ibelink-dm384m-2

ibelink-dm384m-thermal-1

Time for a bit more in-depth look at the operating temperatures of the iBeLink DM384M X11 ASIC with the help of a thermal imaging camera. We are starting with the front and rear of the case that the mining ASIC uses, the front has four powerful Delta Electronics server fans that such cold air through the whole case where the mining blades are and the hot air exits directly through the back of the case. There are no other fans at the back, just open space for the hot air to exit the case of the device effectively cooling. The only other fan is the one of the server grade power supply that is mounted inside the case, another server grade Delta Electronics fan that is also powerful and noisy when in operation. The fans do not have power control, so they operate at maximum RPM all of the time making the device quite noisy, but also effectively cooled even in no so cool environment.

ibelink-dm384m-3

ibelink-dm384m-thermal-2

The four blades with ASIC chips are located on the side of the cooling fans and on the other side of the case is the power supply with the Raspberry Pi controller mounted over it. The side with the RPi and the power supply is pretty cold compared to the side where the four blade with 48 chips each are located. As one might expect the hottest part inside the miner are the ASIC chips, the rest remains pretty cold thanks to the high airflow provided by the cooling fans. Even the heatsink that are on the back of the PCB with the chips remain pretty cool thanks to the high airflow passing through them.

ibelink-dm384m-5

ibelink-dm384m-thermal-3

And now let us take a look at the chips themselves as the hottest element of the iBeLink DM384M X11 ASIC miners. Under the stock operating conditions they do remain with a surface temperature range of about 60-68 degrees Celsius as the temperature varies slightly depending on their position on the blade. As we’ve said already the cooling heatsink is not placed on top of the chips themselves, but instead is on the back of the PCB. This is the easier way to make things work, but not the most efficient for cooling as the chips use the PCB as a large heatspreader that then passes the heat to the large heatsink. This results in higher operating temperatures of the ASIC chips as there is no direct contact, but the temperatures are still Ok for normal operation. You should however be careful should you decide to overclock in order to get some extra hashrate as this will increase the operating temperatures of the chips. It seems that iBeLink has already chosen the optimal operating frequency for the device that results in very little HW errors while providing optimum performance. Further increasing the PLL frequency over the stock 110 MHz even with just a few Megahertz may result in increased percentage of HW errors.

ethereum-hashrate-distribution

In the earlier days of Bitcoin mining there were also concerns about too much hashing power getting centralized in the hands of a single entity or a mining pool and it seems that we are seeing similar thing happening with Ethereum at the moment. Almost half of the mining hashrate for Ethereum seems to be currently controlled by Dwarfpool, so it is advised that users switch to other pools to balance out things. New users that are just starting to get into Ethereum mining should also consider any of the other pools for mining ETH instead of Dwarfpool. Dwarfpool is also trying to encourage users to distribute hashrate more evenly with the pool fee increase from 1% to 2% to new users if the hashrate goes over 50% of the total network, though that apparently is not doing that great job. Below you can find an up to date list of Ethereum mining pools other than Dwarfpool where you can mine ETH and get a more even hashrate distribution.

eth.suprnova.cc
eth.nanopool.org
www2.coinmine.pl/eth/
ethpool.org
www.coinotron.com
eth.pp.ua
ethereumpool.co
weipool.org
ethpool.utocat.com
ethereum.miningpoolhub.com

westerndigital-pidrive-hdd

The HDD manufacturer Western Digital has introduced the WD PiDrive, a 314GB 2.5-inch hard drive with USB interface dedicated to be used with Raspberry Pi mini computers. This is the perfect choice for users that want to use RPi as a dedicated node for a crypto currency such as Bitcoin that already has about 65 GB of data for its blockchain. Finding a large and reliable storage solution for Raspberry Pi has not been an easy tasks as USB flash drives and SD cards do tend to wear out much faster than HDD and SSD drives and thus users are having issues with data reliability. The WD PiDrive HDD for Raspberry Pi should easily solve the issues by providing large enough capacity for storing blockchain data as well as making sure your data will remain reliable for much longer time. The price is also affordable for such a solution, the WD PiDrive is currently being sold for $31.42 USD / 34.28 EURO, so while more expensive than a small SD flash drive or USB stick it is unmatched in terms of price compared to a large capacity SD or USB stick. We also like the naming of the device that is tied with the capacity it offers as well as the targeted platform, so it is all around PI.

For more details about the 314 GB WD PiDrive HDD engineered for the Raspberry Pi…

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