Cointerra Hardware Support **Unofficial

[marvinmartian]

you scared the hell out of me ... just received my liquid pro yesterday, and some thermal pads too from coollab

i hasitate to apply now ...

btw, how many chips can one syringe of liquid pro cover?? I only got 1 syringe and doubt it would be enough even for one machine ...

I don't think you need to be scared.  But I will say that I've basically had this happen with the last two boards I've applied TIM to.  The first was over a month ago using Noctua HT-N1.  It seemed fine, then a die went bad (remember there are 8 dies per board).  There was no rhyme or reason to it either.  I inspected afterward an my application was fine.  No overflow, short circuit, or anything.

Most recently, using LP, the same thing happened but worse.  The temp sensor went along with the goldstrike die causing more problems.  A dead die isn't so bad.  You just lose 1/8 of your boards hashing power.   I can't say I blame LP for this either.

Particularly if you have no choice and your machine is running way too hot, then I'd say to go ahead with the LP.  I honestly believe it's better than other TIM.

Some notes:

1.  I modified my jig since I can't find long M3 screws near where I live (Lowe's doesn't have them).  Simply put, I cut the chopsticks down to about 2" long and just used them as temporary screws.  Turns out I really didn't need the foam and the top part of the jig.  The sticks / wooden pins worked just as well as my more complicated jig.  Regardless, you really do need something to keep the water block in place when applying any TIM to these machines.

2.  Use a good solvent to get rid of the old TIM.  I used Arcticlean.  But who knows, maybe that's the culprit here for all I know.  It is a common element.

3.  Make sure you apply LP to both the cores AND the bottom of the water block.  I feel like one syringe of LP can do an entire machine, or pretty close to it.  You really DO NOT NEED MUCH material when applying.  When you "paint" it on to the bottom of the block you'll see.  It's like you're spreading it only a few molecules thick.

4.  After you restart your machine and especially if it seems ok, try to just leave it that way for at least 24 hrs.  I feel like in both instances where I've had a board drop a die, it happened after a restart that occured shortly after application.  I'm speculating here.

Here is something else to consider.  In both my cases, it's been the last core on the board that's gone bad:  core7.  So I'm not convinced this is necessarily the fault of any TIM or application method.  That last core seems to be the weak link in the chain and was also likely the problem core running hot in each case.  So there might be more going on to these failures than we'll never know until some ex employee of CT writes a book or something.

LP goes on more like silver paint than thermal paste.  It also won't stick to a surface until you spread it a bit.  Try to resist the urge to put on too much.

Be careful and you stand a good chance.  But then again, that's what I thought when I started applying Noctua last month (before I went to LP) and I still had a chip go bad.  Any time you work on one of these very fragile boxes you're taking a bit of a chance.

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[marvinmartian]

Shortly after writing the above, I see my core temps have flopped back to the + side of nonsense.

Core Temp 1 (°C)   34.7   31.24   32.71
Core Temp 2 (°C)   326.59   28.09   105.18

It will occasionally flip back to a very large negative temp, but now seems to be stuck on the positive side, so the CTA is not hashing at all since the system thinks it is running too hot and is throttling it off.

What a pain.

[bitcoinbearhk]

have you tried my idea, or pulling the 3-pin power supply off the bad block?  It should shut that core down, and thus revitalizing the good core remaining on that board.

FYI, I have now one machine with only 3 water blocks connected (one core with no water block, waiting for the new block to arrive tonight).  And it is hashing nicely with 12 chips, 4 at rest because of the lack of any water cooling system connected to it, not even the power connected.

Try this

[marvinmartian]

have you tried my idea, or pulling the 3-pin power supply off the bad block?  It should shut that core down, and thus revitalizing the good core remaining on that board.

FYI, I have now one machine with only 3 water blocks connected (one core with no water block, waiting for the new block to arrive tonight).  And it is hashing nicely with 12 chips, 4 at rest because of the lack of any water cooling system connected to it, not even the power connected.

Try this

I did try it.  No luck.  The core does not shut down.  I'm pretty sure that cable only reports pump speed.

What firmware version are you running?  I've tried them all, from 0.6.x through 0.8.8.  Makes no difference.

[marvinmartian]

Ok, here's some bizarre observational data.

When I run with PL7 or below the bad temp sensor tends to flip on the plus side more often (eg., +300C) and the other core on the board runs in the 70s - 80s.

When I run with PL8 or PL9 the sensor seems to stay in the negative more often ( -299C currently) and the other core runs in the 60s.

Go figure.  More power = lower temp.

Things go kooky when chips and senors get wonky.

EDIT:  not so sure about this anymore.  It seems to flip back to + without rhyme or reason now.  I may have to just disable the board entirely.  First I'll have to check how much power it's drawing.  I suspect it's now a very inefficient miner electricity wise.

EDIT:  yup, it's been showing +300C or so all day, hence no mining from CTA0 as it's throttling itself.  I wish there was a way to force it NOT to throttle.

[Grayson5]

Has anyone here replace the Beaglebone in their Terraminer? Mine is dead and I just purchased a new one, but not completely sure how to load the Cointerra firmware onto it.  I was told I need to point the boot loader at the firmware files and have been doing some research but thought any experience or suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks.

[JoseSan]

Has anyone here replace the Beaglebone in their Terraminer?
Thanks.

If you want to completely duplicate the setup Cointerra put on there, you'd need to image the beaglebone exactly as they did. If you really, really want to have it back as-is, you might be able to get an image dump from someone. Otherwise I'd just load on some default embedded linux version for the beaglebone, compile a version of cgminer, and just run that.

What firmware version are you running?  I've tried them all, from 0.6.x through 0.8.8.  Makes no difference.

Where are you getting version 0.8.8?

[marvinmartian]

What firmware version are you running?  I've tried them all, from 0.6.x through 0.8.8.  Makes no difference.

Where are you getting version 0.8.8?

I got it from their tech. support a while back.  I think it's similar to 0.7.6 with added support for extensive debug printout put nicely into a tarball so you can (could) email it to CT.  I don't think CT cares so much anymore.  

Someone had a set of links to all the firmware versions on the CT forums, before they took them down.

They were all up on GitHub too but I'm not sure if they still are.  The devs may have wised up and put them into a private repo.

I suspect if you email support@cointerra.com they might still send it to you.  Who knows.

[Grayson5]

Has anyone here replace the Beaglebone in their Terraminer?
Thanks.

If you want to completely duplicate the setup Cointerra put on there, you'd need to image the beaglebone exactly as they did. If you really, really want to have it back as-is, you might be able to get an image dump from someone. Otherwise I'd just load on some default embedded linux version for the beaglebone, compile a version of cgminer, and just run that.

OK, maybe I will try the cgminer first.  Other than getting a version to run on the beaglebone (not sure if it will run with the Angstrom linux version or if I will need to load a different linux version) would I need to do anything else for it to recognize the terraminer boards?  I am assuming cgminer would find them and then start sending the data to the pool provided on the command line.  Does that make sense?

[Scrappy Do]

Has anyone here replace the Beaglebone in their Terraminer?
Thanks.

If you want to completely duplicate the setup Cointerra put on there, you'd need to image the beaglebone exactly as they did. If you really, really want to have it back as-is, you might be able to get an image dump from someone. Otherwise I'd just load on some default embedded linux version for the beaglebone, compile a version of cgminer, and just run that.

What firmware version are you running?  I've tried them all, from 0.6.x through 0.8.8.  Makes no difference.

Where are you getting version 0.8.8?

Seriously.. wtf is this 0.8.8 shit? sounds like you got infected.

[bitcoinbearhk]

Mine is ver. 0.7.6, should it be ok?

[JoseSan]

OK, maybe I will try the cgminer first.  Other than getting a version to run on the beaglebone (not sure if it will run with the Angstrom linux version or if I will need to load a different linux version) would I need to do anything else for it to recognize the terraminer boards?  I am assuming cgminer would find them and then start sending the data to the pool provided on the command line.  Does that make sense?

There's a USB trick you need to perform to have cgminer recognize the CT devices, it's described in the cgminer README. Other than that, no fancy stuff, it just works.

https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/blob/master/README#L355

The build instructions are also there:

https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/blob/master/README#L100

Keep in mind that Angstrom linux (the *normal* version, not the wonky scheme Cointerra boots into) uses a package manager called opkg. So far as I know you can get all the necessary packages to build cgminer from it, but I haven't actually tried it myself, I'm just recalling an almost identical process with KNC.

[bitcoinbearhk]

OK so I have got myself a Silverstone Tundra TD3 water pump and replaced my faulty pump.

Unfortunately it is not much better than the cheap Cooler Master Seidon 120 that I've tried a few days ago...


Both could solve my problem, partially.  With the replacement pump I can now mine with all 16 cores, but only if set to Power Step 6.  many chips shuts as soon as I step up to Power Step 7.  Probably the pump is not strong enough to remove the heat???

The pump speed only reads 1200 RPM for TD3, while it's ~1000 RPM for Seidon 120.  Noticed that the original cointerra pumps are 3000 RPM ...


Any idea on how I could boost the replacement pumps so that I could fully utilize my miner to Step 9 again?  Maybe Liquid Pro could help?  I am using Artic Silver 5 for thermal paste now.

[marvinmartian]

Has anyone here replace the Beaglebone in their Terraminer?
Thanks.

If you want to completely duplicate the setup Cointerra put on there, you'd need to image the beaglebone exactly as they did. If you really, really want to have it back as-is, you might be able to get an image dump from someone. Otherwise I'd just load on some default embedded linux version for the beaglebone, compile a version of cgminer, and just run that.

What firmware version are you running?  I've tried them all, from 0.6.x through 0.8.8.  Makes no difference.

Where are you getting version 0.8.8?

Seriously.. wtf is this 0.8.8 shit? sounds like you got infected.

Lol ... no.  This was all discussed at great length on the CT forums before they put them down.  Believe it or not.  I'm not sure what advantages 0.8.8 has.  But the LED lights seem to respond a bit more.  IE., pwr LED stays green and/or turns red if the machine hangs.  It also has an option for more extensive debug output.

I have no reason to make this up ... and no my machines are not infected.  ;-)

[marvinmartian]

OK so I have got myself a Silverstone Tundra TD3 water pump and replaced my faulty pump.

Unfortunately it is not much better than the cheap Cooler Master Seidon 120 that I've tried a few days ago...


Both could solve my problem, partially.  With the replacement pump I can now mine with all 16 cores, but only if set to Power Step 6.  many chips shuts as soon as I step up to Power Step 7.  Probably the pump is not strong enough to remove the heat???

The pump speed only reads 1200 RPM for TD3, while it's ~1000 RPM for Seidon 120.  Noticed that the original cointerra pumps are 3000 RPM ...


Any idea on how I could boost the replacement pumps so that I could fully utilize my miner to Step 9 again?  Maybe Liquid Pro could help?  I am using Artic Silver 5 for thermal paste now.

LP will likely drop your temps a few more degrees.  But be very careful when applying the stuff.  Unlike AS5 it's electrically conductive.  So it can short out your board if it gets in the wrong place.  

Stuff is like (and likely contains quite a bit of) liquid mercury.  This thread has lots of good info on how to go about applying.

Also, your chips shouldn't shut down at PL7 unless they're getting above 120C.

Lastly, when you applied AS5 did you also apply it to the square "ring" that surrounds the chips.  I'm pretty sure you do not need to apply there.  My hunch is that doing so "lifts" the cooling block ever so slightly off the chips.

Several have speculated that the chips suffer from some misalignment in the horizontal plane ... which makes for tricky cooling issues and thermal paste application that lots have been experiencing.

But it sounds more like you need better pumps.  Also, what's your intake air temp?  IE., the temp in the room.  I've found if it's above 80F everything starts to overheat.  Below that and things are fine.

[bitcoinbearhk]

room temp at 34C, pretty marginal, notice CT is only designed to operate below 35C

ill give LP a try tonight

[Scrappy Do]

Has anyone here replace the Beaglebone in their Terraminer?
Thanks.

If you want to completely duplicate the setup Cointerra put on there, you'd need to image the beaglebone exactly as they did. If you really, really want to have it back as-is, you might be able to get an image dump from someone. Otherwise I'd just load on some default embedded linux version for the beaglebone, compile a version of cgminer, and just run that.

What firmware version are you running?  I've tried them all, from 0.6.x through 0.8.8.  Makes no difference.

Where are you getting version 0.8.8?

Seriously.. wtf is this 0.8.8 shit? sounds like you got infected.

Lol ... no.  This was all discussed at great length on the CT forums before they put them down.  Believe it or not.  I'm not sure what advantages 0.8.8 has.  But the LED lights seem to respond a bit more.  IE., pwr LED stays green and/or turns red if the machine hangs.  It also has an option for more extensive debug output.

I have no reason to make this up ... and no my machines are not infected.  ;-)

6.4.8 best version I have found unless you have the machine in a very cool environment. 6.4.8 actually shuts down 1, not all 4 per chip. Try it. Rollit back to 636, then set stepping to 7, and let it run a bit, then upgrade to 6.4.8 and step it slowly.

[bitcoinbearhk]

Is Liquid Pro "removable"

I have heard people saying that applying these kind of liquid metal paste will join the block and chips so hard that it will become very difficult to remove later.

So, if need to do maintenance later, how to?

[JoseSan]

Stuff is like (and likely contains quite a bit of) liquid mercury.

It's actually mostly gallium, another element that is liquid close to room temperature:

http://www.coollaboratory.com/pdf/safetydatasheet_liquid_pro_englisch.pdf

Given that spec sheet, Liquid Pro it is most certainly Galinstan, or a slight modification of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galinstan

[marvinmartian]

Is Liquid Pro "removable"

I have heard people saying that applying these kind of liquid metal paste will join the block and chips so hard that it will become very difficult to remove later.

So, if need to do maintenance later, how to?

That is a potential issue I think as well.  I have noticed, however, that you can still remove LP after a day or two.  So if you don't see the gains you like, you can always fall back to a regular paste.

Ironically, my board is now running fine (minus a die) using some CoolerMaster paste that came with a CPU cooler I had.  I think that some of the issues people may be having are application related?  Go get some chopsticks, cut them down to about 3" and sharpen one end.  Stick them in the holding screw holes (they will screw slightly in) and use them as guides.  Or ... go get some longish m3 screws.  Make sure not to apply too much TIM.  I also have a hunch that the screws do not necessarily need to get torqued all the way down.  Tightish, yes, but perhaps not fully in.  I wonder if full torque might damage the very delicate goldstrikes, esp. if they don't sit properly flush with the surrounding metal square.