Yes this is another bitmain warranty thread, to serve as a buyer beware for anyone looking to spend $1000's on an investment in their miners at this time.
I purchased some B1 S7's in August (and 7x more in the months/batches afterwards). They didn't ship until October (like everyone else, this was a piss-off, especially after not receiving any real compensation). In December, 2 months after receiving them and getting them online, one of them caught fire. It was being powered by a server PSU, using all 10x PCIe cables (as Bitmain makes sure in warranty info), the server PSU was a dual DPS-2000BB (DPS-4K setup) and was powering 2 of the S7's as well as an S5 at the time. The only machine that burned was the one B1 S7. So I contact Bitmain USA first (hoping to save some time on shipping, etc) with an explanation of the problem and pictures. They eventually referred me to Bitmain repair China, as they wouldn't handle it. So I send the same information off to Bitmain China, who try to tell me it was past warranty (even though it was within the 90 days from when they actually shipped, though they marked the order as shipped 10 days prior to them actually shipping...), but eventually conceded since I had made contact prior to that warranty period expiring. So after some back and forth, I finally get the package sent off February 10th. I sent it with a service that did not have tracking, which I admit at this time was a bad idea. My reasoning was I didn't want to dump any more money than required into this, given the horror stories I have read about Bitmain's refusing warranty, and the fact that they had already tried weaseling their way out of this claim before even receiving the miner.
So fast forward 5 more months, and I just received notice today after constantly bugging them about finding my package, that it did arrive over a month ago and they received it. They have now advised me that they do not cover burnt boards under their warranty, and that they would offer me $20 off the purchase of an S9. I am lost for words...
Here are some pictures of the miner as I found it, running alongside 8x other S7's, 12x other S5's, all off the same style of PSU (IBM 2880W and DPS-4K PSU's), none of which had ANY problems of the sort:
This failure did NOT occur due to internet shortage
This failure did NOT occur due to PSU problems (as attested by the fact that the other 2x Antminers on the SAME PSU had no problems whatsoever)
This failure COULD have caused my building to burn down
This failure was NOT covered by Bitmain's warranty despite it being un-preventable and within their allotted warranty period.
Buyer beware, Bitmain's equipment can fail unexpectedly and without clear cause in a dangerous way, and they will not take responsibility for it. My failure rate was 1 in 9 S7's, or 11.11%. I would not trust them with your investment, as it only takes 1 failed miner to lose all chance of ROI. The S9 is built almost identically to the S7, and could be subject to the same risks that caused this miner to fail. I hope others come forward with their failures as well to bring the issue to light.
More pictures of the boards after disassembly:
