DIY FPGA Mining rig for any algorithm with fast ROI

[Bit_Bull82]

Can you quickly explain me what this FPGA cards are? Im new to the subject.

Are they advanced GPUs for DC or VDI usage or are they something else?

-Is the mobo a especial kind of mobo or you can use any other components as normal Rigs?
-Do they use Win10 and any other normal driver/miner ?

Sorry for the noob questions!

[1714816879]

1714816879

[ruplikminer]

Can you quickly explain me what this FPGA cards are? Im new to the subject.

Are they advanced GPUs for DC or VDI usage or are they something else?

-Is the mobo a especial kind of mobo or you can use any other components as normal Rigs?
-Do they use Win10 and any other normal driver/miner ?

Sorry for the noob questions!

- normal mobo. You can also mix it with normal GPUs. All normal. Just to connect the FPGAs you need USB ports.
- Win 10 yes. Special software to mine developed by the OP

The FPGAs are fullu programmable cards. You can program them to do whatever u want as far as you are a VERY good programmer. Wiki is full of info about FPGAs

[martyroz]

hmm I'm getting quoted $6150 AUD per unit from Digi-Key Australia... seems like a lot!

[ruplikminer]

hmm I'm getting quoted $6150 AUD per unit from Digi-Key Australia... seems like a lot!

That's normal price for that card when you buy from Difi-Key

[d57heinz]

This is what happened with the last FPGA “wizard”.  Ran a site known as ltcgear. Stole everyone’s money in the end. Is the reason They are wanting to sell us this now as they too have pressure from the likes of bitmain.  Looks like they making everyone squirm a bit in crypto land.  Had people used their heads and not only looked at what they supported to get their profits we wouldn’t be in this boat. Bitmain may have never been able to become a force to be reckoned with. Bitmain took advantage of the situation like any true capitalist would do.  Now we are left picking up the scraps and we have to pay 4k$+ per card to stay in the race.  No way!

Anyway lookup beekeeper throughout bitcointalk he been onto FPGA since 2012. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=283977.0


IMO This is the last gasp before corporations completely take over the blockchains.  Tread carefully miners

BR

[greyday]

Can you quickly explain me what this FPGA cards are? Im new to the subject.

Are they advanced GPUs for DC or VDI usage or are they something else?

-Is the mobo a especial kind of mobo or you can use any other components as normal Rigs?
-Do they use Win10 and any other normal driver/miner ?

Sorry for the noob questions!

FPGA=Field Programmable Gate Array

Put simply, they're somewhere between a gpu and an asic: they are application specific, but you can code the program, so basically you can use it for anything you can get it to do. It's more akin to a gpu in mining terms, but instead of specifying a miner and letting existing drivers and software to do the work (which includes powering and running aspects that aren't needed for mining, much less efficient as gpus are designed for, well, graphics, etc), you have to program the gates to do what you want. Which is why it can be far more energy efficient. Sort of. This is a really basic breakdown from a slightly-more-experienced-than-amateur coder who has only been reading up on FPGAs for a few months (and has only played with Intel test boards).

If you're interested in learning more, Intel actually has some really good basic guides available for free if you go to their FPGA product support pages (I think they even have FPGAs for Dummies linked there). It's a lot to learn. They're really, really fun, but there's a huge learning curve for programmers, much less for someone like me who is Linux proficient and knows a little C...

[rem26]

I'll roll if he releases a firmware that bricks the fpga cards. That would be the most epic trolling of all time. Give out some really high figures, get a bunch of people to spend a ton of money on hardware, then release a firmware that destroys the fpga  

I've destroyed an amazon node or 2 accidentally with power draw. Mining is the reason the shell now has that 150A limit.

nice FUD

It's a completely realistic scenario.

No, it's not.  Unless you physically start smashing an fpga, you are not going to brick it, it's not a consumer product you just run xyz miner you downloaded odd the internet.

Total fud.

[greyday]

I'll roll if he releases a firmware that bricks the fpga cards. That would be the most epic trolling of all time. Give out some really high figures, get a bunch of people to spend a ton of money on hardware, then release a firmware that destroys the fpga  

I've destroyed an amazon node or 2 accidentally with power draw. Mining is the reason the shell now has that 150A limit.

nice FUD

It's a completely realistic scenario.

No, it's not.  Unless you physically start smashing an fpga, you are not going to brick it, it's not a consumer product you just run xyz miner you downloaded odd the internet.

Total fud.

What's a fud?

Also you can very easily brick an FPGA if you don't know what you're doing (or do, and are trying to). One in a data center owned by Amazon? I don't know about that, I would assume they have safety measures in place, though as the OP says, they now have a power limit to prevent it...

[philipma1957]

I'll roll if he releases a firmware that bricks the fpga cards. That would be the most epic trolling of all time. Give out some really high figures, get a bunch of people to spend a ton of money on hardware, then release a firmware that destroys the fpga  

I've destroyed an amazon node or 2 accidentally with power draw. Mining is the reason the shell now has that 150A limit.

nice FUD

It's a completely realistic scenario.

No, it's not.  Unless you physically start smashing an fpga, you are not going to brick it, it's not a consumer product you just run xyz miner you downloaded odd the internet.

Total fud.

What's a fud?

Also you can very easily brick an FPGA if you don't know what you're doing (or do, and are trying to). One in a data center owned by Amazon? I don't know about that, I would assume they have safety measures in place, though as the OP says, they now have a power limit to prevent it...

Fear uncertain doubt


Since amazon put an amp limit my guess is morons mining at balls to the walls pedal to the metal speeds can kill the gear.

[DigitalCruncher]

From my practice there are simple measures to avoid failures.
Do not place these boards in the closed case, setup the fan to cool the bottom layer of PCB.
Do not allow the local overheat of any component like DC/DC or external power connector.
Turn on the overtemperature shutdown in the bitstream, and control the temperature in the mining software. It is easy.
Then the FPGA board will work for years.

[GPUHoarder]

From my practice there are simple measures to avoid failures.
Do not place these boards in the closed case, setup the fan to cool the bottom layer of PCB.
Do not allow the local overheat of any component like DC/DC or external power connector.
Turn on the overtemperature shutdown in the bitstream, and control the temperature in the mining software. It is easy.
Then the FPGA board will work for years.

“Turn on overtemp shutdown in the bitstream”

AFAIK there’s no such magic button. If you want temp monitoring and thermal limits with an FPGA you have to include them in your design logic. Same as an ASIC. Otherwise you very much can exceed junction temps and damage the hardware if you have enough power going into the board to begin with.

This is also possible on some GPUs with poor drivers. A few of my old Titan Blacks from HPC work had power stages for memory that would overheat if the memory was trashed too much for too long, and the mosfet would slip down on the boards till they caused a short. Actually caught a entire server on fire that way once...

[philipma1957]

From my practice there are simple measures to avoid failures.
Do not place these boards in the closed case, setup the fan to cool the bottom layer of PCB.
Do not allow the local overheat of any component like DC/DC or external power connector.
Turn on the overtemperature shutdown in the bitstream, and control the temperature in the mining software. It is easy.
Then the FPGA board will work for years.

I agree.  But there will always be people looking to squeeze out every drop of hash.
So if you set 75(c)  they would set 85 (c) hoping for more hash and faster roi

[HardwareCollector]

I'll roll if he releases a firmware that bricks the fpga cards. That would be the most epic trolling of all time. Give out some really high figures, get a bunch of people to spend a ton of money on hardware, then release a firmware that destroys the fpga  

I've destroyed an amazon node or 2 accidentally with power draw. Mining is the reason the shell now has that 150A limit.

nice FUD

It's a completely realistic scenario.

No, it's not.  Unless you physically start smashing an fpga, you are not going to brick it, it's not a consumer product you just run xyz miner you downloaded odd the internet.

Total fud.

Wow, what is going on in this thread. I still have an FPGA in the basement that failed from heat damage. The heatsink assembly with the cooling fan wasn't properly secured on the board.

[ruplikminer]

From my practice there are simple measures to avoid failures.
Do not place these boards in the closed case, setup the fan to cool the bottom layer of PCB.
Do not allow the local overheat of any component like DC/DC or external power connector.
Turn on the overtemperature shutdown in the bitstream, and control the temperature in the mining software. It is easy.
Then the FPGA board will work for years.

I am preparing a closed but see through box (plexiglass) with intake and outtake fans and HEPA filters for my babies

Electricity system will be separated from teh rest of my house utilities and with special protections and regulators. just in case. I will maybe add some Dire Straits music just for them to make sure they feels good.

[greyday]

From my practice there are simple measures to avoid failures.
Do not place these boards in the closed case, setup the fan to cool the bottom layer of PCB.
Do not allow the local overheat of any component like DC/DC or external power connector.
Turn on the overtemperature shutdown in the bitstream, and control the temperature in the mining software. It is easy.
Then the FPGA board will work for years.

“Turn on overtemp shutdown in the bitstream”

AFAIK there’s no such magic button. If you want temp monitoring and thermal limits with an FPGA you have to include them in your design logic. Same as an ASIC. Otherwise you very much can exceed junction temps and damage the hardware if you have enough power going into the board to begin with.

This is also possible on some GPUs with poor drivers. A few of my old Titan Blacks from HPC work had power stages for memory that would overheat if the memory was trashed too much for too long, and the mosfet would slip down on the boards till they caused a short. Actually caught a entire server on fire that way once...

/\ This right here. You're starting from scratch with an FPGA.

[suchmoon]

This is what happened with the last FPGA “wizard”.  Ran a site known as ltcgear. Stole everyone’s money in the end. Is the reason They are wanting to sell us this now as they too have pressure from the likes of bitmain.  Looks like they making everyone squirm a bit in crypto land.  Had people used their heads and not only looked at what they supported to get their profits we wouldn’t be in this boat. Bitmain may have never been able to become a force to be reckoned with. Bitmain took advantage of the situation like any true capitalist would do.  Now we are left picking up the scraps and we have to pay 4k$+ per card to stay in the race.  No way!

Anyway lookup beekeeper throughout bitcointalk he been onto FPGA since 2012. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=283977.0

IMO This is the last gasp before corporations completely take over the blockchains.  Tread carefully miners

Good point. However:

LTCGear scammed via "cloud mining", which wasn't really related to FPGA other than Chris-or-whatshisname being able to appear "trustworthy" due to his technical expertise, real or perceived. What the OP of this thread is proposing is quite different and doesn't involve upfront payment. Not yet anyway.

As to our corporate overlords - I'd rather spend $4k on something that's not coming from Bitmain.

[Ginzink]

This is what happened with the last FPGA “wizard”.  Ran a site known as ltcgear. Stole everyone’s money in the end. Is the reason They are wanting to sell us this now as they too have pressure from the likes of bitmain.  Looks like they making everyone squirm a bit in crypto land.  Had people used their heads and not only looked at what they supported to get their profits we wouldn’t be in this boat. Bitmain may have never been able to become a force to be reckoned with. Bitmain took advantage of the situation like any true capitalist would do.  Now we are left picking up the scraps and we have to pay 4k$+ per card to stay in the race.  No way!

Anyway lookup beekeeper throughout bitcointalk he been onto FPGA since 2012. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=283977.0

IMO This is the last gasp before corporations completely take over the blockchains.  Tread carefully miners

Good point. However:

LTCGear scammed via "cloud mining", which wasn't really related to FPGA other than Chris-or-whatshisname being able to appear "trustworthy" due to his technical expertise, real or perceived. What the OP of this thread is proposing is quite different and doesn't involve upfront payment. Not yet anyway.

As to our corporate overlords - I'd rather spend $4k on something that's not coming from Bitmain.

And compared to a 1080 ti rig 4k is no problem Id get two of theese then with a much higher hash!
But will wait and see that it actualy works out for people first. Too big a investment to just go for it as it will be hard to sell it if i cant use the fpga.

But happy that the OP will actualy give out the necessary code

[senseless]

I'll roll if he releases a firmware that bricks the fpga cards. That would be the most epic trolling of all time. Give out some really high figures, get a bunch of people to spend a ton of money on hardware, then release a firmware that destroys the fpga  

I've destroyed an amazon node or 2 accidentally with power draw. Mining is the reason the shell now has that 150A limit.

nice FUD

It's a completely realistic scenario.

No, it's not.  Unless you physically start smashing an fpga, you are not going to brick it, it's not a consumer product you just run xyz miner you downloaded odd the internet.

Total fud.

Really? What happens if you try to draw 300 amps on a board that only has a 160A vccint supply? Did you know vivado only tosses an ignorable warning? That you can still compile and complete the firmware? I know people who have fried their own fpga boards by drawing more current than the board has a supply. I have destroyed amazon boards by drawing too much current (unintentionally). This is just one of many ways you can physically destroy a FPGA with a bad firmware / design problem.

The only fud about what I said is that it could possibly happen.

[mrb]

Regarding the algorithms I spent months analyzing every single one to determine which were most suitable to FPGA's.  I checked them all.

This research alone is a huge effort. You are very dedicated!

It would be nice to have a complete database documenting all PoW algos (including pseudo-code). If someone feels motivated to do it, I'd be glad to sponsor them.

[HardwareCollector]

And compared to a 1080 ti rig 4k is no problem Id get two of theese then with a much higher hash!
But will wait and see that it actualy works out for people first. Too big a investment to just go for it as it will be hard to sell it if i cant use the fpga.

But happy that the OP will actualy give out the necessary code

FPGAs retain their value very well and hobbyist are always on the lookout for them on eBay. If it does not workout for you, I will be here ready to collect. 

You can also learn a lot from the code below if you are into this kind of thing, it is very easy to follow and has temperature monitoring capabilities.

https://github.com/0x2fed/FPGA-Keccak-Miner
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/0x2fed/FPGA-Keccak-Miner/master/nopll_v3/v3.bmp