Successful with BitForce Singles

[420]

how many people have been successful or consider their purchase and mining with BitForce singles successful? I have READ of a lot of problems with setting them up and throttling etc.

[1715516740]

1715516740

[MXRider]

I' had zero problems. Just plugged them in, updated FTDI drivers and started cgminer. They have been hashing happily since.

Maybe you should tell a little bit more about your problem.

AND calm down a bit dude. 10 posts a day? Read more, post less.

[Phraust]

I've been pretty successful, though there has been quite a bit of trial and error.

Temperature-wise, they hate being hot.  I have one right now that throttles consistently whenever it gets close to 58C, but it is running the 896 firmware.  I've trial-and-errored through all of the firmwares, even auto tune. Looking at the math for my situation, it made more sense for me to run the a/c 24/7 rather than slowing them down.  I'm waiting on an order of 120mm fans to upgrade all of mine with, to hopefully keep them nice and cool until october.  After all the dicking around with them that I've done, I really just want to have a setup I can leave running and forget about it.

I started on OSX, running them all off of a Mac Mini.  I learned that they hate lots of traffic on USB, so the hub you choose, and what else you are running along with it matters a bunch.  While the MacMini was dedicated to mining, it did fine as long as I didn't forget to remove any external drives on the chain.  Keeping the USB cables away from the power cables seems to help.  The hub I got was a 11 port saitek thingy that looked good, but in the end is probably too cheap.  I cannot get two of the ports on it to work with the singles, and if I move it around too much I need to restart all of them.

For the last week they have been mining off of a dedicated headless DockStar, using ArchLinux and that same crappy USB hub.  I finished reorgnizing my office, and have the Mac Mini as my desktop now.  It's been working like a charm, no problems at all.

tl;dr: keep them cool, and watch their USB connections.  If you can keep em cool, overclock them as high as they'll go and leave em alone.

[420]

Thanks. Just wondering, don't own or have a stake in them

[AndrewBUD]

So BFL pushed this things out half assed? I bet we're in for the same treat with the ASic's

[Unacceptable]

Only thing I had a prob with is temp too  

They are designed to operate in a room temp of 72 F    My room gets to 80 F,A/C is EXPENSIVE @.12 cents per KWH  

Mine only liked the 768 FW,which produces 760 mh/s @ 50 C.Other than that,I had a little trouble gettin CGminer bat file made (my bad,I'm software stupid),Cablez helped me,THANKS DUDE  

Very minor issues, I call it a learning curve.................been running for almost 4 months now & no issues at all  

[Phraust]

My room gets to 80 F,A/C is EXPENSIVE @.12 cents per KWH  

Pfft, I'm paying $0.34 per KWH.  Electricity is eating up 2/3 of what I earn.

[kunibopl]

Pfft, I'm paying $0.34 per KWH.  Electricity is eating up 2/3 of what I earn.

how is that? I am also paying 0.34$/kwh and it eats up only 7% of what I earn.

[Epoch]

Thanks. Just wondering, don't own or have a stake in them

how many people have been successful or consider their purchase and mining with BitForce singles successful? I have of a lot of problems with setting them up and throttling etc.

Um, what do you mean you don't own or have a stake in them?

You said right in the OP that you have 'a lot of problems with setting them up and throttling'. You're not a troll, are you?

[Phraust]

how is that? I am also paying 0.34$/kwh and it eats up only 7% of what I earn.

I need to run a/c to keep them cool.  For the room they are in, that's a 1050 watt a/c running on average 12 hours a day.

[kibblesnbits]

how many people have been successful or consider their purchase and mining with BitForce singles successful? I have of a lot of problems with setting them up and throttling etc.

Lot of variables - post your OS, room temp, mining software? how many on one computer, USB hubs? 
Help us help you. 

[sadpandatech]

Thanks. Just wondering, don't own or have a stake in them

how many people have been successful or consider their purchase and mining with BitForce singles successful? I have read of a lot of problems with setting them up and throttling etc.

Um, what do you mean you don't own or have a stake in them?

You said right in the OP that you have 'a lot of problems with setting them up and throttling'. You're not a troll, are you?

just needed some proofreading, it did.

[Epoch]

Thanks. Just wondering, don't own or have a stake in them

how many people have been successful or consider their purchase and mining with BitForce singles successful? I have read of a lot of problems with setting them up and throttling etc.

Um, what do you mean you don't own or have a stake in them?

You said right in the OP that you have 'a lot of problems with setting them up and throttling'. You're not a troll, are you?

just needed some proofreading, it did.

Nice recovery for 420, SadPandaTech.

Ok, I'll bite. I have a few Singles. I consider their purchase and mining as 'successful'. Note that I have ordered back in December 2011 so I have been mining with them for a relatively long time. Setting them up is not difficult. I've used ufasoft, cgminer, and bfgminer. All work quite well. You just need to take the time to read the documentation (ufasoft, cgminer, bfgminer) in order to determine the proper command-line options. PM me if you need some help with specifics.

Regarding throttling: my understanding is that, as shipped, they are rated to do 832Mhps @ 72F without throttling. If you encounter throttling (conveniently indicated by a blinking front-panel LED), it is not a big deal: either reduce your ambient temperature, or flash them with a slower firmware. BFL has many different bitstreams available from their website. You can easily flash your Singles using BLF's 'EasyMiner' software, also available from the website.

Hope this helps.

[420]

My room gets to 80 F,A/C is EXPENSIVE @.12 cents per KWH  

Pfft, I'm paying $0.34 per KWH.  Electricity is eating up 2/3 of what I earn.

solar dude. go solar. how many watts are you consuming?


Epoch, does any miner get significantly more mhash on the BFL's?

[LazyOtto]

Being able to reflash to lower speed is crucial for these.

As a data point, with my BFL unit, in an 80f ambient temperature, it will run with zero throttling at 800mh/s. Not at 808.

At 78f ambient it will run the 808mh/s firmware but not the 816.

(Case off and bottom 'integrated heat-sink' fan replaced with one the same size as the top fan. I also remounted the main heat sink using Arctic Silver 5.)

Yes, these things *are* that sensitive to ambient temps.

NOTES: It takes about a half hour of hashing for the device to drift up to full temp from a restart. And, for me, the Easy-Miner Autotune function did not select the optimal firmware / hash-rate.


I've seen no significant difference in accepted share performance with mpbm versus cgminer. (As reported by the pool over multiple day runs for each.)

[dave3]

I run 2 BFL singles in an un-airconditioned room, typically around 85°F with the 816 firmware without a problem.  They mine reliably for me without throttling with the 816 firmware.

It's a good thing, too, because they're too noisy to keep in my air conditioned office.  I'm hoping the SC versions that will replace them will be quiet. 

[420]

I run 2 BFL singles in an un-airconditioned room, typically around 85°F with the 816 firmware without a problem.  They mine reliably for me without throttling with the 816 firmware.

It's a good thing, too, because they're too noisy to keep in my air conditioned office.  I'm hoping the SC versions that will replace them will be quiet. 

What do you use to test temp?

now one knows how loud they are right now...

[dave3]

What do you use to test temp?

now one knows how loud they are right now...

I haven't measured the temperature in the room with the BFLs, but I have a thermometer in my office that's around 85°F before I turn the A/C on, though it varies depending on the temperature outside.  Could be +/- 5°F easily.

The internal temperature of the CPUs can be read in cgminer.

Code:

BFL 0:  57.5C         | 811.0/807.9Mh/s | A:3016 R:34 HW:0 U:11.49/m
BFL 1:  59.0C         | 811.0/807.6Mh/s | A:2956 R:21 HW:0 U:11.26/m

I just checked the sound levels using a Decibel app on my phone.  My quiet office read 37 dB.  Measured approx. 1 foot from the BFL singles, the reading was 55 dB.

Think of the fan noise from a really noisy computer or server.

[Epoch]

Dave3 is correct about the noise; a stock Single is relatively loud. Plus they may come with one or two fans (or even 3) depending on the particular Single.

I've replaced the stock fan(s) in my Singles with much quieter ones. The drawback is that because they now don't cool as well, I've had to load slower firmware into most of them to keep throttling in check. Well worth it, IMHO, if you keep your Singles anywhere near where you spend a lot of your time (bedroom, living room, basement, ...).

It certainly is possible to have a quiet Single if you are willing to do some work (and are willing to sacrifice a few percentages in speed).

[somenick]

16 single work good 10 days