[Guide] Dogie's Comprehensive ASICMiner Blade Setup

[J_Dubbs]

Hi guys,

Just received 10 blades a backplane and a power supply. Does the backplane replace having to do the wiring with the molex split?

How are you cooling them?
Thanks

at the moment I have 2 box fans on either side. keeping them cold to the touch. heading out to find some fans this afternoon.

So I have a backplane and a few blades, just waiting for the PSU to arrive. I have a small apartment and want to make sure this doesn't get knocked over. The backplane with blades plugged in is a bit less sturdy than I was hoping. Is there a way to use a circuit board standoff to reinforce the blades? Or maybe a certain size threaded pole can run through the hole on each blade?

I was thinking of setting it up on top of a small filing cabinet, with some type of cage or upside down wire basket on top secured to the cabinet. Basically, if I put the cage on top of the backplane rig I can tie fans to all sides of the cage, preferably on the inside, and it should protect things and help with cooling at the same time. No workshop so I need to use off-the-shelf stuff... To secure the cage I'm thinking of using these small adhesive bungee things I bought for cable-management. Also, by "cage" I basically mean any type of wire basket, or maybe even something from a pet store, so long as it's the right size. Time to get creative... But yeah, I'd love to know how to reinforce the blades by using the holes they have, guessing a trip to RadioShack might help for that end of it.

i used twistties to bind 2 together. which gives them a bit more stability. and using 2 of the grey molex connectors to hold the psu up so its not leaning forward.
ill be coming with a better solution once i grab the fans. once i do ill post photos/ drawings for others to build their own.

also binding all the ethernet cables towards the middle blade will pull them all together.

How many blades do you have?

I have 4 total but only 3 are getting hooked into the backplane, not sure how to space them out yet...

[1713494888]

1713494888

[1713494888]

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[rekweam]

Hi guys,

Just received 10 blades a backplane and a power supply. Does the backplane replace having to do the wiring with the molex split?

How are you cooling them?
Thanks

at the moment I have 2 box fans on either side. keeping them cold to the touch. heading out to find some fans this afternoon.

So I have a backplane and a few blades, just waiting for the PSU to arrive. I have a small apartment and want to make sure this doesn't get knocked over. The backplane with blades plugged in is a bit less sturdy than I was hoping. Is there a way to use a circuit board standoff to reinforce the blades? Or maybe a certain size threaded pole can run through the hole on each blade?

I was thinking of setting it up on top of a small filing cabinet, with some type of cage or upside down wire basket on top secured to the cabinet. Basically, if I put the cage on top of the backplane rig I can tie fans to all sides of the cage, preferably on the inside, and it should protect things and help with cooling at the same time. No workshop so I need to use off-the-shelf stuff... To secure the cage I'm thinking of using these small adhesive bungee things I bought for cable-management. Also, by "cage" I basically mean any type of wire basket, or maybe even something from a pet store, so long as it's the right size. Time to get creative... But yeah, I'd love to know how to reinforce the blades by using the holes they have, guessing a trip to RadioShack might help for that end of it.

i used twistties to bind 2 together. which gives them a bit more stability. and using 2 of the grey molex connectors to hold the psu up so its not leaning forward.
ill be coming with a better solution once i grab the fans. once i do ill post photos/ drawings for others to build their own.

also binding all the ethernet cables towards the middle blade will pull them all together.

How many blades do you have?

I have 4 total but only 3 are getting hooked into the backplane, not sure how to space them out yet...

I have 10 in a backplane. Each 2 is tied.

With a couple of good fans you don't need to space them and you could cool all 3 with 2 120mm fans(1 in 1 out). Link them all together with a cable tie through the little holes next to the ethernet ports and they would be very stable and cool.

[wiredmine]

Hi guys sorry if this has already been asked but i want to use Eligius pool but understand from your guide that only slush can easily be used with stratum because its more efficient

Is there any statum proxy exe, similar to the one for slush pool, which works with eligius. I could only find that your basically only able to use getawork protocol is that right? Is there a huge disadvantage to this?

Cheers

[bspurloc]

I still cant figure out what is up with these blades on my work network.
At home they do 10.6gh/s and get there pretty fast.
note: DNS and GATEWAY settings don't matter touching them is being anal, blades make no request to get outside the network so no gateway is needed and they make no ns lookups so dns is not needed. when bouncing off an in network proxy that is.

At work every 40 units receive they flip to the other server address. everything is setup up the same at home, so it has to be something with my network at work.
Anyone have issues using HP 4000m switches with them?
I've run the proxies off windows 7 like at home with no change they stay around 7.8gh/s due to constantly changing servers.
I noticed on the switch it was constantly losing connecting to the blade with its port configured for AUTO, when I downgraded the port to be 10 only it stopped this, but still sits at 7.8gh/s. it takes them like 15minutes or more to get to 7.8gh/s.
I use bfg 32bit proxy for 2 blades and slush proxy for the other. What I am using doesnt matter as both of these used exactly the same mine at 10.6gh/s at home but 7.8gh/s at work.
at work I have 4 wifi routers broadcasting out, turned them all off to see if that was it and still 7.8gh/s. At home I have the blade sitting right in front of a wifi router and it does 10.6gh/s pretty quickly.
Something is causing these blades to lose the server and insist on using the other. I can NOT put duplicate IP's in the server area as the blades will completely stop mining after receiving its initial 40 from the first server. I can not leave one blank as noted will stop working as it thinks it cant find the server anymore and wants to change servers...
What I have done is put 2 ip's in the server area that point to the exact same server, which allows the blades to mine the same proxy but does not resolve the problem of it losing the present server its mining and switching to another.
at home there is no such issues like this, they sit on the first server and never move off it mining at 10.6gh/s.
blah... very annoying. would be nice if these had logging so they would tell u why they think the present server has vanished.
maybe ports changed to half duplex? or flow control? I dunno

--------
plugged a blade into a smarter newer switch and it reports the blade wants to connect at 10mbs half duplex... which sounds right per its hardware setup...
15   Auto   10M Half   Enable

still switching every 40 aka losing the present mining ip wanting to move to another.

[xyzzy099]

Hi guys sorry if this has already been asked but i want to use Eligius pool but understand from your guide that only slush can easily be used with stratum because its more efficient

Is there any statum proxy exe, similar to the one for slush pool, which works with eligius. I could only find that your basically only able to use getawork protocol is that right? Is there a huge disadvantage to this?

Cheers

The same stratum proxy that works for Slush' pool will work with any pool that uses stratum, including Eligius.  BFGMiner also has a proxy mode that you can use to connect to stratum pools with your blades.

[bspurloc]

Hi guys sorry if this has already been asked but i want to use Eligius pool but understand from your guide that only slush can easily be used with stratum because its more efficient

Is there any statum proxy exe, similar to the one for slush pool, which works with eligius. I could only find that your basically only able to use getawork protocol is that right? Is there a huge disadvantage to this?

Cheers

if u want to keep track of what your blades are doing use bfgminer instead. 32bit ONLY 64bit one does not have support for proxy.
bfg miner will show u a UI of what is going on where slush's just scrolls endlessly. slushs can be configured to work on any pool.

bfgminer.exe --disable-gpu -o http://stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333 -u workername -p workerpassword -G --http-port 8333

[Bitarchist]

I've been at this for about 48 hours! I feel like im so close to getting this thing running.

Not sure what im doing wrong. I feel like i've tried so many variables yet still no success.

I downloaded and ran the stratum proxy.
I figured out how to change my IP so i can configure the blade.
I downloaded and ran bfgminer and pointed it to slush's pool with my login info.
I've spent HOURS digging through the support threads here on the forum and still cant get this thing running.
I'm hoping someone with some experience give me some guidance.

any and all suggestions would be appreciated.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4vACW5ZTFqkRUtHUmRqZGdxLWM/edit?usp=sharing

[Bitarchist]

I've been at this for about 48 hours! I feel like im so close to getting this thing running.

Not sure what im doing wrong. I feel like i've tried so many variables yet still no success.

I downloaded and ran the stratum proxy.
I figured out how to change my IP so i can configure the blade.
I downloaded and ran bfgminer and pointed it to slush's pool with my login info.
I've spent HOURS digging through the support threads here on the forum and still cant get this thing running.
I'm hoping someone with some experience give me some guidance.

any and all suggestions would be appreciated.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4vACW5ZTFqkRUtHUmRqZGdxLWM/edit?usp=sharing

Ok with some help from pontiacg5 i got the blade up and running!

However the efficiency rate is less than 10% and the blade keeps resetting around 2min. everytime.

Any thoughts on how to get this thing cranking at 100% ?

[J_Dubbs]

I've been at this for about 48 hours! I feel like im so close to getting this thing running.

Not sure what im doing wrong. I feel like i've tried so many variables yet still no success.

I downloaded and ran the stratum proxy.
I figured out how to change my IP so i can configure the blade.
I downloaded and ran bfgminer and pointed it to slush's pool with my login info.
I've spent HOURS digging through the support threads here on the forum and still cant get this thing running.
I'm hoping someone with some experience give me some guidance.

any and all suggestions would be appreciated.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4vACW5ZTFqkRUtHUmRqZGdxLWM/edit?usp=sharing

Ok with some help from pontiacg5 i got the blade up and running!

However the efficiency rate is less than 10% and the blade keeps resetting around 2min. everytime.

Any thoughts on how to get this thing cranking at 100% ?

Sounds like the same issue I am having, totally related to cooling. These things are super finicky, you gotta blast them with air.

Which brings me to my next question. So fucking frustrated right now. 2-pin fan connectors on these blades!!! Do I seriously need to buy an adapter for this!? Right now I'm just pissed because it's impossible to have a hobby outside of work. All the fucking stores close at 9pm, such bullshit. Please, someone, help to end my complete frustration and tell me what is needed to run a fan right off these blades. I left MicroCenter empty handed, planning to hit Best Buy or something during my lunch break tomorrow. Really want to have these all setup before thanksgiving, tired of the bullshit. Thanks.

[SwissMiner]

Anyone looking to sell PM me.

.. sold yours too early 

[bladerunner99]

Well I have had it proxies.  It looks easier for me to use getwork and directly connect my blade with no pc.  Most likely I am committing an error, however my blade could be defective. 
IP                               192.168.1.254   
Mask                               255.255.255.0
Gateway                       My router's gateway?, my LAN IP address?, or my computer's IP?
WEB Port                       8000  I have a port forward at 8000 other values do not seem to work.  If i change this do I need a new port forward?
Primary DNS               my router's primary DNS  or should I use another value here?
Secondary DNS               my router's secondary DNS
Ports                               8332,8337      The ports of BTCoxygen,Eligius getwork servers.
Server addresses               BTCOxygen.com,getwork.mining.eligius.st       
user:pass                       xxxxxxxxx:xxx,yyyyyyy:yyy

These are the values I will be trying out today.  Any advice is welcome.  I have been at this for three days and bfgminer just can't see my blade.  I don't really like MinGW now that I've tried it out.  I had to link bfgminer.exe into MinGW/msys as a hack so my money is on user error here.  Stratum Proxy passed a lot of errors but I may give it one more go.  If these trials do not get me hashing I am returning my blade to the seller as defective. 

[J_Dubbs]

Well I have had it proxies.  It looks easier for me to use getwork and directly connect my blade with no pc.  Most likely I am committing an error, however my blade could be defective. 
IP                               192.168.1.254   
Mask                               255.255.255.0
Gateway                       My router's gateway?, my LAN IP address?, or my computer's IP?
WEB Port                       8000  I have a port forward at 8000 other values do not seem to work.  If i change this do I need a new port forward?
Primary DNS               my router's primary DNS  or should I use another value here?
Secondary DNS               my router's secondary DNS
Ports                               8332,8337      The ports of BTCoxygen,Eligius getwork servers.
Server addresses               BTCOxygen.com,getwork.mining.eligius.st       
user:pass                       xxxxxxxxx:xxx,yyyyyyy:yyy

These are the values I will be trying out today.  Any advice is welcome.  I have been at this for three days and bfgminer just can't see my blade.  I don't really like MinGW now that I've tried it out.  I had to link bfgminer.exe into MinGW/msys as a hack so my money is on user error here.  Stratum Proxy passed a lot of errors but I may give it one more go.  If these trials do not get me hashing I am returning my blade to the seller as defective. 

I'm almost certain if you add more cooling it will work.

[xyzzy099]

Well I have had it proxies.  It looks easier for me to use getwork and directly connect my blade with no pc.  Most likely I am committing an error, however my blade could be defective.  
IP                               192.168.1.254  
Mask                               255.255.255.0
Gateway                       My router's gateway?, my LAN IP address?, or my computer's IP?
WEB Port                       8000  I have a port forward at 8000 other values do not seem to work.  If i change this do I need a new port forward?
Primary DNS               my router's primary DNS  or should I use another value here?
Secondary DNS               my router's secondary DNS
Ports                               8332,8337      The ports of BTCoxygen,Eligius getwork servers.
Server addresses               BTCOxygen.com,getwork.mining.eligius.st        
user:pass                       xxxxxxxxx:xxx,yyyyyyy:yyy

These are the values I will be trying out today.  Any advice is welcome.  I have been at this for three days and bfgminer just can't see my blade.  I don't really like MinGW now that I've tried it out.  I had to link bfgminer.exe into MinGW/msys as a hack so my money is on user error here.  Stratum Proxy passed a lot of errors but I may give it one more go.  If these trials do not get me hashing I am returning my blade to the seller as defective.  

Start BFGMiner with the '--http-port' option.  I use '-http-port 8330'.

Then configure your blade so that BOTH pool setups are pointed to the address of the machine running BFGMiner.  Make sure BOTH ports are set to 8330, or whatever port you used with the '-http-port' option.  You can use any username/pass for BFGMiner, but if you have multiple instances running for multiple workers, make sure to use a unique user name for each worker.

Then setup BFGMiner to connect to the pool (and backup pools) you want as usual.

Yes, the gateway is your router IP, usually 192.168.1.1 for most people.

To summarize:

IP                               192.168.1.254
Mask                               255.255.255.0
Gateway                       My router's gateway
WEB Port                       8000
Primary DNS               my router's primary DNS
Secondary DNS               my router's secondary DNS
Ports                               8330,8330 (or whatever you set in --http-port)
Server addresses               <BFGMiner machine address>, <BFGMiner machine address>
user:pass                       xxxxxxxxx:xxx,xxxxxxxxx:xxx

[bladerunner99]

SUCCESS!

using my LAN IP address as the gateway in configuration I am now mining the getwork protocol at eligius pool.  xyzzy099 I will try your advice but now I am off to get some fans, molex, cat5 etc to finalize my hardware set up.  thanks.

[phazon307]

I will post here sense this thread is getting replies constantly let me say everything that has happened so I can get some help. Last night after I got my blade working after changing my IPv4 to 192.168.1.10 I was able to connect to the blade using 192.168.1.254:8000  I changed my blade to 192.168.1.24 Because I didn't notice the step to change it to a 192.168.0.x ip address well I set my Ip settings back to obtain an ip address manually. Then I wasn't able to reconnect to the blade I even changed my routers IP address to a 192.168.1.xx ip address still cannot connect to the blade this is very frustrating I have tried everything even resetting the blade and I cannot connect to it again no matter what I do.

[rekweam]

Hi guys sorry if this has already been asked but i want to use Eligius pool but understand from your guide that only slush can easily be used with stratum because its more efficient

Is there any statum proxy exe, similar to the one for slush pool, which works with eligius. I could only find that your basically only able to use getawork protocol is that right? Is there a huge disadvantage to this?

Cheers

Isn't it a matter of installing the proxy and then starting it with a redirection to the pool you want to you?

I'm on mac so I type into terminal ./mining_proxy.py -o mint.bitminter.com -p 3333
On PC it runs off a bat file? Don't you just need to edit that file to direct it to the pool you want?

[stacksmasher]

For what it's worth, I haven't experienced any significant efficiency difference between using native getwork on a pool with diff=8, or using mining_proxy.exe to proxy getwork → stratum. Using getwork directly on a pool with diff=8, I get about 96%-97% efficiency (measured at BTC Guild). Proxying getwork to stratum shows near 100% efficiency on the Blade counter, it also shows 98%-99% efficiency on BTC Guild *BUT* the total number of accepted shares per hour stays about the same in both cases. I think that is explained by the fact that the stratum proxy sometimes accepts getwork shares that aren't sent back to the pool using stratum, because they are detected to be stale already (just my thought, maybe it's another reason).

At any rate, I hope the next generation firmwares will have stratum (and/or GBT) available natively.

Its funny because I noticed the same exact thing. I sold all my BFL equipment because I thought the blades would be better and now I am only seeing about 70% of the return I had at a higher GH/ps. One thing you can say about the little Jalapenos.... they where efficient!!

[ijchan223]

maybe you guys can point me in the right dirrection, i finally got the board hashing on a proxy by

using mining proxy.exe  with the "-o mint.bitminter.com -p 3333" argument according to the gui i am hashing about 8000MHS but bitminter is showing under 1gps so about 700 difference  


http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r262/ertgunner/Untitled_zps3d0d4ff5.png

do i have the port set right in the GUI? it is the only one i can get to work, i have tried 3333 and 5050 but it just stalls my proxy

[SwissMiner]

.. your screenshot show's 4 "X" that meams on the blade are non-working Chips.
Try switching to overclocked and back again, reset the blade .. maybe it help's.

[ijchan223]

yes, i noticed that there are some chips that aren't working appears to be a hardware problem, poked around with a DMM and saw some real low resistances kinda hard to figure out what is actually shorted out when there isn't a schematic. i have checked the mosfets and caps on that power lane but no luck.