Cointerra Hardware Support **Unofficial

[ccollectables]

Has anyone successfully got a RasPi to work with the TerraMiner IV boards?  If not has anyone tried?

[trixter]

PSU got 1 green and 1 orange.  I swap PSU and same thing.

The board itself is like new, no dust whatsoever.

After the inspection of the main board, no sign of anything that have burned. 

Like I said before, the board itself doesn't light up.  Neither the FAN that are on that board.

If you look at the data sheet for the psu page 10 http://www.datasheetlib.com/datasheet/784801/pfe1100-12-054ra_power-one.html?page=10#datasheet

The 2 LEDs are a single color green indicating AC on/off and a 2nd LED that is bi-color for the DC side.  There are 2 colors "green" and "yellow" (which presumably is the orangy color people report since its just a bi-color LED and not something more).  A solid yellow is the result of any of these conditions:

Over temperature shutdown
Output over voltage shutdown (V₁ or V_SB)
Output over current shutdown (V₁ or V_SB)
Fan error (>15%)

Since swapping the PSUs causes the same error that would generally rule out over temp or fan error (psu fan not chassis fans).  This means that it is trying to output too much voltage or current (implying a short somewhere).  This would have to be on the DC side as its the only LED that is bi-color.  Which means its either on that power adapter that the psu connects to or its on the board itself.  Given that the board has physical damage that indicates that is the only problem. 

Power-one just got bought out, I have no idea if these PSUs are going to be harder to get support on in the future or not.

[numnutz2009]

PSU got 1 green and 1 orange.  I swap PSU and same thing.

The board itself is like new, no dust whatsoever.

After the inspection of the main board, no sign of anything that have burned. 

Like I said before, the board itself doesn't light up.  Neither the FAN that are on that board.

If you look at the data sheet for the psu page 10 http://www.datasheetlib.com/datasheet/784801/pfe1100-12-054ra_power-one.html?page=10#datasheet

The 2 LEDs are a single color green indicating AC on/off and a 2nd LED that is bi-color for the DC side.  There are 2 colors "green" and "yellow" (which presumably is the orangy color people report since its just a bi-color LED and not something more).  A solid yellow is the result of any of these conditions:

Over temperature shutdown
Output over voltage shutdown (V₁ or V_SB)
Output over current shutdown (V₁ or V_SB)
Fan error (>15%)

Since swapping the PSUs causes the same error that would generally rule out over temp or fan error (psu fan not chassis fans).  This means that it is trying to output too much voltage or current (implying a short somewhere).  This would have to be on the DC side as its the only LED that is bi-color.  Which means its either on that power adapter that the psu connects to or its on the board itself.  Given that the board has physical damage that indicates that is the only problem. 

Power-one just got bought out, I have no idea if these PSUs are going to be harder to get support on in the future or not.

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i have returned to offer some help to peeps or at the very least provide some more interesting info i found out.

1. like the post above states there are 3 colors used. red, green, and an amberish color. The red usually shows up on the far far end of the string of lights and the others are greed and or amber. I got a coupleof boards in the other day that i paid $53 each plus shipping and one had green lights with a red led at the far end and the other had all amber lights with a red one at the very end. Im assuming this was one from a batch that substitued the green lights for amber ones since it makes no difference what the color is and it doesnt seem to indicate any issues. Now some may notice lights are off in the row of diodes and that means thats a core that isnt being contacted or is shut off to protect the core from damaging voltages. i have no clue which belongs to which and dont care to be honest.

2. these dont need the waterblocks on them to test the power. sounds stupid i know but if you connect the power to them with nothing else connected the lights will come on but the dies on each core will stay ice cold. some may be wondering whats up but after i played around  and pulled a dummy move of not connecting the pump cables up i realized the lights dont cycle when the 3 pin fan connector has nothing attached and or the fan runs slower then a certain rpm. If you look in the status page of a terra miner it says the fan speed of the fans and the fan speed of the pumps which the pumps dont have fans but they do communicate like they do so if a pump is no longer able to hit lets say 2000 rpm but the miner is set (cant change this normally unless modding cointerras firmware) to only kick in the core when the 3 pin fan connector detects 2000+rpm then the board shuts off that core and will not start it even if the second pump is running fine and circulating the liquid over both cores. soooooo with that being said this also means something else can be used to cool the cores instead of expensive water cooling kits and that something is air . if you get a higher end heatsink sure it will be louder but you will no longer have to worry about leaks and or a pump dying. if a fan dies the core shuts off and you replace that fan with an equal or better cfm fan that is controlled using 3 wires and your all set. itried out a coolermaster heatsink with 3 moddel dell delta fans  with 2 pwm controllers specifically made for 4 pin fans and it was able to cool the cores down when using diamond thermal paste. i got the temps to drop to about 70 degrees in a room that was pretty warm because i closed the door to work on everything in peace.

3. if your psu is going orange on you get a standard pc psu and remove the board from the miner. cut the wires or in my case make a new pci-e connector with just bare wires on the other end and hook them to the terminals. it would be best to get 3 wires of pos and 3 of ground hooked to ring terminals but if you dont have a home depot or whatever near you you can wing it but ring terminals are the best way to go and they will securely lock the wires down. anyway after having 3 of each hooked to the correct power posts and having the board sitting on a piece of cardhoard or in my case supported on some m3 spacer posts power on the psu. Once you do one of the mosfets will probably burn up. i have had at least one burn up on every board i connected to external power. its never the same one and i believe its because thats the weak mosfet causing the spu to sense a problem and shut off to pretect the board. I repeat one mosfet has burned up on every single board i have repaired. once the mosfet is replaced doing the same thing again doesnt cause it to burn up. this tells me the psu sensed a problem and shut off before the mosfet blew which in this case you want it to blow so it puts a mark on the top of it allowing you to find the damaged mosfet. with the psu turning off before it blows it allows it to stay in tact making it hard to find the damn thing. also once blown it wont allow the psu of the miner to communicate with that die so it wont sense a power problem and usually allows the miner to start up without however many mosfets that blew. it sounds bad but really its fine. just provide power and wait a couple of seconds and check the top and bottom for the blown fet. cant get anymore simple then that really. so a standard pc psu has 2 roles here….one the power pushed into the board lets you find the bad mosfet and 2 the psu provides the unmetered power to the board and wont shut down like the main miners psus would to prevent what your trying to have happen. idk about u but i rather have 1 dead die and 7 working dies to mine with then 8 dead dies and a board that shuts off to protect the fet that is gonna blow anyway. that and u can replace the fet allowing the board to potentially hash at full tilt again .


i will keep posting more info when i run into those issues. u can take it or leave it but i will still post it lol. Also i will offer my help replacing stuff on the boards if people want. I will only need the board nothing else and if i replace the mosfets its $100 flat for the first one and $10 per additional fet because it takes a long time to heat these boards up to temps that allow the solder under it to melt so the $100 covers the first fet and the $10 each covers each additional one. if i cant make any progress with the board then u only pay shipping to and from me. so $100 plus shipping to and from me or shipping to and from me. Or you can run it the way it is if you want lol idc just throwin that option out there. Or you can sell me ur miners or parts for them too like psus and psu boards and water cooling kits and so on.

finally since everyone i see on this forum posts donation addied i thought y the hell not?? if my info helped you in ne way and ur feeling greatful lmk by sending some btc my way its wayyyy cheaper then cointerras help thats for sure!!!

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[Grayson5]

I am considering selling my Terraminer.  I bought it 6 months ago and while it worked OK for 4 months, I had a lighting strike in July that took out the Beagleboard.  I have it hooked up to a PC with the USB cables, but my hashing rate ranges from 300G - 1,100G.  Mainly it hovers around 500G - 600G.  I am going to slowly phase out of mining and want to know if anyone here has interest in purchasing my Terraminer.  Feel free to send me a private message if you are with a reasonable offer.

I can post pictures for anyone interested.

Thanks,

John

[wls]

Anyone load the new firmware? https://cointerra.com/firmware-downloads/
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #4FzAEPuis6i4w19q

[trixter]

Anyone load the new firmware? https://cointerra.com/firmware-downloads/
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #4FzAEPuis6i4w19q

If you get a lot of usb disconnects (CTAx rises over time, CTA2, CTA3, ...) then this is a worse firmware than 0.6.48.  On a stable box this one is slightly better than 0.7.22, 0.7.46 or 0.7.53 in terms of stability and hashrate.  I find it better than 0.7.6 but only marginally on a stable box. 

I will be retargeting my patches that might get slightly more performance out of a box by allowing you to split CTAs in terms of power stepping (cta_load) and power supply loading (ps_load).  I will do it for this version of cgminer and the associated tweaks to the firmware to not override the changes.

[kdbaumann]

I would be curious if anyone has gotten a RasPi B+ to work as a replacement for the BBB?

Also. 

I haven't read all of this so maybe my question is answered above.

1. Can you just plug into the USB connectors on the two boards and plug those into a computer (RasPi) running CGMiner (of some flavor), and have it work?  Or maybe a PC?

2. I have blinky lights on the BBB. Does the BBB actually work, but need to be reflashed?

3. I have blinky lights on the two boards, one board has one light that doesn't light as it cycles through them.  Is that due to a bad chip? 

4. I have NO CTA light at all.  Nothing lights up on the front panel.  Yet I have lights on the board?

Thanks in advance, I ordered a BBB off eBay that is flashed already with the latest know version from Cointerra, was taken out of a working unit, so they say.  But I don't understand why I don't get a CTA light up front?

I will check the USB hub that is inside the unit as well. 

Thanks

[trixter]

1. Can you just plug into the USB connectors on the two boards and plug those into a computer (RasPi) running CGMiner (of some flavor), and have it work?  Or maybe a PC?

yes providing its cgminer with the CTA support.

2. I have blinky lights on the BBB. Does the BBB actually work, but need to be reflashed?

3. I have blinky lights on the two boards, one board has one light that doesn't light as it cycles through them.  Is that due to a bad chip? 

4. I have NO CTA light at all.  Nothing lights up on the front panel.  Yet I have lights on the board?

dunno, the boards  have a chaser led pattern that should be on.  Red only is not good.  orange in series from one side to the other is good.  The CTA light on the front board is from a header on the board.  The board directly controls it and afaik it will only light up when its actually mining - meaning work is fetched and sent to it.  If there is a problem with the beaglebone then that would prevent it from working.

I would start at the first item, the beaglebone.  make sure that is working.  If you can get to the webpage you can ssh in and look for logs in /var/log and see what is going on.  Once you have ruled that out then check all the wires and make sure they are securely connected. 

[kdbaumann]

1. Can you just plug into the USB connectors on the two boards and plug those into a computer (RasPi) running CGMiner (of some flavor), and have it work?  Or maybe a PC?

yes providing its cgminer with the CTA support.

2. I have blinky lights on the BBB. Does the BBB actually work, but need to be reflashed?

3. I have blinky lights on the two boards, one board has one light that doesn't light as it cycles through them.  Is that due to a bad chip?  

4. I have NO CTA light at all.  Nothing lights up on the front panel.  Yet I have lights on the board?

dunno, the boards  have a chaser led pattern that should be on.  Red only is not good.  orange in series from one side to the other is good.  The CTA light on the front board is from a header on the board.  The board directly controls it and afaik it will only light up when its actually mining - meaning work is fetched and sent to it.  If there is a problem with the beaglebone then that would prevent it from working.

I would start at the first item, the beaglebone.  make sure that is working.  If you can get to the webpage you can ssh in and look for logs in /var/log and see what is going on.  Once you have ruled that out then check all the wires and make sure they are securely connected.  

One board has all lights in chase.  The other board has all but one light in chase.

I am about to pull all the heat sinks and put new thermal paste on them...  Hopefully that will help as well.

One miner has half it's cores running.  The other has more but is hashing slower.  I think it's rebooting due to heat, so it never gets up to speed.  More later.

The only issue I am worried about at the moment is that one chaser light isn't lighting so it's either a bad light or a problem... :-)


PS Got a new flashed BBB off eBay and can now connect no problem.  Hashes up to 1.6Th at times... :-)  Still need to solve the top.

[dogie]

This company's rating has been updated in the Manufacturer Trustworthiness thread.

[This message won't be monitored, discuss your concerns in the thread.]

[marvinmartian]

Been nursing my TMIV's since April.  Thankfully, they're still going strong more or less.

My cooling system went bad on one board a couple of weeks back.  So I ordered two of the Corsair H60s as per a previous post in this thread.  Now I'm back in business.  It was a bit tricky getting the radiators in the box, but the method of sandwiching the fan between the two radiators seems to work just fine.

Thought I'd post as such.

[Dribble]

Turned off my February bach back in July.
Anyone want to buy two units PM me with a serious offer.

[altcointalk14]

Can someone explain to me how to use the cointool commands?  I am obviously doing something wrong.

I will ssh into the box cd to opt directory and I try to use cointool the following different ways and responses:

#
# cd opt
# ls
GSA_0.4.5.dfu       cointool            dfu-util            upgrade_GSA.sh
cgminer             cointool-info       do_upgrade.sh       usb_reset
cgminer.conf        crontab.root        restart_cgminer.sh  watch_powerbutton
#

# ./cointool
usb_claim_interface: Device or resource busy
 

Thanks for the help!

[bit4bit2]

Need a replacement pump - anyone parting out a Terraminer?  Will pay in Bitcoin if you like.
Will consider buying an entire machine for parts if the price is right...and of course it has at least one good pump

[tss]

got my hands on a terraminer iv with one bad board. 

is there a way to rewire the miner so that the good board will run with only one power supply? 

it seems it wont fully boot unless both plugs are connected.

[-ck]

got my hands on a terraminer iv with one bad board. 

is there a way to rewire the miner so that the good board will run with only one power supply? 

it seems it wont fully boot unless both plugs are connected.

Open it up and disconnect the USB cable going to the bad board.

[tss]

got my hands on a terraminer iv with one bad board.  

is there a way to rewire the miner so that the good board will run with only one power supply?  

it seems it wont fully boot unless both plugs are connected.

Open it up and disconnect the USB cable going to the bad board.

i figured it was that was easy.  but wanted to ask before fiddling.  also the controller power was plugged into ps 2.   

much appreciated, can't believe you read so many posts :-)

thanks for your support!

[mcdougle]

p.s. DO NOT FLIP THE POWER CABLES ON YOUR MINER UNLESS YOU FLIP THEM ON THE PSU TO MATCH WHAT YOU DID ON THE BOARDS. POS SHOULD NEVER BE HOOKED TO NEG. THATS JUST COMMON SENSE. EVEN IF YOUR ...

A little help please. Like a genuine dunce, I removed the power cables when building a miner from spare parts and forgot the positioning of the cable leads on both the mining boards and the PSU breakout boards. Now I don't remember where either power cable end goes relative to the other end.

How does one determine which screw is pos and which neg on the mining board and the PSU breakout board.

Many thanks in advance.

[Dribble]

p.s. DO NOT FLIP THE POWER CABLES ON YOUR MINER UNLESS YOU FLIP THEM ON THE PSU TO MATCH WHAT YOU DID ON THE BOARDS. POS SHOULD NEVER BE HOOKED TO NEG. THATS JUST COMMON SENSE. EVEN IF YOUR ...

A little help please. Like a genuine dunce, I removed the power cables when building a miner from spare parts and forgot the positioning of the cable leads on both the mining boards and the PSU breakout boards. Now I don't remember where either power cable end goes relative to the other end.

How does one determine which screw is pos and which neg on the mining board and the PSU breakout board.

Many thanks in advance.

try this,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=641998.20

[mcdougle]

p.s. DO NOT FLIP THE POWER CABLES ON YOUR MINER UNLESS YOU FLIP THEM ON THE PSU TO MATCH WHAT YOU DID ON THE BOARDS. POS SHOULD NEVER BE HOOKED TO NEG. THATS JUST COMMON SENSE. EVEN IF YOUR ...

How does one determine which lead is pos and which neg on the mining board and the PSU breakout board.

Many thanks in advance.

try this,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=641998.20

Do you mean the pics of the Terraminer interior? The problem is, I have seen different TMs with the pos lead (black wire) in BOTH positions, so a picture alone without data as to where it goes and why is a possible accident, unless you can hook the leads up to either post. Thanks for the input though.