DRILLBIT SYSTEM Miners - Avalon range available - Now $104.99!

[Pistachio]

So, I hooked up my remaining 5 boards without a mini-plane, switched out the USB cables, and plugged them directly into my desktop. They seem to be running okay and I did not have the usual problems of being unrecognized by Win7 when I plug in more than 3 boards.





I am sure a fix is on the way and this will be sorted out in a few days. I do hope the dead boards can be revived somehow.

[1713995836]

1713995836

[1713995836]

1713995836

[1713995836]

1713995836

[1713995836]

1713995836

[Unacceptable]

We need a comprehensive report of the states in which people's boards are going bad. There are a ton of reports of bad boards, but little useable information.

I think that it would be helpful to Barntech's team if we could list how boards were hooked up, i.e. miniplane or not, pci-e power or not, etc. I would also think that powersupply type, with as many details as possible would be helpful. Reports of failed boards don't tell anyone much, other than failure rates.

550 watt psu,no backplane used,used 2-4pin molex lines-2 per line(each molex cable had 3 connectors,used 2).

No other devices on PSU except mobo/cpu(45 watt dual core)/hdd/dvd rom & NVidia 8100 non powered vid card(no external connectors).

No OC'in was done,ran @ stock CGminer settings,got CGminer from drillbit forum:

https://github.com/drillbitsystems/cgminer/releases/tag/3.8.1_drillbit

No green light is the problem on 2 boards.

I miss anything  

Sounds like you may have ran the board at suboptimal power by having the other computer components attached. Those could easily draw enough power to have a problem for the boards. I suggest listening to nexus99 and detaching everything from the PSU and trying again. These boards seem to really like having clean power, based on my testing. I got MUCH better results after buying a new powersupply to replace the aging 400watt PSU I was using. I went from 55gh/s over four boards to 70gh/s.

I'm waiting to hear back from Barntech's team in another thread where I asked for the various points they recommend for testing voltages across the boards. I feel that we may learn quite a bit from collective testing.

Thank you for posting such detailed information about your setup. It is very helpful for those of us trying to get an overall opinion of what is causing board failures.

I had all 4 on a 800 watt PSU & they ran fine,just had 1 that zombied & they were hooked to 1-4pin molex cable with 4 molex connectors......only for about 30 minutes till I moved them to a dedicated PC.

They all had lights on then & after I moved them.

Here's some info I found:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molex_connector

Scroll down to the "disk drive" connector section,"11 amps @12volts=132 watts per",per molex or per cable.I think per cable,so 2 on each cable with a HDD or DVD rom each should be fine.

We are assuming 40 watts or so per board (with no OC'in),so 80+ watts per cable should be within the limits.

The 2 did not lose the green lights till many hours(6-8 hours)after I had them running on the other PC.

Harddrives are 10 watts or so,DVD rom is about 10-15(not burning,25+ when burning a DVD/CD).

So......40x2=80+15=95 watts per 4pin molex cable.........in range I think..............

Either way,its strange..................

Edit:Just hooked a PSU up with "high tech" jumper wire to turn it on & still no green light.

[erk]

So, I hooked up my remaining 5 boards without a mini-plane, switched out the USB cables, and plugged them directly into my desktop. They seem to be running okay and I did not have the usual problems of being unrecognized by Win7 when I plug in more than 3 boards.





I am sure a fix is on the way and this will be sorted out in a few days. I do hope the dead boards can be revived somehow.

It's an unusual problem in that it happens after a period of time rather than the instant you first use the mini plane. It's almost like a component failure.

[console_cowboy]

I had all 4 on a 800 watt PSU & they ran fine,just had 1 that zombied & they were hooked to 1-4pin molex cable with 4 molex connectors......only for about 30 minutes till I moved them to a dedicated PC.

They all had lights on then & after I moved them.

Here's some info I found:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molex_connector

Scroll down to the "disk drive" connector section,"11 amps @12volts=132 watts per",per molex or per cable.I think per cable,so 2 on each cable with a HDD or DVD rom each should be fine.

We are assuming 40 watts or so per board (with no OC'in),so 80+ watts per cable should be within the limits.

The 2 did not lose the green lights till many hours(6-8 hours)after I had them running on the other PC.

Harddrives are 10 watts or so,DVD rom is about 10-15(not burning,25+ when burning a DVD/CD).

So......40x2=80+15=95 watts per 4pin molex cable.........in range I think..............

Either way,its strange..................

Edit:Just hooked a PSU up with "high tech" jumper wire to turn it on & still no green light.

I 100% agree with your power assessment of the individual molex cable. I am only running two boards and a fan per each molex connecter. I always worry about overloading molex connectors, and if I'm doing a great deal of daisy chaining, I always like to check with a multimeter to make sure I am not going over spec. Two blades per a molex cable seems to be the most I would attempt.

Hopefully Barntech will release a list of surface mount components to check for failures. This would make troubleshooting a no led situation much quicker (i.e. - check these fuses, its a known problem). I guess you could start by verifying the surface mount fuses, as I would suspect those first for failures. 

[Barntech]

Guys.

Its looking like a component issue. We're still testing here to get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, can you all please stop running your boards. I know this sucks but it will make things better in the long run. Whatever is going on here is fixable, but will be quicker and easier to fix if the boards are preserved as they are now rather than risking damage by running them while things aren't working as they should.

More soon.

[doxavg]

This is for boards only right?  I haven't seen any reports of thumb failures, so I'm assuming this is a component unique to the boards.  Testing out the thumbs now, three of the four are performing perfectly (slightly overclocked and getting 2.6-4GH/s hash rates each).  One thumb was throwing hardware errors out of the box and always underperforms - once the voltage was set to 950mV, the errors went away (until I overclocked the other boards).

[console_cowboy]

Guys.

Its looking like a component issue. We're still testing here to get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, can you all please stop running your boards. I know this sucks but it will make things better in the long run. Whatever is going on here is fixable, but will be quicker and easier to fix if the boards are preserved as they are now rather than risking damage by running them while things aren't working as they should.

More soon.

Can you please give us some insight into what you guys are seeing or thinking? While it may be better to stop running the boards, it is hard for us to make the risk assessment without information. The other main issue here is ability to mine with a significant delay. I worry quite a bit about the future returns of boards if there is a delay of a few weeks. At this point I don't think it's too much to ask to be included in your internal discussions.

Based on my calculations, it would actually as profitable to run it for four weeks now then have it die, rather than waiting a month and running for 6 months. This is a very serious risk analysis problem, one that we need proper information on failure rates and what components are at risk.

I'm sure you understand my concerns.

[Unacceptable]

Guys.

Its looking like a component issue. We're still testing here to get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, can you all please stop running your boards. I know this sucks but it will make things better in the long run. Whatever is going on here is fixable, but will be quicker and easier to fix if the boards are preserved as they are now rather than risking damage by running them while things aren't working as they should.

More soon.

Can you please give us some insight into what you guys are seeing or thinking? While it may be better to stop running the boards, it is hard for us to make the risk assessment without information. The other main issue here is ability to mine with a significant delay. I worry quite a bit about the future returns of boards if there is a delay of a few weeks. At this point I don't think it's too much to ask to be included in your internal discussions.

Based on my calculations, it would actually as profitable to run it for four weeks now then have it die, rather than waiting a month and running for 6 months. This is a very serious risk analysis problem, one that we need proper information on failure rates and what components are at risk.

I'm sure you understand my concerns.

Just before I read your update,another one went out    So,I shut the last one off to save it until we know whats up.......................

[console_cowboy]

Just before I read your update,another one went out    So,I shut the last one off to save it until we know whats up.......................

Are you getting magic smoke or burned surface components that damage the pcb? That's the main thing I could see causing the repairs to be difficult.

[Unacceptable]

Just before I read your update,another one went out    So,I shut the last one off to save it until we know whats up.......................

Are you getting magic smoke or burned surface components that damage the pcb? That's the main thing I could see causing the repairs to be difficult.

Nope,no smoke,no burned components,thank god....I worked with Steamboat assembling units & he showed me some boards that had solder overrun,missedplaced parts,etc.

I see nothing wrong physically with these boards.I'm no expert,but I have built several hundred high end gaming PC's in the past 14 years & have seen ALOT of screw-ups from the factory.....none are visible here  

[console_cowboy]

Just before I read your update,another one went out    So,I shut the last one off to save it until we know whats up.......................

Are you getting magic smoke or burned surface components that damage the pcb? That's the main thing I could see causing the repairs to be difficult.

Nope,no smoke,no burned components,thank god....I worked with Steamboat assembling units & he showed me some boards that had solder overrun,missedplaced parts,etc.

I see nothing wrong physically with these boards.I'm no expert,but I have built several hundred high end gaming PC's in the past 14 years & have seen ALOT of screw-ups from the factory.....none are visible here  

Yeah, its very odd. I have dealt with blades in HPC for years, and seen numerous burned out components. I also handled documenting the failures and sending them back to my home company for repair. PCB repair can be a real pain if the components burn, which involves drilling the board and rebuilding each layer, which can be a pain if the traces burn far. I'm curious to see what evidence of this has occurred, although electronics repair is not my expertise. I'd love to hear what Barntech says or someone with more experience with multilayer pcb repair.

If they are easily repairable, that would make me more apt to want to run my boards. 

[rob143]

Just before I read your update,another one went out    So,I shut the last one off to save it until we know whats up.......................

Are you getting magic smoke or burned surface components that damage the pcb? That's the main thing I could see causing the repairs to be difficult.

Nope,no smoke,no burned components,thank god....I worked with Steamboat assembling units & he showed me some boards that had solder overrun,missedplaced parts,etc.

I see nothing wrong physically with these boards.I'm no expert,but I have built several hundred high end gaming PC's in the past 14 years & have seen ALOT of screw-ups from the factory.....none are visible here  

Basically I have the same experience, no magic smoke, no burnt bits on the board just a dead board that made the USB unplug sound on my Windows box.

[Zeek_W]

Can someone take photos of boards that went up in smoke please?

[Barntech]

Guys.

Its looking like a component issue. We're still testing here to get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, can you all please stop running your boards. I know this sucks but it will make things better in the long run. Whatever is going on here is fixable, but will be quicker and easier to fix if the boards are preserved as they are now rather than risking damage by running them while things aren't working as they should.

More soon.

Can you please give us some insight into what you guys are seeing or thinking? While it may be better to stop running the boards, it is hard for us to make the risk assessment without information. The other main issue here is ability to mine with a significant delay. I worry quite a bit about the future returns of boards if there is a delay of a few weeks. At this point I don't think it's too much to ask to be included in your internal discussions.

Based on my calculations, it would actually as profitable to run it for four weeks now then have it die, rather than waiting a month and running for 6 months. This is a very serious risk analysis problem, one that we need proper information on failure rates and what components are at risk.

I'm sure you understand my concerns.

Hey Console, and everyone.

Our suspicion is that the parts that are failing are the regulator at U20 and the inductor at LP1 (both near the USB socket). For me here i have had one board with the U20 chip literally burn up and someone else reported this also. Whoever that was, can you please email me photos.

We will know soon if these are the culprits and have an idea at the fix, which will be basically replacing these two components. How this is going to happen exactly still needs to be worked out. Are any of you out there particularly handy with a soldering iron and PCB modding? If so, write to me and you can help us try a few things out.

I'm so sorry this is happening guys. We have strived at every step of the way to make sure these boards were made with maximum quality. Its very sad to see them not working as they should. Please know we are doing everything in our power to get this sorted out as quick as we can.

Will continue to update as i have have more info.

Barntech

[console_cowboy]

Wow! That's a little smaller than my comfort zone allows for. You'd need a pretty quality hot air setup to get that properly (not to mention some tiny tweezers for the solder balls!). I may see if there are any local electronics repair places that can do the repair quickly and locally. Worth spending a little more money to save time in my opinion, considering the current value of BTC.

Do you have any updates on the parts needed for replacement? Do we need a different regulator there or is this simply a bad batch of chips? I'd be curious to know the chip information, as my magnifying glass is still packed and I can't quite see what it says. I'd love to look up the chips myself and do some research.


Thanks for the update Barntech!

EDIT: I wonder if unclean power could be causing issues with the regulator? I had very inconsistent behavior until switching to a very nice new powersupply (which is way overkill at 750w, made by CWT). This could certainly cause an issue with a regulator chip or an inductor chip. I am considering putting the boards on a true sine wave UPS. If those chips are weak, any fluctuations in line voltage could cause issues. Including some very dramatic ones, such as we have seen.

Just a few thoughts on the subject. I'd be curious to see if your engineers agree.

EDIT2: I'm thinking about giving it shot, with a lot of practice. Either that or take it to a local repair shop. Seems like it could be fairly easy with a steady hand and some luck.

[Zeek_W]

have all units been shipped?

I have a hot air rework station and can perform the changes. I will need the part numbers of affected components and compatible (reliable replacement parts)

[Unacceptable]

Thanks for keeping us in the loop,Barntech!!!

I may have someone who can help me,but need more detailed info & pics as to what needs replacing.

Edit: Nevermind,I found em  

[Zeek_W]

Thanks for keeping us in the loop,Barntech!!!

I may have someone who can help me,but need more detailed info & pics as to what needs replacing.

Edit: Nevermind,I found em  

Sharing is caring!

[Unacceptable]

Well,no go for me.Called my bud,he sold his hotair station a few months ago.....................................

[console_cowboy]

Well,no go for me.Called my bud,he sold his hotair station a few months ago.....................................

Do you have a stereo or amplifier repair business in your town? They might have the tools and knowledge necessary to repair your board and can do it for a small price, especially if they don't have to diagnose the problem. I'm going to start calling local places monday and factor their price vs buying a decent hot air setup ($100), something I've wanted for awhile.