Fury/Blizzard tuning and mods

[happydaze]

One thing I noticed was the almost instant heat on the board when I had it out of the enclosure to test voltage.  It was not even hashing.  I didn't measure the heat or anything but you could notice it.

Another thing I notice is how porous the the pcb is.  Heatsink paste just oozes up through every hole.  Your earlier advice to use non conductive paste is the only way to go.

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[alienesb]

Any ideas on thermal pads for the bottom then? One big pad or 6 smaller pads?

[ZiG]

Any ideas on thermal pads for the bottom then? One big pad or 6 smaller pads?

Phobya...Google it...

One big is better ...IMHO...No air pockets...

ZiG

[jstefanop]

I'm also almost sure that the BPCLK pin on the chip is there for something related, directly or not, to the 382 clk limit

Back-Plane-Clock? Google wasn't very helpful.

Is it an input or an output? It might only be enabled in testmode/bypass. A full datasheet for the chip would be very helpful, without that we're stumbling in the dark.

It does look like Zeus did not design the device with much scope for overclocking in mind, given the poor use of the 8 bit clock speed configuration field of the command packet (why didn't they scale the clock by a factor of 2, rather than 2/3?).

Here is a pretty detailed schematic of the blizzard board and zeus chip pinouts

http://zeusminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/BLIZZARD_X6Chips.pdf

[ZiG]

Here we go...SCHEMATICS ...!!!

http://zeusminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/BLIZZARD_X6Chips.pdf

Enjoy...

ZiG

You didn't see this...also on the front page, post#2... 

ZiG

[Zeta0S]

I have made a nice review including a simpler way to overclock te zeusminer, just set the clock to 328 
http://www.bitcoinupdate.nl/blog/the-zeusminer-review

Lisa de Boer

[kramble]

Here is a pretty detailed schematic of the blizzard board and zeus chip pinouts

http://zeusminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/BLIZZARD_X6Chips.pdf

It was actually very useful as it confirmed what we'd suspected about how the chips were chained together, and shows the nonce chip id value is hardwired per device. Unfortunately there is no information about what the BYPASS, MODESEL and BPCLK are used for (TESTMODE and TESTEN are unlikely to be useful as these will be for wafer testing at the foundry). Though even if these pins were usable, it's unlikely we could do anything with them on the current PCBs.

[nst6563]

I have made a nice review including a simpler way to overclock te zeusminer, just set the clock to 328 
http://www.bitcoinupdate.nl/blog/the-zeusminer-review

Lisa de Boer

We're WAY passed a low clock speed of 328 in this thread.  Those of us that have done the voltmod are sitting at 381 with low error rates and are working to find a way beyond 381.

Nice review though

[nst6563]

Got my second fury finally.  I did the voltmod after a quick test and then sandwiched them together with a small fan on one end to blow through them like the gridseeds blades.  This weekend I may make a shroud to fit an 80mm fan to blow through.


Running in my mining cabinet....son to add more.  Gridseeds are on the shelf below...I had to Make a cabinet with good airflow and doors that can shut to keep the damn cat from playing with the wires.


2nd post updated with the dimensions of the chips and a pic edit reference.

[gristlelump]

Got my second fury finally.  I did the voltmod after a quick test and then sandwiched them together with a small fan on one end to blow through them like the gridseeds blades.  This weekend I may make a shroud to fit an 80mm fan to blow through.


Running in my mining cabinet....son to add more.  Gridseeds are on the shelf below...I had to Make a cabinet with good airflow and doors that can shut to keep the damn cat from playing with the wires.


2nd post updated with the dimensions of the chips and a pic edit reference.

I noticed that you are using one controller per miner....can these not be plugged into a powered USB hub?  I was thinking of buying a couple since the 5-chip gridseeds are becoming scarce at a decent price.  I have several more spots on my USB hub that I could plug them into beside my gridseeds, which I run to a windows computer.  Do you have any experience with this type of setup with the blizzards?

[nst6563]

Got my second fury finally.  I did the voltmod after a quick test and then sandwiched them together with a small fan on one end to blow through them like the gridseeds blades.  This weekend I may make a shroud to fit an 80mm fan to blow through.

Running in my mining cabinet....son to add more.  Gridseeds are on the shelf below...I had to Make a cabinet with good airflow and doors that can shut to keep the damn cat from playing with the wires.

2nd post updated with the dimensions of the chips and a pic edit reference.

I noticed that you are using one controller per miner....can these not be plugged into a powered USB hub?  I was thinking of buying a couple since the 5-chip gridseeds are becoming scarce at a decent price.  I have several more spots on my USB hub that I could plug them into beside my gridseeds, which I run to a windows computer.  Do you have any experience with this type of setup with the blizzards?

Actually I'm using one controller for the gridseeds, and one for the fury's.  The controller on the left is going to the hub right behind it that has all the gridseeds plugged into it.  The controller on the right is the one the Fury's are plugged into.

I am however running 2 instances of cgminer.  1 per fury right now.  If I run 1 instance it seems like 1 fury will run fine, the other runs retarded.  With bfgminer, both fury's run slow and never seem to get above 500khs. 

I did have them plugged into the gridseed controller which is running Minera and the rpi was able to handle running Minera, cpuminer (7 gridseeds), and 2 instances of cgminer...and it never broke 3.8 on the cpu usage. 

Here's a pic of the full cabinet.

[happydaze]

I like the blade idea you and J4bberwock are doing.  If I get two more I'll do that also.

On my pool, the 24 hour average is 1,566 kH/s for the Fury I modded yesterday.  Not bad but I'd like to go higher.  We are so ready on the hardware side.

380 clk



That 3rd hashrate in BFGMiner really gives a good idea of poolside hashrate.

[happydaze]

Aloa,

as promised I implemented an override for the 381MHz cap and pushed it to git: https://github.com/Darkwinde/bfgminer.git

Add to your command line: --zeus-clk-override
and you can set any clock you like with "--zeus-clk". This is done on your own risk

Example Linux:

Code:

./bfgminer --scrypt --zeus-cc 6 --zeus-clk 400 --zeus-clk-override -S zeus:/dev/ttyUSB1 -S zeus:/dev/ttyUSB0 -c /opt/minepeon/etc/miner-zeus.conf

Have fun and looking for feedback if everything works fine.
Darkwinde

I tried --zeus-clk-override on Windows using this build:
http://cryptomining-blog.com/2791-new-bfgminer-4-2-1-release-with-support-for-zeusminer-scrypt-asics/
but it doesn't start.  The BFGMiner window flashes up and closes before I can read anything. Without --zeus-clk-override the build runs fine.

[Darkwinde]

Aloa,

as promised I implemented an override for the 381MHz cap and pushed it to git: https://github.com/Darkwinde/bfgminer.git

Add to your command line: --zeus-clk-override
and you can set any clock you like with "--zeus-clk". This is done on your own risk

Example Linux:

Code:

./bfgminer --scrypt --zeus-cc 6 --zeus-clk 400 --zeus-clk-override -S zeus:/dev/ttyUSB1 -S zeus:/dev/ttyUSB0 -c /opt/minepeon/etc/miner-zeus.conf

Have fun and looking for feedback if everything works fine.
Darkwinde

I tried --zeus-clk-override on Windows using this build:
http://cryptomining-blog.com/2791-new-bfgminer-4-2-1-release-with-support-for-zeusminer-scrypt-asics/
but it doesn't start.  The BFGMiner window flashes up and closes before I can read anything. Without --zeus-clk-override the build runs fine.

right have reverted it, was a first shot without testing and understanding of kramble command protocoll, as it supports 8 Bit for setting the clock plus the complement as check sum, so if the HW implementation does not support any other clue we are limited here to 281 MHz. Sorry can not do anything against it...only Zeus...

[J4bberwock]

I might go ahead with the cooling mods on my other Fury today if I have time.  

The overvolted & double fan Fury handles the heat much better.  A temperature probe touched to one heat sink measures 35C.  Air coming out of the chamber 22.5C.  The unmodded Fury chip temp can reach 50C at 342 clk.

Do we know for sure what the minimum voltage is required for 382 clk 1.5+Mh/s?

If these chips ever hit 300kh/s then Zeus used a different driver.  We now know that Zeus could not hit 300kh/s with the driver they released.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed hoping we get a breakthrough.

I'm currently experimenting with 8.2k - 10k resistor pair
1.31v
47watt

8.2k - 10.5k pair still gives slightly too high HW errors.
7.5k - 10.5k pair should be the best one for hashes/watt increase

Still waiting for the crystals to arrive, the ones I had at home weren't the good size.

[happydaze]

right have reverted it, was a first shot without testing and understanding of kramble command protocoll, as it supports 8 Bit for setting the clock plus the complement as check sum, so if the HW implementation does not support any other clue we are limited here to 381 MHz. Sorry can not do anything against it...only Zeus...

Thanks for trying.  I'm hoping something will turn up.

Can you allow 382 in a future build without affecting all the other improvements you did?  I know it's only like 4kh/s but it might just give us a steady 1,600 kH/s.

[thebotnet]

If anyone would like to use the zen os on their pies then here is a quick guide.

1. Download the zen os image from this guide put together by zenminer. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UilAJ3wMOgoHFqz9e1zhOvz79KQDascYaC6Aq3sbmqg

2. Write it to your raspberry pi's sd card using win32 disk imager (or your preferred method)

3. Boot the pi with Ethernet and the miners plugged in (or plug them in at a later time, up to you)

4. Go to https://zenminer.com/LogIn/ and click on "Don't have an Account?" then sign up and sign in

5. Click the add miner button and it should show up, it may take a while for it first to show up but it will (also try refreshing)


Remember this guide is for people that want to use their own raspberry pi hardware and dont have an activation code that came with the zenminers.

[kramble]

Can you allow 382 in a future build without affecting all the other improvements you did?  I know it's only like 4kh/s but it might just give us a steady 1,600 kH/s.

The formula used to calculate the clock command value is clk_reg= (uint32_t)(info->chip_clk*2/3);

382 will give the same command value as 381 (multiply by 2 then divide by three, round to integer gives 254 in both cases).

383 would give 255 which may work depending on how zeus have implemented the command protocol (it does not work in my FPGA code which was the basis of the command protocol, 255 is ignored there). And anything larger just won't work at all (see my post a couple of pages back).

From Zeus's documentation ...

⦁   Command packet
This packet ask the chip to work at a certain Frequency and Difficulty, to figure out a scrypt work’s right nonce.

Freqcode(1 byte) + Freqcode’s complement (1 byte) + Diff_code(2 bytes) + Scrypt_work(80 bytes)

⦁   Freqcode and Freqcode’s complement
The chip’s Freq(Mhz) = Freqcode*1.5
If you want chip work at 300Mhz:
Freqcode = 200 = 0xC8
Freqcode’s complement = 0xFF – 0xC8 = 0x37

[J4bberwock]

We need this damn datasheet for the Zeus chip.

The last thing that I see could have an effect is the resistor connected to MODESEL pin (pin 40), but without the datasheet, there is no way we can figure what it's supposed to do.
they could have a few multipliers/dividers for frequency that are related to the value of the resistor.
If I had a board with a single chip on it, it would be easier to try this kind of things.
If the chips were at any time able to hash 300Kh/s each, there must be a way to activate it, and if they claimed 300 Kh/s, it also means that the chips were able of more.

[nst6563]

If anyone would like to use the zen os on their pies then here is a quick guide.

1. Download the zen os image from this guide put together by zenminer. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UilAJ3wMOgoHFqz9e1zhOvz79KQDascYaC6Aq3sbmqg

2. Write it to your raspberry pi's sd card using win32 disk imager (or your preferred method)

3. Boot the pi with Ethernet and the miners plugged in (or plug them in at a later time, up to you)

4. Go to https://zenminer.com/LogIn/ and click on "Don't have an Account?" then sign up and sign in

5. Click the add miner button and it should show up, it may take a while for it first to show up but it will (also try refreshing)


Remember this guide is for people that want to use their own raspberry pi hardware and dont have an activation code that came with the zenminers.

Thanks- I updated the first post with the information and gave you credit. 

Seems this thread has made the cryptomining blog as well....sweet!  http://cryptomining-blog.com/2788-should-you-modify-your-zeusminer-blizzard-scrypt-asic-or-not/