Hacking KNC Titan / Jupiter / Neptune miners back to life. Why not?

[lightfoot]

Another control board, this one is a bit of a doozey. First, the beaglebone does not appear to be booting. The power light comes on, but the 4 LEDs on the left side do not do their little light show. Second I can see that the TPS chip is out of action as well, probably another short in the voltage lines.

So it's off to the bench after lunch to take a look into both of the issues. I'd like to get the BB fixed first if I can, then take a look at the rest of the board.

[lightfoot]

Just updated the FAQ post (post 2) with more stuff on identifying what's wrong and fixing the beaglebones. Back to work...

[adaseb]

I got a few of these old Jupiters with dead dies or dead VRMS and they only run at 50% or 75% capacity like so.

Anyway to fix this?

[lightfoot]

Try reflowing the chips. The problem is the chip overheated underneath and melted the solder so that the fpga can't communicate with the chip's hashing engines. Question: Is there any burned marks on the bottom of the circuit board?

[adaseb]

Try reflowing the chips. The problem is the chip overheated underneath and melted the solder so that the fpga can't communicate with the chip's hashing engines. Question: Is there any burned marks on the bottom of the circuit board?

You sure this is a problem with the ASIC chip and not the VRMS?
2 of them seem dead because I put my finger on them and they are cold, the other 2 are lightning hot.

[Searing]

Quick thought: I don't see how. My older Rpi has a completely different gender on the pins to the Neptune board (the pins from board to BB are male to female on the BB. My Pi has male header pins). So to start with an adapter would need to be made, you can't just plug a Pi into a Neptune board.

That said, anyone have a confirmed picture of a Titan board with the Rpi off?

a guy on the Swedish ASIC thread has made such a bridge to compensate for that..he made 10 he has 3 bad bridges on some titans the other 7 are to cover his costs

there is talk on that thread on IF you took a pi the above cloned adapter and plug'd it into a neptune board 6 port card using the pi with that bridge..
...if viola it was a titan with the firmware on sd etc..you'd have a titan controller board

if you got a working Neptune board contact me I can point you the links etc.....or whatever..he may be crazy enough to let you try a bridge and see if it works


you guys would make a lot more coin on revamping Neptune boards to Titan boards.. if that was the case...it may even work on Nov and Oct jupiter 6 port boards...but I'd test it with
a neppie board first..in that is most current version before Titan came out.

the thoughts are KNC being LAZY likely DID NOT change the 6 port board (thus the bridge and the pi and the firmware) but someone has to be 'crazy' enough to plug this in and see what is what ..not a lot of titan folk want to do that now ..making yet 400 bucks a month on LTC say per titan...so ie NO BALLS moment for most of us...

anyway let me know or not...but it is a match made in heaven....you have revamped Neptune boards he has a bridge....i have (or everyone) has a 512mb rasp B+ PI....do the
SD firmware to titan ...

1st step would simply be board/bridge/pi and titan firmware and say (i have a spare lcd) and turn it on and see if the LCD comes up correct and the GUI comes up as Titan correct
when you IP in ...just shows no cubes

then the 'balls to the wall moment" at that point would be to plug a titan cube in (anyone have  bad 1 die only works piece of crap won't run for more then 1 hr to sacrifice to the asic gods...would not have to even be stable....just say long enough to show proof of concept....

anyway the train of thought......out of the box thinking that has gone on over at the Swedish ASIC KNC thread

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=170332.0

I SUPPOSE you could just pin out with wires directly w/o the daughter board and see if it works also ..not using a bridge say daughterboard...JUST spagetti wire it according to
how the pi plugs in thru the bridge...but that is way beyond me or others me thinks..best just to get the cloned bridge to test with

anyway ...the 'speculation' on such in the above thread

anyway that is the bet....knc being lazy changed zip on the 6 port board and it is all on the SD and firmware software and the pi vs bbb etc...the bottom 6 port boards are the same

and if you REALLY want to go conspiracy theory on the above...KNC was pulling Jupiters out of their farm 5 months before the Titan came out and was putting in Neptunes..wanna bet if this works these boards are all USED Nov KNC Jupiter boards from such a pull .....(again I'm jaded ..knc is evil) it would explain much on the 'stall' to get Titans out the door ...ie they were 4 months late more or less

anwyay...stuff to ponder

I got a few of these old Jupiters with dead dies or dead VRMS and they only run at 50% or 75% capacity like so.

Anyway to fix this?

well hell for me I'd just get working cube boards off ebay for 39 bucks .and just replace.....but me I'm lazy

[lightfoot]

The fact that the DC-DC converters are showing voltage means they are probably working. If they were shorted you would see 0 volts on that die. My guess is nothing is pulling power from those particular ones, that's why they are cold.

Ergo, chip problem. You can try a low frequency on those dies, see if they respond to that.

[lightfoot]

Searing:

I'm pretty positive a Rpi plus bridge board can work on either a Neptune or Jupiter (late) board. There are several people running the earlier jupiter boards (4 connectors instead of 6, dual LED thingie, etc) with Titans for it to be some sort of really magical thing on the actual FPGA equipped board. KNC just isn't that "make changes to something that sort of works"...

So the fun part is "what do you *NEED* in a bridge board?" If we take out fluff like "light status LEDs" and "control the on-board fan plug" and frippery like that you're down to the essentials. Which might just be power for the board (5v) and spi signal to the fpga and the TPS chip. Maybe serial lines to program the FPGA, not sure about that.

If anyone wants to pull their bridgeboard and take detailed pics and post them I might be able to figure most of it out.

I have a gen 1 Rpi sitting here that I used to use as a bitcoin controller, I'd be happy to see if it reflashes with the KNC code set. If so I would then be fine with building a helliacious set of jumpers to see if I can get the fpga loaded and TPS powered up.....

In the meantime working on a few things with a couple of systems in transit. One is a Neptune board, fails TPS powerup, pulled bad cap and the TPS chip, will put a new one on as soon as the next shipment arrives. It also has a bad beagle-bone (failed from another board) but to be honest beagle-bones are $50 bucks tops and not worth fixing. Odd though that this one fires up the 3.3v supply on the board, so it's not a power issue and seems to pull 120ma so something is there. Just will not boot or run any of the 4 status lights.

[Searing]

Searing:

I'm pretty positive a Rpi plus bridge board can work on either a Neptune or Jupiter (late) board. There are several people running the earlier jupiter boards (4 connectors instead of 6, dual LED thingie, etc) with Titans for it to be some sort of really magical thing on the actual FPGA equipped board. KNC just isn't that "make changes to something that sort of works"...

So the fun part is "what do you *NEED* in a bridge board?" If we take out fluff like "light status LEDs" and "control the on-board fan plug" and frippery like that you're down to the essentials. Which might just be power for the board (5v) and spi signal to the fpga and the TPS chip. Maybe serial lines to program the FPGA, not sure about that.

If anyone wants to pull their bridgeboard and take detailed pics and post them I might be able to figure most of it out.

I have a gen 1 Rpi sitting here that I used to use as a bitcoin controller, I'd be happy to see if it reflashes with the KNC code set. If so I would then be fine with building a helliacious set of jumpers to see if I can get the fpga loaded and TPS powered up.....

In the meantime working on a few things with a couple of systems in transit. One is a Neptune board, fails TPS powerup, pulled bad cap and the TPS chip, will put a new one on as soon as the next shipment arrives. It also has a bad beagle-bone (failed from another board) but to be honest beagle-bones are $50 bucks tops and not worth fixing. Odd though that this one fires up the 3.3v supply on the board, so it's not a power issue and seems to pull 120ma so something is there. Just will not boot or run any of the 4 status lights.

hopefully this helps...how to do such with wires rather then a daughter board (don't have mine yet so no clone board no pics so is is)

The questions I ask and the thread starts here.....the guys involved are who you should ask on this ...there likely IS a work around ..but all that was way above my understanding

link below..should give you a good start on this

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=170332.msg13181015#msg13181015

again if NOTHING else ...wired up in a manner w/o the bridge board..with a pi ..with the titan sd firmware and with say an lcd on the board YOU SHOULD at least tell

by the LCD and the GUI if it ACTS like it is gonna work or not w/o sacrificing a 'titan cube' yet (ie golden goose eggs so to speak).....so hell with a 'revamped' neptune board

not a lot of risk...likely if it did not work it would just pretend it was a 'brick' anyway

anyway start at that link and scroll down to replies......way to technical for me but what you may be looking for as a contact on this idea


edit: a sidenote but cute project Indiegogo :Tixie BTC Ticker thingy...I got one of these on order ..a combo clock/btc ticker/temp etc (see video) the 1st 50 get for $69 ( plus $10 buck shipping to USA) a bitcoin labeled usb stick and a T-shirt and the device..anyway just thought people may be interested started a thread here and links etc
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1313405.0 its off topic I know but damn it is kinda cool

[lightfoot]

Just got the first Titan controller boards in for repair, this is the status:

Board 1: Shorted cap took out the high side FET in the TPS. Will replace chip.
Board 2: Different: Powering the board causes the TPS chip to get *hot* to the touch. Trying to read status gets me the following:

TPS65217 error: Bad ID 0xFFFFFFFF
TPS65217 TEST failure

I think the whole chip is shot. Will replace chip.

Next up: Wait for parts delivery.

[hawkfish007]

Can this be fixed? If you increase MHz any greater than 275 and 225 of the first two dies, the cube becomes unstable. If it is fixable, I have a couple like this which I can send for repair.

[lightfoot]

At this point I don't know, haven't seen that in a Neptune and not enough Titan data points. But a question: How much performance would you gain vs. the downtime?

[lightfoot]

While waiting for the parts (got a number of boards here, so I overnighted some more chips) I figured I would think about the whole Titan/Neptune/Pi/BeagleBone thing and I'm wondering if I can control a Titan with a BB board. Maybe, maybe not.

What I do have is a first generation Rpi board which I loaded the 2.0 firmware on. Oddly enough it boots, but seems to shut itself down and reboot after a few minutes. My guess is it's got a daemon trying to find something on the board and throwing a reboot when not found. First step is to find that daemon and kill it, then look at all of the scripts.

Edit: Heh. I'm good.

Now for the fun: This thing seems to have all the code for how to build the libs and a very nice file called
-rw-rw-r--. 1 pi pi 341359 Feb 27  2015 spimux.rbf
-rw-rw-r--. 1 pi pi 352743 Feb 27  2015 spimux-titan.rbf

Ok, so we have the spimux-titan file. And a bunch of goodies. I think I'm going to try and port this mess.

[lightfoot]

Hm. Looks like the waas command is similar, I wonder if it can support a titan:

const char *get_str_from_board_type(brd_type_t brd_type)
{
        switch (brd_type) {
        case ASIC_BOARD_TITAN:
                return brdtypestr_TITAN_ERICSSON;
        case ASIC_BOARD_NEPTUNE:
                return brdtypestr_NEPTUNE_ERICSSON;
        case ASIC_BOARD_JUPITER_REVB:
                return brdtypestr_JUPITER_REVB;
        case ASIC_BOARD_JUPITER_ERICSSON:
                return brdtypestr_JUPITER_ERICSSON;
        case ASIC_BOARD_JUPITER_REVA:
                return brdtypestr_JUPITER_REVA;
        default:
                return "";
        }
}

[hawkfish007]

At this point I don't know, haven't seen that in a Neptune and not enough Titan data points. But a question: How much performance would you gain vs. the downtime?

This one is probably ok, but 1 have 2 cubes w/ 2 dies each that won't stay stable even at 100 MHz. If you find a way to fix it, let me know.

[lightfoot]

At this point I don't know, haven't seen that in a Neptune and not enough Titan data points. But a question: How much performance would you gain vs. the downtime?

This one is probably ok, but 1 have 2 cubes w/ 2 dies each that won't stay stable even at 100 MHz. If you find a way to fix it, let me know.

What do you mean by "unstable"? What does it do/not do? Has it ever been hot clocked, run hard, filled with hay and insects (oh ask, do ask :-)?

C

[Searing]

Can this be fixed? If you increase MHz any greater than 275 and 225 of the first two dies, the cube becomes unstable. If it is fixable, I have a couple like this which I can send for repair.

Well anyway I have a Titan so not sure if symptoms are the same as the above but here goes......

I have a cube with the same symptoms but 225 and 250 on 2 dies as well. Again mine is a Titan cube....

For me I can seem to run them higher and they do get unstable..but the heat goes up.....I assumed? that it was just in need after running for 15 months straight the mods
posted on here by the swedish guy (links below) and have ordered from ebay and amazon the parts to re-paste the cube and put on the heat sinks and put the better fan on.

I have not got to it yet......(being paranoid with these Titans is prudent ..they are 'evil' they will try to 'brick themselves' on any opportunity at all )

Be sure to also note the comment area below for his info on where and what kind of parts/paste/fans he got for this ....I found equiv (fans) and (paste) on ebay..the heat
sinks I got 2 sets (1 extra for further projects) from the site he mentioned (the tall buggers)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-RBI4am-wY Swedish Video I'd watch 1st more complete better video of parts..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G_zcJ0vbOw English Version

So is my 'theory' correct? If not I await what I should do for a fix along with the above posting fellow above (Hawkfish007)

Anyway others? Your thoughts everyone? (Again have NOT done the mod above yet the 're-paste' but got the stuff in case it all goes further down hill quick....

By the way the above swedish guys video is better on seeing what is going on in the swedish version above FYI then the 2nd link his English video....also more

details on the heat sink mod on the 1st swedish video ( you get to use a HACKSAW)...heh....and no wonder I'm stalling on this 'tweaking of titan cubes'

anyway you are not alone ...same thing with the Titan cube I have

[hawkfish007]

At this point I don't know, haven't seen that in a Neptune and not enough Titan data points. But a question: How much performance would you gain vs. the downtime?

This one is probably ok, but 1 have 2 cubes w/ 2 dies each that won't stay stable even at 100 MHz. If you find a way to fix it, let me know.

What do you mean by "unstable"? What does it do/not do? Has it ever been hot clocked, run hard, filled with hay and insects (oh ask, do ask :-)?

C

lol, no visible insect attacks or droppings. If I set the frequency any higher than 100 MHz, current (A) goes up to roof to 50. Internal failsafe mechanism kicks in (supposedly modules are rated 40 A) and turns off the cube, after a moment it tries to turn the cube back on. Hence constant off and on. Temp stays below 80 or 85 all the time.

[lightfoot]

Hm. Weird. Now the Titan chips have a lot more junk on them than the Neptunes (Titans have memory, processors, stuff while Neptunes are barrel rollers all the way) so I wonder if overheating would damage those sorts of things instead of just knocking down some hashing engines.

That said, how does the cube turn off? Does the fan stop and everything, or does it just restart the power supplies? Haven't seen that on a Neptune yet (is this Tarkin's software build)?

[jelin1984]

How we can wake up
Some dead die. At Titan cubeL