X6500 Custom FPGA Miner - page 30. | Bitcointalksearch.org

coblee

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Creator of Litecoin. Cryptocurrency enthusiast.

Quote from: nbtcminer on February 08, 2012, 10:16:15 PM

@Coblee:
What kind of cooling setup do you have and what getwork interval did you have with the old miner? I epoxied my heatsinks, have an active 120mm fan over my X6500 and ran it with a getwork (-i) of 14 getting. I'm finding I get a steady 390-410mh/s (but usually 400). I 'm going to try out MPBM on the weekend when I get a chance.

Quote from: coblee on February 08, 2012, 09:47:09 PM

Good decision. With the normal x6500 miner, I was only able to do 355 mhash/s with the 200mhz bitstream. With MPBM, it's showing me 393 mhash/s for the past day. This is running on a Mac and measured using Eclipse's share count. I'm not sure why it's so much better, but I'm not complaining!

I have epoxied my heatsinks also and have an active 120mm fan over 2 stacked x6500. I have getwork of 15. At first I thought the epoxy wasn't put on correctly so heat wasn't dissipating properly. But seeing that I'm getting much better results with MPBM makes me think the default x6500 miner wasn't efficient. It might also just be not efficient on a Mac.

nbtcminer

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Activity: 249

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@Coblee:
What kind of cooling setup do you have and what getwork interval did you have with the old miner? I epoxied my heatsinks, have an active 120mm fan over my X6500 and ran it with a getwork (-i) of 14 getting. I'm finding I get a steady 390-410mh/s (but usually 400). I 'm going to try out MPBM on the weekend when I get a chance.

Quote from: coblee on February 08, 2012, 09:47:09 PM

Good decision. With the normal x6500 miner, I was only able to do 355 mhash/s with the 200mhz bitstream. With MPBM, it's showing me 393 mhash/s for the past day. This is running on a Mac and measured using Eclipse's share count. I'm not sure why it's so much better, but I'm not complaining!

coblee

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Creator of Litecoin. Cryptocurrency enthusiast.

Quote from: fizzisist on February 08, 2012, 05:39:01 AM

I think we can all agree that MPBM is awesome! I think MPBM will become our recommended miner, and we will support and develop it into the future. We'll most likely be phasing out development on x6500-miner over time.

Good decision. With the normal x6500 miner, I was only able to do 355 mhash/s with the 200mhz bitstream. With MPBM, it's showing me 393 mhash/s for the past day. This is running on a Mac and measured using Eclipse's share count. I'm not sure why it's so much better, but I'm not complaining!

nbtcminer

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Activity: 249

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@Fizzisist and Theseven:

You guys are freaking great! I just did the 4-molex change and things are looking good! No more extra clunk AC molex adapter to power my fan! If only putting together a enclosure were so easy XD! Thanks once again!!!

Quote from: fizzisist on February 08, 2012, 05:55:59 PM

Quote from: nbtcminer on February 08, 2012, 11:08:07 AM

@Fizzisist:
Sorry to bombard you with so many questions; is what theseven proposing possible and will it cause any damage to the unit to draw power from the molex connector while powering the unit from the barrel connector? I'm using the 12v 2a barrel connector on cablesauraus's website.

I think this is a fantastic idea, and it appears to work perfectly. I took the Molex-to-fan adapter that came with a fan and switched the 12V pin over to 5V according to this guide and it works like a charm when powering the board from Cablesaurus' 12V wall wart. I don't see any way that this could be harmful to the board. Here's a pic:
Note the big black mark on that fan connector to remind me that the 5V and 12V rails are swapped.

fizzisist

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Quote from: nbtcminer on February 08, 2012, 11:08:07 AM

@Fizzisist:
Sorry to bombard you with so many questions; is what theseven proposing possible and will it cause any damage to the unit to draw power from the molex connector while powering the unit from the barrel connector? I'm using the 12v 2a barrel connector on cablesauraus's website.

I think this is a fantastic idea, and it appears to work perfectly. I took the Molex-to-fan adapter that came with a fan and switched the 12V pin over to 5V according to this guide and it works like a charm when powering the board from Cablesaurus' 12V wall wart. I don't see any way that this could be harmful to the board. Here's a pic:

Note the big black mark on that fan connector to remind me that the 5V and 12V rails are swapped.

shad

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Quote from: nbtcminer on February 08, 2012, 03:39:08 AM

Quote from: shad on February 08, 2012, 03:32:53 AM

had MPBM running over night without problems on openWRT

@Shad:
Very exciting news!!! That would be awesome (mining via an X6500 through a router is a huge WIN in terms of energy savings!)

there is some work to do to make it perfect, daemon(ize) it, webpage or sendmail option to keep an eye on it,
i reduced powerusage of the hole minig system about 11Watt with switching from celeron900 to arm-router

nbtcminer

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@Theseven: That's a very interesting idea! I wasn't sure if the on-board molex was capable of supplying power to the fan, but it sounds worthy of a try. My only concern would be that the on-board molex adapter isn't wired properly for any reverse supply of power from the barrel connector (which might damage my x6500). BTW cudos to you for making MBPM! I'm still struggling with getting it to work on my computer at home, but hopefully will have it working soon

P.S. I'm currently using the barrel connector (I guess wall wort lol) I got from cablesauraus's website and it tends to get pretty warm as it is. Probably about 30-40 degress C, very likely not much different from yours.

@Fizzisist:
Sorry to bombard you with so many questions; is what theseven proposing possible and will it cause any damage to the unit to draw power from the molex connector while powering the unit from the barrel connector? I'm using the 12v 2a barrel connector on cablesauraus's website.

Quote from: TheSeven on February 08, 2012, 10:43:45 AM

Quote from: nbtcminer on February 08, 2012, 10:26:39 AM

Will a 12v / 5v molex adapter (2.5a) work for powering the X6500 and a fan through the molex connector? Here is what I'm thinking of using:

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/160715008901?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Might work, but I've seen some of those which are designed in a way that makes them behave badly when only one of the voltages is used (due to them using a single transformer for both voltage outputs). Also the one I have isn't particularly efficient (it gets rather hot, probably wastes more energy than it actually outputs), so that might not be the ideal solution for an energy-efficient FPGA mining board

Depending on how the x6500 is wired, it might be possible to power it using a standard barrel connector wall wart, and take power for the fan from the molex connector on the board. You'll probably have to use a 5V fan adapter though, because the barrel connector is wired to the 5V rail of the molex IIRC.

TheSeven

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FPGA Mining LLC

Quote from: nbtcminer on February 08, 2012, 10:26:39 AM

Will a 12v / 5v molex adapter (2.5a) work for powering the X6500 and a fan through the molex connector? Here is what I'm thinking of using:

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/160715008901?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Might work, but I've seen some of those which are designed in a way that makes them behave badly when only one of the voltages is used (due to them using a single transformer for both voltage outputs). Also the one I have isn't particularly efficient (it gets rather hot, probably wastes more energy than it actually outputs), so that might not be the ideal solution for an energy-efficient FPGA mining board

Depending on how the x6500 is wired, it might be possible to power it using a standard barrel connector wall wart, and take power for the fan from the molex connector on the board. You'll probably have to use a 5V fan adapter though, because the barrel connector is wired to the 5V rail of the molex IIRC.

nbtcminer

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Activity: 249

Merit: 250

@ Fizzisist:

Will a 12v / 5v molex adapter (2.5a) work for powering the X6500 and a fan through the molex connector? Here is what I'm thinking of using:

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/160715008901?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

I'm planning on putting together an enclosure for my X6500 and its current setup with isn't ideal. I'm looking to put a molex Y splitter so that I can power both a 120mm casefan and the X6500 off the adapter I've listed above. This way I can have the Y adapter mounted closer together to the USB port so that I can build some sidings around the case fan / bottom mounting plate. Thanks for your help so far!

Cheers,

ntbcminer

fizzisist

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I think we can all agree that MPBM is awesome! I think MPBM will become our recommended miner, and we will support and develop it into the future. We'll most likely be phasing out development on x6500-miner over time.

The documentation guides will be updated (and simplified, hopefully) for the switch over to MPBM. This will also give me the chance to make a more clear and detailed tutorial (read: screenshots

).

Also, we are now sold out of boards from this batch. We're about to begin production on X6500 rev. 3, and expect to be shipping in 3-4 weeks. This new revision is going to have some nice additions that I think will be a big step forward! I'll give a list of what's changing and what's staying the same in another post soon.

nbtcminer

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Activity: 249

Merit: 250

Quote from: shad on February 08, 2012, 03:32:53 AM

had MPBM running over night without problems on openWRT

@Shad:
Very exciting news!!! That would be awesome (mining via an X6500 through a router is a huge WIN in terms of energy savings!)

@OShovah:
I don't get the high pitched noise, but then again I'm only a few days in with my card. How are you cooling your card? I've got a 120mm fan directly blowing air down onto the card (the fan is right against the heatsinks). Most CPU's are cooled in this fashioned and I figured it would work for the x6500.

Cheers,

nbtcminer

thirdlight

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Quote from: TheSeven on February 08, 2012, 03:19:27 AM

Which one of the curses libraries are you using?

Your second suggestion, the one at http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#curses

shad

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had MPBM running over night without problems on openWRT

TheSeven

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FPGA Mining LLC

Quote from: thirdlight on February 08, 2012, 02:41:32 AM

I have the modular miner working on X6500's, on windows.

Which one of the curses libraries are you using?

Quote from: thirdlight on February 08, 2012, 02:41:32 AM

It programs the boards, & then mines. It's fault tolerance seems quite good - it'll keep trying until it succeeds.

That's only true if you use the hotplug module at the moment, which should work well for most users.
I'll need to think of some tricks to make autorecovery work properly with individual board modules as well.

thirdlight

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Activity: 445

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I have the modular miner working on X6500's, on windows. I had to install libusb-win32, which stopped the "official" software working. MPBM seems to be working well, even acceptably with p2pool. TheSeven suggests you look at the options detailed in each script, I would say it's a requirement! You'll probably want to set at least one option from /worker/fpgamining/x6500hotplug.py

It programs the boards, & then mines. It's fault tolerance seems quite good - it'll keep trying until it succeeds.

freshzive

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Activity: 447

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I've noticed that noise as well, though it seems to only happen some of the time or maybe with only a few of my boards. Going to test out the modular miner. Cheers!

O_Shovah

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Activity: 410

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Watercooling the world of mining

Just for quick notice.

While running the 200mhz bitstream on my x6500 i hear a high pitched squiiqing noise from the voltage regulators.
I havent determinded yet wich one it is. I will also check vie my thermal camera to be shure.

Has anybody recognized similar behavior ?

I also wanted to point out the

Modular Python Bitcoin Miner
from TheSeven

It supports the x6500 by default and gives a nice interface
and a lot of additional features.

Please have a look.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/modular-python-bitcoin-miner-official-thread-62823

nbtcminer

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Activity: 249

Merit: 250

@theseven:

Cool beans, I'll give your miner a try tonight when I get back! So far I think getworks intervals / network latency are my main issues now.

Cheers!

Edit:
This is how things are looking 12 hours later:

Code:

Run Summary:
-------------
Device: 0
Number of FPGAs: 2
Running time: 12h14m
Getwork interval: 15 secs
FPGA 0:
  Accepted: 2118
  Rejected: 1 (0.05%)
  Invalid: 0 (0.00%)
  Hashrate (all nonces): 206.96 MH/s
  Hashrate (valid nonces): 206.96 MH/s
  Hashrate (accepted shares): 206.28 MH/s
FPGA 1:
  Accepted: 2035
  Rejected: 8 (0.39%)
  Invalid: 8 (0.39%)
  Hashrate (all nonces): 200.14 MH/s
  Hashrate (valid nonces): 199.36 MH/s
  Hashrate (accepted shares): 198.19 MH/s
Total hashrate for device: 407.11 MH/s / 406.33 MH/s / 404.48 MH/s

Quote from: TheSeven on February 06, 2012, 05:03:06 PM

Quote from: nbtcminer on February 06, 2012, 03:03:28 PM

@Everyone running the 200 mhz bitstream:

Are you seeing speeds above 400mh/s over a 24 hour period? my mh/s seems to be dipping to 380 mh/s and going as high as 450mh/s during certain points in the day (seemingly random). The miner shows I'm hitting 400mh/s on average but my mining results are showing another thing. Maybe I'm just experiencing a lucky period?

Also seeing a small amount of duplicates on btcguild and deepbit atm. They seem to randomly pop up (the miner seems to pause for a second, then reports an invalid share)

x6500-miner calculates the hash rate by counting shares, so it's affected by some major variance. What you're observing is most likely just luck, the FPGA will always be running at a constant exact 200MH/s with that bitstream, possibly with some calculation errors though if it isn't cooled properly.

Duplicates could be a result of your actual getwork interval (including things like network latencies and possibly some lag here and there) exceeding 20 seconds. Try setting that interval shorter (to like 12-15 seconds) and check if the duplicates go away. Or just use MPBM which handles all of this automatically

TheSeven

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Activity: 504

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FPGA Mining LLC

Quote from: nbtcminer on February 06, 2012, 03:03:28 PM

@Everyone running the 200 mhz bitstream:

Are you seeing speeds above 400mh/s over a 24 hour period? my mh/s seems to be dipping to 380 mh/s and going as high as 450mh/s during certain points in the day (seemingly random). The miner shows I'm hitting 400mh/s on average but my mining results are showing another thing. Maybe I'm just experiencing a lucky period?

Also seeing a small amount of duplicates on btcguild and deepbit atm. They seem to randomly pop up (the miner seems to pause for a second, then reports an invalid share)

x6500-miner calculates the hash rate by counting shares, so it's affected by some major variance. What you're observing is most likely just luck, the FPGA will always be running at a constant exact 200MH/s with that bitstream, possibly with some calculation errors though if it isn't cooled properly.

Duplicates could be a result of your actual getwork interval (including things like network latencies and possibly some lag here and there) exceeding 20 seconds. Try setting that interval shorter (to like 12-15 seconds) and check if the duplicates go away. Or just use MPBM which handles all of this automatically

nbtcminer

sr. member

Activity: 249

Merit: 250

@Everyone running the 200 mhz bitstream:

Are you seeing speeds above 400mh/s over a 24 hour period? my mh/s seems to be dipping to 380 mh/s and going as high as 450mh/s during certain points in the day (seemingly random). The miner shows I'm hitting 400mh/s on average but my mining results are showing another thing. Maybe I'm just experiencing a lucky period?

Also seeing a small amount of duplicates on btcguild and deepbit atm. They seem to randomly pop up (the miner seems to pause for a second, then reports an invalid share)

Topic: X6500 Custom FPGA Miner - page 30. (Read 219954 times)