Topic: ANTMINER S2 Discussion and Support Thread - page 101. (Read 355820 times)

Received two B4 units today.  I upgraded the MicroSD's with Class 10 units right off the bat and reseated all of the cards.  Took a reboot to get all of the chips on line, but they're both 100%.

 user: root
 pass: admin

Wow cheers, I managed to get it going again with your advice. I guess I had to be a little more persistent. Since I've turned it back on I've got a whole lot of --x--x---- on 2 of the blades. So I only have 7 functioning 100%, 2 @ about 70% and 1 not 0%.

I'm still waiting for a reply from Bitmain for a support query last week on the reason why a blade is running much cooler and literally not hashing.

I've tried rebooting machine to clear the ---x--- but they dont seem to clear.

Is there a default login and password to SSH into the machine?.. I'm using putty.

Hi
may you send email to [email protected]? our tech guys will guide you to fix your problem

Hi

Our apologies for making you confuse, our another colleague replied your email, she didnt know the whole case..
As we agreed we will full refund you.
You know that the retunring unit is stuck in the customs, we never get it any more.
This is also not your fault, we will take all loss of S2 on ourselves.
We agreed full refund that you returned unit on April 4th or several days later, maybe you need some time to test another unit, and you returned it until April 23.
Just for all reference.

I received a batch of my S2's today and 2 of them had more then half of the boards unplugged and one of the braces that were holding the card down was bent.  This is what allowed the cards to pop out.   I put everything back and checked all the connections and still only got a red light and nothing on the lcd.  Is there something that I could be missing.  Thanks. 

I just received my first S2.  Looks to be a batch 4.

All is working well out of the box.  I opened it to make sure nothing was loose.  Everything was properly seated, and there's a very strong brace to hold the blades in.  I'll post a pic later if anyone wants to see.

I also noticed the web interface is snappier.  Responds much quicker than my S1s do. 

Two heat sensors seem to be dead.  They come up as zero in the interface.

Power cord is wrong one for my country, but I have some good 16 gauge ones laying around.

Only problem I have now is I'm outgrowing my cooling capacity and electric capacity.

I'm going to be selling one of my sets (3x) of S1s.  Comes with everything you need, except a box fan.  They have the custom heat sinks on all the chips, and a pull fan for each one.  Also includes a 1300 watt power supply.  Payment in BTC only, PM if interested.  Otherwise I'll be posting it soon in the appropriate forum.

M

EDIT: Bitmain has resolved this situation to my satisfaction by refunding my shipping, shipping a new S2 to my friend, and refunding the difference in cost Batch 4 to Batch 1.  Apparently my return unit got lost in customs and in the meantime someone at Bitmain who was not familiar with the history took over responding to my e-mails and got it wrong.  They were very quick after this post to fix everything and make it right.  Happy customer again, thought I really still want Bitmain to come up with something more innovative than the S2. 

As an additional thought, Bitmain needs to do a little better in the RMA department.  Return shipping labels should be provided automatically, tracking bar codes, and packing procedures (for example, apparently the power cord caused the customs issue, so tell folks not to include the power cord! or anything else that might trigger delays).


I take back everything good I have ever said about bitmaintech.  I would recommend NOT ordering S2 units at all.

I was able to salvage one of the S2's (with Bitmain's express permission, I took good hash boards from each one and was able to get one S2 working properly after about a week of hard work).  On April 22, I shipped the non-working, warped, bent, destroyed hash boards (and all other parts including case) back to Bitmaintech as an RMA via UPS and was promised a full refund.  Return shipping (with insurance of $1000) cost me $800.  Bitmain gave me a shipping number but it was not valid for customer return shipping (I would have had to be an employee to use the number they gave me) so I went out of pocket.

Bitmain then told me they would ship me a new S2 from Batch 4 in lieu of a refund.  I don't want another unit so I already sold the replacement unit.

Now, Bitmain has told me that they cannot locate my package in customs.  Chinese customs appears to have quarantined my unit.   Bitmain says it because China detected a power cord.  That sounds fishy to me, but it doesn't matter.  I do not have a refund, and I don't have a replacement unit.  I am out another $800 for shipping, and the buyer of my replacement S2 is getting anxious so I may have to refund his money (or buy another S2 that I don't need just so he gets what he paid me for).

Bitmain tried to blame me for not asking them for a return shipping label when UPS rejected the shipping number they gave me!  However, always trying to be helpful I told them they could give me store credit for the $800 so that I could buy the next-gen Bitmain product when released (NOT S2 LOL).  What did they do?  They added another couple of $400 coupons to my account.  Thanks for nothing.  Now I just want cash back for shipping.

And Bitmain?  They stopped responding to my emails as of Saturday.

This whole S2 thing really has made me lose a lot of respect for Bitmain, but I was willing to give them another chance.  Now, they way they are treating me is not a good indicator of their future.  I would strongly recommend avoiding Bitmain for a while to see if they can get their act together again.  Sad, but there it is.

Here is my last email just sent:

Bitmain sent me a mangled pile of worthless computer parts over ONE MONTH AGO.  In two boxes, two S2 units from Batch 1.  I sent you pictures showing how badly damaged BOTH of my S2 packages were.  Bitmain KNOWS that the Batch 1 orders were inadequately secured internally.  I managed to salvage one of the units (which took over a week of my time, to find undamaged boards from between the two units and then reassemble both units as best I could).  

I then sent back the other S2 package at your request, and had to pay over $800 for return shipping and insurance.  I marked that these were returns for warranty repaid as you asked.  I sent you pictures of the ruined unit.  You know that the package is sitting in customs in China, but has not been picked up.  It is likely not fixable anyway.

You know all of this.

So why have you not refunded or re-shipped a new Batch 4 unit?  What is going on in customs is NOT my problem.  The unit you sent was destroyed when it arrived here.  I cannot do any more than I have.

I am owed new Batch 4 unit to be shipped as I asked NOW please, and I am also owed $800 in store credit (NOT an S2 coupon I will never use) for shipping and insurance I had to spend because you did not send me a return shipping label (also not my fault).  You can figure out what happened to the return later but it is time for you to give me a new unit or full refund.

FYI, I just received the following message from UPS:

Hey Jeff, This is Mario From the UPS Store #4237 Located at Division & Clybourn, simply contacting you to inform that the package in which you shipped Gao Jianping has not been picked up from custom & they can't get in contact with recipient. Your computer server is at risk for being left in china if the the recipient doesn't pick it up by Wednesday 5/14/2014.

its possible that the bitmain 55nm chips can achieve better than 1w/GH if they are undervolted even further. stuffing twice as many chips in an S2 might allow 1.8TH/1200W or something like that, but even this would not allow 2TH witht he current 1000w PSU, so perhaps the next gen will be 40nm

28nm would allow about 4x the efficiency, so either half as many chips or the same wattage and 2x the hashrate,  or the same number of chips/wattage for 3.5-4TH.

I better start trying to figure out how to piece together a frankenminer with my old cards once I upgrade.  I will be sad to see old mining equipment not getting used!

Good job for bitmain. Wouldn't expect it.

I have to say Batch 4, definitely an improvement from the other batches... not to mention brand sparkling new PSU suggest it was not pre-mined like the S1s.

I have 4 x Batch 4 S2 running - totalling 3.99 TH/s with 1.3% reject rate... Each miner is pulling 1040W from the wall. Board temperature between 41C - 51C.

So far so good...

It is a close call but I decided to go with the S1s once they dropped down to 0.55 BTC/each.
I just had more faith in their "proven technology" and I was concerned over the S2 reviews.

I decided to go with 8 S1s and 4 Corsair RM850 PSUs. Total cost $2320 for all.
Overclocked all 8 to 400 MHz to get 200 GH/s for total of 1.6 TH/s.
Each PSU powering 2 S1s and pushing 837 W.
So at $0.12/kWh, it's costing about 4x0.837x24x0.12=$9.64/day
Making about 0.08 to 0.1 BTC/day or about a $35/day profit at $450/BTC.
I have faith that BTC price will go up and I'll at least break even with difficulty increases.
So far they've been rock solid. I see no big ROI advantage in the S2.

Don't give up yet.  i've had the same thing.  try removing all the boards (power off first, of course), then power on.  watch the controller board for blue lights.  they mean the controller has found a usable boot partition on the SD card and booted from it.  if you get it to boot, and can connect to the web page of the controller, then the problem may have been a connection to one of the currently-removed boards.  you have to put them back in, but there's a good chance that shutting the system off "hot" will botch the SD image, so you have to ssh into it and shut it down gracefully...

shutdown -h now

wait for it to do so, then power off.

keep us posted.

Bad to worse => to worser....

Got the blue screen of death.... S2 turns on but only getting a blank blue LCD display on the S2. I've re-imaged SD card but did nothing. Waiting for a Bitmain to reply for a RMA request.

If they are going to ship these out at 'very low cost', then yes, otherwise all those with current S2's will be incurring more than 'very low cost' to upgrade.

After all the horror stories written throughout this thread, I have it on record in the forum that I would never own an S2 and thought Bitmain had lost it. Due to a weird set of circumstances (A fellow mining buddy in trouble, favors called in and a diverted order) today I nervously received a batch 4 S2.

First impressions were that the box was intact and the foam packaging looked pretty good. First thing of course was to unscrew the cover and check the cards ... none were out of their connectors, but ALL easily pushed down into position by a couple of mm to fit back into their sockets securely. The two rails that are supposed to keep them in place were a little high, so there was room for movement ... especially as the S2 had been packed upside down in the box! Also the screw holes in the holding rails had been drilled too big, so the screws had popped through.

So ... time to switch on ... and nothing. It powered up, but the fans continually ran at full speed and the display was blank.

I checked the display cable ribbon (looked OK), and then the Ethernet cable, which had slightly come adrift of the controller board.

Take two: switched back on ... and it has been hashing away fine ever since.

So Bitmain are getting there, still a few little tweaks maybe to protect these miners during shipping. Why not make the blades lock into position like PCIe cards?

So how much extra does the case, PSU, and controller add to the total package? I'm wondering how much savings can be had here. This really does sound great, but if it produces a stack of old cards that has no resale value, the cost benefit of just buying cards would have to be better than that resale value.

I'd agree with you there. Getting the existing cards to 200GH/s each is going to be impossible, even with a heatsink upgrade. That's the same rate as an overclocked S1, but the S1 has 8 of the TPS53355 regulators (one per 8 chips) while each S2 card has 4 (one per 16 chips). Not to mention having to deal with ~4kW of heat in a 4U chassis.

I agree, probably a card replacement, but also with fewer W/Gh, so the existing psu might suffice.