[ANN] Spondoolies-Tech - carrier grade, data center ready mining rigs

[Biodom]

3. Cointerra-did not hit the mark (off by 20%)-I did not order this one, although I live close by.

Fellow TX miner eh? DFW area here, how about you? If you are close I would love to come check out your SP30 when it comes in.. I have been eyeing them for awhile now and would love to see how it compares to my old terraminer in terms of noise/heat..

Houston...love it despite 100oF  
I am trying to find a home for it elsewhere, though, if it is anything like Sp-10. Some places offer quite reasonable hosting.

[Powell]

3. Cointerra-did not hit the mark (off by 20%)-I did not order this one, although I live close by.

Fellow TX miner eh? DFW area here, how about you? If you are close I would love to come check out your SP30 when it comes in.. I have been eyeing them for awhile now and would love to see how it compares to my old terraminer in terms of noise/heat..

Houston...love it despite 100oF 

Yeah I'm afraid of how my shop would have felt when we had our old setup running (19TH at ~76A used).  By May it was getting bad enough where we couldn't screw with the cars anymore which made the place useless.  You going to host the SP30 from home or one of our local DC's.

[RawDog]

Houston...love it despite 100oF  
I am trying to find a home for it elsewhere, though, if it is anything like Sp-10. Some places offer quite reasonable hosting.

Listen very carefully.  Everytime someone writes about air conditioning with regard to mining datacenters, they are crazy and they don't understand heat and heat transfer.

Semiconductors don't mind 100F.  Not at all.  Humans can't work in 100F.  Air conditioning is for humans.  Not for semiconductors. 
Don't buy a fucking aircondtioner for mining equipment.  Ever.  Air conditioners make more heat than they make cold.  True fact.

To cool a data center, 100F is fine.  The trick is, to move the heat away from the semiconductor - fast.  If you put a shitload of 100F air movement on the semiconductor it will be fine.  Put some freaking heavy wind on it.  If the wind is 100F, the semiconductor will only be a bit higher.  What you need is tons of air movement.- not cold. 

Don't believe me?  Heat a piece of metal until it glows red.  Then blow on it. Goes back to black real fast.  Stop blowing - red again. 

If you put a shitload of air movement on your miners you'll remove heat really well - even if the air is 100F.  If you use water or air conditioning, or ice or dry ice, all you've done is introduced tons of complexity and little heat removal.  The most efficient way to remove heat is lots of wind.  It doesn't matter what temperature the wind is.  Even the Swedish winter isn't cold enough to cool mining equipment.  You need to get the fucking heat away from the semiconductor.  This doesn't take cold - it takes heat movement.  Making 'cold' is hard work.  Moving heat away from an ASIC is easy.  Use 'wind' - not 'cold' to efficiently cool your miners. 

[Grix]

The use of Fahrenheit hurts my mind.

[RawDog]

The use of Fahrenheit hurts my mind.

The math to get you to C isn't extremely hard.  If you practice a bit, you'll get the hang of simple algebra after a few weeks.  Some people might take a bit longer


In the present case, you can ignore algebra and just use an estimation.  Everywhere you see '100' above, just put in '40'.  You are good to go!  The statement still makes great sense

I live in Europe.  I prefer C.  But when I see F, I don't cry. 

[Biodom]

The use of Fahrenheit hurts my mind.

A simple mnemonic formula: [degrees (F)-32]x5/9=degrees C
Personally, I am bi-temperate (as per bi-lingual) so to speak due to personal history, so it does not matter to me, but i've seen people burning their fingers in a water bath that said 70o (they thought that it is in Fahr., but in scientific establishments everything is in C).
So...37.8oC-better than in a sauna, but anybody has difficulty coping without A/C.
Not the worst-that is Arizona at 116oF or middle east at 120-122.

[dogie]

Air conditioners make more heat than they make cold.  True fact.

No shit.

[midyatspor]

Houston...love it despite 100oF  
I am trying to find a home for it elsewhere, though, if it is anything like Sp-10. Some places offer quite reasonable hosting.

Listen very carefully.  Everytime someone writes about air conditioning with regard to mining datacenters, they are crazy and they don't understand heat and heat transfer.

Semiconductors don't mind 100F.  Not at all.  Humans can't work in 100F.  Air conditioning is for humans.  Not for semiconductors. 
Don't buy a fucking aircondtioner for mining equipment.  Ever.  Air conditioners make more heat than they make cold.  True fact.

To cool a data center, 100F is fine.  The trick is, to move the heat away from the semiconductor - fast.  If you put a shitload of 100F air movement on the semiconductor it will be fine.  Put some freaking heavy wind on it.  If the wind is 100F, the semiconductor will only be a bit higher.  What you need is tons of air movement.- not cold. 

Don't believe me?  Heat a piece of metal until it glows red.  Then blow on it. Goes back to black real fast.  Stop blowing - red again. 

If you put a shitload of air movement on your miners you'll remove heat really well - even if the air is 100F.  If you use water or air conditioning, or ice or dry ice, all you've done is introduced tons of complexity and little heat removal.  The most efficient way to remove heat is lots of wind.  It doesn't matter what temperature the wind is.  Even the Swedish winter isn't cold enough to cool mining equipment.  You need to get the fucking heat away from the semiconductor.  This doesn't take cold - it takes heat movement.  Making 'cold' is hard work.  Moving heat away from an ASIC is easy.  Use 'wind' - not 'cold' to efficiently cool your miners. 

I agree with you, been running 3 Antminer S2 and 8 Anminer S1 in my basement in an unfinished side, I have bunch of fans blowing the air away from the miners, Ambient temp is around 98 F, I am in NJ and been running them for about 3 months now without any issue but the kitchen feels like we have radiant heat.

[RawDog]

Houston...love it despite 100oF  
I am trying to find a home for it elsewhere, though, if it is anything like Sp-10. Some places offer quite reasonable hosting.

Listen very carefully.  Everytime someone writes about air conditioning with regard to mining datacenters, they are crazy and they don't understand heat and heat transfer.

Semiconductors don't mind 100F.  Not at all.  Humans can't work in 100F.  Air conditioning is for humans.  Not for semiconductors.  
Don't buy a fucking aircondtioner for mining equipment.  Ever.  Air conditioners make more heat than they make cold.  True fact.

To cool a data center, 100F is fine.  The trick is, to move the heat away from the semiconductor - fast.  If you put a shitload of 100F air movement on the semiconductor it will be fine.  Put some freaking heavy wind on it.  If the wind is 100F, the semiconductor will only be a bit higher.  What you need is tons of air movement.- not cold.  

Don't believe me?  Heat a piece of metal until it glows red.  Then blow on it. Goes back to black real fast.  Stop blowing - red again.  

If you put a shitload of air movement on your miners you'll remove heat really well - even if the air is 100F.  If you use water or air conditioning, or ice or dry ice, all you've done is introduced tons of complexity and little heat removal.  The most efficient way to remove heat is lots of wind.  It doesn't matter what temperature the wind is.  Even the Swedish winter isn't cold enough to cool mining equipment.  You need to get the fucking heat away from the semiconductor.  This doesn't take cold - it takes heat movement.  Making 'cold' is hard work.  Moving heat away from an ASIC is easy.  Use 'wind' - not 'cold' to efficiently cool your miners.  

I agree with you, been running 3 Antminer S2 and 8 Anminer S1 in my basement in an unfinished side, I have bunch of fans blowing the air away from the miners, Ambient temp is around 98 F, I am in NJ and been running them for about 3 months now without any issue but the kitchen feels like we have radiant heat.

Semiconductors love 40C - people hate 40C.  

Even if your ambient is 50C - with shitloads of wind, your ASICs will be fine.  Heat is not the problem miners face.  Heat accumulation is.  Vent out the ceiling and blow, blow, blow.  An AC is a horrible way to move heat outside. 

[jimmothy]

Semiconductors love 40C - people hate 40C. 

Even if your ambient is 50C - with shitloads of wind, your ASICs will be fine.  Heat is not the problem miners face.  Heat accumulation is.  Vent out the ceiling and blow, blow, blow.  An AC is a horrible way to move heat outside.

Yes semiconductors love 40C. But you don't get anywhere near 40C with air cooling. The tempurature difference between the ambient air and the asics is the real killer. I would guess the dT is more than ~40C.

[RawDog]

Semiconductors love 40C - people hate 40C. 

Even if your ambient is 50C - with shitloads of wind, your ASICs will be fine.  Heat is not the problem miners face.  Heat accumulation is.  Vent out the ceiling and blow, blow, blow.  An AC is a horrible way to move heat outside.

Yes semiconductors love 40C. But you don't get anywhere near 40C with air cooling. The tempurature difference between the ambient air and the asics is the real killer. I would guess the dT is more than ~40C.

40C ambient with lots of wind = 60C at silicon
40C ambient with little flow = 90C+ at silicon

40C ambient with very serious airflow = even less than <60C

air flow is VERY cheap
air conditioning is very expensive. 

[jimmothy]

Semiconductors love 40C - people hate 40C. 

Even if your ambient is 50C - with shitloads of wind, your ASICs will be fine.  Heat is not the problem miners face.  Heat accumulation is.  Vent out the ceiling and blow, blow, blow.  An AC is a horrible way to move heat outside.

Yes semiconductors love 40C. But you don't get anywhere near 40C with air cooling. The tempurature difference between the ambient air and the asics is the real killer. I would guess the dT is more than ~40C.

40C ambient with lots of wind = 60C at silicon
40C ambient with little flow = 90C+ at silicon

40C ambient with very serious airflow = even less than <60C

air flow is VERY cheap
air conditioning is very expensive. 

400cfm is really not much for 2.6kw.

20C dT is good even for high end heatpipe heatsinks with ~100cfm fans per 150w chip.

Anyone know the actual temperature difference between the chips and intake air for the sp10?

[dogie]

Semiconductors love 40C - people hate 40C. 

Even if your ambient is 50C - with shitloads of wind, your ASICs will be fine.  Heat is not the problem miners face.  Heat accumulation is.  Vent out the ceiling and blow, blow, blow.  An AC is a horrible way to move heat outside.

Yes semiconductors love 40C. But you don't get anywhere near 40C with air cooling. The tempurature difference between the ambient air and the asics is the real killer. I would guess the dT is more than ~40C.

40C ambient with lots of wind = 60C at silicon
40C ambient with little flow = 90C+ at silicon

40C ambient with very serious airflow = even less than <60C

air flow is VERY cheap
air conditioning is very expensive. 

400cfm is really not much for 2.6kw.

20C dT is good even for high end heatpipe heatsinks with ~100cfm fans per 150w chip.

Anyone know the actual temperature difference between the chips and intake air for the sp10?

80-95, but heatsink deltas will probably be 40-50.

[Collider]

The sp30 should be less sensitive to higher temperatures due to the following reasons:

- 400cfm maximum airflow aka ~45% higher airflow per kW
- lower leakage increase on 28nm vs 40nm at higher chip temperatures
- roughly the same heatsink surface area per kW than sp10

As to the cooling questions, it is roughly  q=wCpΔt which means:

→ 157 CFM are required to cool 1 kW, if the ΔT through IT equipment is 20°F (11°C)

→ 125 CFM are required to cool 1 kW, if the ΔT through IT equipment is 25°F (14°C)

→ 105 CFM are required to cool 1 kW, if the ΔT through IT equipment is 30°F (16,5°C)

So temperature is equally important than airflow, however increasing airflow is obviously much easier (and therefore cheaper) than lowering the temperature.

[Searing]

Houston...love it despite 100oF  
I am trying to find a home for it elsewhere, though, if it is anything like Sp-10. Some places offer quite reasonable hosting.

Listen very carefully.  Everytime someone writes about air conditioning with regard to mining datacenters, they are crazy and they don't understand heat and heat transfer.

Semiconductors don't mind 100F.  Not at all.  Humans can't work in 100F.  Air conditioning is for humans.  Not for semiconductors. 
Don't buy a fucking aircondtioner for mining equipment.  Ever.  Air conditioners make more heat than they make cold.  True fact.

To cool a data center, 100F is fine.  The trick is, to move the heat away from the semiconductor - fast.  If you put a shitload of 100F air movement on the semiconductor it will be fine.  Put some freaking heavy wind on it.  If the wind is 100F, the semiconductor will only be a bit higher.  What you need is tons of air movement.- not cold. 

Don't believe me?  Heat a piece of metal until it glows red.  Then blow on it. Goes back to black real fast.  Stop blowing - red again. 

If you put a shitload of air movement on your miners you'll remove heat really well - even if the air is 100F.  If you use water or air conditioning, or ice or dry ice, all you've done is introduced tons of complexity and little heat removal.  The most efficient way to remove heat is lots of wind.  It doesn't matter what temperature the wind is.  Even the Swedish winter isn't cold enough to cool mining equipment.  You need to get the fucking heat away from the semiconductor.  This doesn't take cold - it takes heat movement.  Making 'cold' is hard work.  Moving heat away from an ASIC is easy.  Use 'wind' - not 'cold' to efficiently cool your miners. 

I will put up a window a/c unit in bsmt 'just in case" but i have the old limestone bsmt 12' walls with 5 (small) scattered randomly small usual bsmt windows like 19" by 28" or whatever.

so i aggree but what would i need for air flow at the windows to move all this heat out...imho it likely is just moving hot air out for hot air in on the days i suspect the a/c unit is only hope

i hope to do as you suggest but clueless on how to get enough wind over the unit and up and out you old gpu guys what did you do?

I have to move about 4500 watts out in some manner and/or on the really over 95 humid days of august (say 12 days or so) use a/c and still move hot air out as a backup

suggestions on window fans

also what about bugs the fans I see that move this kinda air for turkey barns lifestock no screens shutters or w/o shutters so how much heat can i get out blowing out of my
basement with out blowing the screens off or filling house up with bugs (still got to live/sleep there ...other reason miners are in bsmt)

Searing

[jimmothy]

The sp30 should be less sensitive to higher temperatures due to the following reasons:

- 400cfm maximum airflow aka ~45% higher airflow per kW
- lower leakage increase on 28nm vs 40nm at higher chip temperatures
- roughly the same heatsink surface area per kW than sp10

Source for lower leakage on 28nm? I've only heard it gets harder to cool smaller process sizes.

As to the cooling questions, it is roughly  q=wCpΔt which means:

→ 157 CFM are required to cool 1 kW, if the ΔT through IT equipment is 20°F (11°C)

→ 125 CFM are required to cool 1 kW, if the ΔT through IT equipment is 25°F (14°C)

→ 105 CFM are required to cool 1 kW, if the ΔT through IT equipment is 30°F (16,5°C)

So temperature is equally important than airflow, however increasing airflow is obviously much easier (and therefore cheaper) than lowering the temperature.

You are talking about dT between the intake and exhaust air right? What is more important is the dT between the chips and the air.

Even if the in/out air is only 11C dT, the chips near the exhaust will heat up to ~100C (40+11+50).

[Collider]

Yes, the quoted values are only valid for "cooling" your "Datacenter" room and the temperature difference is between intake and output temperature of the units (which is all that matters in this setting).

Calculating the needed airflow for individual miners is much more complicated as you also have to take into account heatsink area aswell as various other factors.
It is also the responsibility of the engineers designing the miners and cannot be influenced (too much) by the customers.

[jimmothy]

Yes, the quoted values are only valid for "cooling" your "Datacenter" room and the temperature difference is between intake and output temperature of the units (which is all that matters in this setting).

What do you mean it's all that matters in this setting?

You could have a shitty heatsink or even no heatsink at all and still manage an in/out air dT of 11C with 150cfm. (assuming the chips don't explode at 500C)

Calculating the needed airflow for individual miners is much more complicated as you also have to take into account heatsink area aswell as various other factors.

I think this is what you're looking for:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_sink#A_heat_transfer_theoretical_model

We can only guess the variables but I just don't understand why they would go with a 2u case/fans with minimal heatsinks considering most DC's can't even cool such high densities.

Why not use a 4u case with 4 250cfm fans (or quiet 150cfm fans) and much larger heatsinks?

[Collider]

Yes, the quoted values are only valid for "cooling" your "Datacenter" room and the temperature difference is between intake and output temperature of the units (which is all that matters in this setting).

What do you mean it's all that matters in this setting?

You could have a shitty heatsink or even no heatsink at all and still manage an in/out air dT of 11C with 150cfm. (assuming the chips don't explode at 500C)

It is all that matters because you are only calculating the needed airflow for your mining room, not the unit.

Those calculations are done by the engineers designing the unit and therefore irrelevant for the average miner.
Spondoolies have done those and designed the unit accordingly.

[Guy Corem]

... Source for lower leakage on 28nm? ...

TSMC 28HPM process has much lower leakage than 40G process. For instance the same 2-input NAND gate using standard Vt transistors in 28HPM has 5 times less leakage. This ratio is consistent for most of the cells. The leakage is maximal at high temperatures effectively doubling every 10C-20C. In addition to it 28HPM has more transistors options with smaller Leff transistors for higher speed (and higher leakage) and higher Leff (slower but less leaky) which can be used for lower speed parts. Smart mixing of all different available Leff sizes allows additional leakage reduction while increasing speed.

btw:
AM (BitQuan) still didn't tapeout their 28nm effort. Long wait until dividends ...