[ANN] Technobit HEX8A1 -240 GHs Coincraft A1 board- Finished production

[loshia]

You said "El cheapo CP 750 Plus PSU. The label says 2*12V rails with 30A=720W", clearly you see the 720W not the limit 30A per rail.

About OCZ 550W, i don't know which type you use.
OCZ Fatal1ty 550W is 2 rail, max 25 A per rail which clearly will overload


OCZ ZS 550W is single rail, max 38 A & OCZ ZT 550W is single rail, max 45 A should do the job

You are right, I saw the 720W, because I didn't expect the two PCIe power connectors to be connected to the same voltage regulator, which seems to be the case.

The OCZ was a ZS. May it rest in peace. No clue why that happened.

Hey,
Have in mind that even connected to separate rails most probably same would happen
Watch psu stamp. In two rails psu it says rail 1 up to x amps and rail to up to x amps but combined up to y amps and y is lower than hex8 consumption

[askhimthatsoon]

Hey,
Have in mind that even connected to separate rails most probably same would happen
Watch psu stamp. In two rails psu it says rail 1 up to x amps and rail to up to x amps but combined up to y amps and y is lower than hex8 consumption

Thanks, I checked the label again it says: 12V1+12V2 720W max, 3.3V+5V 140W max, combined 750W max. I opened the case and checked the rails, molex connectors and sata power 12V was on the second rail. Tried those with a dual molex->pcie power adapter as well as one of the built in pcie power connectors together => It happened anyways.

I guess I'll accept the status quo as the miner runs rock solid with clock of 255 and 980mV.

[loshia]

Hey,
Have in mind that even connected to separate rails most probably same would happen
Watch psu stamp. In two rails psu it says rail 1 up to x amps and rail to up to x amps but combined up to y amps and y is lower than hex8 consumption

Thanks, I checked the label again it says: 12V1+12V2 720W max, 3.3V+5V 140W max, combined 750W max. I opened the case and checked the rails, molex connectors and sata power 12V was on the second rail. Tried those with a dual molex->pcie power adapter as well as one of the built in pcie power connectors together => It happened anyways.

I guess I'll accept the status quo as the miner runs rock solid with clock of 255 and 980mV.

So it turns out that psu is just a crappy one. 720w is 60 amps at 12 v rails. My 850w corsairs are rated at 60 amps too much psu marketing I guess. Do you have something else connected to this psu?
Or just hex8 board?
Ps: it sounds like your psu is 550w sold as 750w
Just kidding though

[askhimthatsoon]

Hey,
Have in mind that even connected to separate rails most probably same would happen
Watch psu stamp. In two rails psu it says rail 1 up to x amps and rail to up to x amps but combined up to y amps and y is lower than hex8 consumption

Thanks, I checked the label again it says: 12V1+12V2 720W max, 3.3V+5V 140W max, combined 750W max. I opened the case and checked the rails, molex connectors and sata power 12V was on the second rail. Tried those with a dual molex->pcie power adapter as well as one of the built in pcie power connectors together => It happened anyways.

I guess I'll accept the status quo as the miner runs rock solid with clock of 255 and 980mV.

So it turns out that psu is just a crappy one. 720w is 60 amps at 12 v rails. My 850w corsairs are rated at 60 amps too much psu marketing I guess. Do you have something else connected to this psu?
Or just hex8 board?
Ps: it sounds like your psu is 550w sold as 750w
Just kidding though

There is nothing else on the psu => Yep, the PSU is crap. It was also very cheap (43 Euro), I guess I got what I asked for...

[Gator-hex]

jep, it's strange all of them are loose/broken.. I'd underestand one or two, but even those that are under the sink...

I noticed the Technobit web site now has an Returns system: http://technobit.eu/index.php?id_category=14&controller=category&id_lang=1

Marto, whoever edits your website, they spelled "Repair" wrong multiple times! 

[marto74]

10x
Gator
fixed

[foobar31]

@marto

I was wondering if your A1 based board implements a sort of emergency shutdown ?
The use case might be when the board is going too hot, because of an internal issue or because of a fan running slowly for instance.

If not, that would be a good feature (together with regulated fan speed) to implement in the next generation

[pidge]

Got my two HEX8A1's today.  Have immediately swapped the fans on each for 3 x Arctic Cooling F9 and with a fan speed controller to keep them a bit quiter.

I've got a pair of WR703N's flashed up with the firmware, and I've got one HEX8A1 up and hashing just fine (at 200/900 to reduce the heat output, 0 errors after 20 odd minutes) and warm.  Very warm!

Using a FSP Raider 650W for the PSU - inexpensive, and the miner only 50% loads the PSU.

What I'd like to see:
- Larger PCB
- Pairs(?) of Coin Craft ASICs with Copper heat spreader shim, with mounting holes to allow for CPU heatsink / water block mounting option
- Larger stock Heatsinks, for 2 x 120mm fans in push/pull cross-flow configuration, sort of like the Antminer S1
- Configurable temperature based work throttling and shutdown.

Dreams are free, right?

[Gator-hex]

@marto

I was wondering if your A1 based board implements a sort of emergency shutdown ?
The use case might be when the board is going too hot, because of an internal issue or because of a fan running slowly for instance.

If not, that would be a good feature (together with regulated fan speed) to implement in the next generation

If your board has poly-fuses on, it has that, that's what those ugly yellow/orange/brown tags do.

[Gator-hex]

Got my two HEX8A1's today.  Have immediately swapped the fans on each for 3 x Arctic Cooling F9 and with a fan speed controller to keep them a bit quiter.

I've got a pair of WR703N's flashed up with the firmware, and I've got one HEX8A1 up and hashing just fine (at 200/900 to reduce the heat output, 0 errors after 20 odd minutes) and warm.  Very warm!

Using a FSP Raider 650W for the PSU - inexpensive, and the miner only 50% loads the PSU.

What I'd like to see:
- Larger PCB
- Pairs(?) of Coin Craft ASICs with Copper heat spreader shim, with mounting holes to allow for CPU heatsink / water block mounting option
- Larger stock Heatsinks, for 2 x 120mm fans in push/pull cross-flow configuration, sort of like the Antminer S1
- Configurable temperature based work throttling and shutdown.

Dreams are free, right?

These A1 chips are awkward to add cooling to because they're in a 30% top 70% bottom package so I don't think we'll ever see a standard CPU cooler on them like KnC/HashFast use because they are 100% top cooling package.

On the Hex8A1-260 there's a flat space under the heatsink (4.8cmx10cm) where you could add some additional cooling if you wanted to.

[foobar31]

@marto

I was wondering if your A1 based board implements a sort of emergency shutdown ?
The use case might be when the board is going too hot, because of an internal issue or because of a fan running slowly for instance.

If not, that would be a good feature (together with regulated fan speed) to implement in the next generation

If your board has poly-fuses on, it has that, that's what those ugly yellow/orange/brown tags do.

Not sure I have this components onboard (if you're talking about the same yellow things we saw a couple of posts before).
I don't know a lot about electronic but how does that works exactly ?

Here is a picture of my board :

http://s18.postimg.org/v75d2kce1/IMG_1438.jpg

[Gator-hex]

Marto did say he was moving to a better way of handling it, instead of poly-fuses, you must have one of the latest boards.

I'd be very greatful if you could give us a power/GH reading from your new board. I suspect poly-fuses weren't very power efficiency friendly.

[foobar31]

Marto did say he was moving to a better way of handling it, instead of poly-fuses, you must have one of the latest boards.

So my question to marto is still opened

I'd be very greatful if you could give us a power/GH reading from your new board. I suspect poly-fuses weren't very power efficiency friendly.

Sure.
Over the past 16 hours, the board hashed at an average of 221.5 Ghs configured with 240@900mV
The power consumption is very stable at 283 W which means 1.28 W/GHs (with a very low 0.12 % hardware error ratio)

I'll probably make some tests with different settings but I'm not at home for the next week and I prefer to be not far from a board while testing new parameters Let me know if you'd like me to focus on specific clock/power couples.

Again and as far as I'm concerned, these boards are just awesome !
Delivered right in time, with a fair & right price, I would have bought more if I had not thousands of $$$ in BlackArrow's bank account, waiting for an again delayed delivery...

[Gator-hex]

Over the past 16 hours, the board hashed at an average of 221.5 Ghs configured with 240@900mV
The power consumption is very stable at 283 W which means 1.28 W/GHs.

Thanks, I was hoping without the poly-fuses they would run better, but it seems about the same as the one I have where all the poly-fuse legs are attached. Of course you won't have to worry about knocking legs off with your board, which does seem to impact performance.

[loshia]

Marto did say he was moving to a better way of handling it, instead of poly-fuses, you must have one of the latest boards.

So my question to marto is still opened

I'd be very greatful if you could give us a power/GH reading from your new board. I suspect poly-fuses weren't very power efficiency friendly.

Sure.
Over the past 16 hours, the board hashed at an average of 221.5 Ghs configured with 240@900mV
The power consumption is very stable at 283 W which means 1.28 W/GHs (with a very low 0.12 % hardware error ratio)

I'll probably make some tests with different settings but I'm not at home for the next week and I prefer to be not far from a board while testing new parameters Let me know if you'd like me to focus on specific clock/power couples.

Again and as far as I'm concerned, these boards are just awesome !
Delivered right in time, with a fair & right price, I would have bought more if I had not thousands of $$$ in BlackArrow's bank account, waiting for an again delayed delivery...

Congrats dude nice to hear all is good

[pidge]

With 200/900 speed/voltage, after 8.7 hours, 11635 nonces @ 128 difficulty, 204.2GH/s average speed, zero hardware errors

Restarting with 210/900

[2GOOD]

With 200/900 speed/voltage, after 8.7 hours, 11635 nonces @ 128 difficulty, 204.2GH/s average speed, zero hardware errors

Restarting with 210/900

@900mV you can go upto 240 freq on some boards

[Gator-hex]

With 200/900 speed/voltage, after 8.7 hours, 11635 nonces @ 128 difficulty, 204.2GH/s average speed, zero hardware errors

Restarting with 210/900

Sounds like a good board I get nowhere near 204GH at 200/900, more like 185-195GH!

I'm currently running 220/910 for 220GH 0.3% error, on a good day, with 3x Arctic F9 quiet fans.

[pidge]

With 200/900 speed/voltage, after 8.7 hours, 11635 nonces @ 128 difficulty, 204.2GH/s average speed, zero hardware errors

Restarting with 210/900

@900mV you can go upto 240 freq on some boards

after 10.5 hours at 210/900 (38112 seconds)
14986 nonces @ 128 difficulty
6 hardware errors
216.169 GH/s

And my other WR-703N is playing silly buggers and not starting cgminer by itself, having to resort to putty.  Admittedly that specific WR-703N and release 0.1.0 on it which I upgraded to 0.2.0 with the factory bin file, and kept the settings....

[Zich]

With 200/900 speed/voltage, after 8.7 hours, 11635 nonces @ 128 difficulty, 204.2GH/s average speed, zero hardware errors

Restarting with 210/900

@900mV you can go upto 240 freq on some boards

after 10.5 hours at 210/900 (38112 seconds)
14986 nonces @ 128 difficulty
6 hardware errors
216.169 GH/s

And my other WR-703N is playing silly buggers and not starting cgminer by itself, having to resort to putty.  Admittedly that specific WR-703N and release 0.1.0 on it which I upgraded to 0.2.0 with the factory bin file, and kept the settings....

That was really nice result, my board can not run stable like that.