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Re: DRILLBIT SYSTEM Miners - Thumbs (Temp NA), 8 Boards (0 left)
New question for you Barntech, is there any possibility of these boards failing in such a way that it causes a short and a fire? This is another significant part of the risk analysis that would make me VERY concerned to run these boards until there is a repair. Failing and causing the board to power off in a puff of smoke is one thing, but a short causing a fire is another.
When you say that it burst while you watched, was there actual fire?
When you say that it burst while you watched, was there actual fire?
Re: DRILLBIT SYSTEM Miners - Thumbs (Temp NA), 8 Boards (0 left)
Well,no go for me.Called my bud,he sold his hotair station a few months ago..................................... 
Do you have a stereo or amplifier repair business in your town? They might have the tools and knowledge necessary to repair your board and can do it for a small price, especially if they don't have to diagnose the problem. I'm going to start calling local places monday and factor their price vs buying a decent hot air setup ($100), something I've wanted for awhile.
Re: DRILLBIT SYSTEM Miners - Thumbs (Temp NA), 8 Boards (0 left)
Wow! That's a little smaller than my comfort zone allows for. You'd need a pretty quality hot air setup to get that properly (not to mention some tiny tweezers for the solder balls!). I may see if there are any local electronics repair places that can do the repair quickly and locally. Worth spending a little more money to save time in my opinion, considering the current value of BTC.
Do you have any updates on the parts needed for replacement? Do we need a different regulator there or is this simply a bad batch of chips? I'd be curious to know the chip information, as my magnifying glass is still packed and I can't quite see what it says. I'd love to look up the chips myself and do some research.
Thanks for the update Barntech!
EDIT: I wonder if unclean power could be causing issues with the regulator? I had very inconsistent behavior until switching to a very nice new powersupply (which is way overkill at 750w, made by CWT). This could certainly cause an issue with a regulator chip or an inductor chip. I am considering putting the boards on a true sine wave UPS. If those chips are weak, any fluctuations in line voltage could cause issues. Including some very dramatic ones, such as we have seen.
Just a few thoughts on the subject. I'd be curious to see if your engineers agree.
EDIT2: I'm thinking about giving it shot, with a lot of practice. Either that or take it to a local repair shop. Seems like it could be fairly easy with a steady hand and some luck.
Do you have any updates on the parts needed for replacement? Do we need a different regulator there or is this simply a bad batch of chips? I'd be curious to know the chip information, as my magnifying glass is still packed and I can't quite see what it says. I'd love to look up the chips myself and do some research.
Thanks for the update Barntech!
EDIT: I wonder if unclean power could be causing issues with the regulator? I had very inconsistent behavior until switching to a very nice new powersupply (which is way overkill at 750w, made by CWT). This could certainly cause an issue with a regulator chip or an inductor chip. I am considering putting the boards on a true sine wave UPS. If those chips are weak, any fluctuations in line voltage could cause issues. Including some very dramatic ones, such as we have seen.
Just a few thoughts on the subject. I'd be curious to see if your engineers agree.
EDIT2: I'm thinking about giving it shot, with a lot of practice. Either that or take it to a local repair shop. Seems like it could be fairly easy with a steady hand and some luck.
Re: DRILLBIT SYSTEM Miners - Thumbs (Temp NA), 8 Boards (0 left)
Just before I read your update,another one went out 
So,I shut the last one off to save it until we know whats up.......................
So,I shut the last one off to save it until we know whats up.......................Are you getting magic smoke or burned surface components that damage the pcb? That's the main thing I could see causing the repairs to be difficult.
Nope,no smoke,no burned components,thank god....I worked with Steamboat assembling units & he showed me some boards that had solder overrun,missedplaced parts,etc.
I see nothing wrong physically with these boards.I'm no expert,but I have built several hundred high end gaming PC's in the past 14 years & have seen ALOT of screw-ups from the factory.....none are visible here
Yeah, its very odd. I have dealt with blades in HPC for years, and seen numerous burned out components. I also handled documenting the failures and sending them back to my home company for repair. PCB repair can be a real pain if the components burn, which involves drilling the board and rebuilding each layer, which can be a pain if the traces burn far. I'm curious to see what evidence of this has occurred, although electronics repair is not my expertise. I'd love to hear what Barntech says or someone with more experience with multilayer pcb repair.
If they are easily repairable, that would make me more apt to want to run my boards.
Re: DRILLBIT SYSTEM Miners - Thumbs (Temp NA), 8 Boards (0 left)
Just before I read your update,another one went out So,I shut the last one off to save it until we know whats up.......................
So,I shut the last one off to save it until we know whats up.......................Are you getting magic smoke or burned surface components that damage the pcb? That's the main thing I could see causing the repairs to be difficult.
Re: DRILLBIT SYSTEM Miners - Thumbs (Temp NA), 8 Boards (0 left)
Guys.
Its looking like a component issue. We're still testing here to get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, can you all please stop running your boards. I know this sucks but it will make things better in the long run. Whatever is going on here is fixable, but will be quicker and easier to fix if the boards are preserved as they are now rather than risking damage by running them while things aren't working as they should.
More soon.
Its looking like a component issue. We're still testing here to get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, can you all please stop running your boards. I know this sucks but it will make things better in the long run. Whatever is going on here is fixable, but will be quicker and easier to fix if the boards are preserved as they are now rather than risking damage by running them while things aren't working as they should.
More soon.
Can you please give us some insight into what you guys are seeing or thinking? While it may be better to stop running the boards, it is hard for us to make the risk assessment without information. The other main issue here is ability to mine with a significant delay. I worry quite a bit about the future returns of boards if there is a delay of a few weeks. At this point I don't think it's too much to ask to be included in your internal discussions.
Based on my calculations, it would actually as profitable to run it for four weeks now then have it die, rather than waiting a month and running for 6 months. This is a very serious risk analysis problem, one that we need proper information on failure rates and what components are at risk.
I'm sure you understand my concerns.
Re: DRILLBIT SYSTEM Miners - Thumbs (Temp NA), 8 Boards (0 left)
I had all 4 on a 800 watt PSU & they ran fine,just had 1 that zombied & they were hooked to 1-4pin molex cable with 4 molex connectors......only for about 30 minutes till I moved them to a dedicated PC.
They all had lights on then & after I moved them.
Here's some info I found:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molex_connector
Scroll down to the "disk drive" connector section,"11 amps @12volts=132 watts per",per molex or per cable.I think per cable,so 2 on each cable with a HDD or DVD rom each should be fine.
We are assuming 40 watts or so per board (with no OC'in),so 80+ watts per cable should be within the limits.
The 2 did not lose the green lights till many hours(6-8 hours)after I had them running on the other PC.
Harddrives are 10 watts or so,DVD rom is about 10-15(not burning,25+ when burning a DVD/CD).
So......40x2=80+15=95 watts per 4pin molex cable.........in range I think..............
Either way,its strange..................
Edit:Just hooked a PSU up with "high tech" jumper wire to turn it on & still no green light.
I 100% agree with your power assessment of the individual molex cable. I am only running two boards and a fan per each molex connecter. I always worry about overloading molex connectors, and if I'm doing a great deal of daisy chaining, I always like to check with a multimeter to make sure I am not going over spec. Two blades per a molex cable seems to be the most I would attempt.
Hopefully Barntech will release a list of surface mount components to check for failures. This would make troubleshooting a no led situation much quicker (i.e. - check these fuses, its a known problem). I guess you could start by verifying the surface mount fuses, as I would suspect those first for failures.
Re: DRILLBIT SYSTEM Miners - Thumbs (Temp NA), 8 Boards (0 left)
We need a comprehensive report of the states in which people's boards are going bad. There are a ton of reports of bad boards, but little useable information.
I think that it would be helpful to Barntech's team if we could list how boards were hooked up, i.e. miniplane or not, pci-e power or not, etc. I would also think that powersupply type, with as many details as possible would be helpful. Reports of failed boards don't tell anyone much, other than failure rates.
I think that it would be helpful to Barntech's team if we could list how boards were hooked up, i.e. miniplane or not, pci-e power or not, etc. I would also think that powersupply type, with as many details as possible would be helpful. Reports of failed boards don't tell anyone much, other than failure rates.
All four boards were plugged into a miniplane and powered by PCI 6-pin connectors from a Corsair RM550 power supply (mfgr. data sheet with specs - http://www.corsair.com/en/media/cms/manual/corsair-psu-spec-table-091813.pdf). No other devices were connected to the PSU. The miniplane was firmly connected to a Spotswood open style case and a 120mm fan was blowing directly across the heatsinks, the fan was powered by the on-board connector. Each board showed green when initially powered on, all hashed without immediate error when cgminer_drillbit.exe was run without any --drillbit-options.
Each board continued to respond, and hashed without error for approximately five to ten minutes each before being stopped, when individually started with the --usb command option to determine which USB device ID was an Eight and which was a Thumb. After all USB device IDs were tried, an instance of cgminer_drillbit was started with the --usb option so only the Eight were hashing. After approximately ten minutes, the hash rate was lower and more variable than I had hoped for, so I was going to start testing each board individually with a variety of --drillbit-options to find the optimal settings for each board.
At this point two of the four boards failed to respond when tried with or without --drillbit-options and "cgminer_drillbit.exe -n" failed to list two of the boards. On investigating physically, two of the four (the nonresponsive two) were found to have no green LED on.
I then shut everything down, removed the boards from the miniplane, plugged them into 4-pin molex connectors, and powered everything on. The two LED-less boards remained green ghosts. I then returned everything to the miniplane, powered it on, and have been consistently and stably hashing on the two responsive boards (at ~19gh/s per board with default settings) for the past 16 or so hours.
I worry the miniplane may have been to blame in some way. I saw very inconsistent performance and errors with it. I also know that molex power can backfeed through the miniplane. This is somewhat troubling to me, as I have seen this cause issue in other products. I would highly recommend against using the miniplanes at this time, from personal experience. I await the developer's analysis of the situation but, I would not use the miniplane and molex pins at this time. You can make a stack using only three of the holes on the boards and the included nylon risers, as I have done, to temporarily run without the miniplane and have them all stacked neatly.
Do you happen to have a 'history' output from the different --drillbit-options you attempted? That could be very useful, particularly the last working settings.
Re: DRILLBIT SYSTEM Miners - Thumbs (Temp NA), 8 Boards (0 left)
We need a comprehensive report of the states in which people's boards are going bad. There are a ton of reports of bad boards, but little useable information.
I think that it would be helpful to Barntech's team if we could list how boards were hooked up, i.e. miniplane or not, pci-e power or not, etc. I would also think that powersupply type, with as many details as possible would be helpful. Reports of failed boards don't tell anyone much, other than failure rates.
I think that it would be helpful to Barntech's team if we could list how boards were hooked up, i.e. miniplane or not, pci-e power or not, etc. I would also think that powersupply type, with as many details as possible would be helpful. Reports of failed boards don't tell anyone much, other than failure rates.
550 watt psu,no backplane used,used 2-4pin molex lines-2 per line(each molex cable had 3 connectors,used 2).
No other devices on PSU except mobo/cpu(45 watt dual core)/hdd/dvd rom & NVidia 8100 non powered vid card(no external connectors).
No OC'in was done,ran @ stock CGminer settings,got CGminer from drillbit forum:
https://github.com/drillbitsystems/cgminer/releases/tag/3.8.1_drillbit
No green light is the problem on 2 boards.
I miss anything
Sounds like you may have ran the board at suboptimal power by having the other computer components attached. Those could easily draw enough power to have a problem for the boards. I suggest listening to nexus99 and detaching everything from the PSU and trying again. These boards seem to really like having clean power, based on my testing. I got MUCH better results after buying a new powersupply to replace the aging 400watt PSU I was using. I went from 55gh/s over four boards to 70gh/s.
I'm waiting to hear back from Barntech's team in another thread where I asked for the various points they recommend for testing voltages across the boards. I feel that we may learn quite a bit from collective testing.
Thank you for posting such detailed information about your setup. It is very helpful for those of us trying to get an overall opinion of what is causing board failures.
Re: DRILLBIT SYSTEM Miners - Thumbs (Temp NA), 8 Boards (0 left)
We need a comprehensive report of the states in which people's boards are going bad. There are a ton of reports of bad boards, but little useable information.
I think that it would be helpful to Barntech's team if we could list how boards were hooked up, i.e. miniplane or not, pci-e power or not, etc. I would also think that powersupply type, with as many details as possible would be helpful. Reports of failed boards don't tell anyone much, other than failure rates.
I think that it would be helpful to Barntech's team if we could list how boards were hooked up, i.e. miniplane or not, pci-e power or not, etc. I would also think that powersupply type, with as many details as possible would be helpful. Reports of failed boards don't tell anyone much, other than failure rates.
Re: DRILLBIT SYSTEM Miners - Thumbs (Temp NA), 8 Boards (0 left)
I've got one board that hashes at full speed, but puts out about 75% hardware errors. I tried another board with the same power/usb cable and it works just fine. I've got three boards up and running on three different computers at the moment. They all seem to be averaging about 21.8 gigahashes at the recommended start settings.
Chad
Chad
What are your "starter" settings?
Re: DRILLBIT SYSTEM Miners - Thumbs (Temp NA), 8 Boards (0 left)
Honestly, my hashrate is pretty low on four boards. I'm using a 300watt powersupply, which should be good enough, yet only getting 58gh/s from four boards. This seems mighty low to me. By my calculations, I should be getting around 70GH/s. Maybe it's my powersupply? Overclocking is a no go as well. I'm setting my clock speed to 40 for my blades, even 42 doesn't work. And it doesn't just error, it plain won't work. I'm directly connected to usb ports, no hubs here. I am also using a masscool 120mm fan blowing down the heatsinks, so no passive cooling here.
Slightly disappointing, but in a fun way. Now I get to troubleshoot something. I've already discovered the cause of my libusb errors (usb3 is no beuno).
In response to why the bitfury heatsinks are on the bottom... That's how these chips are packaged. The heat transfer pad is actually on the bottom of the chip, so you connect to it through a transferpad in the PCB. BFL just did it wrong. And you are seeing the bitfury chips. They are not under the heatsink...
I'm using a 300watt powersupply, which should be good enough, yet only getting 58gh/s from four boards. This seems mighty low to me. By my calculations, I should be getting around 70GH/s. Maybe it's my powersupply? Overclocking is a no go as well. I'm setting my clock speed to 40 for my blades, even 42 doesn't work. And it doesn't just error, it plain won't work. I'm directly connected to usb ports, no hubs here. I am also using a masscool 120mm fan blowing down the heatsinks, so no passive cooling here. Slightly disappointing, but in a fun way. Now I get to troubleshoot something. I've already discovered the cause of my libusb errors (usb3 is no beuno).
In response to why the bitfury heatsinks are on the bottom... That's how these chips are packaged. The heat transfer pad is actually on the bottom of the chip, so you connect to it through a transferpad in the PCB. BFL just did it wrong. And you are seeing the bitfury chips. They are not under the heatsink...
Re: [OPEN] - GROUP BUY of BITFURY Chips + DRILLBIT SYSTEM mining assembly
That was the timeline I remember seeing. They explained the situation very well, and since the chips didn't come till early November, this is the expected timeline. I think comparing this to BFL or Avalon at this point is pretty unfair! We all took a risk by preordering, and of course we all wish they had shipped earlier! At least we're not dealing with multimonth delays like cointerra and hashfast, for much more expensive systems. Hopefully we will mine some good coin, and I still feel these devices will be very profitable for fiat, and more profitable in BTC than buying BTC now. Hell, even my early asicminer blade is profitable in fiat now! I'm in mining for a hobby that also turns a profit, not as a get rich quick plan, so perhaps my views are different on the subject.
I ordered a NF1 Bitfury based USB stick project from the group buys section, on Oct 19th, and it was shipped out 3 weeks later. That group buy didn't start until mid September, some 5-6weeks after this one started, they also ordered their reel from Megabuypower.
nuff said.
Wait, so they are only four days ahead of this group buy and you're complaining? That could easily be due to different supply chains or numerous other reasons. Little soon to start calling BFL wouldn't you say?
Because math? You said you ordered the device on Oct 19th and it shipped three weeks later. That would be November 9th, so whoops, it shipped five days ago, not four days ago. Unless your math is off?
nuff said.
Re: [OPEN] - GROUP BUY of BITFURY Chips + DRILLBIT SYSTEM mining assembly
That was the timeline I remember seeing. They explained the situation very well, and since the chips didn't come till early November, this is the expected timeline. I think comparing this to BFL or Avalon at this point is pretty unfair! We all took a risk by preordering, and of course we all wish they had shipped earlier! At least we're not dealing with multimonth delays like cointerra and hashfast, for much more expensive systems. Hopefully we will mine some good coin, and I still feel these devices will be very profitable for fiat, and more profitable in BTC than buying BTC now. Hell, even my early asicminer blade is profitable in fiat now! I'm in mining for a hobby that also turns a profit, not as a get rich quick plan, so perhaps my views are different on the subject.
I ordered a NF1 Bitfury based USB stick project from the group buys section, on Oct 19th, and it was shipped out 3 weeks later. That group buy didn't start until mid September, some 5-6weeks after this one started, they also ordered their reel from Megabuypower.
nuff said.
Wait, so they are only four days ahead of this group buy and you're complaining? That could easily be due to different supply chains or numerous other reasons. Little soon to start calling BFL wouldn't you say?
Re: [OPEN] - GROUP BUY of BITFURY Chips + DRILLBIT SYSTEM mining assembly
Post #39 is the closest I found to a timescale.
Hey Sprint.
Just to clarify, we're not promising an October delivery. We have been told that we will get our hands on the Bitfury chips in October. Once we get the chips, our manufacture turnaround will be quite quick, somewhere in the realm of one to two weeks.
Thing is, there is nothing we can do about when the chips get to us. Having bought into Avalon based stuff myself and still not seen anything, i fully understand your trepidation. As with everything in bitcoin mining land, actually getting stuff when people say you will get it is often pretty dubious. In my communications with megabigpower, from whom we are getting the chips, it seems pretty solid to me that they will indeed be shipping in October, however to be perfectly honest, i will not be surprised if there are delays. Look at the way things have played out with BFL and Avalon.
I know that probably doesn't sound super reassuring, but i am trying to be as honest as i can. What i can promise is that we will do the board manufacture as soon as we get the chips, so if they do come in October, then late Oct / early Nov delivery will happen. Here's hoping there are no crazy delays on chip delivery. I do feel confident based on the communications i have had, but you never no.
Rest assured though, we have our end of things covered.
Barntech
If it takes 6 weeks to complete your chip order, do you expect you'll be able to meet your October deadline?
I'm interested but after my experience with Avalon and K16s I'll need some encouragement.
I'm interested but after my experience with Avalon and K16s I'll need some encouragement.
Hey Sprint.
Just to clarify, we're not promising an October delivery. We have been told that we will get our hands on the Bitfury chips in October. Once we get the chips, our manufacture turnaround will be quite quick, somewhere in the realm of one to two weeks.
Thing is, there is nothing we can do about when the chips get to us. Having bought into Avalon based stuff myself and still not seen anything, i fully understand your trepidation. As with everything in bitcoin mining land, actually getting stuff when people say you will get it is often pretty dubious. In my communications with megabigpower, from whom we are getting the chips, it seems pretty solid to me that they will indeed be shipping in October, however to be perfectly honest, i will not be surprised if there are delays. Look at the way things have played out with BFL and Avalon.
I know that probably doesn't sound super reassuring, but i am trying to be as honest as i can. What i can promise is that we will do the board manufacture as soon as we get the chips, so if they do come in October, then late Oct / early Nov delivery will happen. Here's hoping there are no crazy delays on chip delivery. I do feel confident based on the communications i have had, but you never no.
Rest assured though, we have our end of things covered.
Barntech
That was the timeline I remember seeing. They explained the situation very well, and since the chips didn't come till early November, this is the expected timeline. I think comparing this to BFL or Avalon at this point is pretty unfair! We all took a risk by preordering, and of course we all wish they had shipped earlier! At least we're not dealing with multimonth delays like cointerra and hashfast, for much more expensive systems. Hopefully we will mine some good coin, and I still feel these devices will be very profitable for fiat, and more profitable in BTC than buying BTC now. Hell, even my early asicminer blade is profitable in fiat now! I'm in mining for a hobby that also turns a profit, not as a get rich quick plan, so perhaps my views are different on the subject.
Re: DRILLBIT SYSTEM Miners - Thumbs 0.5 BTC (5 left), 8 Boards 1.6 BTC (7 left)
Hoping they are good to go tomorrow and arrive monday?
I hope they turn up before Xmas, the group buy started Aug 2nd. this is starting to become a BFL saga.
orly? where are the lies, deceit, and company asshole bashing users/customers?
far from a "BFL saga" at this point
So how far off the time they claimed they would ship are they? Maybe you just didn't read when the boards would ship when you ordered? Sounds like someone swallowed a bitter pill this morning.
Re: DRILLBIT SYSTEM Miners - Thumbs 0.5 BTC (5 left), 8 Boards 1.6 BTC (7 left)
Hey guys.
So bobsag will be handling our U.S. distribution. He will receive one package straight from the factory for all U.S. orders and then send them out as soon as he gets them. This way we have to deal with customs once. This will be much better than 100 different packages having to face customs.
Also, for those of you who have not yet sorted out a PSU, bosag can help you in that regard. Send him a message.
So bobsag will be handling our U.S. distribution. He will receive one package straight from the factory for all U.S. orders and then send them out as soon as he gets them. This way we have to deal with customs once. This will be much better than 100 different packages having to face customs.
Also, for those of you who have not yet sorted out a PSU, bosag can help you in that regard. Send him a message.
Well that sounds much better! I was worried about the customs process, and this is a good thing. Hopefully bobsag3 will get everything shipped out pronto!
Re: DRILLBIT SYSTEM Miners - Thumbs 0.5 BTC (5 left), 8 Boards 1.6 BTC (7 left)
So does anyone know the best way to smooth the process of getting our miners through US customs? I'd like to make sure that I have all my ducks in a row before the miners arrive!