lightfoot (OP)
Legendary
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Activity: 3164
Merit: 2258
I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)
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December 27, 2013, 08:22:04 PM |
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Well, my BFL order came. Minus the $20 PCI-E cable, I guess it's on back order and I'm glad that they didn't wait for it. But it does mean I have to use the BFL cables for the moment....
Anyway, some thoughts: The miners do work, and seem to be working pretty well. There were three, well packed, clean, and new. Fans all blow down, they only have two drilled holes in the bottom of the back plate to see the LEDs, and they all use the newer style fan mounting which is much better than those stupid spacers of yore.
Put them all online and tried to read them with the BFL Commport tool. Well well well, they all do not respond, the tool thinks they are mining. Whatever the software load it looks to be different than normal. That's odd, I'll have to reflash them but I thought I would take a look at the statistics first.
Speeds are not bad. One is at 8, one at 7.7, one at 7.0. The two with green dots on the back are the fast ones, the red dot is a slower one. I can see how BFL is doing things.
Taking them apart they use the normal new style heat sink, which blocks the front vents somewhat. Yuck, I don't recall if my older ones do that, will have to check. Pulling a heat sink showed a thick pad of heat sink compound (ie: krud), I took that off and put on dabs of Radio Shack heat sink compound. Much better.
These things run hotter than my older jallies, not sure why. Temps were almost 50c, blowing down on the FTDI chip is probably a good way to fry it. Switched one of the fans, temp is at 45c. Bit better but still hot, odd.
Took one of the units and put it on the torture table for another chip from lentbt. Two chips came today, 4 more ordered today, guy is selling very good stuff. I recommend. Chip went on fine with the preheat to 350f for 5 mins, then 450c for 90 seconds this time after using a thin coating of flux and aligning the chip. Don't go by the markings, use a magnifying glass to look at the balls. They must be aligned perfectly, otherwise you're wasting a chip.
Put fan on pointing down and left sides off. Unit is at 48c, hashing 12gh, three lights on back. Nice. Will take another one to 12gh tonight, then when I get the extra chips will probably boost both to 16gh then do something else with my remaining chips.
Overall, good product, but running hotter. I'd recommend flipping the fan if you're running it with the sides on, otherwise take the sides off and look into replacing that crap on the bottom of the unit.
C
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