Just so you know, there's a USB port directly next to the Ethernet port.

You have to get Xilinx ISE. You can get a Student Evaluation Version for free. Then you have to upload Verilog code to the board via USB. If somebody else hasn't done so for this FPGA family, you have to write or modify the code for a similar chip family.

I'll look to see if anybody has used that board, but I think you might get a 100-250MH/s a chip for those. If anybody has used that board, I'll write up a simple tutorial for you.

So you got these handed off to you then?

Well you are using the Virtex-5 FPGA Family, but what Development Board are you using?

I don't know that anybody has developed a FPGA bitstream for Ethernet on the boards, but RS-232 is way too slow to be of any use. You can program it via RS-232, but it would have to be written to operate over the network.

Could you provide a picture of the dev board? Please provide multiple views so we can see all the GPIO.

And did you buy these up or did you happen to run across some spares?


I think he has an older development board, and I'm assuming they've never done anything with FPGA's before.

Not optimal? Every FPGA dev board uses USB. That's how cgminer or bfgminer and the like connect to the FPGA.

Either use 4 USB ports on your computer or get a powered USB hub. Don't go cheap, a bad hub can burn out the USB ports.


Out of curiosity, how did you get your hands on these boards?

I'm not sure what you mean exactly. However as a guess -> I am not familiar with these boards.

This is all on a Unix/Linux system. Get a USB hub. Connect them all to the USB hub via USB connections. Run cgminer with the relevant FPGA support compiled in an point them to  your USB ports. With cgminer pointing to a pool of some sort and configured for with your pool login/miner details and off you go.

I'm sure somebody will correct my mistakes and or oversights.

What kind of music is that?

I am good in that sense. I am not in the habit of downloading cracked versions of software.

looks like I will be setting up one of my spare machines.

Oh dear, sad to hear this.
Your computer is probably/possibly infected.
Get avast + http://www.malwarebytes.org/ and scan.

Note: Always set up strong passwords. (best case: write something huge on a piece of paper and use that).
Hope it gets resolved