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

C

I wonder why? I've plugged 120 volt devices into the 240 outlets here without problems, makes the power supply a bit more efficient in some cases. Switching mode supplies should not fail.

Edit: Update: I didn't see you were on 240v ring power. That negates my thought on the outlet. Weird, looks like it went to ground, did the jally self-destruct as well?
Odd.

Don't. Those chips are way too expensive for what they will hash. Go to mining.thegenesisblock.com and try entering numbers...

I can tell you what's wrong.

The FETs in the 12 volt to 1 volt DC-DC power converter have shorted out/blown. This happens if you flash the unit with a version that runs the chips all-out (which is more than what the DC-DC can handle).

If you flashed it, you have a RMA problem. If you didn't, call BFL and have them ship you out a new one immediately.

DO NOT try to use a "bigger" power supply. What will happen is you will feed the short and simply smoke the hell out of the board.

If you can't RMA it and would like to sell it for parts, please PM me; I am looking for a dead jally/single to test some thoughts on.

C

The power supply is shorted internally and passing 120 volts directly to the ring. I'd replace it.

This can happen with non-isolated power supplies. Rare but not impossible.

Also check your outlet, it's possible some yabo wired it backwards so neutral is hot.

C

Not quite the same thing, but I am now running my five chip jally with an older BFL heat pipe sink. It actually runs much *better* with the case on it and the fan blowing upward.

The AL sinks are just not as good. Try to find a heat pipe sink.

C

Latest data from the testing frontier:

1) My chip 6 refuses to come up.Heated it to 500F using 465c air at speed low for 2 minutes. Note, lower air speeds mean more heat since the air is transferring heat *to* the object instead of *around* the object. Forgot about that.

2) I put the case back on the unit with the heat pipe heat sink (*NOT* the Al one) and the fan blowing *up*. I did grease the bottom of the sink when I put it on the base for bottom heat transfer.

Case itself gets warm, temps in 60-65C. So a fully enclosed jally with an early style heat sink can run in the case with 5 chips. The Al heat sink will *not* work.

Will leave it alone today and see if it's stable.

Update: after a day it's totally stable. Nice!

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

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

Makes sense, the technology is basically obsolete (but a nice first shot).

An idea: Take the remaining ones and send them to the chip credit people; that would flood the market, clear that agreement, and allow you to write off the remaining inventory.

C

(Has two chip credits somewhere around there)

Flash it and you will blow the FETs.

C

Hm. Eligius has been noisy, and my secondary choice for hashing got some work done, so I can't trust the damn stats. But it does look like my performance boost to 8 didn't speed up my overall hashing rate.

I'll let it run through this morning. However going to speed 8 from 7 seems to have driven up my temps by 10c, my power by 10 watts, and my hashing by 300mh/s and possibly down. Might not be worth it.

Hm.

C

The raw data dumps on my speed runs:

Default: Speed 7 been running this for awhile now without a reboot. <1% errors.

DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.9
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 5
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 0: 16 engines @ 271 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 3: 13 engines @ 265 MHz -- MAP: EFFC
PROCESSOR 5: 16 engines @ 248 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 6: 16 engines @ 264 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 248 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 19693 MH/s
ENGINES: 76
FREQUENCY: 274 MHz
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
TOTAL THERMAL CYCLES: 0
XLINK MODE: MASTER
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

Speed 8:
DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.9
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 5
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 0: 16 engines @ 281 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 3: 13 engines @ 271 MHz -- MAP: EFFC
PROCESSOR 5: 16 engines @ 253 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 6: 15 engines @ 274 MHz -- MAP: F7FF
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 253 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 19972 MH/s
ENGINES: 75
FREQUENCY: 283 MHz
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
TOTAL THERMAL CYCLES: 0
XLINK MODE: MASTER
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

Speed 9
DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.9
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 5
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 0: 14 engines @ 291 MHz -- MAP: FFCF
PROCESSOR 3: 8 engines @ 277 MHz -- MAP: E3A4
PROCESSOR 5: 16 engines @ 261 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 6: 13 engines @ 284 MHz -- MAP: D7FD
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 259 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 18043 MH/s
ENGINES: 66
FREQUENCY: 291 MHz
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
TOTAL THERMAL CYCLES: 0
XLINK MODE: MASTER
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

Also speed 9, ater a re power cycle.
DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.9
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 5
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 0: 15 engines @ 288 MHz -- MAP: FFEF
PROCESSOR 3: 8 engines @ 277 MHz -- MAP: E3A4
PROCESSOR 5: 15 engines @ 262 MHz -- MAP: F7FF
PROCESSOR 6: 12 engines @ 284 MHz -- MAP: D7ED
PROCESSOR 7: 14 engines @ 261 MHz -- MAP: FF7E
THEORETICAL MAX: 17528 MH/s
ENGINES: 64
FREQUENCY: 291 MHz
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
TOTAL THERMAL CYCLES: 0
XLINK MODE: MASTER
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

How about speed 6?
DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.9
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 5
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 0: 16 engines @ 268 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 3: 13 engines @ 259 MHz -- MAP: EFFC
PROCESSOR 5: 16 engines @ 240 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 6: 16 engines @ 256 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 240 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 19191 MH/s
ENGINES: 76
FREQUENCY: 266 MHz
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
TOTAL THERMAL CYCLES: 0
XLINK MODE: MASTER
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

Speed 6 again after a fast power cycle?
DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.9
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 5
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 0: 15 engines @ 267 MHz -- MAP: FFDF
PROCESSOR 3: 13 engines @ 259 MHz -- MAP: EFFC
PROCESSOR 5: 15 engines @ 240 MHz -- MAP: FFDF
PROCESSOR 6: 15 engines @ 256 MHz -- MAP: FFBF
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 240 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 18412 MH/s
ENGINES: 73
FREQUENCY: 266 MHz
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
TOTAL THERMAL CYCLES: 0
XLINK MODE: MASTER
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

How about speed 5? Sure, why not.
DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.9
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 5
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 0: 15 engines @ 259 MHz -- MAP: FFDF
PROCESSOR 3: 13 engines @ 250 MHz -- MAP: EFFC
PROCESSOR 5: 16 engines @ 237 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 6: 15 engines @ 250 MHz -- MAP: FFBF
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 235 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 18202 MH/s
ENGINES: 74
FREQUENCY: 260 MHz
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
TOTAL THERMAL CYCLES: 0
XLINK MODE: MASTER
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

Hm. Slower, back to 8
DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.9
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 5
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 0: 16 engines @ 280 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 3: 13 engines @ 271 MHz -- MAP: EFFC
PROCESSOR 5: 15 engines @ 253 MHz -- MAP: FFDF
PROCESSOR 6: 16 engines @ 274 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 256 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 20022 MH/s
ENGINES: 75
FREQUENCY: 283 MHz
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
TOTAL THERMAL CYCLES: 0
XLINK MODE: MASTER
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

SWEET! Let's run with this.

Good luck everyone.

And by the way, some software thoughts:

Now that I have a heat sink that allows me to have the programming plug attached while the sink is on (oh joy!) I have had a chance to fiddle a lot more with the speeds in the 1.2.9 software. Was kind of surprised by the results. In a nutshell:

Speed 5: THEORETICAL MAX: 18202 MH/s
Speed 6: THEORETICAL MAX: 19191 MH/s
Speed 7: THEORETICAL MAX: 19693 MH/s
Speed 8: THEORETICAL MAX: 20022 MH/s
Speed 9: THEORETICAL MAX: 18043 MH/s
Speed 9: THEORETICAL MAX: 17528 MH/s (after a reboot)

The difference on speed 9 is that one of the chips (Processor 3, the crap processor) only fired 8 engines at 277 instead of 13 at 271. The other processors are more sad as well. Interesting, it seems it could not slow down with the others being fast. I'll post the specs below.

However I am now running at speed 8 instead of 7, will see how it hashes. Note also that letting the unit cool down after running will always produce slightly higher hash results, and unplugging/immediate plug in will cost about .5-1gh.

The moral here though is that maybe some of the Jally clockers who are seeing crap speeds with 1.2.9 are using Tarkin's code, which runs everything at 9. I think it will cause the weaker chips to run at super-slow speeds, while speed 8 will provide the possibility of coming up. Speed 7 seems to be the best balance of power and performance, but note that speed 6 is still pretty damned good. And speed 5 is still *BETTER* than speed 9.

Given the lower power usage and longer life, I would recommend that if you go past 5 chips, you might want to run speed 6. If you stuff 8 chips on go for speed 5. That might give you the most efficient power usage per chip.

For the moment, I'm going to run at speed 8 for awhile and see if it makes a difference in the software. Oddly enough I might be best off tweaking things manually, putting some chips at 9 and others at lower speeds (like the aforementioned chip 3) specifically to optimize performance. I think that's next :-)

C

In the meantime, I'm waiting on three chips to arrive, still thinking about reballing/replacing these two chips I have, and my jally continues to hash happily with 5 chips live (and the one dead one) onboard.

I couldn't refuse the BFL offer so I picked up a total of three jallies (one for a friend) and an ATX cord. I think I'm going to put one more chip on my board, and set the other four chips on the other two jallies. So I'll go to six chips.

What we need are more chips here, anyone got any thoughts/leads? I'm wondering if BFL locked out sales so they could ensure they had enough for their jallies and singles; apparently they sold out of JP's so there might be some left overs once the sale ends today.

C

Those look much better than mine; I actually really blew it and pulled some of the pads off the chip. I was running too cold.

Anyway, the one on the right might reflow if you put flux on the bottom, then heat it. Both might actually, give it a quick try but at lower temps like 350 or so.

C

Naah. I ordered three. Two for myself, one for a friend mainly because I wanted that ATX cable thingie. When did you order (I got mine in at 12:01; web site was sloooooo).

As for reballing, can you post pics of your chips? And how did you screw up; my two screwups were because the chip moved off center and I panicked for one, and because I  hit the chip with the nozzle and caused a board short on the other. Getting better on this.

Actually maybe one of us should by the $70 BGA reballing kit on Ebay, then send it around to people.

C

Oh God. Now you have me wanting to compile the bitcoin software for my NeXTStation. Where is the C code for a good POSIX CPU client?

Seriously. If someone PM's me a link for simple code, I'll post a picture of it hashing. If I fall into a pit of boredom I'll even bum the code so the SHA256 runs on the 56001 DSP. That should get a few more dozen hashes/second...

C

(Edit: I have a card like that in my pile somewhere. From a Dual systems UNIX system; wait! I could compile the bitcoin stack on my DEC Professional/380! I wonder if it will fit in 64kb of memory or if I have to break it into segments and swap....)

I thought about it, but I'd rather not tie up a lot of money. If you do, DO NOT OVERCLOCK IT.

C

So BFL had a black friday event. And given that I just love Jallies, I bought three of them and an ATX power cable. Because I like them...

Anyway, their web site seems to be imploding as we speak, so I don't think I'm the only one. Order placed at 11:01 CST, email 10 minutes later.

Did anyone else order?

C