**US** BitFury Setup Guide

[cet]

I have the original V1.0 board and am wondering if I should update the software on my card?  I hear others updating and getting better performance.  Is this an option for me with the original board?

Dave has indicated that the v2 software can damage v1 m-boards and that you shouldn't upgrade the software. 

I have had similar performance using both types of boards and similar performance using both versions of software.  From what I see, the main advantage to the V2 m-boards is that there are mulitple banks.  If one of the slots in the mboard goes bad then the slots following it also can not be used.  In the case of the V1 board this means that the entire m-board following the bad slot is dead, with the v2 board you have 3 other banks that remain usable.

/cet

[Swimmer63]

I have the original V1.0 board and am wondering if I should update the software on my card?  I hear others updating and getting better performance.  Is this an option for me with the original board?

Dave has indicated that the v2 software can damage v1 m-boards and that you shouldn't upgrade the software. 

I have had similar performance using both types of boards and similar performance using both versions of software.  From what I see, the main advantage to the V2 m-boards is that there are mulitple banks.  If one of the slots in the mboard goes bad then the slots following it also can not be used.  In the case of the V1 board this means that the entire m-board following the bad slot is dead, with the v2 board you have 3 other banks that remain usable.

/cet

Thanks for the clarification.  I did not know if v1 software had been updated or not.  I am assuming by your post it has not.

[greaterninja]

Ok, I've had 3 out of 5 Sd cards fail.   So as a result, I wish to repair the media.  When trying to write the august or September image onto the SD card I get this error:  Not enough space on disk:  Size: 7862272 sectors Available: 7626752 sectors  Sector size: 512

Should I be using Win32 Disk Imager and my netbooks sd card slot?  I am also using SDformatter; format size adjustment ON.

[Cablez]

I have never used SD formatter before but have I used the easus partition manager freeware and was able to format my SD card before reinstalling the bitfury image.  That worked out ok.

[goxed]

Ok, I've had 3 out of 5 Sd cards fail.   So as a result, I wish to repair the media.  When trying to write the august or September image onto the SD card I get this error:  Not enough space on disk:  Size: 7862272 sectors Available: 7626752 sectors  Sector size: 512

Should I be using Win32 Disk Imager and my netbooks sd card slot?  I am also using SDformatter; format size adjustment ON.

you can try to zero out your sdcard in linux

Code:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sd[x] bs=64k 

[Swimmer63]

I just bought and received an H-Card from a private party.  I have a V1.0 board and the card is v1.2.  Can I use it on my board?

[-Redacted-]

If it fits the connector on your m-board, then yes, you can use it.  The newest version for use with a v3 m-board has a different connector and won't fit V1 or V2 main boards.

[Swimmer63]

If it fits the connector on your m-board, then yes, you can use it.  The newest version for use with a v3 m-board has a different connector and won't fit V1 or V2 main boards.

Thanks!  Fits like a glove and hashing as expected.

[goxed]

I have two stubborn version 1 M boards, that just wont hash properly with more than 3 H cards.

I get 115GH/s with 3 H-boards. The moment I add the fourth it falls to 84GH/s with lots of errors (not MISO not SPI, but hashing errors).

Using stock software, tried  both Autotune on and off. I guess I will have to dig deeper. Hashrate starts off good after power-on and falls down within a minute or so.

Anyone faced this conundrum?

[Soros Shorts]

I have two stubborn version 1 M boards, that just wont hash properly with more than 3 H cards.

I get 115GH/s with 3 H-boards. The moment I add the fourth it falls to 84GH/s with lots of errors (not MISO not SPI, but hashing errors).

Using stock software, tried  both Autotune on and off. I guess I will have to dig deeper. Hashrate starts off good after power-on and falls down within a minute or so.

Anyone faced this conundrum?

If your H cards are super over-volted (over 0.8 V), try reducing the voltage a little. I'd read your earlier posts about those 40 GH/s mods and there was no way I could reproduce them on a 16 card v1 M board. It worked fine for a few cards but for a full rack 30 GH/s per card seemed to be the highest stable rate I could get.

[dacman61]

Just installed my 3 new H-Boards with pencil mod... They ran at 25Gh, 25Gh, and 31Gh out of the box. Now they are doing 32Gh, 35Gh, and 35Gh... All around 1.72-1.73k Ohm resistance on that R02F resistor.

So far, I'm very happy.

Pictures here:
http://imgur.com/a/45QmA#0

[Trongersoll]

I'm sick of starting over everytime an SD card gets confused. Could somebody give me a step by step procedure on how to make a new imaged SD card using the the Pi and the SD card it is running on? I have a USB SD card adapter that i can plug into the Pi. My goal is to have several backup SD cards that i can just replace the current one with should it get confused. SD cards are cheap.

Also, how do you set the time on these things, i'm tired of living in the past.

[klondike_bar]

I'm sick of starting over everytime an SD card gets confused. Could somebody give me a step by step procedure on how to make a new imaged SD card using the the Pi and the SD card it is running on? I have a USB SD card adapter that i can plug into the Pi. My goal is to have several backup SD cards that i can just replace the current one with should it get confused. SD cards are cheap.

Also, how do you set the time on these things, i'm tired of living in the past.

i made an sd card image using my desktop and some software. it *might* be easier then searching for the corretc linux scripts to handle the task if you are not well-versed in linux/RPi

[tom99]

  My sd FS dead again and I am using usb flash for FS + sd card for boot up.


ps: happened yesterday morning and I got it up less than 5 minutes.

[superduh]

I'm sick of starting over everytime an SD card gets confused. Could somebody give me a step by step procedure on how to make a new imaged SD card using the the Pi and the SD card it is running on? I have a USB SD card adapter that i can plug into the Pi. My goal is to have several backup SD cards that i can just replace the current one with should it get confused. SD cards are cheap.

Also, how do you set the time on these things, i'm tired of living in the past.

i made an sd card image using my desktop and some software. it *might* be easier then searching for the corretc linux scripts to handle the task if you are not well-versed in linux/RPi

win32 disk imager?

[goxed]

I have been abusing the SD on one of my PIs, I mean turn off power without shutdown, etc etc and it has never died since the day I got the M board (Sep).

 The SD on the second PI on the other hand just dies every other day.

I think it has something to do with the SD. I have re-imaged a third SD and will check if SD is indeed the issue.

[dacman61]

Just installed my 3 new H-Boards with pencil mod... They ran at 25Gh, 25Gh, and 31Gh out of the box. Now they are doing 32Gh, 35Gh, and 35Gh... All around 1.72-1.73k Ohm resistance on that R02F resistor.

So far, I'm very happy.

Pictures here:
http://imgur.com/a/45QmA#0

Well I woke up all three of my new boards not hashing anymore... I think I want to vomit. Any suggestions to try to with my multi-meter?

[juhakall]

Just installed my 3 new H-Boards with pencil mod... They ran at 25Gh, 25Gh, and 31Gh out of the box. Now they are doing 32Gh, 35Gh, and 35Gh... All around 1.72-1.73k Ohm resistance on that R02F resistor.

So far, I'm very happy.

Pictures here:
http://imgur.com/a/45QmA#0

Well I woke up all three of my new boards not hashing anymore... I think I want to vomit. Any suggestions to try to with my multi-meter?

Get an IR thermometer and make sure the regulators aren't running too hot. I've had boards go dark like that, and usually a full poweroff is required to fix the situation.

Also, this might be related: https://asktom.cf/index.php?topic=250249.msg3099676;topicseen#msg3099676

[klondike_bar]

Just installed my 3 new H-Boards with pencil mod... They ran at 25Gh, 25Gh, and 31Gh out of the box. Now they are doing 32Gh, 35Gh, and 35Gh... All around 1.72-1.73k Ohm resistance on that R02F resistor.

So far, I'm very happy.

Pictures here:
http://imgur.com/a/45QmA#0

Well I woke up all three of my new boards not hashing anymore... I think I want to vomit. Any suggestions to try to with my multi-meter?

at 35GH you need to have heatsinks and fans. IME:

25GH : no/minimal airflow needed, no heatsinks needed
30GH : airflow needed
35GH : airflow + some heatsinking required
40GH : airflow and decent heatsinking required (I use 4 * 35x35x6mm heatsinks, plus tiny heatsinks on the face of each chip [probably unneccessary to cool from the front], plus a few tiny heatsinks on the inductor and the backside of the regulator.
45GH : I would imagine you need a more intensive method such as copper heatsinks or liquid/immersion cooling

In your setup i cannot imagine pushing more than 32-35GH per card without problems.Its also worth noting that when a pencil mod is in use, it tends to creep a little bit as the board gets warm or ambient temps rise. I often see a pencil mod board start up at xxGH, after an hour its xx+1GH, after 6hrs its xx+3GH, and at the warm points in the day is can be up to xx+4GH

needless to say, this means that the pencil mod sometimes nees to be repeted a few times, with 3-12hr sampling time to see what sort of speed you get. if the components get hot, the hashrate can get wonky or the chips/regulator will switch off.

btw, wasnt dave supposed to roll out some v2 m-boards to those still using the v1? by being able to put cards in each bank it gives much more space in an unfilled unit to get heatsinks or airflow. I actually found that the gap between slots 1 and 5 is perfect for leaning an 80mm fan at a 45degree angle against the card in slot 5, so that the slot1 card has sufficient airflow

ps: if you have another fan or case fan, aim it directly at the backside of card #4. it will cool it much better then the fan at the side is currently doing, since its airflow is making little/no contact with the backside of the board, which is the hottest region to cool

[dacman61]

OK I'm back up and running again, but one H-board I think needs to be looked at. I checked each of the new H-board individually, and one of them doesn't want to play anymore... Every time I use it either in a group with other cards or by itself, it seems to trip up my PSU and everything goes dead.

What can I check with my multi-meter to see if anything is damaged? I checked the big thing with the word "Pulse" on it, since I heard it was a fuse. I do get a little bit of a reading with my multi-meter, so I assume that isn't blown.

I wish MBP would have sent an identical board like what was sent in August. Those seem to be a little more robust.