If so, how were S5+ owners supposed to comply with SOP re: warranty compliance?
I did complety as I was scared to lose my warranty on a multi thousand dollar unit. Normally in past my testing of a machine would include over and under clocking.... but I did not do it on S5+ as I thought losing warranty for it was not worth it. I got lucky mine works great - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/hands-on-bitmain-antminer-s5-notlist3d-1157426
They honestly have gotten a lot tighter on warranty. I can see from a business standpoint why they want it. But they just are not supporting modding in any way.
They are at their weakest with warranty.
It was never a good system to RMA a bitmiantech item.
Now it is harder.
If you buy one s-7 and the controller crashes it takes ten days for a replacement as they do not cross ship that part.
I have two s-7's just to be able to have a spare controller.
And since the second one is a batch two most likely it may be firmware crippled to do only one machine.
I would definitely follow the warranty to the letter on any new bitmain gear. Only ones I see different are antrouter and U3.... as they dont cost much. The other ones like S7 currently I would want that warranty every single day of the 90's. After... sure you can mod it.
But allowing miner to work for 90 day's testing to make sure it's not a dud.... i think is pretty important at this point.