[Review] Avalon 6 Miner - Winter Mining - Notlist3d - Also FAQ and Help

[OregonMines.com]

I will report back on my order but it's confirmed that I should be getting the cable along with the unit.  Also I was told that I would have the standard minimum warranty of up to 90 days.  Can't wait to hear back on your noise test of the Avalon minus the Server PSU, Hawk.

I wish I had something to report back. After getting the cable from Oregonminers, I connected the miner. But the miner won't hash for some reason, Green Led on the miner kept blinking, I added pools, restarted the miner, checked all the cables - nothing seemed to work. I will try again later tonight. Using Bitmain 1600W PSU.

the antminer 1600 psu is a bad choice .

it uses 18 gauge wires not 16 gauge

it is loud so you are tossing away the av 6's lower sound level advantage.

lastly you need a 208 or higher power source for the psu.

and since the av 6 uses 1100 or less watts which allow for it to be run on 120 volts.

you will need a special power source in most usa homes.

@ sound level   question this is not really quiet like the ava 4.1  it does 55db to 58 db unless you downclock it a lot

We have two types of cables 16AWG and 18AWG, we noticed the Avalons have a higher hashrate while using the 16AWG rather than the 18AWG on the same PSU. Our difference was about 100GH depending on the miner. With some miners it didn't matter they always hashed at a high rate, but most of the low rates were fixed by a cable swap.

Most of our miners use the Dell 750W and this is the PSU that we keep in stock.

[nhando]

Thanks for the info Oregonminer.  So are you recommending us to use 2 x 750w watt PSU to power the Avalon 6 and 16 Gauge Power cable correct.  I thought it's generally not recommended to use more than 1 PSU for 1 Miner?

[philipma1957]

Thanks for the info Oregonminer.  So are you recommending us to use 2 x 750w watt PSU to power the Avalon 6 and 16 Gauge Power cable correct.  I thought it's generally not recommended to use more than 1 PSU for 1 Miner?

one psu per blade  can work fine .

two blades means up to 2 psu's.

as for picking a psu not the antminer.

the dells are low cost
the dells are pretty loud
the dells are a bit power hungry
the dells are really pretty hard to kill off.

Sounds like you are doing 120 volts  So you could use the dells if you get a good deal.

you can use the evga 1300 if you get a good deal.

mine are using seasonic 1200 platinums but I got a good price for them.

[notlist3d]

Thanks for the info Oregonminer.  So are you recommending us to use 2 x 750w watt PSU to power the Avalon 6 and 16 Gauge Power cable correct.  I thought it's generally not recommended to use more than 1 PSU for 1 Miner?

one psu per blade  can work fine .

two blades means up to 2 psu's.

as for picking a psu not the antminer.

the dells are low cost
the dells are pretty loud
the dells are a bit power hungry
the dells are really pretty hard to kill off.

Sounds like you are doing 120 volts  So you could use the dells if you get a good deal.

you can use the evga 1300 if you get a good deal.

mine are using seasonic 1200 platinums but I got a good price for them.

I have got a EVGA 1300 on mine currently it seems to do fine.  But Phil is right if you can get a server PSU at decent deal normally they are cheaper.  And it seems some of the server PSU's have a higher input voltage.  I get pretty much 12 all day long with EVGA 1300, my lightning 1300 was 11.9-12 it varied.  I have seen screenshots from server psu's showing higher imput voltage, meaning a overclock.

[nhando]

Would love to see your recent Hash rate results Notlist3d as I have the same setup as you with the EVGA G2 1300w which I got from Ebay for cheap.  So basically will be same config and noise level.  I have no intention of over clocking for now.

Nhan

[notlist3d]

Would love to see your recent Hash rate results Notlist3d as I have the same setup as you with the EVGA G2 1300w which I got from Ebay for cheap.  So basically will be same config and noise level.  I have no intention of over clocking for now.

Nhan

From my results I wish I had a PSU that went over 12 input voltage.   It seems the EVGA 1300 is a fine PSU but if your wanting top end your better off with a server PSU. Organ Mines gives a pretty good general rule if you want top speed - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1257327.msg13116803#msg13116803 . Also seems to be confirmed by Kilo17 - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1239604.msg13029030#msg13029030

I still have some tests I would like to run on it.  One of the first on the list is try at different fan speeds and see what happens with the miner, I still have 20 percent default as it seems to work good.  I just want to test more as the more info the better.

But..... my time was spent in my main mining area today as I had a big fan go down.  Luckily I have extras they just weren't as nice. But still in warranty... so I will be testing Lowes warranty policy, but that is another story.

But there is testing to come

[kilo17]

Would love to see your recent Hash rate results Notlist3d as I have the same setup as you with the EVGA G2 1300w which I got from Ebay for cheap.  So basically will be same config and noise level.  I have no intention of over clocking for now.

Nhan

From my results I wish I had a PSU that went over 12 input voltage.   It seems the EVGA 1300 is a fine PSU but if your wanting top end your better off with a server PSU. Organ Mines gives a pretty good general rule if you want top speed - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1257327.msg13116803#msg13116803 . Also seems to be confirmed by Kilo17 - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1239604.msg13029030#msg13029030

I still have some tests I would like to run on it.  One of the first on the list is try at different fan speeds and see what happens with the miner, I still have 20 percent default as it seems to work good.  I just want to test more as the more info the better.

But..... my time was spent in my main mining area today as I had a big fan go down.  Luckily I have extras they just weren't as nice. But still in warranty... so I will be testing Lowes warranty policy, but that is another story.

But there is testing to come

Mine are the 750w Dell that are running fast and using heavier gauge wire as well.  I have a few different types of server PSU's and will try to get the data up.  Also, when raising the fan you WILL get lower hash rate, at least that is my experience on the 6-8 miners I tried it on.  Lastly, I did down clock to 325 from the default of 500 and it ran at 3.0 Th on 4 different machines.  Unfortunately my replacement Kill A Watt showed up today and I messed with frequency yesterday but will try and get some data up on that as well.

[kilo17]

Phillip,

Thanks for the great pointers!!  What do you think about the EVGA G2 1300W.

I have 4 EVGA 1300 and 3 EVGA 1200 platinum running avalon 6's currently.  Just messing around I took an extra PCIe from each of the 1300w PSU's and ran a 5th Avalon 6.  It ran for 24 hours and I took it off to not stress out the PSU for no reason.

I think it can be said from this thread and the other Avalon 6 thread that I like to tinker around with the miners settings and PSU's.  Both are rock solid for mining.  As for increased speed and price, the 750w server PSU's are hard to beat.

[RichBC]

Mine are the 750w Dell that are running fast and using heavier gauge wire as well.  I have a few different types of server PSU's and will try to get the data up.  Also, when raising the fan you WILL get lower hash rate, at least that is my experience on the 6-8 miners I tried it on.  Lastly, I did down clock to 325 from the default of 500 and it ran at 3.0 Th on 4 different machines.  Unfortunately my replacement Kill A Watt showed up today and I messed with frequency yesterday but will try and get some data up on that as well.

It would be good to try and understand if the lower hash rate is directly related to setting the fan speed or a consequence because of the resultant lower temperature?


Rich

[J4bberwock]

We have two types of cables 16AWG and 18AWG, we noticed the Avalons have a higher hashrate while using the 16AWG rather than the 18AWG on the same PSU. Our difference was about 100GH depending on the miner. With some miners it didn't matter they always hashed at a high rate, but most of the low rates were fixed by a cable swap.

Most of our miners use the Dell 750W and this is the PSU that we keep in stock.

That's totally normal, and related to the voltage drop according to the resistance of the wires.
On 2 different PCI-E cables, 36" long, one cheap 16 AWG, and one homemade with wires slightly thicker, I noticed 0.4v difference between the cheap cable and the homemade one.

Less voltage at the plug of the miner also means more amps for the same wattage, so more stress on the connectors.

[Elphamyto]

We have two types of cables 16AWG and 18AWG, we noticed the Avalons have a higher hashrate while using the 16AWG rather than the 18AWG on the same PSU. Our difference was about 100GH depending on the miner. With some miners it didn't matter they always hashed at a high rate, but most of the low rates were fixed by a cable swap.

Most of our miners use the Dell 750W and this is the PSU that we keep in stock.

That's totally normal, and related to the voltage drop according to the resistance of the wires.
On 2 different PCI-E cables, 36" long, one cheap 16 AWG, and one homemade with wires slightly thicker, I noticed 0.4v difference between the cheap cable and the homemade one.

Less voltage at the plug of the miner also means more amps for the same wattage, so more stress on the connectors.

I'm curious, are you using 16 AWG 600V wire, or 16 AWG 300V wire? I'm looking at specs from NTE wire, for example, their 16 AWG in 600V wire carries a max of 15 Amps, whereas the 300V wire is 6 Amps max. I've never used heavy-load hookup wire (i.e. 600V wire) before so I'm wondering if this is what you're referring to. Thanks

[philipma1957]

Mine are the 750w Dell that are running fast and using heavier gauge wire as well.  I have a few different types of server PSU's and will try to get the data up.  Also, when raising the fan you WILL get lower hash rate, at least that is my experience on the 6-8 miners I tried it on.  Lastly, I did down clock to 325 from the default of 500 and it ran at 3.0 Th on 4 different machines.  Unfortunately my replacement Kill A Watt showed up today and I messed with frequency yesterday but will try and get some data up on that as well.

It would be good to try and understand if the lower hash rate is directly related to setting the fan speed or a consequence because of the resultant lower temperature?


Rich

yeah so would I

 I get  weird results but I am convinced the software senses  the volts input and no matter what you do on freq it  auto sets the freq that has very low hw's.

I did extensive volt settings with the meanwell and it basically follows the volts

 set volts at 13 it hashes over 4000
set volts at 10 it hashes really low  and the power per gh stays around .28 to .31 watts  a gh

Kind of disappointing and until they change software I am not going to get any more.

I really wanted to do 10 volts   at .2 efficiency

[J4bberwock]

We have two types of cables 16AWG and 18AWG, we noticed the Avalons have a higher hashrate while using the 16AWG rather than the 18AWG on the same PSU. Our difference was about 100GH depending on the miner. With some miners it didn't matter they always hashed at a high rate, but most of the low rates were fixed by a cable swap.

Most of our miners use the Dell 750W and this is the PSU that we keep in stock.

That's totally normal, and related to the voltage drop according to the resistance of the wires.
On 2 different PCI-E cables, 36" long, one cheap 16 AWG, and one homemade with wires slightly thicker, I noticed 0.4v difference between the cheap cable and the homemade one.

Less voltage at the plug of the miner also means more amps for the same wattage, so more stress on the connectors.

I'm curious, are you using 16 AWG 600V wire, or 16 AWG 300V wire? I'm looking at specs from NTE wire, for example, their 16 AWG in 600V wire carries a max of 15 Amps, whereas the 300V wire is 6 Amps max. I've never used heavy-load hookup wire (i.e. 600V wire) before so I'm wondering if this is what you're referring to. Thanks

For my homemade cables, I'm using 1.50mm² cross section wires (16AWG is 1.34mm²), rated 750v, 16A.
My calculator gives less than 3% loss with 1 m long wire at 16A, but anyway, we'll use something closer to 7A max per wire on a 6 pins PCI-E cable, and the standard MiniFit Jr pins are rated 9A, derated to 8A for 6 pins connectors, and in perfect conditions.
That's 288w (12v*3circuits*8A)

That's why the KNC (and others) power connectors are melting when you ask them to supply 300 or 350w.
Even the 45750 high current pins they are asking us to use are derated at 10A for a 6 pins connector.

[sabercatt]

Mine are the 750w Dell that are running fast and using heavier gauge wire as well.  I have a few different types of server PSU's and will try to get the data up.  Also, when raising the fan you WILL get lower hash rate, at least that is my experience on the 6-8 miners I tried it on.  Lastly, I did down clock to 325 from the default of 500 and it ran at 3.0 Th on 4 different machines.  Unfortunately my replacement Kill A Watt showed up today and I messed with frequency yesterday but will try and get some data up on that as well.

It would be good to try and understand if the lower hash rate is directly related to setting the fan speed or a consequence because of the resultant lower temperature?


Rich

yeah so would I

 I get  weird results but I am convinced the software senses  the volts input and no matter what you do on freq it  auto sets the freq that has very low hw's.

I did extensive volt settings with the meanwell and it basically follows the volts

 set volts at 13 it hashes over 4000
set volts at 10 it hashes really low  and the power per gh stays around .28 to .31 watts  a gh

Kind of disappointing and until they change software I am not going to get any more.

I really wanted to do 10 volts   at .2 efficiency

Im curious how you get it to run at over 13 volts. I've played with a couple and they wont give me a green light over 12.5 volts. and that leaves me at 12.2-12.3 under load.

[RichBC]

It would be good to try and understand if the lower hash rate is directly related to setting the fan speed or a consequence because of the resultant lower temperature?


Rich

yeah so would I

 I get  weird results but I am convinced the software senses  the volts input and no matter what you do on freq it  auto sets the freq that has very low hw's.

I did extensive volt settings with the meanwell and it basically follows the volts

 set volts at 13 it hashes over 4000
set volts at 10 it hashes really low  and the power per gh stays around .28 to .31 watts  a gh

Kind of disappointing and until they change software I am not going to get any more.

I really wanted to do 10 volts   at .2 efficiency

Annoying thing is that it's done the hard bit, which to hash at 10V, so the good news it the chips are capable of hashing with 10V/18 = 0.56V on the core. Hopefully future releases of the firmware will fix this as I see no reason why there should not be a significantly improved efficiency?

If not you might have to trick it by feeding 10 Volts to the chips and a higher voltage to wherever the sensing is done? Hopefully it won't come to that.

Rich

[philipma1957]

It would be good to try and understand if the lower hash rate is directly related to setting the fan speed or a consequence because of the resultant lower temperature?


Rich

yeah so would I

 I get  weird results but I am convinced the software senses  the volts input and no matter what you do on freq it  auto sets the freq that has very low hw's.

I did extensive volt settings with the meanwell and it basically follows the volts

 set volts at 13 it hashes over 4000
set volts at 10 it hashes really low  and the power per gh stays around .28 to .31 watts  a gh

Kind of disappointing and until they change software I am not going to get any more.

I really wanted to do 10 volts   at .2 efficiency

Annoying thing is that it's done the hard bit, which to hash at 10V, so the good news it the chips are capable of hashing with 10V/18 = 0.56V on the core. Hopefully future releases of the firmware will fix this as I see no reason why there should not be a significantly improved efficiency?

If not you might have to trick it by feeding 10 Volts to the chips and a higher voltage to wherever the sensing is done? Hopefully it won't come to that.

Rich

well I have been a bit lazy with this I finally set the avalon's on 240 volts right now they are using 2 seasonic 1200 watt plats.

they always run under or at 12 volts. see screenshot

freq 400 fan at 15


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

[hawkfish007]

I will report back on my order but it's confirmed that I should be getting the cable along with the unit.  Also I was told that I would have the standard minimum warranty of up to 90 days.  Can't wait to hear back on your noise test of the Avalon minus the Server PSU, Hawk.

I wish I had something to report back. After getting the cable from Oregonminers, I connected the miner. But the miner won't hash for some reason, Green Led on the miner kept blinking, I added pools, restarted the miner, checked all the cables - nothing seemed to work. I will try again later tonight. Using Bitmain 1600W PSU.

Which image are you using on your controller?  Is it the one from first page here that BlockC made?

I have it hooked up to one working perfect right now.

I am using the image that came with the RPi kit. I will try with the one on the first page shortly.

[hawkfish007]

I will report back on my order but it's confirmed that I should be getting the cable along with the unit.  Also I was told that I would have the standard minimum warranty of up to 90 days.  Can't wait to hear back on your noise test of the Avalon minus the Server PSU, Hawk.

I wish I had something to report back. After getting the cable from Oregonminers, I connected the miner. But the miner won't hash for some reason, Green Led on the miner kept blinking, I added pools, restarted the miner, checked all the cables - nothing seemed to work. I will try again later tonight. Using Bitmain 1600W PSU.

the antminer 1600 psu is a bad choice .

it uses 18 gauge wires not 16 gauge

it is loud so you are tossing away the av 6's lower sound level advantage.

lastly you need a 208 or higher power source for the psu.

and since the av 6 uses 1100 or less watts which allow for it to be run on 120 volts.

you will need a special power source in most usa homes.

@ sound level   question this is not really quiet like the ava 4.1  it does 55db to 58 db unless you downclock it a lot

It's going to a hosting place and will be powered by an IBM 2880W PSU. I was trying to set it up before it goes out in the mail. My power is still too expensive to run A6 or S7 at home for ROI. I do have 240V in my garage, so PSU should work and I measured 12.09-12.10 V at the PCIe end.

Does anybody know what blinking green led on the miner indicates?

[OregonMines.com]

I will report back on my order but it's confirmed that I should be getting the cable along with the unit.  Also I was told that I would have the standard minimum warranty of up to 90 days.  Can't wait to hear back on your noise test of the Avalon minus the Server PSU, Hawk.

I wish I had something to report back. After getting the cable from Oregonminers, I connected the miner. But the miner won't hash for some reason, Green Led on the miner kept blinking, I added pools, restarted the miner, checked all the cables - nothing seemed to work. I will try again later tonight. Using Bitmain 1600W PSU.

the antminer 1600 psu is a bad choice .

it uses 18 gauge wires not 16 gauge

it is loud so you are tossing away the av 6's lower sound level advantage.

lastly you need a 208 or higher power source for the psu.

and since the av 6 uses 1100 or less watts which allow for it to be run on 120 volts.

you will need a special power source in most usa homes.

@ sound level   question this is not really quiet like the ava 4.1  it does 55db to 58 db unless you downclock it a lot

It's going to a hosting place and will be powered by an IBM 2880W PSU. I was trying to set it up before it goes out in the mail. My power is still too expensive to run A6 or S7 at home for ROI. I do have 240V in my garage, so PSU should work and I measured 12.09-12.10 V at the PCIe end.

Does anybody know what blinking green led on the miner indicates?

This should help a bit
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Avalon6

For EC's not listed on the wiki you can use the lookup tool here http://downloads.canaan-creative.com/querystatus.html

Green blinking   Detect fan and mcu

We also noticed that they seem to require a password even if the pool does not, you should always enter something even if its just 1234

[hawkfish007]

I will report back on my order but it's confirmed that I should be getting the cable along with the unit.  Also I was told that I would have the standard minimum warranty of up to 90 days.  Can't wait to hear back on your noise test of the Avalon minus the Server PSU, Hawk.

I wish I had something to report back. After getting the cable from Oregonminers, I connected the miner. But the miner won't hash for some reason, Green Led on the miner kept blinking, I added pools, restarted the miner, checked all the cables - nothing seemed to work. I will try again later tonight. Using Bitmain 1600W PSU.

the antminer 1600 psu is a bad choice .

it uses 18 gauge wires not 16 gauge

it is loud so you are tossing away the av 6's lower sound level advantage.

lastly you need a 208 or higher power source for the psu.

and since the av 6 uses 1100 or less watts which allow for it to be run on 120 volts.

you will need a special power source in most usa homes.

@ sound level   question this is not really quiet like the ava 4.1  it does 55db to 58 db unless you downclock it a lot

It's going to a hosting place and will be powered by an IBM 2880W PSU. I was trying to set it up before it goes out in the mail. My power is still too expensive to run A6 or S7 at home for ROI. I do have 240V in my garage, so PSU should work and I measured 12.09-12.10 V at the PCIe end.

Does anybody know what blinking green led on the miner indicates?

This should help a bit
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Avalon6

Green blinking   Detect fan and mcu

I checked the fan connector, it is ok and the fan spins. Does it mean I received a bad unit? Or, how do I troubleshoot?