[HOWTO] flash your jalapeno to 8+ ghs

[Aahzman]

Anybody in the Toronto area looking to make a few extra bucks doing a "flash for cash" service? someone who's already got the Dragon device and software set up to go, maybe for $25 per Jalapeno?

[1715412958]

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[1715412958]

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[goxed]

I can do Free Flash in Texas / Houston Area. BTC tips welcome.

[Joshwaa]

I can do it if you happen to be in South Florida.

[Flashman]

I visit rellys in Toronto from time to time and I am planning on gaining the gear to do this. First my BFL stuff has to get here though before I make progress... 2013 order, so could be a while yet. Woulda thunk there would be a hackerspace or two in TO that has a jtag cable hanging round and a few folks who'd have fun helping you brick it figure it out.

[Aahzman]

I visit rellys in Toronto from time to time and I am planning on gaining the gear to do this. First my BFL stuff has to get here though before I make progress... 2013 order, so could be a while yet. Woulda thunk there would be a hackerspace or two in TO that has a jtag cable hanging round and a few folks who'd have fun helping you brick it figure it out.

Well, hopefully there'll be no bricking. Just a meetup to have a couple of beers, do some device flashing, and talk some bitcoin.

[tom99]

check out this one https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=262558.0 for jtag

[Aahzman]

For cooling, i was wondering if anybody's ever used one of those powered drinks coolers, basically a plastic shell cooler with an AC adapter (or DC to plug into a car power port). Supposed to be able to cool stuff to 20C below ambient. Drill a hole in the side for power and usb wires, seal it with putty, and inside put a plastic rack of some sort to hold the asic devices in the middle of the space for max airflow around the devices....

[Flashman]

Probably has about a 40W peltier element in, it does most of it's magic with insulation as far as cooling drinks are concerned.

The two chips in a jala should be putting out about 24W of heat between them, so ripping the cooler apart, and slapping the peltier device twixt a spreader on top of the chips and the jallies heatsink, then sealing all round it with low expansion foam so it won't get moist air condensing on the chips should work somewhat.

Word to the wise though, peltiers are known to fail suddenly, leaving you with practically an insulating blanket over the hot piece of stuff you're trying to cool... it doesn't end well.

[lajz99]

If anyone in the Los Angeles area can help me out when my unit arrives please PM me, willing to compensate.

[jedimstr]

Anyone know if Atmel Studio 6.1 works ok from a VM install of Windows?  Will it have issues detecting the Dragon through virtualized USB ports?
I'd rather run it from VMWare Fusion than try and dig up/build a WindowsPC just for this (I'm more of a Mac/Linux guy).

No Jalapeno's to play with yet (I'm way way way back on the backorder list), but I want to get ready when they eventually arrive sometime in 2050.

[Noogsy]

I saw a guy on ebay offering this "update" for almost 200 bucks...
yeah im offtopic a bit.

[greenbtc]

For cooling, i was wondering if anybody's ever used one of those powered drinks coolers, basically a plastic shell cooler with an AC adapter (or DC to plug into a car power port). Supposed to be able to cool stuff to 20C below ambient. Drill a hole in the side for power and usb wires, seal it with putty, and inside put a plastic rack of some sort to hold the asic devices in the middle of the space for max airflow around the devices....

This is trying to accomplish sub zero water cooling. It's actually something I specialized back in the Prescott days as they were great OCers, but they ran hot! You can take apart old fridges, A/C units, etc. to make these units.

[philips]

Anyone know if Atmel Studio 6.1 works ok from a VM install of Windows?  Will it have issues detecting the Dragon through virtualized USB ports?
I'd rather run it from VMWare Fusion than try and dig up/build a WindowsPC just for this (I'm more of a Mac/Linux guy).

No Jalapeno's to play with yet (I'm way way way back on the backorder list), but I want to get ready when they eventually arrive sometime in 2050.

In Kano's guide a VM is used: http://www.kano-kun.net/?p=70

[jedimstr]

In Kano's guide a VM is used: http://www.kano-kun.net/?p=70

Perfect! Thanks!

[bitpop]

Remember the usb device changes through modes

[davebb]

I upgraded my jalapenos (aluminum heatsink) without removing the heatsink.  I used ckolivas's 1.2.5ck fw.  I had to convert the .elf file to .hex format in order to get the Dragon to program the AVR chip.  Here's how to do that:

http://support.atmel.com/bin/customer.exe?=&action=viewKbEntry&id=443

Atmel Studio was run from a virtualbox with WinXP.

My Dragon was an older one - maybe that's why?  Anyway, things work great now.

Current hashrates:
BAJ0: 8.133 Gh/s
BAJ1: 8.182 Gh/s
(both of these are with cgminer running for a day, so the values have stabilized)

I flipped the fans - that's the only change to the cooling except for removing the cases. Temps are pretty stable at 32C for BAJ0 and 34C for BAJ1.

Getinfo on the two boards:

Code:

[GetInfo] =>
DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.5ck
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 2
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 3: 15 engines @ 277 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 278 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 8325 MH/s
ENGINES: 30
FREQUENCY: 274 MHz
XLINK MODE: MASTER
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

[GetInfo] =>
DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.5ck
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 2
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 3: 15 engines @ 279 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 274 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 8295 MH/s
ENGINES: 30
FREQUENCY: 274 MHz
XLINK MODE: MASTER
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

And a couple of obligatory photos:

Programmer cable - the j-hooks worked to connect to the jtag header without removing the heatsink.

http://dave.tycho.ws/BTCpics/programmer.jpg

Frontview of open jalapenos:

http://dave.tycho.ws/BTCpics/frontview.jpg

Backview of open jalapenos:

http://dave.tycho.ws/BTCpics/backview.jpg

[bitpop]

Nice my stupid v hooks didn't work.

[Flashman]

Nice... the surface you have them on looks a bit seedy though. *rimshot*

[tom99]

Can you tell us where did you get aluminum heatsink?

Thank you.

[davebb]

Can you tell us where did you get aluminum heatsink?

Its the original heatsink that the jalapeno came with - I didn't remove it when programming.