Experimenting with Jalapeno firmware...

[danattacker]

I have not soldered any additional chips myself, but was planning to do so and as i remember there where some additional changes to make, because the chips are addressable and the address is wired on the board, then they are daisy-chained for the DONE interupt

I checked the schematic for the board and it looks like each chip has its own pin on the MCU for the DONE interrupt (i.e. they are not daisy-chained).

[KNK]

No idea then. Have not received my jala yet  (it is sitting in Chicago for over 2 weeks now ) , so can't even take a look at the board.

[danattacker]

I did a ZCX command and it says CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 4, so it is detecting the chips. But nothing else is different from when I had 2 chips. Obviously, the chips have power and are communicating, but they are not doing any work. I changed the firmware so it forces it to detect the chips and the LEDs for the chips come on but it still isn't doing anything. Device info now shows the chips but it says the chips are running at 0 MHz. I think it estimates the clock speed based on how quickly it does work, so I don't think its doing any work at all. I'm not sure how to proceed at this point.

[lightfoot]

If someone wants to send me a pair of chips to check I'd be happy to try to install them on my board.

C

[danattacker]

Ok, I got the chips working. I just had to upgrade to the latest 1.2.9 firmware. I guess these new revision chips weren't compatible with the older 1.2.5 firmware I was using. Hashing at 17.42 GH/s with 4 chips. It is running really hot though; currently 71 C and the heatsink backplate on the bottom of the board is too hot to touch for more than half a second. But, error rate is only ~1% with freq index 7 so maybe it will work out.

[chanberg]

Ok, I got the chips working. I just had to upgrade to the latest 1.2.9 firmware. I guess these new revision chips weren't compatible with the older 1.2.5 firmware I was using. Hashing at 17.42 GH/s with 4 chips. It is running really hot though; currently 71 C and the heatsink backplate on the bottom of the board is too hot to touch for more than half a second. But, error rate is only ~1% with freq index 7 so maybe it will work out.

sick! nice job

[lightfoot]

Ok, I got the chips working. I just had to upgrade to the latest 1.2.9 firmware. I guess these new revision chips weren't compatible with the older 1.2.5 firmware I was using. Hashing at 17.42 GH/s with 4 chips. It is running really hot though; currently 71 C and the heatsink backplate on the bottom of the board is too hot to touch for more than half a second. But, error rate is only ~1% with freq index 7 so maybe it will work out.

Wow, congratulations! Chips are tougher than I thought. Question: How did you solder the chips on? Air tool plus box tip? Did you use a board pre-heater? Now I *really* want a pair of chips. Or maybe six...... :-)

I'm impressed with the heat; if you dial the speeds back to slower clocks can you get the temps down? I've noticed my JP went from pretty cool at 5gh to warm at 7 and hotter by 7.5+ so I dropped it to 7.3 or so and it's a happy little clam.

C

[danattacker]

I used a hot air rework station with a cylindrical nozzle. I don't have any box tips. I did not use a board preheater but it would be a good idea since the power and ground planes just soak up the heat and it makes it harder to solder. This was my first time soldering BGA and I made some mistakes but I ultimately managed to get the chips soldered.

The reason the chips are running so hot is that I am using thermal pads so the heat is not being transferred to the heat sink as efficiently. Before, I was using thermal paste. But, the new chips are thinner, so I have to use thermal pads so all the chips are making contact with the heat sink. Also, the power supply is running extremely hot, almost too hot to touch. You will probably need to use a different power supply for more than 4 chips. I should also note that I have significantly overvolted my chips so that will add to the heat as well.

The board temps are stabilizing at around 70 C. So far I don't see anything adverse, so I'm not going to mess with the clocks right now. It's stabilized at 17.7 GH/s @ freq index 7 with ~1% errors.

[Flashman]

Shhhh, nobody will sell me their jallies and chips dirt cheap now. Ummm I mean, good job dan.

[lightfoot]

Ok, I've got a small Aoyue rework station myself, and I have done a fair bit of SMD work on IGBT drivers with a preheater element as well. So it might not be impossible for me to do (never done BGA either). Hm, I do have some old craptops, maybe I can practice on removing and installing their BGA cpus this weekend.

What's the worst that can happen?

For the list, what temps did you use and how long did you keep the heat on them? Given that you have a success, info is good.

I used the artic pads on my JP when I reassembled, and it seemed to transfer the heat fairly well when I jumped to 7.25 (One of my chips is crummy, so I can't make . I have a friend shipping me his JP that was hashing stock at 5.8gh that he bricked, two day USPS Priority shipping and the stupid thing is still in MA. Talk about sad ships. :-) I'll compare the temps between his and mine (mine is at 41c now) and see if having more ALUs online brings up the temp.

But it sounds like each chip is adding another 10-15 degrees to the sink, since the fan don't run any faster temp goes up. Are you running it open, or with the shroud on?

As for the PS, the stock one has a really crappy power factor of like .55, so it's already overloaded. A PFC corrected power supply would go a long way towards making it better but since we pay for watts and not for how sad we are with the lead/lag on power cycles people don't care much.

This might really work once it gets super cold out there.

Anyway, once I get his going I might be able to set aside some time this weekend to practice, then next weekend to risk my unit. Someone is selling chips for $40 on Ebay, that's probably high I'll see if he would accept $60 for two. Next week might be less, in perfect Crassus style.

Thanks for the info.

[lightfoot]

Shhhh, nobody will sell me their jallies and chips dirt cheap now. Ummm I mean, good job dan.

Eh.... It's a losing game. Due to the wonderful world of difficulty, the most the chips are worth is the cost of BTC they can mine before going obsolete. When you add the risk of trashing your unit and the difficulty of soldering BGA, it's way more worth it to just buy BTCs directly.

But of course we're not normal people. :-)

[danattacker]

For the list, what temps did you use and how long did you keep the heat on them? Given that you have a success, info is good.

I had the temp set at 450 C. I didn't time how long I heated them but it was maybe a minute. I know I had the temp set too high (I normally run 350 C), but it was taking much longer to solder than I was expecting. When I first powered on the unit and it didn't work, I believed that I may have very well burned up my chips. Thankfully, this was not the case.

Are you running it open, or with the shroud on?

I'm running it open.

[danattacker]

I only made 3 changes to std_defs.h :

Changed product model to  __PRODUCT_MODEL_LITTLE_SINGLE__
Commented out #define __RUN_HEAVY_DIAGNOSTICS_ON_EACH_ENGINE   1
Changed #define __TOTAL_DIAGNOSTICS_RUN  10 to 1

[lightfoot]

Just got a friend's Jally in the mail. He's out for awhile, bricked his unit, and I sat down to give it a quick firmware update.

Opened the box, found that he had cut the heat sink (nice) to expose the connector but since my cable is a 20 pin one I had to remove the sink anyway. And it was on *TIGHT*, so tight I was worried the chips were cracked. I don't know about everyone else but I push down on the plate with the heat sink on the table, then screw both screws snug, then give each of them a finger tight twist just a bit. Just a torx bit, no handle.

I'm a little concerned about what's left of the heat sink pads, I might open it up again and replace it with the arctic ice stuff if the temps are high.

Wow. It's at 8.4gh right now to my jally's 7.5. About another gh more power. However his is throwing 8.3% errors on one chip, and his temp is 45to my 43. We both bought the same type of JP (5gh, no upgrade), looks like luck of the draw is there. I think I could get mine to run faster, but I'm going for low errors.

My guess is he has two or three more processors running on one chip, with one throwing errors. So be it.

Anyway, it's up and running, I'll watch the error count and see how it does after 24 hours. But it is nice to mine at 17 GH or so (I have 2 erupters). Good to watch while I think about buying a few more chips to make mine more of a single.

C

[lightfoot]

So Dana, how's it going? Did the power supply implode yet?

I just ordered a pair of chips myself, if I get them I'll give it a try. Working with the Aoyue and taking memory chips off boards I'm finding that 285c for 30 seconds is enough if the board is preheated to 150c. Haven't tried 100c (recommended values) yet.

C

[danattacker]

The power supply is running hot as hell but everything is still working. I have also noticed that the power supply is making a lot of noise on the mains. I think it's just indicative of a cheap chinese power supply.

So Dana, how's it going? Did the power supply implode yet?

I just ordered a pair of chips myself, if I get them I'll give it a try. Working with the Aoyue and taking memory chips off boards I'm finding that 285c for 30 seconds is enough if the board is preheated to 150c. Haven't tried 100c (recommended values) yet.

C

[erk]

Anyone know if one of these programmers will work with the Jally?

I don't really want to buy a Dragon just to use once on something that's not going to do much ROI anymore.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-Download-Programmer-Emulator-Debugger-For-AVR-JTAG-ICE-Atmega-AVR-STUDIO-/281117568350

[jelin1984]

What is the watt per jalapeño when is overclocked?

[lightfoot]

Seems to be around 40 watts or so as opposed to 20-30. Going from 5-7gh knocks it up to 30, 8gh to 40.

C

[jelin1984]

What firmware is best for used?