X6500 Custom FPGA Miner

[fizzisist]

Just curious, why would you bother with the overclocker firmware when the 200mhz firmware is rock solid and you don't gain anything on the overclocker?

Well, a few reasons. As bonks said, some FPGAs will safely clock higher than 200 MHz, for one. Another reason, and I find this one particularly important, MPBM can automatically adjust the clock to keep things running at a safe temperature. If it detects a really big temperature rise or jump in error rates it can completely shut down the fixed clock firmware, but with the overclocker it can slowly reduce it until it finds a safe clock rate. This means you have an extra safety measure in case a fan fails, heatsink falls off, etc., and this will kick in earlier than the dramatic shutdown for the fixed clock.

Also, if you have network or host computer problems, the FPGA will fall back into an idle state when it doesn't have work. With the fixed clock ones, it will continue hashing the same data over and over until it gets something new. This could mean some wasted electricity. Sure, it's a small amount, but any amount cuts into your bottom line.

[tgmarks]

Just curious, why would you bother with the overclocker firmware when the 200mhz firmware is rock solid and you don't gain anything on the overclocker?

Well, a few reasons. As bonks said, some FPGAs will safely clock higher than 200 MHz, for one. Another reason, and I find this one particularly important, MPBM can automatically adjust the clock to keep things running at a safe temperature. If it detects a really big temperature rise or jump in error rates it can completely shut down the fixed clock firmware, but with the overclocker it can slowly reduce it until it finds a safe clock rate. This means you have an extra safety measure in case a fan fails, heatsink falls off, etc., and this will kick in earlier than the dramatic shutdown for the fixed clock.

Also, if you have network or host computer problems, the FPGA will fall back into an idle state when it doesn't have work. With the fixed clock ones, it will continue hashing the same data over and over until it gets something new. This could mean some wasted electricity. Sure, it's a small amount, but any amount cuts into your bottom line.

ok, i appreciate the response and agree with the points made given the right conditions.

Is it expected in the future to be able to significantly overclock beyond the 200mhz?

[tgmarks]

Is there a ztexmerge_190mhz firmware available?

180 and 200 but no 190 to my knowledge.

[Zeronic]

I plan to order a X6500 board once I get back home after this Offsite Server Construction, Do you think a 5A would be enough to power 2 boards?

Thanks in Advance.

[TheSeven]

I plan to order a X6500 board once I get back home after this Offsite Server Construction, Do you think a 5A would be enough to power 2 boards?

Thanks in Advance.

At 12V they will use about 3A, so 5A is plenty of headroom.

[nbtcminer]

@All / Fizzisist:

Any word on CGminer support for the X6500 ?

[nelisky]

@All / Fizzisist:

Any word on CGminer support for the X6500 ?

Still trucking along. I've had very little time to spare unfortunately, but I'm by no means stopped. There's a lot of boiler plate code that I'm still doing and I guess that'll take me a couple of solid days, and all I have been able to put is the odd hour here and there.

I'm always hoping to have a test version for everyone during the weekend and then get lots of stuff to do that just takes precedence, it sucks deeply.

But again, I'm working as hard as I can and as soon as I get somewhere usable I'll push it.

[Pipesnake]

Does the overclocker firmware clock up to 200MHz yet? If not, has there been any work recently towards that?

Just bought another board recently and one of the chips is up 212mh/s!

Will report if it goes higher.

[MykelSilver]

Currently I am using the X6500 Rev3 without any heatsink or cooling (I have ordered the Heatsinks but have to wait several weeks (in the Netherlands the heatsinks are not available unfortuanately). According to the documentation of the  Spartan-6 LX150-3FGG484C the maximum core temperature must not exceed 150 degrees (Celsius?). The MPBM gives fortunately the temp per core. Does anyone can tell me if these temperature values are the ones not to exceed? Or is the maximum allowed temparature lower than 150? Thanks

[n4l3hp]

While waiting for my heatsinks to arrive, I used some old athlon xp hsf and northbridge heatsinks and been mining for almost a week now.



Old Dell Latitude D510 equipped with Pentium M 738 and PATA SSD mining with my new babies.  



Two is stable above 200 MH/s while the other two fluctuates between 188-199 MH/s. It's probably the temporary HSFs fault. Temps are quite good considering the ambient room temp is between 36-39 Celsius during the day.



The one at the bottom got disconnected yesterday when my cat tried to reclaim his favorite lounging area.

[MykelSilver]

Thanks for sharing!

[n4l3hp]

MPBM/s default warning temp setting is 45 and I haven't seen these babies above that yet so it's probably normal for a hot environment (I live in the Philippines) and its scorching hot outside during the day. My hobby room doesn't have an AC so I just leave the big window open (barred of course).

[Zeronic]

Just order my first FGPA board, one X6500 and a Power Supply. I pan to expand in to a Telco Short Rack, then it both modular and expandable.

[tgmarks]

If anyone is interested, I am considering selling a couple of mine.  Let me know.

[freshzive]

anyone heard anything on cgminer support for x6500s?

[wildemagic]

anyone heard anything on cgminer support for x6500s?

Perhaps ask in the CGMiner thread here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=28402.0
Or in the BFGMiner thread (fork of CGMiner with extra FPGA support) here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=78192.0

kind regards

[hashking]

anyone heard anything on cgminer support for x6500s?

I pm'd nelisky and haven't received a response from him.  Not sure what's going on.

[freshzive]

anyone heard anything on cgminer support for x6500s?

I pm'd nelisky and haven't received a response from him.  Not sure what's going on.

yeah i did the same. never heard back

[nelisky]

Well, guys, I don't know how to put this... I've lost all my work on the x6500 support on cgminer... I was waiting for a partial working version to push to my git repo and... the hard drive died. I've had other drives die on me in the same manner (it doesn't spin up, just clicks), and I always got them to spin up one more time to get a backup done, only it has taken multiple days until I managed that. I'm trying...

But I really don't feel like starting all over right this minute, so if someone else wants to take a stab at it I'll be glad to send the board over. I did pay taxes on getting it into EU and I would really like to get that much reimbursed by whoever gets the board. Failing that I can try to return the board to fizzisist and try to get the taxes reimbursed, though I'm not sure I can.

Or once the frustration wears down I can get to it again, but honestly I've put a lot of time in this and this was the most amateurish error I could have done.

But rest assured I did not grab the board and ran, I'm fully invested in ztex boards and am only doing this x6500 thing to help out, as most of you probably know.

I'll let everyone know if I do get to recover my work but don't hold your breath.

It sucks!!!

[rjk]

Well, guys, I don't know how to put this... I've lost all my work on the x6500 support on cgminer... I was waiting for a partial working version to push to my git repo and... the hard drive died. I've had other drives die on me in the same manner (it doesn't spin up, just clicks), and I always got them to spin up one more time to get a backup done, only it has taken multiple days until I managed that. I'm trying...

But I really don't feel like starting all over right this minute, so if someone else wants to take a stab at it I'll be glad to send the board over. I did pay taxes on getting it into EU and I would really like to get that much reimbursed by whoever gets the board. Failing that I can try to return the board to fizzisist and try to get the taxes reimbursed, though I'm not sure I can.

Or once the frustration wears down I can get to it again, but honestly I've put a lot of time in this and this was the most amateurish error I could have done.

But rest assured I did not grab the board and ran, I'm fully invested in ztex boards and am only doing this x6500 thing to help out, as most of you probably know.

I'll let everyone know if I do get to recover my work but don't hold your breath.

It sucks!!!

Freezer trick, and don't forget the plastic bag to prevent condensation.