Hacking a BFL Jalapeno to 32GH and beyond....(???)

[lightfoot]

Summary: We are going to turn a Jalapeno into a Jupiter. Or bust. Probably bust. But maybe not!

Being one of those people who spent $169 for a Jalapeno in January and got his... money's worth, I've been thinking of ways to keep it relevant as difficulty has been tottering up.

I'm going to start this thread to track what I have been doing, what's worked so far, and where we can go with this. So far I have managed to boost my poor little Jally from 4.5gh barely (it had crappy chips) to 7.3gh, then 12, then 16, and for the moment, 20. I've since taken one to 24gh, and will try for 28gh next.

Update: Yep, 28gh, 7 chips. Beyond insane. Heat issues get very funny at 7 chips, thinking about that before trying for 8.

Update: Yep, 32gh. A real, honest, 32gh from a fracking Jalapeno. Read the thread, think about if you really want. to. go. there.

(I have a house there)

I will talk about hardware hacks I am doing, software hacks from this forum, and thoughts on just how big I can make this poor little bastard of a device.

First, a word of serious thanks to the following people:

• Butterfly Labs: For releasing the source code to the little singles and also releasing the schematics.
• CK: Who compiled an elf file that allowed my POS jally to go to 7.3gh which is as much as I could get out of it. He showed me the way.
• Danattacker, who had the sheer balls to be the first to put 2 chips on his JP and showed that it was possible
  
• lentbt2, good seller on Ebay who has MORE CHIPS as of 12/19. http://www.ebay.com/itm/191006340017 is the link, note I have bought from him in the past and he's good.
  
  If you have a source or know of one please PM me. I'll take the risk of ordering one and if they look good I'll post it here.
• My uncle, who inspired me to fix watches which gives me the fine tools to pull shit like this off.
• Whoever runs this BBS/Forum, it's been a great place to read, chat, and think.

The parent thread for all this is at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=236875.500, I posted a lot there but want to put the summary instructions and my future travails on it's own thread (and because I am kind of bogarting that thread because it's more software hacking and I am doing some serious hardware fuckery here)

Anyway, she's now running at 20gh, I'll post more later this afternoon, but first a few pictures of it running.

Here is the unit in it's current... configuration.


Here is the back of it with the extra lights on.


And here is the BFG screen.


On with the show...

C

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[minternj]

Good stuff - are you using a reflow station to do this?

[volosator]

Just added chips and flashed the FW?
Or something else was replaced on the board too?

[lightfoot]

Good stuff - are you using a reflow station to do this?

Not quite. I'm using an Aoyue 968 rework station that I used to use for SMD rework on electric car drive trains. 50kw IGBT drivers blow out a bunch of parts when the gates float. I also have an Aoyue pre-heater that's nice to have, but I don't think it's quite mandatory for this work.

Anyway, that plus some liquid flux plus some time under the air flow seems to do the trick. I'll post the details in a write-up.

C

[lightfoot]

Just added chips and flashed the FW?
Or something else was replaced on the board too?

Not yet. So far it is add chips and reflash the firmware. I'm running speed 7 with full error detection which is probably running me slower than I could by a gh or two, but with the benefit of lower power draws and temps.

You need to have the 1.2.7 or better software because the original chips were SMD chips on BGA carriers and couldn't run with engine zero. The newer chips are real BGA, but have engine 0 enabled by default (16 engines instead of max 15. cool). So grabbing the 1.2.9 software, changing the type from SINGLE to LITTLE_SINGLE (important) does the trick.

I think the limiting factor for going past 6 chips on the little single board is going to be the power converters for the 1 volt supplies. They are built to source "75 to 80 amps" and I'm guessing the original chips ran at less than 10 amps/watts each. However since each chip is boosting the power draw at the wall by 20 watts or so, I think they pull closer to 15 watts each. 15*5 is 75 amps, so I might be pushing the limit with 5 chips. But I'll try 6 for the hell of it, if it fails I'll disable or remove one of the crappy original chips.

Here is the diag output for my Jally as of now. The 1 volt rail is at .998; input voltage is 12.22 instead of 13.2 with 4, so I might be running up against the limits of the power supply or the 1 volt FETs.

DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.9
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 5
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 0: 16 engines @ 267 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 3: 13 engines @ 262 MHz -- MAP: EFFC
PROCESSOR 5: 16 engines @ 245 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 6: 16 engines @ 259 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 240 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 19342 MH/s
ENGINES: 76
FREQUENCY: 274 MHz
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
TOTAL THERMAL CYCLES: 0
XLINK MODE: MASTER
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

I have an ATX power supply coming to provide a more solid 12 volt supply, might give it a go before committing to that next chip. Or I might just toss it on tomorrow.

C

[jelin1984]

Do you install extra chips at jalapeño Board?
Or only firmware updated?

[lightfoot]

Do you install extra chips at jalapeño Board?
Or only firmware updated?

Update the firmware and you can take the chips from 5 to 7.5 or 8 or so. That's pretty well documented on the forum, searches will find that. Costs $50 for a Dragon programmer and maybe $4 for a cable. And some time. And Atmel software.

You can add one chip and get to 12 and still be able to run it in it's case (barely). Two more will get you to 16 and is about as fast as you can go without adding bottom cooling. Cool the bottom of the unit and we're in different territory.

C

[jelin1984]

Is it easy to install the extra chip at jalapeño board?

[danattacker]

Nice work. I like the heatsink you put on the bottom. I might try that but I'm a bit hesitant to do any more work on my Jalapeno because it doesn't really seem to be worth it at this point. But, it might try it whenever I switch over to solo mining.

Also, with that one chip you removed, if you wanted to you could solder it back on without reballing. I had to do it myself since I messed up on the first chip I soldered. Just remove all the solder from the chip and use the solder balls on the PCB. The problem is that the chip will sit very low and might not be able to be effectively cooled since it isn't coplanar to the other chips. I had to put two layers of thermal padding to make contact with the heat sink.

• Danattacker, who had the sheer balls to be the first to put 2 chips on his JP and showed that it was possible
  

Actually, I don't think I was the first. I recall somebody who was developing a BFL based board doing it before I did using sample BFL chips and also offering it as a service. But, I think I was one of the first to start reflashing the firmware on the Jalapeno. And, I was the one who went and told everyone to buy the AVR Dragon.

[lightfoot]

Nice work. I like the heatsink you put on the bottom. I might try that but I'm a bit hesitant to do any more work on my Jalapeno because it doesn't really seem to be worth it at this point. But, it might try it whenever I switch over to solo mining.

Thanks! Yeah, the heat sink on the bottom removes a lot of the heat; I think that's the point of BGA: because you have a whole bunch of pads you can drop the heat out the bottom as well as the top.

I'll get some solder wick and start removing the balls this week; I was thinking of just reforming the balls and not worrying about the missing ones, but it looks like some of the outside edge ones are gone and that is where the control signals are. Not too worried about the lack of heat sink; oddly enough putting it closer to the board will just source more heat out the back.

From a purely money-making point of view it's not very worth it; I'll make a profit of about $50 a chip over the next few months if BC prices stay constant. About as much as a pair of watch cleanings. But from a fun standpoint, it can't be beat :-)

Thanks for all the help in the other thread. Jallies may have been the only devices from BFL to actually turn a profit on mining, most other devices did not do as well.

Oh and the heat sink at the bottom? It was reading 90 degrees F with the unit at 65C. To warm up a chunk of copper to 30 degrees above room temperature takes a fair bit of heat. Once I drill the holes in it and get longer screws I'll put the whole shooting match on it's side or something to boost the cooling rate.

C

[ericdc30]

I have 3 bfl chips for sale if anyone is interested pm me.

Sorry none left. Will be selling some used mining gear when my neptune comes in.

[lightfoot]

Power supply came in, I'll fiddle with it later. Doing some calculations based on the Chili boards I think the BFL chips pull 12.5 watts each, so I should be able to go to six and 75 watts on the DC-DC power supplies. Worst case they should just crowbar and shut down.

I've ordered longer screws so I can screw the bottom heat sink to the top plate, and a set of small stick-on sinks for the hot FETs. If I get them by Wednesday I'll put the last chip on.

C

[Bogart]

That's pretty cool.  I have 2 jalapenos and 7 loose BFL chips on hand, but no hot air rework equipment.  I'm getting ideas involving my kitchen oven...

[Inaba]

We have test units in the shop that have 8 chips that run fine with a heatpipe heatsink.  Out of the 8 or so we have for test, to my knowledge only one has failed since about June... you should be able to run an 8 chip Jalapeno just fine with adequate cooling, at least for a few months.  Of course, it voids your warranty... however, as a side note, if it does fail, the chips will likely be ok and reballing those chips and putting them on another board would probably be just fine.

[lightfoot]

We have test units in the shop that have 8 chips that run fine with a heatpipe heatsink.  Out of the 8 or so we have for test, to my knowledge only one has failed since about June... you should be able to run an 8 chip Jalapeno just fine with adequate cooling, at least for a few months.  Of course, it voids your warranty... however, as a side note, if it does fail, the chips will likely be ok and reballing those chips and putting them on another board would probably be just fine.

Interesting. I wasn't sure if the 1 volt power supplies would hold past 6 chips. Looks like I'll be ordering two more from somewhere, then going the distance.

Could you share what type of heat sink with pipes you used? I've been looking around at sites like frozencpu.com, and there seem to be as many sinks as stars in the sky. Any that would allow this thing to run in it's original case?

Thank you!
Chris

[daddyfatsax]

My question is how in the hell did you solder the chips on the board? I can do small soldering, but how hard is it really?

[Inaba]

The same heatsink that comes on 60 GH/s long boards are the ones I'm referring to.

[lightfoot]

My question is how in the hell did you solder the chips on the board? I can do small soldering, but how hard is it really?

Well....

What I used was an aoyue 968 rework station. It's basically a pretty nice soldering iron and an air wand that can put out air at a specific temperature and flow rate. Costs about $160 on Amazon. I bought it a few years ago to fix SMD components on 90's era electric car controllers, think 50kw IGBT drivers that explode and need to be rebuilt.

http://www.amazon.com/Updated-Aoyue-Digital-Soldering-absorber/dp/B006FA481G/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1384876991&sr=8-2-fkmr1&keywords=aoyue+962

Cripes, you could probably use this:

http://www.amazon.com/REWORK-SOLDERING-IRON-STATION-handles/dp/B004ZB9D4O/ref=sr_1_24?ie=UTF8&qid=1384877176&sr=8-24&keywords=aoyue

In addition I have an Aoyue pre-heater thing which basically puts out a fairly constant amount of heat and holds the board.

http://www.amazon.com/Aoyue-853A-Infrared-Preheating-Station/dp/B000PGPU7W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384877226&sr=8-1&keywords=aoyue+preheater

For $20 more you can get a probe. Wow! Modern technology.

To be honest, it's not too hard. You need to put liquid flux on the board (use the no-cleanup flux, try to get some tacky stuff) then put the board on the preheater and bolt it down. Now spend a *LOT* of time with an eye loupe (4x) fingers, and a set of tweezers to put the chip on the board so that:

• The chip dot matches the dot slik-screened on the board. That's um. critical
• The chip is perfectly centered within the silk-screened square. I mean perfect. As in you can just barely see all four outlines around it.

Then you turn on the heat and check the chip again. I brought my pre-heater to 300F because Aoyue assumed I was stupid and didn't use celsius on the preheater. Oh well, check to see if yours is C or F, there is a difference. :-)

Then you get your stopwatch. And time things. After 4 minutes or so fire up your 962. Bring it's temp to flow level 5 and temp of 402C. Yes, that is hot as hell. Yes, it bothers me too. Yes, that's life. 250-300C doesn't do crap.

Check the chip again. It probably moved. If not good. Note the preheat has activated the flux.

Now hit the chip with the heat. I use the round nozzle that is about 80% the diameter of the chip. Whatever. The square one sucks. Put the nozzle over the chip and bring it down over 10 seconds to the point where it is right over the chip. Start the watch.

After 30 seconds I start moving around the edges of the chip with the nozzle. Blow straight down, if the chip blows off you're fucked-ish.

Watch the chip. It should do a little move when the solder melts and it aligns itself. Keep the heat on it.

Do heat for 60-90 seconds. If the board catches fire you did it too long. I felt horrified I needed that much heat but I haven't blown a chip yet. Yet.

Remove the heat, then turn off the bottom preheater. Wait a minute or two for the solder to cool. Then take the board off the preheater, burn your fingers, put on gloves, and walk around with it to cool it down.

Look at the chip. If it's not square within the 4 lines on the board you really blew it. It probably is.

When room temp, plug it into the Jally that you have already flashed with 1.2.9 with the LITTLE_SINGLE definition and made sure it WORKED and see what happens.

If 3 LEDs pop on the back along with the power led, power down immediately. You win.

If not, reheat and try again. Go a bit longer with the heat.

If the front LED flashes, power down, you shorted the 1 volt power supply. Thank BFL for the crowbar detection and come back to this thread. Or re-heat the board again, it might not have soldered correctly.

Anyway if it lit 3 LEDs then put on the heat sink, fire it up and check out the performance. Should be 12gh. Then keep adding chips until something melts.

C

[lightfoot]

The same heatsink that comes on 60 GH/s long boards are the ones I'm referring to.

Ah, ok, haven't seen one of those personally. Is there a part number or something I can order that sink from somewhere? Or something similar aftermarket?

I will say that checking it this morning that the copper heat sink I have on the bottom is contributing a *lot* to keeping the board cool-ish. Heat can go either way, and a good sink on the bottom seems to work well at 5.

As for the warrantly, yeah this is way beyond "I just opened it to peek". If it blows up it blows up. I (and anyone else trying this) can deal with that. :-)

[Inaba]

The same heatsink that comes on 60 GH/s long boards are the ones I'm referring to.

Ah, ok, haven't seen one of those personally. Is there a part number or something I can order that sink from somewhere? Or something similar aftermarket?

I will say that checking it this morning that the copper heat sink I have on the bottom is contributing a *lot* to keeping the board cool-ish. Heat can go either way, and a good sink on the bottom seems to work well at 5.

As for the warrantly, yeah this is way beyond "I just opened it to peek". If it blows up it blows up. I (and anyone else trying this) can deal with that. :-)

Yeah, we have a new heatsink that goes on the bottom of the units that are shipping with newer units that replaces the flat reinforcement backplate.

Email me one of your order numbers and I will see if I can get a heatsink sent out to you so you can give it a test.

[lightfoot]

Email me one of your order numbers and I will see if I can get a heatsink sent out to you so you can give it a test.

Done. I'd be interested in trying out a better heat sink solution on either/both sides.

In the meantime placed the order for two more chips, I'll put chip 6 on in the next day or two.

C

[daddyfatsax]

My question is how in the hell did you solder the chips on the board? I can do small soldering, but how hard is it really?

Well....

What I used was an aoyue 968 rework station. It's basically a pretty nice soldering iron and an air wand that can put out air at a specific temperature and flow rate. Costs about $160 on Amazon. I bought it a few years ago to fix SMD components on 90's era electric car controllers, think 50kw IGBT drivers that explode and need to be rebuilt.

http://www.amazon.com/Updated-Aoyue-Digital-Soldering-absorber/dp/B006FA481G/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1384876991&sr=8-2-fkmr1&keywords=aoyue+962

Cripes, you could probably use this:

http://www.amazon.com/REWORK-SOLDERING-IRON-STATION-handles/dp/B004ZB9D4O/ref=sr_1_24?ie=UTF8&qid=1384877176&sr=8-24&keywords=aoyue

In addition I have an Aoyue pre-heater thing which basically puts out a fairly constant amount of heat and holds the board.

http://www.amazon.com/Aoyue-853A-Infrared-Preheating-Station/dp/B000PGPU7W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384877226&sr=8-1&keywords=aoyue+preheater

For $20 more you can get a probe. Wow! Modern technology.

To be honest, it's not too hard. You need to put liquid flux on the board (use the no-cleanup flux, try to get some tacky stuff) then put the board on the preheater and bolt it down. Now spend a *LOT* of time with an eye loupe (4x) fingers, and a set of tweezers to put the chip on the board so that:

• The chip dot matches the dot slik-screened on the board. That's um. critical
• The chip is perfectly centered within the silk-screened square. I mean perfect. As in you can just barely see all four outlines around it.

Then you turn on the heat and check the chip again. I brought my pre-heater to 300F because Aoyue assumed I was stupid and didn't use celsius on the preheater. Oh well, check to see if yours is C or F, there is a difference. :-)

Then you get your stopwatch. And time things. After 4 minutes or so fire up your 962. Bring it's temp to flow level 5 and temp of 402C. Yes, that is hot as hell. Yes, it bothers me too. Yes, that's life. 250-300C doesn't do crap.

Check the chip again. It probably moved. If not good. Note the preheat has activated the flux.

Now hit the chip with the heat. I use the round nozzle that is about 80% the diameter of the chip. Whatever. The square one sucks. Put the nozzle over the chip and bring it down over 10 seconds to the point where it is right over the chip. Start the watch.

After 30 seconds I start moving around the edges of the chip with the nozzle. Blow straight down, if the chip blows off you're fucked-ish.

Watch the chip. It should do a little move when the solder melts and it aligns itself. Keep the heat on it.

Do heat for 60-90 seconds. If the board catches fire you did it too long. I felt horrified I needed that much heat but I haven't blown a chip yet. Yet.

Remove the heat, then turn off the bottom preheater. Wait a minute or two for the solder to cool. Then take the board off the preheater, burn your fingers, put on gloves, and walk around with it to cool it down.

Look at the chip. If it's not square within the 4 lines on the board you really blew it. It probably is.

When room temp, plug it into the Jally that you have already flashed with 1.2.9 with the LITTLE_SINGLE definition and made sure it WORKED and see what happens.

If 3 LEDs pop on the back along with the power led, power down immediately. You win.

If not, reheat and try again. Go a bit longer with the heat.

If the front LED flashes, power down, you shorted the 1 volt power supply. Thank BFL for the crowbar detection and come back to this thread. Or re-heat the board again, it might not have soldered correctly.

Anyway if it lit 3 LEDs then put on the heat sink, fire it up and check out the performance. Should be 12gh. Then keep adding chips until something melts.

C

Thank you! Awesome info!!!

[lightfoot]

Well, in the "fail" category I think I damaged this first chip beyond use.

This evening I took it outside and removed the existing solder balls with the Radio Shack monster temp controlled iron, set at 725F with a lot of rosin flux and traditional solder removal wick (copper braid). That did the trick far better than hot air; and I got the balls off in quick order.

Rinsed it with 91% isopropyl and took a look at the pads under a 6x loupe. Several of them are missing, along the edge, and I'm guessing that might be where the communications lines were. Which is worse than losing a pad or two in the power side. Anyway this picture shows it, the dot is on the other side of the chip, upper right.



Worst case I'll get one more chip. But I don't think I will risk this chip on the board now.

C

[lightfoot]

Bad news: My offer from the previous Ebay vendor for the two chips was declined. Drat.

However I placed an order with a different vendor and got the two chips no problem. So now I can go to at least seven, should have them by Saturday for an install. I'm just going to put them in the last two spaces (one corner, one middle of row) that I have not soldered chips and take a good long look at the last spot. If it looks ok then I'll try getting one more chip and going for a full 8.

Here's the vendor link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=151168046486. Looks good, good reputation, I'd say order 4 chips at a time and see how it goes.

The power supply arrived, and temps on my rig with the heat sink have been a nice reasonable 60c. So I have room to expand both in terms of power and in terms of cooling capacity.

Next stop: 28gh!

[Brassguy]

Thanks for the inspiration!

Just picked up 9 chips... I have an infrared solder station for mostly phone work... sim cards etc...

3 jalapenos will be hacked!! Starting with my dud... 6.3gh (after firmware flash and tweaking)... probably going to pull both old chips off and put 4 new on. I'll keep you posted.

This should be fun!

[lightfoot]

Thanks for the inspiration!

Just picked up 9 chips... I have an infrared solder station for mostly phone work... sim cards etc...

3 jalapenos will be hacked!! Starting with my dud... 6.3gh (after firmware flash and tweaking)... probably going to pull both old chips off and put 4 new on. I'll keep you posted.

This should be fun!

Sounds good. I think it's worth it, and I'll be interested in hearing how you do with an IR unit. Post what kind of tool you're using and the temps that work out.

Still waiting for my chips. Looked at it again last night, still hashing solid at 19gh. Oddly enough though most of the chips are at 3.5-3.8gh, with only one at 4.2+. So there might either be a residual heat issue, or I have the testing up a bit too high. I should also try speed=9 to see if I can bring out more speed at the expense of more heat...

C

[lightfoot]

Update: Looks like the latest ebay seller is sold out. Apparently I'm good advertising. :-)

Also to note: Going to speed 9 actually slowed the unit down: The weakest chips went down to 2.2gh/s and temps went up. So I moved things back to speed 7 and speeds are back at 19gh.

[nexus99]

I have never worked with tools like these. But adding 4 or 5 chips to a Jally sounds so nice. I supposed I would just blow it up... but it would be fun right?

[helipotte]

Hey Lightfoot, what temps do you run your 968 at?  I have a 968a and might try this.

[lightfoot]

Hey Lightfoot, what temps do you run your 968 at?  I have a 968a and might try this.

Check out my other thread at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=336782.0

Note I'm tracking a possible problem with running a full set of 8. I would recommend not going past 6 without cooling those FETs, 7 tip tops.

C

[Inaba]

Yes, put heatsinks and a fan on the MOSFETs if you are pushing it that hard.  Sorry, I would have mentioned that, but I just assumed people would cool those automatically.

[lightfoot]

Hm, darn another setback.

Got the two chips today and have tried putting them on. Chip 6 is pulling power but is not coming online; normally that means it hasn't completely flowed but I have re-heated it several times, each time with between 390 and 420c from the wand for 1.5 minutes. That should be more than enough, and was enough to get the last chip going.

And to add annoyance to injury after one heating all six lights *did* come on, then on the next reboot the new one went off. DAMN that means the chip is good, but not communicating. I'll have to think for a bit.

Crud. The chip is square, I'm going to have to think about this one for awhile before going further. Now it's hashing at 19gh, but pulling 150 watts total (computer plus rig) so the chip is drawing power. Drat.

Chip #7 went on the board, but floated down so it was off center. Had to take it off, and clean up the board from several solder fails. Drat again.

Need to pull the sink again to install the fan; maybe I'll try one more time to heat chip 6, then call it a day for today. Not sure why it isn't working, darn it :-)

Well, I know why, one of the control balls is not coming down. I wonder which one...

C

[lightfoot]

Darn, still nothing, even at 450c for 1.5 minutes. Chip must either be dead or seriously confused.

Mining again, will leave it on and alone for now. Dead chip still on board, will watch temps and power draw to see if anything changes.

Oh well, you have the good days and the bad... :-).

C

[Inaba]

The chips come off nice and easy with hot air or IR as well.  You'll have to re-ball them, but I've pulled the chips off with a hot air wand almost completely intact ball wise.  With some focused IR heating, you could probably get the chips off completely intact.

[Ridicuss]

The chips come off nice and easy with hot air or IR as well.  You'll have to re-ball them, but I've pulled the chips off with a hot air wand almost completely intact ball wise.  With some focused IR heating, you could probably get the chips off completely intact.

Josh, admittedly I have not been your biggest fan but I am glad you participate in this thread.
Thanks for your comments and being helpful.

Best Regards

[lightfoot]

The chips come off nice and easy with hot air or IR as well.  You'll have to re-ball them, but I've pulled the chips off with a hot air wand almost completely intact ball wise.  With some focused IR heating, you could probably get the chips off completely intact.

I know. This is insane: I took the balls off the other chip (I didn't even overheat it) checked it, cleaned everything, checked with 6x loupe, then put the chip (sans balls, ok) on the board and applied heat.

375c for 60s, not enough to stick.
405c for 90s, stuck, good.

Plugged in, five chips. DAMNIT.

Ok, either one of four things is happening here:

1) God hates me today
2) I have managed to somehow either cold solder or overheat two chips in a row. Not possible; I have put five chips on with no problems like this.
3) I managed to get two bad unopened factory chips in a row
4) Something. else. is. going. on.

I wonder if the unit is checking the chips, checking voltage, finding the voltage drop below 12v when it enables chip 6, and it doesn't enable it. Time to check into the code, but either I completely suck as a human being today, or something else is on.

Note: I am still using the original power supply. Something's odd. Inaba there should be no way I am overheating these chips, and they're on the board right. Something else is going on.

Hm..... Meantime back to hashing at 20gh. I still have chip 6 the un-balled one on the board. Something else is going on.

C

[lightfoot]

The chips come off nice and easy with hot air or IR as well.  You'll have to re-ball them, but I've pulled the chips off with a hot air wand almost completely intact ball wise.  With some focused IR heating, you could probably get the chips off completely intact.

Josh, if you were to use an IR pre-heater under it and a hot air gun what temps at the nozzle and the board would you use? What temps would fuse the chips internally.

C

[rupy]

We have test units in the shop that have 8 chips that run fine with a heatpipe heatsink.

Why did you stop delivering those btw?

[Inaba]

The chips come off nice and easy with hot air or IR as well.  You'll have to re-ball them, but I've pulled the chips off with a hot air wand almost completely intact ball wise.  With some focused IR heating, you could probably get the chips off completely intact.

Josh, if you were to use an IR pre-heater under it and a hot air gun what temps at the nozzle and the board would you use? What temps would fuse the chips internally.

C

I can't recall what temps I used... I had to max out my Hakko hot air wand though to get it to go.  It's that @#$#@ lead-free solder, makes it a bitch to work on.  I hate it so much.

[forzendiablo]

that is one hell of idea!

[lightfoot]

I can't recall what temps I used... I had to max out my Hakko hot air wand though to get it to go.  It's that @#$#@ lead-free solder, makes it a bitch to work on.  I hate it so much.

Hm. Well, let's go at this from the other end: At what point will these boards literally catch fire? :-)

I was just running 450c out of the unit at max speed for 3 minutes at that non-balled chip. Didn't work, it's on the board but not perfect. Damn damn damn. :-)

Yes, I hate ROHS solder in ways that would make a normal person go "hm". To be honest one way to deal with it on modern boards is to use Chip-quik to get the component off, then clean it up and use leaded solder to put the new parts on.

But what it sounds like is that the problem is not I have burned the chips, but that the damn thing just needs that much heat. One truth here is the more chips I have on the board, the more difficult it is to get the heat on the edges, that might be it as well. Or something like it, but man....

I'm going to re-group for a bit here and think: I tried setting the parameters to very... high... levels and got zilch. I have broken a few of the pads on two chips (including at least one of the critical communication pads), and a third doesn't seem to want to work even when low to the board.

I've also re-read the code, and I don't see anything in the chip init routines that would prevent the chip from firing up due to lower 12 volt voltage, so that's not it. I've tried running without heavy diags, and with disable engine zero on. So it's not a code issue.

Hm. I think I have two options:

1) Pre-heat the board to a solid 300 degrees F to warm it up, then use the wand for 120 seconds at 450c at that low chip. This is about as much as I can throw, and at that level I am running a serious risk of blowing capacitors off the board.

2) Pull the chip, and re-ball it at a much lower temp with 64 lead solder balls. Not much fun, but at least I will be working with a lower temp solder.

In the meantime I need to find another single chip to work on. So far I have knocked three out of commission, this is starting to get a bit expensive. :-) But that's part of learning.

[Inaba]

Yes, you have to heat it up like a BBQ to get the chips off that board.  The first time I stripped the chips off a board it took me about an hour because I couldn't figure out why it wasn't coming off... I finally cranked it up to around 450 and had a very tight nozzle on it and the chip came right off.  I had to have the air right up on the chip, if I put it at "normal" distance, the solder just won't melt... the board has a very efficient thermal plane, so it will start migrating the heat out of the chip rapidly.

Don't worry about catching the board on fire, your wand should not produce enough heat to cause any problems with the board itself.  Just be careful of some of the surrounding components... however, I think the worst case scenario is a few junction temps that max out at 120C, but it's doubtful you'll reach that if you have focused air on the chip itself.

[lightfoot]

Yes, you have to heat it up like a BBQ to get the chips off that board.  The first time I stripped the chips off a board it took me about an hour because I couldn't figure out why it wasn't coming off... I finally cranked it up to around 450 and had a very tight nozzle on it and the chip came right off.  I had to have the air right up on the chip, if I put it at "normal" distance, the solder just won't melt... the board has a very efficient thermal plane, so it will start migrating the heat out of the chip rapidly.

Don't worry about catching the board on fire, your wand should not produce enough heat to cause any problems with the board itself.  Just be careful of some of the surrounding components... however, I think the worst case scenario is a few junction temps that max out at 120C, but it's doubtful you'll reach that if you have focused air on the chip itself.

Ok. Tomorrow I'll give it a "what's the worst that could happen" run up with 300F on the infrared pre-heater and all-out on the chip. And yes, the board has a very impressive amount of thermal conductivity, this is different from the boards of the 90's which were more along the lines of laminated fiberglass. It's pretty easy to overheat those and either delaminate the pad or burn the board beneath it.

Interesting. On the older boards one of the failures of component burnout was that the board itself would get hot and liquify inside, causing electrical shorts through the planes. This might not be a problem here.

In the meantime I went to the Ebay china crap store and bought a bag of lead solder balls. I'll give hand-reballing a shot as well, lead will melt at a way lower temp...

And BTW thanks for the advice and help. This is an experiment, if it turns out these chips are still usable I will be pretty tickled.

C

[lightfoot]

Ok, 2:30am again. Took the board to 300F, and ran the wand to 460c, as high as it would go.

Hit the chip for 2-3 minutes at full temp. Cooled down, tried the chip on the board. Nothing. Tried removing the chip from the board, could not do it with the board on the side. Chip is not getting hot on startup, so it's probably 100% dead.

Oh well. I needed a space-holder there.

Next up is to perhaps find a new chip, and in my spare time see if I can re-ball one of these with a few torn pads. The other one is being sold to a bitcoin collector for .01btc. Till then I'll take a break, anybody got any BFL chips for sale?

C

[lightfoot]

Morning theory: Maybe the problem isn't in these new chips I am putting down, but with one of the existing chips I *have* put down.

Theory:
The BFL system seems to use three lines to control what address a chip has. Each chip socket is wired in a specific binary pattern, the system then selects a chip by putting an address on the bus. Maybe one of the chips I have put down and is working is masking that bus somehow.

Facts:
LEDs on back:
LED, status, engine number, engine ID from BFL
7 , on, engine 1, 0A 000
8 , off, engine 2, 0B 001
9 , off, engine 3, 0C 010
10, on, engine 4, 0D 011
11, on, engine 8, 0H 111
12, on, engine 7, 0G 110
13, on, engine 6, 0F 101
14, off, engine 5, 0E 100

The problem is I don't know how to map sockets to chips. Is this right?
Theory:
Pad, LED, binary, chip in place and working?
U3  engine 1 000 yes
U5  engine 2 001 no
U6  engine 3 010 no, does not work
U8  engine 4 011 yes
U7  engine 8 111 yes
U9  engine 5 101 no, does not work
U13 engine 6 101 yes
U14 engine 7 110 yes

The sockets which don't seem to work are U6 and U9. I have never tried U5

Maybe one of my "working" chips has an open address line and is masking these other chips. Not sure.

Counterpoint: If this was the case, then I doubt a "race" condition would always pick the same processor every time. Either I would see other lights coming on, or I would see a reduction in chips when I add the one that would overlap.

What's bugging me though is that my own reports show chip 5 didn't work, then more heat got it to work "sometimes", then running it at super heat got it online. Maybe I just was too timid about chip 6 there, it did come online for *one* power cycle, but did not repeat. So I never got to see how many cores it had. It was sinking power and generating heat, which is what the other chip I failed on (the one I didn't re-ball and is now probably welded to the board) didn't do.

[Drug5bitz]

I would just like to say I'm enjoying this jalapeno thread as much as any other.

Sad to say I was looking at the chips on eBay prior to reading this. After that I can't find another one.

I can't afford a 100 chips by myself so I think the only thing I can do is coordinate a group buy if anyone would be interested.

I personally want prolly about 20 chips. seeing as I said fuck the upgrade they used lower grade chips I would assume.

Is this a good idea, would anyone want to organize this with me? I think I'm going to go start a thread because I know other peoples projects include these chips as well.

[nexus99]

If there was a good way to get a Jally upgraded to run 6 or 8 chips I would be onboard to mod 2 units.

[lightfoot]

If there was a good way to get a Jally upgraded to run 6 or 8 chips I would be onboard to mod 2 units.

Sure. It's probably one of the better ROI deals out there right now. We have the equipment, one just needs to get chips on them. Problem is I don't have quite the confidence in myself yet to do this for others, or the spares pool to make up for any errors.

Keep watching, and if you think you can do it give it a shot. What's the worst that can happen? :-)

C

[lightfoot]

I would just like to say I'm enjoying this jalapeno thread as much as any other.

Sad to say I was looking at the chips on eBay prior to reading this. After that I can't find another one.

I think people have been reading this thread. Yes, I need another chip myself, might be awhile. On the other hand I helped some people who were trying to get rid of the chips, so I guess I did a good thing overall.

I can't afford a 100 chips by myself so I think the only thing I can do is coordinate a group buy if anyone would be interested.

Indeed, that's a huge order size, especially given the chips have been around for awhile. If the price was in the 10-20 range I'd give it a go.

I personally want prolly about 20 chips. seeing as I said fuck the upgrade they used lower grade chips I would assume.

No, I think what they did was fair; I bought a 4.5gh unit and I got a 5gh unit. They used mediocre chips on mine, but I was still able to get to 7.3 which was not bad at all. It also got our units shipped earlier, as I think they used up all the taller gen 1 chips on the jallys because they were ready to go.

Is this a good idea, would anyone want to organize this with me? I think I'm going to go start a thread because I know other peoples projects include these chips as well.

Please do and feel free to link back from this thread. A lot of people seem to be reading it, and I'd be happy to serve as a clearing point for knowledge and ideas and such.

C

[dentldir]

Thanks for posting your progress lightfoot. I was inspired to give hacking my Jally a shot today.  I was able to get 2 chips from the ebay vendor before he was out of stock.

For what its worth:

1) I upgraded it to a self compiled 1.2.9 via AVR dragon in Atmel Studio 6.1, no problems (using danatacker's settings).
2) My unit was an older unit without heatpipe and older unbadged ASICs which sit higher.
3) It had two chips aligned vertically so I added the two chips horizontally to balance the heatsink load.
4) I used Kester 186 flux that I've used for Xbox 360 repairs in the past.
5) I used 450 c on hot air with a nozzle the same size as the chip, no preheater.
6) Reflowing took a few minutes, watched with a magnifying glass until things looked right on both chips.
7) I used different solder pastes to level the height difference in chips.  Didn't have any pads around.

The result was one good new chip, one unrecognized new chip.  Hashing away at 11.5 Gh/s now. 43 c @ 3.95V.

Stats say that the processors are 3, 5, and 7.  So those for sure are the sockets up, down, left, and right from the center.

I will probably order some more chips and try reflowing all my added chips.  If I come up with any good temp combos, timing, or other insights I'll let you know.

[Drug5bitz]

Chips AHOY!!!!

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=236103.0

Found this with some help from some great forum members.

[lightfoot]

Thanks for posting your progress lightfoot. I was inspired to give hacking my Jally a shot today.  I was able to get 2 chips from the ebay vendor before he was out of stock.

For what its worth:

1) I upgraded it to a self compiled 1.2.9 via AVR dragon in Atmel Studio 6.1, no problems (using danatacker's settings).
2) My unit was an older unit without heatpipe and older unbadged ASICs which sit higher.
3) It had two chips aligned vertically so I added the two chips horizontally to balance the heatsink load.
4) I used Kester 186 flux that I've used for Xbox 360 repairs in the past.
5) I used 450 c on hot air with a nozzle the same size as the chip, no preheater.
6) Reflowing took a few minutes, watched with a magnifying glass until things looked right on both chips.
7) I used different solder pastes to level the height difference in chips.  Didn't have any pads around.

The result was one good new chip, one unrecognized new chip.  Hashing away at 11.5 Gh/s now. 43 c @ 3.95V.

Stats say that the processors are 3, 5, and 7.  So those for sure are the sockets up, down, left, and right from the center.

I will probably order some more chips and try reflowing all my added chips.  If I come up with any good temp combos, timing, or other insights I'll let you know.

Congratulations! I think the horozontal chips are the easiest to add; you have air around all four corners, best chance for a good reflow. Thanks also for the 450c for several minutes, I'll use hotter temps from now on. Likewise light 3 tells me a lot; mine is off, so I know which ones are at the corners now. Will verify tonight.


If you go past 4 I am going to highly recommend putting heat sinks on your FETs, possibly top and bottom. The little copper ones are working perfectly for me at this time.

What kind of pastes were you using?

[dentldir]

My go to pastes are the Antec Nano Diamond 6 and 7 series.  6 is thin, easy to spread, and works great.  7 is thick, really hard to spread, but works just a touch better than 6 in practice.  It's good for making thicker layers on stuff.  Both are available off the shelf at Staples and Staples takes gift cards bought from Gyft with Bitcoin.

I'll look at getting some heatsinks for the FETs.  I was also thinking about treating the Jalapeno like MrTeal's Chili board and doing a CPU heatsink under the chip area.  Not sure how I could mount that yet, but the sandwiched heatsinks on the Chili's work great.

Since the chips are so hard to reflow on the Jally, a thermal pad and a giant heatsink for the entire bottom might make sense too.  (like the Block Erupter blades).
 

[lightfoot]

My go to pastes are the Antec Nano Diamond 6 and 7 series.  6 is thin, easy to spread, and works great.  7 is thick, really hard to spread, but works just a touch better than 6 in practice.  It's good for making thicker layers on stuff.  Both are available off the shelf at Staples and Staples takes gift cards bought from Gyft with Bitcoin.

I'll look at getting some heatsinks for the FETs.  I was also thinking about treating the Jalapeno like MrTeal's Chili board and doing a CPU heatsink under the chip area.  Not sure how I could mount that yet, but the sandwiched heatsinks on the Chili's work great.

Since the chips are so hard to reflow on the Jally, a thermal pad and a giant heatsink for the entire bottom might make sense too.  (like the Block Erupter blades).
 

Take a look at my pics on the beginning of the thread. I put a big heat sink on the bottom, clears the board's vias through the AL plate, with a layer of heat sink grease. It drops the temps on the board by a LOT; very worth the time to do.

Ah, thermal compound. I'm using heat pads from frozencpu.com, seems to work well and flexible enough I don't worry about crusing the chips. Although as of late I have just been putting a touch of grease on the two original chips; they don't mine very hot, and it puts them and the new chips in prety much the same plane.

C

[Drug5bitz]

Check this out, looking around to help.

http://imgur.com/a/CMazz#0

Every BFL PCB with chip layout.

P.S. I'm looking at water cooling options could you find me dimensions on the chip area (would a 50x50mm block work?) and the hole centers for the heat sink mount.

[eoakland]

Hello LightFoot, 

I have a question for you.  I recently tried to follow your footsteps, and mod a Jally.  I dropped in 2 chips.  When I powered on, it looked like all was going smoothly....Jally was up to 25ghs...and all the sudden it konk'd out.  it still powers on, but just gives errors.  When I try to Jtag it, it will not allow me to.  It indicates volts are 0.0.   I am hoping you may be able to shed some light, if I still have hope or if I am super F'd...LoL


thanks

[lightfoot]

Hello LightFoot, 

I have a question for you.  I recently tried to follow your footsteps, and mod a Jally.  I dropped in 2 chips.  When I powered on, it looked like all was going smoothly....Jally was up to 25ghs...and all the sudden it konk'd out.  it still powers on, but just gives errors.  When I try to Jtag it, it will not allow me to.  It indicates volts are 0.0.   I am hoping you may be able to shed some light, if I still have hope or if I am super F'd...LoL


thanks

Hmmmm. Can you post pics what were the temps how.was it cooled and how did you get 25gh on 4 chips total?

Check the fets and does it smell odd.

C

[eoakland]

speed may be incorrect, there were no work units.  mosfets were uncooled, but it was not on long enough to matter.  the unit currently powers on, but does not detect.  and will not allow Jtag to get into program mode.  I had someone perform the work for me, so I am passing along what I was told.

sadly, no pics. 

just figured I would get your take, since you have adding for a while. 

[lightfoot]

speed may be incorrect, there were no work units.  mosfets were uncooled, but it was not on long enough to matter.  the unit currently powers on, but does not detect.  and will not allow Jtag to get into program mode.  I had someone perform the work for me, so I am passing along what I was told.

sadly, no pics.  

just figured I would get your take, since you have adding for a while.  

Well hm....

So let's think about this: The jally was a (stock code or not-stock code?) unit, two chips were added, it came up, and now does nothing. Let's try some diagnostics:

1) Does the front light flash on power-up and then go solid?
2) Do any lights on the back come on? There should be the power LED by the power plug, then at least two of the eight LEDs along the back between the power plug and the USB plug.

It should light the rear power LED, then flash the front light, then stop flashing the front light and light the appropriate number of rear LEDs from that set of eight. That indicates the system is up and running.

Nothing we did here should affect the JTAG port; have you ever had it programmed before now? In all my cases, I could always erase memories, then reprogram. Yep, checked my notes, even when the thing was dead as a doornail.

Can you get pics of the board without the heat sink on it? Something's odd.

Before I did my first chip, I knew I had to go to 1.2.9 firmware. I tried Tarkin's code stock and it failed my Jally before I even put another chip on. I had to realize that one has to define LITTLE_SINGLE and not SINGLE and compile to get things to work.

If you have the 8 pin programmer on backwards you will get the 0 volt thing. Always a good idea to do stuff one step at a time, never change two things (new programming and new chips) at once if you can help it.

I'd say have the person check the LEDs and report back, and make absolutely sure pin 1 on the dragon JTAG is on the red wire side of the 10 pin connector, and the jally's pin 1 is on the red wire side of the 10 pin connector. On mine the dragon has to be upside down in order for the cable not to have a 180 twist in it. If this person is going straight he (or she) is doing it wrong.

If you're still sunk, drop me a line and maybe I can take a look at your unit. The JTAG thing makes no sense, even shorting the +1 supply didn't stop that from coming up (and I spent hours doing that one fun night)

C

[Brassguy]

Just an update...

I used my own modded 1.2.9 firmware first... worked at 6.4gh... crappy chips...

Bottom heat at 100C for about 10min

Applied no clean liquid flux  (edit)

IR lamp set to 120C (pulses on and off)
about 2.5min (x2) for chip to drop (each one)

Let stand for about 10min

Assemble

Enjoying 14.7gh at about 48C (nice cold basement! )

Yum!

[lightfoot]

Check this out, looking around to help.

http://imgur.com/a/CMazz#0

Every BFL PCB with chip layout.

P.S. I'm looking at water cooling options could you find me dimensions on the chip area (would a 50x50mm block work?) and the hole centers for the heat sink mount.

Oh those... pictures... are interesting. They look like BFL pictures, what were they thinking?

Let's see:

The jally board has one chip. Way more importantly, it has *no* MOSFETs on the 1 volt supply line. Those guys were going to power it off the USB line like some big Erupter. Well, we know that didn't work. But very interesting, no capacitors, no inductors, no nothing. That board would not have been able to do anything interesting.

The little single board is also interesting. 4 chips. 30 GH was the rated speed, I think they were either smoking something or the chips did not do quite as much as they thought they would. One would need 7+gh in order to pull 30gh with 4 chips, and it took eight to make 30, and even that is stressing the board's power supplies.

THAT is what happened. They totally mis-read the power consumption on the chips. They thought you could run a chip at super low power and 4.5gh for the jally, but it turned out they needed full power plus. So they had to use fully powered SC boards plus two chips because one wouldn't quite hash it (hah, I kill myself). Which sank the possibility of passive cooling, so into the dustbin went the coffee cup warmer cases.

The single/30 needed 8 chips, and you can't even run 4 chips in the box there and expect it not to overheat. Believe me, I tried, fail. Even with all eight, the power FETs were overheating so they had to add bottom cooling. Can't do that in a little single box, so they had to build the bigger box with space under it and a side fan. Made one box for 30 and 60 (dual 30's) at which point they just said "screw it, we'll use the little single boards and mid-quality chips for the jalapenos, offer a "bump up" to try to recoup costs by putting two grade A chips, and delay the singles and 60's.

And that is exactly what happened. Although running at full 30gh is at the edge of what the single board can handle without blowing FETs so they wrote code to limit the hash speed to 30+.04%. And they slowly shipped 30's and 60's, which explains why people there were grumpy.

But imagine being in the BFL factory: You have to put down twice as many chips, had to scrap a whole pile of jally cases, and worst you had to fill jalapeno orders with much more expensive quality cases, fans, power supplies, and fuck knows what else including boards with full power support for a product that cost several times as much.

And THEN you have to build new cases, double the heatsink counts, chip counts, and run the thing at the edge to meet the 30gh "promise".

Now your jallies hit the streets, and people start modding them. Word gets out, BFL leaves a lot of performance there, boost it up dude! The jally people can get away with it, and then the single/30 and single/60 people start doing it....

If the single/30 had split the chips across both sides of the board the users might have gotten away with hot-dogging it to 35+gh. But BFL was already way under the money rock with this; they needed to keep costs down so they sold the other side of the board with no components. Not needed. And they reduced the new speed sold to 25gh, which is much safer and will probably last forever.

So the Single/30 and Single/60 people load up code revs with no restrictions. Power draw goes way up, FETs explode, and people start bitching on the forums. Because they thought they could make their singles faster, expected it.

Ooops. Poor BFL. They have really tried to do the right thing here, even when many other companies said fuck it and quit. I do have to give them a lot of credit here, and I think the bashing is missing the point. They weren't malicious, indeed their solution was pretty damn impressive.

Maybe this is what happened. But the chips and pics and stories are all coming together with what I am seeing here totally independently. I wouldn't go over 6 chips....

Fascinating.

[lightfoot]

Just an update...

I used my own modded 1.2.9 firmware first... worked at 6.4gh... crappy chips...

Bottom heat at 100C for about 10min

Applied no clean liquid flux  (edit)

IR lamp set to 120C (pulses on and off)
about 2.5min (x2) for chip to drop (each one)

Let stand for about 10min

Assemble

Enjoying 14.7gh at about 48C (nice cold basement! )

Yum!

120 degrees C? Man what are you using, and where can I get something like that? Also what flux did you use?

[lightfoot]

Oh as far as water cooling? Forget the top, water cool the bottom of the board. The chips can sink an amazing amount of heat through the board, it's flat and with the exception of a few copper vias pretty perfect for a nice big plate that can cool the chips, the FETs, half of everything. Then just put a normal sink and fan on top and go to town.

C

[Drug5bitz]

Wow yeah it does all kind of make sense. All the pics from early have 1 chip.  Also from what I've seen the mini rigs are water cooled. I think it's 8 (prolly 6) chips on a board sandwiched between two water blocks. If I can do that, that would be a thread as well. Did you mount the copper sink right to the back plate and add thermal paste? Could I get a better pic of your mounting setup? Also whats the surface size the chips cover like 50x50mm for all of the pads?

[lightfoot]

Wow yeah it does all kind of make sense. All the pics from early have 1 chip.  Also from what I've seen the mini rigs are water cooled. I think it's 8 (prolly 6) chips on a board sandwiched between two water blocks. If I can do that, that would be a thread as well. Did you mount the copper sink right to the back plate and add thermal paste? Could I get a better pic of your mounting setup? Also whats the surface size the chips cover like 50x50mm for all of the pads?

Close. The copper sink I had came from an IBM x366 system, big ole Pentium XEON chips. I wish I had saved another sink, but you know how it goes.

The surface plate is too big to fit on the back of the board directly because there are 8 little vias to the left of the chips, and those are copper on the bottom. Short out potential. So I initially drilled two dimples in the heat sink, and stuck the jally with the AL plate on it with some cheap-o Radio shack heat sink compound. Worked well, the aluminum heat sink gets *HOT* and it was wicking heat into the plate.

Then I said "Hm", went out to the shed and drilled two holes into it. Removed two fins from the centerline, and ran two screws through it, AL plate, board, crummy AL sink on top. Works *well*.

Then I said "hm hm" and put heat sink compound on both sides of the AL plate (board and sink). IT WICKS A LOT OF HEAT AWAY and solves the heat problem completely. If I got a router and put a channel into the copper plate so it would clear those vias I would just mount it to the whole back of the unit and call it a day.

I don't quite recall the surface size, it might be in the BFL specifications PDF for the little single. Take yours apart and check with a set of calipers, actually you can see the chip outlines on the back so measure it there without removing the heat sink. Go as big as you can, and if possible get it under the FETs on the side over to the CPU board. That's the heat spot.

I'll shoot some better pics this weekend, this little guy is almost a work of art at this point.

C

[Brassguy]

Just an update...

I used my own modded 1.2.9 firmware first... worked at 6.4gh... crappy chips...

Bottom heat at 100C for about 10min

Applied no clean liquid flux  (edit)

IR lamp set to 120C (pulses on and off)
about 2.5min (x2) for chip to drop (each one)

Let stand for about 10min

Assemble

Enjoying 14.7gh at about 48C (nice cold basement! )

Yum!

120 degrees C? Man what are you using, and where can I get something like that? Also what flux did you use?

Cheapo China special T862+ was marketed for bga replacement (yeah right with the tiny bottom heater it has)... however it is perfect for mobile phone repairs... and hacking Jalapeno's!!

Flux is Kester 951 no clean flux from dickiesgaragesale.com  ... I bought it from his ebay store...

edit just finished my second jally... clocks in at just under 16gh... a bit too late to do the last one but I need to pick up some supplies so I can just put 5 on all 3... I'll keep you posted...

just an fyi... 1 jally at 15.9gh@46C, 1 jally at 13.2gh@41C.... the last was at 14.7 and 10% HW errors (forgot to turn back on a single error check no reason to waste the energy and stress it for no extra hashes)

[lightfoot]

Cheapo China special T862+ was marketed for bga replacement (yeah right with the tiny bottom heater it has)... however it is perfect for mobile phone repairs... and hacking Jalapeno's!!

Interesting. Off to Ebay to buy one; they look like garbage, but why not. :-)

It really only needs 120 degrees C of heat on top to float the chips? Or is that 320C

Flux is Kester 951 no clean flux from dickiesgaragesale.com  ... I bought it from his ebay store...

edit just finished my second jally... clocks in at just under 16gh... a bit too late to do the last one but I need to pick up some supplies so I can just put 5 on all 3... I'll keep you posted...

I am so tickled that this works....

just an fyi... 1 jally at 15.9gh@46C, 1 jally at 13.2gh@41C.... the last was at 14.7 and 10% HW errors (forgot to turn back on a single error check no reason to waste the energy and stress it for no extra hashes)

That's about right, now grab a cheap-o IR thermometer and check the temps on those FETs. With 4 it's not a problem, going to 5 starts to push into odd places. I assume this is running with open case, fan down, no sink on the bottom?

Good work!
C

[Inaba]

It depends on which MOSFETs you have.  We have had a lot of trouble sourcing large quantities of MOSFETs, so we've had different ones on there. Some run much, much cooler than others.

[Drug5bitz]

That was another idea I had, how about changing out critical components such as the mosfets as well?  I really wouldn't know but they seem to be the weak link for now. That and getting a real power supply for these things. 

I lost faith that my 4 jalapenos (just in the mail now). Thinking I ended up wasting my money (which inevitably i did). If I have anything to say about it I'm going to have 4 little singles. Water cooled possibly if it seems beneficial. Kinda tend to be a junkie with water and PC's, I just don't know if  the added dissipation is going to help more than just cool the fets a litttle. The chips clock up in the start up, and after they're running only down clock if to much heat is present right?

[Brassguy]

Yeah 120C is what I had it set for.... on top IR heat it just pulses on and off... stays on longer if you set it "higher".

Further info... I float the chips twice now...
1-apply flux
2-set chip
3-IR heating
4-Repeat 123 for the other chip
5-wait 5min
6-more liquid flux on chip 1
7-reheat chip 1 another 2min at 120C
8-more liquid flux on chip 2
9-reheat chip 2 another 2min at 120C
10- turn off heat wait 10 min

I'm picking up my rpi heatsinks (for the 'fets), some heat pads(chip heights), some recycled big ol' aluminum heat sinks for the bottom... gonna sit all 3 on a laptop cooler:)

I'll keep you posted...

[lightfoot]

Yeah 120C is what I had it set for.... on top IR heat it just pulses on and off... stays on longer if you set it "higher".

Further info... I float the chips twice now...
1-apply flux
2-set chip
3-IR heating
4-Repeat 123 for the other chip
5-wait 5min
6-more liquid flux on chip 1
7-reheat chip 1 another 2min at 120C
8-more liquid flux on chip 2
9-reheat chip 2 another 2min at 120C
10- turn off heat wait 10 min

I'm picking up my rpi heatsinks (for the 'fets), some heat pads(chip heights), some recycled big ol' aluminum heat sinks for the bottom... gonna sit all 3 on a laptop cooler:)

I'll keep you posted...

Well, looks like I am going to Ebay and will be spending another chunk of change for one of these. That's a lot better than searing chips with the flamethrower.

How did you get more flux on the chips? Dump it around the chip and let it wick in?

C

[dentldir]

Wicking in from the sides and tilting the board is how I did Xbox 360 GPUs and it worked well.  They were a much bigger BGA so it should work just fine on these chips.

I may try reflowing the chip I think has cold joints tonight.   I'll report back with what I find.  Will also add a heatsink on the bottom per your suggestion.

[Drug5bitz]

So I've been looking at reballing stations as well what ya think of this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/131046801460?lpid=82

[lightfoot]

A note to everyone watching:

I have been in contact with the gentleman/lady/person who is selling chips here on the forum. Apparently he has a limited supply of them, so if you want chips from this source I highly recommend buying them... soon.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=236103.0

Kudos to drug5bitz for finding this person. I bought one (in addition to 3 more coming in from another source) so I should be good to go for now.

Edit: AND all the chips are sold again. What the hell is it with me? :-)

C

[lightfoot]

Yeah, we have a new heatsink that goes on the bottom of the units that are shipping with newer units that replaces the flat reinforcement backplate.

That is making a nice difference. One of my outstanding questions was why two of the new chips were hashing at 3gh or so while the third was at 4.3gh. With the new sink covering all the chips and wicking away the heat, I am seeing 4.0+ on the two (obviously corner) chips and 4.3 on the inside one.

Very impressive. Moral: If you're going to double your chips, put them on the cross positions so they are all covered by the heat sink. Better yet, get a better heat sink with pipes to remove the heat more efficiently.

This weekend I might try putting mine back in the case and see if it will keep itself cool. Then if I get my chips I'll go for six.

Thanks Inaba!

[lightfoot]

So I've been looking at reballing stations as well what ya think of this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/131046801460?lpid=82

Looks like a pretty good thing to have if you need to do reballing. I'm split between something like that and a full-bore IR rework station. I can do things with the air tools, but that ability to focus heat down on a single component could be very helpful when I am replacing transistors as small as the little capacitors on the BFL boards.

How many chips do you have to do?

C

[Drug5bitz]

I've got 10 chips in the mail, should arrive before the reflow tool and the jalapenos. I just dumped part of my BTC savings and some cash totaling almost a grand. Here we come 60Ghs, new heat pipes ordered too. I'm as giddy as a kid for christmas. Plus the BTC prices are going nuts and all my FTC and XPM is worth a lot of cash now. Didn't think I would see the day FTC made me a couple hundred bucks.

[lightfoot]

I've got 10 chips in the mail, should arrive before the reflow tool and the jalapenos. I just dumped part of my BTC savings and some cash totaling almost a grand. Here we come 60Ghs, new heat pipes ordered too. I'm as giddy as a kid for christmas. Plus the BTC prices are going nuts and all my FTC and XPM is worth a lot of cash now. Didn't think I would see the day FTC made me a couple hundred bucks.

Oh you're going to have a *FUN* time. This is getting more interesting every day.

I just noticed they're doing another Chili board run. $350 or so for the board, you add the chips and the heat sink. Sounds like a "good" deal but I wonder if anyone noticed two things:

1) This thread points out that Jallies can jump from 2 chips to at least six.
2) Butterfly Labs is running a sale on Jallies with delivery in December for $200 on Friday.

You get the board, fan, sink, case, even the power supply. I am really. Really. Really tempted to pick another one up and stick a pair of chips on it. In fact I'm in on at least one; anyone else?

[Brassguy]

Well fun night all around! Blew up one original chip on my jally Thought I would get cute and try to flash the firmware without a heatsink real quick... didn't notice it error out and reset... well got it unplugged quickly enough that the other original chip was good, but the magic smoke leaked out of one Put 3 chips on... 2 ended up either duds or heated too long. Floated those chips off, cleaned up the pads on the board, and put my last 2 chips on...

Couple things I found out tonight...

This board soaks heat very, very well! High bottom heat really helps installing chips, cleaning pads, and removing chips. Cleaning the pads was quite the chore until I got the bottom heater high enough...

End of story jally 3 is at 14.9gh... I'm gonna go mourn the loss of my 3 chips now

Looks like there aren't any more chips floating around... 

[bcp19]

I've got 10 chips in the mail, should arrive before the reflow tool and the jalapenos. I just dumped part of my BTC savings and some cash totaling almost a grand. Here we come 60Ghs, new heat pipes ordered too. I'm as giddy as a kid for christmas. Plus the BTC prices are going nuts and all my FTC and XPM is worth a lot of cash now. Didn't think I would see the day FTC made me a couple hundred bucks.

Oh you're going to have a *FUN* time. This is getting more interesting every day.

I just noticed they're doing another Chili board run. $350 or so for the board, you add the chips and the heat sink. Sounds like a "good" deal but I wonder if anyone noticed two things:

1) This thread points out that Jallies can jump from 2 chips to at least six.
2) Butterfly Labs is running a sale on Jallies with delivery in December for $200 on Friday.

You get the board, fan, sink, case, even the power supply. I am really. Really. Really tempted to pick another one up and stick a pair of chips on it. In fact I'm in on at least one; anyone else?

What are you using to power your Jalankenstein?

[lightfoot]

Well fun night all around! Blew up one original chip on my jally Thought I would get cute and try to flash the firmware without a heatsink real quick... didn't notice it error out and reset... well got it unplugged quickly enough that the other original chip was good, but the magic smoke leaked out of one Put 3 chips on... 2 ended up either duds or heated too long. Floated those chips off, cleaned up the pads on the board, and put my last 2 chips on...

Whoah, wicked. My protocol for programming is to plug the jally in last, have ATMel all ready to clear the memory, and as soon as I plug in the jally I hit the "erase memory" button so it clears the program. Then the chips are in idle mode.

As a backup, I have the board fan pointing down. Have not lost a chip yet, but your experience points to having *something* on the chips. Can you post a photo of the blown up chip?

As for duds, I can't believe that the solder will melt with only 120c coming down from the top. Granted hot air sucks, but the chips really are mounting to the board, was there any damage to the chip pads when you floated off?

I doubt the chips are bad.

This board soaks heat very, very well! High bottom heat really helps installing chips, cleaning pads, and removing chips. Cleaning the pads was quite the chore until I got the bottom heater high enough...

End of story jally 3 is at 14.9gh... I'm gonna go mourn the loss of my 3 chips now

Yep. That board is extremely efficient on the heat end; how high are you running the bottom heat BTW?

Looks like there aren't any more chips floating around... 

There are; I think the latest run of chilis and all the people boosting their jallies are sucking down supply. Damn bitcoin has such a shallow market that when I write about boosting units everyone buys all the chips :-)

That said, there is arbitage: Chili purchases usually leave a lot of left over chips. We might want to have someone ask the chili vendor if they have left overs from their sales. Or go in on a big buy from BFL, but at $75 a chip they are really not worth that much. Well, sort of. Maybe they are.

C

[Drug5bitz]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=74397.0

^ I'm planning on 2 adapters from this guy for powering the units.   Chips I would love a group buy but it would prolly be months......

[lightfoot]

Nice. I see BFL had something similar for about $18 bucks. I was going to make my own cable but a real one would be nicer.

Let us know how fast it comes in, looks interesting. Since I'm buying another Jally, it would be nice to power both on this ATX supply sitting here in its box.

C

[lightfoot]

I'm doing some experimenting on chips with the air tools while waiting for my next batch to come in. I'm wondering if I am going too hot here for some reason.

Test bed right now is a bunch of 1gb DDR, 2006 vintage memory modules. Granted they don't have the ground plane, but I can float them off the board with no problem with about 10-15 seconds of heat at 350c. At 300c they do not budge no matter how long I leave the flow on them. At 350 they come off but only after applying a fair bit of heat. At 375 they come off even quicker. Low air flow rates seem to be fine.

400 should be plenty. I'm not sure where my problem is.

Old DRAM chips (1990 vintage) come loose in 15 seconds or so at 375.

Putting a dead BFL chip on it's back, putting flux on it, and reflowing it at 350c at low airflow rates makes the solder liquify without much time.

Then again these *may* be non-ROHS equipment. I'm thinking right now of going to Staples and getting some piece of electronic crap and floating those chips. That might be the problem, according to Freescale documents you need to have 350c for lead solder, 400-500c for ROHS in your ovens. In which case I might need even *more* heat.

Another data point: Blasting the BFL chip at 450c air temps for minutes showed up as a temperature of 440F on the device's top side. Which is only 232c, which is barely the BJT (ball junction temp). Another reason temps might need to be higher than I expect.

I need some late model garbage. Hm, what can I buy at Staples that is ROHS, loaded with chips, and cheap as hell (yes, I know, an X Box :-)

[Brassguy]

Just an FYI...

Came down to check on everything this morning...

The last jally I did ended up at around 14.9gh after all the fun times (read above)... cgminer was reporting values between 30gh and 120gh...obviously not correct and one hashing chip light on the back (by the barrel connector) was flashing like crazy... don't get me wrong I wish it was actually hashing at that rate

I reset that jally and it did disable that chip on power up. Hashing at 11.2gh now...

Later tonight I'll reflow that chip and report back... hopefully it's just a bad connection

[lightfoot]

Try reflowing all the chips; I can't believe that they're not seated. And re-viewing my data, I see that even blasting them with 450c was not raising the temps much past 425F, which is what the temp should be on the bottom of the board to verify proper chip flow.

Side question: How many chips are on the board now, and can you post some pics?

C

[Brassguy]

The infamous 3rd jally has 4 chips mounted in a cross pattern, aka, the easy pads to use... all 3 of my jallys are modded this way. The light that was flashing crazily this morning was the light in the 7th position away from the power jack, 2 away from the usb jack.

I'll try to get some pics from my adventure up tonight or tomorrow... I'm going to try to reball the 2 chips I have... the original chip I blew up had the chip actually separate from the bga base...

[lightfoot]

The infamous 3rd jally has 4 chips mounted in a cross pattern, aka, the easy pads to use... all 3 of my jallys are modded this way. The light that was flashing crazily this morning was the light in the 7th position away from the power jack, 2 away from the usb jack.

I'll try to get some pics from my adventure up tonight or tomorrow... I'm going to try to reball the 2 chips I have... the original chip I blew up had the chip actually separate from the bga base...

*wow* Well, they were kind of odd ducks, but *wow*. Out of curiosity did it have a lot of errors on it and a lot of engines shut down? Just wondering if the dead engines put out full heat at idle, and leaving them running blew the chip.

So in a nutshell you had six chips, modded 3 jallies, two are running with 4 cpu's one with three including a replacement for one of the crappy onboard ones. You're still doing very well in terms of odds.

C

[Drug5bitz]

I like what he's saying with the cross pattern. Sounds like better distribution of heat and sink pressure across all the chips. Less of a chance of chip next to chip uneven height.

I think that's how I'm going to do it to not stress any components to their limit. Mostly I would want a lot more chips in the future. Problem is BFL isn't selling anymore chips!!!!!  I think they want to pinch this in the butt, as just adding chips looks like a simple mod. It also brings to light a lot of their blunders. (WTF did they expect with a bunch of hackers, crackers, and exploiters getting their shit.)  Good luck finding 65nm chips guys, these things are going to be worth more than gold soon.

[lightfoot]

I like what he's saying with the cross pattern. Sounds like better distribution of heat and sink pressure across all the chips. Less of a chance of chip next to chip uneven height.

I think that's how I'm going to do it to not stress any components to their limit. Mostly I would want a lot more chips in the future. Problem is BFL isn't selling anymore chips!!!!!  I think they want to pinch this in the butt, as just adding chips looks like a simple mod. It also brings to light a lot of their blunders. (WTF did they expect with a bunch of hackers, crackers, and exploiters getting their shit.)  Good luck finding 65nm chips guys, these things are going to be worth more than gold soon.

Naah, I don't think anything we did here points out a negative light towards BFL. In fact, I'd say it's pretty damn positive. They did a lot in order to give us what we paid for, I'm betting that they could have gone with the original design at 4gh but instead they gave us a more expensive board, capability to go to 7-8gh, and a much better case. Same price.

Fact is they delivered when a number of other vendors didn't. Avalon has their own issues, there are at least two other groups that just folded (and took people's bitcoins), BFL seems to have forged through the problems to deliver.

As to the number of Jally failures, I really am wondering if they are really hardware fails, or if people are installing the 1.2.9 code for single boards and not recompiling to little_single. That will do exactly what people have been reporting, in which case it's not BFL's failut it's simple ignorance.

Oddly enough this is why companies pot their equipment and then refuse to divulge source. Because people who screw it up then try to tarnish the business' name. Better to be like Sony or Apple and lock the whole thing away from you...

Such is life.

C

[lightfoot]

As for the chips, that's a problem, didn't realize that BFL was not selling them anymore :-) Drat, kind of sucks to come all this way and have things go poof. Unless of course we can source some more chips. My guess is the chili people sucked them up.

Note: It's also possible they stopped selling them because they anticipate an orgy of sales tonight. We shall see.

C

[Brassguy]

The infamous 3rd jally has 4 chips mounted in a cross pattern, aka, the easy pads to use... all 3 of my jallys are modded this way. The light that was flashing crazily this morning was the light in the 7th position away from the power jack, 2 away from the usb jack.

I'll try to get some pics from my adventure up tonight or tomorrow... I'm going to try to reball the 2 chips I have... the original chip I blew up had the chip actually separate from the bga base...

*wow* Well, they were kind of odd ducks, but *wow*. Out of curiosity did it have a lot of errors on it and a lot of engines shut down? Just wondering if the dead engines put out full heat at idle, and leaving them running blew the chip.

So in a nutshell you had six chips, modded 3 jallies, two are running with 4 cpu's one with three including a replacement for one of the crappy onboard ones. You're still doing very well in terms of odds.

C

Lol... it's worse than that! I bought nine... installed 4 (2 on each jally) then started on the 3rd one the next day...
Long story short installed 2, removed them, blew out one of the original chips through my own stupidity, removed that chip, and installed my remaining 3 unused ones...

So 3rd jally had 4, 1 original (rev 1 chip) and 3 rev 2 chips... working great until this morning... one light flashing crazy... unplugged power then plugged back in... now running on 3 chips 1 original and 2 rev 2 chips

Another sidenote... I compiled my own 1.2.9... I didn't turn off error checking just changed it from 10 to 1... and obviously changed to "little single"...

[Drug5bitz]

Ok I've looked through some different source code lately. Which file reads like a regular config file? Is it when you actually go to flash you can edit it or prior as I would think? Could use a little guidance on the flashing as I have never flashed a jalapeno. I've read the thread 10 times atleast but it doesn't specify where you edit the code or on what file. Thanks guys I'm loving every second of this shit, and if you find a new vendor let me know I'll clean them out.

[Brassguy]

Ok I've looked through some different source code lately. Which file reads like a regular config file? Is it when you actually go to flash you can edit it or prior as I would think? Could use a little guidance on the flashing as I have never flashed a jalapeno. I've read the thread 10 times atleast but it doesn't specify where you edit the code or on what file. Thanks guys I'm loving every second of this shit, and if you find a new vendor let me know I'll clean them out.

This thread is really built on the back of this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=236875.0 that's where all of this really got rolling... LOTS of good reading there.

[lightfoot]

This thread is really built on the back of this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=236875.0 that's where all of this really got rolling... LOTS of good reading there.

No question. I forked this thread off because I really felt like I was bogarting the chip flashing thread. I'd recommend reading all of it; there is amazing stuff there.

And the answer to your question: 99.9% of the changes can be done in std_defs.h. That's the key file to mod.

C

[Drug5bitz]

Ah the lulz Ive read through that one already, abd that's how I'm here now.   Thanks for the heads up on the file I didn't dig through the code to much yet but will.

[elaramus]

So I was successful in adding a single chip to each of my two Jally's by following the most excellent pioneer work found in this thread.

I did however manage to screw up two of my chips in the process. I have the reflow equipment to reball, but don't know what size solder balls to order or if there's a good pre-existing template for the 12x12 array on the chip. Any ideas? I'd like to try to get my two bum chips going.

Call me a sucker, but I ordered 4 more Jally's using BFL's Black Friday Sale... guess we'll see if they're really ready for immediate delivery (the price for 4 after shipping and discount was less than $900)

[lightfoot]

So I was successful in adding a single chip to each of my two Jally's by following the most excellent pioneer work found in this thread.

I did however manage to screw up two of my chips in the process. I have the reflow equipment to reball, but don't know what size solder balls to order or if there's a good pre-existing template for the 12x12 array on the chip. Any ideas? I'd like to try to get my two bum chips going.

Call me a sucker, but I ordered 4 more Jally's using BFL's Black Friday Sale... guess we'll see if they're really ready for immediate delivery (the price for 4 after shipping and discount was less than $900)

Naah. I ordered three. Two for myself, one for a friend mainly because I wanted that ATX cable thingie. When did you order (I got mine in at 12:01; web site was sloooooo).

As for reballing, can you post pics of your chips? And how did you screw up; my two screwups were because the chip moved off center and I panicked for one, and because I  hit the chip with the nozzle and caused a board short on the other. Getting better on this.

Actually maybe one of us should by the $70 BGA reballing kit on Ebay, then send it around to people.

C

[elaramus]

So the one on the left I don't really remember how I screwed it up... think I got nervous and lifted it thinking no bond had occurred and well, you see the results, the one on the right slid unevenly when heated. I was using 438C @ medium air flow.

As for the Jally orders, my BTC were sent at 08:38am so it was still kinda early.

[lightfoot]

Those look much better than mine; I actually really blew it and pulled some of the pads off the chip. I was running too cold.

Anyway, the one on the right might reflow if you put flux on the bottom, then heat it. Both might actually, give it a quick try but at lower temps like 350 or so.

C

[lightfoot]

In the meantime, I'm waiting on three chips to arrive, still thinking about reballing/replacing these two chips I have, and my jally continues to hash happily with 5 chips live (and the one dead one) onboard.

I couldn't refuse the BFL offer so I picked up a total of three jallies (one for a friend) and an ATX cord. I think I'm going to put one more chip on my board, and set the other four chips on the other two jallies. So I'll go to six chips.

What we need are more chips here, anyone got any thoughts/leads? I'm wondering if BFL locked out sales so they could ensure they had enough for their jallies and singles; apparently they sold out of JP's so there might be some left overs once the sale ends today.

C

[lightfoot]

And by the way, some software thoughts:

Now that I have a heat sink that allows me to have the programming plug attached while the sink is on (oh joy!) I have had a chance to fiddle a lot more with the speeds in the 1.2.9 software. Was kind of surprised by the results. In a nutshell:

Speed 5: THEORETICAL MAX: 18202 MH/s
Speed 6: THEORETICAL MAX: 19191 MH/s
Speed 7: THEORETICAL MAX: 19693 MH/s
Speed 8: THEORETICAL MAX: 20022 MH/s
Speed 9: THEORETICAL MAX: 18043 MH/s
Speed 9: THEORETICAL MAX: 17528 MH/s (after a reboot)

The difference on speed 9 is that one of the chips (Processor 3, the crap processor) only fired 8 engines at 277 instead of 13 at 271. The other processors are more sad as well. Interesting, it seems it could not slow down with the others being fast. I'll post the specs below.

However I am now running at speed 8 instead of 7, will see how it hashes. Note also that letting the unit cool down after running will always produce slightly higher hash results, and unplugging/immediate plug in will cost about .5-1gh.

The moral here though is that maybe some of the Jally clockers who are seeing crap speeds with 1.2.9 are using Tarkin's code, which runs everything at 9. I think it will cause the weaker chips to run at super-slow speeds, while speed 8 will provide the possibility of coming up. Speed 7 seems to be the best balance of power and performance, but note that speed 6 is still pretty damned good. And speed 5 is still *BETTER* than speed 9.

Given the lower power usage and longer life, I would recommend that if you go past 5 chips, you might want to run speed 6. If you stuff 8 chips on go for speed 5. That might give you the most efficient power usage per chip.

For the moment, I'm going to run at speed 8 for awhile and see if it makes a difference in the software. Oddly enough I might be best off tweaking things manually, putting some chips at 9 and others at lower speeds (like the aforementioned chip 3) specifically to optimize performance. I think that's next :-)

C

[lightfoot]

The raw data dumps on my speed runs:

Default: Speed 7 been running this for awhile now without a reboot. <1% errors.

DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.9
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 5
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 0: 16 engines @ 271 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 3: 13 engines @ 265 MHz -- MAP: EFFC
PROCESSOR 5: 16 engines @ 248 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 6: 16 engines @ 264 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 248 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 19693 MH/s
ENGINES: 76
FREQUENCY: 274 MHz
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
TOTAL THERMAL CYCLES: 0
XLINK MODE: MASTER
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

Speed 8:
DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.9
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 5
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 0: 16 engines @ 281 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 3: 13 engines @ 271 MHz -- MAP: EFFC
PROCESSOR 5: 16 engines @ 253 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 6: 15 engines @ 274 MHz -- MAP: F7FF
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 253 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 19972 MH/s
ENGINES: 75
FREQUENCY: 283 MHz
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
TOTAL THERMAL CYCLES: 0
XLINK MODE: MASTER
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

Speed 9
DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.9
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 5
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 0: 14 engines @ 291 MHz -- MAP: FFCF
PROCESSOR 3: 8 engines @ 277 MHz -- MAP: E3A4
PROCESSOR 5: 16 engines @ 261 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 6: 13 engines @ 284 MHz -- MAP: D7FD
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 259 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 18043 MH/s
ENGINES: 66
FREQUENCY: 291 MHz
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
TOTAL THERMAL CYCLES: 0
XLINK MODE: MASTER
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

Also speed 9, ater a re power cycle.
DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.9
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 5
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 0: 15 engines @ 288 MHz -- MAP: FFEF
PROCESSOR 3: 8 engines @ 277 MHz -- MAP: E3A4
PROCESSOR 5: 15 engines @ 262 MHz -- MAP: F7FF
PROCESSOR 6: 12 engines @ 284 MHz -- MAP: D7ED
PROCESSOR 7: 14 engines @ 261 MHz -- MAP: FF7E
THEORETICAL MAX: 17528 MH/s
ENGINES: 64
FREQUENCY: 291 MHz
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
TOTAL THERMAL CYCLES: 0
XLINK MODE: MASTER
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

How about speed 6?
DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.9
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 5
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 0: 16 engines @ 268 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 3: 13 engines @ 259 MHz -- MAP: EFFC
PROCESSOR 5: 16 engines @ 240 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 6: 16 engines @ 256 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 240 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 19191 MH/s
ENGINES: 76
FREQUENCY: 266 MHz
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
TOTAL THERMAL CYCLES: 0
XLINK MODE: MASTER
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

Speed 6 again after a fast power cycle?
DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.9
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 5
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 0: 15 engines @ 267 MHz -- MAP: FFDF
PROCESSOR 3: 13 engines @ 259 MHz -- MAP: EFFC
PROCESSOR 5: 15 engines @ 240 MHz -- MAP: FFDF
PROCESSOR 6: 15 engines @ 256 MHz -- MAP: FFBF
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 240 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 18412 MH/s
ENGINES: 73
FREQUENCY: 266 MHz
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
TOTAL THERMAL CYCLES: 0
XLINK MODE: MASTER
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

How about speed 5? Sure, why not.
DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.9
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 5
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 0: 15 engines @ 259 MHz -- MAP: FFDF
PROCESSOR 3: 13 engines @ 250 MHz -- MAP: EFFC
PROCESSOR 5: 16 engines @ 237 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 6: 15 engines @ 250 MHz -- MAP: FFBF
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 235 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 18202 MH/s
ENGINES: 74
FREQUENCY: 260 MHz
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
TOTAL THERMAL CYCLES: 0
XLINK MODE: MASTER
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

Hm. Slower, back to 8
DEVICE: BitFORCE SC
FIRMWARE: 1.2.9
IAR Executed: NO
CHIP PARALLELIZATION: YES @ 5
QUEUE DEPTH:40
PROCESSOR 0: 16 engines @ 280 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 3: 13 engines @ 271 MHz -- MAP: EFFC
PROCESSOR 5: 15 engines @ 253 MHz -- MAP: FFDF
PROCESSOR 6: 16 engines @ 274 MHz -- MAP: FFFF
PROCESSOR 7: 15 engines @ 256 MHz -- MAP: FFFE
THEORETICAL MAX: 20022 MH/s
ENGINES: 75
FREQUENCY: 283 MHz
CRITICAL TEMPERATURE: 0
TOTAL THERMAL CYCLES: 0
XLINK MODE: MASTER
XLINK PRESENT: NO
OK

SWEET! Let's run with this.

Good luck everyone.

[Inaba]

What we need are more chips here, anyone got any thoughts/leads? I'm wondering if BFL locked out sales so they could ensure they had enough for their jallies and singles; apparently they sold out of JP's so there might be some left overs once the sale ends today.

We only ordered 500,000 to 600,000 chips (I can't remember how many wafers specifically off the top of my head) and we're down to under 30k left, maybe quite a bit less.  Once they are gone, they are pretty much gone, we are moving to 28nm.

[lightfoot]

Hm. Eligius has been noisy, and my secondary choice for hashing got some work done, so I can't trust the damn stats. But it does look like my performance boost to 8 didn't speed up my overall hashing rate.

I'll let it run through this morning. However going to speed 8 from 7 seems to have driven up my temps by 10c, my power by 10 watts, and my hashing by 300mh/s and possibly down. Might not be worth it.

Hm.

C

[lightfoot]

We only ordered 500,000 to 600,000 chips (I can't remember how many wafers specifically off the top of my head) and we're down to under 30k left, maybe quite a bit less.  Once they are gone, they are pretty much gone, we are moving to 28nm.

Makes sense, the technology is basically obsolete (but a nice first shot).

An idea: Take the remaining ones and send them to the chip credit people; that would flood the market, clear that agreement, and allow you to write off the remaining inventory.

C

(Has two chip credits somewhere around there)

[lightfoot]

Latest data from the testing frontier:

1) My chip 6 refuses to come up.Heated it to 500F using 465c air at speed low for 2 minutes. Note, lower air speeds mean more heat since the air is transferring heat *to* the object instead of *around* the object. Forgot about that.

2) I put the case back on the unit with the heat pipe heat sink (*NOT* the Al one) and the fan blowing *up*. I did grease the bottom of the sink when I put it on the base for bottom heat transfer.

Case itself gets warm, temps in 60-65C. So a fully enclosed jally with an early style heat sink can run in the case with 5 chips. The Al heat sink will *not* work.

Will leave it alone today and see if it's stable.

Update: after a day it's totally stable. Nice!

C

[lightfoot]

WARNING: THIS IS IMPORTANT:

Big big stopping point here. I think this is important:

I know people are flashing these things with all sorts of firmware. We know that the newer jallies with the 256mb flash chips need to be defined specifically in order to flash them. And we know that 1.2.5 and 1.2.9 work on the 256mb chips.

HOWEVER Has anyone successfully flashed 1.2.9 onto a jalapeno that has only 128mb chips?

Here is the reason: I got a Jally in for a chip upgrade. No I am not doing this for money, person asked really nicely and agreed to take all risks. Ok.

As is my protocol I change only one thing at a time. First I unboxed their unit and ran it last night. Says it's 1.2.6, kind of weird firmware but it hashes at 7.6gh overnight without overheating or anything.

Then I flashed it to 1.2.9. Failed flash with the ATMEL set to 256mb chip. Reset to 128mb chip, erased and flashed. However the Jally was *DEAD*. Totally, and completely dead. Power light, no front flashing LED, looked like a serial port. Nothing else, game over.

Flashed two more times, verified code, all good. Fails.

Flasked CK's 1.2.5 code release, Jally comes up happy with 15 cores. Now letting it run for another day to verify stable operation.

WHAT THIS MEANS!

If you have a 128mb Jally, I am not sure if you can load 1.2.8 or 1.2.9 code. Given that this code is needed for running the newer chips, it means YOU CANNOT LOAD NEWER CHIPS ON YOUR JALLY.

So, has anyone verified you can load 1.2.9 compiled code on a 128mb Jally?

C

[lightfoot]

And another update:

This evening I got three more chips and tried to put a chip on the unit. I took off the bad chip, prepped the board, lined it up perfectly, and soldered it on. No problems, system fires up.

Fail.

Complete fail. That's insane. Rebooted it, it finds there chips.

Three chips that include chips 2,3,4 (4,5 are the original old chips, 2,3 have never been lit.)

That's the problem. One of the other chips I have put on must have a short on the select lines. As such it is thinking it's another chip and when I try to go beyond 5 it causes the unit to go nuts. The chips I have been putting on were not bad, one of the existing chips was.

I give up. Removed the chip, stopping everything for now. At this point this poor jally has been flowed a dozen times, has wrecked two chips, deballed two more, and is bannanas. I cleaned up the board, put it back together, promptly broke a fan blade *AARRGGHH*, broke a blade on the other side to pretty much balance it, put it together, and it's hashing at 20gh.

I'm going to wait till the new jallies I ordered come in, then put 2 chips on each. So I will leave it to someone else to go past 5 chips; if you can make a 6 chip jally do post.

This has been an excellent learning experience: I picked up a lot of knowledge, and will probably break even on the upgrade (since I spent for 6 chips and only got three working, $200 spent). Then again I boosted this thing more than a new jally, jally and a half, and it cost the same as a new unit. And it's here now. So it was still a pretty good deal.

Such is life. I'll post again when/if I get my new units, then I'll try putting these chips on. My guess is they will work without a problem, until I short the next CSEL line.

C

[Drug5bitz]

OK, got my 4 jalapenos today!!!1!!11  Hitting 32 Ghs, aluminum heatsinks are cut away already out of the box. Added a chip perfectly in less than 2 minutes.  Align chip perfect after putting down flux (Hardest part), preheat boad with kitchen skillet to 400F hit it with the gun for a minute at 400C. Reflux, hit the chip and sides another time for one minute. Booted right up, lots of pics I shall share.

[nexus99]

OK, got my 4 jalapenos today!!!1!!11  Hitting 32 Ghs, aluminum heatsinks are cut away already out of the box. Added a chip perfectly in less than 2 minutes.  Align chip perfect after putting down flux (Hardest part), preheat boad with kitchen skillet to 400F hit it with the gun for a minute at 400C. Reflux, hit the chip and sides another time for one minute. Booted right up, lots of pics I shall share.

That is AWESOME!  I have 2 Jallys coming that I would love to add chips to. I think they would be great as 4 chip units rather than 2!

We just need a service that will do chip adds through the mail...

[Drug5bitz]

I don't think many want to take others jalapenos into their hands lol. Scared of bricking it. Got my second one done 4 chips total and a nice setup for a bottom heat sink again all in depth pics taken.

[dentldir]

Drug5bitz, were those 4 jallys ordered during the black friday sale? 

I'm just wondering where they are at with them.

[Drug5bitz]

Black Friday?!?! lol God no, that was from june 10th.... I think they may have been bluffing to get rid of the old stuff before it's useless. My order for BF is still processing (The first step) we'll see when they actually ship........4 months later. Why did I click that little box oh why?

[Drug5bitz]

[Drug5bitz]

OK guys, heres a quick summery as we look at what BFL has done, and of course what I have done.

The pictures care a lot of detail BFL now points their fans down right out of the box.
They started cutting down the heat sinks. (I could guess why)
My 4 jalapenos were clocking at 30Ghs or more, out of the box....
Screws no longer travel the whole length and no silly washers.

What I have done is simple and both of the ones running 4 chips are steady around 40-48C with the fans on. A lot of heat is dumped into the board and through the bottom. My 3 chip with no bottom sink will burn me probably. Easiest best addition ever just ordered 3 more sinks......on back order from bitcoinstore.com guess they don't stock a whole bunch.

P.S. I blew the breaker in my apartment half a dozen times, if you can don't mine and solder on the same breaker......

[lightfoot]

That board looks so clean...... God mine's looking like hell by comparison.

Please if you can figure out which leds on the back coorespond to which chips, I'm still curious as to which of mine was screwing up the lower CSEL lines.

[Drug5bitz]

That board looks so clean...... God mine's looking like hell by comparison.

Please if you can figure out which leds on the back coorespond to which chips, I'm still curious as to which of mine was screwing up the lower CSEL lines.

I can tell you in the picture above the circled led that isnt lit is the other side of the cross pattern I did. As for the others it would literally be following them around in a circle and the center two are where they meet and touch. I think thats enough info, if you would like me actually figure them out and number them I could Prolly do that too, just not positive about the corners.

[HellDiverUK]

So I have a new Jalapeno.  I blew on the 1.25ck firmware, then the 1.26, then the 1.29.  None would work.  Ended up having to go back to a firmware someone was kind enough to supply off IRC.  Apparently my Jalapeno is a "2nd generation" one and doesn't work with the older firmwares.

So, how the heck do I overclock this thing?

[Drug5bitz]

So I have a new Jalapeno.  I blew on the 1.25ck firmware, then the 1.26, then the 1.29.  None would work.  Ended up having to go back to a firmware someone was kind enough to supply off IRC.  Apparently my Jalapeno is a "2nd generation" one and doesn't work with the older firmwares.

So, how the heck do I overclock this thing?

Long story short it has been written in atleast 2 threads..... You have to reflash your firmware with an AVR Dragon and a jtag cable. you can edit the firmware as you wish. To actually increase the speed you add chips. Most units now ship with 1.2.9 FW so it depends on your chip grade......

[MagnaGen]

Ive got 300 BFL chips in hand, willing to sell them for 0.05 btc each or will trade for Blue Fury / Red Fury Miners

PM me if intersted, Escrow OK!

thanks

[elaramus]

@MagnaGen... pm sent. Wondering if that price includes shipping?

[lightfoot]

Just contacted Magnagen and have a deal in the works to test, I should be able to get some chips shortly. So far it looks good.

C

[lightfoot]

Helldiver: If your chips are the little ones, then you probably have 1.2.9. Remember you have to compile it with LITTLE_SINGLE, and it doesn't fit in a 128mb chip.

C

[HellDiverUK]

Helldiver: If your chips are the little ones, then you probably have 1.2.9. Remember you have to compile it with LITTLE_SINGLE, and it doesn't fit in a 128mb chip.

C

I did try 1.2.9, which I downloaded from somewhere. I don't remember where.  My Jally has the 256Mb chip OK. 

Could some kind soul post a .bin or .hex of 1.2.9 that I can just flash on that'll make my Jally go faster? 

Or, how can I pull the firmware off my other factory 7GH Jalapeno and put it on the 5GH one?  They both look identical hardware-wise (both November '13 builds).

[Drug5bitz]

Helldiver: If your chips are the little ones, then you probably have 1.2.9. Remember you have to compile it with LITTLE_SINGLE, and it doesn't fit in a 128mb chip.

C

I did try 1.2.9, which I downloaded from somewhere. I don't remember where.  My Jally has the 256Mb chip OK.  

Could some kind soul post a .bin or .hex of 1.2.9 that I can just flash on that'll make my Jally go faster?  

Or, how can I pull the firmware off my other factory 7GH Jalapeno and put it on the 5GH one?  They both look identical hardware-wise (both November '13 builds).

Sir, I'm going to try to say this as simple as it is. You open Atmel studios, open the 1.2.9 FW project. When it's loaded you click the build tab/build solution and it compiles. Click the tiny picture of the chip with the lightning bolt. select the AVR dragon the chip on your jalapeno AT32UC3A1256 then jtag and apply. If it needs to update let it. Go to memories erase the chips and reprogram it should have the FW file loaded there already. 2 minutes later you're done, you can run the jalapeno with the JTAG attached.

P.S. you need to define Little _Single instead of the usual Single. This file is in I believe STD_DEF.h right after you open the FW in Atmel studios

[Drug5bitz]

Ok, I know there are a lot of people reading this for every snippet. One of my rigs is doing 16 Ghs at 35-40C right now, and I've mounted 5 of my chips with no problems so far.

I've been thinking about offering my service free of liability of course. These tools can be expensive and if you aren't familiar with some aspects it can end horribly real quick.

Services I would like to offer
-Firmware Flashing 0.02 BTC
-Adding a chip to board 0.03 BTC EACH
-Adding a custom sink on bottom 0.02 BTC

This will all be at your own risk, if I finally bump something wrong don't try to sue me.  You will supply the unit(s) shipped to my door with return label printed already. Depending on further mods you will supply the chips thermal paste and heat sink if wanted. If you want to run 4+ chips you need a heat sink on bottom. I will supply thermal pads, flux and tools. I should be able to ship everything back within 48 hours. (I say this just in case I already have plans that day) Send me a PM if you're interested, I take great pride in my work, and I owe this community a debt for everything it has given.

I'm fine using escrow if anyone would like I've been there.

[HellDiverUK]

Sir, I'm going to try to say this as simple as it is. You open Atmel studios, open the 1.2.9 FW project. When it's loaded you click the build tab/build solution and it compiles. Click the tiny picture of the chip with the lightning bolt. select the AVR dragon the chip on your jalapeno AT32UC3A1256 then jtag and apply. If it needs to update let it. Go to memories erase the chips and reprogram it should have the FW file loaded there already. 2 minutes later you're done, you can run the jalapeno with the JTAG attached.

This I'd tried....

P.S. you need to define Little _Single instead of the usual Single. This file is in I believe STD_DEF.h right after you open the FW in Atmel studios

This I didn't know about...

So, did as you said, and it's now hashing away merrily at just under 6GH and rising.  I'm a bit disappointed that it didn't go straight in at 7GH or so...is there anything else I needed to change?

[Drug5bitz]

Sir, I'm going to try to say this as simple as it is. You open Atmel studios, open the 1.2.9 FW project. When it's loaded you click the build tab/build solution and it compiles. Click the tiny picture of the chip with the lightning bolt. select the AVR dragon the chip on your jalapeno AT32UC3A1256 then jtag and apply. If it needs to update let it. Go to memories erase the chips and reprogram it should have the FW file loaded there already. 2 minutes later you're done, you can run the jalapeno with the JTAG attached.

This I'd tried....

P.S. you need to define Little _Single instead of the usual Single. This file is in I believe STD_DEF.h right after you open the FW in Atmel studios

This I didn't know about...

So, did as you said, and it's now hashing away merrily at just under 6GH and rising.  I'm a bit disappointed that it didn't go straight in at 7GH or so...is there anything else I needed to change?

As with my jalapenos when they shipped they had the 1.2.9 FW installed already. It will hash as good as the chips so your chip grade makes a big difference. Your best option is to get a few chips added. At $50 a chip above thats a good price. You can play more with the FW like change I think it's intensity right around line 100. People have reported the best at the stock 7 though.

[HellDiverUK]

Yeah, mine's a pretty recent machine, so the chips are probably shitty compared to the stock-7GH one.  It seems stable around 5.9GH at the moment, running about 5C hotter than the default.

Getting chips added is probably impossible here - I'm in the back end of the back end of nowhere, and people just don't have the skills.  Or I don't know anyone that does.

[Drug5bitz]

Yeah, mine's a pretty recent machine, so the chips are probably shitty compared to the stock-7GH one.  It seems stable around 5.9GH at the moment, running about 5C hotter than the default.

Getting chips added is probably impossible here - I'm in the back end of the back end of nowhere, and people just don't have the skills.  Or I don't know anyone that does.

Sir, please read post #127, I offer such a service. If you're in the continental US this would be very quick. Go back a page and look at my work too, I'm very happy. Also take the sides off your case it helps a lot!!

[HellDiverUK]

Yeah, mine's a pretty recent machine, so the chips are probably shitty compared to the stock-7GH one.  It seems stable around 5.9GH at the moment, running about 5C hotter than the default.

Getting chips added is probably impossible here - I'm in the back end of the back end of nowhere, and people just don't have the skills.  Or I don't know anyone that does.

Sir, please read post #127, I offer such a service. If you're in the continental US this would be very quick. Go back a page and look at my work too, I'm very happy. Also take the sides off your case it helps a lot!!

Please look at my username.  See the last two characters?  That should give you a clue that I'm not in the US. 

My machine is running caseless - the stock fan is replaced by a Noctua fan, and the only other thing is the original rubber feet from the case are stuck on the bottom of the PCB.  That sits on a ceramic tile which soaks up any residual heat coming from the bottom of the Jalapeno's board.

[Drug5bitz]

Yeah sorry didn't look that closely -_- I flipped over my 3rd one and just set a stock heat sink on the bottom no thermal paste dropped from 70c to 54c. I think amazon works in the UK you could try adding chips yourself. Making a mistake hasn't seemed to fry any yet...

[lightfoot]

Yeah sorry didn't look that closely -_- I flipped over my 3rd one and just set a stock heat sink on the bottom no thermal paste dropped from 70c to 54c. I think amazon works in the UK you could try adding chips yourself. Making a mistake hasn't seemed to fry any yet...

Oh good, you're doing this as a service. Means I don't have to :-)

Yes, heat sink makes a diff, but try the thermal grease and original case. Case gets very warm but temps stay around 60c or so with 5 chips. Not bad.

I wish I could get my "immediate delivery" jallies, but it looks like it's gonna wait for a bit...
C

[lightfoot]

On a side note, if one wants to do escow on a small (<1btc) transcation, how would be the best way to do it?

C

[Drug5bitz]

On a side note, if one wants to do escow on a small (<1btc) transcation, how would be the best way to do it?

C

I've heard many of the services around here are grade A like JohnK. Theres no Bitmit anymore, but cryptothrift isn't bad for escrow fees either.

[Photon939]

Regarding BFL's firmware; I just got a shiny new 50GH/s single in yesterday and after nearly destroying the case drilling out the screws, I was able to get the case open.

Out of the box it was running at 50.5 GH/s, so I opened up Atmel studio - made sure engine zero was enabled, #DEFINE_PRODUCT to SINGLE, auto tune to 60GH/s disabled and set the ASIC_FREQUENCY_ACTUAL to 8  and flashed it (FW 1.2.9)

BFGminer and CGminer both report it running about 54ish GH/s now. Which is good, but I looked into the engine status and surprisingly almost all the chips have 14-16 engines, and THEORETICAL_MAX was something like 67 GH/s

So the question is, is there another speed crippler in the code somewhere or is there a reason that there would be such a large difference in hashing speed reported by software versus the THEORETICAL_MAX?  My other two BFL miners (an early Jalapeno and Little Single run at pretty much the max value (31 and 8.2 GH/s respectively with less engines since they can't use engine zero)

Thanks

[lightfoot]

Regarding BFL's firmware; I just got a shiny new 50GH/s single in yesterday and after nearly destroying the case drilling out the screws, I was able to get the case open.

Out of the box it was running at 50.5 GH/s, so I opened up Atmel studio - made sure engine zero was enabled, #DEFINE_PRODUCT to SINGLE, auto tune to 60GH/s disabled and set the ASIC_FREQUENCY_ACTUAL to 8  and flashed it (FW 1.2.9)

BFGminer and CGminer both report it running about 54ish GH/s now. Which is good, but I looked into the engine status and surprisingly almost all the chips have 14-16 engines, and THEORETICAL_MAX was something like 67 GH/s

So the question is, is there another speed crippler in the code somewhere or is there a reason that there would be such a large difference in hashing speed reported by software versus the THEORETICAL_MAX?  My other two BFL miners (an early Jalapeno and Little Single run at pretty much the max value (31 and 8.2 GH/s respectively with less engines since they can't use engine zero)

Thanks

WARNING THERE IS!

There is a 60gh limiter in the code, and it's there for a reason: If you run all 8 chips full out you will run the risk of overloading the twelve FETS under those little heat sinks. When that happens they short, it blows out the power supply, and will smoke your board when you plug in a bigger supply.

I sort of recommend not flashing the Singles. You're out of warranty and in that case out of luck. We can do it on jallies because we have two chips and a full set of FETs. I am running five, and my fets are hot. Six might be the logical limit.

Good luck. If you blow up your unit I'll buy it for scrap, but I don't want to do that.

C

[lightfoot]

By the way, just put a Noctura fan in my Jally because I broke a fan blade on the stock unit.

Man is it quiet.

Man is it HOT AS HELL!

Went from 60 with a working fan to 70 with two blades broken (balance, sort of) to 80 with the noctura. Not good, I have my throttle at 85. With the copper heat sink on the bottom of the case and thermal grease I'm back down to 65-70 but boo!

Note these are with the unit closed up, a good heat sink.

Anyone want to send me their old fan? Or I can run till I get my two jallies from BFL and do something with it.

C

[Drug5bitz]

By the way, just put a Noctura fan in my Jally because I broke a fan blade on the stock unit.

Man is it quiet.

Man is it HOT AS HELL!

Went from 60 with a working fan to 70 with two blades broken (balance, sort of) to 80 with the noctura. Not good, I have my throttle at 85. With the copper heat sink on the bottom of the case and thermal grease I'm back down to 65-70 but boo!

Note these are with the unit closed up, a good heat sink.

Anyone want to send me their old fan? Or I can run till I get my two jallies from BFL and do something with it.

C

I'm sorry to hear of your heat issues, I just got 4 chips in 4 jalas one with only a little FPGA heat sink thermal pasted to the bottom at 60C. I don't see the real appeal to the case. It collects dust, you can't see all the cute LED's as easy. I like free flow of air, and no static.

[lightfoot]

By the way, just put a Noctura fan in my Jally because I broke a fan blade on the stock unit.

Man is it quiet.

Man is it HOT AS HELL!

Went from 60 with a working fan to 70 with two blades broken (balance, sort of) to 80 with the noctura. Not good, I have my throttle at 85. With the copper heat sink on the bottom of the case and thermal grease I'm back down to 65-70 but boo!

Note these are with the unit closed up, a good heat sink.

Anyone want to send me their old fan? Or I can run till I get my two jallies from BFL and do something with it.

C

I'm sorry to hear of your heat issues, I just got 4 chips in 4 jalas one with only a little FPGA heat sink thermal pasted to the bottom at 60C. I don't see the real appeal to the case. It collects dust, you can't see all the cute LED's as easy. I like free flow of air, and no static.

I like the case; it's kind of cube-like and keeps my kids from screwing with the fans. Yes with it off heat is not a problem. Oddly enough perching the unit on the heat sink has it at a nice 60-65, so I'm good.

C

[Drug5bitz]

ok I have a question for you I'm running in BFGminer and I get some kind of tunnel or pipe error, like the one that deals with the work feed. Restart the miner and one of my devices doesn't come up, so I power cycle it a few times. Now I've reflashed it, and it still just comes up as a unknown USB device, WTF. All chips are recognized the FW was readable and all device info in Atmel........ not really sure right now maybe let it sit while I sleep.

[lightfoot]

ok I have a question for you I'm running in BFGminer and I get some kind of tunnel or pipe error, like the one that deals with the work feed. Restart the miner and one of my devices doesn't come up, so I power cycle it a few times. Now I've reflashed it, and it still just comes up as a unknown USB device, WTF. All chips are recognized the FW was readable and all device info in Atmel........ not really sure right now maybe let it sit while I sleep.

*Really*

Hm. That sounds exactly like the FTDI error everyone keeps complaining about. It's not due to heat or reflashing, we seem to have that under control and my unit is not dead. I've been offering a bounty of .15btc for one so I could fiddle with it. But now we have someone with a clue that has it, so fix if you can.

Questions:

Examine the USB jack. It's not secured well, any chance one of the 4 wires is broken? Use a loupe/tester. If you're running sans lid there is no support, but even with the back plate a good shot on the cable will damage it IMO.

If not, let's look into the next thing up the line which seems to be the FTDI chip. It's programmed when the system boots so swapping it may work.

C

[Photon939]

WARNING: THIS IS IMPORTANT:

Big big stopping point here. I think this is important:

I know people are flashing these things with all sorts of firmware. We know that the newer jallies with the 256mb flash chips need to be defined specifically in order to flash them. And we know that 1.2.5 and 1.2.9 work on the 256mb chips.

HOWEVER Has anyone successfully flashed 1.2.9 onto a jalapeno that has only 128mb chips?

Here is the reason: I got a Jally in for a chip upgrade. No I am not doing this for money, person asked really nicely and agreed to take all risks. Ok.

As is my protocol I change only one thing at a time. First I unboxed their unit and ran it last night. Says it's 1.2.6, kind of weird firmware but it hashes at 7.6gh overnight without overheating or anything.

Then I flashed it to 1.2.9. Failed flash with the ATMEL set to 256mb chip. Reset to 128mb chip, erased and flashed. However the Jally was *DEAD*. Totally, and completely dead. Power light, no front flashing LED, looked like a serial port. Nothing else, game over.

Flashed two more times, verified code, all good. Fails.

Flasked CK's 1.2.5 code release, Jally comes up happy with 15 cores. Now letting it run for another day to verify stable operation.

WHAT THIS MEANS!

If you have a 128mb Jally, I am not sure if you can load 1.2.8 or 1.2.9 code. Given that this code is needed for running the newer chips, it means YOU CANNOT LOAD NEWER CHIPS ON YOUR JALLY.

So, has anyone verified you can load 1.2.9 compiled code on a 128mb Jally?

C

Well after bricking my new Jalapeno I have figured out the problem. Getting 1.2.9 onto a Jalapeno with the Atmel AT32UC31128 with 128kb of flash memory (not mb lol) IS POSSIBLE.

Will post details in a bit

[Photon939]

Okay, to get 1.2.9 on a new Jalapeno with the AT32UC3A1128 here's what you need to do:

1) Open the 1.2.9 firmware in Atmel Studio

2) Make sure #DEFINE_PRODUCT_LITTLE_SINGLE in std_defs.h is the one active, the single firmware will not fit in 128kb


3) Go to project properties, change the device type to the AT32UC3A1128



4) Recompile the solution


5) Download to the Jalapeno flash memory

[lightfoot]

Ahhhhhhhhhh.... Thus a 128kb code will fit in the 256kb space, but you have to explicitly define for 128kb chips.

Thank you for posting this. You should post it in the parent thread for firmware updates, on forums.butterfly and take full credit.

This solves the problem of adding chips to 128kb devices. Nicely done, you saved a lot of jally owners problems.

C

[lightfoot]

Other stuff: I bought an extension cable for my jally, hoping to hook it up to my atx power supply. Learned something: That ain't going to work :-)

The problem is the wire gauges are like 18g, and the cable was getting warm from the power supply. Oh, and the voltage drop was down to 11.0 volts from 12.2 at the supply leads. So I think I am going to need to custom build my own cable as a 20gh jally draws a *lot* more current than a 5gh jally.

Back to the drawing board. I did order an ATX-3jp cable from BFL, but I don't know when all that is going to ship. And since I'm concerned about these power supplies and ground loops blowing the FTDI chips I would be happy to get off it...

C

[Drug5bitz]

......Guys very sad day..... Come home another one is dark.... WTF power supply go bad? So I grab my spare power supply plug it in and the fucker shot a pretty spark. Yes I know this was stupid but ehh found out it blew a hole in an 8 pin chip right behind the USB port. Guys I'm about to start swapping board components. WTF Is suddenly going on with these things I don't care as long as I can replacement chips but the only one I have confirmed are the mosfets on ebay...... Starting to freak out know my hashing is down bros.........

[Brassguy]

Just an update to my above post... The crazy flashing light for one of my chips was caused by the chip not making good contact as I've been trying to use the minimal amount of heat to solder them on. Was fixed by reflowing. Good news is based on pictures and my own experience I now know which light corresponds with each chip spot. If anyone is interested I'll post a diagram.

Just a side-note... it appears that most of the components found on this board can be found online... so that's a plus!

I'm ordering 6 more chips and going for broke... I have a 600 watt psu and I'm thinking about removing the barrel jack all together and soldering the power lines directly to the board... I have the original power supplies sitting on a laptop cooler with 3 fans which seems to be doing the trick for now.

Currently 3 jalapenos @ ~44gh... and about 1.43% HW errors

[lightfoot]

Just an update to my above post... The crazy flashing light for one of my chips was caused by the chip not making good contact as I've been trying to use the minimal amount of heat to solder them on. Was fixed by reflowing. Good news is based on pictures and my own experience I now know which light corresponds with each chip spot. If anyone is interested I'll post a diagram.

Just a side-note... it appears that most of the components found on this board can be found online... so that's a plus!

I'm ordering 6 more chips and going for broke... I have a 600 watt psu and I'm thinking about removing the barrel jack all together and soldering the power lines directly to the board... I have the original power supplies sitting on a laptop cooler with 3 fans which seems to be doing the trick for now.

Currently 3 jalapenos @ ~44gh... and about 1.43% HW errors

If you could post the lights to sockets, I would appreciate. It would tell me which of my chips is hogging the bus. :-)

Waiting on 2 jallies and a few chips myself. BFL should ship them soon...

[Brassguy]

Here you go lightfoot...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/37765158/image_01.png

I'm pretty sure this is exact... please let me know if you find any discrepancy!

I just ordered these from newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835708009 for cooling the vrms...

[lightfoot]

Well now....

I think I see my problem. Chip light 2 is lit and should be the middle one, but it's the corner one #3 which is occupied. Which means that 3 is shorting out 2 and 1, which kind of makes sense.

So there we go. I could pull 3, then resolder it and 2,1 but things are so screwed up that I dare not. 8 is still open, but I put so much heat on that slot when I was trying to set a chip that I blew off some caps. I think I'm at the limit for now. Just need another jally sometime.

C

[lightfoot]

......Guys very sad day..... Come home another one is dark.... WTF power supply go bad? So I grab my spare power supply plug it in and the fucker shot a pretty spark. Yes I know this was stupid but ehh found out it blew a hole in an 8 pin chip right behind the USB port. Guys I'm about to start swapping board components. WTF Is suddenly going on with these things I don't care as long as I can replacement chips but the only one I have confirmed are the mosfets on ebay...... Starting to freak out know my hashing is down bros.........

FUCK ME.

Are you in Euorpe?

The FETs should not have overloaded on two chips. How big was your spare power supply, capacity? Picture of the board?

Want to send it to me to review? You're good, and it's out of warranty, but I'd like to see this fail mode.

C

[lightfoot]

Actually that makes sense: One of the outboard fets failed, it's companion blew shorted when you used the big power supply. Pull them and replace them then try with a supply with a 7 amp fuse.

Watch the temps on those FETs. I can't stress enough; that is the weak point. I put little copper sinks on mine.

C

[lightfoot]

By the way, if you have a jally outside the US you might want to look at this thread about ground loops blowing out jallies.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=365800.new#new

I'll be updating it. If you find it valuable, please drop me a bitpenny or something.

C

[Drug5bitz]

I'll have to read into that, I'm inn the US however. Just ordered off of mouser FT232HQ Which is the USB controller chip, and ST1S10 which appears to be the voltage reg I blew up. Lightfoot have you had no problems with your power block? I'm pretty convinced they're complete garbage. If I have luck changing out a few components I will let you'll know. Prolly start buying bad jalas then. I'm off to cry I believe my processor died in my main rig as well. Apparently 2 years at 4.7 Ghz can do that, now to get a 9590.

I think there may be another place we might want little sinks, I'll report back as I just got a new IR thermometer.

P.S. if anyone has a AM3+ CPU I could borrow to test my MOBO that would be cool. Not expecting anything but worth a try.

[lightfoot]

I'll have to read into that, I'm inn the US however. Just ordered off of mouser FT232HQ Which is the USB controller chip, and ST1S10 which appears to be the voltage reg I blew up. Lightfoot have you had no problems with your power block? I'm pretty convinced they're complete garbage. If I have luck changing out a few components I will let you'll know. Prolly start buying bad jalas then. I'm off to cry I believe my processor died in my main rig as well. Apparently 2 years at 4.7 Ghz can do that, now to get a 9590.

I think there may be another place we might want little sinks, I'll report back as I just got a new IR thermometer.

P.S. if anyone has a AM3+ CPU I could borrow to test my MOBO that would be cool. Not expecting anything but worth a try.

No problems yet but it's hot. I have a fan pointing at it, but I think I might be cutting it's cord tonight and hard-wiring it into the ATX. ATX had flimsy wires though, and I am concerned about voltage drop.

Try swapping the USB chip. Unfortunately the problem with buying bad jallies is that people seem to think they are like little golden nuggets.

Hey, do you see 120 volts on the ring to ground on your power supply?

C

[Drug5bitz]

You're referring to the barrel plug correct? I've got 4 power blocks just opened the dead one........ smells horrible, covered in soot and the 2 caps are blown. One of them has a sizable hole in it....... I'm so beyond pissed right not it's not funny..... I void my warranty so BFL can shock me to death after blowing up my miners with shitty hardware. Or the idea that 120V traveled up my usb onto my MOBO. So the point I'm at BFL may have caused my miner and PC take down with chinese power blocks. 3 greatest fears in one, dead PC, chinese products, power blocks. That order, I'm prolly venting at this point but I also have one power block that causes just the power LED to flash slowly.... I don't even understand anymore....

[arekm]

Any (EU or to EU) chips sellers available? Want to try adding 4 chips to  jaly (or fry them ;-)

[lightfoot]

You're referring to the barrel plug correct? I've got 4 power blocks just opened the dead one........ smells horrible, covered in soot and the 2 caps are blown. One of them has a sizable hole in it....... I'm so beyond pissed right not it's not funny..... I void my warranty so BFL can shock me to death after blowing up my miners with shitty hardware. Or the idea that 120V traveled up my usb onto my MOBO. So the point I'm at BFL may have caused my miner and PC take down with chinese power blocks. 3 greatest fears in one, dead PC, chinese products, power blocks. That order, I'm prolly venting at this point but I also have one power block that causes just the power LED to flash slowly.... I don't even understand anymore....

Can you post a pic? I'm sorry it went foom.

Does the slow flasher work with a good supply?

C

[Drug5bitz]

Here you see the hole I blew in the voltage reg..... and the FTDI chip which controls the USB FT232HQ about $5.

In this pic you can see 6 mosfets on this side.


Careful guys apparently Bitcoin mining is as dangerous as gold mining.

[lightfoot]

Well, in the meantime I wired my Jally into my rather inexpensive (ie: cheap) ATX power supply.

I didn't want to play with the 12 volt 4 pin molex, so I took three of the yellow 12v wires (18 gauge each, blah!), cut them, spliced them together to the BFL cable (16 gauge, nicer, but blah), soldered, used shrink wrap to cover, and fired it up.

The power supply is reading 12 volts on the unloaded lines, but the Jally was reading 11.5 volts at idle. Which means a pretty hefty voltage drop, but most of it is in the BFL cable. I'll deal.

Up and hashing. I'll take a look inside my power supply in a few days to see what it can tell me. Man you do need a pretty beefy cable BTW.

Update: Ooops. Hit 80c, apparently lower voltage=lower noctura fan speed. Crud, I have the external fan back on it, we'll see what happens. Might have to take the sides off again, drat.

C

[lightfoot]

Wait, that chip you blew up is a voltage regulator? I thought the six FETs were it, or is that some sort of LM317 for the fans?

And is that big box thing damaged as well?

C

[lightfoot]

Oh and um, that cap damage took more than 72 watts to do. I think it shorted the mains to the output. Check the other side, see if any of the caps there are blown.

I just opened my supply, normal and somewhat stupid, nothing unusual there. I'll tear the one I have coming apart; are you in the US BTW?

C

[Drug5bitz]

Wait, that chip you blew up is a voltage regulator? I thought the six FETs were it, or is that some sort of LM317 for the fans?

And is that big box thing damaged as well?

C

Yes, notice the hole in the chip. The number on it was ST1S10, on mouser it comes up as a voltage reg. This particular jala is the one that took out the same power supply. When I used a good power supply it blew that chip.... doesn't necessarily mean that's the problem though....

The blown caps are on the blocks DC output side, everything else looks fine.  I'm not sure what you mean by big box thing? If you mean the USB controller chip, I ordered a couple. I have 2 jala's that wont register in windows... trust me I researched it on two PC's and 3 different miner programs. Again everything is just to the best of my knowledge, I'm out on a string with some of this stuff.

The 2 mouser chips I got ordered are

ST1S10 (Voltage reg)
FT232HQ (FTDI driver chip for USB)

Yes I'm in the USA unfortunately.

[lightfoot]

Wait, that chip you blew up is a voltage regulator? I thought the six FETs were it, or is that some sort of LM317 for the fans?

And is that big box thing damaged as well?

C

Yes, notice the hole in the chip. The number on it was ST1S10, on mouser it comes up as a voltage reg. This particular jala is the one that took out the same power supply. When I used a good power supply it blew that chip.... doesn't necessarily mean that's the problem though....

The blown caps are on the blocks DC output side, everything else looks fine.  I'm not sure what you mean by big box thing? If you mean the USB controller chip, I ordered a couple. I have 2 jala's that wont register in windows... trust me I researched it on two PC's and 3 different miner programs. Again everything is just to the best of my knowledge, I'm out on a string with some of this stuff.

The 2 mouser chips I got ordered are

ST1S10 (Voltage reg)
FT232HQ (FTDI driver chip for USB)

Yes I'm in the USA unfortunately.

What the hell is that? U15 is the power supply from 12 volts to 3.3 volts. That's the control bus power for the chips (the hash engines run on the 1 volt supply). Wow.

You had a cool failure. Swap the parts out, that chip first. And use a fuse inline with your power supply to keep blowing things to a min. Maybe a 4 amp fuse or something.

C

[lightfoot]

Here you go lightfoot...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/37765158/image_01.png

I'm pretty sure this is exact... please let me know if you find any discrepancy!

I just ordered these from newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835708009 for cooling the vrms...

That does not match my layout at all. Weird.

C

[glendall]

Wow good work on the hacking guys.  a 18+GH Jalapeno is a sweet overclock. Nice work...

[lightfoot]

It's a start. If I get my new jallies I will try for a bit more. My current one seems to be confused.

C

[Brassguy]

It's a start. If I get my new jallies I will try for a bit more. My current one seems to be confused.

C

Just an fyi light.... when I had the one chip not working on my jally the reported hashrate was around 11gh after reflow about 15gh... simple enough. However, the temperature hasn't changed one bit with an addition of 4gh.... and... when it was hashing at reported rate of 11gh it was actually the same amount of shares ~100 as before any chips were added at 8.3gh. I ran it for 6 days that way btw... weird.

[lightfoot]

It's a start. If I get my new jallies I will try for a bit more. My current one seems to be confused.

C

Just an fyi light.... when I had the one chip not working on my jally the reported hashrate was around 11gh after reflow about 15gh... simple enough. However, the temperature hasn't changed one bit with an addition of 4gh.... and... when it was hashing at reported rate of 11gh it was actually the same amount of shares ~100 as before any chips were added at 8.3gh. I ran it for 6 days that way btw... weird.

Well, the rubber meet road question is how many bitcoin are you making? I am apparently doing about a penny a day now with the latest difficulty with 20gh, so as long as you're making the money it's all good.

C

[Brassguy]

https://db.tt/WuN8CdkW

Just some temp readings from various points...

[MagnaGen]

https://db.tt/WuN8CdkW

Just some temp readings from various points...

Someone should make a wiki with all of this information, I can host it and set it up if someone else is willing to gather all the information and instructions.

Also lightfoot, PM me I would like to donate some chips to your project

thanks

[lightfoot]

Hm, that's an interesting thought. I keep thinking about setting up a Wiki system on my home servers but just never get around to it.

I'd be happy to transfer the key points from this thread over so we can get this info out.

Thanks!
C

[elaramus]

So I got a little crazy this weekend and took both of my Jalapenos from 3 chips each to 6 chips each.



The results are below
http://imgur.com/a/FzKPM

In the linked images, BFL3 and BFL4 are my Jalapenos... the others are Chilis

The stock 6A adapter gave out after the 4th chip, so I cut the plug off and wired it to a PCI-E cable right off my computer's power supply. No issues with power after the mod. Adding 4 chips had both Jalapenos up to over 60C. The 5th chip needed additional cooling (up to 78C) and the 6th chip put the temps off the map.

I found applying thermal compound between the aluminum heatsink plate and the Jalapeno board then placing an active cooler on top (running the Jalapeno upside down) provided exceptional results... Both are hashing over 23Gh/s

Now I'm contemplating chip 7.... 

P.S Temps used: preheat the area with the wand for 10 seconds, then 90 seconds @ 460C with the wand 1/4 inch above the chip. The chip will float as the solder balls melt (DON"T FREAK OUT) as the remaining balls melt and adhere to one another the chip will realign itself. Patience was the key to my success. Sometimes it took a second heat blast to get the chip to recognize. Altogether I've placed 10 chips on Jalapenos this weekend

[Inaba]

Please, please, please make sure you actively cool the 1850 & the MOSFETs if you decide to do this.  The thermal plane on the board is really effecient and you will overheat both if you are running that many chips unless you have active cooling on both the top and bottom of the board for both the chips, MOSFETs and especially the 1850, which will cause intermittent and strange lock ups if it overheats.

[elaramus]

Please, please, please make sure you actively cool the 1850 & the MOSFETs if you decide to do this.  The thermal plane on the board is really effecient and you will overheat both if you are running that many chips unless you have active cooling on both the top and bottom of the board for both the chips, MOSFETs and especially the 1850, which will cause intermittent and strange lock ups if it overheats.

How different is the Little Single heatsink from the Jalapeno's? Any chance we could procure some on the open market? What cooling solution is used on the Singles/Little Singles for the MOSFETS and the 1850's?

 I'd absolutely love to take one, two or more of these guys from a two chip solution all the way to a full blown little single. I have 4 more Jalapenos on the way from the black friday sale and 20 chips left to play with.

[Photon939]

Please, please, please make sure you actively cool the 1850 & the MOSFETs if you decide to do this.  The thermal plane on the board is really effecient and you will overheat both if you are running that many chips unless you have active cooling on both the top and bottom of the board for both the chips, MOSFETs and especially the 1850, which will cause intermittent and strange lock ups if it overheats.

How different is the Little Single heatsink from the Jalapeno's? Any chance we could procure some on the open market? What cooling solution is used on the Singles/Little Singles for the MOSFETS and the 1850's?

 I'd absolutely love to take one, two or more of these guys from a two chip solution all the way to a full blown little single. I have 4 more Jalapenos on the way from the black friday sale and 20 chips left to play with.

The little singles and Jalapenos are now shipping with the plain aluminum heatsink, same one. They probably ran out of the heatpipe sinks and didn't want to order more. The hole spacing is rectangular so I'd have to measure the spacing to have an answer to the second question. My early revision Little Single came with heatsinks on the mosfets, nothing on the 1850. My new version Single came with no heatsinks other than the two main ASIC group sinks.

[lightfoot]

The stock 6A adapter gave out after the 4th chip, so I cut the plug off and wired it to a PCI-E cable right off my computer's power supply. No issues with power after the mod. Adding 4 chips had both Jalapenos up to over 60C. The 5th chip needed additional cooling (up to 78C) and the 6th chip put the temps off the map.

Yup. Some people have reported it blowing up at 4 chips, I ran mine with 5 for over a month before I got concerned about the ground plane faulting in it. A cheap-o PCX power supply (the $20 one on Ebay) with 18 gauge wires is a bit light for a 5 chip jally; I had to wire 3 of the 12 volt lines in series to make it work. Better supply should not have a problem.

I found applying thermal compound between the aluminum heatsink plate and the Jalapeno board then placing an active cooler on top (running the Jalapeno upside down) provided exceptional results... Both are hashing over 23Gh/s

Yes. I literally was getting equal cooling running with the Al heatsink on the bottom, then the board upside-down, then a copper heat sink thermal pasted to the board, then the fan on that. Even now in the case, putting thermal compound between base and plate, then plate to board turns the whole unit into a heat sink.

P.S Temps used: preheat the area with the wand for 10 seconds, then 90 seconds @ 460C with the wand 1/4 inch above the chip. The chip will float as the solder balls melt (DON"T FREAK OUT) as the remaining balls melt and adhere to one another the chip will realign itself. Patience was the key to my success. Sometimes it took a second heat blast to get the chip to recognize. Altogether I've placed 10 chips on Jalapenos this weekend

This was my biggest mistake initially, and cost me three chips total. You need a *lot* of heat, you need to keep it going, and the balls have to melt completely. I kept thinking I was going to burn the board, that led to pulling the heat early and winding up with an off-center chip by a micrometer. Then not enough heat again causes the chip pads to rip out on removal).

I need to keep reminding myself "Insane heat", the chips can tolerate a max temp of 500F for 120 seconds or so. That's chip temp, not air temp; as an experiment I sat there for 2 minutes with heat at 450c and the chip was only at 400 or so F immediately after heat removal.

Ah well, that's why we call it "learning" :-)

[lightfoot]

Please, please, please make sure you actively cool the 1850 & the MOSFETs if you decide to do this.  The thermal plane on the board is really effecient and you will overheat both if you are running that many chips unless you have active cooling on both the top and bottom of the board for both the chips, MOSFETs and especially the 1850, which will cause intermittent and strange lock ups if it overheats.

And the other yup: The MOSFETs *MUST HAVE GOOD HEAT SINKS* once you go above 4 chips. This is going to be what kills these boards BTW; and is a good reason to wire a fuse in series with your massive power supply (since otherwise you will have the smoking/flaming FETs).

Speaking of which, plug time: If you're really doing this put a simple 3ag fuse in series with your new power supply. Calculate it by the number of watts your unit draws (20 watts+15 per chip) and divide by 12. So a 5 chip unit is 20+75=95 watts/12=8 amp fuse.

That way you won't feed more current than that into a short.

C

[elaramus]

Speaking of which, plug time: If you're really doing this put a simple 3ag fuse in series with your new power supply. Calculate it by the number of watts your unit draws (20 watts+15 per chip) and divide by 12. So a 5 chip unit is 20+75=95 watts/12=8 amp fuse.

That way you won't feed more current than that into a short.

C

That's good info!! I was wondering how many watts/amps I'd be drawing per chip as I plan on running more than just the two I have off of a 1000w ATX power supply.

Now what would be bonus would be to find a PCI-E jack that lines up perfectly with the holes on the board for the adapter plug. I know the Singles used ATX power.... what is the interface between the single board and the PCI-E six pin jack on the case, or is it straight wired to the board?

I've placed heatsinks on all the MOSFETS... Which component is the 1850.... I looked (albeit briefly) and couldn't identify it?

As a side note, both my 6 chips have been running nearly 20 hours @ 23.5Gh/s with 1.5-1.7% HW errors (better than my chilis error wise) Still considering going to chip 7 and 8... but I'd like to have better heatsinking and power supply in place. The fuse is a most excellent idea and I intend to use it.

[lightfoot]

That's good info!! I was wondering how many watts/amps I'd be drawing per chip as I plan on running more than just the two I have off of a 1000w ATX power supply.

From my P3 meter I tend to see about 15 watts per chip and 20 for the hotel load (CPU, fan, everything else). Technically the jally will pull about 40 clocked at 5gh, 50 when you take it to 8. I think the original spec for the chip was to pull 10 watts at full power, and the push to 15 made a pretty big difference (the 1 volt power supply is only rated to 70-80a, which makes sense if each chip pulls 10a. If you bump to 15, 5 chips is 75 and six is 90.)

As a side note, both my 6 chips have been running nearly 20 hours @ 23.5Gh/s with 1.5-1.7% HW errors (better than my chilis error wise) Still considering going to chip 7 and 8... but I'd like to have better heatsinking and power supply in place. The fuse is a most excellent idea and I intend to use it.

Indeed. One thing I did notice on the board is that there is a connector on the edge for measuring the 1 volt supply voltage. I did think about building a 20-40a 1 volt supply on another board to back-feed the jalapeno for 8 chips and to take some strain off the FETs, but then I realized I was getting two more (any day now!) and it might be better to run several at 5 chips than go for 1 at 8.

But if you do have a 1 volt supply, that would be a good way to go. An extra 40a would be enough to run anything. :-)

C

[Drug5bitz]

Ok guys I'm back. Current issues are one miner isn't recognized via USB and the other blew a power brick and a SMD Volt reg.

I replaced the volt reg and all it does is the LED by the barrel port slowly flashes.... Now I'm lost everything else looks good. Has anyone blown any mosfets or anything to know what happens???  I'm about to go replace the USB controller chip on the other one. Wow taking stuff off is a whole new level to this SMD stuff.

BTW one power brick is fried see pics past page, the other when plugged in causes said flashing of power LED. I ripped it apart and the caps are pushing their tops apart almost. just kinda weird it still "kinda" works.

[lightfoot]

Some people have all the luck. I have to wait forever for this dopey broken jally, you have one to play with now. *Sigh*....

First, I'd say as to the flashing one, what are the voltages? When the light is flashing on and off what do we think is happening? Maybe the 12 volt rail is going low due to a short? Maybe the 1 volt supply is dead. Question, perhaps one of your chips has a short to ground, preventing things from starting?

There are pads where you can see the 12 volts, 3.3 volts, and um 1 volt lines. Check to see if any have appropriate power. Check to see if there is a short (0 ohm) between ground and 1v. Try reflowing the chips maybe.

If all else fails, float off the chips and put them on another jally.

C

[Drug5bitz]

Some people have all the luck. I have to wait forever for this dopey broken jally, you have one to play with now. *Sigh*....

First, I'd say as to the flashing one, what are the voltages? When the light is flashing on and off what do we think is happening? Maybe the 12 volt rail is going low due to a short? Maybe the 1 volt supply is dead. Question, perhaps one of your chips has a short to ground, preventing things from starting?

There are pads where you can see the 12 volts, 3.3 volts, and um 1 volt lines. Check to see if any have appropriate power. Check to see if there is a short (0 ohm) between ground and 1v. Try reflowing the chips maybe.

If all else fails, float off the chips and put them on another jally.

C

Again thank you for the knowledge where I'm lost. I'll take my multimeter to the power bricks and the board. I'm not exactly sure where these pads are to check voltage but, only one way to find out.  I'm pretty sure the chips are fine as ALL of my 4 jalapenos with 4 chips recognized and started hashing good.

My jalapeno that isn't recognizing via USB got it's chip changed but now it isn't seen in windows what so ever.... I'm thinking the next step is a reflash but that means installing all the SW on my Lappie. 

Also when that power block blew it took the USB hub as well + my MOBO.... sad day.....
P.S. how are you floating your chips and removing them? I tried duck tape accidentally took off an LED and put it back.

[Drug5bitz]

Ok so on the blinking jalapeno I see a voltage bump when the LED flashes. I cant find any spot to check voltage, I think I need a spoon feed picture or a component number. I'll get to checking a live one tomorrow. With the FTDI chip does every individual lead need to be soldered? It doesn't seem to be programming the chip when I plug it in. Now it just doesn't exist

[Drug5bitz]

Ok, if anyone is still reading I'm back up to 3 jalapenos. The one that was failing to be recognized via USB now hashes 15.5Ghs again.  So I can say I solved the unrecognized device issue with jalapenos. Apparently the FTDI chip just decides not to live anymore. After removing the old one and prepping the area. Just flow the chip down, then the hard part comes. You have to solder all the leads down unless I'm missing something. After soldering all the leads I carefully inspected it and cleaned up the prevent any shorts of course. Truthfully I just dragged the Iron with some resin core solder over the leads and cleaned. If they look like a speck of copper you need to hit it again.  So I thought I heard something before about a bounty on this. If you would like I can provide part #'s and pics. What exactly caused this failure I don't know but it's all in the chip.

[lightfoot]

Ok, if anyone is still reading I'm back up to 3 jalapenos. The one that was failing to be recognized via USB now hashes 15.5Ghs again.  So I can say I solved the unrecognized device issue with jalapenos. Apparently the FTDI chip just decides not to live anymore. After removing the old one and prepping the area. Just flow the chip down, then the hard part comes. You have to solder all the leads down unless I'm missing something. After soldering all the leads I carefully inspected it and cleaned up the prevent any shorts of course. Truthfully I just dragged the Iron with some resin core solder over the leads and cleaned. If they look like a speck of copper you need to hit it again.  So I thought I heard something before about a bounty on this. If you would like I can provide part #'s and pics. What exactly caused this failure I don't know but it's all in the chip.

You rock. You should post this from the highest hills, lowest dales, and all that crap. Replacing the FTDI chip un-bricks dead jallies.

Very nicely done. Despiration is the mother of invention. And how much heat did you need to use to remove it? 400+C?

(yes, I am thinking about cheating and using chip-quik)

C

[lightfoot]

Well I got the broken jally in the mail today and it is *exceptionally* interesting to see what's going on here.

The power supply was blown of course, no output, output caps exploded. However what is interesting is that although the case was factory sealed, after opening it I can see that the power wires to the jally were either soldered by a junkie, or were done by someone who hit the output caps as well. Lots of solder, crappy job, pics to follow. No wonder it blew.

More interesting: Plug it into a big power supply, it fires up, lights the two chips, fails to talk. No biggie, waiting on my ftdi chips from mouser. Ground plane is intact, not that. However VERY INTERESTING THING I HAVE SEEN BECAUSE I HAVE COOL POWER SUPPLIES:

My power supplies are regulated output, 2amps max up to 52 volts. I set it for 13v, 50ma to start with. Hooked up, voltage drops to 3 volts, power LED barely comes on. Crank the current, at 1.5a it starts to come alive, the jally starts testing, and the voltage drops sharply from 12.9 volts down to 5. Then the jally fast flashes the front led.

This is something people see. In this case, the power supply can't provide enough surge power. So I ran the current up to 2.2 amps which is max. Tried it out.

Voltage drops to 8 volts unit flashes. So what's happening here is interesting: The jally starts up, pulls enough power to start, the pulls the power supply *hard* to bring the chips online. If there isn't enough current it will fast flash fail.

Which means if you get that error on a Jalapeno, Single, or Little Single, then the problem is the power supply is too weak. Don't return the whole thing, get a man's power supply and go.

Very interesting confirmation here. Edit: This is confirmed by hooking same jally up to my 500 watt corsair which drops from 12.4 volts to 12.2. So what I have written is a flat fact.

C

[lightfoot]

If you're looking for chips, lentbt2 has them on Ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/191006340017

Note I have ordered from him before, they are good chips, come very quickly, and have all worked. He is a reputable vendor. So order away, they tend to go fast.

C

[arekm]

Yeah... "Does not ship to Poland"

[lightfoot]

Yeah... "Does not ship to Poland"

Who, Lent? Send him a private message, he seems to be a good egg.

C

[HellDiverUK]

Well I got the broken jally in the mail today and it is *exceptionally* interesting to see what's going on here.
[cut]
Very interesting confirmation here. Edit: This is confirmed by hooking same jally up to my 500 watt corsair which drops from 12.4 volts to 12.2. So what I have written is a flat fact.

I've seen the same - on my 5GH Jally running off my old 30A bench supply (this thing has a big-ass transformer and has a regulated voltage adjustable supply).  I see a big spike of around 12A (it's hard to tell exactly because it's got an old analogue meter that doesn't react fast enough and my multimeter only does 10A max). 

I wouldn't run a fan off the crap PSU supplied by BFL - I just cut the lead off it so I can power the Jally off my ATX PSU.

[lightfoot]

I've seen the same - on my 5GH Jally running off my old 30A bench supply (this thing has a big-ass transformer and has a regulated voltage adjustable supply).  I see a big spike of around 12A (it's hard to tell exactly because it's got an old analogue meter that doesn't react fast enough and my multimeter only does 10A max). 

That's about it. Oddly enough my 20gh jally can crowbar my 300 watt cheap-ass ATX supply as well, which is why I am recommending using 500 watt corsairs for clocked units.

I wouldn't run a fan off the crap PSU supplied by BFL - I just cut the lead off it so I can power the Jally off my ATX PSU.

*snort* Pretty much. My next three jallies are coming with a 3 wire PCIX cord from BFL, but yeah I wired my old jally supply into a beautiful 30 watt halogen gooseneck lamp on my desk. The power supply for it died years ago and I always wondered what I could power it with. What's the jally supply gonna do; set fire to the bulb?

:-)

[alpher]

Yeah... "Does not ship to Poland"

Who, Lent? Send him a private message, he seems to be a good egg.

C

I'm also interested, but he wont ship to Canada and I cannot even message him on Ebay (it wont allow me somehow?).
Do you know if he's on this board and what nick?
Thanks.

[lightfoot]

Yeah... "Does not ship to Poland"

Who, Lent? Send him a private message, he seems to be a good egg.

C

I'm also interested, but he wont ship to Canada and I cannot even message him on Ebay (it wont allow me somehow?).
Do you know if he's on this board and what nick?
Thanks.

That's odd. I can email him myself and ask if he will ship to Poland and Canada. This is a big world of course.

C

[lightfoot]

Well, I boosted a friend's jally to 4 chips. Here is my thoughts:

3 chips: Warm, from 38 to 50+. Do-able
4 chips: Holy crap it's *HOT*. 80c, throttling with my BFGminer.

I now have an old AL heat sink on the bottom plate (secured with thermal grease) and a fan on it from the side, will see if it holds. But running a jally with 4 chips and no bottom sink is not a good idea IMO.

I also think I need to take the top off this thing. But 15+gh, no problem with the chips. Flux on the bottom of chip and on board, thin coat, set the chip square, review with a loupe, 350F pre-heat for 10 mins, then 450c at low air flow at .25 inches off the chip for 2 minutes. Done and done.

Edit: Taking the top off and letting the fan breathe makes the difference.

C

[lightfoot]

Well, that makes two failures of trying to re-flow chips on a board that came off other boards in "odd" condition. I clean the chips, remove the solder with an iron at 750f, flux, and desolder braid, put it on the board, center, and give it 350f low temps and 450c temps for 2 minutes. Same as the other chips which go on fine.

Fail. Tried adding flux and another 2 mins, fail. Drat. Fortunately this is on the junky jally so I wouldn't mind if it were trashed. But it did not work :-)

I'll debate just buying chips over trying to continue adding these. They could have been wrecked by the previous owner, but to be honest these chips seem to take a lot of heat and work. I guess I could spend $70 for a reballing kit, but the value is kind of eh.

I'll wait for the new jallies to come in before trying to put on my last 5 chips. Should be Christmas eve, I wonder if I can put up a big sign saying "JUST LEAVE IT WITHOUT A SIGNATURE DAMNIT!" or something like that :-)

C

[lightfoot]

Oh I did also chat with that Ebay seller; he's fixing the auction so he can do international. I'd say give it a go.

C

[gourmet]

Oh I did also chat with that Ebay seller; he's fixing the auction so he can do international. I'd say give it a go.

C

1) The auction at the original link still says continental USA only. Is there another auction/link?
2) According to the photo, the chips aren't native BGA, but a chip on a PCB with balls.

[lightfoot]

Oh I did also chat with that Ebay seller; he's fixing the auction so he can do international. I'd say give it a go.

C

1) The auction at the original link still says continental USA only. Is there another auction/link?
2) According to the photo, the chips aren't native BGA, but a chip on a PCB with balls.

The ones I got are the later ones which are slightly lower profile than the early chips, which were on a little PCB board to turn from from QFP to  BGA. The only early style chips I have ever gotten were three "demo" chips from another vendor.

Either will work. Try messaging the seller, he'll work it out (note I have no relation to the seller other than being a happy buyer of 4 a few weeks ago. Got them with no problems, waiting on a few more)

C

[lightfoot]

So it looks like ButterFly labs is getting into the jally-jumping game.

They're advertising a new 10gh jalapeno. Which I am betting involves boards with three chips on them, not two. If they run the 3 chips at a lower clock speed they will reduce heat, and could run them on existing equipment.

Josh did you get the idea from here? :-) If so call them "Lightfoot's revenge" or something like that.

C

[Goredox]

Lightfoot, just order the 0.5mm balls and manually place them on the chip to re-ball it. Better ROI.

[lightfoot]

Lightfoot, just order the 0.5mm balls and manually place them on the chip to re-ball it. Better ROI.

Tried, damn near impossible. Spent $10 on a set of stencils and a cheap holder (the $2 one). Will try that in Jan.

C

[elaramus]

Finally!! A tracking number and actual shipping information on my order of 4 Jalapenos from the black friday sale.... It does look like BFL decided to copy this forum idea with their new 10Gh/s Jalapenos.... I'm wondering if they are 3 chip or 4 chip units and I'd like to see what additional cooling options they've used.

Recently had a jalapeno experience fast flash of the red led... one of the original chips was the cause... error cleared when I pulled the associated chip... that chip to led map is a lifesaver and should be blown up, cleaned up and reposted as a separate entry here on the thread.

Merry Xmas to all.... ordered myself 2x more antminers today... guess I'll use the 4 Jalapenos for altcoin when they show up

[lightfoot]

Finally!! A tracking number and actual shipping information on my order of 4 Jalapenos from the black friday sale.... It does look like BFL decided to copy this forum idea with their new 10Gh/s Jalapenos.... I'm wondering if they are 3 chip or 4 chip units and I'd like to see what additional cooling options they've used.

My units are stuck in Kansas since Sat. So I have to spend Christmas loving my family instead of like scrooge with his gold bitcoin miners....

I am going to guess it's 3 chips, clocked to speed 4 or so which will run the chips at pretty low power and low heat. I've done 3 with the stock heat sink and case; temp goes from 35 to 50 or so.

Going to 4 requires some more firepower. 5 requires a heat pipe sink to fit in their case (and the case starts to become a heat sink in it's own right). Not sure about 6 or more....

Recently had a jalapeno experience fast flash of the red led... one of the original chips was the cause... error cleared when I pulled the associated chip... that chip to led map is a lifesaver and should be blown up, cleaned up and reposted as a separate entry here on the thread.

Congrats on fixing it. Did you put another chip on?

C

[Drug5bitz]

Really busy with the holidays, but Merry Christmas or happy what ever you celebrate. So I got my 2 new jalapeños yesterday thank god. So I watch them for the first day mining one at 7Ghs with 4% hw errors and an 8 with 2% hw errors. So I'm like wtf and start looking at the boards. One has 3 chips on it!!!!!!! I started geeking out wondering why it wouldn't be initiating when it's obviously recognized. Figure it's prolly clocked down and I'll be reflashing after the holidays. Just wanted to let you guys know, only one of them has 3 chips. Dissect that.

[lightfoot]

Really busy with the holidays, but Merry Christmas or happy what ever you celebrate. So I got my 2 new jalapeños yesterday thank god. So I watch them for the first day mining one at 7Ghs with 4% hw errors and an 8 with 2% hw errors. So I'm like wtf and start looking at the boards. One has 3 chips on it!!!!!!! I started geeking out wondering why it wouldn't be initiating when it's obviously recognized. Figure it's prolly clocked down and I'll be reflashing after the holidays. Just wanted to let you guys know, only one of them has 3 chips. Dissect that.

Enjoying Christmas here. Fortunately my shipment is stuck somewhere in Kansas, otherwise I wouldn't be playing with my kids and all. :-)

So BFL's switched over to three chip jallies. Very. Very. Interesting. Did you happen to order the 2gh bump-up?

Which way is the fan blowing? And of course pictures would be cool.

C

[Drug5bitz]

Ok, so interesting findings. I took the 3 chip jallie and flashed it with 1.2.9 after editing for "little_single" it boots up and registers 1 chip.... Like wtf?? Hashing at 2-3Ghs I've went through and flashed it about 4 times checking through std_def.h. I'm kinda at a loss with this again, Why would flashing cause only one chip to show???  Pics to follow prolly tomorrow.

P.S. the FW version written on back is 292..... hmm board rev. C same as others. This has to be a FW issue somehow....

[lightfoot]

Try using a low speed like 1. Also what do you see with the Handy Dandy BFL Commport scanner?

C

[Drug5bitz]

Try using a low speed like 1. Also what do you see with the Handy Dandy BFL Commport scanner?

C

Is this in the driver pack that BFL produced? Never really needed it, but I guess if it provided some more info. As for the speeds there are 3 lines speed 1,7,9 I just need to turn down speed 7 a little lower for more stable performance maybe?

Ah ha runs at speed 1 only about 7 Ghs will bump up as possible. They wont even start if to high? Shitty chip grades? update will only run with speed 1.............................

[Drug5bitz]

After running for over an hour @ speed 1. One chip is really slow on submissions and another high with HW errors. Leaving it for now going on to the next jalapeno......




Load up the second one in atmel studios and it's a 128kb version..... Those wouldn't accept the 1.2.9 because of the size right? Just want to check before writing a file that's not going to fit. It also just slow flashes the power LED if I use a brick. Only will power up fine on my PSU.

[lightfoot]

Is this in the driver pack that BFL produced? Never really needed it, but I guess if it provided some more info. As for the speeds there are 3 lines speed 1,7,9 I just need to turn down speed 7 a little lower for more stable performance maybe?

Ah ha runs at speed 1 only about 7 Ghs will bump up as possible. They wont even start if to high? Shitty chip grades? update will only run with speed 1.............................

Christ, maybe they scraped the total bottom of the barrel and used three Z grade chips. I have noticed that if you set the max frequency too high that chips may not fire, never seen one so screwed up it wouldn't start on 7.

That's kind of cool actually. Just saw your image, holy fuck it does have three chips enabled. That's cool!

Try speed 3,5,6 and see if it comes up a bit faster. One bit at a time. If you load up the BFL comm tool you can actually see what the chips are hashing at, which could really be interesting.

128lb ones can be flashed, I think eoakland figured out you have to set the compile option in the code to be for a 128kb chip. It does work, but if you don't do that you brick. And sounds like one of your bricks is crap, cool.

C

[Drug5bitz]

No both bricks work for the 3 chip version. The 2 chip has 29 shares accepted and 57 HW errors. I can grab the BFL driver I guess but BFGminer is telling me a pretty close speed of each chip as well.   So far I'm extremely disappointed in BFL blackfriday product seems like their unloading the shit inventory. I'll have to check the 2 chip board rev. but there is no tag saying inspected or shit....... RMA if I can ever get a hold of them rofl, eBay has a better RMA policy for selling defective products... Thinking I pretty much lost my money on this deal.

[lightfoot]

No both bricks work for the 3 chip version. The 2 chip has 29 shares accepted and 57 HW errors. I can grab the BFL driver I guess but BFGminer is telling me a pretty close speed of each chip as well.   So far I'm extremely disappointed in BFL blackfriday product seems like their unloading the shit inventory. I'll have to check the 2 chip board rev. but there is no tag saying inspected or shit....... RMA if I can ever get a hold of them rofl, eBay has a better RMA policy for selling defective products... Thinking I pretty much lost my money on this deal.

I'm in a state of shock, but it's from a different bitcoin thing, so at this point nothing will surprise me.

In the meantime the BFL commport thing was written by Red_wolf, and it's probably the most useful thing in the planet. Let me find the link.

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/jalapeno-single-sc-support/4564-diagnostic-tool-bfl-com-port-scanner.html

He made a bunch of versions, start at like page 4 or something. It's really useful.

C

[lightfoot]

Well, I got my Black Friday jallies. Not bad overall, I've already added a chip to 1. Instant +4gh.

The chip came from LentBT, I ordered two to test, chips arrived well packed and quickly. Chips are new, new style ones, and went on the board with no problems. I'll put the second one on the other board later tonight, then stick the next four (yes, I ordered 4 more) to make these 5 chip monster jallies.

Moving right along :-)

[Photon939]

After running for over an hour @ speed 1. One chip is really slow on submissions and another high with HW errors. Leaving it for now going on to the next jalapeno......

Load up the second one in atmel studios and it's a 128kb version..... Those wouldn't accept the 1.2.9 because of the size right? Just want to check before writing a file that's not going to fit. It also just slow flashes the power LED if I use a brick. Only will power up fine on my PSU.

You can flash the new Jallies with the 128kb chip with 1.2.9, you just need to recompile the solution for the correct chip and make sure to set product type as Little_Single, the full single firmware is more than 128kb

[Photon939]

In case anyone is interested, here's the stats from my 11 Black Friday sale units that I bought for shits and giggles. The single runs right at the rated spec and now after some firmware tweaks runs at 54 GH/s, one of the jallies seems to have a shitty chip but still better than spec, the others are excellent.

[lightfoot]

Well, right now I have a lot of stuff in flux. One of the new jallies is at 16gh, one is at 12, my main one is at 20, another two are at 8, and I'm probably going to leave it at that for tonight. I need to rewire the power supplies and start running off the real power from the corsairs in order to go higher. I would be doing that now, but my *&#@(* power cord didn't come from BFL.

Still, it's pretty hefty. And it's seriously starting to get warm. I have the window open in the mining room and I may start moving this project out to the work shed.

C

[lightfoot]

And thanks to an incredibly generous Christmas donation (more in a bit) I think I'm going to need to research the heat issues a bit more.

I'll be taking a unit here to at least 7 chips this weekend, which is going to be complex. I think I will use this on the bottom of the board:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005SEZBXY/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

To control the heat with the traditional AL heat sink on the top (running this mess upside down). I'll also be buying another water block cooling system for $64 and see how that works as well.

Ok, I picked this unit up. Big. Big big. But big could be good; I could put this on the back of the board and use it to cool the FETs and the main chips in one shot. We shall see.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CORSAIR-Hydro-Series-H100-CWCH100-RF-Extreme-Performance-Liquid-CPU-Cooler-/291044040581?pt=US_Water_Cooling&hash=item43c3939f85

And on a side note the ebay guy just added canadian shipping. If you want it from another country just PM him on Ebay and he will add the country. 4 more coming by Monday, maybe even this new water block....

C

This will be interesting.

C

[miaviator]

so bfl is selling 10G jallys at $574?  If those are three chips we could get what 18-30Ghs out of them just with better cooling and an update?  or am I way off base here?

[bcp19]

so bfl is selling 10G jallys at $574?  If those are three chips we could get what 18-30Ghs out of them just with better cooling and an update?  or am I way off base here?

They're $374 on the website.  I doubt you could push them to 18+ with only 3 chips, for the most part they seem to run at about 5GH max per chip.

[HellDiverUK]

P.S. the FW version written on back is 292..... hmm board rev. C same as others. This has to be a FW issue somehow....

My "7GH" Jalapeno that I finally got on Christmas Eve (late June order) came with 292 on it.  It's running around 8GH.

[HellDiverUK]

I notice on BFL's site they mention some sort of 'teaming' system:

Additional Bitforce SC products can be added to the chain via a USB hub for linear performance multiplication with no overhead cost. Each additional unit is auto-configured and folded into the workforce without any user intervention required.

I'm using BFGMiner, the two Jallys I have are running off a single USB hub.  What am I looking for in regards this 'teaming'?  Is it important?  Does it actually help?  How do I know if it's working?

[lightfoot]

so bfl is selling 10G jallys at $574?  If those are three chips we could get what 18-30Ghs out of them just with better cooling and an update?  or am I way off base here?

They're $374 on the website.  I doubt you could push them to 18+ with only 3 chips, for the most part they seem to run at about 5GH max per chip.

4gh is the most you will get out of a chip in normal operation. The Chili I have gets 5 (39gh total, 37gh submitted after errors) but that is using exceptional chips, is running Mr. Teal's software, and adjusts core speeds per chip based on chip temp and actual chip frequency. It is amazing.

Right now my 3 chip turbo jally is getting 12gh, and my 4 chip is getting 15.9, and my five chip jally with a really crummy chip is getting 19gh. So it depends.

This morning's job is going to be boosting my 4 chip to 5 and maybe flashing the 12gh one to see if it goes faster or slower with the level 9 code.

C

[lightfoot]

By the way Drug: 1.3% errors is really pretty reasonable, have you tried reflashing it with a speed of 5 or something?

All my new jallies have two chips, so yours may be a special case. However I'm curious to see if you can flash any of the others, the boards do not look different and can take chips with this software load.

C

[Photon939]

I notice on BFL's site they mention some sort of 'teaming' system:

Additional Bitforce SC products can be added to the chain via a USB hub for linear performance multiplication with no overhead cost. Each additional unit is auto-configured and folded into the workforce without any user intervention required.

I'm using BFGMiner, the two Jallys I have are running off a single USB hub.  What am I looking for in regards this 'teaming'?  Is it important?  Does it actually help?  How do I know if it's working?

It just means that if you have two 5GH/s Jalapenos and you plug them into one computer your hashrate is 10 GH/s. It's just marketing jargon that says performance scales linearly with the amount of units you buy.

[HellDiverUK]

I notice on BFL's site they mention some sort of 'teaming' system:

Additional Bitforce SC products can be added to the chain via a USB hub for linear performance multiplication with no overhead cost. Each additional unit is auto-configured and folded into the workforce without any user intervention required.

I'm using BFGMiner, the two Jallys I have are running off a single USB hub.  What am I looking for in regards this 'teaming'?  Is it important?  Does it actually help?  How do I know if it's working?

It just means that if you have two 5GH/s Jalapenos and you plug them into one computer your hashrate is 10 GH/s. It's just marketing jargon that says performance scales linearly with the amount of units you buy.

I thought is was more than that.  I did check bfgminer more closely, and it's saying something about 'parallel queue processing' which I'm thinking sounds a bit more like what BFL were alluding to.

[lightfoot]

\
I thought is was more than that.  I did check bfgminer more closely, and it's saying something about 'parallel queue processing' which I'm thinking sounds a bit more like what BFL were alluding to.

Well, yes. BFL runs the chips as units, within each chip is up to 16 sub processors that the work is farmed out to. So each chip shows up as a computing node, not the sub processors.

Chili takes this a slight step further by dividing all the work to all the chips as one big shot. Thus it looks to bfg like one big-ass chip. It's more efficient in some ways, probably about 4gh extra per 8 chips I think.

C

[lightfoot]

Well, more chips in the boards. Because I am waiting on heat sinks (always something...) I am running my crummy jally (the one with one temp sensor, the one that blew up the FTDI chip, etc etc etc) with a total of five chips, 4 running and one not. The not was the one I need to reball; I really should have taken it off the board. Because board temp is at 73.

Now it was going to 80, but I put this super fan+heat sink+pipes on the unit and it's down to 73, which is good but still high. And it's only hashing 14gh because at least one of the factory chips was crap (it hashed 6gh stock). Oh well, you take what you can get in this world, and this keeps me from selling the poor little thing on Ebay.

In fact one of the side fails of all this is I am not going to be able to sell this stuff on Ebay; it's requiring bigger sinks and a lot of thought. In retrospect this will probably be a mistake but fuck it, such is life. Actually I could turn off the extra chips in software and sell them in stock boxes as three chip jallies. We'll see.

I have two cooling units on the way; another 120v unit and a $70 corsair one with two fans and a big heat sink. That's going on the 7-8 chip unit I think... :-)

Never dull.
C

[lightfoot]

Just a quick recap: What do I have here:

Jally 1: 19gh unit, 5 chips, the first jally. Running with a BFL type 1 sink, runs great.
Jally 2: 14gh unit, 4 chips. This is the crap jally, one I bought from a UK person for full value that turned out to have the blown FTDI chip.
Jally 3: 16gh unit, 4 chips. One of my new jallies, 4 chips in a cross pattern.
Jally 4: 12gh unit, 3 chips. The other new jally, I don't want to push the power supplies if I can help it.
Jally 5: 8gh unit, 2 chips. This is a stock "control" jally for a friend.
Chili 1: 36gh unit, 8 chips. Bought for .7btc, this is a cool little thing.

At this point I'm getting good enough to start thinking about offering this as a service. I have done 8 chips in a row here with no problems, and the combination of flux, heat, preheat, and my loupes to ensure every chip is perfectly on the balls has reduced my failure rate to zilch.

Need to figure out a price though; going from a 2 chip to 3 chip jally seems to add about $200 in value on Ebay. No one has sold a 4 chip jally.... So message me; what would be a fair price in your mind to turn your jallies into more money?

Any thoughts?
C

[Drug5bitz]

I'm not worried about the HW errors on that one look at this lol. 2x4chips 1x6chips 1x3chips and 1x2 chips. My six chip carefully hand picked for being the most stable coldest unit. Adding chips on these gravy with a steady hand. I wouldn't suggest above 3 chips on the blocks. I vaguely recall you saying the front light would blink if the chips didn't have enough current. My 3 chip will only run on speed 1 only! I have it on my PSU now and thought maybe it could handle a speed boost.  Here's what I have from last night.

[lightfoot]

Note to all: I am going straight to jalapeno hell :-)


This is the 4 chip+1 dead chip "Danger Jally with a much... bigger... cooler. 5 chips of heat.

Temps went from 80c with the stock fan down to 38c and holding. Now wait till I get water cooling. :-)

Note: You do have to do a bit of stuff. First you need to bevel the edges so it will not touch the caps right around the chips. Then you need to drill and tap two new holes, try to center it as much as possible so you don't hit one of the heat pipes with the drill.

But man, this solves the heat problem. I'll try taking this one up to seven chips as soon as I get the little heat sinks for the FETs.

C

[MrTeal]

If you want to go crazy, I'd love to see you use something like this and cover the whole back side, instead of little press-on heatsinks (with less than ideal tape).
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2x-New-Large-Rectangle-Aluminum-Heatsink-w-screw-mount-DIY-POWER-AMPLIFIER-LED-/251261395030?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a8058a056

Drill some clear holes to mount on that big heatsink for the ASICs, and drill and tap some holes to screw the PCB down to the backside heatsink.
I think you'd have no problems running 7-8 chips with a setup like that.

[lightfoot]

If you want to go crazy, I'd love to see you use something like this and cover the whole back side, instead of little press-on heatsinks (with less than ideal tape).
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2x-New-Large-Rectangle-Aluminum-Heatsink-w-screw-mount-DIY-POWER-AMPLIFIER-LED-/251261395030?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a8058a056

Drill some clear holes to mount on that big heatsink for the ASICs, and drill and tap some holes to screw the PCB down to the backside heatsink.
I think you'd have no problems running 7-8 chips with a setup like that.

Hm. I have thought about cutting up an old 486 heat sink; the key here is surface area.

What would really win would be water block cooling of course, and one of the reasons I bought a big corsiar block is the thought that I could mount it on the back of the board (the large bracket *just* clears the sides of the LS board) and then just put the stupid AL heat sink on the top.

The full surface area cooling ability of a block might then allow me to cool the whole bottom of the board including that massive ground plane. Since I'll move it forward as much as possible, it might be able to cool the fets from the bottom, and remove the heat sink need on top.

We shall, as they say, see. But I'm convinced that water cooling is the way to go.

[freddyfarnsworth]

Yeah... "Does not ship to Poland"

Who, Lent? Send him a private message, he seems to be a good egg.

C

I'm also interested, but he wont ship to Canada and I cannot even message him on Ebay (it wont allow me somehow?).
Do you know if he's on this board and what nick?
Thanks.

That's odd. I can email him myself and ask if he will ship to Poland and Canada. This is a big world of course.

C

Try using a US address, ebay has prolly blocked countries that have blocked shipping from even communicating with seller to stop spamming him with to many questions.

Use No-ip or something like it to get a us addy then set your pc to be no-ip's real destination.

[Brassguy]

It's been a while but here's an update...

I can confirm that having a dead chip lowers the output (shares produced). However your reported hashrate via cgminer will be consistent with whatever number of chips you have... for example...

I have 3 jallys with 6 chips installed. One was only able to initialize 5. Fair enough. It was hashing 19.5gh average for one week as reported by cgminer. I figured I would get around to reflowing it this weekend. I did a little math before I fixed it and found this...

It was only producing shares consistent with a hashrate of 15.4gh... which coincidentally was the approximate hashrate before chips 5 and 6 were added.

Another interesting fact is temp reported by cgminer when it was at "19.5gh" is the exact same as it is now after it was fixed ~58C at 23.4gh.... I only reflowed the chip that wasn't initializing...

Thoughts?

[Drug5bitz]

I'm more familiar with BFGMiner, but can you check the individual chip speeds and the voltages to them? Sounds like you got a junk chip. Trust me one is a wrench in what ever it touches. Individual info can help you dissect it far more.

[lightfoot]

Another unit up to 20gh. To minimize heat near the FTDi chip and the FETs I have been placing 5 chips as follows:

2,3,4,7,5 (use the map in the previous pages for locations). 60c temp with stock heat sink and a very warm power supply. Wish I had my darn PCIx cable from BFL....

Otherwise seems to work well. Tomorrow I should be having 4 more chips come in and the water cooler, we'll try for 7 on one jally with water cooling...

[Drug5bitz]

Another unit up to 20gh. To minimize heat near the FTDi chip and the FETs I have been placing 5 chips as follows:

2,3,4,7,5 (use the map in the previous pages for locations). 60c temp with stock heat sink and a very warm power supply. Wish I had my darn PCIx cable from BFL....

Otherwise seems to work well. Tomorrow I should be having 4 more chips come in and the water cooler, we'll try for 7 on one jally with water cooling...

I believe you've seen the molex to barrel adapter that takes 5 minutes to make. It's a lot safer power if you have the PSU for it. Yellow 12V line to the inside shielded wire, and the two center grounds on the molex to the outside braided ground.  I wired up 4 of these just to get my miners up while waiting on cablez. Not that he took long, 2 days maybe on his end and an amazing looking product!! 

So in the end you're going to hit 8 chips right? Have we thought about cooling the FTDI chip with a simple sink? If you need any help with water cooling let me know, I love the stuff. I didn't go that route because of ROI. Just be super careful if you drill into the water block not to permeate the chamber. Don't mix metals between sinks and radiators ETC. ionization will happen and slowly deteriorate everything. It's usually suggested to run the system for hours to leak test. The thermal conductivity of water exceeds air something like 10x so this makes me giddy.  Air vs water let my processor go from 4.0 Ghz to 5.2 Ghz in the end it is usually efficient enough that the next hindrance is hardware related as there should be plenty of overhead for heat. 

[lightfoot]

I believe you've seen the molex to barrel adapter that takes 5 minutes to make. It's a lot safer power if you have the PSU for it. Yellow 12V line to the inside shielded wire, and the two center grounds on the molex to the outside braided ground.  I wired up 4 of these just to get my miners up while waiting on cablez. Not that he took long, 2 days maybe on his end and an amazing looking product!! 

Yes, but I am just too damn lame to order a molex socket from somewhere. So what I have been doing is picking up old D type connectors from Radio crap, wiring those to power whips from these crap supplies, then plugging them into my power supplies. Problem is I have two of the 20gh class systems using the one string of D subs, so I finally gave up and clipped the cable on the supply so I could use one of the SATA lines. (They are all on the same rail, but one should still balance the wires since those have resistance as well)

So in the end you're going to hit 8 chips right? Have we thought about cooling the FTDI chip with a simple sink? If you need any help with water cooling let me know, I love the stuff. I didn't go that route because of ROI. Just be super careful if you drill into the water block not to permeate the chamber. Don't mix metals between sinks and radiators ETC. ionization will happen and slowly deteriorate everything. It's usually suggested to run the system for hours to leak test. The thermal conductivity of water exceeds air something like 10x so this makes me giddy.  Air vs water let my processor go from 4.0 Ghz to 5.2 Ghz in the end it is usually efficient enough that the next hindrance is hardware related as there should be plenty of overhead for heat. 

Well, I have 4 chips coming, two old style chips in the box, and three chips that need to be reballed (one old and two new). The problem now with the old style chips is that fitting them on a board could be tough; since they are tall the newer chips all have to have heat pads on them to even up. What I might do is try putting the first reballed tall one on the "danger board" (the one that some poor guy nuked to try and put chips on it) and if that works put the three on that board and call it "done" (5 of the chip pads are seriously damaged. Sad.)

The problem with the FTDI IMO is not that it generates heat, but since it's on the ground plane it has to deal with the plane's heat load from the FETs and chips. Add to that the genius idea of blowing 50-60c air right on it (with the fans down) and you have a recipe for fail. My next cooler is going to be the corsair big one, I'm thinking of just strapping it to the bottom of the board so it can pull the heat off the bottom. In theory I should be able to get away with only a little AL sink on the top, which will have to be the bottom since I bet you can't run a water block upside down.

The corsair and 120 that I am using now are sealed units, so corrosion inhibitors are probably in there. What I really *should* do is take them outside, then immerse the radiator in a 5 gallon bucket of water in the shed with a garden pump circulating the water to the 60 gallon rain barrel outside. Even better would be to immerse the radiator straight into the barrel, but in either case if the water froze solid I'd lose cooling power. Hm.... That is crazy actually...

C

[lightfoot]

What I will probably do is put two of the new chips on one board, one on the other, and run 7 chips on one water cooled, six on the other with air cooling. Then hold the last chip in reserve to see if I want to go to 8.... :-)

C

[HellDiverUK]

I believe you've seen the molex to barrel adapter that takes 5 minutes to make. It's a lot safer power if you have the PSU for it. Yellow 12V line to the inside shielded wire, and the two center grounds on the molex to the outside braided ground. 

The two Jally PSUs I've butchered have had a red and black wire inside, no shielding.  Red is centre positive.  I just solder on to an old molex fan cable (I've heaps of them from years ago), bit of heat-shrink, job jobbed.

[lightfoot]

I believe you've seen the molex to barrel adapter that takes 5 minutes to make. It's a lot safer power if you have the PSU for it. Yellow 12V line to the inside shielded wire, and the two center grounds on the molex to the outside braided ground. 

The two Jally PSUs I've butchered have had a red and black wire inside, no shielding.  Red is centre positive.  I just solder on to an old molex fan cable (I've heaps of them from years ago), bit of heat-shrink, job jobbed.

True, if you crack the case you will find that. However oddly enough I have a use for old jally supplies, one is powering a beautiful halogen lamp that had it's power supply die years ago (4 amps at 12 volts needs a big power supply). The other is for a peltier cooler based fridge that had it's power supply (12 volt 4 amp) die as well. So oddly enough how can you screw up these things if the jally supply decides to explode :-)

They would also make good 12 volt battery chargers oddly enough.

C

[Drug5bitz]

Radiator in the barrel maybe not, outside better idea. Mine currently heat my apartment, only a 1 bedroom but still. Water cooling is amazing because it works in any orientation. I wasn't aware you're using one of those self contained units. I'm not a huge fan but I have owned one, they're extremely simple to use. Never worry about adding coolant or bleeding the system proper, as for actual life mine was fine for the year I owned it. The only reason I wish I was 100% water cooled is the 10 fans running for my miners. Do a google search and you can find what I assume is the water system they used in the minirigs. A lot more coverage, kinda wished this was an aftermarket option.

[lightfoot]

Ok. Given the water is almost frozen, it would be cool to run a chili with frozen chips.

But I should think about the summer that's coming up: One interesting thought here is to mount a heat exchanger to an old 5000 btu air conditioner, and water cool from that directly. I wonder how hard it would be to build a water to air conditioner exchanger or just put the AC condenser in a big fish tank and put the water radiators right there. Or just plumb the water straight into the tank. Wrap it wih insulation and your cooling problems would be solved.

Hm. Well, that's the summer when this is all going to be running in the shed on batteries and solar panels. Speaking of which I should order a new battery bank tomorrow so I can take the solar tax credit. Hm.

C

[freddyfarnsworth]

Ok. Given the water is almost frozen, it would be cool to run a chili with frozen chips.

But I should think about the summer that's coming up: One interesting thought here is to mount a heat exchanger to an old 5000 btu air conditioner, and water cool from that directly. I wonder how hard it would be to build a water to air conditioner exchanger or just put the AC condenser in a big fish tank and put the water radiators right there. Or just plumb the water straight into the tank. Wrap it wih insulation and your cooling problems would be solved.

Hm. Well, that's the summer when this is all going to be running in the shed on batteries and solar panels. Speaking of which I should order a new battery bank tomorrow so I can take the solar tax credit. Hm.

C

Since you are all on water to cool the Custom boards you guys are creating, Here is some automotive tech you may or may not know. Ethylene glycol pure has to be mixed 50-50 most comes that way now. It will raise the boiling point to 252degrees with a 16lb pressure cap.. It will also conduct heat far better than plain water, and give corrosion protection till it gets contaminated with sulfides from burning fuel and small amount of gasses leeching into cooling system on a engine.. no need to worry on that. Should last forever. Also would never freeze in your conditions.
You can drink it, tastes sweet (rain Barrel) but you will regret it later. So repurpose that barrel.
Thought these chips run best at 46 to 50 c tho, so you do not want them to cool.

[HellDiverUK]

Anyone 'fixed' the 1.2.9 firmware to run a bit quicker?  My 5GH Jalapeno is the 'rev 2' board, and the 1.2.5ck firmware doesn't work on it.

My 8GH Jalapeno has 2.9.2 on it - is there any way of pulling it's firmware and putting it on the 5GH unit?


Or does anyone have a list of firmwares and what they work on and what they do?

[lightfoot]

So last night I had my first fail in awhile; I tried to put an old style chip on a completely burned up board. Found a pad that was mostly flat (repeated attempts by previous owner to add chips were spectacular fails) centered the chip, and hit the heat.

Shorted the 1v line. Odd. So I pulled the chip; the solder under it globbed together in one place. I had flux on it, I think the problem is that without the balls under the chip, the chip solder will tend to flow. Also the old style chips seem to have much smaller solder pads on them, the balls might have just run as a matter of course.

Not the end of the earth, just means I have 3 chips now to practice reballing on. I'm going to try one of them on this board again later; need to figure out how to get these chips to go on a board with no solder for the heck of it.

But no more experimenting with good chips. Have 4 more showing up today, I think this will be the last of the chips I will be installing for awhile.

C

[lightfoot]

Ok, we're up to six chips, but it wasn't easy and this is where it gets more real.

In a nutshell, once you go to six chips odd things will start to happen. First you will hash at 24gh. Whee. Second your custom fan assembly with heat pipes will start feeling the heat as board temps hit 70c. Remember they were in the 40's earlier, now they are in the 70's. It's a bit warmer up here.



Note the larger heat sinks on the power FET chips. They read in at 120 f right now, without them I think the FETs would be on fire. Likewise the fet driver chip is getting hot, and the ground plane of course is at 70c which is close to 160f. I put the Al heat sink on the bottom there for a reason; the plate on the bottom with heat sink compound was getting to 120f+.

In a nutshell, the issue is one of heat load: The more you put on the board the harder the board has to dissipate it. I thought about going to seven, but I think I am going to wait for the water cooling block before I try for that.

In addition I screwed up a chip; put too much flux on it and the flux bubbled out from under the chip while under heat. Very very bad, it pushed one of the balls into another on the outside and created a logic short so I had to pull the chip. It's ok, just needs the official reballing treatment. Another chip in "reserve".

When the water cooler comes I'll try putting chip 6 and 7 on the other jally; this one will not be able to go past 7 at this point due to the chip coming off the board so I'm kinda stuck. I'll leave it at six for now.

Update: Slight miscount, the other jally has only four chips, so I took it to five with FET heat sinks. Running fine. Next up will be to take it to six when I get the water cooler. At that point I am running low on chips here....

C

[dentldir]

When doing large BGA chips, there is usually a flux activation time during the heating cycle.  You just heat at the chip at the activation temp of the flux which is well below the soldier temp.  Once its done doing its thing (bubbling and stablizing), you ramp up the temp from there to do the soldiering.  At that point, the flux and the soldier mask are working together to keep everything in place for you.

I did manage to fix a cold soldier job I did using the info in this thread.  So I've got a 4 chip Jally now just under 15Gh/s.  Haven't been brave enough to push it past that yet.

[elaramus]

Update on BFL Black Friday Jalapeno purchase:

I bought 4, and haven't had a chance to really look at them until today. On arrival I had someone unbox them and plug them in and the 4 Jallys put out an aggregate hash rate of 32 Gh/s. 2 Were hashing above 9 and the others bounced between 6 and 8.

I've only opened two so far. One of the 9Gh/s models was running extremely hot (75c) so this was my first victim/patient. I opened it and found 3 chips installed (new version), firmware 2.92 label, a test date of 12/21 (so much for "in stock for immediate delivery"), and the fan blowing down onto the chips. I flipped the fan, replaced the thermal pad with artic silver alumina, put a layer of alumina between the bottom of the board and the aluminum plate and it is now running at 9+ Gh/s at a much more reasonable 61c.

The second Jally I opened, had the old school chips on raised PCB, it also had 2.92 firmware. I figured I'd try to add a chip to it while it was open. It worked! I was able to add a chip and have it recognized without flashing the Jally (The Dragon was standing by just in case).

I am working on the 2nd 9Gh/s jally now. If it has the new rev of chip, I will try to take it from 3 chips to 4 (again without flashing firmware) then I'll move onto the last Jally which I suspect has only 2 chips and will add one to it.

Of note, while inspecting the casings, one of my Jally's has 8 pinholes in the case to allow you to see each respective LED for its associated chip. Only 1 of the 4 had this the remaining ones only had two holes to view the chips..

More to follow..

I'll have some spare chips available for sale when I'm done. If interested, PM me. I expect to have at least 6 or 7 available.

[lightfoot]

The safe max seems to be five chips, with that you can run at 20gh, and still use the stock heat sink with the fan blowing straight down full speed. Going to six causes all sorts of weird things.

So lard em up with chips.

C

[lightfoot]

In the meantime I've been bbqing a test board here trying to resolder chips that have already failed install. The results have been far less than spectacular.

The big problem is the chips will not align, and due to the board differences in height between the remaining solder balls it's impossible to place the chip. So the result is a chip that causes solder shorts, blowing the 1 volt line. I've gotten to the point where I can just sit there and measure the resistance of the board's 1 volt line. Anything lower than 1 ohm means boom.

Oh well, I think I have to wait for the um.. stencil. Once I have that I should be able to do some real work by removing all the solder from a board thing, then putting on a perfectly balled (hah) chip. I have 4 chips that have been screwed, so I should be able to get something out of this.

Eventually my stuff will come from China. Just. need. to. wait. :-)

C

[lightfoot]

Side note: That lentbt guy on Ebay is running out of chips. If you want to do this, I'd suggest checking in with him. I'm going to wait till my reballing stencils come in from China and work with that for awhile. :-)

C

[lightfoot]

Well, in the "lessons cost bitcoin" category I finally figured out why I have been failing in mounting this chip on the danger board.

This is one of the "early model" chips that are on a tiny carrier and do not have a logo. Got three of them for .12btc a few weeks ago. And one of them I tried to mount on the danger board. But each time I tried to clean it up and put it down, the chip would short the 1 volt supply line. Every time. Over and over. I thought I was a complete loser.

Then I tried to put another one down on a totally good board. Pre-heated, aligned the balls perfectly, applied the heat to the top, after 30 seconds looked in and saw a tiny solder ball on the chip carrier.

CRUD! Now I know what has been happening: Instead of bonding the chip to the carrier board with high temperature solder, they used normal solder. Which means the heat from my air gun would heat the chip and not the board under it and as a result the solder on the chip itself would short under it on the carrier.

CRUD AGAIN! That's why this other chip was shorting. And why this chip I was putting on didn't even mount to the board, just made a total mess of things. So I removed the solder on the board, swore for awhile, and put the chip away.

I'll sell all three of them for .04 btc, as either souvenirs or if you think you can get them going. It's just the cost of doing research, but I would *HIGHLY* recommend that you do not buy old style chips unless you have a full reflow oven and pace placement tool.

Lesson learned. One good chip left, two chips in need of reballing. So I should be able to put this last chip on the 5 chip board, making both 6 chip boards, then if I can get these other chips reflowed I'll try putting them on the danger board. :-)

C

[freddyfarnsworth]

Just to let you know, watching and reading with great interest, you are cutting edge on info on homebrew projects like this, your pain - my gain

Found my old toaster oven in storage and my industrial heat gun (paint removal- looks like a hair dryer), also my old laser temperature tool. May give it a whirl on some stuff.

Reballing seems to be mandatory from your experience tho, was hoping to avoid all that.

[lightfoot]

Feel.free to drop some bitcoins in the research bowl or send repairs my way. However one may be able to mount a chip without reballing. My error was working with these older chips.

We learn by doing. And people have donated time coin and chips so it all works out...

[technocoma]

Interesting read.

[elaramus]

BlackFriday Jally Update 2:

So finished up my splicing and dicing on New Years Eve. I decided to make 4 3-chip Jally's so I could salvage their resale value:
Here's a screen shot of the final output. The two doing 11+ are the 2 chip Jallys that I added a chip to.


Of the 4 received, only 1 had the original old style chips (notice the one running @ 69C, that's the one). The remainder having a level plane all made good contact with the stock heat sink. I decided to go with arctic silver alumina for thermal compound and after flipping the fan and adding thermal compound beneath the bottom of the board and the aluminum/zinc back plate, all of my temps are good.

Here's a shot of the 8 hole plate I mentioned on the first post:


It was nice to see the boards with the newer style chips. I don't see any immediate advantage of the 292 firmware other than you can add chips without flashing. Here's a shot of one of the three chip boards I received, I received two 3 chip and 2 two chip models.




And I didn't go crazy so I have 13 chips left.. Look for a thread under Computer Hardware if you want them.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=395129.new#new

PS: I'd ordered two PCI-E to 3 Plug custom power cables when I placed my order. They were not in the box. Logged back into BFL's site and checked my invoice, and it clearly shows I paid $29.98 for the cables and also indicates that they were shipped. I wrote an inquiry to office@butterflylabs.com, but to date have not received a reply.

[lightfoot]

And I didn't go crazy so I have 13 chips left.. Look for a thread under Computer Hardware if you want them.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=395129.new#new

Well, it looks like Danger labs is going for the gold. I just picked up six of these, will distribute as follows:

Jally 1: 6 chip to 8 chips (+2) Looks like the water cooling block may come in handy.
Jally 2: 5 chips to 7 chips (+2)
Jally 3: 5 chip (this is the bad board one) to 7 chips (+2). Might as well set it alight as well.

This will cover my three dead chips; I'll use my last good chip for a friend's jally, giving him a 12gh unit that can be used or sold without super cooling. My reballs I'll put on the danger board if I can, what's the worst that can happen?

I am going so straight to hell here. But it's all for... research.

Right.

Crap, I just realized something: I have one other chip, and one of my slots is bad. So I can only do four. UG. Will request update, if seller does not agree will honor 6 chip request.

PS: I'd ordered two PCI-E to 3 Plug custom power cables when I placed my order. They were not in the box. Logged back into BFL's site and checked my invoice, and it clearly shows I paid $29.98 for the cables and also indicates that they were shipped. I wrote an inquiry to office@butterflylabs.com, but to date have not received a reply.

Same here. At this point it's pointless to get the cable; I'm already at full power here. I guess I can just ask BFL to send me a chip or something instead. Or my money back. :-)

C

[synapse]

Wait, that chip you blew up is a voltage regulator? I thought the six FETs were it, or is that some sort of LM317 for the fans?

And is that big box thing damaged as well?

C

Yes, notice the hole in the chip. The number on it was ST1S10, on mouser it comes up as a voltage reg. This particular jala is the one that took out the same power supply. When I used a good power supply it blew that chip.... doesn't necessarily mean that's the problem though....

The blown caps are on the blocks DC output side, everything else looks fine.  I'm not sure what you mean by big box thing? If you mean the USB controller chip, I ordered a couple. I have 2 jala's that wont register in windows... trust me I researched it on two PC's and 3 different miner programs. Again everything is just to the best of my knowledge, I'm out on a string with some of this stuff.

The 2 mouser chips I got ordered are

ST1S10 (Voltage reg)
FT232HQ (FTDI driver chip for USB)

Yes I'm in the USA unfortunately.

Bugga, I just blew a hole in the exact same chip in the exact same spot. I thought it was new years eve fireworks again.
Power supply tests ok though. the thing powers up with one red led near the power connector. The red leds on the back and front don't light up anymore.

Torn between sending back as an RMA, or having a go at replacing the chip myself.

[lightfoot]

You blew up U15 as well? Hm, interesting; wonder why that is failing.

I think that is the 3.3 volt supply line, if you want to send it over I can take a look at it. I'm sure though they will honor the RMA. Drug, did swapping that chip fix it?

C

[MrTeal]

Remove the chip again, and check the resistance on the 3.3V rail. If it's below about 10 ohms or so, something is shorted and that's what keeps blowing the ST1S10.

Shorts on a main power rail like that are a huge PITA to debug. Depending on what you have available, there's a couple ways to find out what the issue is. The easiest way I know is to hook a lab supply at 3.3V up to 3.3V rail and turn the current limiting down. Grab an IR camera, and turn up the current until you see a hot spot. You can do the same with an IR thermometer, but it's more time consuming. A finger work too, but you need get the problem a lot hotter that way, and if it's something that's a QFN or one of the ASICs you might never notice it get hotter.

Without a current limited lab supply, it becomes more of a crapshoot. It's probably not worth trying to debug yourself if that's the case.

[lightfoot]

Remove the chip again, and check the resistance on the 3.3V rail. If it's below about 10 ohms or so, something is shorted and that's what keeps blowing the ST1S10.

Shorts on a main power rail like that are a huge PITA to debug. Depending on what you have available, there's a couple ways to find out what the issue is. The easiest way I know is to hook a lab supply at 3.3V up to 3.3V rail and turn the current limiting down. Grab an IR camera, and turn up the current until you see a hot spot. You can do the same with an IR thermometer, but it's more time consuming. A finger work too, but you need get the problem a lot hotter that way, and if it's something that's a QFN or one of the ASICs you might never notice it get hotter.

Without a current limited lab supply, it becomes more of a crapshoot. It's probably not worth trying to debug yourself if that's the case.

Yup. However the 3.3 volt supply on a jalapeno is really pretty small. Even the 1 volt supply will just crowbar and die if shorted (verified on the danger board); what blows things up in the FET world is when the FETs short due to overheat on high loads. Then if you feed it from an unlimited 12 volt supply (as opposed to the little supplies BFL sends) then the weakest component will explode.

That's why I have been recommending putting a 7 amp fuse in series with your jally when running it on 300-800 watt supplies. 12 volts at 7 amps will do minor things. 12 volts at 50 amps will do a bit more....

Having bench top power supplies is a godsend; I have a pair of them myself and can feed all three voltages to a board. Oddly enough I am getting a board with blown FETs on it, I'm debating checking the 1 volt rail, clearing the failures, and trying to power it off the danger board's 1 volt supply. A double-headed jalapeno. :-)

It keeps my mind working.

C

[Drug5bitz]

You blew up U15 as well? Hm, interesting; wonder why that is failing.

I think that is the 3.3 volt supply line, if you want to send it over I can take a look at it. I'm sure though they will honor the RMA. Drug, did swapping that chip fix it?

C

I wish I could say yes. I believe when I originally replaced it just powered up for a second. It blew again or something else when a real PSU was used. I think I pulled a pad off when removing it a second time. So I removed the chips and will list on eBay as a dead jallie soon..... Sorry

[arekm]

Remove the chip again, and check the resistance on the 3.3V rail. If it's below about 10 ohms or so, something is shorted and that's what keeps blowing the ST1S10.

Shorts on a main power rail like that are a huge PITA to debug. Depending on what you have available, there's a couple ways to find out what the issue is. The easiest way I know is to hook a lab supply at 3.3V up to 3.3V rail and turn the current limiting down. Grab an IR camera, and turn up the current until you see a hot spot. You can do the same with an IR thermometer, but it's more time consuming. A finger work too, but you need get the problem a lot hotter that way, and if it's something that's a QFN or one of the ASICs you might never notice it get hotter.

Freeze it with spray (or compressed air upside-down) and see where it becomes hot - is another method.

[synapse]

You blew up U15 as well? Hm, interesting; wonder why that is failing.

I think that is the 3.3 volt supply line, if you want to send it over I can take a look at it. I'm sure though they will honor the RMA. Drug, did swapping that chip fix it?

C

Thanks for the offer. I'm in Australia though so probably not worth it for me.
I think u15 blew because I recently changed to an ATX power supply rather than the power brick (all in effort to prevent something like this from happening.)
The sparks came as soon as I un-plugged and re-plugged in the USB cable while trying to get rid of "unresponsive asic" messages in cgminer.
For next time I'm considering wiring in a 30v 6A Poly switch that I have here or maybe a fuse.

Thanks everyone else for the suggestions. I don't have a current limited power supply so this might be a bit too hard to fix myself.
My main issue now is if BFL will try and fix it before sending me a new one. If so they might see that I reflashed to get to 7.8gh/s

[lightfoot]

Hm, yep that's the 4 amp 3.3 volt power supply. Out of curiosity what happens when you plug it in now?

Do you have a volt meter and know how to use it? I'd be really curious to see if the 1 volt power line is up; it feeds off the 12 volt supply line. If that's working and the 3.3 volt short could be cleared you could power the board up with a small bench supply and it might work again. But man that is a serious hack.

Speaking of serious hacks, I have a board coming in with a blown set of 1 volt FETs. I'm going to try powering it off the danger board with jumper wires; technically it might work. Then again the voltage drop might be too much but what the heck?

:-) Keeps me out of trouble.

C

[elaramus]

That's why I have been recommending putting a 7 amp fuse in series with your jally when running it on 300-800 watt supplies. 12 volts at 7 amps will do minor things. 12 volts at 50 amps will do a bit more....

Despite my intentions to do so, I didn't (install a fuse) and thats exactly what happened to the board coming your way.

[lightfoot]

That's why I have been recommending putting a 7 amp fuse in series with your jally when running it on 300-800 watt supplies. 12 volts at 7 amps will do minor things. 12 volts at 50 amps will do a bit more....

Despite my intentions to do so, I didn't (install a fuse) and thats exactly what happened to the board coming your way.

Ah. So what I see when I tested a shorted jally (and I have shorted the danger board a *lot* as of late) is the crow-baring of the cheap-o BFL power supply and not a failure of the 1 volt supply to come up into a short. That is interesting, I wonder how much power it sourced before blowing up. Probably a lot. :-)

Ok, then my protocol of testing a newly balled jally with a BFL supply in all cases is sound. That's good to know.

C

[synapse]

Hm, yep that's the 4 amp 3.3 volt power supply. Out of curiosity what happens when you plug it in now?

Do you have a volt meter and know how to use it? I'd be really curious to see if the 1 volt power line is up; it feeds off the 12 volt supply line. If that's working and the 3.3 volt short could be cleared you could power the board up with a small bench supply and it might work again. But man that is a serious hack.

Speaking of serious hacks, I have a board coming in with a blown set of 1 volt FETs. I'm going to try powering it off the danger board with jumper wires; technically it might work. Then again the voltage drop might be too much but what the heck?

:-) Keeps me out of trouble.

C

I just get the red light near the power connector, none of the other LED's light up at the front or back.

I have a multimeter to test with. I just need to know where to test. I haven't had a chance to look at the board layout and see what is what.
I'ts certainly the most tightly packed board I have ever had to look at.

[lightfoot]

Hm, yep that's the 4 amp 3.3 volt power supply. Out of curiosity what happens when you plug it in now?

Do you have a volt meter and know how to use it? I'd be really curious to see if the 1 volt power line is up; it feeds off the 12 volt supply line. If that's working and the 3.3 volt short could be cleared you could power the board up with a small bench supply and it might work again. But man that is a serious hack.

Speaking of serious hacks, I have a board coming in with a blown set of 1 volt FETs. I'm going to try powering it off the danger board with jumper wires; technically it might work. Then again the voltage drop might be too much but what the heck?

:-) Keeps me out of trouble.

C

I just get the red light near the power connector, none of the other LED's light up at the front or back.

I have a multimeter to test with. I just need to know where to test. I haven't had a chance to look at the board layout and see what is what.
I'ts certainly the most tightly packed board I have ever had to look at.

It's not too bad. Grab the schematics by googling for sc-mainboard-1.0, it's a PDF from BFL. Once opened take a look at the board layout. On the opposite side from the power plug (top side) you will see a square hole, then a space, then five more holes. Right by the JTAG port.

Those are the voltage test points. They are:

ground     1-volt     3.3-volts    5.0-volts     12 volts.

All reference to ground. See what you find with the board plugged in.

C

[synapse]

Thanks C,
I'll test it when I get home tonight.
'spose i'll asses from there and see if I want to try fixing it myself or not.

[synapse]

Hm, yep that's the 4 amp 3.3 volt power supply. Out of curiosity what happens when you plug it in now?

Do you have a volt meter and know how to use it? I'd be really curious to see if the 1 volt power line is up; it feeds off the 12 volt supply line. If that's working and the 3.3 volt short could be cleared you could power the board up with a small bench supply and it might work again. But man that is a serious hack.

Speaking of serious hacks, I have a board coming in with a blown set of 1 volt FETs. I'm going to try powering it off the danger board with jumper wires; technically it might work. Then again the voltage drop might be too much but what the heck?

:-) Keeps me out of trouble.

C

I just get the red light near the power connector, none of the other LED's light up at the front or back.

I have a multimeter to test with. I just need to know where to test. I haven't had a chance to look at the board layout and see what is what.
I'ts certainly the most tightly packed board I have ever had to look at.

It's not too bad. Grab the schematics by googling for sc-mainboard-1.0, it's a PDF from BFL. Once opened take a look at the board layout. On the opposite side from the power plug (top side) you will see a square hole, then a space, then five more holes. Right by the JTAG port.

Those are the voltage test points. They are:

ground     1-volt     3.3-volts    5.0-volts     12 volts.

All reference to ground. See what you find with the board plugged in.

C

Ahh I see, they cut the board so close to those test points the silkscreen of gnd, 1v etc is missing.

OK at the test points I have: 1.01V, 0.0001V, 0V, 13.1V
should I have 5v?

Resistance between ground and:
1v = 41ohm
3.3v = 0.20 ohm
5v = 2.9k ohm
12V = 2k ohm

It's hard to tell if this is the burnt out u15 chip causing the short or something else as well causing this.
If Mr Teal thinks it might be hard to diagnose then it might not be worth removing u15 and RMA'ing instead.

[lightfoot]

OK at the test points I have: 1.01V, 0.0001V, 0V, 13.1V
should I have 5v?

Eh. I think the 5 volt circuit was on some boards and not others. Technically it's only needed for the LCD display, whatever that was. However lack of 3.3 volts will end it.

Resistance between ground and:
1v = 41ohm
3.3v = 0.20 ohm
5v = 2.9k ohm
12V = 2k ohm

Yep, confirmed short on the 3.3 volt line. Given that all of the chips use 3.3 volts it could be anything. I'd say do an RMA on it, but I do wonder what blew up the 3.3 volt line.

C

[synapse]

This one that blew up had the older style chips. no 5v at the 5v test point.
Out of curiosity I checked my other Jally that has two of the new style of chip. That one has 5v present at the 5v test point.

I think i'll just RMA it.
Thankyou for all your help anyway.
I have 5 ASIC chips on the way so i'll pop 3 on the replacement and two on my other one. (this is how i came accross this thread in the first place. I remembered the post with the blown u15 pics)

[lightfoot]

This one that blew up had the older style chips. no 5v at the 5v test point.
Out of curiosity I checked my other Jally that has two of the new style of chip. That one has 5v present at the 5v test point.

Hm. I've seen that too. My weird jally didn't have 5 volts but it seems to be running well now. Maybe they put it in sometimes.

I think i'll just RMA it.

I have 5 ASIC chips on the way so i'll pop 3 on the replacement and two on my other one. (this is how i came accross this thread in the first place. I remembered the post with the blown u15 pics)

That sounds best. I've got 4 chips outside in the mailbox I think; I'll put one of them on my weird jally, taking it to 5 and the other on my other new jally taking it to six on an old-style heat sink. I think that might wind up being a problem, but my water block is not coming till Monday at the earliest.

And I get to look at another blown board. Fun!

Speaking of chip placements, put another one on a 2 chip jally for a friend, no problems. I'm actually waiting 5 minutes with preheat now, until I see the faint wisp of smoke/flux come up, then a count to 90 with the air tool at 450c. The hardest part is placing the chip perfectly on the balls, but I have had a 100% success rate since I started using a loupe to verify all the balls.

C

[lightfoot]

Well, 2 more chips went on the five chip jally taking it to seven. Yes, 28gh. Yes, insane. Thoughts:

With 6 chips on the board I was hashing a good sold 24gh, and was able to keep the system cool with the aluminum heat sink, stock fan pointing down, and a bottom plate. Temps in the 60's. Note I have large heat sinks on the FETs and a fan pointing at the FETs and the FTDI chip.

With 7 chips, forget it. Temps were between 75 and 85 at which my BFGMiner throttles the work. Shut it down, put it on the Copper heat sink plate, fired it up. Temps now between 70 and 75, very hot but still running.

There is little doubt I need more cooling. Might try swapping the AL heat sink for the copper heat pipe one on my old 5 chip jally. 20gh is suddenly a lot slower, and now that I run it open as well, temps are not a problem. This though is really generating some warm.

We do need water cooling here to get to that magical 8 chips. It's funny seeing all the lights but one on the back of the jally burning brightly, that last LED is so lonely being off....

C

[lightfoot]

Was running 75-80 with the bottom sink and top. Shut it down.

Now running at 40c. With a Corsair 100 water cooling block on the bottom.

This um.... solves the heat problem. The mounting is actually quite clever. Will go to 8 tomorrow.

Water is without a doubt the only way to fly.

[bcp19]

Was running 75-80 with the bottom sink and top. Shut it down.

Now running at 40c. With a Corsair 100 water cooling block on the bottom.

This um.... solves the heat problem. The mounting is actually quite clever. Will go to 8 tomorrow.

Water is without a doubt the only way to fly.

Nice cooling!  Are you going to include pics of this monster?

[lightfoot]

Nice cooling!  Are you going to include pics of this monster?

Need to wait for the sun to come up for a better picture, but you can see all seven lights a blinking....



Thinking about going to 8 this morning: The issue is the bottom of the board under the FETs is still hot. I mounted the block so that it uses the default BFL holes and the fan as the other side against the AL heat sink (brilliant!) however this requires a piece of electrical tape in there to insulate those stupid VIAs. That's cutting down on the block's cooling ability. But still I am concerned about the FETs going to 8. This might be as far as I want to go right now; if I blow the unit I lose 28gh of power.

Maybe I'll try boosting the air cooled one. BFL people: Any thoughts on how much more those FETs can handle?

Hm.... A thought: I wonder if I could tie two jallies together, one with only 4 chips, the other with 8 to balance the 1 volt loads. Why not?

Maybe I'll do that: Focus on getting the danger jally and the melted jally working, then try tying their power grids together.

C

[helipotte]

Lightfoot, I just got 4 jalapenos and I have gotten the hackit-to-go-faster bug.  Already changed out the 7k resistor with a larger one to get more voltage to the

ASICs.  This reduced the errors by 1% and increased the speed by 500Mhs.  Thinking about putting maybe two more chips in each unit.  Do you know where the early type

(no laser etch on top) chips can be obtained?

To answer you question in the above post the schematic indicates 75-80A on the main 1V supply.  I would guess in their totally stock trim (180Mhz), these chips use

maybe 8-10A each?  Running at little single speeds (250Mhz+), maybe 12-15A.  If you install 8 chips, run them at 200Mhz, this should yield 24Ghs if

All 15 engines are enabled.  I do not know the current usage on the chips vs speed. Just guessing here.  I figure the longboard in the single/little single is different

than the jala board.  Otherwise BFL would just plop a 8 chip jala board in the little single and call it a day.  Maybe the VRM on the longboard has a higher current

rating? Seems like I read somewhere that the longboard can do 100A@1Vdc.

[lightfoot]

Well..... I've had a productive day.

First I added a second chip to my friend's jally, bringing it to 16gh. However this chip was a reballed unit; I used one of my old wrecked chips to learn on, figured out how to use the reballing tool and .050 screen (that's it) with .045 balls (bit smaller means less chance of shorting the damn thing), then took a chip I screwed up, reballed it, and put it on.

Worked perfectly.

Then I took another unit up to 6 chips, no problems, then took my air cooled jalapeno (the one with the cooler master fan) to 7 chips. Note: water cooling kicks more ass than God. I put a small piece of electrical tape over the vias, and just mounted the IBM X46 heat sink to the whole bottom of the board, and put the cooler master on top. It's running at 70c with all that sinking. The water cooled unit with *one* fan running on the radiator is at 45c.

Moral: Screw air cooled heat sinks. However this one is working, both are hashing at 27-28gh, and I'm done for the day. I still have two more chips I can reball, not sure where I will put them. I need more jallies. (no no no no no). :-)

So there you go: 6 chips can be handled by the stock fan and custom power supply. 4 chips is the max for the stock PS. Seven chips is for the men.

C

[lightfoot]

Lightfoot, I just got 4 jalapenos and I have gotten the hackit-to-go-faster bug.  Already changed out the 7k resistor with a larger one to get more voltage to the

ASICs.  This reduced the errors by 1% and increased the speed by 500Mhs.  Thinking about putting maybe two more chips in each unit.  Do you know where the early type

(no laser etch on top) chips can be obtained?

Hm. If you want to reball them, I have at least three. .02btc each, unknown if they work (two probably do).

maybe 8-10A each?  Running at little single speeds (250Mhz+), maybe 12-15A.  If you install 8 chips, run them at 200Mhz, this should yield 24Ghs if

All 15 engines are enabled.  I do not know the current usage on the chips vs speed. Just guessing here.  I figure the longboard in the single/little single is different

They seem to pull about 12-13 watts each, which at 1 volt is 12-13a. The original chip specs were supposed to be 8-10 watts each, that's where they ran into trouble. 8 10 amp units is 80a, 8 13a units is 104a. Big difference for power and heat dissipation.

than the jala board.  Otherwise BFL would just plop a 8 chip jala board in the little single and call it a day.  Maybe the VRM on the longboard has a higher current rating? Seems like I read somewhere that the longboard can do 100A@1Vdc.

The longboard has more space, better cooling, and FETs that can work together to share the load. Even with that they limit to 60gh, that's fair enough. But running the little single with 7 chips requires literally water cooling to handle the load.

I'd recommend not going past 5 chips to be honest. Six is do-able if you get heat sinks for the FETs. Seven rocks.

C

[Drug5bitz]

Could you please clarify 0.05 screen and 0.045 balls? You don't mean 0.5mm screen and 0.45 balls? If what you said originally is correct I can seem to find the supplies on eBay. Congrats on the water cooling!!! Kinda thinking, I didn't go this way but on eBay they have water blocks for like 10-15$ Hook um all up with a pump and a big enough rad and that's pretty tits. Just an idea as I know those self contained units arn't cheap on their own.  Check out the water cooling they did with the 60 Ghs models.

FYI I have 8 12v rails 25A, 2 jalapenos a piece. My custom 16 gauge wires are a little warm on the 2 jalapenos 1x6 chips 1x4 chips. The 18 gauge wires from the power supply are actually warm-hot to the touch. The insulation isn't melting yet but I think I need to pull the weak link out.  6 chips still running magical under 60c on air..........

[lightfoot]

Could you please clarify 0.05 screen and 0.045 balls? You don't mean 0.5mm screen and 0.45 balls? If what you said originally is correct I can seem to find the supplies on eBay. Congrats on the water cooling!!! Kinda thinking, I didn't go this way but on eBay they have water blocks for like 10-15$ Hook um all up with a pump and a big enough rad and that's pretty tits. Just an idea as I know those self contained units arn't cheap on their own.  Check out the water cooling they did with the 60 Ghs models.

FYI I have 8 12v rails 25A, 2 jalapenos a piece. My custom 16 gauge wires are a little warm on the 2 jalapenos 1x6 chips 1x4 chips. The 18 gauge wires from the power supply are actually warm-hot to the touch. The insulation isn't melting yet but I think I need to pull the weak link out.  6 chips still running magical under 60c on air..........

Yep, added an extra zero. .5 screen, .45 balls. Or maybe they are .5 balls but I think they're a bit smaller. Works well enough. Don't use too much heat to melt them on; I really cooked a few off on my second reballing. Oh well, clean and try again.

Double up the wires coming from your power supply; I tripled the 18 gauge wires together and they seem to hold. But the Corsair has 16 gauge wire by default and that thing runs all sorts of stuff. It's got an 8 chip chili, 7 chip air cooled, and 5 chip jalapeno. I think I'll move the water cooled 7 chip in there as well, or maybe another 5 chip unit. It's a very good power supply.

Wish I could get the danger jally up and going, seems to just fast-flash. Might be a firmware problem, I'll check that next.

C

[lightfoot]

This is a Jalapeno running 7 chips, 28gh mining speed. Air cooled, 70c temp:



This is a Jalapeno running 7 chips, 28gh mining speed, water cooled, 40c temp.







I think if there's a Bitcoin conference I'd be happy to give a talk on hacking your bitcoin miner to full power. :-)

Actually maybe I should write something up and submit it to Defcon this year. It's fun, and they love this sort of stuff....

[freddyfarnsworth]

You are having to much fun
Great pictures, can you give dimensions of PCB of Jally boards, I saw 1/2 inch uncovered on the air cooled one right by where you said the mosfets were getting heat from the back plate >

I have a few 40ft storage bins of old computers and NOS servers and parts, I never throw anything away, and at the time the stuff was so hard to find (best of the best) NOS I hate to sell any of it. It is irreplaceable no longer on Bay or elsewhere, ALR I collected for years.

I think I have some 30+ HUGE Copper xeon Intel sinks, may work for Jallys, need to know the size of the bottom plate (PCB).
About 2 lbs or so each 1/2 inch pure copper. (Old Skool).

[Pt0x]

Nice hack, congrats!

[synapse]

BADASS 

Just out of curiosity, do both new and old style asic chips go on with the same technique? do you have to vary it between the two?

[lightfoot]

BADASS 

Just out of curiosity, do both new and old style asic chips go on with the same technique? do you have to vary it between the two?

Thank you! These things are definitely doing well, and once I get this other jally running (maybe) I will see about taking the two of them to 8 chips. Which will basically give me a single/60. :-)

As for the chips: I have had issues with the old style chips, specifically I was shorting one of them because heating from the top caused the solder holding the chip to the board to go molten. That's a big problem; it implies that one needs to use a reflow oven instead of a rework gun since the chip and carrier do not conduct the heat to the pads. However I am also finding out that leaving the board at 375f on the pre-heat board is enough to make the components almost "jiggly" so that even a small amount of heat can blow a component off the board. It might be possible to preheat the board to hell, then use something like 375c air to melt the balls. Maybe.

[lightfoot]

You are having to much fun
Great pictures, can you give dimensions of PCB of Jally boards, I saw 1/2 inch uncovered on the air cooled one right by where you said the mosfets were getting heat from the back plate >

I have a few 40ft storage bins of old computers and NOS servers and parts, I never throw anything away, and at the time the stuff was so hard to find (best of the best) NOS I hate to sell any of it. It is irreplaceable no longer on Bay or elsewhere, ALR I collected for years.

I think I have some 30+ HUGE Copper xeon Intel sinks, may work for Jallys, need to know the size of the bottom plate (PCB).
About 2 lbs or so each 1/2 inch pure copper. (Old Skool).

Sure I'll measure the sides tonight. Oddly enough the holes in the corner fit the corsair PC mounting bracket with just the smallest amount of filing, so it's pretty close to a standard. The key is to cool the back of the board, the chips can deal with a heat sink.

I've got some old hardware myself, mostly pdp11's. For awhile there I kept the mit-ai.arpa system safe and sound before sending it over to Paul. Still have a KS10 out in the shed, I fire it up every once in awhile and think about what might have been....

[freddyfarnsworth]

Those are very old ALR was PPro hex and quads era. Big Tower cases.

""Finishing up our PDP-11 tour are two more LSI-11 (microcomputer) based PDP-11's. One is a very special machine to my friend Hannes. It is the H11, a joint effort of Digital Equipment and Heathkit.""

Heathkit, love the things...


""KS10[edit]
 
The KS10 design was crippled to be a Model A even though most of the necessary data paths needed to support the Model B architecture were present. This was no doubt intended to segment the market, but it greatly shortened the KS10's product life.""

Must have been for a small business model, or ?

On Soldering, this tut is over a hour, many may find the whole page very informative.
It did not go into BGA tho, but after the movie, some links did, not as good as this one, really eye opening for me. I was always trying to heat with no solder flooding to remove, ha ! flood it and a little heat it comes right off, then clean up. He make it look so easy

http://projectklondike.org/how-to-build

If I find any good sinks sizewise, I will pm and send you one my dime, thanks for the info.

[lightfoot]

An H11. The old 11/03 in a 4 slot chassis. Yep, good little system; I ran a 4 user BBS using MU-BASIC back in the day.

Interesting note: I may have hit my first problem: My 7 chip air cooled jally was reporting 300gh speed, 26gh accepted. Slightly odd from the POV of BFGminer but when I unplugged it and plugged in again one chip didn't come up. Shut down, started again, back to 26gh.

I might be banging into a limit here. Without watercooling; maybe I should buy a small block for this one, or that one with only 5 chips....

C

[Brassguy]

An H11. The old 11/03 in a 4 slot chassis. Yep, good little system; I ran a 4 user BBS using MU-BASIC back in the day.

Interesting note: I may have hit my first problem: My 7 chip air cooled jally was reporting 300gh speed, 26gh accepted. Slightly odd from the POV of BFGminer but when I unplugged it and plugged in again one chip didn't come up. Shut down, started again, back to 26gh.

I might be banging into a limit here. Without watercooling; maybe I should buy a small block for this one, or that one with only 5 chips....

C

Probably not... I had something similar on one of my 6 chip jallys.... one chip had poor contact to the board. I had the corresponding led flashing, and the hashrate on cgminer was showing like 125gh... in my case the chip was disabled after power cycling. A reflow fixed the error and has been hashing steady for 9 days now at ~24gh.

[lightfoot]

Probably not... I had something similar on one of my 6 chip jallys.... one chip had poor contact to the board. I had the corresponding led flashing, and the hashrate on cgminer was showing like 125gh... in my case the chip was disabled after power cycling. A reflow fixed the error and has been hashing steady for 9 days now at ~24gh.

It's possible: I checked my notes and that jally had the back plate on it when i went from 6 to 7 chips. I use heat sink compound to put on the back plates, and in that case I forgot to remove it. So it got less pre-heat from the heating table, and it did take longer to make the chip "drop" into place. If it happens again I'll rework it, thanks to your diagram it's easy to find the right chip.

However it's at a happy 27gh for now so I'll let it be.

Thank you!

[lightfoot]

Probably not... I had something similar on one of my 6 chip jallys.... one chip had poor contact to the board. I had the corresponding led flashing, and the hashrate on cgminer was showing like 125gh... in my case the chip was disabled after power cycling. A reflow fixed the error and has been hashing steady for 9 days now at ~24gh.

Well darn, chip light 6 is unhappy. Where is that really nice map of all the chips again; I drew my own but I can't find it now.

C

[lightfoot]

Update: Found my chip map. #6 is the chip top right with the board pointing up, power plug bottom left.

And like I'm going to sleep on this :-) Pulled the heat sink, sure enough chip 6 was the one that didn't float well enough. Due to having the back plate on when I soldered it. Moral: Bottom pre-heat is incredibly important. Cleaned the heat sink crap, put some liquid flux under it, 375 preheat then 450c for 90 seconds. Chip dropped as it should, is same plane as the others. Successful boot with the little power supply, remounted sinks, hashing happily at 27gh.

Thanks for the help. I'll always remember to ensure that plate is off...

C

[Brassguy]

Update: Found my chip map. #6 is the chip top right with the board pointing up, power plug bottom left.

And like I'm going to sleep on this :-) Pulled the heat sink, sure enough chip 6 was the one that didn't float well enough. Due to having the back plate on when I soldered it. Moral: Bottom pre-heat is incredibly important. Cleaned the heat sink crap, put some liquid flux under it, 375 preheat then 450c for 90 seconds. Chip dropped as it should, is same plane as the others. Successful boot with the little power supply, remounted sinks, hashing happily at 27gh.

Thanks for the help. I'll always remember to ensure that plate is off...

C

True story! I had the bottom plate on mine as well... didn't want to have to clean and regrease it... too lazy to do it right the first time, so ended up doing it twice!

I'm using an IR station, but I concur... bottom heat is critical to a good chip installation.

[lightfoot]

True story! I had the bottom plate on mine as well... didn't want to have to clean and regrease it... too lazy to do it right the first time, so ended up doing it twice!

I'm using an IR station, but I concur... bottom heat is critical to a good chip installation.

Hee hee he... It's amazing how much use I am getting out of this dopey little pre-heater. Using it on big boards is much harder, but on the little single boards it does shine. And when I reflowed the chip the result was perfect (and now it's at a solid 60c, I think the heat sink was being lifted off other chips due to the high chip)

I thought about buying an IR station, but then I realized that the trick to using air is to lower the blow speed down so much it's almost like a little cushion of hot air over the end of the heating element. Then the air stays at the right temperature, doesn't go everywhere blowing things off the board, and acts more like what you see with IR. Using the thing as a blowtorch is not the idea.

Live and learn. Now I want to get a Monarch to take apart, but $2,000 is a bit rich for my taste. :-)

C

[Delarock]

Sending Lightfoot a 25 GH BFL single tomorrow with some PSU's. This unit is underperforming at ~23 GH, so I figured it would be best to get the expert under the hood to tinker and see what he can find, maybe add a few chips into it.

Post pics, tell us what you find. 

[lightfoot]

Sending Lightfoot a 25 GH BFL single tomorrow with some PSU's. This unit is underperforming at ~23 GH, so I figured it would be best to get the expert under the hood to tinker and see what he can find, maybe add a few chips into it.

Post pics, tell us what you find. 

Will do! I'm looking forward to it; one question to start with is do the singles contain the supporting hardware to add chips. If they do it's a matter of adding a heatsink (of which I have... several :-) and chips to boost performance.

Should be interesting.

C

[bcp19]

Sending Lightfoot a 25 GH BFL single tomorrow with some PSU's. This unit is underperforming at ~23 GH, so I figured it would be best to get the expert under the hood to tinker and see what he can find, maybe add a few chips into it.

Post pics, tell us what you find. 

Will do! I'm looking forward to it; one question to start with is do the singles contain the supporting hardware to add chips. If they do it's a matter of adding a heatsink (of which I have... several :-) and chips to boost performance.

Should be interesting.

C

Looking at my Little Single I would have to say no, there is no supporting hardware.

[Photon939]

BCP is correct. I have a little single with Rev A chips running at 31GH/s, but the other half of the board is almost completely unpopulated. The vcore regulator is unpopulated with the exception of some electrolytic capacitors. It's not entirely impossible to get it going, but you'll need to make a decent order from mouser/digikey to get anywhere.

[Delarock]

I figured this would be the case, but it's a good learning experiment. As far as I know, there is some issue with this unit where it was hashing at ~26 at one point. No clue how to fix it. As far as I'm concerned, what goes on in between the side plates is pure magic. That's why I put the screwdrivers away and went to the post office.

This is possibly the most fascinating thread on the boards, so I wanted to participate somehow.

[lightfoot]

Interesting. I had another unit in here, little single, with a complete load of everything but the hashing chips on the other side. Even had the 1 volt power regulators, no problems adding chips if we wanted too. I guess BFL made some units with half a load, and some with a full set of supporting chips.

C

[lightfoot]

And in the really interesting news, I had a unit come in with a power supply that went *bad*. Jalapeno, ran it with 3 chips, checked in and saw that it had a massive amount of errors going on. Shut it down, put it on the bench supply, worked fine. Tested the power supply and I see 60 volts between negative and AC neutral.

Glad I have an isolated power supply on my miner. I'm wondering: Does BFL want the old power supply back when they RMA, or will they just send a new one out? I would really like to "interrogate" this one and see if it has the same blown caps as the one from England.

Good news: No damage to the jalapeno. In fact it's now hashing at 14gh with a second added (client provided) chip, much better than the 5.4 it came in with (it has two lousy chips on it and two very good ones).

C

[bcp19]

And in the really interesting news, I had a unit come in with a power supply that went *bad*. Jalapeno, ran it with 3 chips, checked in and saw that it had a massive amount of errors going on. Shut it down, put it on the bench supply, worked fine. Tested the power supply and I see 60 volts between negative and AC neutral.

Glad I have an isolated power supply on my miner. I'm wondering: Does BFL want the old power supply back when they RMA, or will they just send a new one out? I would really like to "interrogate" this one and see if it has the same blown caps as the one from England.

Good news: No damage to the jalapeno. In fact it's now hashing at 14gh with a second added (client provided) chip, much better than the 5.4 it came in with (it has two lousy chips on it and two very good ones).

C

I've heard both... apparently the right and left hands aren't talking... so maybe it depends on if you are wearing matching socks and Mars is in the shadow of Venus...

I honestly can't see them needing the PSU back, it's not like you could fix it and reship it.

[lightfoot]

I honestly can't see them needing the PSU back, it's not like you could fix it and reship it.

They are total crap. Crap crap crap. Good for nothing but cutting the power cords off for connection to real power supplies.

I'll check on the BFL forums. Still do not have my PCIe power cable whips.....

C

[lightfoot]

On another side note I finished reviewing a blown board that was given to me which had a complete blow-out of the 1 volt FETs due to a short.

Micro-summary: It's destroyed. Not because of the FETs; I got those off easily and cleared the shorted 1 volt lines. It's the fact that the whole 3.3 volt line is shorted as well; I was trying to figure out where that went bad and found out there was a nice bubble in the board by the chips. Apparently the 1 volt line not only shorted but it burned inside the board, shorting the 3 volt supply to ground.

Not good :-) So if you blow the FETs, repairs would require board-level digging, not something I would do for a $200 part. I may fiddle with it some more, but for the moment I will classify this as "toast". :-)

C

[synapse]

On another side note I finished reviewing a blown board that was given to me which had a complete blow-out of the 1 volt FETs due to a short.

Micro-summary: It's destroyed. Not because of the FETs; I got those off easily and cleared the shorted 1 volt lines. It's the fact that the whole 3.3 volt line is shorted as well; I was trying to figure out where that went bad and found out there was a nice bubble in the board by the chips. Apparently the 1 volt line not only shorted but it burned inside the board, shorting the 3 volt supply to ground.

Not good :-) So if you blow the FETs, repairs would require board-level digging, not something I would do for a $200 part. I may fiddle with it some more, but for the moment I will classify this as "toast". :-)

C

To be honest I contribute a lot of that to the tightly packed nature of the board. If anything blows it has a high chance of taking something else close-by with it.
glad I didn't try and fix my 3.3v shorted one.

[freddyfarnsworth]

On another side note I finished reviewing a blown board that was given to me which had a complete blow-out of the 1 volt FETs due to a short.

Micro-summary: It's destroyed. Not because of the FETs; I got those off easily and cleared the shorted 1 volt lines. It's the fact that the whole 3.3 volt line is shorted as well; I was trying to figure out where that went bad and found out there was a nice bubble in the board by the chips. Apparently the 1 volt line not only shorted but it burned inside the board, shorting the 3 volt supply to ground.

Not good :-) So if you blow the FETs, repairs would require board-level digging, not something I would do for a $200 part. I may fiddle with it some more, but for the moment I will classify this as "toast". :-)

C

Getting to the real cause of all the problems, board traces not heavy - thick enuf for the extra amps even if the chips can deal with it,
I noticed alot of MBmakers went to heavy coppertraced boards a few years ago, when OC became the norm.

I wanted to know if you have made any progress on finding replacement chips at 80-100a or so (what ever would still have some headroom for what is on it and adding 8 chips.
But hell, if the boards are to thin....

Maybe they can sell you fresh PCB's ? or evenmake better ones ? They would not be interested - they must be tired of fixin em by now tho .
Or make you and friends a official repair center
Lots to ponder, thank you

freddy

[Drug5bitz]

And in the really interesting news, I had a unit come in with a power supply that went *bad*. Jalapeno, ran it with 3 chips, checked in and saw that it had a massive amount of errors going on. Shut it down, put it on the bench supply, worked fine. Tested the power supply and I see 60 volts between negative and AC neutral.

Glad I have an isolated power supply on my miner. I'm wondering: Does BFL want the old power supply back when they RMA, or will they just send a new one out? I would really like to "interrogate" this one and see if it has the same blown caps as the one from England.

Good news: No damage to the jalapeno. In fact it's now hashing at 14gh with a second added (client provided) chip, much better than the 5.4 it came in with (it has two lousy chips on it and two very good ones).

C

I've heard both... apparently the right and left hands aren't talking... so maybe it depends on if you are wearing matching socks and Mars is in the shadow of Venus...

I honestly can't see them needing the PSU back, it's not like you could fix it and reship it.

^^^ Yes, Thank you.

[godsdog]

I'm wondering: Does BFL want the old power supply back when they RMA, or will they just send a new one out?

C

Lightfoot client here. sent Rma pending approval no mention of return psu... BFL>"Once your RMA is approved, no further action is necessary on your part, and a new PSU will be sent to the shipping address in your order. "
just want to Thank lightfoot and promote his work

[lightfoot]

Cool. In that case I will take apart the power supply with my bench vise. They're pretty easy to crack open, I'm curious to see if it will match the UK blown up one (which had dents in the caps from manufacture, *wow*)

C

[lightfoot]

I wanted to know if you have made any progress on finding replacement chips at 80-100a or so (what ever would still have some headroom for what is on it and adding 8 chips.
But hell, if the boards are to thin....

Maybe they can sell you fresh PCB's ? or evenmake better ones ? They would not be interested - they must be tired of fixin em by now tho .
Or make you and friends a official repair center
Lots to ponder, thank you

freddy

To be honest, Mr. Teal did all this and more with the Chili design. That is without a doubt an amazing board, the BFL singles really aren't built for this kind of stuff.

Which is the whole point why BFL was late: Their chips used more power than they were expecting, forcing a complete redesign. Remember that the initial jalapeno design was to not use the big on-board 1 volt supply, but to use a little supply that was left on the board. It was all supposed to be powered from the USB port or somesuch. That... didn't... work... :-) Likewise the board simply wasn't built to handle the extra 30 or so amps the chips needed for a full 30gh single. They could have made 24 without blowing up the moon but that was it, we all "paid" for 30, and we had to wait months for it.

I wonder how many people would have been happy with 24gh in march as opposed to 30gh in October. But they would have all bitched about being "ripped off", so in the end they came out worse and BFL did the "right" thing. Interesting how that happens...

Anyway, at this point the next system to look at will be the monarch class systems. I could open a repair center for jallies and singles, but would the cost of doing it (let's say $100 an hour) be worth it? Perhaps it would, thoughts?

C

[CeeCee]

if anyone is interested i have some chips in hand that i would like to sell. escrow is of course possible.

[lightfoot]

Interrogated the power supply in the danger shed. Using the danger vise of course.

Turns out the caps in the power supply are nicely domed. Looks like the one doing the PFC is blown to AC, which is why there's 60v ac on the negative line. Same exact damn failure as the UK one.

In addition I reballed another two chips, and installed one in my five chip jally. Came up, now a 6 chip jally, no problems. Still the slowest in the bunch, but a solid 22gh speed.

Next up? Need to wait for the water cooling block to come in, then I'll take it to 7 chips and maybe make it the 8 chip jally. I still have two chips left here, and a pair of others to ball. Need another jalapeno :-)

C

[lightfoot]

Some reballing thoughts:

I'm using a $5.00 screen set and a $2.00 super-cheap-o screen holder that holds the chip to the screen with a small spring. Not as good as the $60 kits which allow you to ball then pull the screen off before heating. This has the screen on all the time and the chip can stick/rip off a ball. But I'm cheap-ass.

What I do is use slightly undersized balls (.45mm) and a .5mm screen. I flux the chip, use a soldering iron at 800f to remove the balls by going across the chip with the CLEAN tip, making little solder balls. Using wick is only good to get remaining mountains off the chip, I find just stroking works well. Not too long and always keep some tacky flux on it.

Then it's time to clean the chip in alcohol, brush it shiny, then mount it in the tool. Flux the chip with some sticky flux, then set the screen so the pads are centered, then pour on some balls. I press them in with my finger in a stroking motion, then use a tweezers to place missed pads. Press down on the balls, they have to contact the chip.

Then it's heat time. First heat is at 375c at high blow speeds. This is to heat the chip and the balls. Then I put some liquid flux on and do it again. Then I let it cool completely, then brush it with alcohol a *LOT* to get the chip to release. Be gentle, you can rip balls off.

With the balls off check it out with a 6x jewelers' loupe. The most important balls are the ones at the edge; they have the signals. Especially the ones opposite the dot; those are critical. You can miss a few in the middle, it's all 1 volts anyway.

Then mount and test. The slightly undersized balls make it less likely to stick to the screen, and make it come off the screen more easily. Once again the $60 kit is going to be better, but I'm doing this on a budget.

Done three chips so far, all good. Not bad.

C

[lightfoot]

Sending Lightfoot a 25 GH BFL single tomorrow with some PSU's. This unit is underperforming at ~23 GH, so I figured it would be best to get the expert under the hood to tinker and see what he can find, maybe add a few chips into it.

Post pics, tell us what you find. 

Well, I'm starting to look at it, this is my first-ish single (I had one 30gh one, but it was a bit different). However it does exhibit that weird symptom of not starting all the chips if it's warm; when I brought it in from the cold post office and fired it up I got a good 24-25gh. Shut down this evening and rebooted and got 12. Yep, 12. And a bunch of errors I think. Shut down, took to kitchen, put in window so 32 degree air could chill it down, took upstairs, fired up (30c), 25gh.

I wonder if that's the firmware. A quick initial review says yes, this does not have the support chips on the right side like the 30 I looked at, and it does not have heat sinks on all the FETs (only half of them. Odd). It also does not have heat sinks *under* the FETs, which is interesting, but it does have a nice little sink under the CPU.

Need to ask the owner if the sink was taken off or anything like that. It looks like the baffle is not there, nor are half of the standoffs. Odd if this has never been opened, in a way it looks half baked.

Comparing it to my Jallies, it's going to have some heat dissipation problems. My 7 chip jallies hold at 27gh, but aren't this odd. I wonder if there is something in the single code that is disabling the chips on startup when hot. Odd....

[bcp19]

Sending Lightfoot a 25 GH BFL single tomorrow with some PSU's. This unit is underperforming at ~23 GH, so I figured it would be best to get the expert under the hood to tinker and see what he can find, maybe add a few chips into it.

Post pics, tell us what you find. 

Well, I'm starting to look at it, this is my first-ish single (I had one 30gh one, but it was a bit different). However it does exhibit that weird symptom of not starting all the chips if it's warm; when I brought it in from the cold post office and fired it up I got a good 24-25gh. Shut down this evening and rebooted and got 12. Yep, 12. And a bunch of errors I think. Shut down, took to kitchen, put in window so 32 degree air could chill it down, took upstairs, fired up (30c), 25gh.

I wonder if that's the firmware. A quick initial review says yes, this does not have the support chips on the right side like the 30 I looked at, and it does not have heat sinks on all the FETs (only half of them. Odd). It also does not have heat sinks *under* the FETs, which is interesting, but it does have a nice little sink under the CPU.

Need to ask the owner if the sink was taken off or anything like that. It looks like the baffle is not there, nor are half of the standoffs. Odd if this has never been opened, in a way it looks half baked.

Comparing it to my Jallies, it's going to have some heat dissipation problems. My 7 chip jallies hold at 27gh, but aren't this odd. I wonder if there is something in the single code that is disabling the chips on startup when hot. Odd....

That's an interesting point to consider, but it sounds weird to program a firmware to disable thing just because they are hot.  I know there's a schematic of the Jalapeno board out there, but never heard about one for thier 'long boards'.  Is there one?  I'd be interested to learn if this is indeed software or hardware related, but I honestly can't come up with a component that would cause a slow down just cause it is hot.

[lightfoot]

That's an interesting point to consider, but it sounds weird to program a firmware to disable thing just because they are hot.  I know there's a schematic of the Jalapeno board out there, but never heard about one for thier 'long boards'.  Is there one?  I'd be interested to learn if this is indeed software or hardware related, but I honestly can't come up with a component that would cause a slow down just cause it is hot.

Maybe, but BFL has some pretty smart software to go through the chips and enable/disable the engines based on errors. Maybe they have something else going on in their firmwares, remember that the first generation singles had a bad tendency to blow up the FETs so they put the 30/60gh limiters in the 1.2.8 and 1.2.9 code. Actually made sense.

A quick review of the board shows this to be very different from the earlier model singles I have seen; the heat sink actually makes *sense* as it's a model that

• Covers all the chips
• Is lower profile between chips and fins
• Is oriented so that sir flow through the unit blows *ALONG* the fins instead of butting up *AGAINST* the fins
• Doesn't have that weird baffle
• Has a heat sink on the *bottom* of the board. It's small, but it's the thought that counts

They also seem to understand that the FETs *and* the FET driver chip are heat sensitive; they have a really nice little Heat Zone silk screen on the back at those places. No heat sinks but they did think about it.

Also this has all eight chips, but chip 0f is not there. Odd. Using my powers of having a boatload of jallies I think I can figure out which chip is 0f, assuming they used the same labeling scheme. But why would they change that?

I wish I could have a copy of this code; it will be sad to reformat it. But there are no LEDs on the back to cross-check, so I don't know if that chip is honestly broken, or just idled. However given the exceptionally slow speed of this unit at 7 chips (it hashes at 22gh, my 7 chip jallies hash at 26-27) and the exceptionally low errors, I think it's been seriously de-tuned.

[lightfoot]

Ladies and Gentlemen:

May I present the first 8 chip jalapeno.



And a quick snapshot of the screen to prove it's operation:



Yep, a 30+ Gh Jalapeno.

However, before you go for this, know that the heat load has simply gone beyond insane and into plaid. I have mentioned that going from 6 chips to 7 is an order of magnitude, this is another order of magnitude. Possibly an even larger jump.

It runs so hot that when I fired it up with too much heat sink compound on the water block it blew from 40 to 80 in seconds, then hit the BFG limit I have set (I throttle at 80, the BFL code throttles at 90). There is no chance in heaven this will work with the air cooled heat sinks, no matter how neat the heat pipes are.

Note that it has heat sinks on the top and bottom of the FETs. Note that the water block is oriented lengthwise along the axis of the FETs to get as close to them as possible. And note that the FETs are still rather warm, I'm thinking of extending the heat sinking across the top of the board on the back.

It throws that much heat. The pump is now running at full speed, that's buying me a few degrees.

And note also that it pulls so much current on startup that it failed on the special stock-ish Danger-Jally test supply. The first time I fired it, it found no chips. The second time the LED on the power side went dim, then bright. Had a few bad moments there as I wondered if I shorted the chips.

But after taking that deep breath I plugged it into the smaller of my ATX supplies (the 300 watt one) and up it came with all 8 lights blazing. Bad moment there. :-)

I'd like to thank everyone on this thread for their thoughts, comments, encouragement, and donations. I'm really amazed it works at 8 chips, but it does.

I now see why BFL looked at what it would take, and said "Um, I think we need to redesign". They made the right choice.

And I now have the only 8 chip jalapeno in the wild.
CZ

[arekm]

It goes to the point when it will become easier to immerse entire jalapeno into (non-conductive obviously) coolant. Not sure what is used these days but... mineral oil works.

[eoakland]

That is insane.  congrats man, long time coming.  you have truly maxed out the jally...no more room to add chips.  that's super crazy. 

[freddyfarnsworth]

It goes to the point when it will become easier to immerse entire jalapeno into (non-conductive obviously) coolant. Not sure what is used these days but... mineral oil works.

Use a tank of freon (3M Fluorinert), ala Cray in the old days

Interesting info:
Each cable between the modules was a twisted-pair, cut to a specific length in order to guarantee the signals arrived at precisely the right time and minimize electrical reflection. Each signal produced by the ECL circuitry was a differential pair, so the signals were balanced. This tended to make the demand on the power supply more constant and reduce switching noise. The load on the power supply was so evenly balanced that Cray boasted that the power supply was unregulated. To the power supply, the entire computer system looked like a simple resistor.
 
The high-performance ECL circuitry generated considerable heat, and Cray's designers spent as much effort on the design of the refrigeration system as they did on the rest of the mechanical design. In this case, each circuit board was paired with a second, placed back to back with a sheet of copper between them. The copper sheet conducted heat to the edges of the cage, where liquid Freon running in stainless steel pipes drew it away to the cooling unit below the machine. The first Cray-1 was delayed six months due to problems in the cooling system; lubricant that is normally mixed with the Freon to keep the compressor running would leak through the seals and eventually coat the boards with oil until they shorted out. New welding techniques had to be used to properly seal the tubing. The only patents issued for the Cray-1 computer concerned the cooling system design.

Back to Back 8x8 16chip Jalleys in freon...

[godsdog]

It goes to the point when it will become easier to immerse entire jalapeno into (non-conductive obviously) coolant. Not sure what is used these days but... mineral oil works.

Maybe add a Peltier Cooler in ceramic container to it but that would add 12v..70 watt+ ....

[miaviator]

I'd donate something towards florinet?  What is it called? we used it in the late 90s with liquid nitrogen (and cheap cooling coils) for cooling.

Fluorinert

http://www.3m.com/product/information/Fluorinert-Electronic-Liquid.html

You can submerge the entire device.  At one point we didn't want to pay for liquid nitrogen so we used AC coils or a cheap dehumidifier  to cool the flourinet and recirculate it.  Dump it directly onto some well attached heat-sinks and it'll cool whatever you can throw at it.

[lightfoot]

Yep, that's the stuff they used to cool the Crays. But in order to need that, I'd start working on ways to put the chips on top of each other on the boards.

No, not... yet... :-) Although I am going to the hardware store today for some very long bolts. I'll use those to mount the Sedion cpu cooler to the other 7 chip jally board and bring it to 8 chips. Then I'll put a 7th chip on the 6 chip weird board and make it the air-cooled one.

C

[lightfoot]

In the meantime I bumped the board with 1 temp sensor to 7 chips and elected to use the water cooling. Given that it's running with only a single sensor I don't want to stress it with air cooling alone (stress it. Hah. Ho ho he he he!!!). However it is at a nice 45c and hashing away properly.

So here's the latest recommendations if you want to speed up your system:

2 chips: Flash the unit with the right 1.2.9 firmware. Will cut errors and bring you to 7-8gh if you have good chips.
3 chips: 10gh. Good if you want to run with the whole case on.
4 chips: Most you should run with the stock supply. Need case off, can have the top fan on with the standoffs and BFL lid.
5 chips: Lid needs to come off, run with a different supply. Heat sinks on FETs.
6 chips: Most you can run without bottom cooling. Heat sinks on FET drivers too.
7 chips: Water cooling time. Small water block needed. Corsair 80 water block recommended.
8 chips: Serious water cooling time. Get a Corsair 100 or better.

If anyone would like me to work on their units, please PM me. Chips can be found, and I've gotten to the point where I have not missed a chip yet. So I feel more confident in this, my protocol is good.

Next up: What to do with your SC25/30/60.

On a side note, if you have a real SC30 and want to add chips, drop me a line. I think it's possible to do if the unit has fans on both ends of the case. Check yours and see.

C

[lightfoot]

Update: I cleaned up my mining table, and re-ran all the wires. Resulted in an hour shutdown, always a pain but sometimes necessary.

Found that my two 7 chip units, the 5 chip unit, and my 8 chip chili are pulling 560 watts from my power supply. Given that it's a CX500, I figured it was time to order a new one. Fair enough. I'm also running the 8 chip unit on a second crummy power supply, I'll be replacing that with this new CX500.

That should allow me to balance things a little bit better and give me some room to run test units/jallies in for repairs. Still, 500+ watts is a lot of heat in the room; I have a window open now in the middle of winter.

Next up: Picking up a Raspberry Pi and running that. Also how does one run Ez-miner on an android? I'd like a smaller miner system and one that can run on a cell network as a backup would be nice.

C

[elaramus]

Lightfoot, congrats on making it to 8 chips!!! How many chips have you successfully reballed?

[lightfoot]

Lightfoot, congrats on making it to 8 chips!!! How many chips have you successfully reballed?

Three so far with one failure. It's not easy; I ordered some new soldering iron tips to help with the job. The problem is if you don't do it right and carefully you can tear off a pad on the bottom of the chip when it comes off the screen. Bye bye chip.

8 chips also pulls a lot of power, I am officially overloading my 500 watt corsair. It's handling it, but I have another one on the way to replace this junker 300 watt unit. The corsair does have a 99+% power factor though, very nice.

[drmadison]

PM'd you about this but that cable I had was shipped out last week - should make it there in the next couple of days...hopefully that will help with some power issues

[int03h]

<- Tips Hat. Well done sir!

[synapse]

nice summary, you have inspired me to do a 4 and a 5 chip jally.
or maybe a 3 and a 6 :-)

[lightfoot]

PM'd you about this but that cable I had was shipped out last week - should make it there in the next couple of days...hopefully that will help with some power issues

Thank you for sending it. It's amazing, beautiful,

And almost set my supply on fire. Specifically I plugged it into two 7 chip jallies, and my supply. Ran it for a few hours and checked it. The ATX molex connection was *hot*.

So I pulled one unit off and back onto the hard-wired connections and all is well. Moral seems to be that 7-8 chip units pull an incredible fuck-ton of power, so hard connections are where we need to go.

I'll think about it a bit more over the next few days, but for the smaller jallies it will be perfect. Thank you for sending it to me.

C

[lightfoot]

nice summary, you have inspired me to do a 4 and a 5 chip jally.
or maybe a 3 and a 6 :-)

Go for it! The key *is* heating the bottom of the board up, I have not failed a single unit. The other key is proper placement and fluxing; I spend about 10-15 minutes with a 6x loupe and tweezers getting the chips balanced on the balls from two directions. Makes for a perfect melt with 450c at 60-90 seconds 1/4-1/2 inch above on air speed 2 (really low, more like a ball of hot air than a flow)

I would also say it's better to spread the chips out than pile them on one board. The temps and power issues go up a lot between 4 and 5, and 5-6.

C

[lightfoot]

On a side note, I think I see the issues with the singles; BFL really screwed with the firmware to try and keep them from blowing up. However with the later model heat sinks this is not so much a problem, however you can't just flash them. You need to also add some heat sinks and ensure the airflow is right.

I think I have it down pat here; is anyone interested in the details and such once I get it done? So far I have a 23gh single running at 28+ with no heat problems, but a number of temporary sinks.

C

[freddyfarnsworth]

On a side note, I think I see the issues with the singles; BFL really screwed with the firmware to try and keep them from blowing up. However with the later model heat sinks this is not so much a problem, however you can't just flash them. You need to also add some heat sinks and ensure the airflow is right.

I think I have it down pat here; is anyone interested in the details and such once I get it done? So far I have a 23gh single running at 28+ with no heat problems, but a number of temporary sinks.

C

Go ! GO ! MOAR yayayayayaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Pix of that new cable and sink layout when you can ....

Before BFL or someone hires ya, and has you sign a NDA

[lightfoot]

Will do. I think I'm going to try a corsair 100i for my third jally when I take it to water cooling. The Sedion is good, but not quite as good as the larger radiator on the h100. And the h100i is supposed to have more surface area, which is *all* that matters here.

C

[ManeBjorn]

Carrying over from the other thread.  This looks great. 
I just bought a bunch of gear once I get my BTC amount back up I will get a hold of you and have you upgrade mine.  That's great work.

[hyphymikey]

I have a LS30 that I flashed and now I'm averaging about 34-35Ghs. It runs anywhere from 68-70C so I am thinking about watercooling it. How easy is it to mount something like you have?

[bcp19]

On a side note, I think I see the issues with the singles; BFL really screwed with the firmware to try and keep them from blowing up. However with the later model heat sinks this is not so much a problem, however you can't just flash them. You need to also add some heat sinks and ensure the airflow is right.

I think I have it down pat here; is anyone interested in the details and such once I get it done? So far I have a 23gh single running at 28+ with no heat problems, but a number of temporary sinks.

C

You reflashed the firmware and added more heat sinks?  So you're not seeing the slowdown you mentioned before when you re-apply power?  That sounds like a strange firmware problem... or are you saying the firmware was to try and keep it running cool?  I was thinking from your description of it slowing down to low teens that there was a bad component on the board, which when hot was sending bad information, which screwed up the firmware.  Do you have any pics of your changes so far?

[vapourminer]

On a side note, I think I see the issues with the singles; BFL really screwed with the firmware to try and keep them from blowing up. However with the later model heat sinks this is not so much a problem, however you can't just flash them. You need to also add some heat sinks and ensure the airflow is right.

I think I have it down pat here; is anyone interested in the details and such once I get it done? So far I have a 23gh single running at 28+ with no heat problems, but a number of temporary sinks.

yup, I would.

my little single has the aluminum heat sink, no baffle, one 120 side fan plus the 92 on the heat sink.

only 1/2 the long board is populated, the other side is pretty bare. one heatsink on the board aside from the main one for the ASICs.cant remember what its on, Ill have to take it apart again.

runs at 64-68C @ 31 Ghs (its a SC25 with stock firmware, runs at 31 though). running off a seasonic 750 that also runs the PC and the jally hooked to it.

[drmadison]

PM'd you about this but that cable I had was shipped out last week - should make it there in the next couple of days...hopefully that will help with some power issues

Thank you for sending it. It's amazing, beautiful,

And almost set my supply on fire. Specifically I plugged it into two 7 chip jallies, and my supply. Ran it for a few hours and checked it. The ATX molex connection was *hot*.

So I pulled one unit off and back onto the hard-wired connections and all is well. Moral seems to be that 7-8 chip units pull an incredible fuck-ton of power, so hard connections are where we need to go.

I'll think about it a bit more over the next few days, but for the smaller jallies it will be perfect. Thank you for sending it to me.

C

Youch!
It was made to power 2-3 "normal" jallies. Your machines are just to beastly I guess!

And (no relation to this specific quote) would love to hear more of your work on singles...I have 2 50GH (can't remember what they call them, little sc?) that I'd love to boost.

[lightfoot]

Youch!
It was made to power 2-3 "normal" jallies. Your machines are just to beastly I guess!

And (no relation to this specific quote) would love to hear more of your work on singles...I have 2 50GH (can't remember what they call them, little sc?) that I'd love to boost.

That's ok. I looked at it, and it's three power cords, each cord going into one of the 12 volt lines on a PCIx connection. The issue is simply that each of my turbo jallies pulls 4 times as much current as a normal one. So instead of feeding 3 jallies, it was feeding 12 of them. :-)

On the positive side, the barrel connectors can handle the current load, so I don't have to replace those. But it is a pretty big bit of power draw.

C

[Drug5bitz]

I have a problem with my unit, I use an AVR ONE ti can't read the device like you can see on the screenshot

This is why literally EVERYONE said "Just get a dragon it's only $50.". I don't know how much other programmers work but that's why you read before you click. This also isn't the correct thread for this, there are a few other flashing threads. Go read through the 40+ pages of info, it's a plethora of knowledge. Also make sure you have the 256kb chip and not the 128kb, this literally makes all the difference.   

[int03h]

I have a problem with my unit, I use an AVR ONE ti can't read the device like you can see on the screenshot

This is why literally EVERYONE said "Just get a dragon it's only $50.". I don't know how much other programmers work but that's why you read before you click. This also isn't the correct thread for this, there are a few other flashing threads. Go read through the 40+ pages of info, it's a plethora of knowledge. Also make sure you have the 256kb chip and not the 128kb, this literally makes all the difference.   

I use the device that I have to not buy a dragon just for the jalapeno. Thanks anyway

You too smart .. we too stupid .. they try help you not accept .. idiot.

[southerngentuk]

I have a problem with my unit, I use an AVR ONE ti can't read the device like you can see on the screenshot

I just flashed my LS with a raspberry PI, if you have one of those to hand. 

I flashed GenTarkin firmware, what firmware are you guys using. I have gained about 1.5G per unit but am still under the 30G spec, would be G8 to get them to 30G they are suppose to have been. 

[otsaku]

This is about the best thread on the forum, following step by step takes a lot of the fear out of the equation.

I really want to add chips to both my jallies but can't find any. SO anyone have or know where I can find some - looking at four to six chips. Preferably in Europe but at the right price I'll suffer the import tax at this end.

Thanks in advance.

[lightfoot]

This is about the best thread on the forum, following step by step takes a lot of the fear out of the equation.

I really want to add chips to both my jallies but can't find any. SO anyone have or know where I can find some - looking at four to six chips. Preferably in Europe but at the right price I'll suffer the import tax at this end.

Thanks in advance.

ceecee apparently has chips in europe..

[otsaku]

Thanks I've sent him a message.

Additional:

On the cooling front, I'm resurrecting an old freon unit I used on an overclocked quad board 10 or so years ago.

[lightfoot]

On the cooling front, I'm resurrecting an old freon unit I used on an overclocked quad board 10 or so years ago.

Freon? Wow.

[Drug5bitz]

Thanks I've sent him a message.

Additional:

On the cooling front, I'm resurrecting an old freon unit I used on an overclocked quad board 10 or so years ago.

+1 if it can be done it should, good luck man and make sure you let us all know how it goes.  The only other option I researched at the beginning was mineral oil but cost out weighed air by a bit.

[lightfoot]

Thanks I've sent him a message.

Additional:

On the cooling front, I'm resurrecting an old freon unit I used on an overclocked quad board 10 or so years ago.

+1 if it can be done it should, good luck man and make sure you let us all know how it goes.  The only other option I researched at the beginning was mineral oil but cost out weighed air by a bit.

Hm. I wonder if I can immerse it in a tank of mineral oil, then put *that* into a 50 gallon rain barrel. Would the surface area of the glass be enough to allow the heat to radiate into the rain barrel's thermal mass....

That's a project for spring. :-)

C

[ManeBjorn]

Thanks I've sent him a message.

Additional:

On the cooling front, I'm resurrecting an old freon unit I used on an overclocked quad board 10 or so years ago.

+1 if it can be done it should, good luck man and make sure you let us all know how it goes.  The only other option I researched at the beginning was mineral oil but cost out weighed air by a bit.

Hm. I wonder if I can immerse it in a tank of mineral oil, then put *that* into a 50 gallon rain barrel. Would the surface area of the glass be enough to allow the heat to radiate into the rain barrel's thermal mass....

That's a project for spring. :-)

C

That could be good but how warm are your summers?  Our rain barrel turns into bathwater during the summer I don't know how long it would move lots of heat.

[Drug5bitz]

The above is something to think about. The only other concern with mineral oil is that if any components are cheap rubber it will slowly dissolve them. This was my main fear before I realized all the capacitors seem to be a metal case. It seems like just the USB and power wires might pose to be a problem.

As for circulation and heat dissipation, you literally put the electronics in a tank and have a pump moving the oil through a radiator. It's almost exactly like water cooling but if you have a leak it doesn't fry your shit.  There is like a 0.01% loss of oil if it's mostly contained. ie if it condenses on a hose or wire and drips down = loss. 

All this effort only concerns me with the hashrate changing so quickly. What will it be like in a year? Either way I have enjoyed the hell out of this thread, everything I got to contribute, and of course the various help from community members. Great job everyone who's been here.

[miaviator]

Hm. I wonder if I can immerse it in a tank of mineral oil, then put *that* into a 50 gallon rain barrel. Would the surface area of the glass be enough to allow the heat to radiate into the rain barrel's thermal mass....

That's a project for spring. :-)

C

From what I've seen and done the mineral has to be moving in order to adequately cool anything serious.  (*Imagine the glass tank in a snowbank, I'll look for pictures)

[lightfoot]

From what I've seen and done the mineral has to be moving in order to adequately cool anything serious.  (*Imagine the glass tank in a snowbank, I'll look for pictures)

Which means my proper solution would be to re-rig the water cooling units with bigger pumps and pump water straight from the rain barrel. Which means heat exchanger as that water is of questionable quality. Which means WELDING TIME!

It's never a dull moment at Danger labs.

C

[miaviator]

From what I've seen and done the mineral has to be moving in order to adequately cool anything serious.  (*Imagine the glass tank in a snowbank, I'll look for pictures)

Which means my proper solution would be to re-rig the water cooling units with bigger pumps and pump water straight from the rain barrel. Which means heat exchanger as that water is of questionable quality. Which means WELDING TIME!

It's never a dull moment at Danger labs.

C

Junkyard = Car Radiator = Cheap heat exchanger.

Plastic tubing with a reduction fitting all held together by clips and screw on clamps.

[lightfoot]

Junkyard = Car Radiator = Cheap heat exchanger.

Plastic tubing with a reduction fitting all held together by clips and screw on clamps.

Yep. The other thought is to use the existing radiator and just mount it outside in the shade. I might need a larger pump to move the water longer distances, maybe.

Another thought would be to stick an AC unit in the water with it, then pull the heat off that way. Or something even weirder.

C

[miaviator]

Yep. The other thought is to use the existing radiator and just mount it outside in the shade. I might need a larger pump to move the water longer distances, maybe.

Another thought would be to stick an AC unit in the water with it, then pull the heat off that way. Or something even weirder.

C

AC units can be expensive.  I could see an old window shaker AC unit or a dehumidifier off craigslist working really good for this though.

[vapourminer]

lightfoot

maybe its in the thread but I missed it.. but..

how do you preheat the bottom of the board?

I get the rework station on low air and a set temp for so long on the top of the chip but what do you use to preheat it? toaster oven ??

[ManeBjorn]

Have you though of using a Peltier plate?
They are excellent at moving heat and keeping stuff cool.

Junkyard = Car Radiator = Cheap heat exchanger.

Plastic tubing with a reduction fitting all held together by clips and screw on clamps.

Yep. The other thought is to use the existing radiator and just mount it outside in the shade. I might need a larger pump to move the water longer distances, maybe.

Another thought would be to stick an AC unit in the water with it, then pull the heat off that way. Or something even weirder.

C

[Drug5bitz]

lightfoot

maybe its in the thread but I missed it.. but..

how do you preheat the bottom of the board?

I get the rework station on low air and a set temp for so long on the top of the chip but what do you use to preheat it? toaster oven ??

If you don't want to buy a specialized pre heater, an electric skillet works great. Something that can get up to 400F. Make sure it's not placed directly on it, prop it up on some screws or what ever you deem suitable. It may not be necessary but it has given me nothing but 100% success putting chips on. Good luck bud, and remember the flux.

You want to preheat the board to prevent flexing cracking large temp differences that break things. Warping or breaking your board would probably ruin your day.

[vapourminer]

how do you preheat the bottom of the board?

If you don't want to buy a specialized pre heater, an electric skillet works great. Something that can get up to 400F. Make sure it's not placed directly on it, prop it up on some screws or what ever you deem suitable. It may not be necessary but it has given me nothing but 100% success putting chips on. Good luck bud, and remember the flux.

You want to preheat the board to prevent flexing cracking large temp differences that break things. Warping or breaking your board would probably ruin your day.

thanks

figured it wasnt rocket science. and low tech is my style when possible.

my jally is a very early one with the "hot mosfets" buts its been running fine flashed to 8.2 ghz with a 120v 20 watt muffin fan on it for 6 months now. it doesnt owe me a thing at this point I guess.  time to add some heatsinks to the mosfets and push it.

[lightfoot]

If you don't want to buy a specialized pre heater, an electric skillet works great. Something that can get up to 400F. Make sure it's not placed directly on it, prop it up on some screws or what ever you deem suitable. It may not be necessary but it has given me nothing but 100% success putting chips on. Good luck bud, and remember the flux.

You want to preheat the board to prevent flexing cracking large temp differences that break things. Warping or breaking your board would probably ruin your day.

I love the skillet bit. What I use is an aoyue 853a

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aoyue-853A-Quartz-Preheating-Station-/110803086034?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19cc60ead2

The reason I use it is more because it heats up the incredible amount of ground plane in these boards. Also activates the flux. With pre-heat, the amount of time on the chips is a lot less. Skillet would be better, 5-10 minutes at 360-370 waiting till the flux just starts to set is it. Then use the air low pressure (just enough to heat under the nozzle) and go 60 seconds.

Don't forget to get the chip right on the balls, I use a 6x loupe to watch as I move it into place.

C

[lightfoot]

Just as a side note: After perking up the speed of Delarock's single I bought it and now I have a single to do more interesting (read possibly destructive) testing on. I'm in Boston this weekend (if you're local say hi) and will work on a new thread about what we can do with singles over the weekend.

In the meantime it's nice to take Amtrak through Mystic CT in the early morning...

[otsaku]

On the cooling front, I'm resurrecting an old freon unit I used on an overclocked quad board 10 or so years ago.

Freon? Wow.

I pulled apart an old refridgerator and I mean old, got it regassed and ran the pipes over the cpus and inside the case. First draw back was condensation on the insde of the case walls, solved with case fans turned round to pull air out of the case. Second drawback is power, I couldn't find a smaller compressor / pump that was rated for freon so it cost a small fortune to run.

I have solar heating in my house and wondering if it would be possible to run the "cold" return pipes across the heatsinks give my central heating an extra boost in the winter

[godsdog]

A satisfied lightfoot client here! submitted for your approval :
exhibit A:Ezminer stats
exhibit B: 4 chip jalapeno 2 installed by lightfoot with 2 heatsinks on some of the power FETs,1 gate driver(copper)
http://https://i.imgur.com/63OYcIu.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/fYexzqJ.jpg

2 morrow will post bfgminer stats with rma power supply 13v 6a ,going to run my other 4.2gh jalapeno with this !....2nite
thank's lightfoot u da man

[ManeBjorn]

Awesome!!!

A satisfied lightfoot client here! submitted for your approval :
exhibit A:Ezminer stats
exhibit B: 4 chip jalapeno 2 installed by lightfoot with heatsinks on 2 power FETs,1 gate driver(copper)



2 morrow will post bfgminer stats with rma power supply 13v 6a ,going to run my other 4.2gh jalapeno with this !....2nite
thank's lightfoot u da man

[vapourminer]

exhibit B: 4 chip jalapeno 2 installed by lightfoot with heatsinks on 2 power FETs,1 gate driver(copper)

https://i.imgur.com/fYexzqJ.jpg

hmm. this image does not bode well for upgrading my jally. my board is different(?). there are 6 MOSFETS under the 2 bigger copper heatsinks shown on the above image (not two as quoted above) on mine. and 6 more along another side.

mine is a very early jally, board says BitFORCE SC rev C.

[Drug5bitz]

exhibit B: 4 chip jalapeno 2 installed by lightfoot with heatsinks on 2 power FETs,1 gate driver(copper)

https://i.imgur.com/fYexzqJ.jpg

hmm. this image does not bode well for upgrading my jally. my board is different(?). there are 6 MOSFETS under the 2 bigger copper heatsinks shown on the above image (not two as quoted above) on mine. and 6 more along another side.

mine is a very early jally, board says BitFORCE SC rev C.

I think you might be overreacting as even though you can't see it there are 6 fets under those two sinks. Every board i have seen or heard of have 6 in on corner and another 6 in the other corner. The difference is the "Hot mosfet" design where they're all the same size. I'm assuming he's summing up the sink count. Also all of my boards including the blackfriday special are rev. c just my observations.

[lightfoot]

Right. Also remember that with FETs the loads are not spread symmetrically. The ones I have sinks on tend to be hotter on 4 chip diamond designs, the other FETs really don't get very warm because they are not carrying too much of the load.

Once you get to 6 chips you will start to load up the other set of FETs, at which point you put sinks on everything. Get to 7-8 and you had better have sinks on both sides of the board; they do wick a lot of their heat into the board itself.

That little heat sink on the center chip is there for the FET gate driver control; it's a high frequency chip that is driving the gates directly for all FETs. As you put more and more power on the board, the driver on that ship has to work harder to switch the FETs. So putting some cooling on it with anything over 4 chips is probably a good idea, very important with 6-8 chips.

The right way to design the board would have been for that to drive a 2708 FET driver/op amp, that is what we use for IGBT circuits. But that's ok, we do with what we have.

C

[godsdog]

bfgminer stats

On a side note ♪ I changed power supply from bfl replacement 13v 6amp to 12v 10amp overnite from my last post as the heat on the psu was uncomfortable to me probably 130º f+
with the 12v it, a little more than piss warm.
also running it sideway's with cheap usb laptop cooler blowing the bottom plate it get's 5 º cooler it varies from 55 c to 64 c but will stabilize to 55 c if irun it without interuption....
http://https://i.imgur.com/00plNq1.png

[godsdog]

exhibit B: 4 chip jalapeno 2 installed by lightfoot with heatsinks on 2 power FETs,1 gate driver(copper)

https://i.imgur.com/fYexzqJ.jpg

there are 6 MOSFETS under the 2 bigger copper heatsinks shown on the above image (not two as quoted above)

fixed it

[vapourminer]

Right. Also remember that with FETs the loads are not spread symmetrically. The ones I have sinks on tend to be hotter on 4 chip diamond designs, the other FETs really don't get very warm because they are not carrying too much of the load.
...
That little heat sink on the center chip is there for the FET gate driver control; it's a high frequency chip that is driving the gates directly for all FETs.

ah shiny. I was worried they changed it; apparently not.

with the hot mosfet units Josh recommended heatsinking the 1850 anyway as its runs hotter in that design. when I flashed it to 8.2 I just put a ubar fan on it and called it a day. been 6 months so its worked heh.

Ill order a hot air rework station, some heatsinks, and some chips and start practicing then.

[lightfoot]

Ok, I'm building a thread for the single. With a speed of 8 I have it running at a solid 28gh, and with a resistor in line with the big fan I have the noise level down to quiet with a temp of 65 on the board. Not too bad. The trick is to keep the fan over the chips running at full speed; the end fans just need to get the air out of the box and around the heat sinks.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=424604.msg4624265#msg4624265

On a side note it looks like Flikr is being an ass and doesn't want to give me the raw embed URLs for my photos. Anyone got a better site to share photos?

C

[ManeBjorn]

I use photobucket.
I don't now though if it will do what you need or not though but it may be worth a look.

Ok, I'm building a thread for the single. With a speed of 8 I have it running at a solid 28gh, and with a resistor in line with the big fan I have the noise level down to quiet with a temp of 65 on the board. Not too bad. The trick is to keep the fan over the chips running at full speed; the end fans just need to get the air out of the box and around the heat sinks.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=424604.msg4624265#msg4624265

On a side note it looks like Flikr is being an ass and doesn't want to give me the raw embed URLs for my photos. Anyone got a better site to share photos?

C

[Drug5bitz]

Love imgur.com 

It is my love for photos and memes. Great community or just great photo hosting.  Share your stuff to the world or keep it relatively close to yourself.

[lightfoot]

Sounds good. I just posted the pics on the other thread. I think this might be possible to do, at least to 4 more chips. This is going to be fun; I'm going to screw up a perfectly working single.

Anyone from BFL still read this; if so are there any schematics for the bigger single boards around?

C

[lightfoot]

Lightfoot, I just got 4 jalapenos and I have gotten the hackit-to-go-faster bug.  Already changed out the 7k resistor with a larger one to get more voltage to the

ASICs.  This reduced the errors by 1% and increased the speed by 500Mhs.  Thinking about putting maybe two more chips in each unit.  Do you know where the early type

Speaking of which, what resistor are you swapping out to boost the power, and do you have a digikey/mouser part number? My 8 chip jally is actually humming at 32gh/45c due to the water block and now I'm thinking..... Just a bit.

C

[MrTeal]

Lightfoot, I just got 4 jalapenos and I have gotten the hackit-to-go-faster bug.  Already changed out the 7k resistor with a larger one to get more voltage to the

ASICs.  This reduced the errors by 1% and increased the speed by 500Mhs.  Thinking about putting maybe two more chips in each unit.  Do you know where the early type

Speaking of which, what resistor are you swapping out to boost the power, and do you have a digikey/mouser part number? My 8 chip jally is actually humming at 32gh/45c due to the water block and now I'm thinking..... Just a bit.

C

I don't know if there's been a new update that's changed the designators, but on the old boards R11 and R12 controlled to voltage. The formula is Rtop(R11, 7k) = Rbottom (R12, 10k) * [(Vout - 0.6V) / 0.6V], or Vout = (Rtop/Rbottom+1)*0.6V
Currently it's set to 1.02V, so if if you want to change it to 1.1V change R11 to 10k*[(1.1-0.6)/0.6] = 8.33k. Not a standard value, but 8.2k would work well enough.

[lightfoot]

Lightfoot, I just got 4 jalapenos and I have gotten the hackit-to-go-faster bug.  Already changed out the 7k resistor with a larger one to get more voltage to the

ASICs.  This reduced the errors by 1% and increased the speed by 500Mhs.  Thinking about putting maybe two more chips in each unit.  Do you know where the early type

Speaking of which, what resistor are you swapping out to boost the power, and do you have a digikey/mouser part number? My 8 chip jally is actually humming at 32gh/45c due to the water block and now I'm thinking..... Just a bit.

C

I don't know if there's been a new update that's changed the designators, but on the old boards R11 and R12 controlled to voltage. The formula is Rtop(R11, 7k) = Rbottom (R12, 10k) * [(Vout - 0.6V) / 0.6V], or Vout = (Rtop/Rbottom+1)*0.6V
Currently it's set to 1.02V, so if if you want to change it to 1.1V change R11 to 10k*[(1.1-0.6)/0.6] = 8.33k. Not a standard value, but 8.2k would work well enough.

Hm. I may try this on my 5 chip jally (the one I just can't seem to add chips to). What types of resistors are those little things (soic or something); I feel weird wiring a 1/4 watt axial resistor in there. :-)

C

[MrTeal]

Lightfoot, I just got 4 jalapenos and I have gotten the hackit-to-go-faster bug.  Already changed out the 7k resistor with a larger one to get more voltage to the

ASICs.  This reduced the errors by 1% and increased the speed by 500Mhs.  Thinking about putting maybe two more chips in each unit.  Do you know where the early type

Speaking of which, what resistor are you swapping out to boost the power, and do you have a digikey/mouser part number? My 8 chip jally is actually humming at 32gh/45c due to the water block and now I'm thinking..... Just a bit.

C

I don't know if there's been a new update that's changed the designators, but on the old boards R11 and R12 controlled to voltage. The formula is Rtop(R11, 7k) = Rbottom (R12, 10k) * [(Vout - 0.6V) / 0.6V], or Vout = (Rtop/Rbottom+1)*0.6V
Currently it's set to 1.02V, so if if you want to change it to 1.1V change R11 to 10k*[(1.1-0.6)/0.6] = 8.33k. Not a standard value, but 8.2k would work well enough.

Hm. I may try this on my 5 chip jally (the one I just can't seem to add chips to). What types of resistors are those little things (soic or something); I feel weird wiring a 1/4 watt axial resistor in there. :-)

C

They're just 0603 resistors according to the Altium files.
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/RC0603JR-078K2L/311-8.2KGRCT-ND/729777
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/RC0603FR-078K45L/311-8.45KHRCT-ND/730339

or just get a kit

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-SMD-SMT-0603-1-144-values-resistor-kit-144-X-100pc-14400-filled-BOX-ALL-/170869001211?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27c8960bfb

[helipotte]

Lightfoot, I just got 4 jalapenos and I have gotten the hackit-to-go-faster bug.  Already changed out the 7k resistor with a larger one to get more voltage to the

ASICs.  This reduced the errors by 1% and increased the speed by 500Mhs.  Thinking about putting maybe two more chips in each unit.  Do you know where the early type

Speaking of which, what resistor are you swapping out to boost the power, and do you have a digikey/mouser part number? My 8 chip jally is actually humming at 32gh/45c due to the water block and now I'm thinking..... Just a bit.

C

I don't know if there's been a new update that's changed the designators, but on the old boards R11 and R12 controlled to voltage. The formula is Rtop(R11, 7k) = Rbottom (R12, 10k) * [(Vout - 0.6V) / 0.6V], or Vout = (Rtop/Rbottom+1)*0.6V
Currently it's set to 1.02V, so if if you want to change it to 1.1V change R11 to 10k*[(1.1-0.6)/0.6] = 8.33k. Not a standard value, but 8.2k would work well enough.

That's it.  8.2K is what I have been using.  I get at least another 1Ghs out of a jalapeno.

Unrelated, but I have a Single with a chip that shows all zeros in bfgminer.  Chip 0d. Been that way since I got it.  is there a way to turn it on?  Is it just bad?  Can the chips be disabled in hardware?  This unit already hashes at 69Ghs but having that chip online would be nice.  Any ideas?

I have actually "looked" inside and counted 16 chips so I'm sure one is just turned off/dead.  Thanks for any insight.

[lightfoot]

Wrecked another old-style chip in testing; even with a completely perfect reballing and placement, the board was shorted out, and the problem was the chip. I could see a tiny amount of solder around the top of the chip. So I broke the chip open.

These chips are way, way different from what I thought. I was expecting a simple interface, but there are tiny little wires in there going to a chip assembly that is even *smaller* than the BGA. It's like a pico-BGA or something.

I have no idea anymore what BFL was thinking. But a warning: It is not possible to drop the chips into place by using heat from the top; I will have to explore using heat from the bottom if even possible.

Very interesting.

C

[MrTeal]

Wrecked another old-style chip in testing; even with a completely perfect reballing and placement, the board was shorted out, and the problem was the chip. I could see a tiny amount of solder around the top of the chip. So I broke the chip open.

These chips are way, way different from what I thought. I was expecting a simple interface, but there are tiny little wires in there going to a chip assembly that is even *smaller* than the BGA. It's like a pico-BGA or something.

I have no idea anymore what BFL was thinking. But a warning: It is not possible to drop the chips into place by using heat from the top; I will have to explore using heat from the bottom if even possible.

Very interesting.

C

I'm not sure what you mean there. The shiny part is the actual silicon die, and it has little solder bumps that attach it to the substrate which is just a tiny PCB. That's the bottom of the BGA. On another note, the new packages and substrates that BFL uses are amazing. The old style (below) is a pretty typical BGA substrate


The new package is altogether different, and looks incredible. I'd really love to see actual test results, showing the performance differences between them.

[lightfoot]

Sort of. Here is one of the chips with the top... Removed.



And here is a closeup with a 6x loupe in front of the camera:



Note that the curled up thing on the top is the chip itself, with little tiny solder dots on it. Also note the mask that connects it to the BGA and the smaller than hair *wires* that go from the chip to the BGA board.

What's happening here is that heat from the top does not flow through the chip carrier; it gets stuck in the top chip. And heats the solder balls under it to the point where they expand and explode out the sides of the chip (seriously I had a little ball of solder on top of the chip). I can't believe that most BGA chips have lots of little wires in there; maybe they do.

The new model seems to be the chip right on top of the BGA bottom. Heat flows through, there doesn't seem to be solder inside, and they never give me a problem.

I think I need to do this with a home-made reflow oven and not air heat. I can only get the bottom up to 375 or so; one option would be to direct the 400c air heat to the bottom of the board under the chip and try to bring that region to 400+. Or something. But man is it a problem to work with these chips.

C

[MrTeal]

Sort of. Here is one of the chips with the top... Removed.


Note that the curled up thing on the top is the chip itself, with little tiny solder dots on it. Also note the mask that connects it to the BGA and the smaller than hair *wires* that go from the chip to the BGA board.

What's happening here is that heat from the top does not flow through the chip carrier; it gets stuck in the top chip. And heats the solder balls under it to the point where they expand and explode out the sides of the chip (seriously I had a little ball of solder on top of the chip). I can't believe that most BGA chips have lots of little wires in there; maybe they do.

The new model seems to be the chip right on top of the BGA bottom. Heat flows through, there doesn't seem to be solder inside, and they never give me a problem.

I think I need to do this with a home-made reflow oven and not air heat. I can only get the bottom up to 375 or so; one option would be to direct the 400c air heat to the bottom of the board under the chip and try to bring that region to 400+. Or something. But man is it a problem to work with these chips.

C

I'm reasonably certain those wires are the top traces of the substrate, and they just lifted off when you overheated it.

Edit:

[lightfoot]

Possibly, however I have never had anything like this happen with the new chips (I have literally baked them at 450c and they still work); these can't take a few seconds before going "pop" and spitting solder out the side. Annoying.

Need to think about another method; I think I'm going to try just preheat for 10 minutes (I'm using lead solder on the reballs) and if that doesn't stick go to the microwave oven. Ok, the toaster oven. :-)

C

[lightfoot]

On the other hand I have figured out how to mount them to the board after reballing:

1) Set the heat under the unit to as high as possible (370f)
2) Walk away for awhile
3) Turn off heat.

The bottom heat is enough to melt lead solder, slowly. However I would have to just touch the chip while it was cooling and squish a bit of solder out, which of course means it's shorted again and needs to be reballed.

I. Hate. This. Junk. Board.

(This is the "danger board" that I am trying to get working. Was a completely baked nightmare, I have been trying out junker chips with mixed success)

[Brassguy]

Just looking for opinions...

I have 3 6-chip jallys

cgminer stats...
#1@ 23.6gh @38-42C 1.3%HW
#2@ 23gh @42-47C 2%HW
#3@ 22gh @45-50C 3.5%HW

My hottest mosfets are at ~105F. They have heatsinks on top and bottom. Bottom of boards are actively cooled with cpu heatsinks (and fans).

I have 8.2k 0603 resistors and 2 new style chips that need to be re-balled and may or may not work...

Any opinions on what I can expect with installing the resistors?

Fire, smoke, damnation for all eternity?

[Drug5bitz]

I agree I would like to see some more results on this resistor. Post up if you get any good data on those. All air cooled I think that's my final step before I start selling a miner or two. These are slowly becoming ever less profitable.

On that thought Alpha-t.net the first scrypt asic soon to be on the market. Batch 1 preorders are closed, but I'm seeing them being a lot better than BFL ever was.

[lightfoot]

Just looking for opinions...

I have 3 6-chip jallys

cgminer stats...
#1@ 23.6gh @38-42C 1.3%HW
#2@ 23gh @42-47C 2%HW
#3@ 22gh @45-50C 3.5%HW

My hottest mosfets are at ~105F. They have heatsinks on top and bottom. Bottom of boards are actively cooled with cpu heatsinks (and fans).

I have 8.2k 0603 resistors and 2 new style chips that need to be re-balled and may or may not work...

Any opinions on what I can expect with installing the resistors?

Fire, smoke, damnation for all eternity?

You have so much cooling I would worry about a snowstorm. Go for it, see how it works.

C

[lightfoot]

Wow. Something is different. Just got my BGE bill, I pulled 873kwhr in December on my top floor instead of the normal 200kwhr.

Ooops. Guess these rigs are pulling more power than I thought. Might explain why I haven't had to run heat up there. But it does mean I need to start selling some bitcoin to pay the power bill.

Welcome to the big time.

[Brassguy]

Just looking for opinions...

I have 3 6-chip jallys

cgminer stats...
#1@ 23.6gh @38-42C 1.3%HW
#2@ 23gh @42-47C 2%HW
#3@ 22gh @45-50C 3.5%HW

My hottest mosfets are at ~105F. They have heatsinks on top and bottom. Bottom of boards are actively cooled with cpu heatsinks (and fans).

I have 8.2k 0603 resistors and 2 new style chips that need to be re-balled and may or may not work...

Any opinions on what I can expect with installing the resistors?

Fire, smoke, damnation for all eternity?

Preliminary results are in... I decided to mod #3 (my worst one) for testing...installed 8.2k resistor in R11... old voltage (reported by cgminer) .98v-1v... new voltage 1.05v-1.07v

new stats (after about an hour)

#3@ 24.6 @55-61C 3.6%HW

So there was a pretty big improvement to the hashrate... I didn't have any appreciable change in HW error rate.

BE WARNED My mosfets went from about 105F to about 130F... they are now being actively cooled down to around 110-115F...

Hope this helps

[lightfoot]

I'll try this on my five chip unit, need to place a small mouser order anyway. Maybe I'll give it a go on the 7 chip water cooled unit, we'll see.

C

[lightfoot]

On a side note, I just finished upgrading jalapenos for two clients: One with 4 chips and the other with 5. Both went well, and are hashing away before I ship them out.

If you would like your jalapeno to be upgraded, please let me know. Just buy chips off Ebay, the guy LentBT sells excellent chips and I have not had a problem with one of them, and send me your unit. My current rates for labor and materials are:

.10 btc for 2 chips added (4 chip unit)
.12 btc for 3 chips added (5 chip unit)
.15 btc for 4 chips added (6 chip unit)

Note that +3 chips needs a better power supply (power it off an ATX or something like that) and +4 chips means you will be running with the lid off and the fan exposed. Going beyond 6 chips is really going to require serious water cooling. :-)

C

[ManeBjorn]

Good to know. Once I get my 74gh/s setup next week I might be ready to send one to you for the upgrade. 

On a side note, I just finished upgrading jalapenos for two clients: One with 4 chips and the other with 5. Both went well, and are hashing away before I ship them out.

If you would like your jalapeno to be upgraded, please let me know. Just buy chips off Ebay, the guy LentBT sells excellent chips and I have not had a problem with one of them, and send me your unit. My current rates for labor and materials are:

.10 btc for 2 chips added (4 chip unit)
.12 btc for 3 chips added (5 chip unit)
.15 btc for 4 chips added (6 chip unit)

Note that +3 chips needs a better power supply (power it off an ATX or something like that) and +4 chips means you will be running with the lid off and the fan exposed. Going beyond 6 chips is really going to require serious water cooling. :-)

C

[lightfoot]

Thanks! Here's a picture of the 20gh unit I just did:



Note the heat sinks on the FETs and the 1850's. And that I put chip 5 in the upper left; that puts it's heat load furthest from the FETs, and also furthest from the FT232 chip. And oddly enough closest to one of the temp sensors, so if you overheat it will shut down the unit before damaging the board.

Little things I have learned during this adventure. I wonder if I'll do similar stuff to the 300/600 boards.

[ManeBjorn]

That looks great.  It makes sense on the shutdown before it overheats the quickest. I would have never thought of doing that. 

Thanks! Here's a picture of the 20gh unit I just did:



Note the heat sinks on the FETs and the 1850's. And that I put chip 5 in the upper left; that puts it's heat load furthest from the FETs, and also furthest from the FT232 chip. And oddly enough closest to one of the temp sensors, so if you overheat it will shut down the unit before damaging the board.

Little things I have learned during this adventure. I wonder if I'll do similar stuff to the 300/600 boards.

[lightfoot]

That looks great.  It makes sense on the shutdown before it overheats the quickest. I would have never thought of doing that. 

Pretty much. For four chips you want the star pattern or one to the left for maximum stability. Six chips you populate the top and bottom left. Seven and eight you populate the right ones, but by then you better have bottom cooling or the Atmel/FTDI will be warm warm warm.

Three chips oddly enough is a pretty bad number. The heat sink can rock forward without a chip to support it and put a lot of strain on the two side ones. Which is why oddly enough I don't do 3 chip mods.

C

[ManeBjorn]

That's like the old Athlon XP's cpu's that had that fragile, tiny core sitting up on top.  So many people would crack the chips not applying even presure when installing the heatsinks.  One slip and they killed the whole thing.
Have you had any that you could not resurrect?

That looks great.  It makes sense on the shutdown before it overheats the quickest. I would have never thought of doing that. 

Pretty much. For four chips you want the star pattern or one to the left for maximum stability. Six chips you populate the top and bottom left. Seven and eight you populate the right ones, but by then you better have bottom cooling or the Atmel/FTDI will be warm warm warm.

Three chips oddly enough is a pretty bad number. The heat sink can rock forward without a chip to support it and put a lot of strain on the two side ones. Which is why oddly enough I don't do 3 chip mods.

C

[Aseras]

Wow. Something is different. Just got my BGE bill, I pulled 873kwhr in December on my top floor instead of the normal 200kwhr.

Ooops. Guess these rigs are pulling more power than I thought. Might explain why I haven't had to run heat up there. But it does mean I need to start selling some bitcoin to pay the power bill.

Welcome to the big time.

Yeah, you are going tog get raided by thew cops for growing pot, or something soon, lol.

[lightfoot]

No one cares about pot anymore. Now my smart meter will rat me out for mining bitcoins to the IRS.....

All part of a plan. :-)

[ManeBjorn]

IRS is chomping at the bit to either get crypto currency outlawed or taxed.
I hope they are able to do neither.

No one cares about pot anymore. Now my smart meter will rat me out for mining bitcoins to the IRS.....

All part of a plan. :-)

[synapse]

This one that blew up had the older style chips. no 5v at the 5v test point.
Out of curiosity I checked my other Jally that has two of the new style of chip. That one has 5v present at the 5v test point.

Hm. I've seen that too. My weird jally didn't have 5 volts but it seems to be running well now. Maybe they put it in sometimes.

I think i'll just RMA it.

I have 5 ASIC chips on the way so i'll pop 3 on the replacement and two on my other one. (this is how i came accross this thread in the first place. I remembered the post with the blown u15 pics)

That sounds best. I've got 4 chips outside in the mailbox I think; I'll put one of them on my weird jally, taking it to 5 and the other on my other new jally taking it to six on an old-style heat sink. I think that might wind up being a problem, but my water block is not coming till Monday at the earliest.

And I get to look at another blown board. Fun!

Speaking of chip placements, put another one on a 2 chip jally for a friend, no problems. I'm actually waiting 5 minutes with preheat now, until I see the faint wisp of smoke/flux come up, then a count to 90 with the air tool at 450c. The hardest part is placing the chip perfectly on the balls, but I have had a 100% success rate since I started using a loupe to verify all the balls.

C

well dragging up an old post, I got my RMA replacements today. Pretty happy with BFL as they gave me two 10ghs 3 chip units with 1.2.9FW rather than two 5ghs! makes up for the stupid international prices Australia post charges.
Also regarding the power supply comments earlier on, i got one of the usual 13v 6 amp shit power supplies with one unit, but the other came with a massive 12v 10 amp supply that is about double the size of the other (and has an earth pin too)

And they show up as BAL's rather than BAJ's in cgminer.
Looks like BFL have been silently studying and taking notice of what this community is doing.

[lightfoot]

Really? Can you take a pic of the newer PS?

C

[freddyfarnsworth]

This one that blew up had the older style chips. no 5v at the 5v test point.
Out of curiosity I checked my other Jally that has two of the new style of chip. That one has 5v present at the 5v test point.

Hm. I've seen that too. My weird jally didn't have 5 volts but it seems to be running well now. Maybe they put it in sometimes.

I think i'll just RMA it.

I have 5 ASIC chips on the way so i'll pop 3 on the replacement and two on my other one. (this is how i came accross this thread in the first place. I remembered the post with the blown u15 pics)

That sounds best. I've got 4 chips outside in the mailbox I think; I'll put one of them on my weird jally, taking it to 5 and the other on my other new jally taking it to six on an old-style heat sink. I think that might wind up being a problem, but my water block is not coming till Monday at the earliest.

And I get to look at another blown board. Fun!

Speaking of chip placements, put another one on a 2 chip jally for a friend, no problems. I'm actually waiting 5 minutes with preheat now, until I see the faint wisp of smoke/flux come up, then a count to 90 with the air tool at 450c. The hardest part is placing the chip perfectly on the balls, but I have had a 100% success rate since I started using a loupe to verify all the balls.

C

well dragging up an old post, I got my RMA replacements today. Pretty happy with BFL as they gave me two 10ghs 3 chip units with 1.2.9FW rather than two 5ghs! makes up for the stupid international prices Australia post charges.
Also regarding the power supply comments earlier on, i got one of the usual 13v 6 amp shit power supplies with one unit, but the other came with a massive 12v 10 amp supply that is about double the size of the other (and has an earth pin too)

And they show up as BAL's rather than BAJ's in cgminer.
Looks like BFL have been silently studying and taking notice of what this community is doing.

No doubt they are watching, this info is great stuff.
Since they are peeking in and being generous, I have a idea,,, Start reproducing these for the "little guys" and place them to compete in the USB asic market, at the right price.
$250 per 10GH would make alot of new friends, if they can/will do it.
We all gotta start somewhere, this thread gives me much hope

[synapse]

Really? Can you take a pic of the newer PS?

C

yeah sure, will do tonight when i get home.

[synapse]

Here is the newer larger PSU next to the old one.
looks like its still made by the same company though so it's probably shit.
12v 10 amp. The wires do look thicker coming out of it and it has a 90 degree connector on the end.

[ManeBjorn]

Those are generic laptop AC Adapters.
I used to order tons of those for the last company worked for.
Our mobile users were rough on their laptops.

[lightfoot]

That looks like a much better power supply, and if it has a ground then the caps can reference that instead of neutral. Should prevent the problems the 2 prong one has.

Very interesting. Thanks for posting that!

[oaksguy]

I'm using my first post on this forum to thank LightFoot for the great job he has done on this topic and for the work he did on my Jally.

I am one of the customers he mentioned in his post that he worked on this week.   In fact, I think the pictures are of my upgraded Jally.

I originally ordered my Jally in July as a 5Gh unit.   I almost gave up hope when it finally arrived early in December.  I was pleasantly surprised to see it hashed at 7+ Gh/sec. 

But, in the short time I've had it, its bitcoin mining rate has dropped from almost $4 USD/day to maybe $1/day.   Some of that drop was because the exchange rate was very high when I started and has settled, but most of the drop is because of the difficult rate increasing around 30% per week.    It was clear that I needed to upgrade soon before the killer 300GH and 600GH machines hit the streets in February or more likely March or later.

In following this topic for a few weeks, I decided that upgrading my Jally from its original 2 chips to 5 would be the best compromise between cost and complexity.  Going more than 5 sounded like I'd have additional cooling costs initially and ongoing.   The major change the 5 chips makes is needing an upgraded power supply.   Since my original one blew up after the 1st week and I had upgraded to a PC Power supply, I was ready.  So, I purchased 3 chips from EBay.

But, I wasn't certain I wanted to risk ruining my only miner and I couldn't afford to purchase a spare one to upgrade.   I noticed that LightFoot indicated that he would be willing to upgrade other people's Jallys.   So, early last week I sent him a PM asking for information, timing, and costs.   He responded quickly and I felt the price was reasonsable.   It happened to match almost exactly the amount of bitcoins I had successfully mined since December.   I decided it was a good sign and boxed my Jally up on Wednesday night a week ago and sent it to LightFoot USPS Priority 2 day.   Had my coins transferred to my wallet from Eligius and Eclipse and when everything was there, I sent him the coins on Thursday.

He let me know when the Jally arrived, kept me updated with messages and even pictures throughout the process, and was patient enough to answer my million questions.   Most of the time it takes is shipping, the next largest is testing/burnin before and after.  He was very careful and didn't do all the chips at once.  He tested between additions.

He sent the Jally back to me on Wednesday and it arrived today.  It has been running for almost two hours and is hashing away at 18.3Gh.   I think it will make it eventually to 19Gh.

One pleasant surprise for me is that the hardware error rate is much lower.   I was averaging 4%+ because one of the two original chips had an error rate of maybe around 8% and the other was under 1%.   I would see a new error at least every minute, so was wasting some of the hash rate on errors.

Now, I've only had 16 hardware errors total in the last two hours and the rate is .07%.   I believe this is because LightFoot does a better job than BFL does in installing the heatsinks and perhaps because the soldering of the new chips may have reheated and improved the connections and surface contact of the original chips.   I don't know if LightFoot has experienced this in his other upgrades, but I'm sure happy it happened on mine.

All-in-all it was a very pleasant experience and well worth it.   The hardest part was not being able to mine effectively for a little over a week (I had a couple antminers going to help keep away my withdrawal symptoms during that period).

Thank you LightFoot...   

Bill

[ManeBjorn]

That is great news.  I am saving my BTC to have him upgrade my 5gh/s Jalapeno as well.
Now I am even more chomping at the bit to do so.
 
Thanks for sharing.

I'm using my first post on this forum to thank LightFoot for the great job he has done on this topic and for the work he did on my Jally.

I am one of the customers he mentioned in his post that he worked on this week.   In fact, I think the pictures are of my upgraded Jally.

I originally ordered my Jally in July as a 5Gh unit.   I almost gave up hope when it finally arrived early in December.  I was pleasantly surprised to see it hashed at 7+ Gh/sec. 

But, in the short time I've had it, its bitcoin mining rate has dropped from almost $4 USD/day to maybe $1/day.   Some of that drop was because the exchange rate was very high when I started and has settled, but most of the drop is because of the difficult rate increasing around 30% per week.    It was clear that I needed to upgrade soon before the killer 300GH and 600GH machines hit the streets in February or more likely March or later.

In following this topic for a few weeks, I decided that upgrading my Jally from its original 2 chips to 5 would be the best compromise between cost and complexity.  Going more than 5 sounded like I'd have additional cooling costs initially and ongoing.   The major change the 5 chips makes is needing an upgraded power supply.   Since my original one blew up after the 1st week and I had upgraded to a PC Power supply, I was ready.  So, I purchased 3 chips from EBay.

But, I wasn't certain I wanted to risk ruining my only miner and I couldn't afford to purchase a spare one to upgrade.   I noticed that LightFoot indicated that he would be willing to upgrade other people's Jallys.   So, early last week I sent him a PM asking for information, timing, and costs.   He responded quickly and I felt the price was reasonsable.   It happened to match almost exactly the amount of bitcoins I had successfully mined since December.   I decided it was a good sign and boxed my Jally up on Wednesday night a week ago and sent it to LightFoot USPS Priority 2 day.   Had my coins transferred to my wallet from Eligius and Eclipse and when everything was there, I sent him the coins on Thursday.

He let me know when the Jally arrived, kept me updated with messages and even pictures throughout the process, and was patient enough to answer my million questions.   Most of the time it takes is shipping, the next largest is testing/burnin before and after.  He was very careful and didn't do all the chips at once.  He tested between additions.

He sent the Jally back to me on Wednesday and it arrived today.  It has been running for almost two hours and is hashing away at 18.3Gh.   I think it will make it eventually to 19Gh.

One pleasant surprise for me is that the hardware error rate is much lower.   I was averaging 4%+ because one of the two original chips had an error rate of maybe around 8% and the other was under 1%.   I would see a new error at least every minute, so was wasting some of the hash rate on errors.

Now, I've only had 16 hardware errors total in the last two hours and the rate is .07%.   I believe this is because LightFoot does a better job than BFL does in installing the heatsinks and perhaps because the soldering of the new chips may have reheated and improved the connections and surface contact of the original chips.   I don't know if LightFoot has experienced this in his other upgrades, but I'm sure happy it happened on mine.

All-in-all it was a very pleasant experience and well worth it.   The hardest part was not being able to mine effectively for a little over a week (I had a couple antminers going to help keep away my withdrawal symptoms during that period).

Thank you LightFoot...   

Bill

[lightfoot]

Thank you for the kind words. I'm glad everything is hashing away, and I have a few more to work on this weekend.

Never dull.

[lightfoot]

Interesting. Woke up this morning to find that my 31gh jalapeno was down. Checked the power supply (it's a $20 cheap-o from Ebay) and sure enough it had failed.

Moral: Don't buy $20 cheap-o power supplies. Oh well, I guess I will wire up a PCIx molex plug to a jalapeno cable and run this off a BFL single power supply for awhile. They suck, but my 500 watt corsairs are running 430 and 480 watts at the moment.

Note, for a quick fix I shut down my 26gh 7 chip unit and plugged the 8 chip unit into it's supply. Letting the $20 cheap-o supply cool down seems to have allowed it to restart, and I plugged the 7 chip unit in. Died again as of 15 mins ago, so I guess it's crap.

C

[ManeBjorn]

Nothing like getting up to dead mining hardware.   

Interesting. Woke up this morning to find that my 31gh jalapeno was down. Checked the power supply (it's a $20 cheap-o from Ebay) and sure enough it had failed.

Moral: Don't buy $20 cheap-o power supplies. Oh well, I guess I will wire up a PCIx molex plug to a jalapeno cable and run this off a BFL single power supply for awhile. They suck, but my 500 watt corsairs are running 430 and 480 watts at the moment.

Note, for a quick fix I shut down my 26gh 7 chip unit and plugged the 8 chip unit into it's supply. Letting the $20 cheap-o supply cool down seems to have allowed it to restart, and I plugged the 7 chip unit in. Died again as of 15 mins ago, so I guess it's crap.

C

[lightfoot]

Nothing like getting up to dead mining hardware.   

Actually I think this is my first failure, not bad. I'll order a 750 watt Corsair from Tiger and pay with some bitpennies. This stuff can support itself.

I just keep adding. stuff. My electricity bill is going to be fearsome.

C

[ManeBjorn]

That is a good thing.  I hope to get enough gh/s to have a little bit of BTC to play with eventually.
I'm getting there.

Nothing like getting up to dead mining hardware.   

Actually I think this is my first failure, not bad. I'll order a 750 watt Corsair from Tiger and pay with some bitpennies. This stuff can support itself.

I just keep adding. stuff. My electricity bill is going to be fearsome.

C

[lightfoot]

Well, 12 bitcents will get a nice new Corsair delivered by Friday. We shall see how it looks :-)

[ManeBjorn]

Sweet!  Where are you getting them at that price??
I need to get a new one.

Well, 12 bitcents will get a nice new Corsair delivered by Friday. We shall see how it looks :-)

[lightfoot]

Sweet!  Where are you getting them at that price??
I need to get a new one.

Well, 12 bitcents will get a nice new Corsair delivered by Friday. We shall see how it looks :-)

Tiger Direct, and it's not the best possible price (I could have gotten it for $10 less at Amazon) but:

a) I want to support people accepting bitcoin
b) I want to generate more commerce activity in bitcoin
c) It's free money, costs me nothing!

:-) Actually the 12 cents will come out of an upgrade profits, so technically my business is becoming self-sustaining.

C

[ManeBjorn]

Very cool.
I use their parent company as vendor for some computer parts when I was still doing tech work.  They offer some great discounts you would nver see if you are not a business.
I agree on supporting the use of BTC.
With your electric bill it might not be so free.  LOL

I just spoke with Len the chips will be shipped to you in the next day or two.

Sweet!  Where are you getting them at that price??
I need to get a new one.

Well, 12 bitcents will get a nice new Corsair delivered by Friday. We shall see how it looks :-)

Tiger Direct, and it's not the best possible price (I could have gotten it for $10 less at Amazon) but:

a) I want to support people accepting bitcoin
b) I want to generate more commerce activity in bitcoin
c) It's free money, costs me nothing!

:-) Actually the 12 cents will come out of an upgrade profits, so technically my business is becoming self-sustaining.

C

[lightfoot]

Quick update: Just finished doing two more jalapeno upgrades, one was a 5gh unit and the other was an older style 7.5gh unit.

The first unit got 4 chips and went to 22gh without issues. Errors are below .5%, which helps to minimize heat issues. Also when I flashed it I found that a speed of 5 produced the best results, going to 6 or 7 caused one of the original chips to drop down to 6 engines. Going to 5 brought up 14, so even with the reduced clock speed it still performed better. And the heat load is *greatly* reduced. Result is a 6 chip unit hashing in the 50's temp wise with a stock heat sink and fan.

The second unit (manebjorn's) had two of the original taller chips, and hashed at a good 7.8gh after a code flash. The user thought the unit was broken, but it turned out to just be a dud power supply. Took it to 5 chips, and it's now hashing at a solid 20gh with stock heat sink, fan, at 50c. Which is excellent. I did put a grille on top of the fan to keep the blades from breaking, but aside from that it's totally stock.

Current success rate on these chip installs is 100%, the trick seems to be putting chips on one at a time. I could probably try placing two chips then heating, but I'm always concerned the chip will shift, so I have to do a cool down/test between each chip add.

Chris

[ManeBjorn]

Excellent work.   
Once I get this one paid for I will save up and have you do the 2nd one.
It's great how much you can squeeze out of these little beasts.

Quick update: Just finished doing two more jalapeno upgrades, one was a 5gh unit and the other was an older style 7.5gh unit.

The first unit got 4 chips and went to 22gh without issues. Errors are below .5%, which helps to minimize heat issues. Also when I flashed it I found that a speed of 5 produced the best results, going to 6 or 7 caused one of the original chips to drop down to 6 engines. Going to 5 brought up 14, so even with the reduced clock speed it still performed better. And the heat load is *greatly* reduced. Result is a 6 chip unit hashing in the 50's temp wise with a stock heat sink and fan.

The second unit (manebjorn's) had two of the original taller chips, and hashed at a good 7.8gh after a code flash. The user thought the unit was broken, but it turned out to just be a dud power supply. Took it to 5 chips, and it's now hashing at a solid 20gh with stock heat sink, fan, at 50c. Which is excellent. I did put a grille on top of the fan to keep the blades from breaking, but aside from that it's totally stock.

Current success rate on these chip installs is 100%, the trick seems to be putting chips on one at a time. I could probably try placing two chips then heating, but I'm always concerned the chip will shift, so I have to do a cool down/test between each chip add.

Chris

[Scyntech]

How far do you think you could push a Nanofury USB ASIC?

[lightfoot]

How far do you think you could push a Nanofury USB ASIC?

Probably not too far. The key in all of this is power: Once you start boosting the clock the power use in the chip starts going up geometrically. Reason being it takes more power to switch the transistors on and off as the power you're switching goes up.

USB devices have a limited amount of power avail anyway, so that's the first limiter. It's also why companies like Cointerra get in a jam: Their chip underperforms, so they boost the clock. Which puts out a *LOT* more heat but more importantly requires the 1 volt supply to switch a lot more current.

This causes the FETs to pull more power from their switching device, which is usually just a chip instead of an inverter/power driver. The switching device shorts, puts all gates closed, and all hell breaks loose as all the FETs go BOOM.

Likewise once summer hits I'm going to be clocking all my ASICs *down* to minimum speeds. They will use a lot less power, and generate little to no heat so I can run them outside. I'll lose some hashing, but I don't need the heat. Then in the fall if it's economical I'll clock them up again.

[Scyntech]

How far do you think you could push a Nanofury USB ASIC?

Probably not too far. The key in all of this is power: Once you start boosting the clock the power use in the chip starts going up geometrically. Reason being it takes more power to switch the transistors on and off as the power you're switching goes up.

USB devices have a limited amount of power avail anyway, so that's the first limiter. It's also why companies like Cointerra get in a jam: Their chip underperforms, so they boost the clock. Which puts out a *LOT* more heat but more importantly requires the 1 volt supply to switch a lot more current.

This causes the FETs to pull more power from their switching device, which is usually just a chip instead of an inverter/power driver. The switching device shorts, puts all gates closed, and all hell breaks loose as all the FETs go BOOM.

Likewise once summer hits I'm going to be clocking all my ASICs *down* to minimum speeds. They will use a lot less power, and generate little to no heat so I can run them outside. I'll lose some hashing, but I don't need the heat. Then in the fall if it's economical I'll clock them up again.

Makes sense. I didn't think of USB being a limiter until you mentioned it. All of my OC experience has been on the main rig it's self. ASIC hardware is very new to me. As for the heat. I had to close off the heat vent to this room my hardware is in. =P

[lightfoot]

Makes sense. I didn't think of USB being a limiter until you mentioned it. All of my OC experience has been on the main rig it's self. ASIC hardware is very new to me. As for the heat. I had to close off the heat vent to this room my hardware is in. =P

I don't think the top floor heat has kicked on since I fired up all these boosted miners. 220gh of power actually keeps the rooms warm at night. Come spring I'm really going to clock them down a *lot* but for now it's free heat and bitcoins!

[ManeBjorn]

That's got to be nuts.  Does the wife enjoy the extra heat in the winter?
I know my wife is always chilly.  LOL

Makes sense. I didn't think of USB being a limiter until you mentioned it. All of my OC experience has been on the main rig it's self. ASIC hardware is very new to me. As for the heat. I had to close off the heat vent to this room my hardware is in. =P

I don't think the top floor heat has kicked on since I fired up all these boosted miners. 220gh of power actually keeps the rooms warm at night. Come spring I'm really going to clock them down a *lot* but for now it's free heat and bitcoins!

[lightfoot]

That's got to be nuts.  Does the wife enjoy the extra heat in the winter?
I know my wife is always chilly.  LOL

The wife loves bitcoin. She went nuts on overstock.com, getting some speakers for her computer, teapot, stuff and it just magically appears. Bitcoin is like a cute little money machine upstairs.

And although it's more expensive to heat with electricity than natural gas (we have radiant heat from the 1950's godlike) these things also throw off teapots and such.

C

[ManeBjorn]

My wife got interested when Overstock decided to accept Bitcoin as well.  LOL
As I get more gh/s she will be getting her cut I have been informed just for that site.   
We have a 7yr old house with radiant heat but they are the baseboard heaters.  They work ok but her uncle who built the house last min decided to go with them instead of the infloor heating it was mapped out for so there are some odd cold spots.  I am hoping this upcoming summer we can switch it to infloor as it would cut the gas usage by a 1/4 or so due to the better insulation and placement.  Plus I just want to not walk on icy floors all winter.
Then again if I keep building my mining operation in my server room downstairs it will heat itself.  LOL

That's got to be nuts.  Does the wife enjoy the extra heat in the winter?
I know my wife is always chilly.  LOL

The wife loves bitcoin. She went nuts on overstock.com, getting some speakers for her computer, teapot, stuff and it just magically appears. Bitcoin is like a cute little money machine upstairs.

And although it's more expensive to heat with electricity than natural gas (we have radiant heat from the 1950's godlike) these things also throw off teapots and such.

C

[Scyntech]

That's got to be nuts.  Does the wife enjoy the extra heat in the winter?
I know my wife is always chilly.  LOL

The wife loves bitcoin. She went nuts on overstock.com, getting some speakers for her computer, teapot, stuff and it just magically appears. Bitcoin is like a cute little money machine upstairs.

And although it's more expensive to heat with electricity than natural gas (we have radiant heat from the 1950's godlike) these things also throw off teapots and such.

C

I once had an apartment with those heaters. I had the windows open in the dead of winter to cool the place off. lol and god forbid you accidentally put your hand on one >.<

[ManeBjorn]

A couple weeks ago I woke up to my Jalapeno dead.

Lightfoot had me send it to him and was able to quickly diagnose a power supply issue which was great.

It only ran at 5 gh/s and he was able to flash it and get it running faster which was great as I did not have the gear to flash it's firmware.
From there it was time to upgrade it while he had it.

I was able to order chips from his recommendation and had them drop shipped right to Lightfoot.
I could only afford 3 ships and it took me a few days to be able to afford them.  Not because they were expensive as they are fairly inexpensive but due to me being broke. Once he got them he had it up to 20gh/s in no time with them.  He added heatsinks and a fan grill making sure it was running cool and safe.

The whole time he kept in great communication with me and even waited on being paid while I came up with the BTC for the work.  He even sent it back to me before I had paid.  Just a great guy I really appreciate that.
The whole process was excellent.  He had it done quickly and the only hold up was me getting the chips sent.

So now I have it at home and it is running great.
20 gh/s stable at 50c degrees with no hiccups.  It went from a good unit to a great unit and looks cool to boot.

Thanks so much Lightfoot for doing the upgrade for me and being so easy to work with and trust.

[D3V0]

I've lurked these forums for a while.  Mostly on Litecoin Talk.  But I wanted to say that this is probably the most interesting thread that I have read.

Continued success.  I wonder what you could do with a Block Erupter Cube 

[ManeBjorn]

I bet he could do quite a bit if he got his hands on a couple.
He really did a great job on my Jalapeno.
I am going to have him do it to a 2nd one when I can save up for the chips.

I've lurked these forums for a while.  Mostly on Litecoin Talk.  But I wanted to say that this is probably the most interesting thread that I have read.

Continued success.  I wonder what you could do with a Block Erupter Cube 

[lightfoot]

I have thought about the BE's, but they seem like odd chips, less documented than the BFL stuff and to be honest it might not be worth the cost of repair for 30-40gh. However I have been very busy this week with a separate consulting project, so it's not dull.

Also got in a broken jally that is weird. I think the FETs are shorted to hot, as the power on the 1 volt rail is all over the place. Will be working on it more this weekend, it's weird.

C

[ManeBjorn]

Dude congratulations on the consulting job. 
I have been recommending you all over the place.

FET's shorted that does sound odd.  I wonder what failed to make that happen.
Keep us posted.

I have thought about the BE's, but they seem like odd chips, less documented than the BFL stuff and to be honest it might not be worth the cost of repair for 30-40gh. However I have been very busy this week with a separate consulting project, so it's not dull.

Also got in a broken jally that is weird. I think the FETs are shorted to hot, as the power on the 1 volt rail is all over the place. Will be working on it more this weekend, it's weird.

C

[lightfoot]

So what's been going on...

Got three jalapenos in as donations, all of which have interesting little problems.

The first is pretty unusual: It looks like the FETs have shorted out. Symptom is 2-3 volt pulses on the 1 volt line that heat up (and I believe have destroyed) the hashing chips. I think the culprit is a short of the high fets *or* a failure of the lower voltage FETs.

The way the power supply works is that the 1 volt line is attached to the 12v line for a short time, then to the 0v line for a longer time. The capacitors and the the chips smooth out the resulting voltage, and the monitoring circuit picks this up as a stable 1 volt. What this also means is that the bottom chips (the 1v) are on longer, but the top chips (12v) have a higher inrush current. One set of FETs is going to take a lot more current than the other, this might be the reason the "hot FET" issue popped up in the beginning, and why BFL put bigger FETs on one side (and beefed up all FETs on the singles). Mystery makes sense.

However if the FETs fail to gate interesting stuff will happen. If the high FETs short, then you're going to have 12 volts on the 1v rail but the bottom fets should short as well. Might result in blown FETs. If the bottom FETs open then nothing is there to prevent the high rail from blowing up the chips.

This would explain why trying to remove chips from this board and put them on others does not work. Nasty failure mode.

The second one had one chip hashing at about 4gh. The second chip looked good, but was not working. Tried a reflow, chip would warm up but still nothing. Removed it from the board, held it in finger and thumb...

And it cracked apart. Not the normal shatter into little bits, a clean break in half. I think this one was a victim of a heat sink screwed down too hard; what happens is that the pressure torques the case around the BGA balls, and if one of them is a tiny bit higher you get a fracture inside the chip and failure. Only way to see it is to pull the chip and try bending it.

Third unit is another one that is shorting out, will take it apart and see if I can replace the FETs to get it going. But I'm guessing it has the same failure mode as the first. Drat.

Anyway, things keep rolling along, we keep hashing, and I dream about 300gh jallies in my sleep. What a neat thought...

C

[lightfoot]

Update: I just had that shorted jalapeno erupt in a mini fireball on the bench. Cool!

Apparently removing the incinerated FETs allowed 12 volts to go through the little caps. Each cap lit up like a little sun on 2 amps of power, then the next one went off. Counted three before I could crowbar the supply.

Wow. Like little arc lamps on your jalapeno!

Note: This one was a June 2013 model with little FETs. I think the fan threw a blade, and the unit overheated the FETs and started a small fire on the board before the power supply blew. Very interesting.

C

[ManeBjorn]

Sounds like you might need a fire suppression system in your work room.

Update: I just had that shorted jalapeno erupt in a mini fireball on the bench. Cool!

Apparently removing the incinerated FETs allowed 12 volts to go through the little caps. Each cap lit up like a little sun on 2 amps of power, then the next one went off. Counted three before I could crowbar the supply.

Wow. Like little arc lamps on your jalapeno!

Note: This one was a June 2013 model with little FETs. I think the fan threw a blade, and the unit overheated the FETs and started a small fire on the board before the power supply blew. Very interesting.

C

[tiozes]

Hi, I have 2 butterflylabs single sc 60 gh / s, I think this post is aimed for the jalapeno, but it could make the single 60gh Oc / s?

Forgive my English I'm Spanish.

regards

[lightfoot]

Update: The fireball is now hashing away at 5gh. Bit slow, but I have seen worse.

What did I do? Why dig out the fire, like a coal mine fire. Literally, I dug through the board substrate, removing layers till I got rid of the ground plane for the right side FETs. Then removed all the caps in the region, removed the right side choke, and fired up the unit.

Came online with the left side FETs. Put heat sinks on the FETs to control temps, put a big fan on pointing *DOWN*, and it's hashing away at 5gh.

Yes, anything can be fixed if you have enough insanity. But still the little fires were pretty.

And no, I am not turning my back on this one. It will go into the museum of weird stuff.

C

[lightfoot]

Sounds like you might need a fire suppression system in your work room.

I do have a fire extinguisher, and yes when I saw the first fireball I thought "grab the extinguisher". But this was merely a 12 volt, 2 amp mini fire, not a 300v 10,000 amp one. With a 300 volt fire (or a 36v fire if you have several thousand amps of power) you literally throw the fire extinguisher *AT* the IGBTs so that it's mass will blow the parts far way enough that the plasma arc will go out.

Been there, done that.

So the unit stayed on the heat plate (which is all about heat) till I was able to dig the fire out.

C

[ManeBjorn]

That is cool.
You should have taken before and after pictures.

Update: The fireball is now hashing away at 5gh. Bit slow, but I have seen worse.

What did I do? Why dig out the fire, like a coal mine fire. Literally, I dug through the board substrate, removing layers till I got rid of the ground plane for the right side FETs. Then removed all the caps in the region, removed the right side choke, and fired up the unit.

Came online with the left side FETs. Put heat sinks on the FETs to control temps, put a big fan on pointing *DOWN*, and it's hashing away at 5gh.

Yes, anything can be fixed if you have enough insanity. But still the little fires were pretty.

And no, I am not turning my back on this one. It will go into the museum of weird stuff.

C

[ManeBjorn]

I was part of the Fire Protection unit during my summer off from college at a PaperMill.  We had an electrical fire it bizarre to say the least.  Hair standing on end in my turnout gear trying to get around it to cut the power while it melted the steel frame to a multi-ton dryer unit.  Not fun.
I can imagine the plasma bolts you saw on the other one were spectacular.  Run, Run!!

Sounds like you might need a fire suppression system in your work room.

I do have a fire extinguisher, and yes when I saw the first fireball I thought "grab the extinguisher". But this was merely a 12 volt, 2 amp mini fire, not a 300v 10,000 amp one. With a 300 volt fire (or a 36v fire if you have several thousand amps of power) you literally throw the fire extinguisher *AT* the IGBTs so that it's mass will blow the parts far way enough that the plasma arc will go out.

Been there, done that.

So the unit stayed on the heat plate (which is all about heat) till I was able to dig the fire out.

C

[lightfoot]

That is cool.
You should have taken before and after pictures

Got em. And movies. Pretty.

C

[ManeBjorn]

Now that rocks.
You should post that. 

That is cool.
You should have taken before and after pictures

Got em. And movies. Pretty.

C

[lightfoot]

Well, I thought about it, but the problem is these situations are so far beyond normal it's not funny. Posting videos would give the impression that this kind of thing can happen normally, when it really is a test bench sort of problem.

The most a normal jally would do is smoke the FETs then fail the power supply. And since it's in a case it wouldn't damage anything else (which is probably what happened). So I'm posting as a warning to other people doing work on stuff; be careful and always take proper precautions.

It's never dull.

C

[DanielVG]

Is there anybody here who can flash these devices?

I have a faulty one, would like to have it checked/repaired.

send me a PM if interested, European if possible.

[bcp19]

Hi, I have 2 butterflylabs single sc 60 gh / s, I think this post is aimed for the jalapeno, but it could make the single 60gh Oc / s?

Forgive my English I'm Spanish.

regards

This isn't really an overclocking thread, the OP started adding chips to his Jalapeno to increase speed.  The Single is already at the maximum number of chips, so there is no way to increase from that.

[MrTeal]

The way the power supply works is that the 1 volt line is attached to the 12v line for a short time, then to the 0v line for a longer time. The capacitors and the the chips smooth out the resulting voltage, and the monitoring circuit picks this up as a stable 1 volt. What this also means is that the bottom chips (the 1v) are on longer, but the top chips (12v) have a higher inrush current. One set of FETs is going to take a lot more current than the other, this might be the reason the "hot FET" issue popped up in the beginning, and why BFL put bigger FETs on one side (and beefed up all FETs on the singles). Mystery makes sense.

Interesting note for those that are interested to follow up on what lightfoot said. The highside (top) FET doesn't actually conduct any higher peak current than the lowside (synchronous or bottom) FETs, and the average current is actually quite a bit lower than the lowside FETs because the duty cycle is quite low. That is why you often see designs with the lowside FETs have a higher current rating and lower resistance.

The power dissipated in each of the lowside fets is pretty simple to calculate, it's just (1-Vout/Vin) * Rds(on) * [(Io/n)^2+(Ir*nphase/n)^2/12], so the percentage of time the lowside is on, times the resistance when it's on, times the current. n there is just the number of lowside FETs in total (6 for the Jalapeno and LS), nphase is the number of phases (2 for the Jalapeno and LS), and Ir is the ripple current. That's usually designed to be about 20%-50% of the output current, and depends only on switching frequency, output voltage and inductance. For the BFL design Ir is ~6.8A. For the lowside FETs the power dissipated is directly proportional to the resistance (Rds(on)) of the mosfets, so you often see a lot of big, beefy FETs used since they have lower Rds(on).

The topside mosfets are a little trickier, since there's two things to calculate. The first is the conduction losses, which is the same formula as for the lowside fets except instead of using (1-Vout/Vin) (0.917 for the 1V from 12V that BFL uses) you use Vout/Vin; in this case 0.083. Obviously if you used the same FETs for the top as you do for the bottom the dissipation from conduction would be a lot lower, 11x lower in this case. However, you never use the same FETs in the top because there's another kind of losses that the highside FETs have to deal with, conduction losses.

The conduction losses aren't from the steady state P=I^2R losses you get when the FET is fully turned on and there's very little voltage across it. Real MOSFETs aren't perfect switches though. When you switch on and off the highside FET, the change doesn't happen instantly, so there is a time when you have a lot of voltage across the FET and have current flowing at the same time, so you burn up a bunch of power there.
The formula is P = 2 * f * (Vcc*Io/n) * Rg * (n/nphase) * Ciss. f is the frequency (300kHz for BFL), Vcc is 12V, Rg is the total gate resistance of the driver and FET, and Ciss is the input capacitance of the FET.
What's interesting about this is that the n term cancels out; adding more highside FETs per phase doesn't actually decrease the switching losses per FET. This is because even though if you run 2 or 3 FETs in parallel each of them sees less current, the time it takes the driver to fully turn on the FETs is 2 or 3 times longer due to the input capacitance being higher. That also means that if you run 3 of the same FETs for the highside, your total switching losses actually go up instead of down like they do with the conduction losses. That's why you generally always see designers use lower current rated FETs with higher Rds(on); those ones have a lot less input capacitance so your switching losses are lower. It's also why you see arrangements like this one, with one highside and two lowside FETs.


Pulling up some calculations I did on the BFL PSU at 1V and 100A output using the new "cool" BSC014/BSC0902 pair (which is what's in my Single), the conduction losses per lowside FET were 0.52W, or 3.12W for all 6. The conduction losses in the highside FETs is 84mW each and the switching losses are a relatively massive 2.2W per device or 13.5W in total. At 100W output, the BFL PSU (at least on paper) would dissipate 16.6W in the FETs and 3.25W in the inductors, so about 20W in total, or 83% efficient.

As an interesting note, if they would have used a transistor better suited to the highside with a lower Ciss like the BSC052N03LS, those hot highside FETs might run a lot cooler. Those would have 0.93W of switching losses each, and with 1 the conduction losses would be 1.64W each, with 2 the conduction losses would be 0.41W each, and with 3 the conduction losses would be 0.18W each. If you ran with two highside BSC052's, not only would your per device dissipation go from 2.28W to 1.34W, but since you only have two of them the total highside dissipation would drop to 5.35W from 13.5W. You should give that a shot next time you're replacing the FETs on a Jalapeno.

[lightfoot]

This is why Mr. Teal builds boards and I fix them. Excellent explanation, and thank you.

C

[freddyfarnsworth]

complicated What is so cool tho, is the end result is even more info for a learner like me.

Thank You Mr Teal...

In a year or two I will understand every word.

I gotta get one of these machines..

[lightfoot]

However I will say this: The BFL units are putting a fair bit more than a few watts of heat from the FETs. There's also the issue of imbalance due to thermal conductivity issues at work here.

Personally I prefer IGBTs, or single power FETs.

C

[freddyfarnsworth]

However I will say this: The BFL units are putting a fair bit more than a few watts of heat from the FETs. There's also the issue of imbalance due to thermal conductivity issues at work here.

Personally I prefer IGBTs, or single power FETs.

C

Can you show the difference in pix ?

IGBTs, or single power FETs

What they look like.

All I know is the old NPN sets from old motherboards.

[lightfoot]

Very interesting little update: Last night my 6 miners out in the shed faulted out my Rpi at 4am. Went out at 6am to check on them, brought a laptop and after some analysis found that my 28gh air cooled jalapeno was screwing up the USB bus. Not sure why, but it's out of the loop for now and everything else (8 chip jally, chili, two single/30's and two single/60's) are running normally.

Unit was a factory good 2 chip December Jally that was upgraded to 7 chips with dual heat sinks. It tended to get quite warm but not insanely hot.

Now it is true the temps last night in the shed dropped under 15f, and this was a confirmed good unit, but it's still odd. I'll have to sit down and figure out what's going on.

C

[lightfoot]

Another note: I did some power calculations, and it looks like the 8 chip jally pulls 5.2 watts per gh, while a standard single/30 pulls about 4.0 watts per gh. I'm guessing most of the difference is the cooling pump, but I think the newer boards are more efficient than turbo-charged jallies.

C

[HellDiverUK]

I'm wondering can anyone in the UK make two Jalapenos in to one, IE pull the two chips off one board and add it to the other board?

Both use the newer type chips and run the 292 firmware, one gives about 8.1GH and the other does just over 5.5GH.

Any ideas?

[lightfoot]

This is why I love Bitcoins. I had to get a miner from a local guy, who wanted me to add 3 chips to the unit, so I asked him to drop it off while I and the kids were playing XP Laser sport in MD. This is my wife's point of view:

Oddly though, before all that, my husboo tells me before the game starts, "I'll be getting a package dropped off for me by a man at the front desk while we're playing. I'll need you to pick it up." We agreed that my code word would be "aluminum." I TOTALLY thought he was kidding. He and the kids went in to play, and I went up to observe them from the upper balcony. Another guy was up there too, a friendly, middle-aged-looking guy, watching the laser tag game and laughing. It's dark up there, kind of hard to see. At a certain point, he squints at me, comes over, and asks me "Are you with C?" I agree that I was. I figured this was one of his old laser tag buddies from when he used to regularly game. The guy tells me "I have the package for him."  I tell him "Oh right, I'm supposed to say 'aluminum' for the password." like I actually know what's going on. He laughs and says "Yes, and I said I'd flap my arms like wings." So he does. Then he hands me the box and says, "I'll just pay up front, I just went to the ATM.", and counts me out a hundred mumble dollars. I take it and put it in my pocket like I have some fucking clue what's going on. He says this was like a spy movie, and I agree it was all very cloak and dagger and we chuckle, say good-bye, and he leaves. Hmm.

Of course part of me knows that Lightfoot fixes bit coin miners for people, and I figured at a certain point that this nonsense was related to that, but really. How was I supposed to know he was REALLY going to get a delivery from someone at the laser tag place while he was gaming with the kids?  This is my life.

I simply... love... bitcoin. :-)

[sobe-it]

Sounds badass, it brings people together in ways some wouldn't or never would.

[lightfoot]

Indeed, it brings out that little bit of adventure in all of us.

So I got it home and put it through it's paces: Was clocked at the factory at 290mhz, which lead to about a 6% error rate and a speed of 7.3gh. Too high on the errors, backed it to speed 7 with my firmware release and it's down to 274mhz with 0.2% errors and a 7.3gh hashing speed. Less errors=less power.

Added three chips, no problem. However witrh the sides off and the fan on the top it's clocking at 70c temps, which is a little bit warm. I have the copper heat sinks on all the FETs so it's ok, but once again I see a serious difference in temps between 4 chip jallies and 5 chip ones. 5 seems to be the tipping point for a stock heat sink; once you get to that level stuff gets more complex. However it is putting out a very solid 20gh, so the added chips are all hashing at >4gh each.

I also have three jallies in from Sweeden, one had a broken off power connector, the other two hashed at 5gh. Flashing them brought one to 7gh, the other was still at 5 (has a pair of C class chips). The one with the broken power connector was a simple fix, and it also went to 7.

The user enclosed 4 chips, so I boosted each one with two more chips, bringing them to 14.9 and 15.8gh. Not bad actually, and they run fine without extra heat sinking. For the third one I'm going to see how adding two then three chips works, should be able to get it past 16gh.

Never dull. If you want your jally to be boosted, drop me a line. Despite bitcoin price drops I am honoring my standard prices (.1btc to add two user supplied chips). I also have a few chips available that I will sell for install as well (for much less than the Ebay guy who is being a bit irrational).

Never dull :-)

[john_thecapn]

Greetings all!  I know that it may be a bit odd for my first post to be in the hardware section, but that's me.  Straight to it.

I recently have gotten into the mining scene (about 4ish months) by picking up a 10gh Jalapeno and a few Antminer U2s.  20gh total.
Nothing spectacular, but fun nonetheless.
And, yes, I know, late to the party, so to speak.

Now, I started doing some looking and ran across this thread about mod'ing the Jalapenos for moar power, as it were.
This was after I got to thinking about the fact that if this Jalapeno was orig a 5gh (plate on the back says 5), what was done to get it to 10.  I don't have any equip/software to really do any kind of diag on this thing, so I am going to ask the experts.

So, my here's my question, is it worth messing with this unit by adding chips, etc. to get it up to say 20+, or just keep rocking it as is?
It currently is a 3 chip unit.  After taking the cover off, it dropped from 60+C, down to avg'ing 48C.  The error rate stays at a steady 3.8%.  I am not sure if there is room for improvement currently, or not.
Also, when you first kick it off, there is some garbage that shows up in the mining client.  Both, BFG and the Bitminter app.  I've read that may be the FTDI chip, but I could be mistaken.


Thanks y'all!

[lightfoot]

Quick answer: No but it is fun. At this point difficulty has caught up, but if you want a kick ass conversation piece you can still buy the chips on ebay and I'll install them.

C

[john_thecapn]

Thanks very much for the info.  That's pretty much what I thought, but was getting confirmation from the experts.

Thanks again!

[tuanvie]

good info,
but I have not been able to understand this long discussion
This seems nice, and maybe one day if I've understood could try this

[DolanDuck]

Nice to know, I have bookmarked this thread thanks, just a bit difficult to understand for an unexperienced miner tho.

[lightfoot]

I will say I have been busy these past few months. Actually I'm going to Defcon this year in Vegas, anyone want to go and meet up for a discussion on Hacking Miners for Fun, Fires, and Profit?

I'll post details and thoughts over here in this thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=646976.msg7232230#msg7232230

It could be fun....