Bitforce SC orion 2013

[Jet Cash]

I've been given one of these rigs, and hopefully I can use it to experiment with ASIC mining. It's pretty old, and most of the information seems to have been lost to the net. I will try to consolidate what I can find in this thread.  At the moment the rig is untested, and I'm checking for suitable power supplies.

[Mattock]

I managed to find this pdf of the original instructions, and I've uploaded it for you. It's only a couple of pages, and the reference to the Butterfly Labs manual is no longer active. It's a small start, and I'll try to find some more information for you.

Butterfly Labs Bitforce SC ASIC miner instructions

[Jet Cash]

I managed to find a basic setup video on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHWRaTXjdnU

I might take a backup copy of this, as everything about these old ASIC miners seems to be disappearing.

I found a second video. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfX4iFtKssk
It's a bit labourious, and doesn't say much that isn't in the other video or obvious. I took the trouble of copying the two driver links in the video, and I tried to download the software, but in both cases it had been deleted.

[Jet Cash]

The next problem is to power it up and test it. The cover and one end plate is missing, so it may be that the rig is faulty.I understand that it is possible to over-clock them, and burn out some of the components. There are 3 connections - two for the power supply, and one for a link via USB. The USB connector is one of the older types, but I've got a couple of those cables already. I've tried to find out about the power supply connections, and I believe that they are standard ones for high end VGA cards. Part of the collection I cleared is a Corsair TX750W power supply unit, and it has an insane number of connection leads. Fortunately two of them are VGA. I'll need to check that the psu wasn't scrapped because it was faulty. I may need to jumper two of the connections to allow it to start, and I'll do some research into that before I plug it in.

[Jet Cash]

I think I've improved on the idea in my previous post. I was going to use a notebook as the supporting computer, but I've decided to build a desktop just to handle the mining. This should avoid the need to jumper the power supply unit. I've got an Asus mother board ( also from that pickup) It's an M2N-MX SE Plus board with an AMD processor. It includes an on-board graphics processor, and 4Gb of RAM. There is an RJ45 for an Ethernet connection, so I can decide on the Internet connection later. The Bitforce seems to be OK with 400 wtts of power, so the psu should be able to run the whole setup.

Another advantage is that the board has a variety of hard drive connections, so I can use for the urban mining project as well.