Cointerra Hardware Support **Unofficial

[albela83]

Apparently, the cointerra people are starting to look more like BFL. First the stopped responding the support and phone calls. After issue from sever buys regarding their cointerra stopped working they now took the forums down as well...

Let's start a thread over here for miners who need support regarding ther 30lb Paperweight and if it can be of any use

[Headstrong97]

They suck as a company, my Cointerra has been hacked and is only running at 50% hashing capacity.  The other 50% is hashing for some hacker and not matter what I do I can't seem to restrict access.  Cointerra gave me instructions on a recovery process that should kick this hacker out but that failed to do the trick.  Cointerras response was there is nothing else they can do and has ignored all my emails and no one picks up the phone when you call.  The employee who I was working is named Marshall and if he is reading this I have this message to you "GO FUCK YOURSELF".  If you want to message him and fuck with him his email is marshall@cointerra.com.

[emba4]

the hack is as far as im aware limited only to the beaglebone, thankfully (in a way) the goldstrike boards are stand alone, crack the lid off, disconnect the USBs and wire the boards directly into a linux PC with a cointerra enabled build of cgminer on, or just remake your own image if you really want to stick with the beagle, im getting rather clued up on repairing cointerras now (not bad for someone who doesnt actually own one!) maybe i should start some sort of blog on the potentail fixes etc, especially since the cointerra forums died

[desired_username]

Thanks for creating this thread as I'm sure many owners (like me) have ongoing problems with these supposedly multifunctional paperweights.

It's been a few months since I've turned on this miner and in the beginning it worked fine hashing at 1.6TH with temps in the range of 75-85C (core).
My troubles started when CTA1 started to report inconsistent temperatures usually +15-20C above CTA0 while ambient temps have not been changed.

Shortly after this anomaly CTA1 started to throttle very often. I have cleaned the original thermal paste and reapplied a known quality brand.
This seemed to fix the issue for several weeks and CTA1 was within 5C range and I was a happy miner (my overall temps have gone down considerably too).

Next I encountered the "dead core" cointerra disease, as half of CTA1 disappeared. I was reflashing and restarting this diabolic device multiple times and disconnected/reconnected all the connectors inside to resolve this issue.
 
Couple of weeks after I'm again seeing CTA1 throttling very often meanwhile the reported hashrate is 1.3-1.5TH (temps in the 80-95C range).

I'm thinking about ordering quality thermal pads due to the unevenness of the chips surface and using a proper wc loop ("luckily" I have spare parts - will report back when it's done).

Do any of you found a permanent fix or tried something else with success?

[emba4]

nothing permanent, im looking at liquidmetal pads to replace the compound, ive also heard that there is the possibility the shims that protect the cores from the block being tightened too far may be a shade thick so i may try sanding them down a bit to try and get better results, i wish they hadnt hardcoded all the cutoffs and detection things (eg one of the units i look after cant read the waterpump hence the board wont start with that pump connected) were it not for all that we could easily swap out the cooling system in place for a stronger cooling system, not that its not possible still, its just a bit more of a pain

one thing that does seem to help is regular restarts, you can add a cron job to resart the system every few hours which seems to help a bit but not too much

[Mattster28]

Thanks for creating this thread as I'm sure many owners (like me) have ongoing problems with these supposedly multifunctional paperweights.

It's been a few months since I've turned on this miner and in the beginning it worked fine hashing at 1.6TH with temps in the range of 75-85C (core).
My troubles started when CTA1 started to report inconsistent temperatures usually +15-20C above CTA0 while ambient temps have not been changed.

Shortly after this anomaly CTA1 started to throttle very often. I have cleaned the original thermal paste and reapplied a known quality brand.
This seemed to fix the issue for several weeks and CTA1 was within 5C range and I was a happy miner (my overall temps have gone down considerably too).

Next I encountered the "dead core" cointerra disease, as half of CTA1 disappeared. I was reflashing and restarting this diabolic device multiple times and disconnected/reconnected all the connectors inside to resolve this issue.
 
Couple of weeks after I'm again seeing CTA1 throttling very often meanwhile the reported hashrate is 1.3-1.5TH (temps in the 80-95C range).

I'm thinking about ordering quality thermal pads due to the unevenness of the chips surface and using a proper wc loop ("luckily" I have spare parts - will report back when it's done).

Do any of you found a permanent fix or tried something else with success?

Whatever you do, do not buy these thermal pads ( http://www.frozencpu.com/products/16878/thr-164/Fujipoly_Extreme_System_Builder_Thermal_Pad_-_14_Sheet_-_150_x_100_x_05_-_Thermal_Conductivity_110_WmK.html?tl=g8c487s1730&id=T4zpcMmV ) I bought these and my temps got worse. Temps went straight to 105°+. There was a guy on the Cointerra forum that used Collaboratory Liquid Pro and said it brought his temps down.

[papo83]

Hey guys thanks for starting this thread, seeing as Cointerra shutdown the forums this is the only place i can find help. I've been running an April batch for two months now and today one board did not come online. I opened it up to see why only one board was going online and noticed that LED D45 was red. Does anyone know what this means? and is there is a way to fix it?

[desired_username]

Whatever you do, do not buy these thermal pads ( http://www.frozencpu.com/products/16878/thr-164/Fujipoly_Extreme_System_Builder_Thermal_Pad_-_14_Sheet_-_150_x_100_x_05_-_Thermal_Conductivity_110_WmK.html?tl=g8c487s1730&id=T4zpcMmV ) I bought these and my temps got worse. Temps went straight to 105°+. There was a guy on the Cointerra forum that used Collaboratory Liquid Pro and said it brought his temps down.

Thanks. For the time being I have ordered some samples from http://www.tglobalthermal.com/

I would be interested if the Liquid Pro last long. I've used mx4 but it started overheating after 2-3 weeks.

I'm waiting for my wc block to arrive next week too, hopefully I'll be able to overcome this throttling issue once and for all. As CTA0 is fine I'll focus only on CTA1.

[phantomcircuit]

Thanks for creating this thread as I'm sure many owners (like me) have ongoing problems with these supposedly multifunctional paperweights.

It's been a few months since I've turned on this miner and in the beginning it worked fine hashing at 1.6TH with temps in the range of 75-85C (core).
My troubles started when CTA1 started to report inconsistent temperatures usually +15-20C above CTA0 while ambient temps have not been changed.

Shortly after this anomaly CTA1 started to throttle very often. I have cleaned the original thermal paste and reapplied a known quality brand.
This seemed to fix the issue for several weeks and CTA1 was within 5C range and I was a happy miner (my overall temps have gone down considerably too).

Next I encountered the "dead core" cointerra disease, as half of CTA1 disappeared. I was reflashing and restarting this diabolic device multiple times and disconnected/reconnected all the connectors inside to resolve this issue.
 
Couple of weeks after I'm again seeing CTA1 throttling very often meanwhile the reported hashrate is 1.3-1.5TH (temps in the 80-95C range).

I'm thinking about ordering quality thermal pads due to the unevenness of the chips surface and using a proper wc loop ("luckily" I have spare parts - will report back when it's done).

Do any of you found a permanent fix or tried something else with success?

What is the intake/exhaust temp?

[Doff]

Thanks for creating this thread as I'm sure many owners (like me) have ongoing problems with these supposedly multifunctional paperweights.

It's been a few months since I've turned on this miner and in the beginning it worked fine hashing at 1.6TH with temps in the range of 75-85C (core).
My troubles started when CTA1 started to report inconsistent temperatures usually +15-20C above CTA0 while ambient temps have not been changed.

Shortly after this anomaly CTA1 started to throttle very often. I have cleaned the original thermal paste and reapplied a known quality brand.
This seemed to fix the issue for several weeks and CTA1 was within 5C range and I was a happy miner (my overall temps have gone down considerably too).

Next I encountered the "dead core" cointerra disease, as half of CTA1 disappeared. I was reflashing and restarting this diabolic device multiple times and disconnected/reconnected all the connectors inside to resolve this issue.
 
Couple of weeks after I'm again seeing CTA1 throttling very often meanwhile the reported hashrate is 1.3-1.5TH (temps in the 80-95C range).

I'm thinking about ordering quality thermal pads due to the unevenness of the chips surface and using a proper wc loop ("luckily" I have spare parts - will report back when it's done).

Do any of you found a permanent fix or tried something else with success?

I used this http://www.frozencpu.com/products/7038/thr-41/Innovation_Cooling_Diamond_7_Carat_Thermal_Compound_-_15_Grams.html

I also used Arctic Clean to clean up the huge mess first. You want to put a small drip of compound on each chip. They say pea sized on the instructions but I used a little less for each chip since they are a lot smaller than a CPU.

I have had it running stable for 3 weeks now with no temp rises.

I had tried Arctic silver first but that didn't help at all, the Cooling Diamond was like night and day and has been working fantastic.

[desired_username]

I used this http://www.frozencpu.com/products/7038/thr-41/Innovation_Cooling_Diamond_7_Carat_Thermal_Compound_-_15_Grams.html

I also used Arctic Clean to clean up the huge mess first. You want to put a small drip of compound on each chip. They say pea sized on the instructions but I used a little less for each chip since they are a lot smaller than a CPU.

I have had it running stable for 3 weeks now with no temp rises.

I had tried Arctic silver first but that didn't help at all, the Cooling Diamond was like night and day and has been working fantastic.

Thanks. I've ordered that as well.

I'll compare it to the thermal pads when everything arrives.
 

[Hazir]

I want to buy some mining equipment and and checked many websites already I was interested in Cointerra's Terraminer but I am seeing that this company is not that good and their support is some kind of joke. And I will be buying now from http://www.gawminers.com/ instead. They have a lot better client support and this is what I like the most.

[xdigital]

I too have problem with CTA1. Do you guys know which board is the CTA1?
is it next to the 2 Power Supplies?
TIA

[Mattster28]

I too have problem with CTA1. Do you guys know which board is the CTA1?
is it next to the 2 Power Supplies?
TIA

Marshall from Cointerra Tech Support told me board 0 was the board above the Beaglebone Black controller.

[aristodemus]

I too have problem with CTA1. Do you guys know which board is the CTA1?
is it next to the 2 Power Supplies?
TIA

I just replaced the water cooling block on mine.  CTA0 for me was the board closest to the 2 power supplies(right hand side when facing the front).  CTA1 was the board furthest away from the power supplies(left hand side when facing the front). 

Good luck.

[emba4]

which part did you replace it with? the block is a custom one (i asked coolIT who made it but they dont sell them and said id need to contact cointerra support) and i couldnt find any alternative blocks with integrated 3 pin pumps that looked decent or have you just got an external pump?

[desired_username]

which part did you replace it with? the block is a custom one (i asked coolIT who made it but they dont sell them and said id need to contact cointerra support) and i couldnt find any alternative blocks with integrated 3 pin pumps that looked decent or have you just got an external pump?

Considering how bad they are, I wouldn't replace them with the same model.

EK blocks should fit but I'm yet to install it (it might require some modifications but nothing complex).

[JoseSan]

I thought I'd share my experience troubleshooting a very hot miner. Although temperamentally slowing down, this miner would perform at 100% after a reset, usually staying there for a day or so. I thought I'd replace the thermal paste with some arctic silver to see if it brought down the temperatures from ~90C. Long story short, it did not. Now one board isn't responding, and the other has overheating problems. Disregarding my extreme stupidity, it was a valuable education in the unit's operation. Here's a video I shot of it in operation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nqr9Dsli24

Note the orange and red status lights on each board. I'm assuming those are individual core hashing status. The "bad" board (on the left) would simply flash the orange lights as shown in the video, then reset itself (the fans go to maximum briefly then reduce in speed).

It would be really nice if they released the source code for the firmware used in the TI microcontroller they're using. I'm guessing they don't because yahoos like me would change some setting that would definitely fry the chips or electronics unintentionally. I don't blame them, but still want it. What the device does can be partly ascertained from the cgminer source code, but all that is pretty high level message passing which mainly involves reporting of values, and not setting of them.

[papo83]

I thought I'd share my experience troubleshooting a very hot miner. Although temperamentally slowing down, this miner would perform at 100% after a reset, usually staying there for a day or so. I thought I'd replace the thermal paste with some arctic silver to see if it brought down the temperatures from ~90C. Long story short, it did not. Now one board isn't responding, and the other has overheating problems. Disregarding my extreme stupidity, it was a valuable education in the unit's operation. Here's a video I shot of it in operation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nqr9Dsli24

Note the orange and red status lights on each board. I'm assuming those are individual core hashing status. The "bad" board (on the left) would simply flash the orange lights as shown in the video, then reset itself (the fans go to maximum briefly then reduce in speed).

It would be really nice if they released the source code for the firmware used in the TI microcontroller they're using. I'm guessing they don't because yahoos like me would change some setting that would definitely fry the chips or electronics unintentionally. I don't blame them, but still want it. What the device does can be partly ascertained from the cgminer source code, but all that is pretty high level message passing which mainly involves reporting of values, and not setting of them.

I am in a similar situation as you. I applied arctic silver and now one board has the status lights on constantly. Is there a way of knowing what is causing the problems from the status lights?

[Mattster28]

I thought I'd share my experience troubleshooting a very hot miner. Although temperamentally slowing down, this miner would perform at 100% after a reset, usually staying there for a day or so. I thought I'd replace the thermal paste with some arctic silver to see if it brought down the temperatures from ~90C. Long story short, it did not. Now one board isn't responding, and the other has overheating problems. Disregarding my extreme stupidity, it was a valuable education in the unit's operation. Here's a video I shot of it in operation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nqr9Dsli24

Note the orange and red status lights on each board. I'm assuming those are individual core hashing status. The "bad" board (on the left) would simply flash the orange lights as shown in the video, then reset itself (the fans go to maximum briefly then reduce in speed).

It would be really nice if they released the source code for the firmware used in the TI microcontroller they're using. I'm guessing they don't because yahoos like me would change some setting that would definitely fry the chips or electronics unintentionally. I don't blame them, but still want it. What the device does can be partly ascertained from the cgminer source code, but all that is pretty high level message passing which mainly involves reporting of values, and not setting of them.

I am in a similar situation as you. I applied arctic silver and now one board has the status lights on constantly. Is there a way of knowing what is causing the problems from the status lights?

I have applied thermal compound about 5 times so far with different results each time. If you don't get enough paste on them they will get hot and to much and they get hot. If the chips get to hot they are going to shut down. So the board you have that's down could be from the chips getting to hot. Reason I say that is one time after I reapplied the paste I had a chip shut down as soon as the stats came up from getting to hot. I redid the paste once again and it came back. Finding the right amount of paste is the trick since the four die's are not level. I'm yet to get it right.