Posts Tagged ‘iBeLink’

What Features are Missing from the iBeLink DM384M X11 ASIC Miner

25, Mar 2016

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The iBeLink DM384M is the first to market X11 ASIC miner and while it is a pretty good product, there are still some things to be desired. In terms of hardware the X11 ASIC miner offers a solid build and reliable performance making it pretty capable for mining in a data center even in not so favorable conditions even when the environment temperature is not the best. The power usage is at a good level for the high performance it offers of 384 MHS for X11 mining, but the noise level makes it inappropriate for home miners. Temperature wise the situation is good thanks to the powerful server grade cooling used to keep the miner operating stable as you can see from these thermal images of the device in operation. Pretty much what is missing in terms of hardware is the presence of thermal sensors and fan control available for the users, the first is not hard to implement considering that the built-in controller of the miner is a Raspberry Pi. Fan speed control and failsafe could be trickier to implement as it would also need to be able to ignore users settings if the conditions require it and even to shutdown the miner in case a fan fails. Not to mention that implementing fan speed control and monitoring would not be very usable without the miner having thermal sensors, but the current implementation with server grade fans is good enough and should provide long and reliable operating with adequate cooling.

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On the software side however there is much more to be desired, even though the basic web-based functionality you get is a pretty good starting point. we have already mentioned the device uses a Raspberry Pi controller with a modified version of the MineNinja software to provide a web-based frontend to the cgminer 3.5.6 backend. The web frontend provides a lot of numbers to the users, but they do not always seem to be correct, especially in terms of the actual hashrate you are getting from the device, so you need to look at the pool reported speed. Furthermore the web-based control lacks some very basic features such as password protection for access control or the ability to use a different pool mining strategy than the default failsafe one that is available. With big and powerful ASIC miners we often see that the web-based control software offers only pool failsafe options, but no load balance strategy for example. So while this will be fine if you are mining a high difficulty coin, if you go for a low difficulty and hashrate one throwing your full hashrate you will quickly raise the coin difficulty a lot. The cgminer backend does come with support for different pool strategies, so the problem is in the functionality available in web-based interface. Unfortunately for the moment the source code of cgminer or at lest the driver for the device is not yet publicly released, so we cannot have support built in other miners and web frontends. So for the moment the iBeLink DM384M is best for use with high difficulty X11 coins…

iBeLink DM384M X11 ASIC Availability and Profitability

17, Mar 2016

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The first batch of 50 units of the first on the market iBeLink DM384M X11 ASIC miner were shipped at the beginning of this month and everyone that has pre-ordered is probably quite happy at the moment. The profitability is quite good with selling X11 hashrate at NiceHash still the most profitable choice at the moment, based on our test of a unit we have purchased we can say that the miners are pretty good, even if they do lack some extra features both hardware wise and on the software side. If you re interested in the iBeLink DM384M X11 ASIC miner and you have missed our posts about different aspects of the device that we have published already, then you might want to check them out.

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It seems that the company making the iBeLink DM384M miners does not have a very large production capacity and they need some time to make another batch of miners (and probably money from the sales of the first batch). The answer they give at the moment when more units are expected to be available is “we expect to have next batch around mid of May“, definitely a good news for first batch owners and not so good for people that will want to purchase an X11 ASIC now. This low number of devices available however is generally good for the X11 coins as they will not be overwhelmed by a very big wave of new hashrate pouring in pushing out the GPU miners that mine X11. Actually a lot of the GPU miners are currently switching to Ethereum mining because of the better profitability it offers, so the X11 ASIC miners could fill the gap and offer enough supply to cover the hashrate demand. We are looking at at least a few more months before mining X11 with a GPU might become pointless, unless of course we see a bunch of other companies releasing more X11 ASICs on the market. It seems that this is not going to happen in the next few months, so don’t be in a hurry to write out the X11 algorithm as ASIC only yet…

Thermal Images of the iBeLink DM384M X11 ASIC Miner

16, Mar 2016

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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.

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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.

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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.


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