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I'm a first batch Avalon buyer in China, purchased via taobao / alipay (& paid RMB).
Avalon sent the machine on Feb 18 & I got my first machine (*: my order is 3 machines) on Feb 20 and it hashes well on HHTT.
The first buyer in China got his machine afternoon or evening on Feb 18 (+0800) I think. Mine delayed for 2 days.


Currently (Feb 22) even someone in China get their Avalon (5 is confirmed including mine, no more than 10) in their hands, they each has only ONE machine delivered no matter how many are ordered. Avalon planned to ship the remaining at the end of Feb.

Have not heard any new confirmed shipped machine in China as Feb 25, so the previous paragraph has NOT been invalidated.


Now I have all the 3 machines ...

Here is some unordered summaries & notices that may help you prepare.
You may ask other related questions & I'll try hard to answer.

Tips will be appreciated: 1HFhtvzNEiy9eooLSJRMyZ1XB2FXgYGvCH

You may want to see xiangfu's config guide as well:
http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Avalon

And ngzhang's advices:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137534.msg1604081#msg1604081

About the system (openwrt):
1 the embedded wr703n is MEM modded.
original 703n is 32M mem, it has been modded to 64M. but no flash mod. flash size is 4M, the same as original.
those who would like to have ipv6 may become disappointed. may have to use another machine & connect via USB.
(if you prepare to do so, longer USB A-to-B type cable or USB extension cable & teardown is required, see Update 2 blow)

Update: in the first sample machine, the cable is short & it would be nice if you have a replacement.
make sure the connector is fastened, "no_matching_work" in cgminer "stats" api should be always 0.
the newly sent machines have much better cable & protection, should be ok.

Update2: ngzhang says "it will not work if there is no hub between the 703N and controller board"

2 the miner is cgminer 2.10.5, should be the same as the git tree. it should have no memory leak bug (for stratum).
Update: please update to a newer firmware from http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/xiangfu/avalon/

3 fan control is a little buggy, should be fixed by xiangfu soon (already in tree).
Update: upgrade firmware should fix.

4 the jffs2 partition is so small (320k) & can only hold config files.
that means cant upgrade cgminer via jffs2 unless done firmware repackaging. cgminer is installed in squashfs.

5 default IP is 192.168.0.100/24, gateway 192.168.0.1 (you may have known)

6 there is some monitoring logic in cron, but it does NOT prevent the machine to get wonky (jgrazik & me both have experienced, crying~~).
Here is a snippet might be useful.
(default port is 4028. I'm not responsible for any loss if the snippet doesnt work as expected. you should know a little bash scripting)

IP=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
PORT=4028
RESTART_MONITOR="(echo -n 'devs' | nc ${IP} ${PORT} | grep 'MHS 5s=0.0') && (echo -n 'restart' | nc ${IP} ${PORT})"
echo $RESTART_MONITOR
while true; do date; sleep 10; sh -c "$RESTART_MONITOR"; done

7 version: openwrt rev r35097, flash chip info (should be the same as newer rev wr703n/wr720n):
[    0.480000] m25p80 spi0.0: found en25q32b, expected m25p80
[    0.480000] m25p80 spi0.0: en25q32b (4096 Kbytes)

About the packaging & machine:
1 package include a power cable, an wifi antenna (SMA connector, gain is 5dBi I think) and the machine it self.

2 no instruction included (hopefully yours may include one).

3 to teardown the box, use Hex Key Wrench of size M4.0. your fingers may get hurt, put on gloves first.

4 the USB cable may get dropped from the board during shipping, make sure there is a blue light on the 703n board when powered on, or you will be in trouble...

5 there is an 4 port USB hub included, unopened 3M double-sided tape pasted on the back of the hub.

6 the PSU is Antec EA-650 Green (80P Bronze, not the Platinum one)

7 There is a power board(?) power distribution board inside, on the board there are 2 * 6pin PCI-E power connectors remaining.
so if you want to replace a better PSU, make sure it have 2 more 6pin pci-e connectors MORE THAN EA-650.

I made a mistake!

the PDU board layout by ngzhang:

10pin (out to control board)
24pin (ATX input)
12pin | 12pin | 12pin | 12pin (out, each to power one module, one empty for expansion. it really looks like dual 6pin pci-e)
8pin | 8pin | 4pin | 4pin (in, 8pin ones are pci-e 8pin, 4pin ones are cpu 4pin)

so any PSU with 24pin ATX + 2 * 8pin pci-e + 2 * 4pin CPU would be ok.
if your PSU have 3 or more ways of 12V output, you may want to consider how to merge them.
I guess 650w should be ok for 4 modules?

8 the control board
10pin power input from PDU board
one B-type USB socket (provides power to USB hub reversely, then 703n get powered), so it is appeared as USB serial device.
4 * IDE-like sockets (for the data to each module, one empty for expansion)
3 * small 3pin temp sensor socket (1 empty, not sure what type of temp sensor. one at the smaller 3pin fan for air temp, one installed in the front, on the heat sink of 3rd / hottest module for module temp)
5 * 4pin PWM fan headers (the same size of cpu/chassis fans on motherboards. 2 fans are 4pin, 1 fan is 3pin, 2 headers empty, so you are able to install 2 fans at front. make sure the wire should be long)

Note: the speed of the two 4pin fans are controlled by the controller (cgminer driver call adjust_fan/temp), it is unknown that the exact relation between the command and RPM of EACH fan.

9 there is no thermal grease between the bottom of the heat sink (of the modules) and the upside of bottom aluminium board (& it is a little hot).
you may wish to mod them and do some work outside the machine to cool down the downside of bottom board.

10 lsusb:
Bus 002 Device 008: ID 0403:6001 Future Technology Devices International, Ltd FT232 USB-Serial (UART) IC
Device Descriptor:
  bLength                18
  bDescriptorType         1
  bcdUSB               2.00
  bDeviceClass            0 (Defined at Interface level)
  bDeviceSubClass         0
  bDeviceProtocol         0
  bMaxPacketSize0         8
  idVendor           0x0403 Future Technology Devices International, Ltd
  idProduct          0x6001 FT232 USB-Serial (UART) IC
  bcdDevice            6.00
  iManufacturer           1
  iProduct                2
  iSerial                 3
  bNumConfigurations      1
  Configuration Descriptor:
    bLength                 9
    bDescriptorType         2
    wTotalLength           32
    bNumInterfaces          1
    bConfigurationValue     1
    iConfiguration          0
    bmAttributes         0xa0
      (Bus Powered)
      Remote Wakeup
    MaxPower               90mA
    Interface Descriptor:
      bLength                 9
      bDescriptorType         4
      bInterfaceNumber        0
      bAlternateSetting       0
      bNumEndpoints           2
      bInterfaceClass       255 Vendor Specific Class
      bInterfaceSubClass    255 Vendor Specific Subclass
      bInterfaceProtocol    255 Vendor Specific Protocol
      iInterface              2
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x81  EP 1 IN
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0040  1x 64 bytes
        bInterval               0
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x02  EP 2 OUT
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0040  1x 64 bytes
        bInterval               0

11 the two main fans (for modules) are "4715KL-04W-B56"

About running:
1 you may wish to move all the 3 modules to the left, can lower the temperature about 3 degree.
aware: this may increase the difficulty of installing the 4th module (if released in the future).

Update: 1 on the left & 2 on the right would be a better choice.

2 64300-64500 MHash/s measured by submitted work units, 67000 MHash/s displayed by default.

3 HW Error about 0.55% ~ 0.65% @ 282. ~0.75% @ overclocking to 300. hashrate increase by 5% if overclocked.
I recommend not touch the last 45 in the options.

when do overclocking, there are some duplicated shares appeared, not sure it is cgminer or HW's fault.
the overclocking may have reduced the total efficiency, so I guess we should use something between 282~300.

4 please DO preconfigure the diff of ALL the pools (including the backup ones), var diff may slow down the machine at first until the diff is adjusted.

5 fans must remain 2000+ RPM to keep the heat out.
with optimized fan control, fan2 is 2640, fan3 is 2280 while temp is 46 deg (incoming air is 28 deg measured by temp1, outsite temp is 23 deg).
the noise level is comparable to a multi GPU cluster with 60-70% fan. I dont have a measure device to get the exact number.
(I tried to use some apps, 54dB for 1 meter away, details see the reply #38)

currently there's a bug in fan controlling (if not fixed),
but if that bug is not fixed, the full power of fans may help to cool down the machine & make the uptime a little longer.

so the conclusion is:
IF YOU WANT TO DO MOD, GO AHEAD & IT WILL INCREASE STABILITY!

personally I would guess there will be more problems if the machines are stacked.

6 I dont think a tutorial is required if you use the web interface. if you have openwrt experiences...
just make sure you have a machine in the same subnet (192.168.0.0/24) and have a different IP, type in the default IP...
(I dont want to type the full steps, sorry... the only thing worth mentioning is, you can put http:// or stratum+tcp:// in the pool URL / address field.)

if you use telnet (first time to openwrt) / ssh (after set the root password), use vi / cat / sed to write or modify your config files.
please refer to openwrt docs to config /etc/config/network, and see the github repo below to modify /etc/config/cgminer.

you may get these file samples on https://github.com/BitSyncom/cgminer-openwrt-packages , as that is a source repo, so filename may different.

7 monitoring
monitoring is achieved via cgminer's api. https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/blob/master/API-README

there is a command-line utility called cgminer-api stayed inside the openwrt system, it would parse the result into a more human readable format. use nc (netcat) is also ok by echo -n "command" | nc IP PORT.
if you like to try cgminer-api, just compile the api-example.c in cgminer and rename XD
just type cgminer-api in telnet / ssh it should display "summary".

the command syntax is:
cgminer-api [command [IP [PORT]]]

temp in included in "devs" query (only temp3 as the "Temperature" field) and "stats" query has more including temp1~3 & fan1~3.

8 monitoring again...
fan1 is alway 0 (no connect, add a 4pin PWM fan to trigger), fan2 / fan3 should >= 2000.
temp2 is always -1 (no connect, unknown sensor type if want a replacement), temp1 is income air temp (or machine temp?), temp3 is module temp (should be 40+ after working for a while)

it would be strange if fan2 & fan3 are 0, MHS 5s from devs is 0.0, it may require hard power off & (maybe) wait several sec for the back light to be off, then power on again.

Note: I may update the main thread for updates.

Thank you for your review.

Dude,
The review is just great!

Please, can you confirm what options are you using for overclocking

--avalon-options 115200:24:10:45:300? Particularity i am interested in time-out value --avalon-options 115200:24:10:40-45??:300. Have you tried with something smaller than 45 (default)

Best

I'll try 42:300 soon.

I'm really happy of this, let's hope that they find a way to make the process smoother and respect the deadlines.

Great!
I am very curious if that will increase the hash rate a little bit more:)

Best

Overclocked Avalon?

Magnificent.

Water cool that suxor!

Sorry, no increasing. may have hurt normal shares & rolled back. seems not touching that number yield better results. I think 43-44 do not worth testing because the change should be minimal.

Nice synopsis OP. Thanks!
Glad that Avalons are already being delivered! This is an excellent sign. Just hoping customers outside China would also be shown some love.

Mineral Oil - Transformer oil in my case to safe some bugs:)
ate least that is what i am going to do if i need to. As long as capacitors are on top of the PCB precisely one can sunk avalon board and leave the capacitors dry - that will be best solution from my point of view:)  Oh yeah and when pcb is oil cooled stock heat sinks will be removed (or sealed) for sure to avoid air pockets:)

Thanks!

One final question. I know that your shipment was a domestic one. were there any invoice or documents with your order?  If there were I am particularity interested what was written inside - especially how  avalon unit was named? Something like PC, PC parts or whatever?

thanks for the review. useful info. glad to hear people are actually getting their units now.

There was taobao transaction history but the item is now pulled off (not for sale long ago) by ngzhang. there is only a snapshot that I can get. payment is done via alipay.
on Chinese bitcoin related forums, it is called "阿瓦隆矿机" (Avalon Miner) or "南瓜矿机" (literally pumpkin miner, pumpkin is nan2gua1 in pinyin, which is first 2 character of ngzhang's nickname)

--- (checking the box)

Ah~~~~!!! I found it!
"控制箱" (control box) on the delivery receipt! the outer box is a typical unprinted big one, no printed pic/text.

I guess ngzhang would come up with many names to let your package pass :)

---

Quoted from above:


Doesn't that negate the following?: (in yellow)

I guess so:)
Thank You!
Best

Yes, in the Chinese forum someone argued this shipping speed have violated the original plan, he says ngzhang has said to have delivered before CNY. I'm not sure about how foreign orders are really going.

grate review

10x

Hello ,
Can you check what dmseg is saying about flash size and post the results.

On my tp-link host used with Lancelots with 8Mb flash it says

dmesg
-------------------------------------
[    0.730000] ath79-spi ath79-spi: master is unqueued, this is deprecated
[    0.740000] m25p80 spi0.0: found s25fl064k, expected m25p80
[    0.740000] m25p80 spi0.0: s25fl064k (8192 Kbytes)

I am curious because i am planning to build own image with some more applications (php, openvpn, 3g support and so on) and i am not quite sure if 4M will be enough. I will disable wireless drivers/apps whch is going to give me some free space but...it might be not enough

10X

I hope they don't do that on the customs documentation for Australia.  Computers and computer parts are declarable items here and a 33 lb package isn't exactly inconspicuous.

openwrt rev r35097.
[    0.480000] m25p80 spi0.0: found en25q32b, expected m25p80
[    0.480000] m25p80 spi0.0: en25q32b (4096 Kbytes)

this kind of flash can be found in newer revision of wr703n / wr720n.

You may not success I think. including openvpn may eat a lot of space.
just for cgminer, if you can build a libcurl without openssl maybe there is chance. you should use a router instead.

remove the ppp support should free some space to allow updating cgminer to jffs2.

Thank you very much!

Or i can buy Wr-842N hack it with 64M Ram as i did already and forget about it:)

Wish you luck with your Avalon:)

Best

What is the power consumption difference when you overclock?

Sorry, I dont have a power meter. :(

---

I updated some monitoring things in main thread.

side note, : EA-650 Green is a good PSU...I've been running one for the past year and a half with two HD5970

Thanks for the great review!

Whats the max uve been able to OC it too? or have you tried goin above 300?

I'm not sure what you mean for "uve", is that voltage? not able to change it.

it seems you cant go above 300, since there are some duplicated work submitted, I think it is really a HW problem.

Sorry, thats short for you've =P ... ah so 300 seems to be the max? got ya. Welp, will be interesting once more people start testing their units to see what the variance is in overclockin & underclocking.

Can you describe the power board better?

Is it a board that accepts the 20 or 24 pin ATX main plug and has spots for four 6-pin 12v PCIE connectors, and then distributes power to the modules, hub and router?  If so, is it a 20 or 24 pin socket?  Does it also have a 4 or 8 pin ATX CPU connector?  How many output spots does it have, and of what type?

Absolutely fantastic review. Thanks for the details Techwtf!

sorry I made a mistake, I'll update soon. updated.

Thank you for the review.   Great insight.


Dalkore

techwtf any chance of some small guide been provided on what you did to configure it and get it up and running. I know The units has as much as own system and connection and web inter phase any details on setting up checking temps speeds.

Any chance of some videos and guides regarding this?

updated some details about monitoring. it should have no difficulty if you have played with openwrt before. make sure you save and apply the settings.

what kind of power cord is it?

Interesting review,How much noise are we talking about from a decibel perspective ?

China standard. yours should be different as bitsyncom said.

I tried the sound level meter func from LINE Tools with my iPhone 4. you may consider this to be inaccurate.
~54 dB, location: 1 meter above the left back fans.
~63-64 dB, location: near (~ 15cm) the left back fans.

fan RPM are 2280 & 2640.

LOL - seriously?
You are one of the few people with ASIC on the network and you put up a tip address?
I just thought that was funny :P

Time is money  ;D

Hello,

How is going with Avalon stability? Is it ok or you need to act when it stop hasshing.
---------------------
6 there is some monitoring logic in cron, but it does NOT prevent the machine to get wonky (jgrazik & me both have experienced, crying~~).
Here is a snippet might be useful.
(default port is 4028. I'm not responsible for any loss if the snippet doesnt work as expected. you should know a little bash scripting)
RESTART_MONITOR="(echo -n 'devs' | nc ${IP} ${PORT} | grep 'MHS 5s=0.0') && (echo -n 'restart' | nc ${IP} ${PORT})"

----------------

As i can understand that this script is not much reliable. Can you clarify why from the following options

1. (echo -n 'devs' | nc ${IP} ${PORT} | grep 'MHS 5s=0.0')  - it is not reliable and even avlon not hashing you are never finding string 'MHS 5s=0.0'
2. echo -n 'restart' | nc ${IP} ${PORT} - Restarting cgminer is not solving the problem
3. restart the machine (soft reboot) from ssh/telnet with reboot command is not slowing the problem
4. Power Off and On (hard reboot) is the only solution?

In general i am interested to know the following:
1. Is there automated way (via script locally) to find out for sure that avalon is not hashing
2. Only power off/on solves the problem or soft reboot from the script will do the job?

10X

 

Yes there are a LOT of statistics available via the API.
It's simply a case of finding what stats show the problem they are having with the hardware and using that.
(Yes from what was said before 'MHS 5s' did not go down to 0 when the problem occurred)

Thanks Kano i missed that info:)

Never used openwrt before that is why was asking how to or make some videos or instructions to get running ad awaiting arrival of own unit

Hey,It is easy:)
Have you configured scho router via web interface?  
IP/MASK/GW DNS or DHCP client(!!!Shall be avoided static ip is preferable) - as long as utp is connected to WAN
Cgminer has a web backed as far as i can see - you have to enter pool url , user(worker) and password form openwrt web interface

That shall be all

Im curious about the temperature of the room before starting the machine

23 deg.

pictures please

techwtf,

Is there a free unpopulated usb port on the internal usb hub?
I wanna install 3G as backup so i am wondering if i shall prepare additional usb hub or built-in one will be just fine?

10X

PS: How about instability issues are they fixed with latest images?

 

1: yes, 4 total, 3 remaining.
2: you should use another router as upstream.
3: running & capturing debug info, if the problem appear again, related info will be submitted to xiangfu for more investigation. I do hope I can remove the monitoring script above.

Thanks!

I will use same router:)

I will install 3g USb outside the box
3g ppp interface will be up all the time and when internet dies a script will change default route only :)
There are no hanging issues currently right?

the hanging issue is now under investigating, even other owner have reported fine for 7days+.

https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/pull/394
That number represents the last time 'valid' work was returned by the device.
Thus e.g. with an Avalon, it should NEVER reach 60s in the past (current time = STATUS/When) so you will know quickly if something has gone wrong.
It's using device difficulty (not share difficulty) i.e. it's before the share is validated as being above required difficulty, but after it is validated as not being a hardware error.
... you may find it useful :P

There is a cron job monitor the cgminer: (compare the Accepted every 5mins, if there is no Accepted in 5mins. restart the cgminer)
   https://github.com/BitSyncom/cgminer-openwrt-packages/blob/master/cgminer/files/cgminer-monitor

Can you paste the cgminer log.  remove the '-q'. add '-D --verbose > /tmp/cgminer.log' under /etc/init.d/cgminer. and the 'dmsg' output.

You may want update to latest 703n image:
  http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/xiangfu/avalon/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-wr703n-v1-squashfs-factory-20130225.bin

ChangeLog is here:
  http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/xiangfu/avalon/ChangeLog

10X xiangfu!

My 8M image with chip is waitng for the unit - with latest Avalon cgminer branch. Just for the record does soft restart of cgminer solves the potential issues or Power off/on is required?

I think it is a strange single? problem worth fixing, but you may never experience if you're lucky ... I mean, you should do enough monitoring, prepare for the worst. most of times power cycle is not required. if the machine needs power cycle, the light on the back of the fan will become red.

10X
Anyway I do have snmp power relay switch so i can plug off/on power when i need to automatically:)

Thank you very much for your response techwtf:)
Best

I would like to see that snmp power switch!

http://www.ipnetcontrol.net/bg/item-products-bg/p-4r1t1a-bg
About 35 Euro
No English version available

finally the problem reason is found.

in the first machine I got, the included USB A-to-B cable is < 35cm in length (including the connectors),
during shipping the connector is dropped and I opened the case, reconnected back (so you see that I wrote that trouble).
but it didn't get fastened as the cable is short.

in the recent batch of machines, the cable is much more longer,
there is also tape to make sure the connectors never get disconnected.
so yours should be safe from this issue.

but anyway, "no_matching_work" in stats api should be 0, or you may want to check the same issue.

---

simply, the current communication protocol / the controller? is not capable of doing error correction.
flip a bit may really cause big problem.

Super! Can you be more specific about how big problem can be?

I guess that controller has own Firmware/Software and it can be upgraded some time in the feature is that correct?

Best

1: run into a dead loop, or returned unknown bad response (since the command may be a bit flipped one)
2: yes, but I guess it wont be a easy thing... I dont think they will release it.

Is there a way to configure a failover gateway in this build of openWRT?

You better use something like zeroshell as your gateway and configure multiple upstreams on a fail over setup.
It's the way my home network works (well, a bit harder than this, i load balance my upstream via some magic called VPN bounding, a layer 3 stuff if i recall correctly).

Yes via shell script as add on. You can do whatever you want:)
There is no buildin recipe to solve every problem but it is open source and you can take advantage of it and find a solution

Hi

We have document the Avalon at this wiki page, please help us on that wiki page.
  http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Avalon

You can find the firmwares here:
  http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/xiangfu/avalon/

ChangeLog:
  http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/xiangfu/avalon/ChangeLog

This link is always link to latest firmware:
  http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/xiangfu/avalon/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-wr703n-v1-squashfs-factory.bin

Please report bug here:
  https://github.com/BitSyncom/cgminer-openwrt-packages

Xiangfu