[ANN] US/North American Bitfury sales NEW STOCK ***NOW SHIPPING***

[tom99]

EDIT: I have heatsinks on back of all boards in regulator area, and 120 CFM fans!

Does the backside of the regulator even get hot? I have felt the top of the chip and its very hot but I don't feel much on the backside. Wouldn't putting a small heatsink on the chip do more?

For the hashing chips those thermal vias work well as even touching the vias themselves gets hot, even better with a heatsink.

Yes, it gets quite hot. I believe they are also constructed do dissipate the heat to the board, but I did not do any research in that matter.
In my opinion the regulator heatsink is much more important than chip heatsinks.

+1, the most important task before serious overvolting of the h-boards (0.8V+) is to first stick heatsinks on the back side of the board under the regulator. If possible, stick a heatsink on top of the regulator and the inductor. This way you can take them as high as 1V. The board will dissipate close to 70Watts at 1V.

Can you recommend a source for suitable heatsinks?

   maybe you like this heatsink but some said it's too tall http://www.ebay.com/itm/100x140x12-7mm-Aluminum-Heatsink-for-Electronic-Computer-Electric-equipment-H157-/181110341808?ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:CA:3160

i would beleive that you cant fill every slot on the board if using a heatsink taller than 8-10mm. i have some 35x35x6mm heatsinks on mine that easily allow airflow between every slot

   no, that work fined for me and I think someone here said 15mm or less still work.

[goxed]

EDIT: I have heatsinks on back of all boards in regulator area, and 120 CFM fans!

Does the backside of the regulator even get hot? I have felt the top of the chip and its very hot but I don't feel much on the backside. Wouldn't putting a small heatsink on the chip do more?

For the hashing chips those thermal vias work well as even touching the vias themselves gets hot, even better with a heatsink.

Yes, it gets quite hot. I believe they are also constructed do dissipate the heat to the board, but I did not do any research in that matter.
In my opinion the regulator heatsink is much more important than chip heatsinks.

+1, the most important task before serious overvolting of the h-boards (0.8V+) is to first stick heatsinks on the back side of the board under the regulator. If possible, stick a heatsink on top of the regulator and the inductor. This way you can take them as high as 1V. The board will dissipate close to 70Watts at 1V.

Can you recommend a source for suitable heatsinks?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/8PCS-Pure-Copper-Memory-Chipset-Cooler-Heat-Sinks-HeatSink-For-IC-DDR-RAM-VGA-/350705273019?pt=US_Memory_Chipset_Cooling&hash=item51a7a9c8bb

a) it's copper
b) it's low profile
c) tried and tested on my cards

[goxed]

It's putting a heatsink on the back of the voltage regulator that looks like a challenge because of the components around it. Has anyone succeeded with that?

you have to put it slightly towards the right.
I will be modding some of my cards today, will post some pics

[goxed]

EDIT: I have heatsinks on back of all boards in regulator area, and 120 CFM fans!

Does the backside of the regulator even get hot? I have felt the top of the chip and its very hot but I don't feel much on the backside. Wouldn't putting a small heatsink on the chip do more?

For the hashing chips those thermal vias work well as even touching the vias themselves gets hot, even better with a heatsink.

Yes, it gets quite hot. I believe they are also constructed do dissipate the heat to the board, but I did not do any research in that matter.
In my opinion the regulator heatsink is much more important than chip heatsinks.

+1, the most important task before serious overvolting of the h-boards (0.8V+) is to first stick heatsinks on the back side of the board under the regulator. If possible, stick a heatsink on top of the regulator and the inductor. This way you can take them as high as 1V. The board will dissipate close to 70Watts at 1V.

If you're seriously at the point where you're heatsinking the coil, I'd suggest just getting a part with a higher saturation current as there are pin/footpring-compatible replacements in the same series. This version has  sat. current of 55A: http://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en/PA0513.441NLT/553-2076-1-ND/3687452. FYI the stock part is a PA0513.441NLT which has a sat. current of 35A.

I don't know what other impacts this would have on the performance of the regulator, so don't try this unless you're willing to experiment.

Thanks for the link. I have to get back to the data sheet of the regulator and check the specs of  the inductor.

[Keefe]

Just to share some numbers...

So far, without heatsinks, my BitFury rigs are up to a total of 743 GH/s, for 21 H-boards (minus 3 bad chips on one), so an average of 2.23 GH/s per chip or 35.7 GH/s per full board. Ambient is 26C, and I have 3 Delta AFB1212VHE (148 CFM each) fans blowing through both rigs. With my cheapie IR thermometer, I didn't find any spot on the boards hotter than 70C, but I wan't able to focus closer than probably 1" diameter. Average voltage as measured between the top of the Pulse inductor and the M-boards' ground terminal is 0.864v. I'm running the original v1 chainminer on one board and the latest chainminer on the other, both on auto. Total power usage at the wall is 782W including probably 30W for the fans. The PSU should be about 86% efficient.

[goxed]

[Keefe]

Thanks for the pics. Aren't those heatsinks for the VR really close to shorting something though?

[goxed]

Thanks for the pics. Aren't those heatsinks for the VR really close to shorting something though?

pleasure. very tight margins. i have used a small dab of superglue to prevent excursions.

[Xian01]

 Dave,

 I am interested in purchasing a couple cases from Spotswood to house my October rigs.

 Can you offer any insight as to whether anything has significantly changed with v3 rigs, that would preclude proper mounting when compared with v1 and v2 rigs ?

 Cheers !

[tom99]

EDIT: I have heatsinks on back of all boards in regulator area, and 120 CFM fans!

Does the backside of the regulator even get hot? I have felt the top of the chip and its very hot but I don't feel much on the backside. Wouldn't putting a small heatsink on the chip do more?

For the hashing chips those thermal vias work well as even touching the vias themselves gets hot, even better with a heatsink.

Yes, it gets quite hot. I believe they are also constructed do dissipate the heat to the board, but I did not do any research in that matter.
In my opinion the regulator heatsink is much more important than chip heatsinks.

+1, the most important task before serious overvolting of the h-boards (0.8V+) is to first stick heatsinks on the back side of the board under the regulator. If possible, stick a heatsink on top of the regulator and the inductor. This way you can take them as high as 1V. The board will dissipate close to 70Watts at 1V.

Can you recommend a source for suitable heatsinks?

   maybe you like this heatsink but some said it's too tall http://www.ebay.com/itm/100x140x12-7mm-Aluminum-Heatsink-for-Electronic-Computer-Electric-equipment-H157-/181110341808?ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:CA:3160

i would beleive that you cant fill every slot on the board if using a heatsink taller than 8-10mm. i have some 35x35x6mm heatsinks on mine that easily allow airflow between every slot

  You can see someone sell 100x100x15mm for Hboard heatsink https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=313594.0

[JakeTri]

Dave,

 I am interested in purchasing a couple cases from Spotswood to house my October rigs.

 Can you offer any insight as to whether anything has significantly changed with v3 rigs, that would preclude proper mounting when compared with v1 and v2 rigs ?

 Cheers !

+1

[goxed]

We are a couple days yet from getting our 16 chip boards with the trimmer on the board.  I have some 8 chip boards that are an experimental OC board that use the same trim pot and I want to set the stage for how this will work.

In order to use this trimmer, you *must* have a multimeter and know how to measure resistance.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, you aren't ready to try to OC your boards.

An easy place to take resistancevoltage measurements is to get ground off the M-board GND terminal (where you would connect direct 12V cables - the terminal screws).  The red probe would go on the top metal contact of the Pulse inductor, which is the large bulky component on the H-card.  Be sure not to also touch the caps that are nearby or you won't get a correct voltage.

While measuring the voltage, use your super-micro tweaker phillips screwdriver to *slowly* turn the trimmer clockwise for higher voltage or counter-clockwise for lower.  The trimmer has an effective range of about 180-degrees.  If you turn it down too far, you will see voltage begin to rise again.  

Don't make voltage changes quickly.  If you go higher than about .895v you better know what you are doing or you will kill your chips.  I don't even know what voltages people are getting away with on these boards.  Find a guide or post before you start mucking around.  Overclocking *will* reduce the reliability of the boards.

FTFY



We certainly don't want to connect an ohmmeter in that way!

Will you be selling any 8-chip boards? It'd be nice to eliminate the voltage regulator bottleneck on overclocking.

At what voltage would the chips be ruined if not actually mining and producing heat, such as with the chainminer process shut down? Is .895v where it just gets too hot, or where stuff starts shorting internally?

[darkfriend77]

What's that pic ... the new boards?

and what's that pic ? ^^

[intron]

What's that pic ... the new boards?

and what's that pic ? ^^

http://150.254.111.246/img/S7300314.JPG

It's an experiment that went a bit out of control.
The latest scientific explanation I heard is that
"the boards don't like women." Not really sure
about that though:)

intron

[buzzdave]

I've been playing with the Octal (8-chip board pictured middle).  At .850v, which will be the factory trim setting for the 16 chip cards, you should get an average of between 2G and 2.2G per chip.  So each card will provide 30G - 35G with proper fan cooling.  By going to .890v I saw averages of 2.4G across 8 chips.  This undoubtedly produces much higher current draw and heat for the gain you get.

In any case, the starter kits should produce 30 - 35 out of the box, and full rigs (proper fan cooling) could see 480 - 550GH/s.  There *are* fan pins on the M-boards so use a good quality fan in addition to a desktop type fan to point at the rig.  Expect more than 1w per GH/s on these!  You should use separate PCI-e cables to power each of the power connectors.  Use a 800w or higher PSU to have some headroom.  Those little stick-on heatsinks sure couldn't hurt!

These cards are on the way to me from China now - FedEx Express, which will put them in our hands this week - depending on customs delays, it should be midweek.  We will work non-stop to get them into your hands asap!

I hope that 25% extra hashpower will ease the pain of waiting all month!  I've been chomping at the bit to get these rigs out to you guys!

Due to the lateness of the month, I won't be doing burn-in testing.  We've seen a nice quality improvement as we've refined the production process as well as the design.  Card quality is very stable now.  This doesn't change the fact that there are going to be bad chips on some boards, and some outright bad boards.  Some boards will also lose a chip after running for the first day or so.  These bad boards will have to be returned for a replacement.  Here's how the Express RMA process will work:

EXPRESS RMA
-file a Return at the megabigpower.com store.
-we will immediately ship you a replacement board.
-if we don't receive the bad piece you will be "charged" for it via a negative store balance - this will count against you if you order from us in the future.
-the negative store balance will be $600 per H-card and $1000 for an M-board, to deter people from abusing this service.
-if we see that you have a negative balance and are attempting to order on a different (new) store account, or some other attempt to abuse this service, we will choose not to do business with you.

Also, a change in the Refund Policy:
Refunds cost us money in lost fees to the payment providers and lost administrative time, as well as the fact that I've ordered the material from the manufacturer.  At this point we are fully prepped for the shipping cycle, product is on the way and people have organized their schedules for the ship cycle to begin.  For these reasons, all refunds placed after this posting are subject to a 5% processing fee.  I'm sorry to add a cost to you for refunding, but backing out at this late date is very costly.

For everyone who "stayed in", thank you so much for being a customer!  I'm looking forward to some entirely new products coming to the store soon!  However, as I've mentioned before, store sales may be a bit scarce during November as we focus on our mining project.

Cheers all,
Dave

[goxed]

What's that pic ... the new boards?

and what's that pic ? ^^

Microwaved chips
I think the string project makes use of the internal voltage regulator of the bitfury chips. A few months back I had read that these chips had this feature where they could be connected in serial to obviate the need for a separate buck regulator.

[darkfriend77]

What's that pic ... the new boards?

and what's that pic ? ^^

Microwaved chips
I think the string project makes use of the internal voltage regulator of the bitfury chips. A few months back I had read that these chips had this feature where they could be connected in serial to obviate the need for a separate buck regulator.

Are those the same boards that ... Bitfury Strikes Back EU will have for sale .... or are those US only related?

[KNK]

I think the string project makes use of the internal voltage regulator of the bitfury chips.

No, it is clear from the picture, that the chips are not connected in series by power, but only for the SPI bus

[Spotswood]

 

Is this what's shipping in the October kits?  



     

And if so, I need mechanical drawings of those (or at least the m-board) ASAP.

[davecoin]

Spotswood - Tytus posted those in the 100/200TH mine thread.  The new kits are still the 16 chip style boards.

Dave - That update was the best way to start my Monday. Thanks!