Topic: Open Source Avalon Gen2 55nm Board - page 3. (Read 35955 times)

Can you post any details? The frequency formula in the original firmware was incorrect, so you had to pick frequencies without any clear understanding how frequency relates to the hashrate. With my firmware, speeds 1650-1717 yield maximum performance, while lower speeds (down to 500MHz) also work well and in a predictable fashion so that the actual hashrate matches with the speed you specify, i.e. speed 500 -> 500MH per chip and so on. Here's a screenshot:
http://s019.radikal.ru/i601/1402/ca/70cccdc0e4bc.png
Here's an example command line:
./bfgminer -o stratum+tcp://stratum.mining.eligius.st:3334 -u -p --klondike-options 1718:70
substitute your pool credentials, username and password where appropriate.

It seemed he used an older version of bfgminer.
You can use the normal version and just change 2 lines:

#define MAX_WORK_COUNT 8
#define LATE_UPDATE_MS ((int)(0.5 * 1000))

These changes did a good job for me. I never saw a duplicate/idle message anymore since that, even with the board-firmware from before. (Including a slightly higher hashrate)
His new firmware for the board didnt work so well for me, the old one is faster at even lower frequencies, but i still have to debug it a little further...

The firmware loaded fine but I can't get BFGminer to compile that driver. I think it's due to the .o file but I'm not sure how to fix that.

make -C lib
make[3]: Entering directory '/home/bfgminer/lib'
make  all-recursive
make[4]: Entering directory '/home/bfgminer/lib'
make[5]: Entering directory '/home/bfgminer/lib'
make[5]: Nothing to be done for 'all-am'.
make[5]: Leaving directory '/home/bfgminer/lib'
make[4]: Leaving directory '/home/bfgminer/lib'
make[3]: Leaving directory '/home/bfgminer/lib'
cd libblkmaker && make
make[3]: Entering directory '/home/bfgminer/libblkmaker'
make[3]: Nothing to be done for 'all'.
make[3]: Leaving directory '/home/bfgminer/libblkmaker'
  CCLD     bfgminer
bfgminer-driver-klondike.o: In function `klondike_init':
/home/bfgminer/driver-klondike.c:772: undefined reference to `opt_klondike_options'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
Makefile:922: recipe for target 'bfgminer' failed
make[2]: *** [bfgminer] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/bfgminer'
Makefile:1964: recipe for target 'all-recursive' failed
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/bfgminer'
Makefile:815: recipe for target 'all' failed

Hi Folks,

did anyone tried I2C board chain ? Is it working ?

Cheers,

PCB changes were minor, so any PCB design version, if it works at all, should also work with the latest firmware (the one that I posted). I would NOT recommend building the 16-chip board for the reason of overloading the voltage converter. Or if you build it, mount 10-12 chips on it. With chips working in turbo mode, it's 2.5W per GH. At 1.6GH the power per chip is 4W which corresponds to 4A current draw per chip. So with 12 chips you'll get 48A which is just below the maximum rated load (50A) of the voltage converter module. This way your circuit should run safely. To have a little extra margin, 10 chips would be even better.

My guess is you're using headers with ext cable. Take them off and plug debugger straight into board.

Excellent work, guys!

One question: There has been a lot of back-and-forth on the firmware, but little discussion on the PCB itself.  Which PCB design file/s are you guys using for your boards?  I just don't want to risk building up an old PCB with current firmware.

Hi everybody,

here is the updated firmware:
firmware.rar

for the 10-chip board simply change the 'ChipCount' line to 10, we've checked it and it works.

Here is the updated Klondike driver for the bfgminer:

driver-klondike.rar

We are asking everybody who benefited from our firmware and driver troubleshooting, to support our incentive of sharing our achievements with the community by making a small BTC donation to:
19bWQt5ix6u7hgZyYUcADy72MLsuGzCRYn

The updated firmware supports speeds down to 500MHz. It is possible to implement support for lower frequencies as well by using nonzero values for the OD parameter. While making the updates we've hit some Microchip XC8 compiler bugs so that expression evaluations in the UpdateClock() resulted in wrong values. Updating the compiler to the latest version did not help. The workaround was to split big expression evaluations into smaller statements.

Here is the performance achieved with two 10-chip boards and one 16-chip board running at speed 1717 (rated 1.717GH/s per chip). Again, careful thermal design is mandatory to achieve this performance. Heatsinks are required on both sides of the PCB with high-performance rubber inserts between the heatsink and PCB/chips. You can look up overclockers' resources for tips in thermal design.
http://s020.radikal.ru/i710/1402/a6/818c5c336781.png

It turns out Jeffery wasn't bluffing, he just didn't explain it well. He paid a developer $2000 USD for what turned out to not be what he expected. I believe that is what he meant by great contributers and he has emailed me what he has stable at 21 GH/S.

I don't see a reason to fork seeing as he paid for this and Ostenbacken and Form have this under control. Tips incoming when I get these running. I'm also leaving my offer open to flash free minus shipping for anyone that can't do it prior to this fiasco.

Great work!
I can merge your code into the github-repo, or giving you direct access to it.
Can i just verify your work? Just send a PM with a link to an archive with your firmware and bfgminer-patch please.

Hi guys,

good news. It took me and my friends about a week to debug the 16-chip board but now it's nearly finished. To be brief: there were quite some bugs in the firmware. Also we've fixed some suboptimalities in the firmware operation. But now it's very reliable and predictable with bfgminer: you tell the board how fast should it operate the chips, and you get exactly that speed all the way between 500Mh/s per chip to 1700MH/s per chip. With the 16-chip board modifications to bfgminer were also necessary: at high speeds the board completes its work queue too quickly so that a significant amount of time was lost in idle.

With careful thermal design and at 1.025V power, we can run the 16-chip board at 27.2GH/s rated speed. bfgminer currently reports 26.3GH/s but it may change due to averaging.

I'm going to post the firmware updates shortly. A question: what is the optimal way of posting the firmware updates? I could send it to the author of the original project to be incorporated in the github repository. The bfgminer software also has to be modified for operation at maximum speed.

The Texas Instruments voltage converter is pretty overloaded at these speeds. Both inductors and FETs on it heat a lot despite forced air coolong. At least, small heatsinks must be mounted on them. Also I'd recommend making 10-chip boards or placing less than 16 chips on the 16-chip boards such as 12-14 in order not to overload the voltage converter.

http://s020.radikal.ru/i719/1401/62/b501996fcfa8.png

Has anyone built this?

thanks for your design
can i make this board for 2 layer?
and witch file should i have to write in the pic?

Hallo Jeffrey,

I can only accompany to Lucko.

The boards are not running as promised (you just said by yourself that not the right firmware is flashed). Just do it like this: I send back the boards immediatly to you and I will get a complete refund from you via paypal in Euro. To show me that you will really send the money back we do it like this: you send me half of the amount via paypal - I send you the tracking# of the parcel I send out - when you received the parcel (both of us can track it) you send out the second half of the amount.
Do you agree?

Best regards

Joerg

There is something over them that is for sure... What it is I have no idea... And they looked to be hand soldered since soldering paste is still around them and on the other side of the board. I know form so I already asked him for help but thanks for offering... I hope he will be able to fix solderbridges on chips...

Those 3 chips in picture 6 look smoked. That split on the back in 8 is just metal for the heatsink to pull heat away from the chips. The Q48 package is a serious pain to solder properly and you can't really do it with a iron, heat gun, or reflow oven unless you have a pile of chips to practice on. The alternative is vision alignment and it's expensive unless you have one I don't suggest messing with this board. I have a Pickit3 coming today or tomorrow, I'm not promising 25 GH/S I think that's a bad idea even for a short time. 

You don't provide even working board or completed parts... If I plug in yours it will just smoke with all the solder bridges over ASICs and the rest of problems like 4 out of 5 are missing fan connector, coolers have no way of attaching, 4 chips are strange, some strange damage on the back that looks like a crack(bed quality?)…

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lz2kjfyoxewl9xu/1gjxpuMm3s

And you were promising something else when we talked... And all the delays(not like I have problems but your board is ready for shipping and then nothing) unresponsiveness and so on... Basically I wold like my money back and I can send you boards back...

EDIT: I asked to have them without power supply

Testing and programming that wasn't done:

NO one yet have the firmware ~  not even the people who have contribute me & great Minepeon Patch ~ 
Not even those who have bought 10+ unit ~ 
As the firmware is not in a releasing stage yet ~ 
Also I only help on providing the Hardware ~  ( Not software )  this is a project -  where anyone contribute some part ~

So what is ur part ?   U can't even flash a firmware which "form" already provided ~   

pls do not expect anyone will answer ur question ~  as I don't think they will just give out instruction which is already known !

Thx ~ for the blame ~  but again I should mention it ~ " I don't provide the firmware "   

It will be release when it is already, or while there is that I have gather enough interest ~ pls read & all the messge before asking ~

And pls read the Manual from Microchip ~  PICKIT

read about the what the errror message have tell u !!   as I remember the messge will tell u to set the compiler properly !   

I HAVE ONLY SET IT ONCE,  AND I DID IT WITHOUT EVER HAVE THIS KNOWAGE B4 ~ SO I WILL U CAN DO IT TOO ~~ 

This is a PROJECT, what u have to expect is KEEP TRYING UNTIL U GOT IT ~

I think it's a bluff or the pic got wiped during shipping, my boards turned out DOA even after a 5 day shipping delay that he claimed from the PIC. From what I understand Lucko has the same problem. I'm going to work this out and fork https://github.com/formtapez/avalon/tree/master/firmware (WHERE IT BELONGS) It's probably going to take me a week unless someone has an updated version. I'll provide flashing service afterwards, you just have to cover shipping and provide an ESD bag.