Topic: [Review] Avalon 6 Miner - Winter Mining - Notlist3d - Also FAQ and Help - page 2. (Read 79347 times)

My own notes on the same, from the perspective of the revision 2 A6 (I do not have any of the first model):

• Voltage- I do overvolt to 12.2V in the UI.  On batch 2 this means 12.15V PSU and provides about 3.9TH (this is a much lower voltage requirement than the batch 1 voltage).  Even during hot summer days I've had no difficulty with this overvolt.
• RPI Image- I'm running a 2016-02-05 image.  Any version is quite stable, but it can be noted that later images try to keep the temps to 68C; the original BlockC image targets 75C.  The later images that target 68C do result in some unusual fan ramping action that didn't happen with the original BlockC image, but it is easily fixed (see next point)
• Fan Speed- I've never tried the AVA4_OPTIONS for a fixed fan speed, but I do use min 40 in the Cgminer Configuration tab.  Using the default speed results in the miner getting stuck in a fan ramp up/down cycle and underperforming at only 3.2TH.  Min 40 fixes the issue.  This doesn't mean that faster is better though-- if the miner gets too cold then performance starts to drop (e.g. I tried min 70 once and was very disappointed with the 3.6TH result-- 40 seems to be the best setting for my case and provides the expected 3.9TH).  I'm still running the original A6 fans-- I have the Sanyo fans here but I haven't switched them out yet; I do not know if the Sanyo fans change this issue.

Thanks for sharing your note's sloopy.  It is always welcomed to share information on miners and what works best for you.  One of the best things about these threads, is when we get lot's of users and lot's of good information.

I will go though it in your order and just my thoughts on a few of them.

• Voltage- I personally did not under/over volt.  It can be done safely but the risk outweighed the reward for me.   Yes disappointing speeds sometimes (depends on PSU) but compare that to a A6 with only 1 hashing board it is a ton better.  And you overvolt to much you might end up with 1/2 an A6 so it for sure is at your own risk.
• RPI Image - Yes there are newer and smaller images since thread has started.  I have left the original BlockC kit image up.  It is large, and dated but it works great still.  I did no modification to the image it is straight from original kit
• Fan Speed - I personally just left on auto it can be changed if needed to be quieter, but I saw it as already not to loud of a miner so never did mess with this.
• 2 Versions of A6- I can only speak for the 1st models as mine were all bought early.   I did not have any later models to compare them to.  Even on the new one though no one ever really got past "smart speed" so it did not have the underclock/overclock like the Avalon 4.1's
• BlockC- At this point they chances are who you would want to contact for parts like you mention USB.   You might be able to get it from Ehash (Canaan) but are in huge buyout process so not sure on individual sales (have not contacted them for a while they did take down store)

Thread Summary
Please feel free to do anything with this information. Organize, format, add other information, make corrections, etc, or even ignore.

Over a few days I read through and took some notes which may be helpful to me. I though they may also help someone else since so many people (most) do not read entire threads, they ask for whichever specific item where they are interested.
For example, I am still looking for something to tell / show me the placement of the temperature sensors on the A6. Currently I have the "control" board mounted outside the unit. I would like to know the placement of each temperature sensor for further "playing"
It does not seem like I am the only person having significant issues with the temperature causing downclocks which I do not feel are needed, or should at a minimum have an ability to be overridden through a switch if nothing more than the Bitmain equivalent of shut off if over 80c check-box. We have all agreed the smart speed "feature" should be able to be disabled at will.

notlist3d:
Obviously this is your Winter mining thread and I realize this information would be better if formatted in a more appropriate manner which unfortunately I do not know when / if I would get the time on my current list to do so. I usually make summaries of information which apply to me personally, but I grabbed a couple of things I felt like are important to many newer miners.
I would appreciate you allowing this to linger, and maybe I can find time to pretty it up in due course.

I am sure I speak for many of us in thanking you for your review threads as they may start with only basic information, but they initially give us a glance in what a real home miner is doing with the product over a long term (I use long term in our sense of the expression with what you and I use in a home miner sense.)

Your reviews generally spark input from many of the best and you do a good job of pointing out where people should be safe in terms of invalidating warranty, repeatedly reminding people how they may hurt themselves, or their equipment through real life observations of others or your own experiences.

I want to stress what I mean by input from the best, or in general other miners. We see people such as Phil who are taking products to upper and lower extremities in terms of under / over clocking, Rich with a technical analysis of that information and more, sidehack pointing out ways we may do things in an alternative and many times "better" way and I will say "etc" here because obviously I cannot name the contributions made by everyone but all anyone would have to do is read the entire thread to see how many people offer their own opinions. Normally these are people with the product in hand and are speaking from their own success or failure, but usually based on real world activities, or at a minimum the conjecture is based in fact of experiences by others contributing to the thread.

Here are some of the highlights I have picked up. These are in no particular order and some may not make sense out of context in which case again I welcome contributions and corrections, but if looking for such context feel free to peruse / search this thread. Everything quoted here is from this thread and I will use the QUOTE tag to separate each item :

Thanks,

I will try to do so.

Sounds like a batch one system for sure. I have seen a number of the early ones that only like to run around 3000-3200. If you use a PSU that can put out a lil extra juice like the IBM 2880s that give you 12.27v they will run around 3.6-3.7 ghs. Not sure how badly efficiency is affected by doing this but in our tests the difference was negligible. Wish I could find a quality Kill-a-watt style meter that can run from 200-230v so I could get some more accurate tests. I just have an amp clamp and a multimeter to test with at present.

I got an AV 6 running at around 3100.

I saw a few units running low at 3200 but 3100 looks almost just too low.

Nothing looks bad with it. just hashing lower then the others I have. It's from the first revision for sure.

now if I could program this to downclock and under volt to 275th at .2 watts a gh = 55000 watts

 I think buy solar could adjust his array to power it fully in the day and partially at nite

One nice thing the Avalons have going for them in this regard is that all of their software is open source, https://github.com/Canaan-Creative, so if you do know how to program it would only be a matter of getting in there and telling the software to do what you want it to do.

On a related note, Caanan recently posted the following on twitter, way cool and I want one!  Instant 385TH farm.

a master programmer like ck or  kano may be able to unlock it via software so that you run at freq  400  2500gh but at .2watts a gh.  Maybe an avalon designer would do this for a fee,but you have to understand these machines print money legally and the builders of the gear have a huge incentive  to give a taste rather then a full platter.

Think of a nice deli with great food.  They do not give you a pound of brisket for 'free' they give a thin slice.

So more often then not you do not get a fully unlocked machine...  Gpus are like this. (Top dollar for unlocked gpu)


The sp20 and the avalon 4.1 were fully unlocked   with great range in clockings and efficiencies .  The avalon 6 and the  s-7 are not.

I will echo Jonny's sentiments here. Furthermore, my experience is that you need to wait a few hours to see where you actually end up in terms of hashrate and power consumption.  I have tried a setting of 100, and several hours later it was still well over 2.8TH. The first 15 minutes look good in terms of power and fan speed, but later in the day the fan has ramped back up, and the hash rate is way higher than I expected.

This is quite unlike the SP20 in terms of controls and the ability influence efficiency. The efficiency of the Avalon6 can't be changed via cgminer settings (IMHO).

I think it's a misuse of the word efficiency.  To truly gain more efficiency, then you'll have to follow Phil's advice: find a way to lower the input voltage.  Some server PSUs will allow you to modify the output voltage.

If you're just looking to use less power, then simply under clock the miner.  You can change the frequency directly in the UI (CGMiner Configuration).  Range is from 100 - 500, with 500 as default.

The smartspeed kinda made it where it does not underclock like the 4.1 did.  Some people have undervolted/overvolted that is where you get more efficiency or more speed.  But if you do it to much it can kill a blade.  You will see some though the thread that it went wrong.

But you cannot really get a lot more efficiency out of them via frequency.

Yeah that lowers hash rate not watts per gh.

The Avalon 4 was better you could lower volts and freq with software and make the gear more power efficient.

I may have misread his question as I thought he was looking for watts per gh improvement.

With these hot afternoons, I've been setting mine to 400 to decrease the heat and fan noise. I'm still getting 3200+ GHS from each rig. I don't have a kilowatt meter tho. So I'm not sure if the decrease in frequency is turning into improved efficiency ( ie: w/ghs).

Maybe someone with a kilowatt meter could try it and let us know the efficiency?

You can underclock the Avalons in the cgminer config page. There is a frequency setting for the chips between 100 and 500. Set it down to 100 and your avalon will run around 950g-1th

they have a very strange  way of underclock.

but if you can lower your voltage to 11.5  it all works to give some small savings.  maybe .27 vs  .31 a gh

if you can not lower your voltage the underclocks don't really work much

Anyone have success underclocking these?

With summer heat coming, and the halving just wondering if there's anyway to squeeze more efficiency while also lowering heat/noise

yeah i see that.. but if i compile this.

https://github.com/Canaan-Creative/cgminer/tree/cgminer.xnsub

i wonder if it will run off my laptop i am running everything else with minera..

You can actually just image a SD card nothing needs to be compiled.     Look at part 3 on first page on install it's pretty simple.   You will like the RPI controller I am thinking.  

But that image is the one BlockC was shipping out on kit's.  There are other Options out there but that is one I have always used.

*Adding to that the image on first page is also on DHCP so very easy to install on all networks you can go in and set a static IP very easy after connecting.