Post
Topic
Board Hardware
Re: FPGA development board "Icarus" for mining purpose - 2nd batch preparing.
by
server
on 23/12/2011, 16:40:56 UTC
i checked 3 board's log files with 144MB size here, and just find 8 "Read Miner ID ERROR" s. it seems really not a common error when i test them. because 144MB log file is a record of hundreds hrs. i test them under windows7 64bit.

this issue means  FPGA pushed a work result to PC, but with a wrong work id. so PC think there will be some problem and restart the script and FPGA.

i don't  know why it happy unusually frequently over there. some advise is check the USB connection or change to a USB port on the mainboard instead of at the front panel or change to another PC for a test. 

but i will fix this bug by a fully rewrite the u_mining_ctrl.v and the miner script. in order to resolve a lot of small problems and support regular miner software instead of a poor TCL script.

Ok, I will check my cable and test this on another pc, but for your information, in the last 12 hours I counted 54 times error 26 and 52 times error 254.

Quote
i'm planing to change the 2 X 25mm fans to 1X 40mm lower speed fan installed at the middle of 2 heatsinks. i will test this fashion on the 2nd batch.

about the heatsink, there is another issue. i must test the boards for hundreds hours before ship them, so i must install a heatsink on it. if a use thermal grease, it will get the boards dirty and negative affect when install a heatsink with 3M thermal tape, because the grease is hard to remove completely.

any suggestion?

I would prefer to use Arctic Silver 5 grease but this means that you need holes in the board to hold the heatsink.
But heat is not really an issue atm ... as long as you're using the I version of XC6SLX150 that has Tj.max of 100C.
If you want to use the commercial version which has a Tj.max of 85C, then you need better way of cooling I guess.