Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Hardware => Topic started by: hotwired007 on June 20, 2013, 07:43:26 PM



Title: Methods for improving USB Miner speeds/cooling?
Post by: hotwired007 on June 20, 2013, 07:43:26 PM
is there any definitive ways of improving the hash rates of the USB Block Erupter?

I have mine running with a fan blowing over them and they are running between 332 and 335 using CGminer 3.1.0 happily (>60000 Shares - 500 HW errors)

Ive seen a post where someone has insalled a small heatsink on top of one of the chips on the top but i cant tell if this would have helped or not - i have some copper ram heatsinks that i bought to go on my Pi CPU (i have 7 spare) is it worth putting these on - i also assume that this could invalidate the warranty on the USB asic?

any other recommendations?


Title: Re: Methods for improving USB Miner speeds/cooling?
Post by: turtle83 on June 20, 2013, 09:18:15 PM
Nobody has found a way to overclock these things. Atleast publicly. Also i think thats not possible without hardware modifications.

The only thing better cooling does is reduce hardware errors, this increasing the effective hashrate... Your error rate is already below 1%. I doubt you can get significant gains by running it cooler. The only advantage of such heatsink mods is they potentially increase the life of these devices. Also the geek factor.


Title: Re: Methods for improving USB Miner speeds/cooling?
Post by: whitefeather on June 21, 2013, 12:43:04 AM
USB Block Exploder?

 ;D


Title: Re: Methods for improving USB Miner speeds/cooling?
Post by: namzycad3 on June 21, 2013, 09:45:46 AM
ziplock the usb and chuck it into the freezer, get a cheap laptop and connect it via cable :D


Title: Re: Methods for improving USB Miner speeds/cooling?
Post by: turtle83 on June 21, 2013, 09:48:00 AM
ziplock the usb and chuck it into the freezer, get a cheap laptop and connect it via cable :D

Nah risk of condensation. Mineral oil emersion! and run the oil the thru a heat exchanger which is placed inside the freezer... ;)


Title: Re: Methods for improving USB Miner speeds/cooling?
Post by: hotwired007 on June 21, 2013, 10:03:51 AM
ziplock the usb and chuck it into the freezer, get a cheap laptop and connect it via cable :D

Nah risk of condensation. Mineral oil emersion! and run the oil the thru a heat exchanger which is placed inside the freezer... ;)

isn't that a bit too much effort? i ahve a fan that cost £1 blowing over my miners atm and that seems to be doing to job of keeping them cool :D

i wondered if i got them cooler if it would make any difference - apart from extending the life of them ;)

also which side should be exposed to the fan - back (heatsinked) or front (open circuitry)?


Title: Re: Methods for improving USB Miner speeds/cooling?
Post by: dmatthewstewart on June 21, 2013, 10:50:43 AM
I dont even know what a  USB Block Exploder is. Just Googled it and got this thread and some irrelevant youtube videos


Title: Re: Methods for improving USB Miner speeds/cooling?
Post by: hotwired007 on June 21, 2013, 10:53:23 AM
I dont even know what a  USB Block Exploder is. Just Googled it and got this thread and some irrelevant youtube videos

should be USB block Erupter - not exploder typo in the OP - will correct it :)


Title: Re: Methods for improving USB Miner speeds/cooling?
Post by: pvtbrutus on June 21, 2013, 12:16:26 PM
For some reason my 5 usb eruptors have way less errors since i dropped all gpus in my setup. Went from 1% HW errors to 0,01%.

Things that maybe contributed to that is a Jala 5Gh joined and i switched to cgminer 3.2.2 at the same time. Also my pool is pushing diff 4 shares to me now.


Title: Re: Methods for improving USB Miner speeds/cooling?
Post by: Polyatomic on June 21, 2013, 01:15:00 PM
How long would a Block Erupter last at 100% uptime ? (without cooling)


Title: Re: Methods for improving USB Miner speeds/cooling?
Post by: turtle83 on June 21, 2013, 01:19:40 PM
How long would a Block Erupter last at 100% uptime ? (without cooling)

Been 4 days continuous since my last cgminer restart. Even before that the restarts were not due to errupters.

3 units. ~3% error rate. No fans. 2 of them are one above the other, very close. Those 2 have slightly higher error rate than the other one.