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

[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