Hacking BFL Monarchs and servicing them while times are weird.

[ABitNut]

Quick scan tells me the slowest is:
CORTEX-07: 2240MH/s

And the fastest is:
CORTEX-40: 6928MH/s

That's an huge difference if you'd ask me. Keep the info coming, it's really interesting to see!

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[lightfoot]

So what do we have here? 128 "cortexes", each being 4-6gh in power, and 1800 "engines" on the board. So 64 cortex things, 900 engines per chip approx..

Hm. Back on the old 65mn chips you had 16 engines per chip, 8 chips per board, but the engines were buried and only the "chip" showed up as an exposed thing. Here it seems like there is another level, we have 900 or so engines on a die, arranged into 64 virtual "chips". So each virtual "chip" has around 14-15 engines hashing at 6gh, it's kind of like putting a whole bunch of little 428mh engines and letting them run wild on a set of problems.

Need to think about this overnight, not sure how BFG is assigning jobs to the chips or whatnot. Need sleep, anyone else feel free to chime in on what they see.

C

[lightfoot]

Quick scan tells me the slowest is:
CORTEX-07: 2240MH/s

And the fastest is:
CORTEX-40: 6928MH/s

That's an huge difference if you'd ask me. Keep the info coming, it's really interesting to see!

Sure, engines are like that and all, the 65nm would sometimes come up with 15 engines, 14, even 8 engines if you were doing odd clocking things. The trick was balancing everything. Hm.

[klintay]

nice how far can these things be pushed in terms of overclocking ?

[klondike_bar]

nice how far can these things be pushed in terms of overclocking ?

be patient - thats what this thread is here to find out

[SLok]

She's up. Running bfgminer 4.5.0 and started hashing with no problems. Running right now with both plugs and a Corsair 500 power supply, plug area is a bit warm. Cables are not. Board temp at back is 119f right behind the chips, 105 overall pretty much all around.

Hash speed 660gh. Not bad. It's making a high pitch squeak from the power supplies, probably the chokes resonating from the frequency. Interesting.

More in next post. How this thing works....

C

Is that on windows or linux, any reason to not use 4.7 or 4.8? I thought monarch support just started at 4.7?
Do you also see messages like "sanity check, device is processing unknown work, device is missing queued job. device flushed (goes by too fast), failed to find work for queue results" in the bfgminer cmd window?

[lightfoot]

Is that on windows or linux, any reason to not use 4.7 or 4.8? I thought monarch support just started at 4.7?
Do you also see messages like "sanity check, device is processing unknown work, device is missing queued job. device flushed (goes by too fast), failed to find work for queue results" in the bfgminer cmd window?

Windows, and that's because my dedicated laptop that wasn't in use was running 4.5. Last night was hard, just got in from days of travel (NY, ATL, etc) and my brain is toasty.

I'll upgrade to 4.8 tonight then take a more in-depth look. So since you have these things, please post about what you have seen, what you observe. Have you taken them apart yet? Powered them down? Stuck them out a window (mine currently is in the window blowing the hot air *out* of the house :-)

C

[lightfoot]

Guys, almost 3k USD for 1 Th. WHY do you need it?.. 

Because it is there.

C

[Taugeran]

Lightfoot Here is a plot for you of the Cortex listings:

LINK

Feel free to leave comments in the sheet and here

[smracer]

OgNasty. Are you willing to uncap it (remove water cooler) so we can get a die shot?

Plx

Need ASIC pr0n

Here you go.

[Taugeran]

OgNasty. Are you willing to uncap it (remove water cooler) so we can get a die shot?

Plx

Need ASIC pr0n

Here you go.

NOW that is a sexual experience right there.

*drool*

[Syke]

Guys, almost 3k USD for 1 Th. WHY do you need it?.. 

Because it is there.

C

Must be nice having so much money you can just throw it away for fun.

[wpgdeez]

Guys, almost 3k USD for 1 Th. WHY do you need it?.. 

Because it is there.

C

Must be nice having so much money you can just throw it away for fun.

People do it all the time, it's called a hobby.

[Syke]

People do it all the time, it's called a hobby.

That's one expensive hobby.

[RedZeppelin]

People do it all the time, it's called a hobby.

That's one expensive hobby.

Compared to collecting battletanks?

[Unacceptable]

Guys, almost 3k USD for 1 Th. WHY do you need it?.. 

Because it is there.

C

Must be nice having so much money you can just throw it away for fun.

People do it all the time, it's called a hobby.

No...it's called,"Mining at home" 

[lightfoot]

OgNasty. Are you willing to uncap it (remove water cooler) so we can get a die shot?

Plx

Need ASIC pr0n

Here you go.

More. How about the other chip? What kind of heat sink compound was on it? Anything like the Singles?

I can see lights under the back one, so that's interesting. Wonder how it sequences the power.

C

[lightfoot]

People do it all the time, it's called a hobby.

That's one expensive hobby.

Sort of. Part of the reason I do it is the reason I bought a jally back in Jan of 2013: I was really curious as to what these things were and how they worked. When I found this community, I decided to follow my old technology rule which says that information freely gathered should be shared for free, but my skills and services should be paid for. I've done that with electric motor controllers, watches, clocks, and now bitcoin hardware.

That's why I posted everything I learned on boosting the jallies, and offered to do it for pay because I was using my physical skills (and because I wanted other people to do it as well, money is a great incentive). Some people paid me, some thanked me, some sent me parts and bitcoin stuff to keep it going. I'd have to pay taxes on it anyway, so why not invest in a Monarch thing if it wasn't too insanely priced?

That's why I paid OgNasty for his P3 meter and temp probe, in return for pics and early telemetry. That made me want to get one so I could take it apart here so here I am.

I won't make back my bitcoins mining with it, but maybe we can all work together and wring these things out for all they're worth. Or learn something interesting about hardware. Or make a cool video of burning it out. So there's that.

And the fun. It's weird and fun to fiddle with.

C

[Syke]

so why not invest in a Monarch thing if it wasn't too insanely priced?

It is insanely priced.

I won't make back my bitcoins mining with it...And the fun. It's weird and fun to fiddle with.

ASICminer tube. You get to fiddle a bunch, and earn back the bitcoins!

[lightfoot]

Do you also see messages like "sanity check, device is processing unknown work, device is missing queued job. device flushed (goes by too fast), failed to find work for queue results" in the bfgminer cmd window?

Interesting. When I first powered up I got a nice 700gh. After an hour I shut it down to switch power supplies, fired up, and saw some error messages and about 600gh speeds.

Shut it down, went back to previous supply, started up. Same.

This afternoon I shut it down, let it sit for 20 minutes to cool off, powered it up. 700gh, no errors I can see (I don't stare at it, just check every once in awhile). Solid as a rock.

One odd thing: I did notice the power supply high pitch frequency from the chokes was different. Maybe when the board is cycled hot it does a similar thing to what the old Singles did when they would power up more slowly. But letting it sit for a few mins seems to have restored it. Note it's been running for 6 hours now without a problem.

What are you seeing. Can you post the messages? Do they all do that, can you try shutting off the one that does for 15-20 mins? How does it hash?
C