Topic: ZTEX USB-FPGA Modules 1.15x and 1.15y: 215 and 860 MH/s FPGA Boards - page 34. (Read 182450 times)

5 coins sent.

I am sure if ZTEX would place a board or two into the right hands (TheSeven who writes the MPBM etc) support by those miners is almost guaranteed.

I am going to port ztex board support to python for my own egocentric needs but I will give supporting the MPBM a stab. This is, of course, something I do with my spare time, and that mythical creature "parco tempus" has been making itself almost extinct as of late... So if someone else has started on this I'll be glad to help with what I already have, but I'm not yet making my code public as it would probably take me more time explaining than fixing and cleaning.

I anyone is doing this too let me know and I'll help in any way I can.

Hey guys,

We are collecting donations to send a 1.15x board to Con in Australia, so he can make the CGMiner compatible with Ztex boards. Please donate if you feel like this is something you'd wish for/could be useful to you..

http://bountychest.com/bountychest/ztex-support-for-cgminer/

Address for donations: 15vVYfwx2cjkYzHB8yKhGeTw1MZz2NdhrJ

I've been testing the Modular Python Bitcoin Miner for a few days and it seems to work very well for a first version. It also has a few nice design features, such as backup pools and it supports different devices at the same time. While I haven't ever worked with Python before, I see it's very simple to modify and add support for new devices. It has a few clear advantages over Java (ie. Xiangfu is running MPBM on his home router).

It currently works with Icarus, X6500 and GPUs. It would be great if somebody could create a worker (or modify an existing worker) for the ZTEX board, do you have any pointers how to get started on this?

The seenshot in my previous post is actialy made on FW d3a. Ill have to try d3 as soon as i come home.
D1 seems the most stable.

You can try out the d3 firmware. Works very well over here. Perhaps the error goes away.

I run 120221 so the latest aviable BTC Miner. Im on Firmware ztex_ufm1_15d1.ihx right now

That's *one* of the 11 Macs down there. Two are hackintoshes, current build is an i5-2500 with 16 GB ram and three 5770 cards. The rest are all genuine Apple hardware. Though the Cube isn't doing much. The Macbook Air 10" is connected up to a 24" LED Cinema and runs the BTC client. It's chaos in here at the moment, it does have to be said...

Like the 'man cave' comment. My girlfriend calls it 'the fucking matrix' (quote, word for word) if she ever has to come down here I guess running the RedPill screensaver on the Macs doesn't help matters...

Neat! I really can't recommend PicoPSU enough, and also you should remove the fans, at least on the Atom; it doesn't need it. Try to use your imagination on how you could cool the chip without using a fan, like placing it in a box outside for example.

Silence is priceless!

BTW: I started a ZTEX team on deepbit, use same name as here and join it, so everyone can see how well the rigs perform in realtime depending on setup!

Do you run the newest version of the mining software ? I had this error for a while but it's gone now. What speeds do you get with that heatsinks ?

Some extra Pics from my mining rig:


The last picture is the power consumption (it reads 106.04w) with a mac mini Server (I7DC 16GB 500GB) that acts as the host for my Windows VM (witch cares for the FPGAs) and a 7 Port USB Switch. Works great and i do not get any usb connection losses.

I will change that to a ARM Computer like RasberryPI, Beagleboard or Pandaboard if possible some day.

I do get an USB Lib error when i start my BTCminer. Something like "high speed configuration failed...." but it works without that.

Just a timing issue Stefan, IMO... before the programming command, the system saw the USB device as a 'Vendor Specific Device' and had no drivers loaded for it. Running the System Profiler showed the USB tree with that same info on it.

Once the programming was completed, somehow OS X now 'knows' what the module is... after unplugging and re-plugging, running System Profiler shows that the device *is* recognised as a 'btcminer for ZTEX FPGA Modules' (quote) with Product ID 0x0100 and Vendor ID 0x221a (which isn't the original ven_id and dev_id IIRC?). Interestingly the 'Serial Number' quoted by the System Profiler is 'Catfish-A1' which is exactly what I called it in the 'programming' stage. Manufacturer is 'ZTEX' so that's correct. Current available is 500 mA and the device claims it only needs 100 mA.

Apart from that, I can't come up with any other conclusion that the OS simply required the device to be unplugged and re-plugged, since it had suddenly changed from an unknown device to a known device - perhaps the required bus re-scan after programming didn't work (or hadn't been implemented)... remember I'm using a hacked up 64-bit libusbJava64.jnilib here, and in your own words on the forum, the 64-bit libusb Java bindings haven't been as well tested...

I think the only way I could give you the info you need is if I was running a USB bus analyser when this original programming occurred. I wasn't, unfortunately... my kernel logs simply don't show anything abnormal going on. And I'm running a big, complex system (as you've probably guessed)...

I'm always keen to mess around on the bleeding edge (I was the first person in the UK to software unlock the iPhone and make a call on a UK network - it was Vodafone - happened to be online with Hotz at 2am when he cracked it) so this is all good fun for me.


BTW - it works, and is working consistently. It's been a good 3 hours of constant mining in an office filled with GPU beasts (hence ambient temps are around 30 deg C), and it's maintaining 208 MHz, max error rate in the 3 hours 0.70%, and luck factor is 1.0. The Mac it's running on is an 8-core Xeon workstation with 10 GB of RAM, running 7 optimised minerd instances for Litecoin, one cgminer instance on the hacked 6870 GPU, and is feeding one 30", one 27" and one 18" screen. The USB tree looks insane as there are hubs in the LED Cinema Displays and I've got hubs hanging off those, with iPhones and other random gadgets connected, including a Blue Eyeball webcam/mic which eats bandwidth. The 27" LED display has a built in webcam as well, plus I have three separate USB audio outputs. In short, this Mac is running flat out as it's also my main machine so Safari has something like 90-odd windows open, swamping the GPU vram and hammering the PCIe bus. The ZTEX 1.15d is cruising along rather nicely, on what's effectively an unsupported platform.

Blindingly good work Stefan. I hope my 'tunnel' cooling system works because I'm definitely going to be ordering some more boards... all down to cash and price now. The development process on this Mac has resulted in a bunch of 64-bit Java libs that are now portable to any Mac and usable with Stefan's 'plug and play' downloadable Jar file, at least on Snow Leopard (I'll test Lion when I get a copy later this week).


Last word on the software topic Stefan - do you want my modifications to the libusbJava-src/Makefile to support later versions of OS X? If you aren't interested in the code, I'm happy for you to point other OS X-using customers to my email (which you have).

A couple of photos

I changed them to the flat titan model.  Sadly the original titan coolers don't have an RPM Signal Cable (yellow cable). So i switched them out.

The cooler provided is great but to high for me (actualy i only had small spacers here)
One thing that is anoying with the Coolers ist the extra 5,25 Plug (but thats not realy a problem. I will shorten the wire soon)
They are a bit loud but thats fine. I ll have to use earplugs to sleep

That won't be a problem if i build a case for them

I'll provide you with more pics tomorow

Yeah, it is hard to see, but what did you do with the heatsinks?

I would be interested in seeing some other angles.

What have you done with the radiator? only you put the fan?
Those using other more flat radiator?

Finaly im able to post here

i do have  five 1.15x Boards at home. I want to by at least 5 more boards from Ztex.

Small amounts (e.g. for testing) are available immediately and can be ordered from the shop (http://shop.ztex.de)

For larger amounts the lead time depends on the volume, e.g. currently about 7 weeks for 50 FPGA boards. (The aim is to reduce the lead time of a 100 unit order to about 4 weeks.)

Ztex, what is your delivery time?