The Chili – 30+GH/s BFL based Bitcoin Miner Assembly

[agibby5]

My chili is running at 28.5 GH/s at 63C using BFGminer 3.6 with an Evo 212 cooler. I have a high speed duct fan blowing on both bottom and top of my setup.

Fishing for any ideas to help me step my speed up (seems like I'm missing out on at least 5 GH/s).

Thanks in advance people.

I used the Evo 212 Cooler on over 60 Chilis, anytime I found them sitting at 28GH or so it was due to incorrect contact between the heatsink and chips and it wouldn't matter how much air you blew at it it wouldn't help.

You might be able to just fiddle with the heatsink and move it a tad without completely redoing it but sometimes this can cause worse issues.

Usually I would just undo the heatsink, clean up the padding and put a fresh one on and make sure the heatsink had perfect contact this time and it would always put it around 30-32GH.

Hope this helps!

How do you determine which one among the 60 boards?
There is no led indication and the identify command in bfgminer does not work.
Thank you
 

i wrote the serial number (last 3 chars.) from bfgminer on each chili with a sharpie. then i just go to manage, highlight the low hash unit look at the serial and go fiddle with it.

Is there a way to get the serial # in cgminer?

[gamefixer]

OK, so all the way back to post #586. Firmware is stated as being 1.4 from the looks of things?

I've got a board that, again assuming I'm doing this right, the firmware flashing program claimed to have 1.0 on it. I thought I flashed it with 1.4 but after a power cycle the board still shows as having 1.0.

What am I doing wrong?

FWIW, I'm having a HELL of a time getting these things to hash in Win764. I had them working on a computer at home but so far three computers in my office dont like these things. They all get detected by the OS as BitForce256, windows does its thing and installs the FTDI driver and all seems well. I start BFG, they hash for a split second and ALL go dead???

Change the driver to WinUSB via Zadig and start CGMiner and they all do the same thing (by all I mean all 12 that I have).

Anyone have any ideas?

Could be firmware but I cant seem to get this flash procedure down right...

[MrTeal]

OK, so all the way back to post #586. Firmware is stated as being 1.4 from the looks of things?

I've got a board that, again assuming I'm doing this right, the firmware flashing program claimed to have 1.0 on it. I thought I flashed it with 1.4 but after a power cycle the board still shows as having 1.0.

What am I doing wrong?

FWIW, I'm having a HELL of a time getting these things to hash in Win764. I had them working on a computer at home but so far three computers in my office dont like these things. They all get detected by the OS as BitForce256, windows does its thing and installs the FTDI driver and all seems well. I start BFG, they hash for a split second and ALL go dead???

Change the driver to WinUSB via Zadig and start CGMiner and they all do the same thing (by all I mean all 12 that I have).

Anyone have any ideas?

Could be firmware but I cant seem to get this flash procedure down right...

The current firmware is 14e (https://www.dropbox.com/s/zoewijezzhfl3bs/Chili14e.hex), and I believe it should show up as 1.2.14e Version 14d and earlier reported as 1.0.0 because of the way old versions of cgminer handled the division of work between the 1.0.X and 1.2.X BFL firmwares, so we had to report as 1.0.x

For the issue you're having, when you say they all go dead what do you mean? Do they go zombie, or put out hardware errors? Have you tried running just one as a test before adding more in?
Also, what version of cgminer are you running?

[gamefixer]

OK, so all the way back to post #586. Firmware is stated as being 1.4 from the looks of things?

I've got a board that, again assuming I'm doing this right, the firmware flashing program claimed to have 1.0 on it. I thought I flashed it with 1.4 but after a power cycle the board still shows as having 1.0.

What am I doing wrong?

FWIW, I'm having a HELL of a time getting these things to hash in Win764. I had them working on a computer at home but so far three computers in my office dont like these things. They all get detected by the OS as BitForce256, windows does its thing and installs the FTDI driver and all seems well. I start BFG, they hash for a split second and ALL go dead???

Change the driver to WinUSB via Zadig and start CGMiner and they all do the same thing (by all I mean all 12 that I have).

Anyone have any ideas?

Could be firmware but I cant seem to get this flash procedure down right...

The current firmware is 14e (https://www.dropbox.com/s/zoewijezzhfl3bs/Chili14e.hex), and I believe it should show up as 1.2.14e Version 14d and earlier reported as 1.0.0 because of the way old versions of cgminer handled the division of work between the 1.0.X and 1.2.X BFL firmwares, so we had to report as 1.0.x

For the issue you're having, when you say they all go dead what do you mean? Do they go zombie, or put out hardware errors? Have you tried running just one as a test before adding more in?
Also, what version of cgminer are you running?

Thanks for the push in the right direction MrTeal! By going dead I mean they put out tons of hardware errors and eventually BFG and CG both claim that they are turned off. Theres no real heat coming off of them either so I believe that they are in fact off.

Using 3.8.3 of CGMiner and 3.7.0 of BFG.

[Bargraphics]

OK, so all the way back to post #586. Firmware is stated as being 1.4 from the looks of things?

I've got a board that, again assuming I'm doing this right, the firmware flashing program claimed to have 1.0 on it. I thought I flashed it with 1.4 but after a power cycle the board still shows as having 1.0.

What am I doing wrong?

FWIW, I'm having a HELL of a time getting these things to hash in Win764. I had them working on a computer at home but so far three computers in my office dont like these things. They all get detected by the OS as BitForce256, windows does its thing and installs the FTDI driver and all seems well. I start BFG, they hash for a split second and ALL go dead???

Change the driver to WinUSB via Zadig and start CGMiner and they all do the same thing (by all I mean all 12 that I have).

Anyone have any ideas?

Could be firmware but I cant seem to get this flash procedure down right...

Might be totally off on this but do you have them on unpowered USB hubs?

If you are getting nothing but HW Errors it is likely due to your USB Hub/Or you started the mining program while the Miners were still booting up.

Occasionally I'll have one that just causes issues out of the group (never all of them) and a quick reboot and changing the port the USB is plugged into fixes it.

[philips]

Is there a changelog for the firmware?
More to the point, is there any need for updating the firmware on an old Chili ?
I have no problems with mine, but I could use something to decrease the amount of HW.

[gamefixer]

As to your question about how many I'm running, one at a time until I get it working then I move on to the next one. So far... LOL!

Maybe with the new firmware I can start moving on.  

[gamefixer]

Might be totally off on this but do you have them on unpowered USB hubs?

If you are getting nothing but HW Errors it is likely due to your USB Hub/Or you started the mining program while the Miners were still booting up.

Occasionally I'll have one that just causes issues out of the group (never all of them) and a quick reboot and changing the port the USB is plugged into fixes it.

I've tried them on a powered hub, connected straight to mobo USB and now connected to expansion USB.

I'm hoping that the firmware is/was the issue. The guys I bought these from said they mine via linux and they have been spot on in that OS. I could understand Win7 going whacky with these things.

[Bargraphics]

Might be totally off on this but do you have them on unpowered USB hubs?

If you are getting nothing but HW Errors it is likely due to your USB Hub/Or you started the mining program while the Miners were still booting up.

Occasionally I'll have one that just causes issues out of the group (never all of them) and a quick reboot and changing the port the USB is plugged into fixes it.

I've tried them on a powered hub, connected straight to mobo USB and now connected to expansion USB.

I'm hoping that the firmware is/was the issue. The guys I bought these from said they mine via linux and they have been spot on in that OS. I could understand Win7 going whacky with these things.

Hah, I had the exact opposite issue. I would have so many issues with Linux and when I put my (Currently 34) Chilis on Windows 7 64x I had much less issues if any.

The Hubs seems to get hung up sometimes and I noticed that usually if you have no USB Errors (Device Manager) there won't be any HW Errors. Occasionally for whatever reason windows doesn't like the chili plugged into a particular slot on a hub and I have to just move it and the Chili is seen fine. All this has to be done prior to starting the mining program.

Once you have them running though it's smooth sailing

[gamefixer]

Hah, I had the exact opposite issue. I would have so many issues with Linux and when I put my (Currently 34) Chilis on Windows 7 64x I had much less issues if any.

The Hubs seems to get hung up sometimes and I noticed that usually if you have no USB Errors (Device Manager) there won't be any HW Errors. Occasionally for whatever reason windows doesn't like the chili plugged into a particular slot on a hub and I have to just move it and the Chili is seen fine. All this has to be done prior to starting the mining program.

Once you have them running though it's smooth sailing

Since I've never tried Linux mining I cant speak to the stability or ease of use, just repeating what was told to me.

Looks like Firmware updates are fixing my issues. So far three have updated and are working fine. I'm going to keep going.

[GenTarkin]

Can these be ran using minepeon w/ latest builds of bfgminer? ... Well can an rpi power 6 of these things w/ a powered hub?

Also, if given the choice would the accelero GPU cooler or hyper 212 cooler work best on these?
Im guessing w/ the hyper 212 .. mosfet cooling would probably needed... is there a place to buy heatsinks for the fets or another easy way to cool them?

[MrTeal]

Can these be ran using minepeon w/ latest builds of bfgminer? ... Well can an rpi power 6 of these things w/ a powered hub?

Also, if given the choice would the accelero GPU cooler or hyper 212 cooler work best on these?
Im guessing w/ the hyper 212 .. mosfet cooling would probably needed... is there a place to buy heatsinks for the fets or another easy way to cool them?

I'm not sure on that one, I've never tried MinePeon. As for powered vs unpowered hubs, it shouldn't make a whole lot of difference. The board generates 5V internally and the 5V line from the hub is not connected, so there won't be any 5V power draw there.

I would use a Hyper 212 Evo if you're not looking to mount them using a bracket. You just get more cooler for your money that way. For VRM heatsinks, I just bought some off eBay from China, but they took a month to arrive. When I was testing I just ordered a pair of these per board from Digikey, they work great.
http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en?x=0&y=0&lang=en&site=us&KeyWords=294-1100-ND

[GenTarkin]

Can these be ran using minepeon w/ latest builds of bfgminer? ... Well can an rpi power 6 of these things w/ a powered hub?

Also, if given the choice would the accelero GPU cooler or hyper 212 cooler work best on these?
Im guessing w/ the hyper 212 .. mosfet cooling would probably needed... is there a place to buy heatsinks for the fets or another easy way to cool them?

I'm not sure on that one, I've never tried MinePeon. As for powered vs unpowered hubs, it shouldn't make a whole lot of difference. The board generates 5V internally and the 5V line from the hub is not connected, so there won't be any 5V power draw there.

I would use a Hyper 212 Evo if you're not looking to mount them using a bracket. You just get more cooler for your money that way. For VRM heatsinks, I just bought some off eBay from China, but they took a month to arrive. When I was testing I just ordered a pair of these per board from Digikey, they work great.
http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en?x=0&y=0&lang=en&site=us&KeyWords=294-1100-ND

Cool, well reason Im asking is ... Im considering the sunzi x6 miner.... would be awesome if could get it to run on my rpi.

[MrTeal]

Can these be ran using minepeon w/ latest builds of bfgminer? ... Well can an rpi power 6 of these things w/ a powered hub?

Also, if given the choice would the accelero GPU cooler or hyper 212 cooler work best on these?
Im guessing w/ the hyper 212 .. mosfet cooling would probably needed... is there a place to buy heatsinks for the fets or another easy way to cool them?

I'm not sure on that one, I've never tried MinePeon. As for powered vs unpowered hubs, it shouldn't make a whole lot of difference. The board generates 5V internally and the 5V line from the hub is not connected, so there won't be any 5V power draw there.

I would use a Hyper 212 Evo if you're not looking to mount them using a bracket. You just get more cooler for your money that way. For VRM heatsinks, I just bought some off eBay from China, but they took a month to arrive. When I was testing I just ordered a pair of these per board from Digikey, they work great.
http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en?x=0&y=0&lang=en&site=us&KeyWords=294-1100-ND

Cool, well reason Im asking is ... Im considering the sunzi x6 miner.... would be awesome if could get it to run on my rpi.

Sunzi X6?

[GenTarkin]

yes, it looks really nice, if an rpi could control it...would be awesome!
Im asked about the HSF's ... because of choosing between the rack version or the "open air" version w/ blue fans.... didnt know which cooling would be better.

[MrTeal]

yes, it looks really nice, if an rpi could control it...would be awesome!
Im asked about the HSF's ... because of choosing between the rack version or the "open air" version w/ blue fans.... didnt know which cooling would be better.

Ah, a little searching found it. I've never heard of a Sunzi x6 before.
You'll have to ask CrazyGuy about it.

[GenTarkin]

yes, it looks really nice, if an rpi could control it...would be awesome!
Im asked about the HSF's ... because of choosing between the rack version or the "open air" version w/ blue fans.... didnt know which cooling would be better.

Ah, a little searching found it. I've never heard of a Sunzi x6 before.
You'll have to ask CrazyGuy about it.

Well its just 6x chilis arranged.... so ... same thing applys bout if the 212 heatsinks are good or not on chilis and if mine peon can control them =)

[PhDMiner]

I updated the firmware. I confirmed 4 outer and 4 inner leds are blinking in turn. After power cycling, when I check the firmware version, it is still 1.0.0. What's the problem?

[PhDMiner]

I updated the firmware. I confirmed 4 outer and 4 inner leds are blinking in turn. After power cycling, when I check the firmware version, it is still 1.0.0. What's the problem?

Okay. I found this. I believe it should show up as 1.2.14e Version 14d and earlier reported as 1.0.0

[Mudbankkeith]

yes, it looks really nice, if an rpi could control it...would be awesome!
Im asked about the HSF's ... because of choosing between the rack version or the "open air" version w/ blue fans.... didnt know which cooling would be better.

Ah, a little searching found it. I've never heard of a Sunzi x6 before.
You'll have to ask CrazyGuy about it.

Well its just 6x chilis arranged.... so ... same thing applys bout if the 212 heatsinks are good or not on chilis and if mine peon can control them =)

MinePeon on the Pi works well with the Chili.  As its a cheap device buy yourself 2 units, (one for running and one for backup) (or use them both and split the load)

Edit:- http://rdmsnippets.com/2013/07/24/mining-bitcoins-with-usb-block-erupters-a-raspberry-pi-and-minepeon/