GridSeed 5-chip USB miner voltage mod

[gtraah]

stock pads are crap and are meant for stock speeds and stock heat. overclocking will produce more heat FACT. ok if your not using sha people SAY that dont get that hot. but damn touch thoose things without the top heatsink on they are HOT!!!!

Right now the heat pads on top of the chips ARE NOT THE PROBLEM. read that again. allow it to digest a bit. beath and now continue.

The gridseed chips have THERMAL VIAs to conduct the heat from the chip TO THE BOTTOM HEATSINK! yes thats right the bottom heatsink. SO to really improve your thermal conduciviy you need to be more concerned about the thermal vias, which are located on the underside of the PCB! remove the screww in rises - yeah thoose things that the screw went into. NOW USING SOMETHING PLASTIC VERY CAREFULLY lever the pcb away from the bottom heat sink. i say carefully as it can and probably is stuck there, from use and the stock thermal pad gettting warm and cooling etc. DO NOT USE METAL.
Now stop re read thoose last two sentences let it sink in. and continue - trust me been there done that, seriuosly screwed up my phone! dont risk it! Metal can and 99.999999% will damage the PCB especially the solder shield underneath it and maybe even create a short you didnt want.

Now once youve removed it toss the stock heat pad - if you want - check the thermal vias, they might need reworking, mine did, i had solder oozing out of one and a noticeable air pocket on the other - i heard the air being pushed out as i was handling it! so check your thermal vias. Highly recommend appling a very generous amount of thermal paste to the thermal vias. this will make sure you have good thermal conducivity there as the paste heats itll flow into the vias creating a good thermal conduct.

Now if your going the route of thermal pad no problem cut it out apply to the underside surface of the PCB and reassemble - take note of the milled out portions in the heatsink and there corresponding alignment to the PCB.
IF your going to cover the whole surface in thermal paste, then cover the serveral exposed copper surfaces - com3, reset switch and a few other, wiht electical insulation tape. you dont want thoose to be short on the heat sink, especially the reset switch!
Apply your paste and reassemble again taking note of the cut outs.

Sorry no photos at the mo. its late and i aint stripping my grid down now, but tomorrow i plan on doing so so hopefully - kids permitting- i can get it stripped and do a few photos.

Or you can wait a few post and see what wolfy has to say - prob no need to change the pads thermal paste crap etc etc.

Pads, or paste your choice id recommend adding paste to the vias though either way. just use care and caution when separating the PCB from the bottom heatsink.

AWESOME thanks man, I dont know what this was not said before, It is frustrating , you see I have  I have 2 x 4 Gram tubes of MX-2 Arctic 5.6kw/mk Thermal compound Apparently the best , tested better than silver, cooler master etc... and I have 1mm & 1.5mm 15x15mm square copper shrims, I will place 1 on each gridseed chip with thermal compound... I thought this should be good enough right?

My question now is On the bottom heat sink is there 5 square parts where I can stick this copper shrims and thermal compound instead of the top?

I'll be modding 20 more seeds next week sometime. I'm gonna give Z's mod a try and see what happens. If it's good, I'll say so. If not, I'll say so too
I'm all for simplicity. The KISS rule rules in my universe, as much as possible anyway
I just don't agree with the reasoning behind the mod. Our miners ain't ever gonna see SHA profits again. They be done baby!
Someone want to beat me to it, have at it!
Wolfey

Thanks Wolfey!! Who knows I may beat you to it, All I am waiting on are the 16.9k 0603 SMDs

Meanwhile I am waiting i am going to operate as much of the pods as I can with the 49.9k Although this is Extremely hard , I can do it - I am slowly getting the hang of it. 3 so far and Ill start hacking away again tonight after work

[happydaze]

Can someone PLEASE stick a 16.9k or 17k 1% resistor on the R46 Pads I just want to see if it will act EXACTLY like the other mods, I do not have my resistors yet to test but I would like to see if this works prior me receiving these things I would love to get the re-assurance.

I put a 15k resistor (I don't know the tolerance - the local shop only had 3 with close enough values all bent up :-) and I had to try ZiG's mod) on the outer R46 pad and the other common point. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=519112.msg6364716#msg6364716  
It is not exactly the value you want to see but I'll report back after it has run 24 hrs or more on sandor's autotune.  It should give you an idea of what to expect.

[wolfey2014]

How much current does the 49.9k mod use?  It's right in between 47k and 52k so is it 26.25 watts?  So maybe 5 watts more than a 47k resistor? Or is it not a linear calculation like that? Too bad you don't have a clamp on ammeter - I'm sure someone using a 49.9k resistor does.  What MHz are you running them at wolfey?  Maybe wait 24 hrs if you just started running sandors autotune cpuminer.   I'll report back on how 48K does in 24 hrs. Autotune changes things a bit I think.  A few extra watts doesn't matter if you only have a few miners but 5 watts x 100 miners = 500 watts per hour!  Note: I only have a few miners that's part of the reason I've run dual mode from the start until now.

"How much current does the 49.9k mod use?"
Can you say that 20 times over and over without flubbing?  

Nope, ain't gonna disturb my miners mining for nobody right now. Sorry.

I don't know what you're so concerned about. Even 500 Watts aint squat compared to trying to hash at the same rate on GPU's!
What would that come out to? Like 5KW? Just kidding...but you get the point.
It's still cheap by comparison to anything out there right now, as far as I know.
You'll still make profits, regardless.

Next week when I do some more mods for another customer of mine, I'll check current ratings etc. and report back. Next week!
I promise! Okay?

My miners are all running on automatic now. So frikkin cool! I'm seriously impressed!
I'm guessing by my stats, they are doing between 1175 and 1250MHz....
Pool recently showed them runing over 650KHs each recently, dividing the total hash rate of 38.03MHs by 6 = 633khs each! Awesome!
But we all know that isn't possible, right?
Wolfey

[gtraah]

Can someone PLEASE stick a 16.9k or 17k 1% resistor on the R46 Pads I just want to see if it will act EXACTLY like the other mods, I do not have my resistors yet to test but I would like to see if this works prior me receiving these things I would love to get the re-assurance.

I put a 15k resistor (I don't know the tolerance - the local shop only had 3 with close enough values all bent up :-) and I had to try ZiG's mod) on the outer R46 pad and the other common point. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=519112.msg6364716#msg6364716  
It is not exactly the value you want to see but I'll report back after it has run 24 hrs or more on sandor's autotune.  It should give you an idea of what to expect.

Thanks happy, yeh 48k Is pretty close I will be interested to see wha tyou get at 1200Mhz I am guessing it should be between 500KH & 510KH as I get exactly 510KH with the 49.9K @ R139/R52 PADS

[gtraah]

How much current does the 49.9k mod use?  It's right in between 47k and 52k so is it 26.25 watts?  So maybe 5 watts more than a 47k resistor? Or is it not a linear calculation like that? Too bad you don't have a clamp on ammeter - I'm sure someone using a 49.9k resistor does.  What MHz are you running them at wolfey?  Maybe wait 24 hrs if you just started running sandors autotune cpuminer.   I'll report back on how 48K does in 24 hrs. Autotune changes things a bit I think.  A few extra watts doesn't matter if you only have a few miners but 5 watts x 100 miners = 500 watts per hour!  Note: I only have a few miners that's part of the reason I've run dual mode from the start until now.

"How much current does the 49.9k mod use?"
Can you say that 20 times over and over without flubbing?  

Nope, ain't gonna disturb my miners mining for nobody right now. Sorry.

I don't know what you're so concerned about. Even 500 Watts aint squat compared to trying to hash at the same rate on GPU's!
What would that come out to? Like 5KW? Just kidding...but you get the point.
It's still cheap by comparison to anything out there right now, as far as I know.
You'll still make profits, regardless.

Next week when I do some more mods for another customer of mine, I'll check current ratings etc. and report back. Next week!
I promise! Okay?

My miners are all running on automatic now. So frikkin cool! I'm seriously impressed!
I'm guessing by my stats, they are doing between 1175 and 1250MHz....
Pool recently showed them runing over 650KHs each recently, dividing the total hash rate of 38.03MHs by 6 = 633khs each! Awesome!
But we all know that isn't possible, right?
Wolfey

Possible you say? Offcourse not physically possible but Virtually indeed

Physically they are hashing at roughly 510KH at 1200MHs

[ZiG]

stock pads are crap and are meant for stock speeds and stock heat. overclocking will produce more heat FACT. ok if your not using sha people SAY that dont get that hot. but damn touch thoose things without the top heatsink on they are HOT!!!!

Right now the heat pads on top of the chips ARE NOT THE PROBLEM. read that again. allow it to digest a bit. beath and now continue.

The gridseed chips have THERMAL VIAs to conduct the heat from the chip TO THE BOTTOM HEATSINK! yes thats right the bottom heatsink. SO to really improve your thermal conduciviy you need to be more concerned about the thermal vias, which are located on the underside of the PCB! remove the screww in rises - yeah thoose things that the screw went into. NOW USING SOMETHING PLASTIC VERY CAREFULLY lever the pcb away from the bottom heat sink. i say carefully as it can and probably is stuck there, from use and the stock thermal pad gettting warm and cooling etc. DO NOT USE METAL.
Now stop re read thoose last two sentences let it sink in. and continue - trust me been there done that, seriuosly screwed up my phone! dont risk it! Metal can and 99.999999% will damage the PCB especially the solder shield underneath it and maybe even create a short you didnt want.

Now once youve removed it toss the stock heat pad - if you want - check the thermal vias, they might need reworking, mine did, i had solder oozing out of one and a noticeable air pocket on the other - i heard the air being pushed out as i was handling it! so check your thermal vias. Highly recommend appling a very generous amount of thermal paste to the thermal vias. this will make sure you have good thermal conducivity there as the paste heats itll flow into the vias creating a good thermal conduct.

Now if your going the route of thermal pad no problem cut it out apply to the underside surface of the PCB and reassemble - take note of the milled out portions in the heatsink and there corresponding alignment to the PCB.
IF your going to cover the whole surface in thermal paste, then cover the serveral exposed copper surfaces - com3, reset switch and a few other, wiht electical insulation tape. you dont want thoose to be short on the heat sink, especially the reset switch!
Apply your paste and reassemble again taking note of the cut outs.

Sorry no photos at the mo. its late and i aint stripping my grid down now, but tomorrow i plan on doing so so hopefully - kids permitting- i can get it stripped and do a few photos.

Or you can wait a few post and see what wolfy has to say - prob no need to change the pads thermal paste crap etc etc.

Pads, or paste your choice id recommend adding paste to the vias though either way. just use care and caution when separating the PCB from the bottom heatsink.

Good job Amix,...You are completely correct...!

I am glad to see that more people are paying attention to the thermals and the proper cooling of these babies...Like you, Nemercry ...to name a few...It is IMPORTANT if you want to run your miners for 24/7 in a longer term...

In case somebody missed ...below is my first post on the subject from April 2 ...:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=519112.msg6027770#msg6027770

BTW it was blatantly copied with almost no modifications by some popular bloggers around the net...like this ...:

http://gridseed-blog.com/gridseed-overclocking-1000-mhz-without-voltmod/

Everybody is free to decide what to use ...or not...

ZiG

EDIT ...: @ gtraah ...NO SHIMS on the BOTTOM part ...you will make a SHORT and BURN you device...

[gtraah]

Good job Amix,...You are completely correct...!

I am glad to see that more people are paying to the thermals and the proper cooling of these babies...Like you, Nemercry ...to name a few...It is IMPORTANT if you want to run your miners for 24/7 in a longer term...

In case somebody missed ...below is my first post on the subject from April 2 ...:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=519112.msg6027770#msg6027770

BTW it was blatantly copied with almost no modifications by some popular bloggers around the net...like this ...:

http://gridseed-blog.com/gridseed-overclocking-1000-mhz-without-voltmod/

Everybody is free to decide what to use ...or not...

ZiG

I must of totally missed that zig, thanks both of you, now I know, I wonder if the I can stick thermal and copper shrims on the bottom golden pads 15x15x and not bother with the top?

OR

Should I do the folloiwing, Have the 15x15 coper shrims on the top with thermal paste and on the bottom simply just put paste as you say?

What would you reccomend, I already have the copper shrims coming so I must make use of them.

[nst6563]

While on the subject of thermals if you really wanted to get down to the root of the cooling issue you'll have to either use thin copper shims or mill out part of the heatsink so the taller components don't prevent full contact with the gc3355 chips.  If you chose to mill out part of the heatsink you will also notice many of the capacitors around the gc3355 chips are the same height if not just a tad higher so those will need to be insulated to prevent electrical contact with the heatsink.

Shims are easier

[wolfey2014]

stock pads are crap and are meant for stock speeds and stock heat. overclocking will produce more heat FACT. ok if your not using sha people SAY that dont get that hot. but damn touch thoose things without the top heatsink on they are HOT!!!!

Right now the heat pads on top of the chips ARE NOT THE PROBLEM. read that again. allow it to digest a bit. beath and now continue.

The gridseed chips have THERMAL VIAs to conduct the heat from the chip TO THE BOTTOM HEATSINK! yes thats right the bottom heatsink. SO to really improve your thermal conduciviy you need to be more concerned about the thermal vias, which are located on the underside of the PCB! remove the screww in rises - yeah thoose things that the screw went into. NOW USING SOMETHING PLASTIC VERY CAREFULLY lever the pcb away from the bottom heat sink. i say carefully as it can and probably is stuck there, from use and the stock thermal pad gettting warm and cooling etc. DO NOT USE METAL.
Now stop re read thoose last two sentences let it sink in. and continue - trust me been there done that, seriuosly screwed up my phone! dont risk it! Metal can and 99.999999% will damage the PCB especially the solder shield underneath it and maybe even create a short you didnt want.

Now once youve removed it toss the stock heat pad - if you want - check the thermal vias, they might need reworking, mine did, i had solder oozing out of one and a noticeable air pocket on the other - i heard the air being pushed out as i was handling it! so check your thermal vias. Highly recommend appling a very generous amount of thermal paste to the thermal vias. this will make sure you have good thermal conducivity there as the paste heats itll flow into the vias creating a good thermal conduct.

Now if your going the route of thermal pad no problem cut it out apply to the underside surface of the PCB and reassemble - take note of the milled out portions in the heatsink and there corresponding alignment to the PCB.
IF your going to cover the whole surface in thermal paste, then cover the serveral exposed copper surfaces - com3, reset switch and a few other, wiht electical insulation tape. you dont want thoose to be short on the heat sink, especially the reset switch!
Apply your paste and reassemble again taking note of the cut outs.

Sorry no photos at the mo. its late and i aint stripping my grid down now, but tomorrow i plan on doing so so hopefully - kids permitting- i can get it stripped and do a few photos.

Or you can wait a few post and see what wolfy has to say - prob no need to change the pads thermal paste crap etc etc.

Pads, or paste your choice id recommend adding paste to the vias though either way. just use care and caution when separating the PCB from the bottom heatsink.

Good job Amix,...You are completely correct...!

I am glad to see that more people are paying attention to the thermals and the proper cooling of these babies...Like you, Nemercry ...to name a few...It is IMPORTANT if you want to run your miners for 24/7 in a longer term...

In case somebody missed ...below is my first post on the subject from April 2 ...:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=519112.msg6027770#msg6027770

BTW it was blatantly copied with almost no modifications by some popular bloggers around the net...like this ...:

http://gridseed-blog.com/gridseed-overclocking-1000-mhz-without-voltmod/

Everybody is free to decide what to use ...or not...

ZiG

EDIT ...: @ gtraah ...NO SHIMS on the BOTTOM part ...you will make a SHORT and BURN you device...

NOTE!
My old original stock re-used pads are working great on my modded pods.no HW errors.no thermal problems, perfect!..Just to keep everyone who doesn't want to be bothered with pasty pasty new pads and shims stuff.....It's okay. Your miners will live long and prosper!

[gtraah]

While on the subject of thermals if you really wanted to get down to the root of the cooling issue you'll have to either use thin copper shims or mill out part of the heatsink so the taller components don't prevent full contact with the gc3355 chips.  If you chose to mill out part of the heatsink you will also notice many of the capacitors around the gc3355 chips are the same height if not just a tad higher so those will need to be insulated to prevent electrical contact with the heatsink.

Shims are easier

NSt this is what I am going to do and also put a thin layer of paste on the on the bottom...

Zig made a good point I TOTALLY forgot about the short out part, If I lay a shrim directly on the tope gridseed wouldnt this short it out? Wouldnt it be soo soooooo close to the pins that a single touch and fry it? how are people with shrims putting these on the top, Id love to see a picture

[wolfey2014]

While on the subject of thermals if you really wanted to get down to the root of the cooling issue you'll have to either use thin copper shims or mill out part of the heatsink so the taller components don't prevent full contact with the gc3355 chips.  If you chose to mill out part of the heatsink you will also notice many of the capacitors around the gc3355 chips are the same height if not just a tad higher so those will need to be insulated to prevent electrical contact with the heatsink.

Shims are easier

NSt this is what I am going to do and also put a thin layer of paste on the on the bottom...

Zig made a good point I TOTALLY forgot about the short out part, If I lay a shrim directly on the tope gridseed wouldnt this short it out? Wouldnt it be soo soooooo close to the pins that a single touch and fry it? how are people with shrims putting these on the top, Id love to see a picture

In order to avoid shorting out any components, thereby ruining your miner, you need to have a pad / insulator between the top of the chips and the shim. Letting the shim touch the bottom plate of the top heat sink is inconsequential, electrically speaking.
Be aware that the more shim thickness you put in there, the higher the risk of crushing a chip or breaking a pin/s where they connect the chip to the copper traces.
Torque the screws evenly and do not over tighten them what ever you do.
That's all I did with the stock pads in there, was evenly tighten and torque the screws.
Honestly, I know some of the pods are pretty messed up requiring some intervention but I believe it is unnecessary in most cases to even mess with changing out the pads or adding heat sink paste. It has nothing to do with HW errors in any case, IMO. The pads are non-conductive by default. It's the gap between certain components that cause a difference in a minute amount of emf capacitance between the bottom heat sink plate and the chips on the card. When it's a certain gap, it possibly causes HW errors at certain frequencies due to this capacitive issue. When it's at the ideal gap, the capacitance issue hence HW errors go away.
That's what I think is going on.  

[gtraah]

While on the subject of thermals if you really wanted to get down to the root of the cooling issue you'll have to either use thin copper shims or mill out part of the heatsink so the taller components don't prevent full contact with the gc3355 chips.  If you chose to mill out part of the heatsink you will also notice many of the capacitors around the gc3355 chips are the same height if not just a tad higher so those will need to be insulated to prevent electrical contact with the heatsink.

Shims are easier

NSt this is what I am going to do and also put a thin layer of paste on the on the bottom...

Zig made a good point I TOTALLY forgot about the short out part, If I lay a shrim directly on the tope gridseed wouldnt this short it out? Wouldnt it be soo soooooo close to the pins that a single touch and fry it? how are people with shrims putting these on the top, Id love to see a picture

In order to avoid shorting out any components, thereby ruining your miner, you need to have a pad / insulator between the top of the chips and the shim. Letting the shim touch the bottom plate of the top heat sink is inconsequential, electrically speaking.
Be aware that the more shim thickness you put in there, the higher the risk of crushing a chip or breaking a pin/s where they connect the chip to the copper traces.
Torque the screws evenly and do not over tighten them what ever you do.
That's all I did with the stock pads in there, was evenly tighten and torque the screws.
Honestly, I know some of the pods are pretty messed up requiring some intervention but I believe it is unnecessary in most cases to even mess with changing out the pads or adding heat sink paste. It has nothing to do with HW errors in any case, IMO. The pads are non-conductive by default. It's the gap between certain components that cause a difference in a minute amount of emf capacitance between the bottom heat sink plate and the chips on the card. When it's a certain gap, it possibly causes HW errors at certain frequencies due to this capacitive issue. When it's at the ideal gap, the capacitance issue hence HW errors go away.
That's what I think is going on.  

Ok So what Ill do then is use a blade and cut the original pad in the shape of the shim, and then let the shim touch the big heat sink bare back .


Id STILL LOVE to morph two pods in to the one.. Not sure if people saw my other post where  I did a photo edit and morphed two pods into one removing one of the Top sinks and replacing it with one fan sharing the 2 boards. Basically starting from bottom up, Large Sink > Small Sink (Fan removed on bottom pod) 2nd pod > small sink with 2nd board facing up > Attach the cross member onto the 4 gold screw stands then comes the 1 Fan..ALl the screws line up and its just a matter of putting it together... THe pod looks a little longer than the original pod But has 2 boards in there 10 chips and only uses 1 fan..  This -= Less wattage = Less space...

Only thing I wonder is the heat and air flow....

I would love to try this

[wolfey2014]

While on the subject of thermals if you really wanted to get down to the root of the cooling issue you'll have to either use thin copper shims or mill out part of the heatsink so the taller components don't prevent full contact with the gc3355 chips.  If you chose to mill out part of the heatsink you will also notice many of the capacitors around the gc3355 chips are the same height if not just a tad higher so those will need to be insulated to prevent electrical contact with the heatsink.

Shims are easier

NSt this is what I am going to do and also put a thin layer of paste on the on the bottom...

Zig made a good point I TOTALLY forgot about the short out part, If I lay a shrim directly on the tope gridseed wouldnt this short it out? Wouldnt it be soo soooooo close to the pins that a single touch and fry it? how are people with shrims putting these on the top, Id love to see a picture

In order to avoid shorting out any components, thereby ruining your miner, you need to have a pad / insulator between the top of the chips and the shim. Letting the shim touch the bottom plate of the top heat sink is inconsequential, electrically speaking.
Be aware that the more shim thickness you put in there, the higher the risk of crushing a chip or breaking a pin/s where they connect the chip to the copper traces.
Torque the screws evenly and do not over tighten them what ever you do.
That's all I did with the stock pads in there, was evenly tighten and torque the screws.
Honestly, I know some of the pods are pretty messed up requiring some intervention but I believe it is unnecessary in most cases to even mess with changing out the pads or adding heat sink paste. It has nothing to do with HW errors in any case, IMO. The pads are non-conductive by default. It's the gap between certain components that cause a difference in a minute amount of emf capacitance between the bottom heat sink plate and the chips on the card. When it's a certain gap, it possibly causes HW errors at certain frequencies due to this capacitive issue. When it's at the ideal gap, the capacitance issue hence HW errors go away.
That's what I think is going on.  

Ok So what Ill do then is use a blade and cut the original pad in the shape of the shim, and then let the shim touch the big heat sink bare back .


Id STILL LOVE to morph two pods in to the one.. Not sure if people saw my other post where  I did a photo edit and morphed two pods into one removing one of the Top sinks and replacing it with one fan sharing the 2 boards. Basically starting from bottom up, Large Sink > Small Sink (Fan removed on bottom pod) 2nd pod > small sink with 2nd board facing up > Attach the cross member onto the 4 gold screw stands then comes the 1 Fan..ALl the screws line up and its just a matter of putting it together... THe pod looks a little longer than the original pod But has 2 boards in there 10 chips and only uses 1 fan..  This -= Less wattage = Less space...

Only thing I wonder is the heat and air flow....

I would love to try this

Yep, sounds like a plan. I think you've got it figured out.
I like the morphing idea. And bathing the chips with air from the fan will work well but sucking air from the chips will probably not work well at all. They need to be bathed/covered/soaked/drenched in cooling air in order to be properly cooled.
Same with blowing instead of sucking air through the fins on the top heat sink. That's the way all heat sinks are cooled. By FORCING air through them, not sucking it. Well, unless they are ducted, then perhaps sucking air through would work.
So.....Nice idea though.
Bed time! Nighty night yall!

[chup]

Does anybody have an example Conf for BFGminer to run in CGwatcher that shows how to setup for multiple Gridseeds using the ID of the gridseed and the frequency for it?

Thanks!

Unfortunatelly, CGWatcher doesn't validate bfgminer.conf with lists for gridseed's frequencies (even if You uncheck conf files validation), so the only way to define them is in "Mining profile"/"Miner Arguments" field. Actually You are copy/pasting Your command line there. Everything else in bfgminer.conf file is accepted (pools etc...).

[Xer0]

to the super equiped pro's here:
anyone could measure USB power draw?

trying to figure out how many i could run stable without powered hub
cuz i would need a relai to keep using the controller auto-restart feature

[happydaze]

In Device Manager, Windows reports 100mA per gridseed.  I don't know how precise that is.

[Xer0]

In Device Manager, Windows reports 100mA per gridseed.  I don't know how precise that is.

that's just the Power-Mode it has requested (max 100mA, max 500mA, or max 1A for USB 3.0...)

[nst6563]

to the super equiped pro's here:
anyone could measure USB power draw?

trying to figure out how many i could run stable without powered hub
cuz i would need a relai to keep using the controller auto-restart feature

That really depends...power draw with the fan running from 5v USB power or power draw with fan on stock 12v "jet engine mode"?  If using the 5v USB power mod, I'd say no more than 2-3 on a non-powered hub since you're limited to 500mA spread across all ports in the usb hub.

I think wolfey had measured the fan's power draw at one point.

[wolfey2014]

to the super equiped pro's here:
anyone could measure USB power draw?

trying to figure out how many i could run stable without powered hub
cuz i would need a relai to keep using the controller auto-restart feature

That really depends...power draw with the fan running from 5v USB power or power draw with fan on stock 12v "jet engine mode"?  If using the 5v USB power mod, I'd say no more than 2-3 on a non-powered hub since you're limited to 500mA spread across all ports in the usb hub.

I think wolfey had measured the fan's power draw at one point.

Yep, 78mA running... .140mA start up for a second or less...
I recommend that you do not power more than 1 USB miner off the stock USB port. Especially if it has the fan mod.
Get yourself a decent USB hub with at least a 2.5A supplemental power supply. The more overhead you have, the better! The little wall warts most hubs come with are for shyt! Only 500mA or so.
Figure 250mA for a modded pod so you have enough overhead to cover quiescent/surge and mean current.
As usual, all modding is done at your own risk and expense!
Good luck!

[Firebird2000]

I am just about at my wits end with these stupid gridseeds.
Nothing I do works properly. I am just about to throw these in the trash and try to find peace in my life.

The only software that seems to work for me is bfgminer.
I have tried cpuminer (works I think, but who knows)
cgminer with zadig drivers (can't even find the devices)
The raspberry pi that came with them (wouldn't even boot with the provided SD card, had to load a copy of scripta)
The pi will boot, but goes down after about 10 minutes.

So I am basically back to BFGminer. It's the only one I can get to work, if I modify the bat file that was included with my info.

So, here I am, back to bfgminer, I have modded 2 of 10 gridseeds, but I can't figure out how to run 8 of them at thr stock 850 and increase the clock of the 2 modded units.
When I add "--set-device gridseed@XX72117B5XXX:clock=950" nothing works at all, the command window opens then closes right away.

Yeah, Gridseed and Dualminers are PITA...  You should put Your serial numbers instead. BFGminer versions are still experimental, BTW pr3 is more stable for me than clean-version. I'm using CGwatcher for running BFGminer because of crashing and unsuccessfull starts You are experiencing too. Here is my command line with my serial numbers and my serial ports, so You can't just copy/paste the line:

Code:

bfgminer -S noauto -S dualminer:all -S gridseed:all --set-device dualminer@\\.\COM25:clock=800 --set-device dualminer@\\.\COM27:clock=850 --set-device dualminer@\\.\COM23:clock=850 --set-device gridseed@XXX2117B5355:clock=875 --set-device gridseed@XXXX4F8D5148:clock=900 --set-device gridseed@XXXX336B5148:clock=850 --set-device gridseed@XXXX5F7E5148:clock=925

I'm using also standard bfgminer.conf with pools definitions.

Thanks for all the help. I have now modded 10 with the 47k resistor. I have them all working and have each set to the lowest frequency that gives the least HW errors for each one using BFGminer PR3.
I think all is working bout as good as I can make them. Each one is running about 470khs.

Now, all that I would like to do is set up BFGminer to run in CGwatcher like i use for my GPUs.

Has anyone done this? I think it could be done, except I have no idea how to setup the Conf file.

Does anybody have an example Conf for BFGminer to run in CGwatcher that shows how to setup for multiple Gridseeds using the ID of the gridseed and the frequency for it?

Thanks!

Hi, I'm a little bit shocked!
How in the world did you get stuck using 47k on your mods? 49.9k is the optimum value for least power usage and maximum hash rate with extremely minimum / nearly 0 HW errors?
If you want to see how it's done, look up my posts on here via Search. You can start here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=519112.msg6098563#msg6098563 to see how it's done if you don't already know, which you probably do
Also, unless you're not using Windows 7 32 or 64 bit, you can use cpuminer which is the best and most stable and easiest mining program to use as well as the most profitable at the pool!
I believe if you are getting any HW errors, like a lot, it's due in part to using the 47k and bfgminer.
If you can and are willing, I suggest upgrading to the 49.9k or 50k is okay too and change over to cpuminer using the STM virtual comm port drivers and a good USB hub.
You can also covert do my 5V USB fan mod while you're at it. It will run ultra quiet while soaking the cooling fins with enough air to keep them running at room temperature.
Good luck in what ever you decide!

I'm afraid that I did not have any 49.9k at my disposal. I did try 51k because I had those, but no luck with them.
Today I am working on adding 3k in series with my 47k to get as close to 49.9k as I can.
So far I have done this to 2w of them and it seems to be working. Much more stable. Tyhey are at about  49.6k measure accross both resistors, so I am pretty close.
I am going to do this to all 10. This should put me right where I want to be.
Since I can't really get BFGminer to work right with CGwatcher, I am going to abandon it all together.
From what I am reading, most people are recommending CPUminer.
I see there is a new version out that will Autotune the gridseeds! That is awesome and exactly what I am looking for!
Also everyone says that it report poolside hash rate properly as well.

So I am going to give this a try.
I don't have any experience with CPUminer though.

Can anyone post an example .BAT file that I could copy that will show how to setup Autotune function for each miner?
I have looked at the included AUTOtune .BAT example that came with cpuminer, but it only shows setup for 1 gridseed. I have to make it run 10 of them.

Thanks for all the help so far, and for all the great work done to help figure all this out. I am getting closer every day to a properly working setup!