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

[MarkAz]

That is correct regarding what I was asking.

Here is the readme from cgminer:

Code:

LOAD BALANCE:
This strategy sends work to all the pools on a quota basis. By default, all
pools are allocated equal quotas unless specified with --quota. This
apportioning of work is based on work handed out, not shares returned so is
independent of difficulty targets or rejected shares. While a pool is disabled
or dead, its quota is dropped until it is re-enabled. Quotas are forward
looking, so if the quota is changed on the fly, it only affects future work.
If all pools are set to zero quota or all pools with quota are dead, it will
fall back to a failover mode. See quota below for more information.

My main objective was to mine at a kano's pool and ck solo pool simultaneously (sharing 50% of the hashes for each pool). So would this be or not be available on the Avalon 6?

Load balance is available - but I'm almost sure it's not simultaneous, it just uses different logic to rotate through which pools it's going to use.  I think the only way to do what you'd like to do is to have two machines, and just point one to each pool.  That being said, unless the pool has some sort of penalty for switching (some do), then it doesn't matter if you are doing all you hash to one, then switching to the other - at the end of the day (literally), it will amount to the same.
 

[nhando]

Got my Avalon 6 Baby on 12.5V right now.  So far so good at 3879GH/s.  Let's hope it remains at that level.  Temp is at 74 / 76C which makes me feel a bit uneasy.  Just raise min FAN speed to 60% to be safe which brought it down to 73/74C.  Either way, my little baby Avalon can now keep up with the big boys!!  It's like getting a free S3.  =)  Not sure how hot it will run in the summer, makes me uneasy that it's running this hot already when my garage is  just at 76F.

[kilo17]

Got my Avalon 6 Baby on 12.5V right now.  So far so good at 3879GH/s.  Let's hope it remains at that level.  Temp is at 74 / 76C which makes me feel a bit uneasy.  Just raise min FAN speed to 60% to be safe which brought it down to 73/74C.  Either way, my little baby Avalon can now keep up with the big boys!!  It's like getting a free S3.  =)  Not sure how hot it will run in the summer, makes me uneasy that it's running this hot already when my garage is  just at 76F.

The engineers of the Avalon designed the miner to run at 75 degrees.  They also designed it to have the fans run at 20%, we had a long discussion about changing the fan speed when it first came out.  I have some miners running in the garage and it is cold outside and they still run at 73-75 degrees.

Having spent a lot of time on the phone with BlockC, I would recommend using the 20% on the fans.

[nhando]

Got my Avalon 6 Baby on 12.5V right now.  So far so good at 3879GH/s.  Let's hope it remains at that level.  Temp is at 74 / 76C which makes me feel a bit uneasy.  Just raise min FAN speed to 60% to be safe which brought it down to 73/74C.  Either way, my little baby Avalon can now keep up with the big boys!!  It's like getting a free S3.  =)  Not sure how hot it will run in the summer, makes me uneasy that it's running this hot already when my garage is  just at 76F.

The engineers of the Avalon designed the miner to run at 75 degrees.  They also designed it to have the fans run at 20%, we had a long discussion about changing the fan speed when it first came out.  I have some miners running in the garage and it is cold outside and they still run at 73-75 degrees.

Having spent a lot of time on the phone with BlockC, I would recommend using the 20% on the fans.

Yeah, I notice the same.  That being said.  They don't have any known issues where you lose internet and cause the box to fry like the S7 or anything right?  Also the PSU is showing 12.52 but the Avalon is showing 12.4.    Going to try and increase it just a tad more so the Avalon will report 12.5 and see if I can squeeze out another 100-150 GH.


Update :  When I get my PSU to 12.65V the Avalon is show 12.5 and intermittently hop back and forth between 12.5 and 12.6.  Hashrate is now show 3947!!!!!!!!!!!  WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!!  However Temp is reaching 77C now.  At what rate do we say it's not safe for long term run?  78,79, 80, 80+?  Ambient Garage temperature is 67F right now.

[MarkAz]

Yeah, I notice the same.  That being said.  They don't have any known issues where you lose internet and cause the box to fry like the S7 or anything right?  Also the PSU is showing 12.52 but the Avalon is showing 12.4.    Going to try and increase it just a tad more so the Avalon will report 12.5 and see if I can squeeze out another 100-150 GH.

I think it's HIGHLY unlikely you'll see a bug similar to the Bitmain bug and internet connectivity.  That's just plain poor engineering - not something that's representative of other miners.   I'm not saying that Avalon couldn't have some sort of burn up bug, but it would more than likely manifest in a different way.  What's even sadder is that it existed in some form on the S7 (when it was discovered on the S5 and could be trivially reproduced).

Update :  When I get my PSU to 12.65V the Avalon is show 12.5 and intermittently hop back and forth between 12.5 and 12.6.  Hashrate is now show 3947!!!!!!!!!!!  WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!!  However Temp is reaching 77C now.  At what rate do we say it's not safe for long term run?  78,79, 80, 80+?

When I first got them I did a bunch of over-temp tests... On the old firmware (back in November), they would just stop mining - unfortunately they wouldn't restart on their own, you'd need to restart CGMiner, but that might have changes and is much more desirable then burning up.  

Since they perform their own thermal management, I suspect it would back off the hash rate if it were getting too hot and the fan was at 100%.  I haven't done any overvolting, but it's unlikely that should change anything, as they should just be monitoring speed and temp.

[nhando]

Thanks Mark.  Will continue monitoring and see how it performs in the Spring when temperature will go above 85 in the garage.

[talks_cheep]

Can anyone tell me where to buy these Avalon A6? I know Zoomhash sells them but their price is too high at $1400 a piece. I can buy Bitmaintech S7 for under a grand these days. Any one know who's selling the A6 around a grand or lower? I'd like to buy 2 or 3 units.

[Rabinovitch]

Can I use Windows or Linux based PC to run cgminer and mine with Avalon6 units?..

[o_solo_miner]

  you have to use OS/2 or Geos....


LOL

[Rabinovitch]

Ok, another question... Have anyone tried to really run 60 avalon6 units connected to one Raspberry Pi? Are all 60 working well in this case?

[HerbPean]

Ok, another question... Have anyone tried to really run 60 avalon6 units connected to one Raspberry Pi? Are all 60 working well in this case?

Maybe @kilo17 can answer this.

[pikachuy]

I am using

601510-afa837a0

with the stock sdcard kilo17 sent to me
good results I am downvolting today 11.75 volts  at freq 500 and fan 20

very quiet at these settings
and good eff about .3 watts a gh

Thanks philipma1957, I listened to your advice with downvoting it to 11.75 volts and also hashing around 3Th/s and it is very quiet indeed. Almost like I need to get close and pay attention to really hear it. I will sacrifice the 800Ghs when overvolting it to 12.55 for that peace of mind, since it's going be indoors.

Now, I just need to figure out a way to make my HP DPS-1200FB Power Supply more silent now, since it is louder than the Avalon 6 now  .

Wonder if it'll be safe to just remove the PSU fan and PSU case and let it run in the open and place it infront of the Avalon 6 fan to get constant air blowing at it... lol

[philipma1957]

Can anyone tell me where to buy these Avalon A6? I know Zoomhash sells them but their price is too high at $1400 a piece. I can buy Bitmaintech S7 for under a grand these days. Any one know who's selling the A6 around a grand or lower? I'd like to buy 2 or 3 units.

not 1000

maybe 1100

read below

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1318003.0


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1318003.msg13554900#msg13554900

  kilo17 will handle orders this time

[notlist3d]

Can anyone tell me where to buy these Avalon A6? I know Zoomhash sells them but their price is too high at $1400 a piece. I can buy Bitmaintech S7 for under a grand these days. Any one know who's selling the A6 around a grand or lower? I'd like to buy 2 or 3 units.

not 1000

maybe 1100

read below

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1318003.0


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1318003.msg13554900#msg13554900

  kilo17 will handle orders this time

I would agree you wont currently find A6's for 1000 or less.   Maybe if you were a massive buyer, but that is just speculation.  Realistically the cheapest is 1100 Phil mentioned.

Is zoomhash high?  Yes they are they buy machines and sell them as a reseller so likely they will always be above current price of mining companies (unless they buy a big amount).   

They really are good machines but purchasing 3 best you can wish for is the group buy mentioned for 1100 currently.

[kilo17]

Ok, another question... Have anyone tried to really run 60 avalon6 units connected to one Raspberry Pi? Are all 60 working well in this case?

There is/was a section on the Avalon Wiki that showed there can be some issues when running that many, I personally have had 18 on one RasPi and it works well.  The only issues I have seen is that when pools restart or a miner goes down then Cgminer needs to be restarted until all off the units show up, sometimes that isn't easy because 1-2 will lag and will show up on the bottom of the page but the hashing doesn't show up pool side.

I currently run about 5 so that I don't mess with those issues and also so that if a RasPi goes down I am not losing 15-20 rigs until I fix it but only a handful

[Rabinovitch]

I personally have had 18 on one RasPi and it works well.

Was these 18 units connected in chain, one by one?

Here is one Chinese picture offering to connect miners to RaspberryPi using USB hub:

[MarkAz]

Was these 18 units connected in chain, one by one?

Here is one Chinese picture offering to connect miners to RaspberryPi using USB hub:

Interesting, I hadn't seen that in practice, but I remember the BlockC guys saying something like that was possible.  I currently run 8 per Pi, but when I was first fiddling with them, I brought up one whole rack with one Pi, so that's 32 A6's all in series.

I suspect the number 6 is ideal, as I have the same issue he outlined, that sometimes units take a while to come online or drop periodically for no apparent reason (nothing major enough to make me look into it).  But I have a couple machines running with just 2 A6's and 4 A6's, and I don't think I've ever seen them exhibit the same issue.

[notlist3d]

Was these 18 units connected in chain, one by one?

Here is one Chinese picture offering to connect miners to RaspberryPi using USB hub:

Interesting, I hadn't seen that in practice, but I remember the BlockC guys saying something like that was possible.  I currently run 8 per Pi, but when I was first fiddling with them, I brought up one whole rack with one Pi, so that's 32 A6's all in series.

I suspect the number 6 is ideal, as I have the same issue he outlined, that sometimes units take a while to come online or drop periodically for no apparent reason (nothing major enough to make me look into it).  But I have a couple machines running with just 2 A6's and 4 A6's, and I don't think I've ever seen them exhibit the same issue.

Thanks for sharing diagram first time I have seen it.  Still very interesting how expandable they are with using RPI as controller.   I would love to see one using 60 set up on one.  I have had good luck with my two on reliability.

I really wish all miners would use RPI's as controllers really does work well.  It's one pro I see with Avalon 6 over some other designs. 

[BTC_ISTANBUL]

If you compare price/quality ratio, would you prefer Avalon6 over Bitmain S7?

[notlist3d]

If you compare price/quality ratio, would you prefer Avalon6 over Bitmain S7?

I will admit to owning both.  I think each have different attributes that might make them better for some situations.   I see sound and voltage as two things that might make some decide.

If you are going to put it in a area you use the Avalon 6 is much quieter.  I slept with it in my room for some of testing, it was not a issue for me.  S7 is a louder machine stock.  Yes you can do mod's that are out there and use certain material or builds to quiet it.   But if sound is a issue Avalon 6 is the easier one.

110/120 if you are living on Avalon 6 I think is easier due to the amount of ATX psu's that will run with it and only needing 4 PCIe cables.  S7 the recommended psu is not going be to running on 110/120.  If you have 220/240 it really opens the door to a lot of great server PSU's that can do 10 PCIe without spending 400 dollars on a EVGA 1600 on ATX.   (And I don't like using different PSU's some have no issue with it).

So those are things to consider.  What will likely be the deciding factor is price in a lot of cases.  And the S7 design pricing seems to be it's biggest plus which I admit is a big factor.  And that is a ever changing thing that the anwser will change.