Topic: Unofficial Spondoolies SP20 thread - page 2. (Read 126164 times)

Not working those links, can anyone upload?

Thanks, only just spotted the reply and neither of those links work

https://storage.googleapis.com/spond_firmware/spon_2.7.1.tar
https://storage.googleapis.com/spond_firmware/recovery/SP2x3x-Recovery-2.6.14.rar

If you have the 2.6.14 firmware on your SP20, then it does have an option for extra nonce contained within.

Do you need new firmware for it?
Going by nicehash manual it was just one option and reboot to enable extranonce.

Did anyone archive off the various SP20 firmwares - now the spondoolies site ahs gone I can't grab them from there and never got around to trying the extranonce variation

Another question you need to answer is acceptable noise.

Every miner's limit is little different and depends on room temp.. You need to find it yourself by trying different voltage settings.
Maximum chip temp. for SP20 is 120c and miner shuts down at 125c. (you monitor it at ASIC stats page of web interface).

From my experience you need to set it for maximum 115c leaving margin unplanned ambient temp. rise (i.e. summer hot wave).
And this is with either auto fan or max speed fan.

Fiddling with voltage is the "fun" part of owning miner

Good luck!

Hi,

im new to mining and have just aquired three sp20's. i am running them each on 2x 750w psu's so thats a total of 1500w.

My question for you is what settings are best for getting the highest hash from the sp20's without blowing them up? I am aware the higher you go, the worse they get on electric but I am not concerned with that for the moment, I just want to learn my limit.

No pressure - not likely I will get chance to go for such deep job.
In the meantime achieved 1069GH/s at 0.621 while not moving up from 85c and with fan at 6

Not magic-- I just got extremely lucky on that one ASIC.  The others perform more typical for their position on the board.  Getting the heatsink perfectly level over the ASIC to close the gap is the key.  That is extremely tricky to do given the small surface area.  I used a thin coat of AS5 for the ASIC-to-copper heat spreading plate junction (where there is a lot of heat in a small surface area), and ordinary Thermalcote for the copper to aluminum junction (the heat is spread out there so a lower grade paste works just as well).

IMO, Spondoolies used way too much paste on the copper-aluminum junction.  Also, several of my copper plates had distinct nicks on them that indicated they were never balanced properly on the ASIC to begin with, and the aluminum heatsink bottoms are way too rough.  They had the right idea with a copper heat spreader before the aluminum heatsink, but the execution of it was poor.  Had it been done better (4 sided with correct tension and smoother aluminum) these probably would have met their 1700GH spec.


Interestingly, I find mine to run a bit more efficient W/GH around 100C than at 85C (my power meter reads about 25W per miner less for the same hash), but mine are all down to 85C now too due to profitability.  The one I repasted shut down once from being too cold (10C intake resulted in 42C exhaust at 0.62V/6% fan and it didn't like that-- it handled 0.64V/6% better).  Winter is gone now, so that is no longer a problem, but I'm still running 0.64V for the time being since the profit difference is miniscule and I'm cautiously optimistic.  

Except for the eBay one, I bought mine in January 2015 during the fire sale and they are still mining 15 months later (on 0.0875/kWh power).  I more than ROI'd those!  Their profit is tiny now, but they will remain on until no longer profitable (which could happen any diff change now).  I'll probably toss them solo for a month after that for a little fun before halving then I'll retire them.  I almost sold them, but I guess there are some tax implications since I used them for more than a year which make it less worthwhile to sell them now (I don't completely understand it so don't ask me to explain-- that's what a CPA is for).

I'll see if I have some time in the next week or two to edit that video.  It's been a bit chaotic here, so I'm behind on at least a dozen projects.  I'm not sure why I'm on a forum right now.....

WOW! 0.75V at 100c? I'd love to see your video! What magic you have done. I'm looking to maximise while staying under 100c.
Maybe SP20 is outdated but when you run miners in working environment, new noisy ones are out of question. I run SP20 at 0.61 to keep ASIC reporting 85c (I guess it is actually less and 85 is software lower threshold). This way fan stays at 6 with "auto" stetting and hash goes up to 980GH/s taking under 500W. Show me miner you can down-clock so far! And bought it under $150 in EU.

No joke, I stupidly did not try that !!

 

Yes - under the fan.
Should be loose, free to pull it w/o tools.

That's what I'm trying to avoid doing.... the way the end pieces fold over prevents you from cleanly removing the boards; however I did not remove the spacer....

I assume the spacer referred to is the one that the fan sits above at the outward end of the unit ?

(My inner 'mad scientist' is making me think about simply immersing the unit in a liquid coolant rather than screwing around with it all... has anyone done this I wonder ?)

My two cents (unsolicited) on the SP20 and it's speed. I would only push above about 1300GH if I had VERY cheap electricity. While it's originally rated at 1700GH that's more of a mythical number that few folks achieve, and only at great electrical and efficiency cost. I think that the SP20 is a WAY more manageable miner at about 1250 GH with good efficiency, reliability, and temperature control. That will also help in managing any "hot chips" and reduce the need for new paste and such.

One other suggestion: It's possible to lay the SP20 on it's side, so that the boards are horizontal, with the heatsinks above the chips. This tends to help level them out and make better contact with the chip. It's really unfortunate that Spondoolies only used 2 screws per heatsink. It's easy have them just a bit "cocked" and make less contact with the chip.

Just my thoughts on using a great miner, though fading quickly in terms of efficiency.

i think the spacer is the confusing bit, mine took a serious bit of levering to get up. i actually sliced my finger doing it. minorly

Second this.  Disassembly is all done from the top... 6 screws get you to the controller, disconnect that and the 4 fan screws, 6 more get you to the blades.  Pull the spacer and then they come straight out the top.

Regarding the heatsinks-- tightening them will not help.  The springs just do not hold enough tension on their own and are nearly useless.  The heatsinks almost entirely rely on the epoxy to keep them down.  If that epoxy is broken/gone then you'll have to get rid of the existing epoxy stubs, clamp the heatsink down as level as possible (any gap will ruin it), apply new epoxy, and let it harden.  If you are going that deep you will almost certainly mess up the paste, so you may as well do a repaste while in there.  If it is working good enough then I would recommend not bothering since a lot can go wrong without experience.  If it really needs it then it is possible and can be done.

I shot a bunch of video almost two months ago now about a SP20 repaste project which covers this, but I haven't gotten around to editing and posting it yet.  I haven't been all that motivated to edit it since the SP20 is so outdated, but if there is interest I can find the time.  My repaste was better than new though-- I even managed to get one of the back ASICs able to hit 0.75 while still only 100C (I didn't even know it was possible to get one of those over 0.71 ever).  What was my worst SP20, a flaky eBay special that topped out at 1400 under ideal conditions, became my second best able to hit 1640.  Of course, these days I never run them past 0.64 anyway-- no profit otherwise.

I am confused by the reference to the end plates and board removal. I have at one time removed both hash boards from my SP20, and did it all from the "top" (i.e. where the controller is on top). I did have to removed the controller to do this, but I didn't have to touch the end plates. I did vacuum the end plates while the hash boards were out.

Does anyone know what the right tool(s) are to tighten up the heatsinks on the SP20E hash boards; I have a second hand unit with extremely loose heatsinks.

Also, is it safe to drill out the rivets that are holding the intake end plate in order to remove the hash boards --- does anyone have any experiences to share (good or bad) doing this ?

solved: crontab -e (not just cron -e)

Thanks guys for help again!