Cairnsmore1 - Quad XC6SLX150 Board

[tnkflx]

Is it possible to flash the 1.5 controller in Linux (via xc3sprog?)? If so, how exactly do I do this? The documentation only mentions Windows.

[1714206713]

1714206713

[spiccioli]

-- edit --

Edit, assuming I can find your address.
(I routinely run with signatures disabled. Cuts out a lot of 'noise'. But I'll re-enable and search for your's.)

Hi LazyOtto,

no need to search anymore!

16CtsQsV6bPrtzc3DaYvDHjsHS5MwXL476    

spiccioli

[LazyOtto]

Hi LazyOtto,

no need to search anymore!

16CtsQsV6bPrtzc3DaYvDHjsHS5MwXL476    

spiccioli

<lol>

Thanks, spiccioli.

I'm starting my bitcoind / wallet now to send a trivial amount of BTC in appreciation of your quite non-trivial amount of help. ty

BTW, my personal amount sent is trivial. I'm hoping though that the idea is *lots* of people send small amounts and they add up.

--

Also sent 1 BTC to:
Glasswalker: 17RQ9weR551AijNniuC7QRLp6Ff2WAjbc9

--
makomk, I turned on 'show sigs' but still don't see your address, please post or PM it to me and you get a BTC also. And my thanks.

[spiccioli]

Hi LazyOtto,

no need to search anymore!

16CtsQsV6bPrtzc3DaYvDHjsHS5MwXL476    

spiccioli

<lol>

Thanks, spiccioli.

I'm starting my bitcoind / wallet now to send a trivial amount of BTC in appreciation of your quite non-trivial amount of help. ty

BTW, my personal amount sent is trivial. I'm hoping though that the idea is *lots* of people send small amounts and they add up.

Thanks a lot LazyOtto,

it is very appreciated since every Satoshi counts!

spiccioli.

[tnkflx]

I have a problem getting my Cairnsmore1 up and running...

- I flashed the 1.5 controller in Windows using the Enterpoint documentation. This worked fine and verify was ok.
- I then flashed shortfin_dcmwd4e_ed_test_200_overclock.bit to each chip. This also worked fine.
- I then set the switch settings as defined here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=94317.msg1073047#msg1073047 and tried to do the last part ("Unplug the cable on the board.", "Move SW1 switch 3 to ON (labeled mine), so it's like all the others next to it.", "Move SW1 switch 1 to OFF (labeled reset) then after a few seconds to ON again" & "When just the yellow leds next to the 4 chips are on all, plug the board again") but the leds stay amber and the blue leds also stay on...

Does anyone know whether everything was successfull or not? I'm mining on Linux, but do no see any related ttyUSBx devices...

Any help is appreciated

[LazyOtto]

Search in this thread with keyword "udev".

You probably need to issue a modprobe command. (You might also search with that as a keyword.)

You can also search for posts by "spiccioli". He has helped me a lot.

Also check to see that the FTDI service is enabled. iirc, it wasn't on my vanilla installation of Debian.

-- edit --
Also, if still having problems getting the /dev/ttyUSBx's to show up.
1) Unplug USB
2) remove power from boards
3) ensure that only *one* switch is off on the DIPS next to power/USB connections
4) power up boards, wait until orange shows on all FPGAs.
5) plug in USB
6) use "dmesg" to see that the devices are seen
7) manual modprobe or set up spiccioli's udev rules

-- edit again --
"orange" and "yellow" are probably the same color. 

[tnkflx]

Ok, next step The only DIP switch that's off now is switch 1 on SW6.

I did a

Code:

modprobe ftdi_sio vendor=0x0403 product=0x8350

and I can now see 4 extra /dev/ttyUSB entries. When I start cgminer, Icarus Detect fails on 2 of those. The other start to mine...

Bad flash? Should I flash a lower bitstream?

[LazyOtto]

If you only have one board, i.e., you are not daisy chaining, then only two of the ports are 'mining' ports with makomk's bitstream.

I expect those to be /dev/ttyUSB2 and /dev/ttyUSB3 for you.

If you're seeing about an effective 400mhs from each of the ports which are 'detected', then all is fine. You are now mining and on the path to easy money.

-- edit --

BTW, you're running cgminer? I've not been able to get that running on a Debian 7 release yet. Do you have any advice / observations about how you got it going?

[tnkflx]

BTW, you're running cgminer? I've not been able to get that running on a Debian 7 release yet. Do you have any advice / observations about how you got it going?

Yes, I'm running cgminer 2.7.5, but on Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit. I didn't had to do anything special... What seems to be the problem?

[LazyOtto]

I compiled 2.7.5 also. (On Debian 'wheezy' 32bit.)

Don't remember the exact error message, but it was essentially a 'failed to open port'.

I have not yet tried executing cgminer from a cold boot. 'Perhaps' mpbm is not properly releasing/closing the ports when I shut it down.

Since I haven't done that cold boot test / done all the testing I can, I've not yet posted on the cgminer thread reporting a problem or asking for help.

Glad it's working for you.

And, btw, does your rig / mining now look good to you?

[tnkflx]

And, btw, does your rig / mining now look good to you?

Yep Still find it strange though that it creates 4 extra ttyUSB entries, but only 2 are used... But hashing speed is approx. 800 Mhz, so I guess all is good Thanks!!

I will be writing a guide as well on how I had to fit it all together!

[Glasswalker]

Still find it strange though that it creates 4 extra ttyUSB entries, but only 2 are used...

This is normal. The FTDI chip used on the cairnsmore1 board (http://www.ftdichip.com/Products/ICs/FT4232H.htm) creates 4 UART ports. That's just how it works. Different bitstreams can make use of these ports for different purposes as they see fit. But from the computers perspective the FTDI will always make 4 serial ports. We don't have any direct control over that. They can be used in different configs, for example with an icarus chained bitstream like makomk's shortfin, it uses 2 as serial, and leaves the other two open for SPI/JTAG if I remember correctly.

On HashVoodoo, it uses all 4 ports, one per chip. (right now, but in the future it will have an option, which will be configurable by software to chain them in any config you like, for example use 1 port to drive several boards worth of chips)

[tnkflx]

Still find it strange though that it creates 4 extra ttyUSB entries, but only 2 are used...

This is normal. The FTDI chip used on the cairnsmore1 board (http://www.ftdichip.com/Products/ICs/FT4232H.htm) creates 4 UART ports. That's just how it works. Different bitstreams can make use of these ports for different purposes as they see fit. But from the computers perspective the FTDI will always make 4 serial ports. We don't have any direct control over that. They can be used in different configs, for example with an icarus chained bitstream like makomk's shortfin, it uses 2 as serial, and leaves the other two open for SPI/JTAG if I remember correctly.

On HashVoodoo, it uses all 4 ports, one per chip. (right now, but in the future it will have an option, which will be configurable by software to chain them in any config you like, for example use 1 port to drive several boards worth of chips)

Thanks!

[Lethos]

I use Ubuntu 12.04 (64bit) to run my CM1 boards. Not that long ago I run an pretty usual update of various files, as it had been bugging me.
After restarting I found that every time I plugged either of the boards via usb, the system would kinda go through a system crash, everything would slowly stop working.
Commands wouldn't work in the terminal, the GUI would slowly start disappearing and eventually it would do nothing, even though it still responded to basic input, even if it didn't respond with what it should.
It left me no choice but to restart. Everything is fine upon restart as long as I don't plugin the boards back in. It still works fine as a HTPC (XBMC).

I figured one of the USB or FTDI drivers, lib files etc cause the problem, like it got corrupted or one hell of a bad bug. They were just updated but I had no luck tracking down what exactly was the fault, a lot of files were updated and doing my best to revert back didn't work. No one else seems to be reporting a similar bug so assumed it was just an isolated event.

So I backed everything up to my storage unit that was needed and rebuilt Ubuntu, to pretty much the same configuration I had before. That seems to go fine, I didn't remember all of it, but search feature is very useful on these boards, think I got everything.

Problem is, same issue occurred once I got everything redone on a new usb stick. So it's no longer looking like a corrupted file, can't imagine it happening twice in a row like that, on a fresh 8Gb usb stick.
It happens with both CM1 boards, either one can trigger it to happen. I've done a gentle clean of dust off it and they appear to be operating fine.
It has not effected the use of my wireless mouse or usb pen in any of the slots, so I am still assuming it is a software issue, not hardware.

Anyone came across something like this happening before?
Yes it's frustrating I've not been able to mine for a few days, but I get frustrated more when there is something I can't fix.

Since no one gave any suggestions, just thought I'd let you know I'm going to try moving everything over to a Debian configuration.
To the best of my knowledge, it should work without any issues to run Cgminer and XBMC it's two main purposes on there.
Ubuntu, may have been the popular choice, but going back to a more stable and reliable OS, rather than user friendly one, will hopefully help.

[kano]

I've been running Xubuntu 11.04 for over a year - stability in the extreme
(it's currently 2x6950, 2xIcarus, 1xBFL Single)

Meanwhile, if anyone was using my 2.7.5+ git master, I've updated it a bit and found the (minor) cause of why it was submitting the bad HW error shares rather than throwing them away.

That, and a bunch of other changes, are here in my master git (it also compiles as "2.7.5g" at the moment):
https://github.com/kanoi/cgminer

The pull request of it all to ckolivas is here:
https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/pull/310

It STILL has the minor HW loop bug (but that bug is in all versions of cgminer - so it's not a new one - and it doesn't cause any real trouble)
I'll get it fixed ... one day

My post in the cgminer thread about it:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=28402.msg1184415#msg1184415

[spiccioli]

Since no one gave any suggestions, just thought I'd let you know I'm going to try moving everything over to a Debian configuration.
To the best of my knowledge, it should work without any issues to run Cgminer and XBMC it's two main purposes on there.
Ubuntu, may have been the popular choice, but going back to a more stable and reliable OS, rather than user friendly one, will hopefully help.

Lethos,

I'm using ubuntu _server_ 12.04, and I'm not sure I do understand you correctly, but if you're running it from an USB stick I'd try to run it from an old HD or a SSD (small ones are cheap these days).

I'd also try not to use it as an HTPC at the same time.

If you try, install just the base server, and the ia32 libs.

No X server, no fancy desktop and so on.

Problems = parts^2.

spiccioli

[Lethos]

Since no one gave any suggestions, just thought I'd let you know I'm going to try moving everything over to a Debian configuration.
To the best of my knowledge, it should work without any issues to run Cgminer and XBMC it's two main purposes on there.
Ubuntu, may have been the popular choice, but going back to a more stable and reliable OS, rather than user friendly one, will hopefully help.

Lethos,

I'm using ubuntu _server_ 12.04, and I'm not sure I do understand you correctly, but if you're running it from an USB stick I'd try to run it from an old HD or a SSD (small ones are cheap these days).

I'd also try not to use it as an HTPC at the same time.

If you try, install just the base server, and the ia32 libs.

No X server, no fancy desktop and so on.

Problems = parts^2.

spiccioli

Already tried that, that was the first things I tried when I did a fresh install of Ubuntu.
Why it's not working I don't know. But I've given up trying to fix it with in Ubuntu.
My only other options left after this is to assume it's not a software problem, but a hardware one.

[hm]

I just found the non-temporary page for Cairnsmore1:
http://enterpoint.co.uk/products/spartan-6-development-boards/cairnsmore-1/

ps. stats for my boards:

Board #0017 is now flashed with hashvoodoo-175, but it had a problem with the clock, the red heartbeat leds don't flash but are always on. I'll re-flash it shortly.

The other three boards with sn>600 are working fine with makomk's dcmwd4e-220:

[Glasswalker]

Board #0017 is now flashed with hashvoodoo-175, but it had a problem with the clock, the red heartbeat leds don't flash but are always on. I'll re-flash it shortly.

Really? If it persists like this after a reflash, let me know, we can troubleshoot. It might be you actually have a "bad" board.

For some really basic troubleshooting:
- Which release was it? (the older one or newer one, both have a 175 release, you want the OLDER of the 2, the newer one has major stability issues due to a bug I introduced)
- You are using the correct matching HashVoodoo controller right? (not a stock enterpoint controller?)

Let me know if any of that helps (or just your reflash).

[norulezapply]

Can anyone help me get BFGMiner working properly with the CM1 please?

I have MPBM working fine, submitting shares as it should, with controller rev 1.5 and the 210Mhz bitstream on all FPGAs.

I have compiled BFGMiner (i'm running RPi Raspbian linux distro) and I am launching it with the following command:

Code:

bfgminer -S /dev/ttyUSB2 -S /dev/ttyUSB3 -S /dev/ttyUSB6 -S /dev/ttyUSB7 --icarus-timing short

I have my pools in a bfgminer.conf file, and they are all loaded correctly on launch.

The problem is that BFGMiner is reporting no shares at all, even though the green lights are flashing on my Cairnsmore1's, yet it works fine in MPBM.

BFGMiner just outputs the readjustments and nothing else. Only 1 accepted share, yet the green lights have been flashing for a while now..

Code:

 [2012-09-13 00:46:02] Icarus 1 Re-estimate: Hs=2.380537e-09 W=2.384182e-03 read_count=101 fullnonce=10.227s
 [2012-09-13 00:46:09] Icarus 3 Re-estimate: Hs=2.380921e-09 W=2.012963e-03 read_count=101 fullnonce=10.228s
 [2012-09-13 00:46:16] Icarus 2 Re-estimate: Hs=2.380716e-09 W=2.740838e-03 read_count=101 fullnonce=10.228s
 [2012-09-13 00:46:22] Icarus 0 Re-estimate: Hs=2.380969e-09 W=1.712761e-03 read_count=101 fullnonce=10.228s

Also I noticed this in the BFGMiner ending session log after a 15 minute run -

Code:

 [2012-09-13 01:00:43] Work items generated locally: 1162

Is that significant?

Any idea how I can get BFGMiner working?