I was having reliability problems with my Batch 4 S5 that just arrived this week, so someone suggested I update the firmware with the latest (Jan 7) release on the website. Ever since I updated with that firmware I have had troubles. At first I had problems with one blade not coming up, then I did get it working about only at about 800Gh (default settings), and now almost 3 hours later I am down to 680Gh.
Does anyone have the original firmware available for download?
If you had batch 4 then you had the new firmware for sure. My Batch 3 ants had it already and I received them like 5 days after the firmware was released. Bitmain was on top of it there.
One of mine does what you describe after I change the freq. If I change the freq I have to do a power cycle to get it to hash full speed. It doesn't show any X's or anything else in the GUI to indicate a problem but it just won't get up to full speed. I can tell pretty soon though by just watching the WU number. If it tops out around 8k then I know the hashrate will never get to full speed. At this point though I can say that it basically does it every single time I change the freq. But as soon as I power cycle it, I see the WU number go past 10k or so within the first minute and then I know it will get to full hashing speed.
I have to say though, these batch 3 S5 units are way more stable than my batch 2 S3's. Those S3's have been a pain in my butt since day one. They don't get the speeds they advertised, they need to be rebooted regularly or their hashrate sinks to about 60% of normal, and sometimes when they reboot they can't even see the boards. They have required constant baby sitting and I would have sold them if I didn't feel bad about just passing that problem on to someone else. My S1 has been so remarkably stable I was excited by the S3 but then those were so remarkably temperamental I was hesitant to get these S5's. But now that I have them and they have been hashing for 5 days or so I am a happy miner again. These things seem very stable, they get up to speed a lot faster then the S3's, and once they are doing their thing they really don't need baby sitting. Very nice.