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Jalapeno Flash howto.

This howto will walk you through flashing your BFL Jalapeno.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS WORKS FOR ME. HOWEVER I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY IF YOU BRICK YOUR JALLY. MY JALLY IS A "HOT" MOSFET UNIT AND I HAVE EXTRA COOLING. EVEN "GOOD" MOSFET JALLYS SHOULD USE EXTRA COOLING AS STOCK JALLYS ONLY GO TO 7 GHS, THIS CAN TAKE YOU TO 8+.

not all jallys will reach this, depends on the chip grades you have. my 5 ghs has two good chips, 15 engines each. YMMV.

AFAIK all jallys with aluminum heatsinks are "good" mosfet jallys. look at Q1-12, if you have 2 different sizes [6 one size, 6 another] this is a unit with "good" mosfets - you should be good to go. mine is a "hot" mosfet jally (all mosfets same size) and with LOTS of additional airflow Im OK. but HEATSINKS ON YOUR MOSFETS (AND 1850 CHIP IF YOU CAN GET TO IT) ARE A GOOD IDEA.

seems at least some 7 ghs jallys (and 7s only?) come with heatsinks on the mosfets now. see warhark187s post here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=244235.msg2590886#msg2590886).

temps @ 23 C ambient, caseless, top fan blowing down, with 120v 22 watt "muffin" side fan:

before flash  30C 3.1v
after flash 37C 3.1v

WHAT YOU NEED:

source code from BFL
https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/3282-bitforce-sc-firmware-version-1-2-5-a.html

and/or

the .hex file from BFL, just in case you have trouble compiling it (I did initially).
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=235312.0

atmel studio 6.1 - I grabbed the Full installer (806 MB)
http://www.atmel.com/tools/ATMELSTUDIO.aspx

AVRDragon:
http://www.atmel.com/tools/AVRDRAGON.aspx

digikey seems to have the dragon also.. I had already ordered from atmel though.. DOH
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/ATAVRDRAGON/ATAVRDRAGON-ND/1124251

USB AB cable for the Dragon
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=usb+ab+cable&N=100006519&isNodeId=1

10 pin JTAG cable.
something like this . its just the 1st link I found
http://compare.ebay.com/like/190681930364?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar

I just cut down a 40 conductor IDE cable. (mine is cut to 2x6 as i was sloppy)

https://i.imgur.com/iX2dvjP.jpg

thermal tape or paste if you disassemble your jally. the chips are bare silicon so I recommend you reuse the tape and just add some paste to fill on the voids if the tape falls apart. or just use new thermal tape. using paste alone is a good way to crack the chips if you are not VERY careful. the tape helps cushion the heatsink.

cgminer 3.3.1 - its the earliest version that will properly handle the 1.2.5 firmware jally. my picture below shows 3.2.2 but I compiled from git just before 3.3.1 was released.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=28402.0

my heatpipe jally had plenty of clearance for the middle (now end) IDE connector to slip on without removing the heatsink.

aluminum heatsinks probably will require you to remove it to get the cable on the jtag connector. if you cant get the heatsink back on with the cable attached you will need to find a way to keep the chips cool while you program them. right after programming they will be tested so will generate some heat. danattacker used the metal backplate pressed down on the top of the chips after he masked off the surrounding areas with masking tape.

SEE DANATTACKERS POST BELOW (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=244235.msg2590307#msg2590307) ON ALUMINUM HEATSINK JALAPENOS. DO NOT RUN YOUR JALLY WITH NO HEATSINK!!



ATTACH THE CABLE: (IMPORTANT: REMOVE THE BLACK ANTISTATIC PADS FROM THE DRAGON BOX BEFORE POWERING IT UP IF YOU RUN IT IN THE BOX AS I DID)

power off the dragon and jally. connect one end to JTAG on the dragon, the other to JTAG 1 on the jally. MAKE SURE PIN 1 GOES TO PIN 1! plug the dragons USB and the jallys USB cable into the computer (the dragon did not recognize my jally until I had the jallys USB cable plugged into the computer). the dragon draws power from USB so it will come right up. then plug the jallys power cable in.

https://i.imgur.com/5kzp0oj.jpg

CLEAR THE JALLY.

my 1.0.0 firmware 5 ghs jally had the security bit set.. which means you cant program it or read the firmware. so to clear it you need to erase the chip. THIS MEANS THIS IS A ONE WAY TICKET.

[THIS SECTION I WILL FILL IN MORE A BIT LATER WITH SCREENSHOTS AND STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS. I DONT HAVE THE JALLY IN FRONT OF ME AND HOOKED UP SO I CANT DO INCLUDE ANYTHING ATM - JUST GOING FROM MEMORY BUT ITS EASY]

fire up Atmel Studio 6.1. hit Tools, Device Programming. under Tool, chose "Dragon" under Device, choose "AT32UC3A1256" at this point it will probably want to flash your dragon to the latest version. let it, it will take a few minutes. when its done, hit "apply", it should read your device signature. then click "read" and all sorts of info should be displayed. youre ready to go. hit "erase" NO TURNING BACK NOW!

PROGRAM IN THE .HEX file

chose .hex image you grabbed before and chose "program" - thats pretty much it. dont even need to compile anything, or even unplug the JTAG cable.. just fire up cgminer and watch it go. cgminer had several false starts initializing it but after a minute or so it dug in and was mining.

https://i.imgur.com/IQChCkL.jpg

stats output after flash:


more later but I wanted to get something up to show how easy it is.

THANKS TO:
danattacker, for leading the way here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=236875.0

gonna be fun to see all those "help my jala is not working anymore" threads.

edit: and yeh, nice work ;D

Good work! Following!

it is possible to make this work with this programmer

http://www.amazon.com/SainSmart-Download-Programmer-Xilinx-Platform/dp/B0057OC5VQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372294682&sr=8-1&keywords=xilinx+usb+programmer

this is what i have on hand right now.  :-\

also can you take photo of the your mosfet to see the difference on the jally versions. Thx ahead

oh yeah.

Im in the middle of house remodeling so Im kinda rushed in this howto thing but Ill add to it as time permits.

one thing to add is a q&a section.. 1st one will be:

Question: is it possible to destroy my jally?
Answer: yup!

almost certainly not.

1st thing atmel studio did was flash my dragon so atmel is pretty fussy.

Ill try to get pics of the mosfets, but AFAIK if they are the same size, its a "hot" mosfet one, 2 different sizes are "good" mosfets.

Did you figure this out yourself or did you follow instructions from somewhere else? If some where else that has a OP, please post the link too.

Edit:Is it that other thread experimenting with jally firmware?  Is so, kudos for starting a new thread and organizing it. Haven't had a chance to read past the first page.

I dont think this thing will work and you need Avr jtag programmer.

Congratz on 8+ very impressive!

Not sure why they do that, seeing the release the source publicly anyway.


Great work.
Lets hope too many people don't brick there Jally's :)

Nice job! You're a pioneer! I hope you've inspired many to follow in your footsteps. You certainly have inspired me.

danattacker was 1st, I updated the OP with a thanks.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=236875.0

I just followed his lead and figured the rest out as I stumbled along.

thanks for sharing your results.

There are some important things that everyone needs to know if they attempt this with a Jalapeno with an aluminum non-heatpipe heatsink.

The JTAG cable will not fit with that heatsink installed. That means to program it you will need to remove the heatsink.

DO NOT POWER ON THE UNIT WITHOUT ANY HEATSINK!

As the OP already mentioned, I used the aluminum backplate as a heatsink and put masking tape around the chips so I don't short out anything. I left the thermal pads on the chips. However, if the chips are initialized, you can only hold it for about 3 seconds before it starts burning your fingers.

http://s7.postimg.org/nwykhf8or/100_2891.jpg

To get around this, be ready to erase the microcontroller when you plug in the power to the Jalapeno. As soon as you plug it in, press the erase chip button. It only takes 1 second. Right when it completes, unplug the power. You should be able to do this all in less than 3 seconds, so your fingers won't get burnt. If you screw up and can't hold the metal plate down any longer, just unplug the unit.

Then, when you plug it back in to program it, the chips won't initialize since there is no program on the microcontroller, so the chips wont heat up nearly as much. You can then proceed with the programming while holding down the metal plate. When the microcontroller is done programming, the chips will heat up again, so be ready to unplug it.

+2 Good effort, both of you!

Those that have the AVRDragon should loan them out with a deposit. Save everyone some money and they could make a little money in the process. Congrats on getting this to work, look forward to people with little singles and singles tweaking their boards.

Can't you just simply bolt the original heat sink back on after you plug in the JTAG cable before you power up?

nice man :) .

Nope. It's still in the way.

EDIT: Actually, when you asked this question you got me thinking. You might be able to make it fit if you remove the clamps at the end of the cable.

Never mind, I disassembled the end of my cable down to where you can see the spikes that go into the cable and I don't think it would fit either.

Odd, as the photo in the OP appears to have the heat sink on and the JTAG cable running to the board.

He has the older heatsink with heatpipes which do not get in the way of the JTAG cable.

Was this a stock version or a 7/GHs?

thanks for the info. A couple of questions come to mind:
Can you say where the metal backing plate came from - was that from the Jalapeno?
Do you think a e.g. spare AM2 CPU Heatsink+fan rested on the chips while JTAGing - would it be big enough ? e.g. http://img.tomshardware.com/us/2006/05/23/amd_reinvents_itself/box_cooler_am2.jpg

Would this be worth the risk on an upgraded Jalapeno if they're not hashing over 8Gh/s as is? And would Arctic Silver thermal paste (or something like it) work better than the original stuff they put on the chips? I have 4 sequentially numbered Jalapenos but upon taking the cases off (reduced temps by 10C BTW, the case is a heat-trap) seems I have 2 versions of each, with one pair having heatsinks shown here:

https://i.imgur.com/zneWQeF.jpg

And the other two without it. What gives?

Sounds like he only had a 5GH/s model.

I just grabbed a dragon, will let you know the results.

Plus now I'll finally have a good programmer and I can toss this ATTINY based one I have. That thing was always kinda flaky.

Meanwhile at the Atmel hardware dev office: "Why are we selling a shitload of AVR Dragons this week?"

Is the 5 ghz version of jalapeño or the 7 ghz of jalapeno

Read the OP

In the OP cgminer screeshot, I can see the jalapeno is running at 36C / 3.07V. My 5.8GH/s jalapeno is usually around 56C / 3.8V. It has the older heatpipe heatsink, but isn't that voltage of 3.8V quite high? It does have two active chips, though, so at least it's not a single-chip version. cgminer stats output is saying "PROCESSOR 3: 201 MHz PROCESSOR 7: 194 MHz ENGINES: 30 FREQUENCY: 189 MHz"

Just wondering if my unit could take this overclocking, since the voltage is quite high already. The running voltage & temps (both before & after) would be useful information to include in any report of successful OC.

before flash: 30C, ~3.1v
after flash: 37C, ~3.1v

ambient 23C

been running caseless with a side fan pretty much since day 1.

from what I saw playing around, the higher the temp, the higher the voltage.

try running caseless, with the fan blowing down. see what the temps and voltage is.

added temps to the OP

is the 5ghz version or 7 ghz version?

How thick was the original thermal pad used by BFL on Jalapeno? 0.5...1 mm?

mine was a 5, danattackers was a 7 I think.

not sure, my tape fell apart as soon as I removed the heatsink  ::)

dont think it makes a difference as it doesnt need to match the height to anything. FWIW the tape was pretty thin, thinner than the heat tape on the VRM s on my GTX285's (used for folding @ home, not mining).

so yours go from  5ghz go to 8ghz????

yes

great

also does anoyone know which thermal pad is the better?????????

Right, I intend to reflash also, but not until I have the thermal pads in hand.
I tried to find out what are the characteristics of thermal pads used by BFL, and so far there is a post by Kano (on BFL forum) mentioning 14.0 W/mK.

So I suppose something like this will do: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/17499/thr-181/Fujipoly_Ultra_Extreme_System_Builder_Thermal_Pad_-_60_x_50_x_05_-_Thermal_Conductivity_170_WmK.html

why not 1mm?
i think will be better 1mm

if it works out let me know, Ill put the link (with a thanks) into the OP as a "known OK" solution.

I should grab some myself, right now mine has pieces of the original tape with artic cooling MX2 filling in the gaps :)

OK ... a few things about this that some may not have realised ...

Firstly, old reports suggest that if your USB power is a bit low, it can kill the AVR Dragon.
I used a USB2 powered hub.

Secondly, don't do it how the first image is shown.
Remove it from the box - the black padding is apparently not a complete insulator ...

Lastly, since you install Atmel Studio 6 you may as well compile it yourself, it only takes one menu click ...

My version :)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=236875.msg2591760#msg2591760

Good work! Following.

the black antistatic pads were not in the box for this, and many people cut the side of the box so the USB cable can come out the side and just run it in the box :D good point though, Ill update the OP for those who dont know how antistatic pads work (ie by being a mild conductor).

I did try to compile it, it compiled with no errors but did not run after flashing it.. the front LED on the jally just did a fast blink. did you change the source code at all? (I didnt)

9.8 ghz from 5ghz jalapeños these is hugeeeeeeeeee updated

The only change I made was to add my name ...
FIRMWARE: 1.2.5kano :)

So it would be possible to make a ~11.3 GH/s miner out of a 7GH/s Jalapeno with the right cooling, etc.? (factor ~1.5x)

Greetings,

Silv0r

Of course not.

Anyone know if this avr jtag will work http://www.ebay.ca/itm/AVR-JTAG-USB-emulator-Debugger-download-AVR-JTAG-ICE-Download-Programmer-atmega-/200908327724?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ec711cb2c

You can overclock the 5GH/s chip but can't do this with the 2 GH/s upgrade chip? For me it's not self-evident.

The 5 and 7 GH/s models use the exact same chips, just the $100 upgraded version is pre-overclocked for you a little bit.  The upper maximum is still going to be the same.

you still can get some from OC 7gh/s but wont get much of out 7Gh/s than 5Gh/s to ??+ and depend grade chip A to D.

We don't know that for sure. According to Josh a 7GH Jalapeno is using higher grade (binned) chips, so it might be possible to overclock a 7GH version a bit higher.

OTOH, other the above mentioned statement from Josh (made in the Shoutbox) I never saw any confirmation anywhere else.

Sure is...

Buying bricked jallies, 0.2 BTC :D

Yes please - everyone send me your bricked Jalas - I'll pay 0.2BTC :) + 0.1BTC shipping :D

I pay 0.1 more than kano ;) Every time! :D Would be fun to try unbricking the jalas :)

Nice results. Did you monitor power consumption before and after?

I have the programmer and cables on order.  If you want to flash your jalapenos in the LA area, contact me and you can use my equipment.

+1

Yes I was joking :P

You'd probably just need to erase the chip and reprogram it.

Sorry if I missed it already, but can someone tell me the change in power consumption, measured at the wall, of the 5GH/s Jalapeno before and after the firmware re-flash?

In my case ~32W to ~46W
going from 6.4GH/s to 8GH/s

So ~44% power increase for a ~25% hash rate increase

N.B. my Jalapeno is one of first few of course.

Thanks, 46W is still not too bad, for an overclock.

Ya that's in line with what I'm getting: 45W

Is it now using a higher voltage when it's overclocked?

NFI
The SC is reporting it lower, but that's the on board info which is probably pretty unreliable.

And since I cant count ... I finally realised I got the numbers wrong :P

That should read:
In my case ~32W to ~46W
going from 5.4GH/s to 8GH/s

So ~44% power increase for a ~48% hash rate increase

Done mine, alu heatsink
getting ~7.2Gh from ~4.9

I used the northbridge heatsink off an old mobo and some thermal paste - no burnt fingers :D

Grats. It's not a bad hack actually, more interesting then just buying a unit and having it sit there. I only ordered in April, and with the current ship rate, it will be months and months I think, before I get to do the hack.

So this is less of an overclock but more of a get what you really paid for upgrade.

Thanks all for the firmware unlock.

And there goes the overall hash rate again :D

With everything there is a price, you don't know how much the life of the chip is shortened by generating 40%+ more heat.

You are right. Extra cooling is necessary for all overclocks.

Lifetime profitability of said devices may dwindle faster than the over cooked chips in question.

You would need a crystal ball to tell that, most people fixate on the exponentially rising difficulty rate, but they forget that one good spark and the BTC price could skyrocket. It's only if the price remains flat the difficulty is an issue, in either case I would want to look after my ASIC, perhaps a better fan setup, certainly a good thermal compound between the chip and heat sink.

Here is precompiled firmware that will try to enable all the engines for you if you can't get up to the ~8.2GH that should be doable:

http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/BitForce_SC/BitForce_SC_1.2.5ck.elf.zip
(Unzip it and load the file BitForce_SC.elf into the "Flash(128KB)" box after the step where you click on "Memories" as kano posted above.)

It's just like the old unlocked shaders thing with 6950s, some of them will just run like 6970s anyway. Usual warnings apply, but I am using this firmware on my own, so it's not a precompiled brick.

The voltage would be expected to drop off a little when drawing more current if the power supply is approaching its maximum power rating.  There is no way the voltage would go up, unless you could tweak that in the power supply itself.

PS: Thanks so much for this whole thread :-)
although my dragon is gonna arrive weeks before my BFL kit and make me sad :-(

Don't forget how long BTC was in the sub $10 range. Very few people thought we would ever see higher than $30 again(was a extremely short lived price at the time). Current state of the market is not so great.

But enough with the off topic. Lets not muck up this thread with nonsense. This thread has actually been staying surprisingly on track and to the point. A extreme rarity on this so called 'forum'. I'm even kicking myself for even replying to your post.

What cooling modifications would you guys recommend to extend the lifespan of this Jalapeno with upgraded firmware?

I really don't want this to cut it's life short :(

Take the cover off leaving it on the stand only and turn the fan upside down.

what model of jally you test this firmware? the old with copper heatsink or the new ones with the aluminium heatsink?

Both.

Thank you for this wonderful information.
This is going to come in handy in fighting that difficulty monster when my jally's finally arrive.

I appriciate all the hard work :) and sharing of info :)

Greats

Before Jalapeno 0: 6.2GH/s : After Jalapeno 0: 8.6GH/s
Before Jalapeno 1: 5.5GH/s : After Jalapeno 1: 7.7GH/s

Setup for flashing Rev 2 Jalapeno with all aluminum heatsink.
http://alumni.cs.ucr.edu/~amitra/bfl_jalapeno/dragon+jally.JPG

Just tweaked the firmware. changes ln 101 in std_defs.h


New Speeds  ;)

Before Jalapeno 0: 8.6GH/s : After Jalapeno 0: 9.2GH/s
Before Jalapeno 1: 7.7GH/s : After Jalapeno 1: 7.9GH/s

 :o

Nice tweak! Thanks for that :) And by the way. Nice setup for your flashing too ;)

what kind of cooling are you using for the increased power?

Most of them will be overloaded by hardware errors at speed 9. Most peoples' Jals will work best at 7 or 8.

Cool guide.  Got one for us Single owners?  OH that's right only about 10 people have their Singles at this point so what's the point?

Don't rub it in  :(

I meant to say Got One for Us Single Preorder Owners

BFL being awarded the Most Professional Company ever award just decides to ship Jalapeno's and completely disregarded their other product line

http://www.walmart.com/ip/GE-5-000-BTU-Mechanical-Window-Air-Conditioner-Cool-White/13803075 (http://www.walmart.com/ip/GE-5-000-BTU-Mechanical-Window-Air-Conditioner-Cool-White/13803075)

So does the average hashrate reported by cgminer considers hw error or do we have to account for hw errors by some other method?

Ckolivas: help myself and others  understand this if you could. (Or if you know)

What makes a jalapeno have 26 or 27 or 28 or 29 or 30 engines out of the box?  Mine is one with a 2Gh upgrade and runs at 7.2Gh out of the box.  What im wondering is, is there a reason mine has 27 engines on and someone else has 30?  Is it your opinion that BFL simply turned on enough to get me to my required purchase of 7, or are my chips really only capable of 27 engines?

I realize you might not know the answer to this, but im curious.  If they tested and binned the chips, then my chips are not nearly as good as some i see people talking about here, and theres little need for me to try and eek out less than anither ghash.  If, however, i can unlock 3 more engines, i'll probably give it a whirl.

How many engines did yours have originally and have you had issues turning on more?

Does anyone else have 27 or less engines ?

No body what are grade chips you will get on Jal and most Jal wont get grade A chip. 

Yes but ckolivas implied we could turn on 30 and it might be good..  Im wondering if BFL actually binned the chips before setting firmware, or if the firmware itself determines how many engines are working acceptably, or if i just have two grade C chips, and i shouldnt buying a dragon..

Im not sure is all..

The firmware tests the engine (and chip if you have multiple chips) performance at startup and adjusts the speed accordingly based on how "correct" the answers are from each engine. It is not unusual for the existing Jals out there to be somewhere between 27 and 30 units when run at the higher speeds. 30 is the most that can be activated on 2+ chip units. When run at their lowest speed as 5GH units, most of the engines seem to work making all 30 start at 189MHz ~5.7GH. I posted firmware which relaxes the test dramatically making it far more likely to activate all 30 engines at speed setting "7" which is 274MHz, so 30 engines at 274 ~8.2 GH.  I can't comment on the binned versus unbinned policy for chips by BFL but it looks like earlier units were unbinned making them potentially full speed, while later ones were chosen to reach the guaranteed speed as a minimum.

Unfortunately some of the hardware errors are currently counted towards the hashrate so you cannot simply look at the hashrate and determine whether you're creating all good work. I'm planning on rectifying that next cgminer version.

Good  :)

much appreciated ck...  Thank you for the info,and for the great work you do on a piece of software I use daily and appreciate greatly..  Looking forward to future versions.

so for thus who dont upgraded till now from 5 to 7 gh/s jalapenos.

should we upgrade our jalapenos or should we let it like it is and just overclock?

are the chances better to get better grad chips with the upgrade?


btw. i dont think you need a dragon to programm a simple avr.
just build a serial cable and you are ready to go...

avrs are very simple interface and if you have old motherboard with serial port, thats all you need.

or you can buy some simple usb mini avr programmers for some euros only.
they should also work.

i post you later a simple shematic for the avr cable.
its realy easy cable with no electeonics needed (some resistors would be good but not needed).
i programmed many flasher boxes for phones with that already.
this boxes had atmega 8 and atmega 128 chips on board.

Can you be so kind to please post the code to the modified firmware, since I want  to test my Jally at speeds "9" and using all engines. ;)

i think at 9
you will have a lot of errors
or not??? ;D

As I've stated here:

I'm going to spitball and say that big single sinks with the supplied fan are going to be doing something like 0.3 c/watt 30 ish above ambient. I'm guessing that fan does about 40 CFM. I am guessing again that if you upgrade the fan to something loud and grunty you could get the cooling system performance to something closer to 0.2 C/W... this would give you approx 50W cooling headroom, which I think would be approx 25% overclock. Provided i) you get lucky with the chips in terms of heat and power consumption ii) you get lucky with the MOSFETs in terms of heat and power consumption.

Anyway, I do believe we'll see at least one or two adventurous souls managing to get 80Gh/s out of a big single, but how long they will last at that output is open to conjecture.

The little singles should be much easier, but depending on how the yield falls, might have higher clocked chips with less active engines in the first place. We're seeing jallies with 15 engine chips but has that just been to get orders out the door?

Soooo excited... I cant wait to rape my jallly then have it rape the difficulty

is this possible? i will really like to know since i was gonna order my dragon this week

Just comment out these lines in ASIC_Engine.c
Then it won't decommission any engines regardless. My firmware was slightly more conservative and made sure the engine returned at least one valid nonce.

Avr studio wont work with simple jtag and if you are going to build simple jtag watch out might damage your Jal or short.

ps: you will need program s/w for jtag.

Which makes perfect sense if you have a marginal engine.

Just to give you another datapoint, i got my jala to turn on 30 engines by cooling it and retrying.  I agree that the checks seem a bit arbitrary if i can restart it 5 times and get 30, 28, 28, 29, 29 engines on 5 consecutive restarts.

For now, im good with getting 29 engines most of the time.

Ordered my programmer. Can't wait for it to arrive :)

My friend and I have units to flash! I'm curious how mine will go. It mines at 6.15GH/s all day long.

Just got my AVR dragon, connected it to to AVR studio and did an upgrade for the Dragon. All good so far. Then erased my Jalapeno, also good. Then tried to flash it using Kano's settings...ERROR. Something about not being able to execute a command. I had a mini-heartattack . Then i tried reading info from the Jalapeno atmel chip. Turned out i have a different model chip on my Jalapeno then Kano. Mine was a AT32UC3A1256 instead of a AT32UC3A1128. After i selected the correct chip in AVR studio it flashed perfectly.

Went from 5.2Gh/s to 7.5Gh/s with same error count!

I managed to break 2 blades from the BFL fan (cheap quality plastic) while doing this. Be careful with removing it or powering it while not mounted on the heatsink.

thanks ckolivas.

Is the only change


from
to

or did you tweak other things in there as well?

just to add, I tried setting
#define __ASIC_FREQUENCY_ACTUAL_INDEX   8
in std_defs.h
and flashed the 7GH Jalapeno (with binned chips) and was able to get 14 engines @309MHz and 15 engines @267MHz
http://imgur.com/peKactI
however the error count was in the 1000s and showing at 5%
anyhow, went back to the BFL released hex file

after this flashing process that seems to be simple enough, does the amount of errors increase?

Very nice work.

Got my AVR Dragon last night and successfully flashed my "hot mosfet" Jalapeno with the heatpipe heatsink.

Speed went 5.2 -> 7.750 GH/s    49% increase
Power consumption 32 -> 45W      41% increase
Temperature 29 -> 34C
Utility @ diff 4 18.24 -> 26.98       44% increase
HW Errors 0 -> 142 in 19 hours with 30415 diff4 shared accepted,  0.11% error rate
 


Very happy with the results :)

Might try tweaking with the speed and binning code later

You must put diff at 7

What is ND?
Also, it seems cheapest direct from atmel.

https://i.imgur.com/UGDzVQ3.png

Well done, not sure if heatpipe necessarily signifies what the MOSFETs are, but keep a very good eye on them.

Meaning there may have been a different number of old single sinks and hot MOSFET boards to use.

I successfully flashed my Jally as well. I noticed that the voltage reading on CGMINER is floating around 3.95-4.0v. Is this normal?

Yay! 8.74Gh/s up from 6.152 for a gain of 2.588GH/s

Just want to report another successful flashing of the Jalapeño. My device had the earlier firmware on it. While running it with this version and the case all closed up, cgminer 3.2.1 was showing me this:

Then I opened it up, scraped off the old worn thermal pads, put some new Fujipoly 1.0mm thermal pads cut to size with an x-acto knife, modified the code that decommissions engine so that at least one valid nonce is returned(thanks to @ckolivas for that idea), modified the frequency index to 8, flashed the modded firmware, downloaded the 3.3.1 rev of cgminer, and let it operate with no case, and now cgminer 3.3.1 is showing me this:

2 extra engines operating, albeit with higher hardware error rate: from around 0.1% to 3.9%. Running cooler now too, but I think that has far less to do with properly installing a fresh pair of thermal pads, and more to do with operating with no case surrounding all that hot air.

It cost me a little over $100 in materials to perform this upgrade so it's kind of like that 2Gh/s bump BFL was offering, but clearly I got a little more bang for the buck and it was tons more fun. And woah, now I've got the firmware code to look over too.

@mmaniac, as you can see, I am also seeing voltage readings from cgminer around 3.95-4.00v. I don't know if that's good or bad, but at least you have company.

great job! btw how did you get to this GetInfo screen?

~5.8Gh/s to ~8.5Gh/s.  And running even cooler with less HW errors with the case off.  Loving it.

That's easy. I started cgminer with the --api-listen parameter. That enables cgminer to respond to remote commands. I have a Java runtime installed on the machine that has cgminer operating, so I went over to my cgminer installation directory, and executed the included bytecode file named API.class like so:
In the cgminer installation directory, check out API-README.txt for comprehensive details. There's also a c source file, a sample php script, and a sample python script, if you'd rather go with those.

Zanatos what number you put 7 or 9?

Actually runlinux flashed mine for me right after he did his.  We used the pre-compiled firmware from ckolivas so it was simply plug in, erase, reprogram.

Here Here I can  find it any link I have only the bfl firmware

He posted it earlier in this thread.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=244235.msg2602712#msg2602712 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=244235.msg2602712#msg2602712)

Ok thanks and you have less hw errors?

Anyone know? There's got to be a difference?

The -ND suffix is on like every digikey part number. If you want to know if it's the same, look at the manufacturer part number. I don't even know how you found the other part number without the -ND suffix. I'm guessing that they are exactly the same.

Yeah I believe those two items are the same. I ended getting my Dragon from Element 14, it was overall cheaper with shipping and sales tax compared to Digikey.   

if you are not sure why not call Digi-key CS or Email Digi-key.

Hmm thanks
I get ocd until I know exact differences in models. But I guess you're right, they're identical.

Yes, but I think part of that was because it was running hotter with the case on. Now that the case is off, and even flashed, it's running cooler than before.

Not sure if you've done it or not, but with the case off, make sure to turn the fan around as well so it's blowing down instead of sucking .

Flashing ckolivas next week.
Any updates until then? Or is it pretty final?

ND = No Discount

I thought you were a smart boy bitpop  ;D  ;)

No they told me it's the same

Absolutely did that.

A word of note as something we discovered, if you dont have a JTAG cable and need to use a IDE cable, if your unit is a heatsink unit, and your IDE cable is right angled, you can use your heatsink to keep the chips cool during flashing.  You dont need to even cut the cable, just let it hang over the side, and make sure that the pins match up on your Dragon, which will also have the cable hang off the side.  This will save you from having to hold the back plate on the chips when erasing and programming.

Are you saying install the cable and add back the heatsink and leave the cable?

Does anyone know if I need all 10 pins? I want to use clips and it would help to skip some.

Yes, put the cable on and then put the heat sink back on. The cable will obviously hang over the edge, but there is plenty of clearance for the heatsink to be out back on to keep the chips cool as they fire up when you plug the unit in.

Would this device be suitable for reprogramming the Jalapeno?

http://www.amazon.com/SparkFun-Bus-Pirate/dp/B004G2F6H0

There is even an alternate firmware available which makes it a STK500 v2 AVR programmer clone.

you better get Avrdragon work with Avr Studio 6.0+ and you wont get more headache with it.

if everyone thinks that they can get away with using another jtag programmer then go for it dont ask!  ;)

otherwise its prolly a good idear to use the AVR dragon

Yeah the Dragon isn't much more from mouser

hmmm i havent even check mouser... good lookin out! i get great deals from mouser.

Seeing that the Atmel AVR Studio 6.x is not available for linux....
This same process can be completed with the Atmel AVR Toolchain .... correct?

I'm trying to avoid actually having to install windows to do this :/

You could try the old Linux version of AVR32 Studio (2.6.0). Maybe just for flashing will be enough.
Still haven't received my dragon board so I didn't tried that yet.

http://imageshack.us/scaled/thumb/833/s85o.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/833/s85o.png/)

So nice one..... i just killed my jala today :(
i did flash the firmware from ckolivas , all was fine till then.
Plug in and the Jala wants to run with 60Ghash......only HW errors.
Then i tried to flash the 1.2.5 firmware and he did 500 Mhashand froze after 5 minutes.
Tried it several times and no its dead. Cant flash the firmware any more, the atmelchip gets hot, all leds are lightning.

So i waited 9 months and now i killed it.  >:(

Did you update your mining software?  I had all HW errors after flashing, had to update BFGminer.

Have you tried using the hex that is originally released from BFL?

Sorry in advance if this is a noob question. But how do I find my chip count, firmware, MHz on win 7 64-bit CGMiner 3.3.1? I see you can ask the api but I have know idea about api's.

"java API stats" for local machine but need to launch command from CGMiner directory so take command prompt to wherever you installed 3.3.1 then type that enter and away you go.

Thanks for the help.

My Jally :
PROCESSOR 3: 15 engines @ 252 MHz
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 252 MHz

I think I will just let it be. Doing a good job as is.

More the point, you can't kill it unless you screwed something up yourself.

i.e. short something out, connect something the wrong way around, connect the wrong hardware, try connecting live hardware to live hardware etc.

The Atmel chip itself can be erased back to blank and reflashed if the contents get messed up.

I thought my howto was pretty easy to follow :P
http://www.kano-kun.net/?p=70

Edit: though if you weren't using cgminer that pays close attention to the temperatures ... you may have screwed it up that way :P

Can I ask you what kind jtag were you using on your Jal?

Jtag 1   10 pin  why?

  Are you using AvrDragon programmer with Avr studio 6.1?

Hey Kano, OT but related Question. Did you get your singles yet? Havent seen anyone play with the singles FW yet.

https://i.imgur.com/2q6QRmRl.jpg (http://imgur.com/2q6QRmR)

https://i.imgur.com/vBdoJ2Pl.jpg (http://imgur.com/vBdoJ2P)

https://i.imgur.com/fWch2ADl.jpg (http://imgur.com/fWch2AD)

https://i.imgur.com/BoVjoFDl.jpg (http://imgur.com/BoVjoFD)

https://i.imgur.com/xH3T1t8l.jpg (http://imgur.com/xH3T1t8)

All the tutorials use bfl stock 1.2.5. Is there really any speed gain?

I want to use this http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/BitForce_SC/

We used the pre-compiled firmware from ckolivas that he posted here.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=244235.msg2602712#msg2602712 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=244235.msg2602712#msg2602712)

Is there somewhere the original 1.0 FW to revert it back if it does not work right ?

Beg BFL for an image or order a new one would be my bet.

Being a JTAG interface I would suggest dumping your original firmware first prior to flashing for an original image.

It's locked

In that case I would suggest that would be quite difficult to achieve!

Wasn't there an image linked earlier that would return to stock? (from the BFL site)

Where did you get that cable?

Looks to be just front panel cables to a case, nothing special.  You just need something that will carry a signal.  Doesnt have to be a JTAG cable specifically.  We used a IDE cable that just hung off the side.  Worked just fine.

The .hex provided by BFL is version 1.2.5, I don't think we'll be seeing an official release of v1.0.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10pin-DIY-JTAG-IDC-USB-Logic-Analyzer-IC-Test-Clips-Test-Hook-Grabber-Test-Probe-/330879761949

Watch out, that one came with a standard jtag cable.

I also bought this

http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem?itemId=330887001508

One was used in the picture, one was cut and soldered to clips. Now I have 3, standard, clips and individual.

Thanks for the link, did you try this with a 5Gh/s unit, or the upgraded 7Gh/s. If you have the upgrade, how big was the jump? I have 4 upgraded Jalapenos each running from 7.2-8.2Gh/s, just wondering if its worth the risk for the extra ~10% performance.

No don't risk a seven. I went from 5 to 7. Basically did a free upgrade.

Oh come on its fun.  Can gain another Gh/s out of each.

Just flash 3 Jalapenos with ckolivas' image.  2 of them are over 9ghs!

My third one is not doing so well.  my hardware error rate is 2x my accepted!

Any ideas? 

Thanks!

S M I L Y   

Use the original one released by BFL, the cklovias image greatly relaxes the power on diagnostics for the chips and will disable the ones that aren't working correctly

Thanks.  Ill try that.  I did notice the voltage fluctuating quite a bit....

Anybody in the Toronto area looking to make a few extra bucks doing a "flash for cash" service? someone who's already got the Dragon device and software set up to go, maybe for $25 per Jalapeno?

I can do Free Flash in Texas / Houston Area. BTC tips welcome.

I can do it if you happen to be in South Florida.

I visit rellys in Toronto from time to time and I am planning on gaining the gear to do this. First my BFL stuff has to get here though before I make progress... 2013 order, so could be a while yet. Woulda thunk there would be a hackerspace or two in TO that has a jtag cable hanging round and a few folks who'd have fun helping you brick it figure it out.

Well, hopefully there'll be no bricking. Just a meetup to have a couple of beers, do some device flashing, and talk some bitcoin.

check out this one https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=262558.0 for jtag

For cooling, i was wondering if anybody's ever used one of those powered drinks coolers, basically a plastic shell cooler with an AC adapter (or DC to plug into a car power port). Supposed to be able to cool stuff to 20C below ambient. Drill a hole in the side for power and usb wires, seal it with putty, and inside put a plastic rack of some sort to hold the asic devices in the middle of the space for max airflow around the devices....

Probably has about a 40W peltier element in, it does most of it's magic with insulation as far as cooling drinks are concerned.

The two chips in a jala should be putting out about 24W of heat between them, so ripping the cooler apart, and slapping the peltier device twixt a spreader on top of the chips and the jallies heatsink, then sealing all round it with low expansion foam so it won't get moist air condensing on the chips should work somewhat.

Word to the wise though, peltiers are known to fail suddenly, leaving you with practically an insulating blanket over the hot piece of stuff you're trying to cool... it doesn't end well.

If anyone in the Los Angeles area can help me out when my unit arrives please PM me, willing to compensate.

Anyone know if Atmel Studio 6.1 works ok from a VM install of Windows?  Will it have issues detecting the Dragon through virtualized USB ports?
I'd rather run it from VMWare Fusion than try and dig up/build a WindowsPC just for this (I'm more of a Mac/Linux guy).

No Jalapeno's to play with yet (I'm way way way back on the backorder list), but I want to get ready when they eventually arrive sometime in 2050. ;)

I saw a guy on ebay offering this "update" for almost 200 bucks...
yeah im offtopic a bit.

This is trying to accomplish sub zero water cooling. It's actually something I specialized back in the Prescott days as they were great OCers, but they ran hot! You can take apart old fridges, A/C units, etc. to make these units.

In Kano's guide a VM is used: http://www.kano-kun.net/?p=70

Perfect! Thanks!

Remember the usb device changes through modes

I upgraded my jalapenos (aluminum heatsink) without removing the heatsink.  I used ckolivas's 1.2.5ck fw.  I had to convert the .elf file to .hex format in order to get the Dragon to program the AVR chip.  Here's how to do that:

http://support.atmel.com/bin/customer.exe?=&action=viewKbEntry&id=443 (http://support.atmel.com/bin/customer.exe?=&action=viewKbEntry&id=443)

Atmel Studio was run from a virtualbox with WinXP.

My Dragon was an older one - maybe that's why?  Anyway, things work great now.

Current hashrates:
BAJ0: 8.133 Gh/s
BAJ1: 8.182 Gh/s
(both of these are with cgminer running for a day, so the values have stabilized)

I flipped the fans - that's the only change to the cooling except for removing the cases. Temps are pretty stable at 32C for BAJ0 and 34C for BAJ1.

Getinfo on the two boards:


And a couple of obligatory photos:

Programmer cable - the j-hooks worked to connect to the jtag header without removing the heatsink.

http://dave.tycho.ws/BTCpics/programmer.jpg

Frontview of open jalapenos:

http://dave.tycho.ws/BTCpics/frontview.jpg

Backview of open jalapenos:

http://dave.tycho.ws/BTCpics/backview.jpg

Nice my stupid v hooks didn't work.

Nice... the surface you have them on looks a bit seedy though. *rimshot*

Can you tell us where did you get aluminum heatsink?

Thank you.

Its the original heatsink that the jalapeno came with - I didn't remove it when programming.

Where did you get that cable from or did you make that? I might have missed that somewhere here. Thanks.

still lookin for someone to provide Jalapeno flashing services in the Greater Toronto Area...

Made it.  Those clips are called micro plunger clips.  They are sized to fit between the pins of a 0.1" header.  Cost is under $1 each in small quantities.  You can find them at about any electronics supply house.  For the other end of the cable, I cut the end off of an old jtag cable that I had lying around.

Damn good job, thank you very much =)

So would this work for a Little Single?

They should all have the latest firmware (I think it's now 1.2.6 - that's what's in my latest Single) but even 1.2.5 is gonna make them go close to max expected anyway (which they will certainly have if they don't have 1.2.6)
So the only thing you could do it force it higher again - but I'd imagine you'd have problems with heat and ... destroying chips and components ... unless you were very conscious of dealing with the excess heat everywhere
As I've said before ... somewhere ... I can see people killing their non-Jalapenos ...

BFL's 1.2.5 on my 7GH/s SC gave me huge HW and stales, ckolivas' 1.2.5 gives me 3 hours avg--8,276.56 Mh/s   --20812 shares, but 1% stales and 1% HW, temp around 40C.

Shipping to Ohio isnt all that bad, for a nominal fee I would do it :)

looking for someone ready to flash 2 jally in London... please PM if possible thanks

Today i have flash my 2 jalapeno's with ckolivas 1.2.5 firmware. But one jally have a high hw error rate. 13.71%
Can i fix this?

Try turning off for a bit. Engines are tested every restart.

If I am not wrong, ckolivas version of firmware will force all engines to be running.
Flash it back to 1.2.5 or 1.2.6 (some settings need to be changed) and it should be fine.

Ck does test but is more aggressive

ck's versions checks if atleast 1 valid nonce is returned, if 0 valid nonces are returned it will be disabled.

I'm planning to flash my jalapeno , only thing I want to ask will I have any trouble running it with bfgminer or Bitminter clients after the flash because I am having trouble running my jally on CGminer now ?? In other words will doing the flash force me to use CGminer only   ?...Thanks

No, nothing should change.  But I am curious as to why/how you are having problems running one with one client and not the other.  The only thing that would be a difference is making sure you have the correct driver.  I used to use my jally on Windows and ran it with bfgminer just fine.  I run it now connected to a BAMT rig running cgminer, and again, no problems. On Windows however, if you want to use your Jally with cgminer you will  need to change over the drivers to winUSB using zadig.

It should work just as before, but beware that it might produce scary device init errors for a while after powering up with the new firmware. I don't remember 1.0.0 doing that, but 1.2.5 only produces init errors for about 20 seconds if it's plugged in right after powering up. I was shocked at first and thought my device was bricked. I guess the new firmware is doing some tests after powering up, so it can't start hashing right away.

I flashed mine using ck's modified firmware and it doesn't work with the Bitminter client. It still works with BFGMiner but doesn't seem to run as fast as it does with CGMiner. You know you can use CGMiner on Bitminter though, right?

BTW, thanks CK for the work. My Jally went from 5.6 to 7.9. I was a bit concerned doing it because I have the aluminum heatsink but I reversed the heatsink and bottom plate like I saw in either this post or another one when I did it and it worked flawlessly.

If anyone wants to buy an AVRDragon for Bitcoin, message me with your best offer.

Flashing Jallys in South Florida. .4BTC

I have been trying to get it to run in CGminer ,I've tried zadig and it detects 0 devices , I have no problem with BFGminer and Bitminter ..  The poster above has got me worried about using ck's firmware because he says it doesn't work with  bitminter client anymore which I like , would it be safer for me to just use the Bitforce original 1.2.5 ?  Thanks for any input........im getting 5.8 without errors running out of the case with fan blowing down now............

The official BFL 1.2.5 didn't work on Bitminter for me either. I flashed up to the BFL firmware and tested it out and then went to CK's version.

EDIT: This might be elementary, but did you choose the List All Devices section in the Zadig menu?

 ;D Thank you so much , that was it ........

Glad I could help!

BTW, if you need to go back to the original driver I don't think you can do it from Zadig. I go to the Devices and Printers section in Windows and just rollback the driver.

Well it was hashing on cgminer and lost connection and now the bitforce sha256 sc usb driver wont work with anything, ive put the FTDIChip CDM Drivers back on and I am back to bfgminer or bitminter... So what I have to find out if the FTDIChip drivers work or not after the flash , basically Im stuck using the usb serial port driver (com3)....?  :-\

Bitminter is down right now so that's part of it. Maybe try uninstalling the device and then plugging it back in to start fresh again?

It's just the website not updating I think cause im still going on bfgminer... i put the zadig ones back on and  they just close up after I enter the pools details... Probably could do with a reformat but not in the mood really.....  So now can anyone tell me if after they flashed their jally does the FTDIChip CDM drivers  ie:USB Serial port (com3) still work after flashing the jalapeno to either ck's version or 1.2.5  Thanks to all , I just don't want to brick it   ;D  ................. It's these drivers http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm that I want to know work after the flash.............. win7x64

Of course ftdi still works. Zadig is completely client side.
You also must be using latest cgminer

As a courtesy and to avoid double posting, here's a link to another post I made which might help people out if they want a faster / less intrusive / different way to connect their Jaly JTAG to the Dragon JTAG.  In summary, no need to remove heatsink or use JTAG cables, because female to female jumper cables have enough clearance to be attached to the jaly in situ.  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=236875.msg2981721#msg2981721

Yeah I bent my pins and used that

thanks pop and donkey i got my cable coming tomorrow to try  it looks like my heatsink has a cutout for the jtag i got my jala about 3 weeks ago

Mine had a cut out for the fan but not jtag got 2 weeks ago

cgminer doesn't use the FTDI driver - it uses direct USB via the WinUSB driver in windows (... Zadig ...)
If it worked before and doesn't work now, then the WinUSB driver was probably screwed up (as can happen on windows with any driver)
Zadig also allows you to re-install the driver.

I went back and forth several times and can't get that winusb driver (zadig) to play ball anymore , I wanted to use cgminer to find out how many engines I was using .. anyway I intend to flash my jally with ck's compilation and use the ftdi drivers and hopefully get an improvement  of my hash rate's with  bitminter client or bfgminer. I'm getting just on 5.8 now so have high hopes for the flash  .......... The cable that is on kano's tutorial fits on my jally without removing the heatsink   . My heatsink has a cutout around the jtag . I only had to take off less than 1mm from the side of the  female pin molding ... so now I've ordered my dragon .....  ;) Got it done, over 8gh/s now  ;D

Don't use 1.2.6 on jalapeno

I had no real issues on 1.2.6 with my Jalapenos... Are there known problems with this version?

I thought CK only modified the 1.2.5 firmware

He recently uploaded .6

Reflashed both my Jalapenos now with 1.2.6. Frequency factor set to 7 in my case.

Units together were putting about 14-15ghash, now putting out 16-17ghash on average. Can't complain!

Anyone have an extra AVR dragon that they would want to sell for cheap? Or just lend me one and I'll mail it back to you? I'd like to try this out, but I'd rather not have to fork out $50 at the moment :P

There are ways to reflash the units that don't involve an AVR Dragon.... If you're game :P

I am game, how would it be done? I'm not very electronic savvy.

Find a linux based device with 3.3v GPIO pins broken out on it, then use them to reflash the jalapeno. I used a raspberry pi, but I'd imagine things like the BeagleBone would also work, just the pinout would be different.

I actually have a Raspberry Pi coming to me in the mail within the next couple days. Could you give me a little run down of how the process works the Pi?

Pretty much you install a bunch of software on the pi, then hook some of its GPIO pins from the 26 pin header to the jalapenos JTAG1 connector. You then run the software on the pi and use it to erase and reflash the jalapeno with your own firmware. Not quite as easy as using an AVR Dragon, but I suspect more people have a pi or similar hanging around than JTAG programmers.

Full details are on my site:
http://randomcontent.wolfnexus.net/RandomSite/reflashing-a-butterfly-labs-jalapeno-with-only-a-raspberry-pi/
You can also find a summary version on the BFL forums at https://forums.butterflylabs.com/jalapeno-single-sc-support/4484-reflashing-jalapeno-using-raspberry-pi.html if you'd prefer...

I am willing to help anyone who needs to flash the jallies if they need it. And it's locate in singapore :D

* I am not responsible for any damage done *

Pittsburgh Area Jalapeno Flash service. PM me.

I'm also happy to help people reflash their units. Generally don't do in-person jobs but if you're located close to me (Australia, southern states) let me know and we can see if something can be worked out.

Red_wolf are you familiar with the Raspberry pi technique? Are you guys able to help over skype chat? And what do you guys charge? I should have my Pi in 1-2 days and then I want to give it a go.

Definitely familiar with the RasPi technique!
Happy to help out if you're able to do the remote hands aspect of plugging cables up to things. An easy source of suitable hookup wires is those old CD-ROM to soundcard hookup cables. If you can get two of those (you'll only need six of the pins rather than eight) they should fit nicely onto both the RasPi's header and the JTAG1 connector once extracted from their original plugs. I'd suggest using some tape or shrinkwrap on the ends though to avoid shorting anything out.

Quick query for everyone, what is the maximum clock rate you've managed to push the chips to in a Jalapeno? From what I've seen, the chips in a Little Single seem to be clocked between 340 and 375MHz, whereas the two chips in my Jalapenos are clocked at maybe 270MHz on average?

I read somewhere that that was some crystal frequency thing between the different boards, and is misleading.

Do a search on BFL_Engineer's posts over the last week or so.

2 Units
~8.08 GH/s, frequency index 7, PROCESSOR 3: 15 engines @ 265 MHz PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 274 MHz - Does not start with a higher frequency index, but only 0.5% HW errors with this setting.
~8.75 GH/s, frequency index 8, PROCESSOR 3: 15 engines @ 292 MHz PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 285 MHz - 1.1% HW errors. Results were not so great with index 9: an engine dropped when testing for just 1 valid nonce. HW error rate spiked up greatly, the clocks were a little over 300MHz.

It appears that when I change the thermal pad to thermal paste, the engines are able to startup better.
E.g. When using the default thermal pad
Both my jallies will not start with more than 28 engines running. And at times, it will drop to 26 or less.
After replacing the thermal pad, my engines is always 29 and is at the same HW error rate of 4.5%.

Ok awesome! When the raspberry pi arrives I'll send you a PM. I don't have a Jtag cable or any extra cd audio cables lying around (that I know of). I do have extra IDE cables though. I'd prefer to go to radioshack and buy a cable if it cant be done with an IDE cable modification. Could you point me to what cable I would need to purchase from radioshack? (in case they don't have jtag cables).

Pretty much what you're after is something like this:
http://www.adafruit.com/products/266
However you only need six pins total to hook up between the JTAG1 socket on the jalapeno and the various pins on the RasPi. Pretty much anything will do here so long as it won't short out or have dodgy connectivity.

   I went out of house and I got Ras pi and some wires both female like one show above.  I am now waiting for Jals and Single.

anybody who successfully flash it,would you please confirm when you flash jalapeno do you have to turn it off or keep it on to do it?
and how you guys load  ckolivas's BitForce_SC_1.2.5ck.elf to hex file?
and if you keep it on, when you connect to cable do you have to turn on dragon connect with usb to computer first? or you have to turn on jalapeno first?
and how you load it,please advise,thanks.

 Attach ribbon cable between dragon and jalapeno, turn on dragon  by plugging in the usb to square printer cable, plug in jalapeno to power supply . I only used the elf file at the “Memories" stage from Kano's excellent guide at the bottom. At the memories stage u navigate to where u saved the elf file and hit program, that is after erasing the chip .... I didn't try it without hitting the erase button first....... I would run the jalapeno after the flash without the case and with the fan blowing down...  hope this helps......  http://www.kano-kun.net/?p=70

thanks, used 1.25 flashed from 5g to 7g,not bad. will try ck's 1.26 to see if will work much better.

ck did a 1.25 , that's the one I used........... ;)

i got this when I use API stats

PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 20x0aQUEUE DEPTH:400x0aPROCESSOR 3:
14 engines @ 194 MHz -- MAP: FFEE0x0aPROCESSOR 7: 14 engines @ 195 MHz -- MAP: B
FFE0x0aTHEORETICAL MAX: 5446 MH/s0x0aENGINES: 280x0aFREQUENCY: 283 MHz

does this mean there is no 280Mhz engines on my board or it can not handle 280MHZ? strange.
now I tried ck's 1.26 with 8 got 7.3GH/Z,for running whole night like 8 hours hardware failed 980.

btw, my chipset  is AT32UC3A1256 256K,i'm not sure if this does matter. i saw most of your guys' jally can work at 8G,I don't understand why mine not.

any idea?

The AT32UC3A1256 is the normal MCU used in Jalapenos...
Almost looks like the chips in your unit don't like the higher frequency, however its hard to say without knowing exactly what sort of firmware you're running to get them. You could try compiling your own and setting the frequency index to a higher value?

Just out of interest, did the unit report any thermal events that caused the chips to throttle? Usually the ZCX command drops more info than just what was included above, so I presume cgminer is doing something useful with it...

I'm running ck's pre-complied 1.26 with frequency 8,got 7.3GH/s when I ran ck's pre-conmplied 1.25, accroding previous theard(this should be 7), i got 7 GH/s.

i will try to check the command you mentioned when I go home.i'm using cgminer.
my temp like 39C at 3.7v on 1.26 with 8, like 40c on 3.8v on 1.25 (ck's 1.25,it's 7 according to someone mentioned)

Has anyone noticed speed differences between 1.2.5 and 1.2.6 with the same frequency index settings?

Simply means that you set a frequency of 283 which is index 8 but all your engines under performed hence it drop to 195 and 194. It does looks like something is wrong when you set 283 frequency but it only managed to test up less than 200...

Well I seem to of royally cocked up the Ras PI method every time I use this hex file for flashing https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/143860/BitForce_SC.mrrad.hex the process shows the following

Flash on AT32UC3A1256
Size(detected): 262144
Pages: 512
Page size: 128 words
burning...
addr: 0x8003FE00 page: 511
verifying...
addr: 0x8003FE00 page: 511
511 bytes total
Done.

I then run the following commands

jtag> instruction HALT
jtag> shift ir
jtag> dr 0
jtag> shift dr
jtag> shift dr


this should then start the front LED Flashing but nothing happens.

and CG miner says it is unable to start the device

Any ideas?

edit: I do not know how to compile firmware with atmel studio

edit 2: i found with the LED's on the back that are on are the one next to the power power connector and also if i remember correctly the  1st LED on the left (i belive these are the active chips LED's) this may help some one diagnose my issue

bfl has stated there are several grade chips.. see here:

https://products.butterflylabs.com/65nm-asic-bitcoin-mining-chip.html

my 5 ghs jala has 2 grade "a" or "b" chips.. 15 engines OK each chip (only 15 out of the chips 16 engines are ever used in jala chips), 8.3 ghs with stock 1.25 firmware.

bfl only guarantees 5 ghs for a 5 ghs jala and can use any combo of chips that will reach that speed.

seems early 5 ghs jalas had mostly grade a or b chips. later ones seem to have lower grade chips.

luck of the draw.

    you need to change file .hex to .bin.  you need to read over again for Ras pi by Redxxx information

  here link http://randomcontent.wolfnexus.net/RandomSite/reflashing-a-butterfly-labs-jalapeno-with-only-a-raspberry-pi/

  you might missed this step "pi@raspberrypi:/usr/src/urjtag/urjtag# srec_cat (path to .hex file) -intel -offset -0x80000000 -byte-swap 4 -o (path to output .bin file) -binary"

Agreed on the last step there. If you have done this and its still not working, I notice it only seems to be flashing about 500 bytes, this should be about 262000 bytes. Maybe re-download the flash file and try it again?

  you meant .bin file is 262000 but not after jtag done with programming

ps: here from your site:
"Flash on AT32UC3A1256
Size(detected): 262144
Pages: 512
Page size: 128 words
burning...
addr: 0x8001F000 page: 248
verifying...
addr: 0x8001F000 page: 248
127308 bytes total
Done."

Correct... The flash detected size is the 262k bit, the firmware size is roughly half that... Sorry people!

  For Raspberry pi pin # and gpio # check link here http://linuxfestnorthwest.org/sites/default/files/slides/Raspberry%20Pi%20GPIO%20for%20the%20software%20geek%2004_28_2013_0.pdf


Pin Name    Raspberry Pi (GPIO Header)          Jalapeno JTAG1
                     pin #           gpio #
JTAG_TCK      23             11                                   1
JTAG_TMS     22             25                                   5
JTAG_TDI            19             10                                   9
JTAG_TDO            21              9                                       3
MASTER_RESET    26                                                    6
GND                      6                                                       2 or 10


jtag> cable gpio tdo=9 tdi=10 tck=11 tms=25

Thanks that worked. Must of gone instruction blind reading it over and over.

I have got this problem after flashing :(
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=236875.msg3045417#msg3045417

What is your miner version? If the rear lights are blinking, it's testing for the frequency. Depending on the modes, heavy testing or light, the time to init will take less than a minute and mainly 1 sec if you choose to run light test on them. Once the init is done, the front light will be on.
Once the front light blinks, it means it's hashing...

it is Jalapeno with big  aliminium heatsink, shipped on July,2013.
The rear LEDs are all off now after flashing, only LED1 (power) rear led works.
There was 2 rear leds working before flashing (LED7 and LED8 I think)
Front LED always blinking now (2-3 time per second) even when the cgminer not started.

You did unplug jtag right?

yes, of course..

Try ck 1.2.5

OMG... I have flashed ck 1.2.5 binary... it was without any changes after this... but after about 5 seconds I have turned it on again after flashing the chip near the LED7 fired up!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4080500/btc/bfl4.jpg

Where's your heatsink?

removed to check the fire source

Maybe it doesn't like the fan unplugged

Looks like the FTDI chip has fried. That is bad news, because it pretty much means you won't be able to get your unit to talk to a PC anymore, assuming that is the only damage done.

Was that the only chip that smoked? Something must have shorted it out to get that to happen, maybe a dodgy USB connector, loose metal somewhere on the board...
The FTDI chip is hooked to the 3.3v power supply, the Atmel labelled chip and the USB port only, so the point of failure has to be one of those, or somewhere between them all.

I suppose there is one possibility, if the Atmel processor fried and managed to dump current through the FTDI chip that could cause smoke, but chances are both would have smoked and it wouldn't light up anymore.

Look at Q10 (the middle FET on the second row) - it looks like desoldered from the heat, so you may have had overvoltage all over the board ... or it's just from the picture's angle

Yikes! I can tell you from experience that once the magic smoke comes out mysterious little boxes with blinking lights, they no longer tend to work.  :(

I'm sorry you seem to have bricked your unit.

this happens if you dont use the hardware accordingly, so be sure to always check that the pins are correctly mapped.

This might be off topic, but in terms of the LED's what do they mean? Because two of my Jalas running have only 2 LEDS, where as this new one that just came into today, has 4 LEDS, all flashed with the same firmware (1.2.5CK)

the ones with the 2 LEDS - 1 LED in the front, and 1 LED in the back next to the power plug

the one with the 4 LEDS - 1 LED in the front, 1 LED in the back next to the power, and 2 LEDs next to Atmel chip

I didnt have to unplug the jtag cable it started mining after a less than 1 minute pause even with the cable and dragon plugged in and on. this is why a heatsink is absolutely need to flash, its starts ASAP after a flash (at least with the dragon).

I have tried to upgrade one jala's but during flashing there was a error in Atmelstudio

I guess the chip is now empty Usb still working and sees the unit but its not hashing any more

do you guys got a solution to reprogram the chip ?

Please pm if you do or post this it on this thread

Make sure you pick 256k

we did all settings were correct but some faults in the program/windows fuckt it up

Still got a extra one to try but hoping to get the (broken) jala back to work

you cant kill the jala, just reflash it. if a flashing operation aborts it dosnt hurt ;)

User error, get off the pot

How to reflash when nothing is there atmel does not see the chip ;-)

Reverse the cable

atmel is the chip, did you connect the wires wrong?

And the wires where correct because first you see the Admel chip after flashing u do not see the chip only AVR on the left but

Will check everything today thank u guys for your support :-)

if it works again will let u know

Sow it works 7.7 ghz did one jala prob with the firmware but its all good now thanks lad's

Interesting note: I reflashed my Jally this evening to CK's elf from my 1.25 with some tweaks and a speed 7. Speed went up a bit from 7.4 to 7.5gh or so, but errors went from 2.2% down to 0.5% and temps went from 44 to 46C.

Bit different, lot less errors. Wonder where the difference is.

C

hi I see all these programers on ebay can someone tell me which one will work to flash my jally thankyou

the simplest option is to use an AVR Dragon programmer. Although others have a tutorial with a Raspberry Pi (but it is more complex)

i been reading this thread and want to flash a 5GH that i have sitting here. I do have a PI and a usbjtagnt but if some one is in the NYC area and already has everything needed to flash and do it with in a few quick mins then let me know i have CASH or BTC for you

Im located in time square so let me know

awesome, i flashed my Jala from 5,3 to 8,3 Ghs :)

no NYC people here with a dragon ?

Which firmware did you use?

bought my self a avr dragon i will be flashing my 2 units once it comes in :)
i love toys :) i love having something to do

right now i have 3 units
30GH / 5GH / 7GH

30GH runs at 30GH to 32GH runs at HW: 1.4%
5GH runs pretty weak 4.XX to 5.XX runs shitty HW: 3.4%
7GH runs at 7.XX to 8.XX runs at HW: .55%

now i'm wondering what i should do

5GH running 1.0.0 firmware right now
30GH is running 1.2.6 firmware
7GH is also running 1.2.6 firmware
* i'm thinking i'm going to update the fan on the 5GH with a better one. Also I'm going to flash it with 1.2.6

has anyone updated the firmware to 1.2.9 ? any mods for that out ?

Interesting. My 5gh model was well under 1% errors stock, when I went up to 1.2.5 with tweaks it went to 4% errors and 7.6gh, when I reflashed with CK's it went down to below .5% errors and has been running well for weeks now and 7.6gh. In all cases heat went from 36-38c to a solid 42c.

I think activating marginal cores might be the issue, the extra heat and power might not be worth it. Let us know what you get after the flash.

And as a status update my JP is running perfectly well, however even with a pair of erupters I am only mining 3 cents a day or so. Ah for the days of yore when I was making 9c a day.....

C

I've started flashing Jallys for those without the know-how, tools, or time. Same day turnaround. Might as well raise the difficulty as much as I can lol!

https://www.bitmit.net/en/item/69721-bfl-jalapeno-firmware-flashing-to-8gh-s-same-day-turnaround

BFL_AVR_DRAGON_PACK
http://www.multiupload.nl/TCRSEWQOW6
http://www.multiupload.nl/LZWPODUWOW

I was wondering if you found someone in Toronto to overclock the jalapeno. Im from Toronto, I don't feel confident to do this however if I have to I will. Also was wondering can I use this dragon to jtag Samsung phones ? If I buy this I would like to jtag my phone with this. Thanks

Why not just use Odin?

Can someone look at the specs and tell me if this AVR programmer should do the job?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-Download-Programmer-Emulator-Debugger-For-AVR-JTAG-ICE-Atmega-AVR-STUDIO-/281117568350

You need Atmel Studio (software)
+
Supported Devices:
Debugger/programmer Firmware version
AVR Dragon 7.24
AVRISP mkII 1.17
AVR ONE! 6.0
JTAGICE3 2.10
JTAGICE mkII 7.25
QT600 1.10
STK500 2.10
STK600 2.25

RaspberryPi also works

if it is hard brick no response it must be done with jtag ...riff box. So if I am going to buy a programmer I want to use it for jtag phones as well.

GetInfo=DEVICE: BitFORCE SC0x0a
FIRMWARE: 1.2.90x0aIAR
Executed: NO0x0a
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 20x0aQUEUE
DEPTH:400x0a
PROCESSOR 3: 13 engines @ 277 MHz -- MAP: FF8F0x0a
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 250 MHz -- MAP: 7FFF0x0a
THEORETICAL MAX: 7351 MH/s0x0a
ENGINES: 280x0a
FREQUENCY: 274 MHz0x0a

I can`t go more then 7.2 Ghash.
Please advise how to enable engines on first processor or freq or second.

Thank you!

Well, it's quite possible your Jally has B grade chips with some errors. Remember BFL was originally going to use *one* chip to give us 4.5gh, it didn't work past 4 so they gave us full blast singles with two chips. The fact they used B and C grade chips is fair, since we paid for 4.5gh or maybe 6 if we spent the extra $100 or so (which seemed to get us A grade chips as well).

So 7.3 to 7.5 is actually pretty good. You may be able to go faster but two things will happen:

1) Errors will go up a lot as marginal processors come online
2) Heat use and power use will go way up as the higher clocks burn more power as do error producing cores

I ultimately ran my system with the CK firmware and get a good solid 7.3gh, < .5% errors, and a chip temp of 40c. What I'm going to do is put two more chips on my board, then try two more to see if I can get it to 23-24gh for an extra $100 or so.

C

is that really possible? I mean just put chips and they will work right away?
chips are not so high priced - and we already have all in place - if you could really do it it would be at least awesome )

At least one person has done it, you need to upgrade your power supply as well with 4 chips, not sure what hell will break loose with six.

The trick of course is soldering BGA; I have air tools, but have never quite done this. We shall see...

C

The problem you might get it the heatsink with the extra chips, I don't know if the Jalapeno heatsink is the same one as in the Little Single, investigate that before loading up the board. Also check if the regulators are the same.

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/dbtgallery.php?do=view_image&id=1408&gal=usergallery

my late model little single 25 ghs (came running @ 31 ghs right from the factory) has the aluminum HS and my early model jally 5 ghs (flashed to 8.3 ghs) has the heatpipe HS. go figure.

gonna swap em soon as I get the chance flash the little single..

so you can get away with 8 chips running near flat out and the aluminum HS with good airflow.

I would worry about cooling the rest of the components on the board more.

In looking at my LS and Jalapeno, I don't you can swap the heat sinks... The Jala only has 2 screws holding the sink on while the LS has 4.

drag. so much for that idea.

oh well Ill just have to add additional airflow to make up for any extra heat if it turns out I can get more hashes from flashing it. got some server 120 mm fans that would do it.

this stuff runs in my basement so noise and aesthetics are not an issue.

Flash it and you will blow the FETs.

C

Ive been reading on that (great stuff youre doing with jallies btw!)

I would have crazy airflow if I did it. my ls is probably near its limit stock as it came from bfl (31.5 ghs, its a 25 ghs unit, 1.62% hw errors) so I dont think I could get much more.

what I would like to do is tune it better, like clock down marginal chips and boost hardier ones. keep the power draw as near the same as I can.

cgminers latest version says it will give nonce and hw error reports per chip now. might be possible to tune it pretty fine.

heres a question.. if a FET blows, does it take anything else with it? I would have no problem replacing FETs.

Hey Guys,
i had some problems flashing a new Jala which arrived some days ago.
Is there anything new?

Best

Ok, you're aware of everything. :-)

Depends. I have never gotten a toasted one to fix, but I am guessing that what happens is the FET shorts and the power supply fuse blows. Damage can be fixed by taking off the heat sinks, identifying the blown fet, pulling it, checking the 1 volt line for shorts, checking the remaining FETs, putting a new one or two on, replacing the fuse in the supply, and going for it.

The problem is the average yabo will stick a 1,000 watt 12 volt supply on the unit without a reasonable fuse to "replace the power supply". Powers up, feeds 100 amps into the short, and the usual hilarity follows. At that point the board is damaged, and one might have to check the oscillator circuits that power the FET drivers. They are probably blown up due to high 12 volt currents goig through the gate lines.

C

New things? I went back to speed 7 on my Jally even though speed 8 is "faster". Speed 9 causes a total performance collapse. Speed 7 is the best.

I think people with jallies that have only 8 engines running per chip flashed with speed 9.

C

I've just flashed my Jalapeno (1 Nov build date) with CK's 1.25 firmware, and also tried the 1.26 firmware.  Neither seem to work.  The 1.25 firmware runs but it's showing 500GH with 100% HW errors.  :o

1.26 it won't run on at all, just flashes it's LED quickly.  :'(

I'm running BFGMiner 3.6.0 on Minepeon, and also tried BFGMiner 3.8.0 on Windows - it just spews out errors.

Any ideas?


"BFL 0a: Ran out of buffer space for results, discarding extra data"

You must have newer chips. Flash with 1.2.9 with "Little_single" defined and the other "single" commented out.

C

Where would one do this commenting out and how?  I am familiar with the bundle of files used in the process but it looks like it is all written in C and I wouldn't know off hand where to mess with it and how to mess with it without breaking it.  I have an actual LS but I have either been unable to get the official release flashes to work (led4 flashes continuously) or they have hashed seriously wrong which is more or less what I here HellDiverUK saying about his Jalapeno.

std_defs.h, line is:

Waiting for atmel here.... sigh

/*************** Product Model *********************/
//#define __PRODUCT_MODEL_JALAPENO__
#define    __PRODUCT_MODEL_LITTLE_SINGLE__
//#define __PRODUCT_MODEL_SINGLE__
//#define __PRODUCT_MODEL_MINIRIG__

Use that.

C

Whats the difference between the old and newer chips?

i got my 2 jalapenos ordered in april 2013 today! ;)

one is hashing at 5.600 mh/s sometimes up to 6.000 mh/s (so not realy good)

but the other one hashes stable at 7.700 and sometimes 8.000 mh/s without any modefications.
i think that one got very good chips!

i have 2 asic chips from a death jalapeno, now iam playing with my mind to solder it into the bad one.
question is:

i expect the new jalapenos have the new chips but the death jalapeno may have old chips.
can i mix them?

did someone did this already?

Height and old chips can't use engine 0 in a parallel config.

New ones can.

Yes, however removing the old chips might be even more complex and you will have to reball them. You should sell me the shot jally for $50-$60 or so that I can figure out why it is dead.

i soldering bga's since 8 years in my shop, so no problem to reball them.

the jalapeno have a death motherboard.
i got it with hot ftdi chip.
the ftdi chip was getting so mutch hot that it burned itself into the pcb, after removing the ftdi chip it
lift of the first layer of the pcb.
i tryed to recover the lost tracks with the shematics, but after powering on, in some layers i seen it again
burned the tracks and shorted.

i changed the atmega, ftdi chip, dc dc converter, coil, checked the fets, but it no way...
the pcb is too mutch demaged for repair.

Sweet thanks!  I'll check it out tomorrow.

Big big stopping point here. I think this is important:

I know people are flashing these things with all sorts of firmware. We know that the newer jallies with the 256mb flash chips need to be defined specifically in order to flash them. And we know that 1.2.5 and 1.2.9 work on the 256mb chips.

HOWEVER Has anyone successfully flashed 1.2.9 onto a jalapeno that has only 128mb chips?

Here is the reason: I got a Jally in for a chip upgrade. No I am not doing this for money, person asked really nicely and agreed to take all risks. Ok.

As is my protocol I change only one thing at a time. First I unboxed their unit and ran it last night. Says it's 1.2.6, kind of weird firmware but it hashes at 7.6gh overnight without overheating or anything.

Then I flashed it to 1.2.9. Failed flash with the ATMEL set to 256mb chip. Reset to 128mb chip, erased and flashed. However the Jally was *DEAD*. Totally, and completely dead. Power light, no front flashing LED, looked like a serial port. Nothing else, game over.

Flashed two more times, verified code, all good. Fails.

Flasked CK's 1.2.5 code release, Jally comes up happy with 15 cores. Now letting it run for another day to verify stable operation.

WHAT THIS MEANS!

If you have a 128mb Jally, I am not sure if you can load 1.2.8 or 1.2.9 code. Given that this code is needed for running the newer chips, it means YOU CANNOT LOAD NEWER CHIPS ON YOUR JALLY.

So, has anyone verified you can load 1.2.9 compiled code on a 128mb Jally?

C

However has 128mb flash

if you need 265mb atmega, i have one brand new here.
i buyed it for repair my death jalapeno, but as you know, make no sense to solder it in as the pcb is demaged.

I'm not quite up to doing that for another person, but do you want to sell your totally wrecked jally? I'd like to test some hot-wiring thoughts.

Note: Read your other post, it looks way too screwed up. I'd recommend float the chips off and put them on another jally. Since they are old style chips they should work on a 128mb board as a set of four.

C

Anyone offering flashing service in the Los Angeles or San Jose area?  I have two Jalapeno's running at 5Ghs each.

--E

Glad I didn't buy one of these the BE Blade was a far better deal 10.5 GH for $239.

*snort*. My super-jally does 20gh for $169+100. Much better than a BE blade. :-)

Are you adding chips to get them that fast?

Yes.

Hey guys, firmware question:  What would cost a significant difference in speed from the engine status report THEORETICAL_MAX and the speed reported by the mining software?

I just got a new 50GH/s single and flashed it with 1.2.9 (im aware speeds above 60GH/s can put too much stress on the vcore regulator). I have engine zero enabled, tried both ASIC_FREQUENCY_INDEX 8 and 7, both reporting a theoretical max above 60GH/s but it doesn't run at that speed. Tried using the 60GH/s speed limit code and without, doesn't seem to make a difference.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1181169/single.png

Could be queueing, maybe your queue is too long and work is being rejected as stale?

I shortened up my queue to 3-4 and it's added a gh to my speed at eligus.

C

Can someone link me the appropriate binary to flash a Oct manufactured Jally?

I don't have the environment setup to compile the source yet.

For informational purposes, what it looks like just after you blow a FET.... something like this or this..


http://www.beertripper.com/OffTopic/2010/off-pics/Boba_Fett_Slave_Leia.jpghttp://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lu65tb5J2i1r068f0o1_400.jpg


But keeping your FET chilled way out helps to avoid this.

Uuuuusually though, in my overclocking experiences, 150W of overclock on 90W worth of motherboard power design, I used to find that unless it blew up at power on, you could sink and aircool the FETs and it would run a couple of years... until the caps got a bit dry.. then the switching speed was eventually too high, the transient pulses too sharp, and you'd finally fry 'em... The way to deal with that would be to inspect caps frequently, first sign of a slight bulge, or if they're running anything other than slightly warm, switch them out.

By the way, if you have a jally outside the US you might want to look at this thread about ground loops blowing out jallies.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=365800.new#new

I'll be updating it. If you find it valuable, please drop me a bitpenny or something.

C

You people need help. So what happens when your cap blows a seal?

C

I am willing to help out anyone looking to flash their jali's here in New Hampshire / Mass area. Just shoot me an PM and we can work something out. I have five units and all are running around 7.6 - 9.5Ghz each unit.

I can also help anyone out with mining in general as I have been in the scene for a while now, I haven't posted much, but am more than willing to help out if needed and have been in this scene for about 3 years now. I am fully behind BTC and would really like to see everyone at least know what it is :)

Rumor has it, newer jallies are 3 chippers, anyone messed with one yet?

I have not, but others have at the jally jumping thread. It's a pretty reasonable idea; we've found that the cases and fans can support 3 chips without too much oddness, going to 4 stresses the power supply, 5 stresses the heat sink and six means time for a new heat sink.

7 should be water cooling and I might have to use LN2 for eight. Time will tell. But a 3 chip jally will put out a pretty honest 12gh with good chips.

I finally got my jally a couple of days ago and to my delight its running stable at 8.4ghs.

I do remember clicking the option to upgrade the unit ( the $100 or so upgrade option ) but then i changed my mind and removed it. in any case its now hashing at a nice speed.

I have a PI and related cables to try and load up another firmware but is there any point as its already running so high ?

I guess its possible I have a 3 chip box ( I am yet to strip off the heatsink to take a look ) is there any easy way to see without having to do this ?

my apologies if this info is already in the thread and I have missed it

Sure. In BFGMiner press "D" for disply, then "M" to show all cores. You will see either two or three.

8gh is darn good for a 2 chip jally, I would not try to flash it.

Chris

Speaking of which, I have two jalapenos running at 28gh now with more chips. Both need extra cooling; you can take a stock cooling system up to five chips without anything, six chips with small copper heat sinks on the FETs, and seven chips requires either water cooling or a big heat pipe.

I wonder about 8 chips :-)

C

Thanks for the advice.


 1/2     25.0C |  7.78/ 7.22/ 6.82Gh/s | A:99 R:0+0(none) HW:20/4.1%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 BFL 0a: 29.0C |   0.0/  0.0/  0.0 h/s | A: 0 R:0+0(none) HW: 0/none
 BFL 0b: 29.0C |   0.0/  0.0/  0.0 h/s | A: 0 R:0+0(none) HW: 0/none
 BFL 0c: 29.0C |   0.0/  0.0/  0.0 h/s | A: 0 R:0+0(none) HW: 0/none
 BFL 0d: 29.0C |  3.95/ 3.73/ 3.29Gh/s | A:54 R:0+0(none) HW: 3/1.3%
 BFL 0e: 29.0C |   0.0/  0.0/  0.0 h/s | A: 0 R:0+0(none) HW: 0/none
 BFL 0f: 29.0C |   0.0/  0.0/  0.0 h/s | A: 0 R:0+0(none) HW: 0/none
 BFL 0g: 29.0C |   0.0/  0.0/  0.0 h/s | A: 0 R:0+0(none) HW: 0/none
 BFL 0h: 29.0C |  3.83/ 3.60/ 3.63Gh/s | A:46 R:0+0(none) HW:18/6.7%


so im guessing only 2 chips :)

i had been running it under cgminer and that was reporting a steady 8.2gh/s after running for a couple of hours. this is bfgminer output after 4 mins.

i presume then these boards can take 8 chips in total? assuming cooling and power could be dealt with.

how easy is it to see what firmware revision im currently running ?



thanks again for the advice

monkey


and again after another 5 mins or so

 ST:4  F:0  NB:3  AS:0  BW:[ 56/ 52 B/s]  E:32.25  I:  109uBTC/hr  BS:9.45k
 1/2     26.0C |  7.69/ 7.60/ 7.42Gh/s | A:390 R:2+0(.49%) HW:78/4.4%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 BFL 0a: 29.0C |   0.0/  0.0/  0.0 h/s | A:  0 R:0+0(none) HW: 0/none
 BFL 0b: 29.0C |   0.0/  0.0/  0.0 h/s | A:  0 R:0+0(none) HW: 0/none
 BFL 0c: 29.0C |   0.0/  0.0/  0.0 h/s | A:  0 R:0+0(none) HW: 0/none
 BFL 0d: 29.0C |  3.99/ 3.89/ 3.90Gh/s | A:217 R:1+0(.43%) HW: 7/.79%
 BFL 0e: 29.0C |   0.0/  0.0/  0.0 h/s | A:  0 R:0+0(none) HW: 0/none
 BFL 0f: 29.0C |   0.0/  0.0/  0.0 h/s | A:  0 R:0+0(none) HW: 0/none
 BFL 0g: 29.0C |   0.0/  0.0/  0.0 h/s | A:  0 R:0+0(none) HW: 0/none
 BFL 0h: 29.0C |  3.77/ 3.76/ 3.58Gh/s | A:178 R:1+0(.53%) HW:71/8.0%

Interesting. Can you go back to cgminer and see if the speed goes back? I'm wondering about that a little bit.

C

cgminer version 3.9.0 - Started: [2014-01-07 21:03:15]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 (5s):7.795G (avg):7.734Gh/s | A:752  R:0  HW:43  WU:102.9/m
 ST: 2  SS: 0  NB: 1  LW: 894  GF: 0  RF: 0


but its only been up for a little while, after running it for the first time i came back to it several hours later, the next morning. Ill see if its gone up more and report back !

anyone out there in the UK that can mod these things ?


both cgminer and bfgminer are latest versions, from git as of a couple days ago and running on a pi

To be honest, it's probably not worth a flash, however there is a guy who can do it remotely if you have the programmer. You have replaced the POS power supply with a locally compiant one, right?

C

Yea didnt like the look of the psu the moment I set eyes on it !

I was thinking more of adding chips to the board, if anyone in the uk would be able to do that, I have everything in place to flash the unit, from my pi, but as i was seeing such good numbers ( as im writing this its running at 7.7 avg ) I started to think twice, hence my posts here.

Miners for me are more a hobby than a profit maker :) Im willing to take the risk to boost this little pup, I have been inspired by your efforts but sadly i lack the ability to do it myself.

Hell mabye ill splash out and get whats required.

7.7 GH/s avg for 2 chips is nice (on stock? interesting to see what firmware you got??)
You might think you can flash it via USB, but you need an JTAG programmer such as the Atmel AVR DRAGON afaik...you have that?

I never said I could flash it via usb. I have a PI and a home made cable as outlined earlier in this thread, AVR dragon not required.

Unit is on "stock" firmware, that is to say I haven't flashed it so I dont actually know what version its running sorry. Any easy way to tell or will i need to hook up the pi ?

Most BFL products have a sticker inside the unit, sometimes on the base plate, with the version number and production details.

Thanks ill take a look this evening.

At the risk of playing Captain Obvious, I'd start with a lower JTAG clock speed and work up if that connects okay.

Update: Wondering over. Can do 32gh. With 8 chips you need a water cooling block and a big power supply, but it is fun!

C

I flashed two jalapenos yesterday with the 1.2.9 firmware.

Got some strange results on both:

These two shipped together in one box, I bought them used. I'm guessig they are fairl early as the heatsink leaves room for the jtag cable.

they have 1256 chips not 1128.


The first one I flashed without making any changes in the firmware and it hashed at a steady 3740...

So I went back into the files and changed it from a single to jalapeno in the std_defs.h.

It hashed at 6745, 7740 and 8812 cycling between the three exact rates.

I went back in and altered to a little single and nothing changed.

So I went back in again and altered it to a Jalapeno and the frequency from 33  to 64.

Tested it and it now cycles between 7891 8898 and 10126.

Used the exact same build on number two and it cycles between 6665 7490 8812.

Wondering what is going on and what I did wrong?

Hardware errors on both after 24 hours are low 76 on the first one and 188 on the second.

They are not in the cases and have a 120 mm case fan on top of the heatsink. Before flashing they ran at 33 degrees and after they are running 41.

I'm amazed it worked, need to do little_single or jalapeno.



That's really weird, how many chips are reported in bfgminer (use D, then M to show the chips)

C

bfgminer can't find either. I'm using cgminer instead.


little update, after trying to start bfgminer and then returning to cgminer the first one is swinging between 8.5 and 10.7 and the average is showing 9.1.


I maybe should have mentioned that I bought these as 5ghs and one has run rock steady at 6ghs and the other at 6.5ghs with some amazing spikes on start up, up to 43ghs.

Avr dragon shows number one 3.3v

and number 2 3.2v.

Nice thread =) So i had to flash my jalapeno too =) But do i get too much HW errors?

HW / (A+R+HW) =
1359/(12342+117+1359)=0,0983 = 9%
That's after 2 hours of mining.

GetInfo.....................
DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.5ck
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 2
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 3: 15 engines @ 279 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 266 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 8175 MH/s
ENGINES: 30
FREQUENCY: 274 MHz
XLINK MODE: MASTER
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK
0x00

Core0 Nonces=0,
Core1 Nonces=0,
Core2 Nonces=0,
Core3 Nonces=6343,
Core4 Nonces=0,
Core5 Nonces=0,
Core6 Nonces=0,
Core7 Nonces=6236,
Core8 Nonces=0,
Core9 Nonces=0,
Core10 Nonces=0,
Core11 Nonces=0,
Core12 Nonces=0,
Core13 Nonces=0,
Core14 Nonces=0,
Core15 Nonces=0,
Core0 HW Errors=0,
Core1 HW Errors=0,
Core2 HW Errors=0,
Core3 HW Errors=466,
Core4 HW Errors=0,
Core5 HW Errors=0,
Core6 HW Errors=0,
Core7 HW Errors=901,
Core8 HW Errors=0,
Core9 HW Errors=0,
Core10 HW Errors=0,
Core11 HW Errors=0,
Core12 HW Errors=0,
Core13 HW Errors=0,
Core14 HW Errors=0,
Core15 HW Errors=0,

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6hg3oj9wo62l2gi/1.2.5ck2h.JPG

Should i go back to BFL original 1.2.5?

Cheers for the nice work from everybody =)

Eh, as long as it's hashing I would stay with it, especially with two chips.

When you have 8 chips on a Jally, you want to tune it down a bit for no errors. Reason being that errors cause heat, and heat will drive you bats with an 8 chip unit.

Mine as much as you can. And good job boosting it.

So it's not better with 7.2GH/s with 1.2% HW errors instead?

Just what did you flash? A stock jalapeno should be flashed with the 1.2.9 code compiled either for AVR 128 or 256 (to be honest if you compile 128 it will work on both types of chips), and make sure you set the device type to "LITTLE_SINGLE" and not "SINGLE" in std_defs.h.

If you're totally sunk send it over and I'll fix it for you.