped Neptune boards he has a bridge....i have (or everyone) has a 512mb rasp B+ PI....do the
SD firmware to titan ...

1st step would simply be board/bridge/pi and titan firmware and say (i have a spare lcd) and turn it on and see if the LCD comes up correct and the GUI comes up as Titan correct
when you IP in ...just shows no cubes

then the 'balls to the wall moment" at that point would be to plug a titan cube in (anyone have  bad 1 die only works piece of crap won't run for more then 1 hr to sacrifice to the asic gods...would not have to even be stable....just say long enough to show proof of concept....

anyway the train of thought......out of the box thinking that has gone on over at the Swedish ASIC KNC thread

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/swedish-asic-miner-company-kncminercom-170332

I SUPPOSE you could just pin out with wires directly w/o the daughter board and see if it works also ..not using a bridge say daughterboard...JUST spagetti wire it according to
how the pi plugs in thru the bridge...but that is way beyond me or others me thinks..best just to get the cloned bridge to test with

anyway ...the 'speculation' on such in the above thread

anyway that is the bet....knc being lazy changed zip on the 6 port board and it is all on the SD and firmware software and the pi vs bbb etc...the bottom 6 port boards are the same

and if you REALLY want to go conspiracy theory on the above...KNC was pulling Jupiters out of their farm 5 months before the Titan came out and was putting in Neptunes..wanna bet if this works these boards are all USED Nov KNC Jupiter boards from such a pull .....(again I'm jaded ..knc is evil) it would explain much on the 'stall' to get Titans out the door ...ie they were 4 months late more or less

anwyay...stuff to ponder




well hell for me I'd just get working cube boards off ebay for 39 bucks .and just replace.....but me I'm lazy

You sure this is a problem with the ASIC chip and not the VRMS?
2 of them seem dead because I put my finger on them and they are cold, the other 2 are lightning hot.

Try reflowing the chips. The problem is the chip overheated underneath and melted the solder so that the fpga can't communicate with the chip's hashing engines. Question: Is there any burned marks on the bottom of the circuit board?

I got a few of these old Jupiters with dead dies or dead VRMS and they only run at 50% or 75% capacity like so.

Anyway to fix this?

Just updated the FAQ post (post 2) with more stuff on identifying what's wrong and fixing the beaglebones. Back to work...

Another control board, this one is a bit of a doozey. First, the beaglebone does not appear to be booting. The power light comes on, but the 4 LEDs on the left side do not do their little light show. Second I can see that the TPS chip is out of action as well, probably another short in the voltage lines.

So it's off to the bench after lunch to take a look into both of the issues. I'd like to get the BB fixed first if I can, then take a look at the rest of the board.

loving what you are doing here lightfoot 

cant wait for the titan hacking, keep it up mate

Hm. Well, I'm running these test Neptunes at 600gh and here are the numbers:

Temp : 52.0 °C


Power : 263.651 W

DC/DC   Voltage (V)   Current (A)   Power (W)   Temperature (°C)
0   0.7782   34.8125   27.091   75.625
1   0.7831   34.6250   27.115   82.625
2   0.7760   44.2500   34.338   85.000
3   0.7777   44.5000   34.608   86.625
4   0.7821   45.6875   35.732   81.750
5   0.7809   45.0000   35.141   76.000
6   0.7765   44.6875   34.700   80.625
7   0.7794   44.8125   34.927   85.000

That's with 350mhz on the first die, 450mhz on the other three. A tad bit hot.

On the water cooled 3/4 unit, 400gh

Temp : 43.5 °C

Power : 170.360 W

DC/DC   Voltage (V)   Current (A)   Power (W)   Temperature (°C)
0   0.7825   33.8125   26.458   85.125
1   0.7834   33.5625   26.293   83.625
4   0.7783   38.7500   30.159   75.250
5   0.7786   38.8125   30.219   80.875
6   0.7804   36.6250   28.582   83.000
7   0.7822   36.6250   28.648   86.250

Running 350,400,375mhz on the three remaining dies.

Now checking the actual temps with the laser IR tool I see the temps on the top of the high side FETs are 77c. To me that's kinda hot, and about as high as I would want to run them. The 12v filter caps are right there, and the question then comes "what is the max operating temps of the caps?

Cheap crap caps are 85c max. Good caps are 105c, and the best ones will take 125c. What do you think KNC went with?

Back to the 40a thing my quess is if you trim then down to 40a draws you will probably find the temps drop a lot. Once you start going above 40a, that's when internal temps start to climb. I would say keep the temps below 85c and you will be ok. Less if you're a Titan since the extra hashing speed you gain is probably not worth the risk of fireballing your unit.

I am also worried about Current (A) (3rd column), I believe those Ericsson DC-DC modules are rated for 40A, but they are at 45. Rest of cubes stay between 39-41 except for this one. Is it going to be detrimental in the long run?

That chip's might have a weird die. Clock it down a bit, clock the others up a bit. Also note that the position of the power supply on the board with respect to the fan can make a difference. Or the dc-dc is covered in dust, dirt, animal droppings (it's happened...) and is not able to dissipate its' heat as well as the others.

Edit: Oh you're worried about the CHIP temp. Didn't see that. Hm. Maybe the heat sink has come a bit loose? Fan obstructed by dust, dirt, animal stuff? Thermal compound gone bad? If it's hotter, don't move the cube while it is runnning, let it cool or you could smear the solder.

But my guess would be some heat dissipation issues in the chip top to heatsink world.

lightfoot,

Any idea why one of my cube is drawing more power and DC-DC module amp is higher than the others even at lower volatage? Is it on it's way out?