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Voltmod Update for the Gridseed 5-chip BTC/LTC ASIC Miners
19 Mar2014
Yesterday we have reported about a solution for volt modding and overclocking even higher the 5-chip Gridseed ASIC miners for use with the cgminer software modified to support Gridseed ASICs. We have tested the voltage modification on our older and newer revision ASIC miners, and t has allowed us to go from 850 to 950 MHz overclock on the newer miner. Unfortunately it was not working on the older ASIC miner and it was not working with other software miners such as bfgminer or cpuminer for Gridseed. Meanwhile there is an update that solves both of these issues we’ve experienced with the earlier solution. In fact you only need to solder a bridge between another two points on the ASIC miner – note the second green strip on the right from the firs one from yesterday where you need to solder too. This modification will permanently activate the higher voltage and should allow you to overclock all (most likely) Gridseed 5-chip ASICS regardless of their revision and firmware version with all of the available software miners that support them.
The power consumption after applying the permanent voltmod is 10W per 5-chip Gridseec ASIC miner with the fan or about 8W if you remove the fan and use passive cooling (not recommended for voltmoded miners) or use another form of active cooling. Doing the permanently activated voltmod solution we are still able to get best results at 950 MHz with no to very few HW errors and performance of a little over 400 KHS. Pushing for 1000 and 1050 MHz is also possible (going for 1100 MHz or more results in only getting HW errors), but the number of HW errors increases as well, so the actual performance might be lower than running the miner at lower frequency such as 950 MHz with less HW errors. As always do try on your own hardware as there is a variance and you might be able to get better results with your miners. If you do plan to do the hardware voltage modification be aware that there is a risk of damaging the ASIC, especially if you are not good with the soldering iron, so proceed with caution.
- Publihsed in: Mining Hardware|Tests and Reviews
- Related tags: gc3355 cgminer, gridchip cgminer, gridseed asic overclock, gridseed asic voltmod, gridseed cgminer, Gridseed higher voltage, Gridseed mod, Gridseed modification, Gridseed more overclock, Gridseed overclock, Gridseed overvolt, Gridseed voltage mod, Gridseed voltmod, ltc asic cgminer, scrypt asic cgminer, voltmod and overclock
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19 Responses to Voltmod Update for the Gridseed 5-chip BTC/LTC ASIC Miners
TC
March 19th, 2014 at 17:23
Are the fans on these units powered by 12v or 5v?
Thx
admin
March 19th, 2014 at 17:59
Te fans are 12V, directly attached to the adapter power input, so no regulation of fan speed is possible through the device.
TC
March 19th, 2014 at 18:29
OK, Im working on something that might help us on fan speed.
Bob
March 19th, 2014 at 18:40
In the older article, as well as in this update, you allude to the fact that you have the newer revision Gridseeds (the ones with the STM32 driver) running with cgminer.
Could you please explain in detail, perhaps a new article, on how you got these to work. So far the information I have found only pertains to getting the older CP2102 units to run with cgminer using Zadig as in your first article, however this does not seem to work with the newer STM32 devices.
TC
March 20th, 2014 at 15:33
Hello,
I have a quick noob question.
I am starting to use a few Gridseed units from Zoomhash. I have them plugged into a 10 port USB hub (Hoo too).
I loaded the virtual driver and cgminer (linked from Cryptomining). I can seem to get cgminer to see any of the Gridseeds, I can see them listed in the device manager as the virtual com port. I loaded the USB driver with Zadig . I changed the look time in cgminer from 0 to 5. Still no go. Plugged and unplugged usb port after cgis running also..
I then set everything back to default drivers and loaded Bfgminer, and it works from there, and suggestion what cgminer is doing different?
Thanks for taking the time to read.
TC
admin
March 20th, 2014 at 16:58
Bob, did not get what exactly you are asking. If it is about the voltmod, this new dual bridge solution works on earlier and newer revisions of the Gridseed miners and yo can use it with any miner, no need to rely only on cgminer as with the previous single bridge voltmod solution that did not work on older units.
TC, the two miners just use different way of detecting and communicating with the devices. We’ve had various issues with the two software miners on different systems, as they are still not offering perfect support for Gridseed. We’ve experienced similar issues with cgminer like you’ve had and the only thing that helped was to reinstall windows, though n that particular case bfgminer also was not able to work with the miners properly.
JohnS
March 22nd, 2014 at 07:15
TC make sure you are using a usb 2.0 hub and make sure it is connected to a usb 2.0 hub on your computer. I had the same problem to. Until I switched the hub.
Wang Lee
March 26th, 2014 at 14:00
Excellent work!I’ve been taking the hard road modding but now I’m giving up and going your way :) Thanks for your contribution…
qqqpeter
March 27th, 2014 at 11:21
I hv done the modification, and post it at forum, get message from official, this will decrease the lifetime of chips a lot…,see the link in website(but its in chinese)
admin
March 27th, 2014 at 13:01
qqqpeter, overclocking and voltage modification always does lead to reduced life of the hardware, however with the current generation of Gridseed hardware the idea is to now get the maximum possible hashrate, because in a few months of time these devices may not even be worth using anymore. And even if you decrease the life of the hardware twice you should still be able to get at last a year or two of use time from it. Note that overvolting and overclocking the ASIC via the method above does not create a problem with cooling if you only mine in Scrypt mode, so overheating is not an issue anyway.
qqqpeter
March 27th, 2014 at 16:25
Noted, and thx yr reply. Agree yr point, just let u know the offical message.
Louie
March 28th, 2014 at 01:37
i tried this mod on one of my gridseeds and failed miserably, i got the new point soldered and for the life of me i could not get the solder to take on the original point my pencil solder would just hold the damn solder, I ended up breaking both resistors on either side of the solder area and then i gave up, strangely enough the thing still works. I really suck at soldering electronics
Louie
March 28th, 2014 at 03:02
correction it still works but i also get a ton of hardware errors now, so i think i screwed one of my gridseeds
admin
March 28th, 2014 at 08:39
Louie, you should still be able to fix it if you just replace the damaged resistors with new ones…
Louie
March 28th, 2014 at 11:58
I wouldnt know where to get them and I really suck at soldering small items, couldnt get the solder to attached to the points and not stay on the shitty pencil soldering iron i bought, even after I made sure everything was clean and I used a little but of flux as well.
qqqpeter
March 29th, 2014 at 05:44
Louie, it’s my method and this’s easier than soldering…
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=546547.0
Anthropolis
April 3rd, 2014 at 04:36
Louie, if you know you’re bad at soldering then why risk trashing your brand new Gridseed hehe. That’s silly lol. Anyway, you can find these resistors on ebay and other sites, but you’ll need to take a magnifying glass and find the resistance to make sure you get about the right ones. They come in different sizes like LED’s, these will be 0603 size just fyi.
If it’s really too much trouble, you can sell the broken one on ebay and someone that can fix it will gladly buy it :) I’ll buy it from ya even. Good luck!
Louie
April 4th, 2014 at 17:45
if I do not oc it i get no hardware errors, and it still dual mines, i trashed the resistors on either side of the original one to solder, I think the gun I have sux, the first solder was easy then this one jusy wouldnt take and I got pissed off. it still able to get 300kh/6Gh with an oc to 750. If I OC it above this it just gets a ton of hw errors and half the shares of my other gridseed.
Ioan
February 9th, 2017 at 22:47
can i Voltmod Update with the Pencil? Can you post a Video or more detail?
I have Gridseed 5-chip,
what i need to do for voltmod update? i wanna use just pencil not more tech!
thank you