GridSeed 5-chip USB miner voltage mod

[dyland]

will this mod work with hashra controla?

The mod will work for any mining software, you just need to change the chip frequency.

Nervous to attempt, but an extra 100 khsh across 20 miners translates to an extra 2Mhsh. Anyone want to share any best practices aside from OP?

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[Ferris419]

will this mod work with hashra controla?

The mod will work for any mining software, you just need to change the chip frequency.

Nervous to attempt, but an extra 100 khsh across 20 miners translates to an extra 2Mhsh. Anyone want to share any best practices aside from OP?

I did the 49.9k mod on all 14 of my gridseeds and I'm glad I did. I'm running CPUminer and all of my chips are stable at 1200mhz and up. The pool and CPUminer and both reporting very close to each other so I'm happy!!

[happydaze]

@Happydaze -  what you might try to check is the voltage on the vIN pins on the gc3355 chips.  Test them all, ones that vary may lead to another clue as to where the fault is.  Between looking at the board and the schematics you can likely trace back the supply voltage line and test at various points along the way to try and narrow down the possibilities.

I will try to.  Thanks for the suggestion.  I'll keep posting what I find as clues for anyone that can help me.  For example I've found that with the 3 working chips at 1000MHz single mode mining the damaged pod is drawing 34 watts with a 47.5k resistor in the R139 spot.  I think that is high so I did not let it run unattended overnight.  I ran it this morning and it still finds 3 chips.  I'll work on it this afternoon.

hmm, sounds like the work of a hidden dummy load... that's WAY too high for only 3 working chips, keep searching.....something's still drawing too much current - it could be those chips pulling too much current too due to being compromised by previous problem. They still might end up being declared 'shot' and the chips will all have to be replaced. Could be a faulty support or driver component sucking too much current otherwise. keep lookin

Well I found the dummy load.  Actually it found me ...... 

I think Gridseed numbers the chips 1,2,3,4,5
Cpuminer numbers the chips 0,1,2,3,4
Anyway, using cpuminer numbering this morning chips 2,3 & 4 were working. Chips 0 and 1 were not working.  Wattage was too high at 34w.
Chip 1 (M2 in the center I assume) is no more.  I removed what was left of it after it went up in smoke.

Now chips 0 and 4 are working. Watts are much reduced, only 14.5w at 1000MHz with the two chips working.  I feel more confident about it with the low watts. Around 170 kh/s reported by cpuminer and the pool after several hours. Very stable.

I'm assuming chip 1 connections to the board permitted chips 2 & 3 to work this morning but also prevented chip 0 from working.  Removing chip 1 allowed chip 0 to work but now prevents chips 2 & 3 from working. A 2 chip expected wattage pod is ok after that meltdown but a 4 chip pod would be better!  I need to figure out if there is some way to bring chips 2 & 3 back online. Maybe a bridge of some sort?

[gtraah]

I have 1 grid which I have modded which seems to be getting much more HW errors @ 1200mhz than all my other grids.. All mine are 0-5HW< per 24 hr and this one is like 100 HW per 24 Hr I have applied cooling to the top and bottom, but still happening I wonder what else there is to try... I mean its still fully functional the shares are sitting just below the others.. so I can keep running like this and just ignore it or try solve it or reduce Mhz

[wolfey2014]

@Happydaze -  what you might try to check is the voltage on the vIN pins on the gc3355 chips.  Test them all, ones that vary may lead to another clue as to where the fault is.  Between looking at the board and the schematics you can likely trace back the supply voltage line and test at various points along the way to try and narrow down the possibilities.

I will try to.  Thanks for the suggestion.  I'll keep posting what I find as clues for anyone that can help me.  For example I've found that with the 3 working chips at 1000MHz single mode mining the damaged pod is drawing 34 watts with a 47.5k resistor in the R139 spot.  I think that is high so I did not let it run unattended overnight.  I ran it this morning and it still finds 3 chips.  I'll work on it this afternoon.

hmm, sounds like the work of a hidden dummy load... that's WAY too high for only 3 working chips, keep searching.....something's still drawing too much current - it could be those chips pulling too much current too due to being compromised by previous problem. They still might end up being declared 'shot' and the chips will all have to be replaced. Could be a faulty support or driver component sucking too much current otherwise. keep lookin

Well I found the dummy load.  Actually it found me ......  

I think Gridseed numbers the chips 1,2,3,4,5
Cpuminer numbers the chips 0,1,2,3,4
Anyway, using cpuminer numbering this morning chips 2,3 & 4 were working. Chips 0 and 1 were not working.  Wattage was too high at 34w.
Chip 1 (M2 in the center I assume) is no more.  I removed what was left of it after it went up in smoke.

Now chips 0 and 4 are working. Watts are much reduced, only 14.5w at 1000MHz with the two chips working.  I feel more confident about it with the low watts. Around 170 kh/s reported by cpuminer and the pool after several hours. Very stable.

I'm assuming chip 1 connections to the board permitted chips 2 & 3 to work this morning but also prevented chip 0 from working.  Removing chip 1 allowed chip 0 to work but now prevents chips 2 & 3 from working. A 2 chip expected wattage pod is ok after that meltdown but a 4 chip pod would be better!  I need to figure out if there is some way to bring chips 2 & 3 back online. Maybe a bridge of some sort?

Without my looking at the schematic, I can easily assume that there are some common connections that are completed by each chip's bridged pins. I recall there being several. Make sure, as per the schematic, that those pins are still bridged and if not, bridge them. That may take care of getting the other 2 chips working. Check and re-connect or bridge any pins that were disconnected, compromised or damaged by the bad chip or the removal thereof.
It's possible that the other two chips went bad when chip 1 went SNAP! FIZZZZZZZZZZ! and released its magic black smoke  
I think you're on the right track. Keep it up and you'll have it all figured out and working again in no time.
I wonder if we can order the actual chips ready to go now?
Good luck, mate!

[dyland]

will this mod work with hashra controla?

The mod will work for any mining software, you just need to change the chip frequency.

Nervous to attempt, but an extra 100 khsh across 20 miners translates to an extra 2Mhsh. Anyone want to share any best practices aside from OP?

I did the 49.9k mod on all 14 of my gridseeds and I'm glad I did. I'm running CPUminer and all of my chips are stable at 1200mhz and up. The pool and CPUminer and both reporting very close to each other so I'm happy!!

Thanks for the follow up; can you list the tools/hardware you used and your new hash rate? Also if possible, anyone know the page in thus thread where I find the 49.9k mod offhand?

[wolfey2014]

will this mod work with hashra controla?

The mod will work for any mining software, you just need to change the chip frequency.

Nervous to attempt, but an extra 100 khsh across 20 miners translates to an extra 2Mhsh. Anyone want to share any best practices aside from OP?

I did the 49.9k mod on all 14 of my gridseeds and I'm glad I did. I'm running CPUminer and all of my chips are stable at 1200mhz and up. The pool and CPUminer and both reporting very close to each other so I'm happy!!

Thanks for the follow up; can you list the tools/hardware you used and your new hash rate? Also if possible, anyone know the page in thus thread where I find the 49.9k mod offhand?

Go back to page 1, search for - wolfey2014 - all my posts will come up, and all shall be revealed to you

[gtraah]

I am not a professional solderer but I am good at things

I bought the whole kit for under $100 with hot air station and all, and guess what? I now dont even use this ALl I use is

A pair of tweezers , a Pencil Iron, Peice of Solder, Flux , Toothbrush, Metholayed spirits to clean ANDDD a Magnifying stand ALL PURCHASED for under $50

Tiny 0402 SMD 49.9k No problems  --- I am in Australia Sydney if anyone wants

It now takes me just under 10min to fully Thermal Cool, Solder, Test and re- assemle a Pod, This is with the 49.9k SMD 0402

I have now done almost 30 Pods still quite abit to go , But I am getting there

[J4bberwock]

oh well looks like crystal swap is in the pipline - upgrade the crystal anyone? thinking maybe a 33mhz in there .

Since I'm curious, I ordered some crystals to test on one pod. I'll report if anything apart from black magic smoke comes out of the tests.
According to gridseed notes, the crystal used can be up to 50MHz.

27MHz arrived at home, so I'll test it on one pod if it still hashes, I'll go for 33Mhz or close
I'm wondering where we can see the difference since the pod only uses the oscillator/crystal as a clock reference.
1000Mhz setting will actually be 1080, but where/how to check?

[Reggie0]

Check your crystal!!! just inspected mine and found a small dent in the top - caught possible from when fitting the top and maybe overtighted a bit too much. the dent fits exactly where the edge of the central heatsink block is. darn it. time to get the drimmel out again. hopefully it aint damaged it too much. oh well looks like crystal swap is in the pipline - upgrade the crystal anyone? thinking maybe a 33mhz in there .

the frequency wont have fried it i had mine at over 2200MHZ back in the ealry days of this thread - got too many hadware errors though!

There are no reason to upgrade your crystal. Downgrading is much better, because it decreases the frequency steps.

[poopypants]

will this mod work with hashra controla?

The mod will work for any mining software, you just need to change the chip frequency.

Nervous to attempt, but an extra 100 khsh across 20 miners translates to an extra 2Mhsh. Anyone want to share any best practices aside from OP?

I did the 49.9k mod on all 14 of my gridseeds and I'm glad I did. I'm running CPUminer and all of my chips are stable at 1200mhz and up. The pool and CPUminer and both reporting very close to each other so I'm happy!!

Thanks for the follow up; can you list the tools/hardware you used and your new hash rate? Also if possible, anyone know the page in thus thread where I find the 49.9k mod offhand?

Go here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=575315.0#post_VMOD3 for good pictures and a nice writeup of the steps you need to take.  Good luck.

[Kergekoin]

I have wierd anomaly with one gridseed 5chipper. It seems that only one out of 5chips is working. It hashes 80khs, but gives no HW errors.
I checked its PCB and saw no problems.
Any ideas?

[ZiG]

I have wierd anomaly with one gridseed 5chipper. It seems that only one out of 5chips is working. It hashes 80khs, but gives no HW errors.
I checked its PCB and saw no problems.
Any ideas?

Did you do a volt mod ...and which one...?

[Kergekoin]

I have wierd anomaly with one gridseed 5chipper. It seems that only one out of 5chips is working. It hashes 80khs, but gives no HW errors.
I checked its PCB and saw no problems.
Any ideas?

Did you do a volt mod ...and which one...?

yeah, basic 2+2 dots solder together voltmod. Only one miner out of 72 is having this problem.

[ZiG]

I have wierd anomaly with one gridseed 5chipper. It seems that only one out of 5chips is working. It hashes 80khs, but gives no HW errors.
I checked its PCB and saw no problems.
Any ideas?

Did you do a volt mod ...and which one...?

yeah, basic 2+2 dots solder together voltmod. Only one miner out of 72 is having this problem.

Sounds like a RMA...back to GAW...72 Gridseeds kit...right...?

I got the same kit delivered yesterday...best bang for the money...

[amix]

So to post some good news after the lot bad from my side i got 20nF capacitors today and fixed my not working gridseed *puhh* but no vmodding for me anymore to small and tiny ..

anyway has someone info if hashra wi update to sandors cpuminer ?

try wolfey version of the mod! same thing but uses a 1/8 axle resistor - so bit easy to handle, alos solder it different points, but whihc are electrical the same. He done several post on his mod, sure if you ask he hee point the page - maybe hell give you a link to it too. its sound as is zig mod electircal they are both sound mods. wolfey mod is in here some where many pages ago!

[amix]

oh well looks like crystal swap is in the pipline - upgrade the crystal anyone? thinking maybe a 33mhz in there .

Since I'm curious, I ordered some crystals to test on one pod. I'll report if anything apart from black magic smoke comes out of the tests.
According to gridseed notes, the crystal used can be up to 50MHz.

27MHz arrived at home, so I'll test it on one pod if it still hashes, I'll go for 33Mhz or close
I'm wondering where we can see the difference since the pod only uses the oscillator/crystal as a clock reference.
1000Mhz setting will actually be 1080, but where/how to check?

got my 33mhz too! first got to get them hash stable before i can even consider trying it on any

[amix]

I have wierd anomaly with one gridseed 5chipper. It seems that only one out of 5chips is working. It hashes 80khs, but gives no HW errors.
I checked its PCB and saw no problems.
Any ideas?

Did you do a volt mod ...and which one...?

yeah, basic 2+2 dots solder together voltmod. Only one miner out of 72 is having this problem.

Sounds like a RMA...back to GAW...72 Gridseeds kit...right...?

I got the same kit delivered yesterday...best bang for the money...

modding voids warranty!

[anarchyx914]

To everyone that has done this mod, have any of you needed to upgrade cooling on the unit?

I was using thermal compound on mine, and one of mine shorted out and fried the gridseed. Apparently when you remove the pad, the screws compress down and potentially touch the unit.

Are you guys just leaving stock pads on there? I would like to get aftermarket pads, but to upgrade cooling on 50 of my seeds will be like $200 in thermal pads lol.

The thermal interface grease makes me paranoid now because of the 1 unit that fried.

[nst6563]

To everyone that has done this mod, have any of you needed to upgrade cooling on the unit?

I was using thermal compound on mine, and one of mine shorted out and fried the gridseed. Apparently when you remove the pad, the screws compress down and potentially touch the unit.

Are you guys just leaving stock pads on there? I would like to get aftermarket pads, but to upgrade cooling on 50 of my seeds will be like $200 in thermal pads lol.

The thermal interface grease makes me paranoid now because of the 1 unit that fried.

If you remove the thermal pad on the back of the unit, you have to insulate the exposed contacts otherwise a short WILL occur.  If you chose to use paste on the top of the chips instead of the thermal pad, then chances are you'll need to mill out part of the heatsink so that it makes full contact to all five gc3355 chips.  There are 2 components (a 6-pin chip and the crystal) which are taller than the gc3355 chips.  If you crank down the heatsink, you'll put a lot of pressure on those two components and likely break them or at least break the solder connection to the board.  Thermal pads may not have level of heat transfer that the thermal paste does, but they're a much easier option.