[Guide] Dogie's Comprehensive ASICMiner Blade Setup

[vesperwillow]

Vlad, if you can't even reach the NIC, I wouldn't worry about the PSU being a big problem at the second. The NIC should still respond to your requests. I would do a hardware reset on the blade, short jumpers 2-3 on the NIC (it'll say hardware reset or something like that). You'll know it's reset when you get brigh green LED flashes.

Run a network cable from the blade through a switch/router/etc which is also on a 192.168.1.x/255.255.255.0 network, and make sure your computer is also on the same network subnet. Wait like 10 seconds, try to hit the blade's web interface. This SHOULD work even if your PSU sucks donkey ass.

If it doesn't, try swapping the NIC of the blade with another blade's NIC (if you have another). Otherwise, contact friedcat.

Also, just to be safe, bind all of the yellow wires you have coming out of that PSU, and all of the black ones, and run them to the blade. This will help overcome the 22ga wiring. I would suggest at least 4 of each.

[LarryFossil]

Question: Is there any way to physically determine if the chips are bad? I can digitally see I have 3 x's in a row and want to make sure the chips are not bad. If they aren't bad, then its my PSU. I have two chips running exactly same config using a 350W 12V rail / 12amps per rail. So if the new blades are already OC'd, then each module should have 1.2V and also have 12V at the power module of the ASIC board. Only thing different is one has 3 x's & the other has O's across the board.

Pictures:
Board 1: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1q6q3jtgualykbf/253Config_1.jpg (10.6v @ ASIC pwr Adapter)

Board 2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/s74yxlfncwfi2ft/254Config_1.jpg (10.6v @ ASIC pwr Adapter)

Note: Voltage verifed with cheapo multimeter / voltmeter

Possibilities:

Crappy PSU
Wiring could be more efficient. Possibly use another rail for fans / cooling. (currently have 1 rail for 120mm, ASIC board, & 1 5-12V 60mm fan)
Bad chips on the ASIC board.... There use to be 4 X's, but when i moved the rig, somehow it changed it from 4 - 3 X's...<--- Why I think its a power issue, rather than a broken chip..

[mountainjam]

Having some issues with my 3 new blades.
Have them set to connect to 2 IPs on my network running stratum proxies.  I've set the proxies to connect to both slush's pool and btcguild but they're still having this issue.

For a little while yesterday all 3 blades were running great at 10.7ghash each.  At this point, however, they display much lower hashes from 4-7 k and are not returning a large amount of shares after receiving them.

When I monitor my stratum proxies, it appears that the blades go on with their work, then at a random time after asking for work or submitting a share, the miner pauses, quits, and connects to the other pool in its config for no apparent reason.  The miners keep doing this and keep switching between the 2 IPs I have in their configs.  Apparently, they work for a little while on one computer's stratum proxy, stop sending back shares, then connect to the other computer's stratum proxy and repeat the process.  

Another weird thing is that when I set the miners to connect to one proxy by repeating the IP address in their config, they don't really work at all.  They appear to receive 8 shares then don't really do anything for a few minutes then reset.  Once I specify 2 different pool addresses in the config, the miners properly connect and begin to do work.

Not sure what is going on here, wondering if anyone could give some advice?


Edit: After reading vesperwillow's post from yesterday, it sounds like we could maybe be having the same issue?

[Vl4dim1r]

Its the Rev 2 board, so integrated NIC. I just bought a new PSU, I can use the 6pin PCIe power right? What about the 4-8pin CPU power? Its 600W, 2 x 12v rails at 18A and 16A, 18ga wire. Does the hardware reset need to be done with power on? The reason I ask is that I've bricked a desktop mobo resetting its CMOS while powered (early days of PC building), and I don't know if this is the same.

[LarryFossil]

Having some issues with my 3 new blades.
Have them set to connect to 2 IPs on my network running stratum proxies.  I've set the proxies to connect to both slush's pool and btcguild but they're still having this issue.

For a little while yesterday all 3 blades were running great at 10.7ghash each.  At this point, however, they display much lower hashes from 4-7 k and are not returning a large amount of shares after receiving them.

When I monitor my stratum proxies, it appears that the blades go on with their work, then at a random time after asking for work or submitting a share, the miner pauses, quits, and connects to the other pool in its config for no apparent reason.  The miners keep doing this and keep switching between the 2 IPs I have in their configs.  Apparently, they work for a little while on one computer's stratum proxy, stop sending back shares, then connect to the other computer's stratum proxy and repeat the process.  

Another weird thing is that when I set the miners to connect to one proxy by repeating the IP address in their config, they don't really work at all.  They appear to receive 8 shares then don't really do anything for a few minutes then reset.  Once I specify 2 different pool addresses in the config, the miners properly connect and begin to do work.

Not sure what is going on here, wondering if anyone could give some advice?


Edit: After reading vesperwillow's post from yesterday, it sounds like we could maybe be having the same issue?

 Mountain, Please add some pictures to aid in understanding what you mean please. Pictures are worth more than a 1,000 words =P

Please post some pictures of your config menu when you are connected.

Also, are you using two different IP's on each blade? or are you using 1 specific proxy for each individual blade? For example:

example.worker:password,example.worker:password

or is it like this for one blade: ?

example.worker:password,example.worker2:password

Its the Rev 2 board, so integrated NIC. I just bought a new PSU, I can use the 6pin PCIe power right? What about the 4-8pin CPU power? Its 600W, 2 x 12v rails at 18A and 16A, 18ga wire. Does the hardware reset need to be done with power on? The reason I ask is that I've bricked a desktop mobo resetting its CMOS while powered (early days of PC building), and I don't know if this is the same.

Vlad, No. I didn't need to touch the reset pins at all, unless you are actually trying to reset them by "shorting" them out by applying some conductive material across 1-2pin(reset) 2-3pin(factory reset).

Can you also supply me with a link of the PSU or a picture? Hard to help you out man without knowing what PSU you got =) Thanks

Other Info:
How many blades do you have?
Model / Specs of your PSU?
Anything else I might need to help troubleshoot?

[xstr8guy]

Its the Rev 2 board, so integrated NIC. I just bought a new PSU, I can use the 6pin PCIe power right? What about the 4-8pin CPU power? Its 600W, 2 x 12v rails at 18A and 16A, 18ga wire. Does the hardware reset need to be done with power on? The reason I ask is that I've bricked a desktop mobo resetting its CMOS while powered (early days of PC building), and I don't know if this is the same.

I had an unresponsive Blade.  I shorted the pins (see illustration) while the power was on... shut down, restarted and then was able to configure the Blade.

[mountainjam]

 Mountain, Please add some pictures to aid in understanding what you mean please. Pictures are worth more than a 1,000 words =P

Please post some pictures of your config menu when you are connected.

Also, are you using two different IP's on each blade? or are you using 1 specific proxy for each individual blade? For example:

example.worker:password,example.worker:password

or is it like this for one blade: ?

example.worker:password,example.worker2:password

Here is a picture of my config for one of the blades, I'm using two different proxy IPs on each blade.  If I use the same proxy IP twice on a blade, it appears to receive 8 shares then return little or none of them:
http://s23.postimg.org/kgdvdt4ez/miner.jpg

Here is a picture of what happens when I use a single proxy IP in the miner config:
http://s18.postimg.org/7070dzi9l/miner2.jpg


Thanks!

Edit: I also notice back on page 34 that people were reporting low speeds and the miners switching between pools randomly.  It sounds like I'm probably having the same issue .

[Vl4dim1r]

Everything is working fine with my blade now! Just trying to get it connected to a pool.

[xstr8guy]

Everything is working fine with my blade now! Just trying to get it connected to a pool.

What specifically did you do to get it working?  Please share.  You may help others with your experience.

[mdopro1]

I'm also experiencing proxy swapping on a regular basis and here's my scenario.

- PSU: 850W Corsair pro series
- Gen1 blade (single blade) worked great on this CPU with OC and never gave any problems.
- I changed the switch to 16 port 100MBps for make room for more blades coming in. My only blade working great.
- One proxy on each computer, in total 2 proxies on different IPs, both on Windows 7 64-bit
- I get 3 X gen2 blades, I rig them up and they all hash happily.
- Same PSU. Voltages showing 12.04 on each blade's terminal. No PSU resets or anything out of the ordinary.

Now all 4 (1Xgen1, 3Xgen2) on same switch and PSU are switching proxy constantly Yup, including gen1 which was a happy hasher until now.

Hash rate sticking around 10k on gen2 and 12.8k on gen1.

So if anyone figures out why these things are switching proxies then use the above info and hopefully provide some assistance too.

[amer]

Eligius supports both getwork and stratum. Is it more efficient to set up a stratum proxy for the blade, or go direct to Eligius getwork?

[LarryFossil]

 Mountain, Please add some pictures to aid in understanding what you mean please. Pictures are worth more than a 1,000 words =P

Please post some pictures of your config menu when you are connected.

Also, are you using two different IP's on each blade? or are you using 1 specific proxy for each individual blade? For example:

example.worker:password,example.worker:password

or is it like this for one blade: ?

example.worker:password,example.worker2:password

Here is a picture of my config for one of the blades, I'm using two different proxy IPs on each blade.  If I use the same proxy IP twice on a blade, it appears to receive 8 shares then return little or none of them:
http://s23.postimg.org/kgdvdt4ez/miner.jpg

Here is a picture of what happens when I use a single proxy IP in the miner config:
http://s18.postimg.org/7070dzi9l/miner2.jpg


Thanks!

Edit: I also notice back on page 34 that people were reporting low speeds and the miners switching between pools randomly.  It sounds like I'm probably having the same issue .

Mdopro1 &  Mountainjam,

  Use this format to input details into the server & user:pass. (After connecting to the config page @ 192.168.1.254:8000) --Config Page for each blade is xxx.xxx.x.254. If you don't change each IP to   ..etc .250,.251,.253,.254 should be different for each blade or you will have an IP conflict.

user:pass details: example.worker:password,example.worker:password
Server Address: IP_OF_PROXY_COMPUTER1,IP_OF_PROXY_COMPUTER1 (Note: Don't change the IP's or Proxies, keep both of them the same for a individual blade. If you want, change the proxy on another blade, try not to use two separate proxies on 1 config page.)

Also, double check the ports and make sure they are the same for the (pool) your trying to connect to. After you do that, double check everything and click the (update/restart button). =) Hopefully that works.

Eligius supports both getwork and stratum. Is it more efficient to set up a stratum proxy for the blade, or go direct to Eligius getwork?

If you have more than one ASIC rig or blade, then I would go with the proxy... Extremely easy and simple to setup. I used slush's pool and found his proxy good. Here's the link: http://mining.bitcoin.cz/mining-proxy-howto

[mdopro1]

Mdopro1 &  Mountainjam,

  Use this format to input details into the server & user:pass. (After connecting to the config page @ 192.168.1.254:8000) --Config Page for each blade is xxx.xxx.x.254. If you don't change each IP to   ..etc .250,.251,.253,.254 should be different for each blade or you will have an IP conflict.

user:pass details: example.worker:password,example.worker:password
Server Address: IP_OF_PROXY_COMPUTER1,IP_OF_PROXY_COMPUTER1 (Note: Don't change the IP's or Proxies, keep both of them the same)

Also, double check the ports and make sure they are the same for the (pool) your trying to connect to. After you do that, double check everything and click the (update/restart button). =) Hopefully that works.

I tried that before, same IP/user info twice for main and backup always seem to restart the blade within an hour. I can try again to see if it will act any different now.

What's the deal with BFG supporting blade? How does that even work since it would never be running on the blade itself.

[techman05]

Is there just a more simple modular power supply adapter for less hack and slash as it seems needed for this. If I have to use a power supply like that I don't want to fudge to much to put it back together or make a mess. That's one reason I like the usb eroupters.

Is there one like this that uses normal connectors?
Something that more naturally does something like this
  (found at http://amzn.com/B002CZANA8 )

[xstr8guy]

Is there just a more simple modular power supply adapter for less hack and slash as it seems needed for this. If I have to use a power supply like that I don't want to fudge to much to put it back together or make a mess. That's one reason I like the usb eroupters.

Is there one like this that uses normal connectors?

I ordered this...  http://www.amazon.com/850WATT-Redundant-Power-Supply-DPS800GBA/dp/B004MU7MEQ/ref=pd_cp_pc_3

It hasn't arrived yet so I don't know if it's as simple as plug-and-play.  But you can't beat the price!

[techman05]

Power supply is fine I would just rather have something I plug into a molex and out to the  blade eroupter.

[xstr8guy]

Power supply is fine I would just rather have something I plug into a molex and out to the  blade eroupter.

Couldn't get more simple than the PSU above.  The blade gets the power directly from the backplane... no mo' molex!

[mountainjam]

 Mountain, Please add some pictures to aid in understanding what you mean please. Pictures are worth more than a 1,000 words =P

Please post some pictures of your config menu when you are connected.

Also, are you using two different IP's on each blade? or are you using 1 specific proxy for each individual blade? For example:

example.worker:password,example.worker:password

or is it like this for one blade: ?

example.worker:password,example.worker2:password

Here is a picture of my config for one of the blades, I'm using two different proxy IPs on each blade.  If I use the same proxy IP twice on a blade, it appears to receive 8 shares then return little or none of them:
http://s23.postimg.org/kgdvdt4ez/miner.jpg

Here is a picture of what happens when I use a single proxy IP in the miner config:
http://s18.postimg.org/7070dzi9l/miner2.jpg


Thanks!

Edit: I also notice back on page 34 that people were reporting low speeds and the miners switching between pools randomly.  It sounds like I'm probably having the same issue .

Mdopro1 &  Mountainjam,

  Use this format to input details into the server & user:pass. (After connecting to the config page @ 192.168.1.254:8000) --Config Page for each blade is xxx.xxx.x.254. If you don't change each IP to   ..etc .250,.251,.253,.254 should be different for each blade or you will have an IP conflict.

user:pass details: example.worker:password,example.worker:password
Server Address: IP_OF_PROXY_COMPUTER1,IP_OF_PROXY_COMPUTER1 (Note: Don't change the IP's or Proxies, keep both of them the same for a individual blade. If you want, change the proxy on another blade, try not to use two separate proxies on 1 config page.)

Also, double check the ports and make sure they are the same for the (pool) your trying to connect to. After you do that, double check everything and click the (update/restart button). =) Hopefully that works.

Eligius supports both getwork and stratum. Is it more efficient to set up a stratum proxy for the blade, or go direct to Eligius getwork?

If you have more than one ASIC rig or blade, then I would go with the proxy... Extremely easy and simple to setup. I used slush's pool and found his proxy good. Here's the link: http://mining.bitcoin.cz/mining-proxy-howto

What's weird is, now all of the blades are mining at 10.7 ghash with the same configurations and I have no idea what caused the issue earlier.  Now I'm waiting to see if it comes up again.

[mdopro1]

Is anyone selling one of those backplane by itself? I'd like to start building on it. Already have 3 gen2 blades and couple more coming in.

[xstr8guy]

Is anyone selling one of those backplane by itself? I'd like to start building on it. Already have 3 gen2 blades and couple more coming in.

I bought a couple of blades from an ebay reseller and I asked him if I could buy a backplane too.  It wasn't free but I thought it was a fair price.