[De-classified] Avalon 4.1 miner review

[macgyver007]

I had to re-do this thread to keep it clean...so I cleaned it up  
I was fortunate enough to get my hands on an Avalon 4.1 thanks to CKPool miner giveaway...many thanks to CK and Kano for a great pool and contest  
Thanks to Xiangfu of Canaan for being kind enough to send me a TPLink controller for testing purposes
I have many years of hardware experience and bitcoin miners are nothing new to me; just another toy to tinker with so here are my initial impressions and results:

Test setup:
Avalon 4.1 miner
TP-Link TL-WR703N Controller Suite
Corsair HX850 power supply
APC SmartAPC1500VA


First....what comes in the box:
1 Avalon 4.1 miner, 1 mini usb cable, 1 Avalon to usb converter, 1 4 pin cable

What DOES NOT come in the box:
controller unit such as RPi or TP-Link TL-WR703N Controller Suite which is what I am using for the tests



The box is well packed and the miner came without any dents...cosmetics are really no matter when it comes to mining as long as the product works as described in my opinion (that and it doesn't fall apart)




Initial setup:

The miner is preconfigured to IP 192.168.0.100 so in order to communicate with it, we need to change some settings on our network card to match the same subnet, easy enough


Once in the miner it is very straight forward to set up...
First we go to the miner configuration page and set the pools



then go to the network page and change the mode from static IP to DHCP. When changing network mode, click the "switch protocol" button before clicking apply.


Now your miner is ready to be plugged into the network and start mining, but the settings are a bit off...to me looks like they are hardcoded for Avalon 4.0 as the default voltage when set to "Standard" is .8125v and Avalon 4.1 voltage is .8000v . This becomes quickly apparent if you try to use the "STANDARD" mode and notice the wattage is around 743W according to my APC...
This is where we go off the undocumented and unbeaten path.....

The firmware default settings calls for "CUSTOMS"   which is the only setting that allows voltage setting and brings up an "auto voltage" setting
This is the setting I decided to use because .8125v is out of the range of wattage this miner should be using to get to 1TH.
I set the voltage to 7800 for my tests and noticed the following (which is not far off .8000 settings and leaving the rest on default
The miner starts out using 686W but after an hour or so, maybe even less, the wattage goes down to 588W

as if on some sort of cycle, basically throttling the voltage between ~686W and down to 588W and at some point re-starts this cycle. This is apparent when looking at the CGMiner status




The cgminer version is 4.9 but there seems to be no extranonce support that I can see for it to work with nicehash for those who are wondering
Initial impressions this is a very quiet miner with a lot of potential, but the price seems too high to be practical at this point with other offerings being cheaper and offering more GH/s. The benefit of being able to monitor and control up to 20 units from 1 controller is a definite plus, although I have only 1 unit so I cannot vouch for how well this setup works, and I am a bit confused as to why the miner seems to keep needing to restart every hour or so...
The firmware does not seem to be written with Avalon 4.1 in mind as when I set to NORMAL I get voltage of .8125 which is above the .8000v called for by the chips, therefore I have been using CUSTOMS mode so far for the first 24 hours of testing and lowered the voltage which seems to be the upper limit to .7800 or in the GUI 7800 which shows a resulting voltage in CGMiner status of .7750v. This is a new product still so firmware tweaks can improve the performance Im sure, just dropping the voltage to 8000 you save 50W from the upper voltage limit so the lower the better....
The fan speed setting seems to be on auto even though it says 20% it is ramping up and down
I will be in touch with Avalon to see about the various undocumented settings and report back...if anyone has any questions or tests please feel free to ask
From what I see to be fair an average of ~640W to get 1TH is not bad but at the same time not ground breaking at this point of the game; Bitmain and Spondoolies both have more efficient and cheaper offerings at time of this writing

Since the voltages are set for Avalon 4.0 and not 4.1 I found where to change them and now the fun really can begin  

Note 3 files named eco, normal and turbo....and what they contain
To make these permanent just edit them and you have your own set of 3 custom settings as well as CUSTOMS
For starters I am doing a combination of 450:420:370 to see what happens to the lower wattage level

Upon further testing I have dropped the voltage to 7550 and the miner peak wattage is 646W as reported by the APC and lower level still 588W; kano pool is showing ~900GH/s after 1 hour but cgminer still reports 1000GH/s so I will leave it at these settings till tomorrow and see what the pool reports after 24 hours


Last of all....no dogieshit will be tolerated in this thread unlike the first one I had to request for deletion due to all the off-topic poop

[1713998817]

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[wpgdeez]

Thanks for the review. You are awesome!

[IYFTech]

Excellent review with good pictures - well done! 

I can't see me getting one tbh, but this will help many people out with their decisions I'm sure.

It's unfortunate that you have also been the victim of poop-dawg spamming in your original thread, it's a sad day when forum members wishing to inform & guide each other have to resort to a self moderated thread to avoid the splatter of his shit all over the place. Keep up the good work & I look forward to seeing some more reviews 

PS: Love the no-pooping sign - I think it should become the standard image for anyone who wishes to avoid his rancid, smelly messes 

[Bicknellski]

Excellent review with good pictures - well done!  

I can't see me getting one tbh, but this will help many people out with their decisions I'm sure.

It's unfortunate that you have also been the victim of poop-dawg spamming in your original thread, it's a sad day when forum members wishing to inform & guide each other have to resort to a self moderated thread to avoid the splatter of his shit all over the place. Keep up the good work & I look forward to seeing some more reviews  

PS: Love the no-pooping sign - I think it should become the standard image for anyone who wishes to avoid his rancid, smelly messes  

Free is good... would you (macgyver007) recommend this unit over SP20 / S5s? Why or why not?

---

More people need to do moderated threads and pooper scooper dogie out of them. That make this section of the forum much cleaner.

[macgyver007]

Thanks for your feedback...I tried to cover as much as I could for starters and will be adding more info as I uncover it
Regarding the 7800 setting it seems to be a good start for voltage when using CUSTOMS mode, and testing is far from finished
As for poopdawg lately he seems to have a case of the runs....I was really hoping I wouldn't have to self moderate the thread but cant teach an old dog new tricks and it gave me a  chance to clean up the info a bit

I have been targeting a lower W/GHs as the Avalon page claims 800GH/400W but there is no setting for this...no matter I can figure it out
Im still tweaking a bit but APC is showing 431W for 800GH/s and Im sure I can do better than that with some more time...tweaking processors is something I have done since my 386, I built my own liquid cooling loop and block before they were available which worked great till it leaked   and only ever cooked 1 AMD CPU...good old Athlon days but I digress

I will post the specifics once I have verified results and have more data to back it up

As a straight comparison between 3 machines being Avalon 4.1, Antminer S5 and Spondoolies SP20 I would say the best deal right now is SP20

I cant say from first hand experience how the S5 is but I have had all Bitmain hardware from S1-S4 and in between including C1 but after the failure rate of S4 I am very hesitant to order from Bitmain again..as a matter of fact with S4 batch I just had 3 boards replaced with 6 fans and 2 more boards are dying and looks like at least 1 PSU which loses 2 blades on a warm boot since the last week...good thing for warranty and I will say BitMain has a good warranty service...I dealt with Billy and he was a great help in getting my machines back up and running...I will see if Yoshi wants to send an S5 this way for testing

The reason I say SP20 right now is because they have the best price, great firmware which is constantly under development and solid hardware...I will be posting SP20 review in the next while  

[philipma1957]

Thanks for your feedback...I tried to cover as much as I could for starters and will be adding more info as I uncover it
Regarding the 7800 setting it seems to be a good start for voltage when using CUSTOMS mode, and testing is far from finished
As for poopdawg lately he seems to have a case of the runs....I was really hoping I wouldn't have to self moderate the thread but cant teach an old dog new tricks and it gave me a  chance to clean up the info a bit

I have been targeting a lower W/GHs as the Avalon page claims 800GH/400W but there is no setting for this...no matter I can figure it out
Im still tweaking a bit but

APC is showing 431W for 800GH/s

   <<<<<<<<>>>>> this = 0.538 watts per gh <<<<<<>>>>>

better then I have found so far. if you get a chance please pm settings to me. I will try to duplicate it.
 thanks phil

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and Im sure I can do better than that with some more time...tweaking processors is something I have done since my 386, I built my own liquid cooling loop and block before they were available which worked great till it leaked   and only ever cooked 1 AMD CPU...good old Athlon days but I digress

I will post the specifics once I have verified results and have more data to back it up

As a straight comparison between 3 machines being Avalon 4.1, Antminer S5 and Spondoolies SP20 I would say the best deal right now is SP20

I cant say from first hand experience how the S5 is but I have had all Bitmain hardware from S1-S4 and in between including C1 but after the failure rate of S4 I am very hesitant to order from Bitmain again..as a matter of fact with S4 batch I just had 3 boards replaced with 6 fans and 2 more boards are dying and looks like at least 1 PSU which loses 2 blades on a warm boot since the last week...good thing for warranty and I will say BitMain has a good warranty service...I dealt with Billy and he was a great help in getting my machines back up and running...I will see if Yoshi wants to send an S5 this way for testing

The reason I say SP20 right now is because they have the best price, great firmware which is constantly under development and solid hardware...I will be posting SP20 review in the next while  

[MrTeal]

Excellent review with good pictures - well done!  

I can't see me getting one tbh, but this will help many people out with their decisions I'm sure.

It's unfortunate that you have also been the victim of poop-dawg spamming in your original thread, it's a sad day when forum members wishing to inform & guide each other have to resort to a self moderated thread to avoid the splatter of his shit all over the place. Keep up the good work & I look forward to seeing some more reviews  

PS: Love the no-pooping sign - I think it should become the standard image for anyone who wishes to avoid his rancid, smelly messes  

Free is good... would you (macgyver007) recommend this unit over SP20 / S5s? Why or why not?

---

More people need to do moderated threads and pooper scooper dogie out of them. That make this section of the forum much cleaner.

Edit: Nevermind, missed that this was the one from ck's giveaway.

[macgyver007]

After much testing and tweaking I have come up with my own ECO setting which is:
{
"avalon4-freq" : "340",
"avalon4-voltage" : "6875"
}
This gives around 800GH/s at a steady 431 watts at the miner and poolside...not too bad lets see if it can be reproduced (should be no problem)  
What I did was edit the eco file so its permanent and 1 click efficiency...results are:


Next step is to see what it can do at 900GH/s then fine tune around 1TH/s or higher depending on efficiency...
I love how quiet this miner is!

One thing to note...voltage steppings are in .125v increments so my previous setting of 7800 was not actually using 7800 but .7750v so (sorry no documentation anywhere on this)

6875
7000
7125
7250
7375
7500
7625
7750 are the voltages I am still playing with...more results to follow

2 other nice reviews to check out as well here by Valkir https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=938679.0

and Philipma1957 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=951758.0

[philipma1957]

going to try to make my eco the same as yours.  for now I have been doing this setting in custom

I get about 909 gh at 557 watts = 0.61 watts per gh  

macgyver gets 800 gh at 431 watts =  0.54 watts per gh

[macgyver007]

Im testing 900GH/s right now my settings are as follows:
400:370:340

using 7125v Im getting 519W and it drops to 499W but poolside is not reporting the same rate...still tweaking
upped the voltage to 7250 and 400:370:340 let this run for the next day

What I did instead of swap SD cards as Im not using RPi (I might go pick 1 up for fun today) is just edit the 3 files in the config directory (eco normal and turbo files) ...my eco is 340/6875, normal I have my current test settings, and for turbo I use the default clocks for 1TH with .7750 to make switching easy, and then just use CUSTOMS for quick dirty tests

[valkir]

Great job man! 

800gh for 431 watt! Thats a nice ratio!

[macgyver007]

Thanks...the error rate seems a bit high but the reported speeds are accurate...can you reproduce my results if you edit the eco file?

[philipma1957]

Great job man!  

800gh for 431 watt! Thats a nice ratio!

Thanks...the error rate seems a bit high but the reported speeds are accurate...can you reproduce my results if you edit the eco file?

I have been doing all custom with the rasp pi.
 I based my rasp pi  custom settings on the info you gave to me---------------also used a new class 10 plextor card and a new class 10 sandisk card full size not micro in the rasp pi
these custom settings are really good.  I will try to ssh this tomorrow  

845gh  
460 watts

about 0.55 watts a gh

under  1% errors--------------------------------------------------------  this drifts up say .5 % then .8 % then flattens at 1.13 % over 5 hour time period.
sound meter 39-42db
fan 900 to 1240 rpm with 15% setting
temps under 44c






full size link


http://imageshack.com/a/img673/4669/YGs4NR.png

[macgyver007]

I got my test data after a longer period and am pretty happy with the results as I hit over my 900GH/s target and don't like to miss  
Settings are
400:370:340 7250v and auto volts
Miner starts out using 539W and within 16 or so mins is down to 499W and poolside giving the same results which is important to me as the config page can say 1 thing but reality at the pool can be quite a shocking difference
.5489W/GH works for me 909GH/s @499W
The best part about this speed is how quiet the miner is
I think its quieter than C1 and S3 actually it is the quietest miner I have used with the exception of USB miners  







My 3 preset settings so far (editing the eco, normal and turbo files for ease of switching modes but customs mode with auto volts does the same thing using those settings:
ECO mode (still needs tweaking but normal is a better deal for more output) :
{
"avalon4-freq" : "340",
"avalon4-voltage" : "6875"
}
 gives 431W for around 795GH/s

NORMAL MODE:
{
"avalon4-freq" : "400:370:340",
"avalon4-voltage" : "7250"
}

gives 909GH/s for 499W best bang for the buck

TURBO mode:
{
"avalon4-freq" : "450:390:370",
"avalon4-voltage" : "7750"
}
 this gives around 1TH with lowest power usage of 588W

Nice results u got as well phil pretty damn close

[philipma1957]

yeah we both got close to .55 watts a gh

i used customs to do fan setting of 15% seems to work .

840 to 900 gh both seem to  get .55 watts at 7250 volt setting

[macgyver007]

yeah we both got close to .55 watts a gh

i used customs to do fan setting of 15% seems to work .

840 to 900 gh both seem to  get .55 watts at 7250 volt setting

I didn't bother messing with the fan as its already so quiet its almost soothing

so the limit for 7250 is around 900GH/s safe to say... I was working my way up from lower voltages until the pool speed matched the miner to get my final results ...its just a matter of what frequencies are used from the looks of it...I guestimated the numbers I used and watched the APC change wattage with each setting but now I need a break from it before I go for turbo mode lol

[valkir]

Pretty happy to have you both try all these setup! Thanks you guys

Just sad that Avalon 4 is a little bit expensive!

Cheer

Valkir 

[philipma1957]

Pretty happy to have you both try all these setup! Thanks you guys

Just sad that Avalon 4 is a little bit expensive!

Cheer

Valkir  

actually  if you offered me a choice of the 3 for free I would pick avalon 4.1's    now that I found out I can get .55 watts at 850-900 gh  then switch to  .48 watts at 500gh   for free they would be the best choice for me.

Price wise they are just too much if you want a lot of them.

[macgyver007]

Thanks for helping verify the results...its a pleasure to be able to give back to the community and I figured one good turn of winning a miner deserves a good turn of helping others who may have or consider getting Avalon 4.1
I really like this miner the build quality and workmanship are good, it runs quietly for home use considerations...the firmware definitely needs work and tweaking and a price drop would definitely sell more of these but at what loss to the manufacturer....there is no comparison between this miner and any Bitmain product for example night and day not even the same planet from workmanship to materials used

Last off please can we leave chip politics out of this thread this is not a discussion about the past it is about Avalon 4.1 miner lets move on please its 2015
off-topic post removed

[rigrenter]

Hi,

Is it possible to connect Avalon 4.1 directly to PC (Linux) via USB (PC running cgminer with avalon 4.1 drivers only)? If yes, are there some instructions? Or does it absolutely needs dedicated controller?