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1  Bitcoin / Hardware / Looking for sound advice on 2TH/s machines - Black Arrow vs CoinTerra on: January 14, 2014, 04:52:20 AM
Hi guys, first, I'm sure you have your own opinions about companies outside of the two mentioned in the topic, but I would like to focus on those two specifically in this post (dealing with house money here, so I'd like to at least see a ROI before the year is out).  The price for both units specified is ~$6,100 w/ shipping and handling.  Both expected to arrive in May if ordered today (so maybe I will be lucky to make 1 BTC a week by then; hopefully 10 days at most).

Quote from: Prospero X-3
First up is Black Arrow (Software)'s "Prospero X-3".  Personally, I love these guys.  I remember spending something like 3.6BTC on a Lancelot + programmer (I did this more recently than I like to think about, but lets just say FPGAs actually had died out for the most part by then) and I got to know the crew at BAS very well (I still use the Lancelot board for other projects and the programmer comes in handy, most recently when dealing with BFL products =p).

Pros: Have shipped products before (though not ASICs). Seem to have only slipped roughly a month behind schedule and have been very upfront about it.  I know the team and their support is amazing.

Cons: Unknown internal hardware running the control/mining software (not really a huge concern I just had to think of something to counter what I know about the device coming up).  Chinese-based - everything is made in China, esp. chips and sometimes assembled locally, however this would involve dealing with China + DHL + a heavy box (I have had a very bad experience with this type of scenario and no one admitted fault; I considered going to small claims court for the missing $700 in hardware but instead took it as a lesson).  Fits into a 2U rackmount space; slightly moot for me as I do not plan on hosting at a datacenter.

Quote from: TerraMiner IV
Next we have CoinTerra and their TerraMiner IV.  I have heard the name TerraMiner get tossed around a lot but I know very little about them.  Based on my limited research, they seem like a bunch that knows what they are doing and a final product seems within reach.

Pros: US-based!  Of course this is what lead me to BFL in the first place and while I did receive a ROI many times over (only thanks to the fact that they were still accepting credit cards at the time I ordered), I know location is not everything (however the fact that I can use UPS Ground for my shipping needs lets me breath easier).  I know that the Begalbone Black is up to the task of being used as a control unit (for those of you unfamiliar with this board, it is like a Raspberry Pi except more powerful) and frankly I really like the design and features (BAS is a bit vague when it comes to the internals of its box).  I *love* how the design is basically split into two separate compartments.

Cons: Here is the big one... will they ship?  Rather, will they hit a large snag before fulfillment commences?  There are some great minds behind this but if I the hardware I order doesn't arrive until November, that will hurt my pocket (as well as my inner-geek).  Also, it's a damnable beast!  Yes the compartmentalizing and water-cooling features are neat, but besides being twice as tall as BAS's offering, the "nominal" power consumption is 1650 watts compared to Black Arrow's product (which when running stock, is estimated to come in at slightly over 1kW with a best guess of 1050 watts).  Where I live, the power is slightly lower than the national average ($0.0911 per kWh) but that still adds up over time.  I'm also worried about the possibility of it flipping a breaker, but thankfully I have a friend who is a licensed electrician who could move the circuit to a 2nd box I'm starting to populate if need be.

Thanks so much guys, I only have a few days to decide who I'm sending the wire transfer out to so if you have anything useful that you think I should know, please let me have it!  Assuming this all works out, I might take a small percent (5% - 10%) and try and play the exchange market, but you better believe I'm sitting on any coins I make until they are worth 5 digits or dust =p.
2  Bitcoin / Hardware / [Likely Solved/TBC][Support] Lancelot Board Failure on: June 26, 2013, 01:56:54 AM
Recently returned from chemo treatment, with strict rules to rest and avoid any stress for the next two days.  Of course anyone that deals with Bitcoin on a regular basis knows that Finagle's law (a take off on Murphy's Law) is always constantly at play.  I have already contacted CardReaderFactory.com (aka the group that builds the boards on behalf of Blackarrow), however I'm dreading having to ship back a board (Washington D.C. to Hong Kong).  This is basically a copy/paste of the message I sent, however I am hoping to take advantage of experience from fellow BCT users (I'm sure there are many users here who have used an Icarus-based board before).  Thank you in advance for any suggestions and I apologize ahead of time if my replies are delayed (feel like bleh atm =).

Quote
I recently bought a Lancelot (as well as some accessories, order #****) from CRF.  The unit worked great, however I wanted to try the upgraded firmware listed on your site.  I was able to flash both FPGA chips very easily and had the board back up and running (with more than adequate cool using 2x 80mm fans in addiction to leaving the cooling that arrived with the unit in place).  The hashing speed didn't improve that much (stock ran at 400MH/s with the v42 firmware running ~450MH/s) however there was no noticeable increase in temperature (or anything else to indicate there was a problem) so I took what I could get.

At 9:15pm today however, the board seemingly completely died (I was alerted by phone 10mins later).  cgminer shows it working just fine up until the point of failure.  Now I am unable to even power on the board.  The power brick used was connected to my UPS unit (and there is no report of a drop or spike in power).  The board was actually running about 10 feet away from me, however I'm so used to blinking lights, that I didn't notice it stop working until I was alerted by phone.  There was no "pop", smoke or anything to indicate that any component blew.

I have no idea what to do at this point (I could test the board at different points to see if any power is flowing at all, but that is not a solution).  It looks like I will need to send the board back for repair, although I would be glad to follow any suggestions regarding diagnostics.  I've only had the unit for 8 days and made sure it was located in an ESD-free zone.
3  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Technical Support / Transaction ended up splitting too much, BTC stuck in limbo? on: June 02, 2013, 11:55:12 PM
Well I don't know what to say except I screwed up/didn't foresee this happening. FUBAR'd 3.4BTC transfer. I first tried to send the coin through Blockchain.info but it kept erroring out so I imported my wallet into MultiBit.  I had no idea that it would split into so many separate transactions so I didn't increase the fee.  Blockchain.info's estimated time to find it's way into a block and get confirmed keeps jumping around (i.e., it's not steadily declining).

I would have normally split a payment that size up, but I am paying a 3rd party for an item and didn't want to complicate matters (heh so much for that).  At this point is there anything I can do to stop the coins from continuously tumbling around in the Bitcoin washing machine?  The reason I like using Blockchain.info is because if a transfer isn't completed in 24h the money is sent back.  Is this a global feature to the protocol?  Any advice on what to do now would be greatly appreciated (also if I do get the coins back, what is a smart way to send them, as I did not create the divisions).

Thanks for helping your local neighborhood DBG through a n00b moment!

Edit: Random luck FTW!
4  Economy / Digital goods / [Sold] 5000 SoE Station Cash (retail for $50 USD) on: February 23, 2013, 09:51:04 AM
Hey guys, I would prefer to use #bitcoin-otc as it provides a WoT (Web of Trust) system and real-time IRC chat, if you are unfamiliar with the system and/or are not interested in getting involved, I would be willing to trade via this thread/PM.
5  Other / Beginners & Help / [Solved] CGMiner error "All devices disabled, cannot mine!" on new PC setup on: February 05, 2013, 03:50:38 AM
Hey guys, so I finally scrapped enough cash to put together a new PC (mostly for art school but also for gaming on the side and mining when not in use).  However on starting cgminer with various settings (from nothing to complex sets) I get the error message seen in the subject.

"cgminer -n" spits out
Code:
[2013-02-04 22:11:35] CL Platform 0 vendor: NVIDIA Corporation

[2013-02-04 22:11:35] CL Platform 0 name: NVIDIA CUDA
[2013-02-04 22:11:35] CL Platform 0 version: OpenCL 1.1 CUDA 4.2.1

[2013-02-04 22:11:35] Platform 0 devices: 1
[2013-02-04 22:11:35]  0       GeForce GTX 660 Ti
[2013-02-04 22:11:35] CL Platform 1 vendor: Intel(R) Corporation

[2013-02-04 22:11:35] CL Platform 1 name: Intel(R) OpenCL
[2013-02-04 22:11:35] CL Platform 1 version: OpenCL 1.1
[2013-02-04 22:11:35] Error -1: Getting Device IDs (num)
[2013-02-04 22:11:35] clDevicesNum returned error, no GPUs usable

[2013-02-04 22:11:35] 0 GPU devices max detected

I saw a recommendation to uninstall nVidia's PhysX drivers, however no luck.  If anyone has any ideas on what to try I would appreciate it (as I won't be in possession of a 40 GH/sec ASIC unit any time too soon  Wink).  Let me know if more information on hardware would help (I'd also be willing to switch programs, however cgminer has severed me very well in the past and I like those involved in the project).  Grazie!

Edit: Not the optimal solution (as the issue was not solved) but changing to BFGMiner worked.
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