X6500 Custom FPGA Miner

[li_gangyi]

Please be very very careful with the 200Mhash bitstreams in fact anything above 166 is serious business. You'd probably need to remove the stock tape and thermal epoxy the heatsinks on or use a heftier heatsink.

Whatever you do, you still need to maintain some airflow over the board as the Vregs are getting warm too. So even if you so decide to watercool the FPGAs you'd need a low speed fan to push some air over the Vregs.

[njloof]

Any reason why this bitstream isn't posted on http://fpgamining.com/bitstreams/ ?
I've ordered the thermal adhesive and would like to give it a try.

                                 ^^ This ^^

200MHz bitstream's been posted.
http://fpgamining.com/bitstreams/

[c_k]

Cablesaurus are still out of stock 

[freshzive]

394.95 MH/s | 0: 1558/28/10 1.8%/0.6% | 1: 1573/15/15 0.9%/0.9% | 9h47m | AH00WOVT

^^ 200mhz bitstream with a gigantic box fan blowing on it. ordered some thermal glue, so i'll try that out soon

[n0ne]

These might work well, cheap too.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Low-Profile-Heatsink-Intel-D945GCLF-Atom-Mini-ITX-board-/130303965124?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e56b8b7c4

[ZodiacDragon84]

How hard could one push one of these with this water cooling solution?

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/7211/ex-blc-451/EK_ASUS_4_Intel_Northbridge_Southbridge_Chipset_Liquid_Cooling_Block_-_Acetal_EK-NBSB_ASUS_4_Acetal.html?tl=g30c89s147#blank

[li_gangyi]

You'd need to figure out a way to mount the blocks, as well as still provide some airflow over the board to cool the power supplies etc. We've not released dynamically clocking bitstreams at this point, but it is in the works. So far I've not been able to synthesize anything that'll run over 200Mhz in Xilinx's ISE. You could push it even if the ISE tells you it might not work, but there's no saying if it'll work properly. If that changes I'll post an update. I've yet to run all the possible instances under ISE, I'm only dedicating 2 of my PC's possible 4 cores for running this at the moment because I still game on it.  

[spiccioli]

These might work well, cheap too.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Low-Profile-Heatsink-Intel-D945GCLF-Atom-Mini-ITX-board-/130303965124?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e56b8b7c4

n0ne,

it would be better, IMHO, to have a single heatsink that covers both FPGAs to minimize thermal differences between them.

regards.

spiccioli.

[ZodiacDragon84]

Maybe I need to find a water block that is low profile, and can cover both chips, while having a clamp mechanism that mounts via the standoff hole? I'd like to theoretically mount these puppies over each other in a stack of 5 or so, all water cooled flying balls to the wall out MHz wise. and the water block fittings would have to be mounted on the sides of the block

[Cablesaurus]

We're working on getting more units available as soon as possible.

[n0ne]

These might work well, cheap too.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Low-Profile-Heatsink-Intel-D945GCLF-Atom-Mini-ITX-board-/130303965124?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e56b8b7c4

n0ne,

it would be better, IMHO, to have a single heatsink that covers both FPGAs to minimize thermal differences between them.

regards.

spiccioli.

I agree, it's just tough to find rectangle heat sinks that support fans.

[njloof]

FWIW, I have the 200MHz bitstreams now running on 4 FPGAs cooled with two of those 80mm USB fans. Granted, they are in a garage in January (~50F most of the day) but the fins and board are just barely warm to the touch.

[ZodiacDragon84]

FWIW, I have the 200MHz bitstreams now running on 4 FPGAs cooled with two of those 80mm USB fans. Granted, they are in a garage in January (~50F most of the day) but the fins and board are just barely warm to the touch.

what are your hash rates?

[njloof]

FWIW, I have the 200MHz bitstreams now running on 4 FPGAs cooled with two of those 80mm USB fans. Granted, they are in a garage in January (~50F most of the day) but the fins and board are just barely warm to the touch.

what are your hash rates?

402.79 MH/s | 0: 7965/127/0 1.6%/0.0% | 1: 7954/97/0 1.2%/0.0% | 2d18m47s
388.65 MH/s | 0: 7821/86/0 1.1%/0.0% | 1: 7715/85/2 1.1%/0.0% | 1d23h10m

[tgmarks]

I'm running at 200mhz off my main desktop in the house with one of these sitting on top of the stock heatsinks:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233080

and i'm seeing this:

425.22 MH/s | 0: 8756/30/4 0.3%/0.0% | 1: 8925/27/0 0.3% | 2d5h36m

and i'm just warm to the touch.

[ZodiacDragon84]

So how hard you guys think we can push these things? I would love to put them BFL folks in a competitive place if their hardware exists. With proper cooling, and well regulated power, whats the theoretical limit? I plan on buying one of these and water cooling it when my tax return comes this week, I will offer a bounty if someone can squeeze 500 M/hash out of these. (250 MHz each chip I believe)

[shad]

the miner is so stable since the last big changes

314.39 MH/s 0: 20169/167/0 0.8%/0.0% 1: 20276/156/0 0.8%/0.0% 6d2h53m

i am running on 166Mhz

but now i have to shut it down, because i will mount it in a case and put it in the coldest room i have and try more Mhz

[njloof]

So how hard you guys think we can push these things? I would love to put them BFL folks in a competitive place if their hardware exists. With proper cooling, and well regulated power, whats the theoretical limit? I plan on buying one of these and water cooling it when my tax return comes this week, I will offer a bounty if someone can squeeze 500 M/hash out of these. (250 MHz each chip I believe)

You can see more in-depth conversation about trying to squeeze additional performance over at the ztex thread -- my read on it is that 200MHz may be close to the max you'll get from the LX150. There is a little noise about upping the voltage on the chips to try to get a tiny bit more performance (~4%) but it's a good way to blow the chip if you screw up.

[shad]

so i mounted my X6500 in a case were i thougt i could put 4 X6500 in it
now i think i can put 2 in the case

my major problem is that the connectors of voltage & usb are not on the same side
if you are working on a new layout i would prefer to have all connectors on the same side, it would be easier for me and i think its the smarter solution anyway

[njloof]

they sell usb cables with a right angle connector on them... you can use that to plug into the USB port in the back of the board, then run the cable underneath the board to the side with the power connector.