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That is a problem by the way: When the cost of fixing these units is not worth the value of the units you can't fix them anymore. We're reaching that point with the controllers, while I charge .3btc (about $120) keep in mind the two chips are $70 with shipping, the cost to ship a board in the US is $10, leaving about $50 bucks to spend an hour pulling the FPGA and TPS (without wrecking the board), clearing the solder, re-tinning the FQDN pads, fluxing and placing the several hundred BGA pin FPGA where being off by a MM=solder bridges and wasted chip, and reflowing the chips. Not to mention testing at each stage. About 2 hours of work, sometimes 3.
High precision work isn't done for $16 an hour, I can get that flipping burgers. But it's good for the community and got some miners going so there you are. At this point though now that we can run Titans on all those Jupiter/Neptune boards is it worth it?
Big problem with fixing stuff: By the time you get good at it the equipment is worthless. The exception seems to be Titans, a repair can turn a $0 pile of burned junk into a $700 cube. What's that worth?
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Can still fix Titans, but some of the issues, especially the ones where the Titan shorts the controller are out of reach.
Are you giving up lightfoot?  That's a bitch on wheels of a problem :-) So far though the only way into the chip is either with a crowbar or a blowtorch. |
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There probably is, the Neptune firmware is a bit more annoying to crack given the lack of dev tools on the default BB. No, not working on the BB Titan code right now, other things are in front of it. How much do people want/need it?
As for restarting Neptunes, check through this whole thread, I have posted everything I know here. Right now Neptunes are not worth fixing, and oddly enough the amount I have been charging for controller boards outside of the Titans is getting to equal the value of the repaired board. So that's going away.
Can still fix Titans, but some of the issues, especially the ones where the Titan shorts the controller are out of reach. Vegas, do you have a stencil to reball a Titan die? The big problem with them is related to the 1.2 volt lines to the die controller shorting out, if you can remove those pads or cut the traces under the board you would win big time.
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Anyone know why a pi2 wont run on this controller? Is the controller just incompatible? I assumed since it sounds like all the controllers from KNCminer are identical, none of them would be compatible with the pi2. Didnt the neptune make an updated controller? I could be completely wrong on this as I dont follow neptunes. But if they did, then how to identify the updated one, and is their latest controller compatible with Titan Bridge and pi?
Vegas
Yes. :-) The problem with the Pi2 is that the CPU type is not supported in the boot loader/IPL code that was on the last version of the 2.0 Titan firmware. I wonder if you can do an apt-get upgrade/update on a rpi, then boot it on a rpi2. THat might be the best way to go. Or you can still buy a rpi 1.2 B unit. C |
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I believe what hawkfish007 is trying to say is double check your connection on the cubes. It is easy to mis-align the connector so not all the pins are connected. Make sure they are aligned correctly and fully seated. I would add to double check the connections on the controller board also and make sure they are seated completely. Usually it is the simple things that are the most common things to happen with stuff like this.
Yes I understand now. I checked all the connections and just turn the miner on Now none of the cubes are working hihih I can't believe That anyone can build such a device with mind of it is on anymore ideas ? There is a small button on the controller do you know what it is for Ok, start over from the beginning: Unplug all the cubes from the controller. Restart controller. Make sure latest code is loaded and running. Question 1: Does the WHITE light come on the controller board followed by the green light? Chris |
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Agreed: The whole point of this thread is to show off cool solutions for mining things. You don't post comments on unhealthy BMI levels on porn sites, don't post pointless "you could get 2% imrpovement by sanding the rails" posts here.
That said, glad that ethereum is bringing out the gpus again...
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Hi i have a pile of titans i need fixing 4 or 5 would like to post 1 to start to you how to go about it please which country are you in sorry haven't read the whole thread but if you could help might as well get this pile of shit back working if you can  Thanks P Sure, what seems to be the problems with them? Any of them short out the power supply when plugged in? I'm in the US, not too difficult to ship where are you and can you do stuff like take the cubes apart to just send the boards? |
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Man I miss chartbuddy. Without it this thread is less than useless.
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I didn't When I restart the 2nd time all my cubes went OFF I've got now 2 cubes working and the and the other 2 now are offline I tried everything I know and I did before and it is not working A whole day switching cables around How is this possible those cables was working perfectly Do you know where can I buy or DIY those cables Thank you Hey there
I just found about this new firmware
I need to know because I Just opened one of my cubes to cleaned and when I tried to plug it back on
it is not shown on the main page do you thing that your firmware can fix that data cable problems
Thank you
check your cable to make sure you didn't put it back on backwards, it'll go either way So you're sure the cables are bad? That's a new one to be honest. I'm almost wondering if something went insane on your Titan Raspberry Pi controller. Maybe the software needs a new reflash. C |
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Hashing fine, now it's orange. Eh, I'll leave it alone for now but it is odd. Cranked the units down below 60mh and of course it's cold outside now....
I know ONE of the incarnations of knc firmware the light I think was blindingly white and stayed on if I remember correctly ..till they made a patch and next firmware upgrade not sure how/what or if that could be related ..but only light related issue I've ever heard of with these...never heard of the rainbow you have  Think I figured it out, it was cold the past day or so and I had the door to the mining stuff closed. Small wireless bridge in there to the main network, it was buried under stuff and the network connection was unstable. Put on table, seems happeir now. Might have been signaling a intermittent network connection or something. No biggie. C |
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Hashing fine, now it's orange. Eh, I'll leave it alone for now but it is odd. Cranked the units down below 60mh and of course it's cold outside now....
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Ok, this is weird. Checked in on the Titan last night after a warm day. Titans were hashing fine but the light on the control board was bright GREEN. Rebooted, little green light came on, hour later it was BRIGHT BLUE. I have seen bright RED, GREEN, WHITE...
Is this normal?
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The FPGA is the big chip. Do you know how to remove BGA chips from boards, clean up and reflow? I think I put the basic steps in the thread here somewhere.
If you would like you can send one of them in and I can test it with some stuff here. PM me and I'll take a look.
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Speaking of which I am fiddling with this cube that had the power rewiring (seller can't take it back yet because on vacation). Runs solid as a rock at 200mhz, but only 50-60mh speed.
So I'm playing with it. Running die 0 at 275mhz works oddly enough for several days before dropping off one supply from die 3. My guess is power fluctuations. Die 2 has divergence in voltages between the supplies that is a bit higher than normal so I am leaving it alone. So we're going to try 275/250/200/175 speeds. See how it works, so far stable.
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TXSteve, Thanks for the links. The Titan arrived today... Let's just say you should be glad you didn't buy it... One dead cube that won't power up at all. On cube with 2 bad dies and is as stable as a one legged chair. And there appears to be some issues with the power supplies that I haven't quite figured out. I can only get one power supply to run one cube at a time. You try connecting any other PCI-E cables to the power supply and you hear it click and then it won't startup. Not sure if these are just drawing too much power, or the PSU's are setup to handle it. Only the 8pin to 6 pin cables from the PSU seem capable of running a single cube with the y cable. The PSU's are Corsair CS750M's and the rig came with 2 of them. He also threw in a 1200w HP power supply with some PCI-E cables, but something is not right about those cables. As soon as you plug them in the power supplies won't run. None of the 3 power supplies will run with those cables attached. Not sure if it is me, or if there is something wrong with the cables.
I have been sitting here all night trying to tune and stabilize the remaining running cubes and this one with the 2 bad dies just isn't going to cut it. I have dialed back to 200mhz and I am still having them lock and disappear from the Advanced page. At this point I have sent a couple of message on eBay to the seller and no reply yet. I am about to start the return process on eBay. This guy said the rig hashed at 223mh.... Well not with one completely dead cube and one that will hardly stay alive... So I am a little frustrated to say the least.
I would love you guys feedback on this. Thanks!
Time to send it into Titan-Land :-) Seriously, what does the dead one do? Shut down the supply or crash the controller? C |
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ive taco'd a few, toasted a few, hell im toasty right now!
in all seriousness though ive been able to push 4 titans on one board up to 250-270 range and keep it stable,
it took a lot of firmware hacking and liquid cooling, but it's totally possible!
And if people blow them up I can fix them :-) But really might be a better investment (not for me of course) to run them a bit cooler since these actually seem to have value over time. Which is kind of amazing. |
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Lightfoot, I like your thinking on this. What happened at the 250mhz setting? Is 225mhz the sweet spot? What voltage can you turn it down to at that setting? That is a huge difference and your right that grinding out those few MH for that much more electricity, heat, wear and tear doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Would love to see more tuning in this direction... :-) I finally bought a Titan and it will be here next week. I am looking forward to getting it setup and tuned!
250 would cause the supplies to go unstable on the re-wired one, remember this was with a destroyed power plug assembly (from running it too hot) and 200-225 is the top speed. That said I'm running another re-wire with one die running at 275, the other three running at 200, and it still pulls a good 60-65mh. Which is not bad when you consider the one running 275 on all dies only pulls 70mh. Play with it, but keep in mind that when you run faster you pull more power for less mh and you stress the chip/supplies/board more. Ask yourself if a new supply every N months is worth it. Or winding up with a 0mh unit :-) |
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And whatever you do don't crank the heatsink down on the chip or add washers on the top. Doing this will push down on the chip and result in a taco.
And don't run over 250w of power. 275 is FINE!
And always say your prayers before bedtime.
In the meantime I have been fiddling with speeds on re-wired Titans, I can get some of the dies up to 275mhz, but not more than two per board. Still, not bad.
Also figured out what causes the bridge boards to blow, it's the Pi boards on top shorting their little power supplies. When that happens the +5 (unfused of course) shorts dead and the board trace becomes the fuse. You can replace it with wire-wrap wire (or I can) but you really need to also look into buying a new Rpi. Make sure you get the right one, you can test the old one by trying to power it through the mini-usb port with 5v. If it don't come up it's toast.
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Im back again. This night the miner stopped working again.
Two short white flashes from the led, and no cubes showing up on the status-page. Is the controller-board broken for real now?
Yep. Interesting. Is the FPGA hot? Did it not work with just the one cube by chance? Is FPGA the big black chip? That one is cold. How does this happen? This was the second board in one week of mining. They are used before of course. Im running 4 cubes on 2x 750w PSU, can that have some impact? It does not work with one cube either. Hm. So you blew out two boards in a week? Odd. One of your miners must have a short or something that's taking out the FPGA signal lines, they are *not* buffered. Before we blow up repairs, can you use an ohm-meter to test resistance from ground to each of the 10 pins on the 10 pin plug on each miner? One of them will not be like the others.... C |
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So it's possible that "dead" dies are actually not dead at all, but the solder below them has just melted and shorted across the array?
Yeah, basically. And since it is much more likely you shorted the +.6 supply it's not that uncommon. The problem though is getting flux under the die for a reflow, without flux shorted balls will never "re-ball" themselves under heat. You could pull the die and attempt to re-ball but this is really getting towards the edge of what I can do (not impossible, just that placing the chip with a .1mm error is one ball off). If I can find a way into the chip without being destructive I can at least remove an errant die, so we'll see. This is all to fix one guy's cube, I just don't seem to want to give up on this. :-) |
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