1GH/s, 20w, $700 (was $500) — Butterflylabs, is it for real? (Part 2)

[antirack]

We'll be doing a full product review in 2 weeks when they hand over a single Vladimir to test and photograph in our UK office for BitTalk Media. Look for it in the first issue of BitTalk Magazine.

No BFL singles and no magazine....

Clearly, that magazine must be a scam then.    
Especially because they already took my bitcoins.
Very suspicious.
Matthew is probably already on the run with our hard earned cash.

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[Matthew N. Wright]

We'll be doing a full product review in 2 weeks when they hand over a single Vladimir to test and photograph in our UK office for BitTalk Media. Look for it in the first issue of BitTalk Magazine.

No BFL singles and no magazine....

I don't know if I made a public announcement of this or not (I think I did in the magazine thread), but Butterfly Labs informed me that they will not be able to release soon enough to meet the deadline for the first issue, but are actually interested in advertising in the magazine as well. I think this is all just a matter of time. Article such as product reviews are not that time sensitive though and we can do it whenever it is released. No point in reviewing something that isn't released yet. Sorry if that wasn't made clear before.

For the record, I also bought one of these so I have my own reasons to hunt them down to the ends of the earth if they were scammers. ^_^

(And for those of you thinking that will have a bias effect on any review, note that I am not the one doing the review, Vladimir Marchenko of the Bitcoin magazine is, and he has no intention of ever using anyone's mining hardware but his own.)

[kjlimo]

We'll be doing a full product review in 2 weeks when they hand over a single Vladimir to test and photograph in our UK office for BitTalk Media. Look for it in the first issue of BitTalk Magazine.

No BFL singles and no magazine....

I don't know if I made a public announcement of this or not (I think I did in the magazine thread), but Butterfly Labs informed me that they will not be able to release soon enough to meet the deadline for the first issue, but are actually interested in advertising in the magazine as well. I think this is all just a matter of time. Article such as product reviews are not that time sensitive though and we can do it whenever it is released. No point in reviewing something that isn't released yet. Sorry if that wasn't made clear before.

For the record, I also bought one of these so I have my own reasons to hunt them down to the ends of the earth if they were scammers. ^_^

(And for those of you thinking that will have a bias effect on any review, note that I am not the one doing the review, Vladimir Marchenko of the Bitcoin magazine is, and he has no intention of ever using anyone's mining hardware but his own.)

That's almost all I need to hear to purchase one!

[jamesg]

I will buy anyone's spot in the first batch, if you want to get out now.

I'll pay a $20 premium if you want to give up your first batch order.

I would like to reiterate my offer in case anyone is interested.

[Inaba]

Thank you windows update for rebooting the BFL computer.  You are now disabled.  

Unit is back up and running.

[yochdog]

Thank you windows update for rebooting the BFL computer.  You are now disabled.  

Unit is back up and running.

Ugggg....I always have to remember to disable the automatic updates on my new installs.  Hate that shiiit.

[jddebug]

Thank you windows update for rebooting the BFL computer.  You are now disabled.  

Unit is back up and running.

Any insight yet on why the unit's hashrate is so much lower than 830Mhps? It doesn't seem to take long after a restart before it's consistently down in the 500's or 600's. Hopefully it is an issue with cgminer which can be fixed relatively quickly once some more units are in peoples' hands; a fundamental issue with the fpga firmware/hardware could be more difficult to address.

I've been watching and it seems the rates jump around from 600's to 900's. Not sure of the average but other posts have indicated its in the low 800's?

[rjk]

Thank you windows update for rebooting the BFL computer.  You are now disabled.  

Unit is back up and running.

Any insight yet on why the unit's hashrate is so much lower than 830Mhps? It doesn't seem to take long after a restart before it's consistently down in the 500's or 600's. Hopefully it is an issue with cgminer which can be fixed relatively quickly once some more units are in peoples' hands; a fundamental issue with the fpga firmware/hardware could be more difficult to address.

I've been watching and it seems the rates jump around from 600's to 900's. Not sure of the average but other posts have indicated its in the low 800's?

Pool. Hashrates. Are. NOT. Accurate. Full stop.

Inaba, how about streaming the desktop of the computer that is hosting the Single? Or point a webcam at it.

[RandyFolds]

Why did Epoch's post disappear?

[fizzisist]

Thank you windows update for rebooting the BFL computer.  You are now disabled.  

Unit is back up and running.

Any insight yet on why the unit's hashrate is so much lower than 830Mhps? It doesn't seem to take long after a restart before it's consistently down in the 500's or 600's. Hopefully it is an issue with cgminer which can be fixed relatively quickly once some more units are in peoples' hands; a fundamental issue with the fpga firmware/hardware could be more difficult to address.

I've been watching and it seems the rates jump around from 600's to 900's. Not sure of the average but other posts have indicated its in the low 800's?

Pool. Hashrates. Are. NOT. Accurate. Full stop.

Inaba, how about streaming the desktop of the computer that is hosting the Single? Or point a webcam at it.

Pool hashrates can be perfectly accurate. In fact, sometimes more accurate because the pool sees exactly what the miner is actually submitting. Just set the period for the average longer than 15 minutes. I would like it to be long enough to submit 400 shares, which is about 35 minutes for 800 MH/s. Inaba, can you change the period?

[Inaba]

Yeah I can change the window. I think I have it set at five minutes at the moment.

As far as steaming the desktop... I will be moving it to a Linux machine at some point and due to security reasons streaming or otherwise providing direct access to a box is likely not something I am willing to do. Although I might discuss it with BFL about making something like that available in the future.

[kano]

Thank you windows update for rebooting the BFL computer.  You are now disabled.  

Unit is back up and running.

Any insight yet on why the unit's hashrate is so much lower than 830Mhps? It doesn't seem to take long after a restart before it's consistently down in the 500's or 600's. Hopefully it is an issue with cgminer which can be fixed relatively quickly once some more units are in peoples' hands; a fundamental issue with the fpga firmware/hardware could be more difficult to address.

I've been watching and it seems the rates jump around from 600's to 900's. Not sure of the average but other posts have indicated its in the low 800's?

Pool. Hashrates. Are. NOT. Accurate. Full stop.

Inaba, how about streaming the desktop of the computer that is hosting the Single? Or point a webcam at it.

The share rate is all you need, in my opinion, to be happy that it is near the hash rates reported
- like D&T calculated a few pages back - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=53530.msg748164#msg748164

No mathematical proof here, but if you're mining 1 Diff shares and you mine for at least a few hours, your U: in cgminer will rarely be even 10% out.

On weekdays I mine 18 hours a day (electricity price banding is why - it more than doubles during the 6 hours I don't mine) with 2x6950 ~= 725MH/s which is also in the same general hash rate arena as the BFL and checking 59 logs in the last 2 months where the log was more than an hour, my U: is not once been out by more that +/-10% expected

So that's not mathematically proven, but IMO that number of real figures is good enough for me at least to take notice of the U: value after a couple of hours

( cgminer log file processing script for this you can load in a spreadsheet: http://pastebin.com/JUSNR2tK )

[Fefox]

Just got a email from BFL, looks like I will see a rig box by the end of April and a couple more weeks from now for the singles!!

"your units will not have the fan underneath.  You'll be getting rev 2 units which have a wider temperature tolerance."

has anyone seen a pic of Rev 2?

I would like to see them sooner than later, but I will settle for better late than never.  


I'm still wondering how the rig box will use half the power Per Mh as the Singles. I asked BFL what they expected it to require for a circuit, and they said a single phase 120v 20amp... that's not much... I figured for sure a 30amp..

I had a cool idea, someone should make a FPGA miner that fits into a 3.5 drive bay...  then you could hide a few in your system at work hehehe

[RandyFolds]

I had a cool idea, someone should make a FPGA miner that fits into a 3.5 drive bay...  then you could hide a few in your system at work hehehe

And get fired when the IT guy notices your computer never stops talking...

[Fefox]

I had a cool idea, someone should make a FPGA miner that fits into a 3.5 drive bay...  then you could hide a few in your system at work hehehe

And get fired when the IT guy notices your computer never stops talking...

Naw you just get sent to rehab to face your mining addiction!

[kjlimo]

I had a cool idea, someone should make a FPGA miner that fits into a 3.5 drive bay...  then you could hide a few in your system at work hehehe

And get fired when the IT guy notices your computer never stops talking...

Naw you just get sent to rehab to face your mining addiction!

The ports are probably blocked... not that I've tried

[kano]

I had a cool idea, someone should make a FPGA miner that fits into a 3.5 drive bay...  then you could hide a few in your system at work hehehe

And get fired when the IT guy notices your computer never stops talking...

Naw you just get sent to rehab to face your mining addiction!

The ports are probably blocked... not that I've tried

I was gonna say that it doesn't really matter coz FPGA's don't use much power so you're not really ripping them off much ... then I realised I was in the wrong thread

[antirack]

I'm still wondering how the rig box will use half the power Per Mh as the Singles. I asked BFL what they expected it to require for a circuit, and they said a single phase 120v 20amp... that's not much... I figured for sure a 30amp..

That's great for all of you in the USA and in Japan. How about the rest of the world which uses 220-240V?

[DeathAndTaxes]

I'm still wondering how the rig box will use half the power Per Mh as the Singles. I asked BFL what they expected it to require for a circuit, and they said a single phase 120v 20amp... that's not much... I figured for sure a 30amp..

That's great for all of you in the USA and in Japan. How about the rest of the world which uses 220-240V?

Most powersupplies are 120-240V.  If it can run on 120V @ 20A circuit it would work fine on a 240V @ 10A circuit too.

I doubt the powerspecs on the rigbox though.  Single only gets 10MH/W.  I wonder if the rigbox spec is based on the same "simulation" that caused BFL to advertise the single @ an insane 50M/W

[Syke]

Just got a email from BFL, looks like I will see a rig box by the end of April and a couple more weeks from now for the singles!!

4-6 weeks for the singles? There's a shocker.