Topic: ANTMINER S4 Discussion and Support Thread - page 53. (Read 301481 times)

How long were they running before they died? Or they were dead on arrival? Was overclocking involved?

Welp, 3 dead batch 2 PSUs over here. Not a very happy camper.

Thank You for taking the time to read through this and respond to my lengthy post.
Thanks to Gekkoscience guys doing me a real solid and shipping me power supplies for saturday delivery, I have a spare this weekend.
The S4 is humming along nicely again at the moment.
I've taken my medication for the evening so I am allowed to turn things off but not on
Going to grab some food, been at it again all weekend. I love this stuff, but I enjoy the repairs more when I'm putting things on the line, not taking them off this new, but I see you are trying, and I appreciate it.
I will get with them in the morning, thanks again.
If I am up I will reply to your points haha

Elapsed   GH/S(5s)   GH/S(avg)   FoundBlocks   LocalWork   Utility   WU   BestShare
16m32s
1,974.05
2,007.49
0
615,717
13.67
28,044.33
0

Status   Diff   GetWorks   Priority   Accepted   Diff1#   DiffA#   DiffR#   DiffS#   Rejected   Discarded   Stale   LSDiff   LSTime
0
stratum+tcp://stratum.
Alive
2.05K
40
0
226
463,680
462,848
2,048
0
1
618
0
2,048
0:00:05
1

total
43
226
463,680
462,848
2,048
0
0
618
0
HW
0
0.0000%
0.0000%
AntMiner
Chain#   ASIC#   Frequency   Temp   ASIC status
1
40
200
53
oooooooo oooooooo oooooooo oooooooo oooooooo
2
40
200
54
oooooooo oooooooo oooooooo oooooooo oooooooo
3
40
200
53
oooooooo oooooooo oooooooo oooooooo oooooooo
4
40
200
53
oooooooo oooooooo oooooooo oooooooo oooooooo
Fan#   Fan1   Fan2   Fan3   Fan4
Speed (r/min)   3,840   4,080   3,960   3,840

No that's fine, although you'll likely have to run some pretty long cables if you have the PSU external, else that sideways cooling might get difficult.


I can't authorise that on their behalf but they may do - if they've got stock. Although from your perspective, if it is just PSUs then it seems a shame to increase downtime and pay more to UPS than they deserve.


The S4 and associated PSU is well tested in a data centre, almost the entirety of Hashnest.com (PHs and PHs) runs off S4s. Unfortunately, it seems these PSUs aren't a fan of being shipped and tend to die / get fatally injured in transit. You can see just how much vibration units experience in that the bolts holding down those terminal connectors can be worked lose / not tight from being perfect pre shipping.


Its not published because 99.5% of customers (including me) don't have the required equipment / the patience to do a fix like that. Firmware reflashing is usually offered free of charge in the US anyway as its a quick job and very light to post controllers.


I don't believe that will ever happen. Things like PSUs are too expensive to trust that the customer is 1) telling the truth 2) will bother to send the original one back. Its pessimistic but at the same time every other customer would end up having to subsidise failed RMAs. It would also likely take just as long to create a second transaction for a customer, it be paid then processed. Then afterwards it has to be reversed, which is more administration. There aren't too many complaints about delayed RMAs as 1) RMAs are reasonably rare to begin with and 2) anyone within the US gets serviced very quick.


S3 reset button has been fixed since 20141219 firmware. And *Ckolivas.


Batch 1 was nearly all PCI-E, batch 2 was heavily mixed. After that its almost all lugged. Why do you want to attack them permanently? I think the current setup is fine.

And to pre-empt a followup, yes I did read it all.

Well, I pulled mine so I could see if there is a particular blown component. My job is troubleshooting electronics. Now, I do not claim to be an electrical engineer, but I work with them all day and will take some pics and see if they can help determine the cause.
You are right on about those CAPS and people should listen.
Will it void my warranty if i connect another PS? I have a DSP2000 with the gekkoscience board. Of course this beast may eat my dsp and then I really would be pissy. Anyway, Mine has the ring terminals, so I'm gonna grabsome and check back to see what you say about warranty.

and yeah, I'll ship it tomorrow, and I have got to get a better deal than this. I need this baby to run at stock, I'm not even overclocking.
I'm seriously considering paying the freight to send the whole thing to them, do you think they will exchange the unit with a known good one running on their farm?

Like I mentioned Dogie, this thing hasn't ran a week, and I have more practice than many with most of this stuff even the PC side. I'm old and been in it since the late 80s and early 90s hardcore and I do it for work and play. We could talk power supply specs all day. Tio that note I am also lazy sometimes and buy whole packages like the gekko board because that is noce work and I hate to solder.

OT:
Serious side note, the guys over there (gekkoscience) are making good products, AND they communicate well. +1 and 1 more for them.
http://www.gekkoscience.com/
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/server-power-supply-interface-board-for-standalone-miners-and-gpu-rigs-379677
http://www.gekkoscience.com/products/D750_supply_breakout_board.html
http://www.gekkoscience.com/products/IBM2K_board.html

and I am about to go into a real longwinded rant on BITMAIN, my life, and bore the crap out of you if you keep going.

BITMAIN should have real world tests here in the US by guys like GekkoScience who have built Load Testers and use them "in the field" meaning in a Data Center, a hosting Data Center, and the home miner feedback is immense, people like me who talk to those guys.
You would cover the hardcore 120v and 240v in the US. I haven't visited Gekko and they do not have a ton of information on their site, but I mean people with their ties to the community and understanding of what big and large as well as small and needy  want.
 We do it where I am. We have customers all over the world who I personally talk to daily. They tell me what our latest Fup is, and we start working through it. Cell phones, meters, clamps and a good attitude.
Sometimes I get to take the issues to the Engineers, sometimes I figure them out, but we all pay close attention to the feedback and take care of those particular end users, or the end users who go through down time. ANY down time is significant to us as being human. We want it to work, but add in the stress of money. With the equipment we build just like miners, if things go bad it could literally cause someone not to be able to afford dinner. I exaggerate in my context, but not others. Some have chosen to mine for their entire livelihood, or to "coin" as it were, and without us even discussing the rational behind that decision today, the choice was not so far-fetched so long ago. Our equipment is the soul to many fabrication shops. Without what we build many welders cant weld, so it doesn't matter how many robots, assembly lines, etc. If the plaz is down it causes problems, and they do sometimes lead to entire facilities shut down and people sent home where they keep a skeleton shift.
For 20+ years all I have been ingrained with and ingrained in others is customer service any way possible, and I sincerely believe the cheesiest line my old boss told me... "Every phone call, every customer who walks in the door, and especially every disaster -
 is an opportunity to excel."
That is what BITMAIN needs to do, and I sense the guys in CO trying, Billy and Z both have spoken with me about previous issues and sound like they are doing positive things. I look to Management to have policy in place to give us a manual with schematics or offer a pdf stash.
Publish things like the forum post teaching the serial debug port on the S3 control board for people who can not login their S3's with such little time left to mine with them, so little guys and the S4 truly, I will never make money on this unit, but I will run it until I feel I shouldn't.
We need more documentation.
We need their Denver support (to have) with the authority to ship warranty replacement parts without having the customer part in their hand! That is BS. I show my invoice where I paid less than a month ago, I should have one shipped overnight. Especially with the known issues of the B1 and early B2. You can put a touch more money in warranty security to make sure people aren't scamming you, but that is huge when people look to BITMAIN and anyone else to get them running, big or little.
It is my choice to mine, but if they are shipping me PSU which cant support stock speeds. I do not overclock the S4. I won't say I didn't try when I first saw it, but never with the power supply which was in it now which died. Stock settings always this one. If the miner causes a fire it is endangering my daughters and my own life in more of a way than "having a miner". I've always involved a certain amount of unique activities in our lives, and many of them involving something electrical. Thanks to that I also am responsible enough to research and learn. I am responsible to make the choices which don't bring that type of product in my home a second time. There is no excuse for this type of failure.
*I understand literally burning the house down may be an exaggeration, again my point is we even have the conversation regarding it is or is not an exaggeration.

I have not been to BITMAIN or met anyone from there, my rant must and wants and will include they did ship my replacement when they received my unit the last time. They could dick me around for a month, it is appreciated that I receive that level. At least I know that should happen with consisctency.

This is an awesome forum, and the companies like BITMAIN have a unique opportunity to speak direct volumes to anyone who matters from the home miner who may pay retail for every purchase they ever make, or at least many times along the way they are throwing money at you to have something. Please fix the S3 firmware for these people who are stuck without a reset button which has the latest CGMiner and documentation for change log so everyone may see it. Kolivas and Kano have asked so many times.
The VP of Marketing for the next Investment firm in some Capitol startup Venture gets interested in mining and finds these forums. Easy enough, top hits for many terms. He is reading reviews thinking he can start the next big thing with some guys he knows.... He starts to see issues like the firmware and S4 Power Supplies and think we may have a high replacement rate to factor in, ok he goes on...
He is still reading the next morning and seeing post after post, people cant do this, fires, heh they are contained, the box passes all inspections, I do not think anyone has been in serious danger from their house actually burning down, or certainly not a center with all the protection, but wtf are we even doing having this conversation? Talking about fire prevention?I thought this was the Bitcoin forum. Sorry, it is mining with equipment just like heaters with wires everywhere and we should have fire prevention but my point is why do we have to in the aforementioned topic of mining coin? I should not have a real product in my environment with a track record of causing this scanrio, and 1. Either they sent me the same thing which causes the same sceanrio, or 2. The Eqipment itself is at fault and I have a ticking time bomb sitting there.
Yes I am being dramatic dammit, to make a point.
We will line up to throw our money at you the second you make an announcement and that is because of the nature of first adopter and the rate of return on those gambles. I would never blame bitmain for the price of any coin. If the price shuts it down so shall it be. If I spend my hard earned 1,080. and I used a coupon or signed up for a visa or something to get some off the price, but still man it takes me a minute to earn 1,080, and I mean "minute" like the young people do, a long fkg time. I do not like to throw out the SP20 all the time but I could have had 2 more of those, and while the PS req on two SP20 vs the S4 makes the S4 more attractive on that spec alone from a money standpoint, the PSU must work.

I understand there are / were programs in place to handle this and some miners were paid for their time loss. I doubt that is still happening but would like to know if anyone knows.

The amount of money I have spent with BITMAN is nothing compared to most of you, I have not been a miner as long as most of you, and I have much less experience in crypto-currency in general than most of you.
I appreciate you letting me come to Bitcointalk, learn from your experiences, and have a place where I may be a part of an amazing scene. For anyone who read all of it I'm sorry, and this doesn't happen often.

Being fair to BITMAIN I did not call customer service first on this particular incident.Closes it is Sunday. To have their response would be better. I will do so first thing in the morning but I will be at work as well, and not by the miner until later in the morning. They did tell me they stay open until 8:PM in CO during the week.

Side question - Are the lugs from the PSU to the Hash boards done within a specific revision? IE Batch 2 has lugs, batch 1 doesn't, or the other way, or any way to class them? and what is the best thing to put there so I would not be changing lugs. Something which attaches to them permanently, but I have leads coming off I can quick attach with whatever?

To everyone, please please do not remove the cover of a PSU, even when its not plugged in. You have no idea how long the capacitor discharge time is, and they can contain a lethal shock.

To sloopy, its RMA time again unfortunately as there is nothing user serviceable on the PSUs. PM BitmainWarranty to arrange an RMA. Be sure to link to your post describing the issues, what type and how many miners you wish to have repaired/replaced and your bitmaintech.com order number. I can't really speculate on an overlying cause, although it is a bit weird that a 50A breaker went. That really takes some wack to do.

Another dead S4 PSU, same S4.
This unit has not ran a full week.
Second PSU failure and both are B2 PSUs with the bar code.
I pulled the cover and can not find a visual reason.
Checked incoming 240 and I have 122 on each leg.
The ground is connected. This happened int he middle of the night and it popped the 50 A breaker.
When this PSU went, it must have really locked down.

I pulled the PSU and connected back to mains and nothing, not even the bump I usually;y see when power is connected.
Yes I held the button.

Anything I am missing here? Fuse inside PSU?

 I spent a grand and can't run 7 straight days with this unit.
Guess what I bought at the same time that hasn't been down yet? Two SP20s.
I have been working on the S3s and S4sm so much I haven't had time to get the 240 power ready for the S20s. Guess I'll have time now waiting on another PSU

That is pretty good.  Electric usage must be horrendous though.

M

After over 8 hours of running and no ASIC error or not much of HW error. That's fantastic.

Hmmm... I'd think that clock and Vcore needed will pretty much follow what the S3+ or better yet the C1 takes. In fact - your freq and Vcore are exactly what at least 1 of my C1's is set to. Plug power should follow as well. More to the point is that 2.7THs for 160 chips is exactly the same per-chip as the C1 @ 1.1THs gives with its 64 chips.

Since it seems that the system can be happy with multiple supplies and I have a few spare HP 1200w server supplies on hand this bears investigating methinks... 2 strapped together is pretty much the same size as the one the s4 ships with. For now thinking 1 sitting external to run like yours.

Voltage 0.765.
Frequency 275.
Additional power supply on one card. The remaining three are powered by the native power supply.
Power consumption is not measured.

Have a look here, it will give you an idea at 275 : https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.9647918

Cheers!

For sure, but the questions still apply.

I assume it's a display bug and the frequency used here is 275, not 2,275. 

Voltage used? Power consumption? What power supply did you replace the stock one with?

Boast overclocking 
https://i.imgur.com/S8yV1Wm.png
https://i.imgur.com/bm8xSug.png

You will earn slightly less [due to more discards] but he will have less load on his 'server'.



The larger the node's / pool's hashing power, then less random variance you will encounter. The lower the hash rate, the more ups and downs you will see in income, although over a long period it should average out.



It does not have to be, but it is beneficial as then you can track the performance (or underperformance) of individual miners.

Ok, sorry, I thought you were familiar with p2pool. I'm a little busy right now to get into it, so I suggest looking at this thread for a start: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/p2pool-vs-ban-875644

There' you'll see p2pool beating a pool that is 0% fee PPS with a 10% bonus added on top... So 110% PPS. There are plenty of other examples and explanations, if you're curious. I'll be happy to discuss it further with you later, by PM or skype if you'd like.

As for myself, I've earned more using p2pool with my 5 S4s than I would have on a 0% PPS pool, easily.

I mean how you're saying that p2pool mining > income than normal pooled mining. I'm asking seriously

Much better than antpool's "p2pool"..