GridSeed 5-chip USB miner voltage mod

[jamieb81]

Well I got a brand new GS and when I removed the heatsink I also got a bit of residue from the thermal pad left on them.

I guess it's just a matter how hard the little chinese kids tighten the screws  

Believe it or not but there was blood on my units :/
Well still is lol.


Also, after some testing here, it seems that these "mods" are somewhat bad. As far as I know, we get paid per share. I'm hashing away at ~530Kh/s (Running at 1213Mhz with 0 HW), but after 1 hour my machine that is hashing at 400Kh/s (900Mhz with 0 HW) is making just a few shares bellow the OC one (Like less than 5). I'm not even sure if I'm going to mod my other miners (I could be wrong). Anyone else who modded their units are running into this problem?

Thanks!

OMG it's not blood diamonds but blood miners lol

I can't tell you about your problem. I can say that without mod I can't go higher than 850. otherwise I get alot of red nonce.

What I did notice, is that on some pools I am able to push the Gridseed higher than others. Last time on one pool 825 worked and on an other 875

so I don't know about that but I did notice this happening on several pools.

[chanberg]

Well I got a brand new GS and when I removed the heatsink I also got a bit of residue from the thermal pad left on them.

I guess it's just a matter how hard the little chinese kids tighten the screws  

Believe it or not but there was blood on my units :/
Well still is lol.


Also, after some testing here, it seems that these "mods" are somewhat bad. As far as I know, we get paid per share. I'm hashing away at ~530Kh/s (Running at 1213Mhz with 0 HW), but after 1 hour my machine that is hashing at 400Kh/s (900Mhz with 0 HW) is making just a few shares bellow the OC one (Like less than 5). I'm not even sure if I'm going to mod my other miners (I could be wrong). Anyone else who modded their units are running into this problem?

Thanks!

that happens to me as well, but after 24 hours, they level out...

like when i first start these suckers up, one of my grids will be doing like 2x-3x more hashes than the rest... like it'll be in the 2000 accepted shares(cgminer), while the rest are still struggling in the 500's. But after 24hrs, they all are within the same ballpark..

[baselope]

Anyone near Dallas that wants to try this out but not sure about your soldering skills PM me. I've been in the electronics industries for over 30 years so this is a piece of cake....

I'll do it for nothing.

I am in Waxahachie and could sure use some help with this if you have time.  Haven't found the PM button yet on this forum...sorry.
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #vb0jyqJZllZYYR1C

[volder]

SMD Resistors arrived and successfully replaced. Now, to start testing! This is my first attempt at using a hot air rework station and I have very little soldering experience. I think it came out ok though.

[jamieb81]

wow very nice work Volder!

[simon66]

SMD Resistors arrived and successfully replaced. Now, to start testing! This is my first attempt at using a hot air rework station and I have very little soldering experience. I think it came out ok though.

It could be just me, but it looks like there is a solder bridge on the resistor you just replaced (Could be a camera + lighting "mirage").

[volder]

SMD Resistors arrived and successfully replaced. Now, to start testing! This is my first attempt at using a hot air rework station and I have very little soldering experience. I think it came out ok though.

It could be just me, but it looks like there is a solder bridge on the resistor you just replaced (Could be a camera + lighting "mirage").

I saw that too after I posted it. I went back and fixed it again just to be sure.

[wolfey2014]

SMD Resistors arrived and successfully replaced. Now, to start testing! This is my first attempt at using a hot air rework station and I have very little soldering experience. I think it came out ok though.

It could be just me, but it looks like there is a solder bridge on the resistor you just replaced (Could be a camera + lighting "mirage").

I saw that too after I posted it. I went back and fixed it again just to be sure.

Hey! Nice work there Volder!
Still, I don't see the need for going to all that expense, risk and trouble for just a simple resistor replacement.
Axials work perfectly and don't require such hassles and expense, as you've no doubt seen.
But you have proven that you have the skills to mod your own pods.
very well done!

By the way, here is a screen shot of some recent hashing being done by my 6 miners.
Very consistent! And my having turned off FIFO buffers all together via Device Manager in Win 7 32bit is working perfectly. Days of ZERO downtime! ZERO restarts! 100% 24/7 hashing! Just the way I want it!
**************************************************************

**************************************************************
Oh, and if you folks want to see my handy work, check out this link -
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=519112.msg6098563#msg6098563
And if you can't mod your pods yourself, send me a PM and Ill be happy to mod your pods for you!

[volder]

Just had a chance to plug it in and start hashing. Overclocked her to 1200MHz and away she goes. I know it just started, but since shares are being accepted we are off to a good start. I'll let it run for 24 hours and watch for hardware errors.

After a couple hours I'll post a screenshot of the pool hash rate.

[volder]

SMD Resistors arrived and successfully replaced. Now, to start testing! This is my first attempt at using a hot air rework station and I have very little soldering experience. I think it came out ok though.

It could be just me, but it looks like there is a solder bridge on the resistor you just replaced (Could be a camera + lighting "mirage").

I saw that too after I posted it. I went back and fixed it again just to be sure.

Hey! Nice work there Volder!
Still, I don't see the need for going to all that expense, risk and trouble for just a simple resistor replacement.
Axials work perfectly and don't require such hassles and expense, as you've no doubt seen.
But you have proven that you have the skills to mod your own pods.
very well done!

By the way, here is a screen shot of some recent hashing being done by my 6 miners.
Very consistent! And my having turned off FIFO buffers all together via Device Manager in Win 7 32bit is working perfectly. Days of ZERO downtime! ZERO restarts! 100% 24/7 hashing! Just the way I want it!

Thanks wolfey. Yes, there was some expense to get started. But it was equipment I wanted to buy anyways. This was just the nudge I needed to make it happen.

I use CGminer and a different driver than you. There is no COM port number assigned. I do not believe there is a FIFO buffer to disable because of this. But thanks for that bit.

[simon66]

SMD Resistors arrived and successfully replaced. Now, to start testing! This is my first attempt at using a hot air rework station and I have very little soldering experience. I think it came out ok though.

It could be just me, but it looks like there is a solder bridge on the resistor you just replaced (Could be a camera + lighting "mirage").

I saw that too after I posted it. I went back and fixed it again just to be sure.

Hey! Nice work there Volder!
Still, I don't see the need for going to all that expense, risk and trouble for just a simple resistor replacement.
Axials work perfectly and don't require such hassles and expense, as you've no doubt seen.
But you have proven that you have the skills to mod your own pods.
very well done!

By the way, here is a screen shot of some recent hashing being done by my 6 miners.
Very consistent! And my having turned off FIFO buffers all together via Device Manager in Win 7 32bit is working perfectly. Days of ZERO downtime! ZERO restarts! 100% 24/7 hashing! Just the way I want it!

Thanks wolfey. Yes, there was some expense to get started. But it was equipment I wanted to buy anyways. This was just the nudge I needed to make it happen.

I use CGminer and a different driver than you. There is no COM port number assigned. I do not believe there is a FIFO buffer to disable because of this. But thanks for that bit.

Whats the point of disabling FIFO buffer? Mine is enabled for all miners (From COM1 to COM9)

[cmilian]

Just had a chance to plug it in and start hashing. Overclocked her to 1200MHz and away she goes. I know it just started, but since shares are being accepted we are off to a good start. I'll let it run for 24 hours and watch for hardware errors.

After a couple hours I'll post a screenshot of the pool hash rate.

Is there a summary of guide so that I can get the delicious 1200 kh/s on my gridseed? I got lost in the changes of mods and cant figure out the last good one.

Thanks!

[wolfey2014]

SMD Resistors arrived and successfully replaced. Now, to start testing! This is my first attempt at using a hot air rework station and I have very little soldering experience. I think it came out ok though.

It could be just me, but it looks like there is a solder bridge on the resistor you just replaced (Could be a camera + lighting "mirage").

I saw that too after I posted it. I went back and fixed it again just to be sure.

Hey! Nice work there Volder!
Still, I don't see the need for going to all that expense, risk and trouble for just a simple resistor replacement.
Axials work perfectly and don't require such hassles and expense, as you've no doubt seen.
But you have proven that you have the skills to mod your own pods.
very well done!

By the way, here is a screen shot of some recent hashing being done by my 6 miners.
Very consistent! And my having turned off FIFO buffers all together via Device Manager in Win 7 32bit is working perfectly. Days of ZERO downtime! ZERO restarts! 100% 24/7 hashing! Just the way I want it!

Thanks wolfey. Yes, there was some expense to get started. But it was equipment I wanted to buy anyways. This was just the nudge I needed to make it happen.

I use CGminer and a different driver than you. There is no COM port number assigned. I do not believe there is a FIFO buffer to disable because of this. But thanks for that bit.

Whats the point of disabling FIFO buffer? Mine is enabled for all miners (From COM1 to COM9)

I've already explained what the point is. I read up on FIFO buffers, stack overflow etc.
I decided they may be causing the intermittent comm failures causing the miners to quit.
I had been using fifo buffer adjustments to compensate with some success but all it did was lengthen the time between comm port failures.
Given the way 16550 UART comm port fifo buffers work, I theorized that I may not need them given the high speed upstream/downstram nature of the miners. I tried it and they work better if not perfectly. NO more comm port failures!
That's the point!

[smracer]

80/100 Modded.  I had one GS that was bad pre-mod and I just never noticed until I modded it.  There is a small bump on one of the chips and it just freezes after about a minute.  It is getting replaced.

Tomorrow once I get the rest modded I will start fine tuning them and see how fast each one will go.

The rework station is 50 times easier than using a soldering iron.  I kept blowing the chips off until I started using flux.  I can mod one of these in less than 2 minutes now.  The hardest part is removing the screws.

[Ferris419]

How are you running different Gs at different frequencies? I've been trying to figure this out with no avail. I have 14 GS now and they aren't all stable at the same frequencies thanks in advance!

Also my resistors will be here tomorrow ! can't wait!

[smracer]

How are you running different Gs at different frequencies? I've been trying to figure this out with no avail. I have 14 GS now and they aren't all stable at the same frequencies thanks in advance!

Also my resistors will be here tomorrow ! can't wait!

from my cgminer config file.  Just set each GS by it's serial number.  The first freq=850 is the base frequency.

"gridseed-options" : "baud=115200,freq=850,chips=5",
"gridseed-freq" : "6D9522AC5455=1150,6D9808795455=1150,6D95229C5455=1150,6D9108885455=1150,6D90216C5455=1150,6D94217F5455=1150,6D94218F5455=1150,6D9025AE5455=1150,6D9A0F7E5455=1150, etc..."
}

[Cablez]

I am curious, what rework station do you other electronic hobbyists recommend? (not just for something like this mod)

BTW: I have changed mods on my pair and will see how far they can go now. Will update after I have some solid numbers.

[volder]

I am curious, what rework station do you other electronic hobbyists recommend? (not just for something like this mod)

BTW: I have changed mods on my pair and will see how far they can go now. Will update after I have some solid numbers.

I got this one. It's amazing! http://www.amazon.com/ALL-ONE-X-TRONIC-SOLDERING-PREHEATING/dp/B00DRHRZ3S?&linkCode=wsw&tag=dv07-20

[simon66]

80/100 Modded.  I had one GS that was bad pre-mod and I just never noticed until I modded it.  There is a small bump on one of the chips and it just freezes after about a minute.  It is getting replaced.

Tomorrow once I get the rest modded I will start fine tuning them and see how fast each one will go.

The rework station is 50 times easier than using a soldering iron.  I kept blowing the chips off until I started using flux.  I can mod one of these in less than 2 minutes now.  The hardest part is removing the screws.

Dude, you either have amazing units or your cgminer is wrong. Even at stock freq I get rejects. Either or, nice setup. I tried running my grids of my raspbery but no luck.

[canoli]

Also, after some testing here, it seems that these "mods" are somewhat bad. As far as I know, we get paid per share. I'm hashing away at ~530Kh/s (Running at 1213Mhz with 0 HW), but after 1 hour my machine that is hashing at 400Kh/s (900Mhz with 0 HW) is making just a few shares bellow the OC one (Like less than 5). I'm not even sure if I'm going to mod my other miners (I could be wrong). Anyone else who modded their units are running into this problem?

Thanks!

Yes.   Seen that.

I only have 7 of these, but, just about every single quirk someone has reported in this thread I have encountered on one or more of these.  These things are workhorses in some ways but can be really finicky.    

At this point I am almost regretting removing VMOD2 (2 jumpers) on the 4 I had done it to to go to VMOD3 (replace r52 with higher resistance).  Even with only 46k it seems the power usage is so much more for little benefit over VMOD2.    The one I put 49k on only now gets to 1163.    

I have definitely seen one of them seemingly hash for a long time and only report a few or no shares actually accepted.  Lowering the speed helped.    Also seen ones that seem to do better at lower speeds than higher, even though they never report a HW error.   Of course you fall into the trap of variance when watching them over any short period, but some of these were 12 hour runs(still short) on the same pi, same pool and same cgminer instance.    

I like to run per chip stats, it seems to usually be only 1-3 chips on each pod that throws HW errors, guess it depends on if the other chips produce more valid work or not by going higher whether it is worth it.