Sounds good

Yeah, Bitcoin Merch is not going to help me. He claims factory fixes do not exist as well. Can you give me info on where to send it and cost?

Or i guess i should ask, would you be the one it's going back to? Either way would like to get it looked at. Would of course prefer it to be working .

Hmm, well i'd definitely be interested in sending it in for repair. I don't actually see where that would be easily with a Google search. Mind pointing me in the right direction? Or do you mean through "Merch" to the factory for a paid repair?

That post a few pages back was directed at me when i was trying to run all of this on a Mac. I moved to a Pi running Ubuntu Mate and everything has gone great. That makes sense about it not running at 100%. But does the fact that the one that went smokey was running so much lower give any clues to a problem? Otherwise yeah if anyone who understands the hardware better and has done overclocking can speak to if i shouldn't have been running at 600MHz is the issue, or if it's just that one that may have had a problem to begin with, that would be cool.

Being that i think that R909 was already an exchange for a 909 going down for other reasons and Bitcoinmerch has a warranty policy regarding running it above 500Mhz, i'm now hesitant to clock the other one back up to 600 anyway. That's why i'd like to clarify if 600 is actually any issue or in that one had some flaw to begin with. I've seen a few people in here talk about running it up to 700MHz and it self regulates down if there are issues. Also why i'm hoping someone might know what would have blown and if there is actually just a way to fix it. I don't think my reseller knows anything about repairs.

I would like to know though, from other who have pushed the R909, has anyone else had anything similar happen? Should i now worry about pushing the other one i have? As far as silicon lottery goes the remaining one definitely ran/runs with a much higher WU, sometimes up to 100%. The one that went poof rarely got up to 90%, sometimes as low as the high 70s. I've seen others post results and it seems the R909s tend to run below 100% unlike the CompacFs i have which almost all run at 100% or just below.

Sorry, i guess people think of where the fan is as the front. Not that side. I keep the lights side facing me. So middle back.

Also, if this is the Bitcoin Merch one, which i think it is, then they won't honor any use above 500MHz when it comes to the warranty. I assume these are software serialized, so i can't return a different one, so i might just be out 600 bucks. And to be clear, i'm not saying i like to cheat to get returns/exchanges, i just don't necessarily agree with the 500MHz limit on use.

I can't say exactly since it is enclosed and the smoke poured out from inside, but i'd guess middle front ish. it's possible if i plug it back in it'll finish smoking and i could tell better then.

Welp, ran one of my R909s for a week at 600MHz and it shorted my power supply. Plugged everything in except it and got everything else running fine again. Tried turning down the voltage and plugged it in with a barrel jack power plug and it started making whining noises, weird lights that weren't bright enough and stuttered, and then magic smoke. Offhand i think it blew a cap.

Any ideas for a cause and suggestions for a fix?

Thanks!

Just an update...Returned the R909 to Bitcoin Merch and they will be sending me back a new unit once they are back in stock. So customer service has been very good with them.

Anyone have any ideas when the next batch of 909s are actually going out?

Right, thanks all. just wanted to get feedback on the chances i did something to mess it up. Thanks much. I've requested the return. Now i wait to see what they say.

Oh, and yes, it was Bitcoin Merch

They forgot to install the blue led fan when they sent it outa and sent it to me to swap. I did that yesterday and then later that day the 3 chips went out. My guess is i'll be responsible for the "damage". Likely just out $600 and now have a dud. I'll see what they say.

What would any damage look like visibly if i wanted to remove the heat sinks and take a look? Would it be obvious? Could changing a fan even do that?

Is there some way to do a hard reset on these. Mine is now stuck only showing 3 of the 6 chips and isn't hashing above141Gh and keeps resetting.

Does changing things in the api set the hardware after it's connected to something else? All of a sudden i'm only getting 3 of the 6 chips on the r909 showing up after a move to a different machine. Just wondering.

And as for the OS... I was going to go for Ubuntu MATE for being a bit lighter. Any reason to do anything different if i want a desktop UI?

I see... Well right now i just want to optimize for 4 Compac Fs and 1 r909. I assume then that is actually about as much as i could do outside of adding a couple more Compac Fs.

Good to know!

What a trip! Well i've got a Pi 4 with 8GB RAM running on an SSD, so i'll grab Ubuntu and get it going for mining and see what performance i'm missing from all of these then. Should be interesting to set up!

I did all the wait factor adjustments on the Mac and it just didn't really do much. I did test the commands to be sure they were working, it just didn't do anything meaningful. So Pi it is!

Never mind. I found the part. Helps to actually read more. Now to figure out how to use the API properly.

java API "ascset|0,waitfactor,0.6" minerIP

Now where to put the adjustment.

And to be sure i'm not just an idiot, is it as simple as enabling the api and then adding the wait factor commend, like this:
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/cgminer/4.12.1/bin/cgminer -o stratum+tcp://solo.ckpool.org:3333 -u "BTC Address -p x --gekko-r909-freq 500 --gekko-compacf-freq 545 --gekko-start-freq 300 --gekko-tune-up 85 --api-listen --api-allow "W:192.168.1.0/24,W:127.0.0.1" --gekko-wait-factor 0.1

Assuming that's correct (which i don't assume). How low is safe to go? 0.01, etc?

Huh, i haven't actually used the API to do anything yet, so i might give some adjustments a try.

Otherwise i do have a couple of Raspberry Pis, so i can repurpose one for this. It was being used for live video triggering for video production, but i don't think i need both for that. Interesting that a Pi running Linux can work better than a Mac or Windows machine.

Out of curiosity, what's the best distro for this on the Pi. Actually i can just go look that up.

Thanks for the info! Would be nice if this wasn't an issue, but i'll get around it. I do have CPU to spare.