Topic: Swedish ASIC miner company kncminer.com - page 40. (Read 3049521 times)

It may just be heat related to the dies...afterall.. We have no idea what their temps even are! Lol  Which would tie into ur theory bout the bad shoddy tim application.

I am starting to come to the conclusion that dead dies on Titans might be related to the heat sink compound being splatted on the chip a bit oddly. So far it's not related to the power supplies, main caps, filtering caps, or the fpga's. It still *MIGHT* be related to the very small chips that sit between the 10 pin connections and the hashing chip, but I do not think so.

Anyone know what the very small chips on the board are?

Awesome! Thanks for ur purchase and support. News of new release of firmware will be on my site and of course in this topic .. when it comes out =)

Thanks for that answer, I have struggled on knowing which way to tune the volt, up or down ;P Looking forward to the update on you firmware, bought it today and it works great so far

Definite rule is voltage less than -0.0366 is recommended at 325mhz. Each die varies in quality which determines what speeds and voltage it can run at reliably. -0.0366 is fine for 325mhz long as its the only die in the cube at that voltage. Running all 4 dies at that voltage at 325mhz increases chances of melting stuff drastically.
My upcoming firmware will try to find the most reliably / lowest voltage for each die at the clockspeed they are set to.
So, basically any dies which u set to 325 / -0.0366v when starting the "Energy Saver" on my firmware, will have their voltage stepped down until their HW% climbs above 1.1% or they become unstable. Once either of those conditions is hit their voltage is bumped up one notch and tuning is completed for that die.

So, if you have really good dies(my titan has a few) ... I usually start my tuning at -0.0439 @ 325mhz .... some of my dies will end up stable and happy around -0.0732v after tuning is completed. While the worse of my dies (just 1 or 2) have to be bumped up to -0.0366 to run  decent hw%. While my average dies end up being tuned to -0.0513 / -0.0586. This is all after tuning completes =)

Im wondering is there any guidelines for volt setting on the dies? like what volt it should be between for 325 etc

Small update here on firmware progress....

I rewrote the "Energy Saver" controls to be simpler and more intuitive. Primarily because trying to compensate for nearly every situation a user could want became too great of a task w/ endless options and potential bugs.

There is still a freaking anomaly bug happening when user has dies set to odd configurations (off / outside the voltage parameters of "energy saver") ... Im still trying to track down why stuff aint working correctly in these more rare situations. Once I have that ironed out ... should be real damn close to release! .... crosses fingers!

RE: The "Y" cables.
kfc actually got it right on the 28nm Oct. PC boards.
There was a place on the PCB to install another power connector.
Top left in the pic linked below.
http://www.toboc.com/images/tradeleads/453658_hr.jpg

When kfc discovered they were in over their head understanding how to operate the General Electric DC/DC converters in pairs, and ALSO changed to Ericsson, they removed the option from the PCB to save the cost of a connector, 8 drill holes, and 6 power vias. They abandoned and removed a better solution than the "Y" cables.
On the 28nm product this almost makes sense, on the 20nm product they can't claim ignorance because they themselves used to have a better solution.
They eventually spent on just the shipping for the "Y" cables many times what the PCB solution provided, even if they got the "Y" cables for free.

BTW, kfc had the exact same issues with the Ericsson DC/DC converters, but they needed a scapegoat because of FIRE, and a local manufacturer(Ericsson) was willing to ride in and save the day. The same problen GE and/or Ericsson engineers solved in kfc's firmware could just have easily been applied to the GE part. Recall they announced that they "flew in" a GE engineer when they were in FIRE damage control mode.
And they did make changes in the firmware for existing GE product.

Disclaimer: I have a biased negative opinion of Ericsson that has more to do with assholes in the US distribution chain(Mark Oswald of Ericsson in particular) than I have issues with the quality of the product. Both manufacturers make parts that work equally with kfc's ASICs.

kfc's ignorant DC/DC converter decisions are also connected with their other huge blunder, the 5 cubes instead of 4 idiocy.
If they had added 2 DC/DC converters to each ASIC PCB they could have avoided needing 5 cubes.
They could have at the same time re-added a power connector and split the 12V rail on the PCB in 1/2 IMPROVING SAFETY!!!
The whole issue with some split rail PSU's would have been eliminated.
You can't run 1 die on 2.5 DC/DC converters but you can run 2 die on 5 converters!
They needed 25% more(than planned) rare ASICs to accomplish this.
This is also why I have speculated that 1 delayed delivery ASIC costs way way way less than 8 DC/DC converters.
They must have known they were burning the bridge to their customers at the same time.
Keep in mind, they were also 'customers' and delayed filling their data center and ended up with 20%less hashing power per ASIC also.

They poured sand in the astroglide very early and often.
Frugal to a FAULT. I hope they live long 'interesting' lives and the Black Hole investors take them to the cleaners if possible.


YMMV

yeah well ..even a blind hedgehog occasionally finds a 'truffle'

on a side note

looking at the wayback machine archives..if I was to download all of them....and attempt a merge of such to get (hopefully) on kinda sorta complete (at least as far as the wayback machine archives are concerned) knc forums thread mirror.....

does someone with more expertise then me know of a program to do such

or

would it be a simple manner of just extracting all onto a hard drive 'ASSUMING' the web page threads are 'unique' to the pages/forums in question and just plain
copying over the same web links over and over ...which means ANY links DIFFERENT after this would expand the particular wayback merged archive I'm trying to make?

or

is there a better 'comp sci' process etc?

the reason just ONE newest archive is not good enough imho ..is KNC techs killed a lot of stuff that made them look stupid .others on here can verify such in that for a time you could do a search and see all the deleted posts they had tried to make (the techs of knc in 20/20 hindsight and glen tarkins efforts as comparison were more then kinda inept imho)

so on some archives i get down to the title of a forum post and it is not there ...so either

1) the wayback machine is hit and miss on how deep it delves branch/tree wise down with files ..and a lot is lost

or

2) it exists on some and not others an willy nilly catch all catch can and only a complete merge of all the archives available will give us the truth

anyway suggestions or hell tell me if it is a lost cause and only individual archives can be accessed at a time and not merged in the somewhat 'unexpert' manner I suggest

just ticks me off I never archived the works properly....lots of lost tech info on there (mostly from the users)

thanks

My point is, your theory about the controller boards and the delivery timeline is the best one I've heard yet, and if it's true, you may have just "reverse engineered" the controller boards without actually reverse engineering one.

yeah to clarify the above..i'm talking about the 4/6 port boards being the same in everything...ever made by knc up and thru use on the neptunes and titans....
lazy/fast/cheap and late KNC's motto If i 'get' that 2nd oct 2013 saturn board I will try to just direct pin the wires w/o a daughter board to a pi for the titan
and I'd be the odds of it working is better then 90%....still have no time/days off to get to the clone daughter board test on my oct jupiter 4 port card....

too much to do too little time

as to the dumb question no doubt I am....all this tech stuff is beyond my normal day to day work and experiences...out in the sticks by myself....(sure can't mention
bitcoin ..last time that happened a  plumber saw my stuff I said bitcoin..and have not heard from the guy since..how many of you had your bank sic the SEC on you
when in 2013 'btc was evil' ? at least in 2015 they just thing of me like a 'deluded Amway Salesman' when the topic comes up....damn I need to start a crypto club
or something.....its like the frigging "I am Legend" movie around here and don't even have a dog..btc wise that is....


probably because I am the dumb...I realize my limitations (esp as a newbie....bfl drank the kool aid....alpha tech put 30% down got it back because if you have an American
Express Gold Card..and alpha lies on the invoice that I paid in FULL and I can prove I paid 1/3  pre-order.....well never heard an amex rep swear before...gave me refund on the spot
with a point to the web page on the pre-order info...I gather one does not LIE to AMEX ..they were 'miffed'


so I've made ALL the mistakes since 2013 (more if you count not getting in BEFORE 2013)

that aside..you got to understand I work with the 'dev disabled' in a 'deaf blind' house as awake overnight staff...thus have lots of time (and permission) to mess around on the computer
when things are och and taken care of ...my bosses LOVE the fact I've done this for years and no turn over..and stay awake etc etc

So I admit that my grammar and the rest in a 'tossed out in 5 min post' is not the best answer sometimes here at work..but on the other hand I'm getting paid to reply to some of this stuff...so you got to take what I say with that in mind and a grain of salt

/ignore is always an option......many do ...feel free....

but again I have no clue...occasionally I trip over something ...but most of the time the tech and coder types simply indulge me....explain something ..and I move on

(If I as the 'wounded wilder beast" can keep up with the rest of the herd...well that imho means that any brighter 'newbie' has a better leg up when he trips over topics/replies
I reply on with questions...only as strong as the weakest link...if the goal is to take this 'mainstream' btc and crypto in general...sometimes 'obvious' questions are needed


we imho are already seeing from the btc devs...a bit of that ....we know all ...get in line ....no need to explain..my way or the highway...has to move beyond for such 'tech types' to the regular guy ..who is gonna use btc etc and not give a damn about halving and bitcoin core and the rest...

so I muddle along asking the dumb questions no one else will ....trying to make my clueless-ness of some use

but considering I have the tech skills of hamster.....I've levered myself up about as far as possible....now if others say...bitcoin devs..would lever themselves up a bit more
on PR and informing the rest of us...and put some ego aside and do that same....well .....it might not be as efficient a way to promote crypto and btc ...but hell at le..ast
it would be less intimidating to the (hopeful) future newbies to this circus tent..

but KNC is pretty transparent....if their is an 'EVIL' angle... they can get theirs first (just ask the Neptune pre-order folk shoved last in line for 4 months while they filled
their data hall  up first) they will do so ..looking thru that prism...it is NOT a big deal...ie their RMA tech support on cubes was mostly from what I think was simply fixing
thermal paste..from shoddy temp workers (their info) as they slam'd units out the door (for neppie and titan) big whoop.

if so well hell at least it is interesting as hell as something for me to do at work

and there is the fact clueless or not....KNC did not WIN I have ROI'd on all my stuff and all is well....that is a big deal to me....I 'escaped' the 'shafting' that they fully
expected to Neptune and Titan owners with their 4 month late and in the Titan's case...somewhat 'dubious' firmware.....

so bitcointalk and this thread is a 'testament' to the efforts to overcome the 'lemons' these units were on the above and make lemonade ...between glen tarkin's efforts and lightfoot's efforts we are in a heck of a lot better position in FEB 2016 then I'd have ever guessed

and always remember ..the NEPTUNE or the TITAN is the worlds BEST space heater! As long as it makes 1c more then 'old tech regular" space hearters per month in electric use...that can never be taken away from us here...(well till they 'brick themselves anyway" they are 'evil' knc spawn don't ya know)

some free advice sir for your current issues.

1. put him on ignor

2. give him neg rep

3. laugh every day

4. move on.

it's about all you can do and I suspect your energies would be better spent elsewhere.

take your pick:

a - he's a savant
b - recent blow to the head
c - self deprecating humor
d - all of the above

:|

I'll be busy scraping the paint off one of my titan cubes to see if it says Neptune underneath

Wow.  Searing isn't so dumb.  Why does everyone say that about him?   

i agree.....I was probably unclear

what I meant was ALL the Jupiter 4/6 port 2013 boards in their data hall were used on neppies and titans imho ..why make when you can 'recycle' them ....in that they work with a bridge for the pi on the titan etc....so 4 month delay.....swapping out Jupiter cubes for neppie cubes....in the data hall ...then the remaining Jupiters are replaced after the neppie owners get their units 4 months late (with prob some above boards) same for titans

all the Jupiter 'extra' controller boards from the data halls recycled upward in some manner

brilliant on their part


but yeah i take your point on the titans ..they were NOT PUBLICLY ever in a data hall...privately I bet the folk at knc have thou

I think it's interesting that the Y-connector wasn't even KNC idea. They were having all these power issues, pci connectors burning up, newer psu circuit breakers were being tripped, people complaining etc. Then someone in the forum suggested using a y-connector to split the power between 2 cables. They had a "wow, why didn't I think of that moment?" and then quickly jumped on the idea and ordered y-connectors for all the titans AND older Neptunes. It was thrown together at the last minute and the connectors had to be fabricated because it wasn't an off the shelf part. It didn't totally alleviate the problems but made them a lot more manageable.

btw, I don't think they ever had the titans in the data halls

The btc rigs in the data hall were probably powered by 220v psu, as most of Europe is on the more efficient 220v.  

This is not a demented or evil theory.  KNC had to be doing something different in their data halls than we were told to do in our homes.  There is no way that they were powering and controlling their Titan rigs the same way we are.

Even just from a power standpoint, how did they power them?  The dreaded factory Y-cables were thrown together at the last minute and delivered two months late.  I doubt they were using those in their data halls.  I've always suspected the rigs in KNC's data halls are run differently than our rigs.

It is starting to look that way ie knc being fast cheap and lazy may be to our advantage

i too got a clone board ...titan that is...daughterboard ...I sent a pic of my KNC 550gh old style 4 port Oct Jupiter board (has bbb on it now) from back in the day
Lightfood said it will work (the 4 port 2013 version) with the daughterboard on the titan to make a new controller

so will attempt that

was JUST gonna get on and ask about direct cable...if i had another ANY I MEAN ANY seems to be the case from 2013 1st one till NOW KNC 2013 Jupiter/Saturn/Mercury/Neptune ribbon port cards  THEY SEEM to be able to be used in the manner above (with daughter board) to make a Titan controller..

So again I will try that (this may end badly) IF as lightfoot and others think the titan clone board I have will do so

IF IT WORKS (again have the clone daugherboard titan...got the proper pi here...got the old jupiter board I can yank out..got the firmware/new SD card)

I will post here then my next project (or someone) would be to
 FIND another old knc ribbon port board (any) and try the cable arrangement above (not sure if you have to trace lines or just go from pin the pi plugs into to the pin on the 8 port board...others) and do the spaghetti version.....it would be ugly ..but damn would be a lot of 1 cube titan toys flying about imho

my current 'guess is' that this WOULD WORK ...again due to my somewhat 'demented' theory that all NEPTUNE and TITAN port boards are the JUPITER controllers yank'd out of their data hall when they tossed out the Jupiter units and (remember the 4  month delay for Neptune they then  ...filled data halls with such first) and same for Titans (4 month delay for same) ...used parts baby .....but again my 'evil' conspiracy theory

I have a line on a 6 port Saturn board from 2013 i could use for this or others could contact the clone bridge folk and get the schematics of that made for the cloning and trace it that way...and just skip the titan daughter board completely...ask Qberty for the schematics maybe (sp?) but someone has to have an old jupiter about and a pi B+ 512mb ...that is all you need for the cable try...if the GUI comes up as Titan (no cubes) and/or you have a Titan or Neppie LCD saying same would be a big 'looks good' that putting a titan cube on would work...or how I plan to approach this .....LCD look GUI look ....if all seems cool to the touch no issues i may (heart in hand) then put a titan cube on my 'creation' (evil laugh burahahaha) er I digress


someone may beat me too this ..I am 12 days on work with 2 days off..so feel free to try this...I'll get to it as soon as I possibly can in that I have everything

well hell maybe being cheap and lazy with hardware will help these units plunk along longer..much like the firmware (knc going the the motions ...lame ass way to go...but hey evil works)

also have to do the old repaste a cube/heatsinks/new fan and the plate mod/cut down ...busy busy IF I GET my 2 days off here this weekend?

( I just know that KNC has boxes of this crap just sitting around someplace we need a swedish spy....I mean ....sheesh)


Next goal ...some whale needs to show me the quick and easy hack/parts etc to 'water cool' these Titan cubes (yeah baby) at 13.7c kwh summer is coming...if LTC can pop in price and btc with halving causes such...and I can limp into end of year and winter.....i could squeak by another year of over elec mining maybe in some manner...i'm heating my house this winter with them no reason to stop next winter (reduced elec winter heating rate from 13.7c kwh to 0.966c kwh).....heh and the 45 buck a month off my 12 month gas budget is nice too!

650 btc at 0.008 ltc to btc is 5.20 ltc could have a shot....if they hang together that long

I suppose it makes sense all KNC equip is EVIL .thus like demons that they are...they can't expire. ...just keep going and going....evil work is never don't don't ya know

(fun stuff and yeah I need a life)

Nope, he never wrote a single line of code. I just implemented some of his ideas. 
There was a proposed webgui change which he did design or had outsourced. Thats the webgui hes using on the version hes selling. None of that webgui is in my soon to be released version.

I have no physical access to my miner, so testing on a different host controller PC is beyond my control. My coding has been 100% written in remote sessions to my miner rofl!

GenTarkin, you don't need to defend yourself against VegasParasite. Any time spent on him is time wasted.  He'll never do what he says.

The above quote begs the question; Is there any code that he wrote in your firmware at all?  If so, has it been audited?  I wouldn't trust anything written by VegasCrybaby.  I suspect that he never contributed a single line of code, but just in case he did, it should be removed.  I would never knowingly run any code that was written by VegasThief.

IN OTHER NEWS, a port to Beaglebone or the newer RasPi would further distance your current firmware from the stuff VegasDouche is selling.