Avalon ASIC users thread

[NiteShdw]

Sounds good to me, performance looks awesome already but some more reliability would be even more important.

I will admit flashing it sounds a little scary. If I brick it it's all over.

It sounds scary, but I've done it twice on three different ones and it was fine.

[elasticband]

i've done it more times than i could count... thought i bricked one once but a quick hard reboot solved it all

[craslovell]

i've done it more times than i could count... thought i bricked one once but a quick hard reboot solved it all

Isn't rebooting during a flash pretty much the worst possible idea? 

I've done this a million times on server hardware. Never with an ASIC. The downtime in case of an issue and probable lack of being able to return it is what scares me.

[GenTarkin]

i've done it more times than i could count... thought i bricked one once but a quick hard reboot solved it all

Isn't rebooting during a flash pretty much the worst possible idea? 

I've done this a million times on server hardware. Never with an ASIC. The downtime in case of an issue and probable lack of being able to return it is what scares me.

All you are flashing is the router really =) nothing else. It should be fine, I doubt it has a very high failure rate... I havent heard of any known flashing failures on avalon, under normal conditions.
But yeah, its just like flashing a mobo, same chances of failing I suppose... which over my PC career seems to be 1% of flashes I do, something breaks =P

[allinvain]

i've done it more times than i could count... thought i bricked one once but a quick hard reboot solved it all

Isn't rebooting during a flash pretty much the worst possible idea? 

I've done this a million times on server hardware. Never with an ASIC. The downtime in case of an issue and probable lack of being able to return it is what scares me.

All you are flashing is the router really =) nothing else. It should be fine, I doubt it has a very high failure rate... I havent heard of any known flashing failures on avalon, under normal conditions.
But yeah, its just like flashing a mobo, same chances of failing I suppose... which over my PC career seems to be 1% of flashes I do, something breaks =P

It actually happened to me. The reality is that the TPLINK routers in these things are not 100% perfect and some of them will have some minor failures and defects. So, in the rare event that this happens to you I STRONGLY suggest you get yourself a Raspberry Pi as a backup mining device.

[crazyearner]

Problems mining on a pool is this cgminer problem within unit or is this problem on their side on the pool

The shares you sent have been looking like this:
020000005e4757cdbd7b756ceac436c46fe3ba6d9f532adaca8541c3beba010000000000246cf2c 7800231d5d50c5a7c9241e7465fb2085346478a4b95c70a34d43fec20daa1dc518db6011b70523f dc80000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000280

I think your miner messed up formatting the shares from mining to results.

it seems that it puts the result at the beginning

correct form should be:
result of the hash:
020000005e4757cdbd7b756ceac436c46fe3ba6d9f532adaca8541c3beba01
data sent to pool
0000000000246cf2c7800231d5d50c5a7c9241e7465fb2085346478a4b95c70a34d43fec20daa1d c518db6011b70523fdc800000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000280

Is this a bug to be fixed? or something to do with cgminer or something to do on their side on the pool ?

[craslovell]

After flashing to the July update, my HW errors went from 3ish percent to now 30%. I'm thinking I will revert...

[GenTarkin]

After flashing to the July update, my HW errors went from 3ish percent to now 30%. I'm thinking I will revert...

That makes no sense =/

[-ck]

After flashing to the July update, my HW errors went from 3ish percent to now 30%. I'm thinking I will revert...

That makes no sense =/

He's doing the usual and counting against accepted shares instead of diff1shares.

[SolarSilver]

After flashing to the July update, my HW errors went from 3ish percent to now 30%. I'm thinking I will revert...

How are you calculating this?

The correct formula to calculate HW% (with cgminer fieldnames) is: 100 * HW / (diff1shares + HW)

[NiteShdw]

Does anyone have any tips for getting the side panel back on?  I just spent like an hour trying to get all the screws to line up, stay in place, and tighten up.  I still have 3 that screwed in all sideways and I can't get to straighten out.

I had the panel off because the top fan was making a racket.  I put in a cable tie to hold back all the cables away of the fan. There was also an extra nut bouncing around in the case (must have been dropped in during assembly).  Everything's working great now but man those screws are a royal pain.

[BenTuras]

Does anyone have any tips for getting the side panel back on?  I just spent like an hour trying to get all the screws to line up, stay in place, and tighten up.  I still have 3 that screwed in all sideways and I can't get to straighten out.

I had the panel off because the top fan was making a racket.  I put in a cable tie to hold back all the cables away of the fan. There was also an extra nut bouncing around in the case (must have been dropped in during assembly).  Everything's working great now but man those screws are a royal pain.

Cut little pieces of foam and put it under all nuts before putting on the lid. Remove them when you're done.

[GenTarkin]

Will the avy turn on & run if it doesnt detect PWM fans installed? Im considering a couple high end delta fans like:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835213001

Which utilize good ol fashion molex for power + 3 pin for RPM sensing. Will the avy work fine w/ one of these or does it require PWM fans to run?

[cypherdoc]

i've done it more times than i could count... thought i bricked one once but a quick hard reboot solved it all

Isn't rebooting during a flash pretty much the worst possible idea? 

I've done this a million times on server hardware. Never with an ASIC. The downtime in case of an issue and probable lack of being able to return it is what scares me.

All you are flashing is the router really =) nothing else. It should be fine, I doubt it has a very high failure rate... I havent heard of any known flashing failures on avalon, under normal conditions.
But yeah, its just like flashing a mobo, same chances of failing I suppose... which over my PC career seems to be 1% of flashes I do, something breaks =P

It actually happened to me. The reality is that the TPLINK routers in these things are not 100% perfect and some of them will have some minor failures and defects. So, in the rare event that this happens to you I STRONGLY suggest you get yourself a Raspberry Pi as a backup mining device.

Can you explain a bit more on how you'd set this up with the pi?

[phoenikx]

Is there anyone who tried except with watercooling to mod their unit to be less noisy? Maybe like try other fans or such? The noise is driving my kids crazy and I didn't think they could get crazier. Proofed me wrong...  

[riX]

Does anyone have any tips for getting the side panel back on?  I just spent like an hour trying to get all the screws to line up, stay in place, and tighten up.  I still have 3 that screwed in all sideways and I can't get to straighten out.

I had the panel off because the top fan was making a racket.  I put in a cable tie to hold back all the cables away of the fan. There was also an extra nut bouncing around in the case (must have been dropped in during assembly).  Everything's working great now but man those screws are a royal pain.

I put a strip of tape on both sides of the "nuts" or whatever they are to hold them in place, worked great. I tried to do it without first too, it's not fun when the last one falls in..

[riX]

Is there anyone who tried except with watercooling to mod their unit to be less noisy? Maybe like try other fans or such? The noise is driving my kids crazy and I didn't think they could get crazier. Proofed me wrong...  

Try setting the clock frequency to auto and the fanspeed to a lower fixed value, might work depending on ambient temp etc.

[farproc]

Just curious. Does anyone successfully mine on p2pool with his avalon?

I tried the newest firmware and the newest p2pool, but failed totally. Searched but no affirmatory.

The http://p2pool.info/ active user list shows few in range of 66GH/s(stock 3-module)  to 112GH/s(overclocked 4-module).

[Soros Shorts]

Is there anyone who tried except with watercooling to mod their unit to be less noisy? Maybe like try other fans or such? The noise is driving my kids crazy and I didn't think they could get crazier. Proofed me wrong...  

My batch 2 unit was definitely noisier than my batch 1. It seems to me like my batch 1 unit was dissipating a lot more heat through the bottom aluminum plate of the case, thus requiring less work from the fans. The bottom of the batch 2 case was a little warm whereas the batch 1 case was almost too hot to touch.

The batch 2 heat sink is of a different design and has small ridges on the surface that mates with the case. This reduces thermal dissipation through the bottom of the case.

I made my batch 2 unit a little quieter by applying Arctic Ceramique 2 between the heat sinks and the case. I needed 3 x 2.5g tubes - one per hasher.

Edit: I used Ceramque because it is non-conductive. It is easy to make a mess while screwing the heat sinks back to the case because the holes are not easy to align.

[zoro]

latest firmware with batch1 external PSU 1200W
50Celsius with 340-360MHz stable for 3 days now:)
thanks ckolivas (donation on your way)