Avalon ASIC users thread

[johnyj]

Anyone know what the settings would be for an overlock to 345mhz? I was running these with the Strombom firmware and appeared to get lesser hw errors

I haven't included support for 345

Ok, so I guess strombom had some custom additional modifications in his firmware? In his firmware the 345mhz seems to be the sweet spot for me.

I am currently getting around a 2.3% HW error rate using the (hw/diff1shares+hw formula). Accepted shares 7555, HW 12034. Does this seem to high?

Thanks

I suggest you look at the hashrate reported and ignore the HW error count, as the cgminer driver for avalon doesn't count HW errors as part of the hashrate. That means that if the work is  valid, the hashrate goes up, so that is your ultimate measure of useful work. Even if your HW error count worked out to 5%, if your overall hashrate was higher then you'd be earning more. I don't know if hardware errors themself mean the device is more likely to suffer damage though, since I don't know the voltage relationships, so I can't say...

Can you explain what is "SICK" means in cgminer? I usually had hardware problem with my GPUs after I get SICK in cgminer, and I always got panic when I see this word and "DEAD" 

[Sitarow]

so they should run 350 ok with stock PSU?

Thats what I do  

lasted around 45mins on 350 then machine got SICK..... the pic says ALIVE but before i refreshed it did say SICK

I would never risk running the avalon higher then 325 on any of the stock PSU's not even the 2nd Batch Avalons.

[-ck]

I would never risk running the avalon higher then 325 on any of the stock PSU's not even the 2nd Batch Avalons.

Assuming ~85% efficiency for the PSU, and drawing 700W at the wall, that's only 595W draw, and the 2nd batch avalons have 750W PSUs. Yes I know not all PSUs are created equal, but that's running them at about 80% power draw.

[Bogart]

I modified the crontab to run cgminer-monitor every minute to help mitigate the effect.

say what? how do i do this?

From the shell 'crontab -e' (this runs vi).  Replace the */5 or */2 (varies with firmware version) with */1 to check if cgminer is hung up every minute.

[-ck]

I modified the crontab to run cgminer-monitor every minute to help mitigate the effect.

say what? how do i do this?

From the shell 'crontab -e' (this runs vi).  Replace the */5 or */2 (varies with firmware version) with */1 to check if cgminer is hung up every minute.

This would make it restart cgminer if a pool is down since it takes 1 min of pool downtime for cgminer to declare it dead reliably.

[Bogart]

I modified the crontab to run cgminer-monitor every minute to help mitigate the effect.

say what? how do i do this?

From the shell 'crontab -e' (this runs vi).  Replace the */5 or */2 (varies with firmware version) with */1 to check if cgminer is hung up every minute.

This would make it restart cgminer if a pool is down since it takes 1 min of pool downtime for cgminer to declare it dead reliably.

Actually the cgminer-monitor script needs to be run twice and see the same number of Diff1 shares in order to perform the restart, so it would restart cgminer after it was hung for somewhere between 1 and 2 minutes, but never after less than 1 minute.

[Sitarow]

I would never risk running the avalon higher then 325 on any of the stock PSU's not even the 2nd Batch Avalons.

Assuming ~85% efficiency for the PSU, and drawing 700W at the wall, that's only 595W draw, and the 2nd batch avalons have 750W PSUs. Yes I know not all PSUs are created equal, but that's running them at about 80% power draw.

ckolivas what you say is correct and at 208-240 this becomes a non issue.

However under such power loads I find it prudent to improve power quality (e.g. power factor correction, noise suppression, transient impulse protection, etc.) This can play a huge role on the performance of the overall system.

Such a solution can be expensive for an average user.

Therefor as a precautionary measure I use the following to supplement the avalons performance.

For each Avalon I dedicate a

Cyberpower CP1500O 1500VA UPS Battery Backup Pure Sine Wav,
The Web Power Switch VII and,
PSU Corsair AX860i,

Connected in that order.

This helps to narrow down potential issues when it comes to pushing these devices into out of spec operation.

Edit: I will also note that the hardware I listed above is good for 2 Avalon's running at 300 with no problems. However as I wish to push the Avalon into the unknown territory I am limiting that hardware to 1 Avalon.

[mtbitcoin]

Anyone know what the settings would be for an overlock to 345mhz? I was running these with the Strombom firmware and appeared to get lesser hw errors

I haven't included support for 345

Ok, so I guess strombom had some custom additional modifications in his firmware? In his firmware the 345mhz seems to be the sweet spot for me.

I am currently getting around a 2.3% HW error rate using the (hw/diff1shares+hw formula). Accepted shares 7555, HW 12034. Does this seem to high?

Thanks

I suggest you look at the hashrate reported and ignore the HW error count, as the cgminer driver for avalon doesn't count HW errors as part of the hashrate. That means that if the work is  valid, the hashrate goes up, so that is your ultimate measure of useful work. Even if your HW error count worked out to 5%, if your overall hashrate was higher then you'd be earning more. I don't know if hardware errors themself mean the device is more likely to suffer damage though, since I don't know the voltage relationships, so I can't say...

Thanks Noted.

However I have reverted to the strombom modified firmware because the 345mhz seems to yield the lowest amount of hw errors (0.39%) and about the same hash rate as 350mhz. The only caveat are the fans running at full speed that sound like a mini jet, but I would rather have the fans failed than the slight potential of shortening the life of the chips with an increase HW error rate.

Is there any modification that could be made to lower the speed of the fans (via ssh) or is a full recompile the only way?

[thorvald]

the stromborn version has this values

case "$_cf" in
   256)
      CF="50:256"
      ;;
   270)
      CF="47:270"
      ;;
   282)
      CF="45:282"
      ;;
   300)
      CF="40:300"
      ;;
    305)
        CF="39:305"
        ;;
    310)
        CF="38:310"
        ;;
    315)
        CF="38:315"
        ;;
    320)
        CF="37:320"
        ;;
    325)
        CF="36:325"
        ;;
    330)
        CF="36:330"
        ;;
    335)
        CF="35:335"
        ;;
    340)
        CF="35:340"
        ;;
    345)
        CF="34:345"
        ;;
    350)
        CF="34:350"
        ;;
    355)
        CF="33:355"
        ;;
    360)
        CF="33:360"
        ;;
    365)
        CF="32:365"
        ;;
    370)
        CF="32:370"
        ;;
    375)
        CF="32:375"
        ;;
    380)
        CF="31:380"
        ;;
    385)
        CF="31:385"
        ;;
    390)
        CF="30:390"
        ;;
    395)
        CF="30:395"
        ;;
   esac
my sweet spot is 355 but I have only 2 modules  Avalon V1
I think that the hw rate is dependent on the controller + temp
I had 0,4% increase in hw with 370 but I have already a broken module so 355 is better

[-ck]

Compile. There's no command outside of what the driver does internally to change fanspeed. It's very hard to make some kind of meaningful interface to control that when most users rely on the web UI and changes to that lag far behind any command lines I add. Maybe I can add some command line parameters and you could add them to the "more options" section.

[mtbitcoin]

the stromborn version has this values

case "$_cf" in
   256)
      CF="50:256"
      ;;
   270)
      CF="47:270"
      ;;
   282)
      CF="45:282"
      ;;
   300)
      CF="40:300"
      ;;
    305)
        CF="39:305"
        ;;
    310)
        CF="38:310"
        ;;
    315)
        CF="38:315"
        ;;
    320)
        CF="37:320"
        ;;
    325)
        CF="36:325"
        ;;
    330)
        CF="36:330"
        ;;
    335)
        CF="35:335"
        ;;
    340)
        CF="35:340"
        ;;
    345)
        CF="34:345"
        ;;
    350)
        CF="34:350"
        ;;
    355)
        CF="33:355"
        ;;
    360)
        CF="33:360"
        ;;
    365)
        CF="32:365"
        ;;
    370)
        CF="32:370"
        ;;
    375)
        CF="32:375"
        ;;
    380)
        CF="31:380"
        ;;
    385)
        CF="31:385"
        ;;
    390)
        CF="30:390"
        ;;
    395)
        CF="30:395"
        ;;
   esac
my sweet spot is 355 but I have only 2 modules  Avalon V1
I think that the hw rate is dependent on the controller + temp
I had 0,4% increase in hw with 370 but I have already a broken module so 355 is better

They will not work with the default official firmware if you just insert them inside. Tried and was unable to get some configs, I am assuming the firmware has to support certain speeds like 345, 355, etc

Btw, how did you break a module ?

[loshia]

the stromborn version has this values

case "$_cf" in
   256)
      CF="50:256"
      ;;
   270)
      CF="47:270"
      ;;
   282)
      CF="45:282"
      ;;
   300)
      CF="40:300"
      ;;
    305)
        CF="39:305"
        ;;
    310)
        CF="38:310"
        ;;
    315)
        CF="38:315"
        ;;
    320)
        CF="37:320"
        ;;
    325)
        CF="36:325"
        ;;
    330)
        CF="36:330"
        ;;
    335)
        CF="35:335"
        ;;
    340)
        CF="35:340"
        ;;
    345)
        CF="34:345"
        ;;
    350)
        CF="34:350"
        ;;
    355)
        CF="33:355"
        ;;
    360)
        CF="33:360"
        ;;
    365)
        CF="32:365"
        ;;
    370)
        CF="32:370"
        ;;
    375)
        CF="32:375"
        ;;
    380)
        CF="31:380"
        ;;
    385)
        CF="31:385"
        ;;
    390)
        CF="30:390"
        ;;
    395)
        CF="30:395"
        ;;
   esac
my sweet spot is 355 but I have only 2 modules  Avalon V1
I think that the hw rate is dependent on the controller + temp
I had 0,4% increase in hw with 370 but I have already a broken module so 355 is better

They will not work with the default official firmware if you just insert them inside. Tried and was unable, I am assuming the firmware has to support certain speeds like 345, etc

Of course they will not work. you need to run patched cgminer. strombom could you please post the patch? It will be of great use for some of us

[loshia]

the stromborn version has this values

case "$_cf" in
   256)
      CF="50:256"
      ;;
   270)
      CF="47:270"
      ;;
   282)
      CF="45:282"
      ;;
   300)
      CF="40:300"
      ;;
    305)
        CF="39:305"
        ;;
    310)
        CF="38:310"
        ;;
    315)
        CF="38:315"
        ;;
    320)
        CF="37:320"
        ;;
    325)
        CF="36:325"
        ;;
    330)
        CF="36:330"
        ;;
    335)
        CF="35:335"
        ;;
    340)
        CF="35:340"
        ;;
    345)
        CF="34:345"
        ;;
    350)
        CF="34:350"
        ;;
    355)
        CF="33:355"
        ;;
    360)
        CF="33:360"
        ;;
    365)
        CF="32:365"
        ;;
    370)
        CF="32:370"
        ;;
    375)
        CF="32:375"
        ;;
    380)
        CF="31:380"
        ;;
    385)
        CF="31:385"
        ;;
    390)
        CF="30:390"
        ;;
    395)
        CF="30:395"
        ;;
   esac
my sweet spot is 355 but I have only 2 modules  Avalon V1
I think that the hw rate is dependent on the controller + temp
I had 0,4% increase in hw with 370 but I have already a broken module so 355 is better

They will not work with the default official firmware if you just insert them inside. Tried and was unable to get some configs, I am assuming the firmware has to support certain speeds like 345, 355, etc

Btw, how did you break a module ?

[thorvald]

I had some problems from the start with it
It stopped hashing and I`m trying to fix it.
A solution is near (maybe is better as I did not change the power supply hashing at about 58k up from 47k )

[elasticband]

Anyone know what the settings would be for an overlock to 345mhz? I was running these with the Strombom firmware and appeared to get lesser hw errors

I haven't included support for 345

Ok, so I guess strombom had some custom additional modifications in his firmware? In his firmware the 345mhz seems to be the sweet spot for me.

I am currently getting around a 2.3% HW error rate using the (hw/diff1shares+hw formula). Accepted shares 7555, HW 12034. Does this seem to high?

Thanks

I suggest you look at the hashrate reported and ignore the HW error count, as the cgminer driver for avalon doesn't count HW errors as part of the hashrate. That means that if the work is  valid, the hashrate goes up, so that is your ultimate measure of useful work. Even if your HW error count worked out to 5%, if your overall hashrate was higher then you'd be earning more. I don't know if hardware errors themself mean the device is more likely to suffer damage though, since I don't know the voltage relationships, so I can't say...

Thanks Noted.

However I have reverted to the strombom modified firmware because the 345mhz seems to yield the lowest amount of hw errors (0.39%) and about the same hash rate as 350mhz. The only caveat are the fans running at full speed that sound like a mini jet, but I would rather have the fans failed than the slight potential of shortening the life of the chips with an increase HW error rate.

Is there any modification that could be made to lower the speed of the fans (via ssh) or is a full recompile the only way?

running perfect so far with an uptime of around 2hrs on 345.... cheers for the tip!

[psjw4450]

Whats the easiest way to switch my avalon to using an ethernet cord versus wifi.  I tried following the instructions on the wiki last time and it had locked me out.  Took me almost 4 hours to try and figure out how to get access to the avalon. 

[ProfMac]

Blew my main fuse........ engineer on way, fun times ahead explaining why I pull so much power.....

How much power?

[WinTame2012]

4 avalons 50usb erypters, oven tv, laptop 450w of electrics. ..... the kettle pushed it over the edge

heh kettle is always the last drop 

[Sitarow]

Apparently I am not aloud to pull more than 5kwh

Could it be that the service is inadequate to meet your present needs? Or is it some kind of condo association rule?

[Elokane]

Can Avalons mine on P2Pool yet? I searched the thread and spotted only problems so far.

Has anyone managed to destroy a module yet by overclocking or are there really enough safeguards to disallow this?