Author

Topic: Bitmain and Issues With 2 Batches of S5 orders totaling almost $3000 (Read 860 times)

hero member
Activity: 574
Merit: 500
Call me Alice. just Alice.
I once ordered a C1 from them. It arrived in WATER! And the rust had EATEN! Through the connectors and some of the water blocks..... I emailed them and they asked if the miner (chips) were working, sure they were working but my miner was without water blocks and tons of rust on the boards, but since they were working I didn't get a refund, instead I had to replace the cooling and stuff for about 100 extra dollars
sr. member
Activity: 387
Merit: 254
bitmain could fix the noise problem by sending the fans quiet to all their customers, but it certainly will not do it because the Chinese are too greedy for money

the fans mentioned wont fix the noise issue. the problem is the s3,2, and 1 are full contact heatsinks. while the s5 uses the same heatsink it seems the metal only touches the chip so the full amount of heat isnt being pushed into the heat sink anymore and ontop of that the second one that would go on the other side of the miner isnt being sent to customers like with the s3's signs that this was used can be seen on the components on the sides that face the plastic side plates. there is thermal paste applied there and partially whiped off which imply bitmain has run an additional cooling components on that side of the boards as well which we dont have. Other signs are that there are screw hols that arent being used that follow the same design as the otherside heatsink on the s3 which if there is no additional heatsink that is being used on that side then those screw hols wouldnt be there at all since they arent needed.

now i got refunded for my issues with bitmain. I said i would update this thread but i wont outright delete this thread because it is info that is needed. i also stated that i will revise it when an agreement is reached. so i will go do that now.
hero member
Activity: 798
Merit: 1000
bitmain could fix the noise problem by sending the fans quiet to all their customers, but it certainly will not do it because the Chinese are too greedy for money
sr. member
Activity: 387
Merit: 254
The largest factor for my purchase was the expectation that I could extend the lifespan by lowering the voltage and raising the efficiency (as claimed by Bitmain).

I tried running my S5s on reduced voltages a few months ago, and can confirm that Bitmain's claim of 0.2W/GH is pure crap.
At 100MHz, the lowest voltage I could get the unit to hash was 11.1V (measly 320GH at 195W with LOWER efficiency).


Quiet as advertised?: BS
Can raise efficiency as advertised?: BS



exactly! thats y i purchased them too. otherwise i would have waited for other miners to get released but what hit me the most was the silent crossing out of all this info all together. that was shocking to me and im not exactly sure why folks havent been super pissed about this and if they are why post in the main s5 thread when it will be lost in the hundreds of pages where no one not even the most determined person will ever see it??



@ Bitmain:

Are these brand new & unused - or are they from your mining farm?

Ta.

Hi cathoderay,
Brand New.

 Honestly, seeing this post by Bitmain, and hearing reports of them sending out dusty units with the old heat-sink design for Batch 5 completely destroyed any trust I had in them.

 Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with the performance of the B1 S5's I have, but I bought them because they were advertised as being quiet, and ~75dBA is not quiet by any reasonable measure.

 Also, had some private communication with them that didn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling about doing more business with them. Their pricing shenanigans with the S5 was the final icing on the cake that made me buy a bunch of SP20's and finish out my farm for the time being - It's been making more sense to just buy BTC outright than purchase miners at the current prices.
 
 Will probably be getting out of the mining game entirely this year unless the economics significantly change.


yup and they didnt seem to think it was a big enough deal to even remove the quiet part from their description lol. they even went as far as to compare them to the s3 in sound levels lol. i wonder if they even tested these miners before selling them. its hard to believe thats the case but how else can u explain the outright listing features that are not true and listing comparisons for sound levels that are so far out of the ballpark its rediculous?? its 1 of 2 options i believe....they knew they were lying and wanted to drive sales or 2 they made a product that had no testing done what so ever and guessed the whole way. im leaning more towards the first one because when choosing the right fan bitmain had to look at the fans specs to see if it fits their needs and those specs list noise levels so even before selecting the fane for the miner they knew it was going to be much much louder then the s3 fans. this company has gone to shit so quickly.....it was so fast and started around the s2 release before the s3 release. granted my s3's were fine on my end but others had issues im having with these s5's in the way of functionality like promised voltage control when really most of them had zero control over the voltage and one that seems to follow asian miner makers.....well used and dirty miners but bitmain is taking it to the extreme and im wondering if they r so broke they have to rip customers off to get by. its gotten worse after their cloud mining went on sale.
sr. member
Activity: 387
Merit: 254

1. The size of the home doesnt really matter. I have a 2900 square foot 3 lvl townhome and the s5's r in the basement and on the first floor i can hear the mini turbines just a spinnin away! They r loud as hell and thats with an entire floor between me and them.
I had two running in my apartment for a few months and it wasn't that bad when I had two doors closed between me and the miners, although I probably just got used to their noise. When I sold them, I 100% noticed the fact that they were not there anymore (due to their lack of noise). I would say they might be appropriate to run in your home if you had space in your garage, however I don't think this would technically make them a "home miner". 


3. Ur right to a point. A buyer in their s5 thread asked if these r brand new and got replies stating they are brand new. I also got told they r brand new but they deff are NOT new not even close! With that said they have sold plenty of miners so far so they should be selling them about as fast they r making them and if they do end up making more then they r selling then lower the prices or reduce production to make up for that...dont take old dirty beat to hell miners from ur farm and send them to buyers like me while replacing the old and in my case repaired one with the brand new one and go on telling buyers brand new! They think because they r in china they r immune to legal issues but thats just not true. Sure its harder but its not imposible at all and most of all if the chinese govt gets enough complaints they can and will take action not because they feel we r right and bitmain is wrong but because they dont want to deal with the added spam on their end which isnt ideal but a solution is a solution. Bitmain has gotten too big for their own good and they think they r untouchable but they rely on customers to survive...without us they will lose a big chunk of their income so these chinamen need to learn not to kill the golden goose. Even the most ignorant of ignorant people know this!
Sales are not going to be even throughout the batch, and it is difficult to determine what the pace of sales is going to be. It is also possible (although unlikely) that the entire batch is not going to sell and they could just decide they will use the remaining miners to mine for themselves.

IMO the fact that a miner is "used" is a moot point as long as it works as advertised and is covered by the same warranty. TBH I think that by arguing that they are used you are only going to distract from your other points which do seem to have some validity to them.

u sir looked at this with an open mind....i like that and i have to say i agree the used part isnt the serious part in this whole situation. i mentioned it because that by itself wouldnt annoy me enough to type up this long azz thread but with all the other stuff piled ontop of it and with bitmain ignoring me once i provide hard evidence to dispute their sidestepping i reallt felt duped enough to do all this. i have spent too many hours accepting what bitmain decided to do to really not get others to not buy their miners. like i told another dude on here....if i drive away even 1 sale from them it was worth it but i believe all of us need something back for our purchase. me and others that purchased in the batches where the 9v parts was still present deserve more for sure but others that purchased after deserve something for the noise issue and how they were compared to the s3 and how they were quieter then the s3's were which the s3's were whisper quiet compared to these.
legendary
Activity: 1652
Merit: 1067
Christian Antkow
@ Bitmain:

Are these brand new & unused - or are they from your mining farm?

Ta.

Hi cathoderay,
Brand New.

 Honestly, seeing this post by Bitmain, and hearing reports of them sending out dusty units with the old heat-sink design for Batch 5 completely destroyed any trust I had in them.

 Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with the performance of the B1 S5's I have, but I bought them because they were advertised as being quiet, and ~75dBA is not quiet by any reasonable measure.

 Also, had some private communication with them that didn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling about doing more business with them. Their pricing shenanigans with the S5 was the final icing on the cake that made me buy a bunch of SP20's and finish out my farm for the time being - It's been making more sense to just buy BTC outright than purchase miners at the current prices.
 
 Will probably be getting out of the mining game entirely this year unless the economics significantly change.
sr. member
Activity: 285
Merit: 250
Turning money into heat since 2011.
The largest factor for my purchase was the expectation that I could extend the lifespan by lowering the voltage and raising the efficiency (as claimed by Bitmain).

I tried running my S5s on reduced voltages a few months ago, and can confirm that Bitmain's claim of 0.2W/GH is pure crap.
At 100MHz, the lowest voltage I could get the unit to hash was 11.1V (measly 320GH at 195W with LOWER efficiency).


Quiet as advertised?: BS
Can raise efficiency as advertised?: BS

copper member
Activity: 2996
Merit: 2374

1. The size of the home doesnt really matter. I have a 2900 square foot 3 lvl townhome and the s5's r in the basement and on the first floor i can hear the mini turbines just a spinnin away! They r loud as hell and thats with an entire floor between me and them.
I had two running in my apartment for a few months and it wasn't that bad when I had two doors closed between me and the miners, although I probably just got used to their noise. When I sold them, I 100% noticed the fact that they were not there anymore (due to their lack of noise). I would say they might be appropriate to run in your home if you had space in your garage, however I don't think this would technically make them a "home miner". 


3. Ur right to a point. A buyer in their s5 thread asked if these r brand new and got replies stating they are brand new. I also got told they r brand new but they deff are NOT new not even close! With that said they have sold plenty of miners so far so they should be selling them about as fast they r making them and if they do end up making more then they r selling then lower the prices or reduce production to make up for that...dont take old dirty beat to hell miners from ur farm and send them to buyers like me while replacing the old and in my case repaired one with the brand new one and go on telling buyers brand new! They think because they r in china they r immune to legal issues but thats just not true. Sure its harder but its not imposible at all and most of all if the chinese govt gets enough complaints they can and will take action not because they feel we r right and bitmain is wrong but because they dont want to deal with the added spam on their end which isnt ideal but a solution is a solution. Bitmain has gotten too big for their own good and they think they r untouchable but they rely on customers to survive...without us they will lose a big chunk of their income so these chinamen need to learn not to kill the golden goose. Even the most ignorant of ignorant people know this!
Sales are not going to be even throughout the batch, and it is difficult to determine what the pace of sales is going to be. It is also possible (although unlikely) that the entire batch is not going to sell and they could just decide they will use the remaining miners to mine for themselves.

IMO the fact that a miner is "used" is a moot point as long as it works as advertised and is covered by the same warranty. TBH I think that by arguing that they are used you are only going to distract from your other points which do seem to have some validity to them.
sr. member
Activity: 387
Merit: 254
I agree that the S5's were really much too loud for home use (unless you have a large amount of space between the miners and your living area. However anyone buying a large number of miners is unlikely to have a setup that involves a large number of miners near a living area (too much power would be needed). I am not sure what the best solution would be here - probably something along the lines of offering refunds to people immediately after they received the S5 and were in a situation that would not allow them to have them on without it being a disturbance.

I don't know the details about various voltage ratings, however I do know they did advertise that efficiency would increase substantially (I believe ~.21 w/gh) when a special PSU was used.

Any miner that you buy and is not a "pre-order" is not going to be "brand new" because the manufacturer is going to need to run them between the time they produce them and the time they ship them, otherwise they would be loosing out on money they could be making - also the value of the miners depreciates over time so if they just hold them idol then they will be outright loosing money

1. The size of the home doesnt really matter. I have a 2900 square foot 3 lvl townhome and the s5's r in the basement and on the first floor i can hear the mini turbines just a spinnin away! They r loud as hell and thats with an entire floor between me and them.

2. Yup they sure did and they kept it listed as being a featured up until batch 5 i believe so thats batch 1,2,3, and 4 that had this feature listed as a definitive feature not one that may or may not work and blahh blahh. They flat out didnt tell people they didnt test this so called feature either so theres no way one out assume it was an iffy feature....but bitmain in their infinite wisdom decided to tell me we guaranteed 1150gh/s so we didnt guarantee this feature worked but even now their specs listing is wrong! They still say "quiet" and i dont think me or ne other customer should be effed in the as like this...ik some have spent way more then what i spent on these but no matter the buyer everyone deserves the same treatment.


3. Ur right to a point. A buyer in their s5 thread asked if these r brand new and got replies stating they are brand new. I also got told they r brand new but they deff are NOT new not even close! With that said they have sold plenty of miners so far so they should be selling them about as fast they r making them and if they do end up making more then they r selling then lower the prices or reduce production to make up for that...dont take old dirty beat to hell miners from ur farm and send them to buyers like me while replacing the old and in my case repaired one with the brand new one and go on telling buyers brand new! They think because they r in china they r immune to legal issues but thats just not true. Sure its harder but its not imposible at all and most of all if the chinese govt gets enough complaints they can and will take action not because they feel we r right and bitmain is wrong but because they dont want to deal with the added spam on their end which isnt ideal but a solution is a solution. Bitmain has gotten too big for their own good and they think they r untouchable but they rely on customers to survive...without us they will lose a big chunk of their income so these chinamen need to learn not to kill the golden goose. Even the most ignorant of ignorant people know this!
copper member
Activity: 2996
Merit: 2374
I agree that the S5's were really much too loud for home use (unless you have a large amount of space between the miners and your living area. However anyone buying a large number of miners is unlikely to have a setup that involves a large number of miners near a living area (too much power would be needed). I am not sure what the best solution would be here - probably something along the lines of offering refunds to people immediately after they received the S5 and were in a situation that would not allow them to have them on without it being a disturbance.

I don't know the details about various voltage ratings, however I do know they did advertise that efficiency would increase substantially (I believe ~.21 w/gh) when a special PSU was used.

Any miner that you buy and is not a "pre-order" is not going to be "brand new" because the manufacturer is going to need to run them between the time they produce them and the time they ship them, otherwise they would be loosing out on money they could be making - also the value of the miners depreciates over time so if they just hold them idol then they will be outright loosing money
sr. member
Activity: 387
Merit: 254

Like i said i would do....i received a resolution to my issues as of 4/27/15. I wont delete my thread but i agreed to edit it and add that i got a resolution to what was said below.









Okie dokie.....where to start where to start.....i guess let me add a disclaimer to this thread so it makes a bit more sense:

I am in no way saying Bitmains products dont work.....because they do.....this thread is for the lies and dodging they have been doing to me and many other customers for a very long time which not only wastes our time but has cost us quite a bit of money im sure....i know it has cost me money and time that is worth more money so enough is enough its time to post it here for everyone to see even bitmain.


now that i got that outta the way lets move on to the issues im having. like many when the s5 was first announced i waited and waited for them to be released but when they were i was asleep so i missed the first batch. luckily though they released batched 2 and i was able to pick up 3 of them. the total here was $1239 bucks as seen in the pic below of my order receipt. I paid on time and was happy with the specs posted by them and awaited their arrival.



when they came everything seemed fine but when i tried testing the features they listed on their advert all over the place i wasnt able to get the results they said would happen. by features i mean:

1. Quiet mining (they sounded like a jet taking off non stop! theres nothing quiet about them!



2. can run using 9v power to lower power consumption all the way down to .2w per gh/s





i figured it had to be enabled via a firmware update or something and i had time before they werent worth mining with anyway so i waited to see what kind of tested was done by other users. well after not seeing anything for months i decided to email bitmain to see exactly what psu was used to run these at 9v so i could eliminate any hardware issues because i paid for these s5's because they were supposed to go down to .2w per gh/s which would increase their usability when the diff goes up and they cost too much to run. what i got back from bitmain was kinda suprising:

Me = GREEN
BMT = RED

"Hey

Is there gonna be a firmware update that lets the antminer s5's support the voltage inputs u said they are supposed to handle?? Because right now they cant run at 9v or 10v without wigging out on us. The 9v supply is more then enough amperage as well and same goes for the 10v supply but they either throw up errors or run then stop randomly with x's leading me to believe its a firmware issue and nothing has been posted about any updates to the firmware so im getting a bit worried now lol. Also do u have ne ideas on reease dates for new miners?? They dont have to be exact dates...generalized ones like for example "april 15-25th" or something like that work just fine. I just wanna know so i gather up some more btc to bulk order when the batch get released. I was going to order the s5 but i saw they sold out so now i wait for the next model which i can only assume is the s6.
"

"Hi,
for S5, Input voltage should not be less than 12.00V, since it is based on serial power solution and there is no DC/DC inside the miner. Higher input voltage will cause higher mining efficiency.
And it cannot work well with 9V or 10V.

Best Regards

BITMAIN
"

so right there i saw 2 issues. one of which was confirmed by someone that actually knows what hes doing it seems and he said at higher voltage the opposite happens....so why support would say add more voltage is a bit weird but the main thing is that the states the s5's dont run on 9v power....but like you saw above thats how it was advertised. it wasnt advertised as maybe it works or that it wasnt tested....the ad clearly shows that past batch 3 (i think it was there in batch 4 as well....the ss is from the batch 3 advert because its all i had available before the revissions) that if you want to run it more efficiently then use 9v power but when using 9v the controller wont even boot up and if it does boot the boards arent detected....no psus will work and i have tried multiple so the feature that drew me and others in to buy miners was a bold faced untested lie! when i continued on with asking what they meant about 9v not working this is what i got:

"sHi,
Sorry for the inconvenience.
After double checking, we confirm the S5 cannot work well with 9V, so we crossed out this description.
"

"Ya but what happens now to the people that paid when that feature was available??

Sent from my iPhone
"

"Hi,
We have correct it immediate after we get the info, it has been a long time now.
Once the miner can work well with 12V, no need to worry about it.
Thanks.
"

"Hi,
We published the miner with 12V,1155Gh/s hash rate guaranteed.
We only mentioned you may use 9V, but we didn't promise the hash rate under 9V. As you can imagine as well, even if you can connect the 9V to the miner, the hash rate cannot be 1155gh/s as well since you didn't provide enough power:)
"

after checking further i noticed no announcement or compensation being given to buyers from 4 batches prior to this silent "change" were given. its sickening that a company like bitmain chose to do this to buyers and i have been trying to get compensation since this issue was mentioned but they have stopped replying to my emails about it all together and the support here tells me to email bitmain itself which obviously doesnt help since they r ignoring me alltogether.

If this werent enough i had anout batch come in that was ordered because the specs were revised and didnt mind the miners themselves except the noise the main issue is the company and their huge ass lying schemes to steal customers money and silent revissions well my second batch was nothing like the first!



i paid $1700 for 5 "Brand new" s5's and what came were 5 dirty and used miners. the first 3 that came were clean and fresh which when comparing the 2 im left assuming a few things and im pretty sure they r correct:

1. the miners  sent when first released are basically brand new....not much use on them at all which explains why the first 3 i ordered had zero dust as far as i could tell.

2. batches after the first couple of batches are used and abused miners that are nothing like the first batches...they have been running on shelves for months up to that point so they r caked with dirt and dust.

3. by the end of their run they start sending miners that are dirty used and have had repairs done to them which these miners have had repairs done. solder paste does not leave residue un the form of globs of flux. solder paste if lobbed onto the board will leave blobs of solder which none are to be found....there is so little flux in solvder paste that ot leaves little to none behind. my boards have globs of crusty flux on resistors in specific places and the boards that do also have the letter R written on them with a black magic marker...not by me but by them! they also have other wirting on the boards that is also caked over with dust so these are NOT new!!!!!

Bitmain sells NEWWWWWW miners but sends used and overclocked miners?? the miners i got had warped side panels. when taking my heat gun over them a foot above i noticed something.....when trying to flatten them out and they get hit with warm air the first thing they do is curl a little bit. after a little bit longer then flatten out to how they should sit. this was interesting to me because thats also proof they have been run and run hard! the miners i got the first time were straight but this batch of 5 were warped and bubbled like they were subject to more heat they they should be subject to.

i also noticed on some components there is thermal paste. these components are on the oposite side of the heatsink side so no thermal paste should be there. the paste isnt on just any components either its in the rows of black components (not the asics) that line up with screw holes that arent used when they come to the consumers end which leads me to believe there was another heatsink attached to the oposite side of the board but for what?? well when coupled with the above info im left thinking these were run overclocked for quite some time and died....they they got repaired amd resold as "new" but werent even cleaned first. i ran my finger from top to bottom and it was pitch black! it was so grimey i cant even describe it right! when i emailed them they replied with:

"Hi,
What's the order id? May you provide some graphic as reference?
all miners are new, because the factory is under construction so it will be lots of dust when doing aging test for several hours。
sorry for the inconvenience.
And please confirm whether the miners are working well now.
"

i replied saying that this amount of dust isnt from a few hours of running. no place in the world gets this much dust from only a few hours! its rediculous.....but then it gets even better:

"Hi,
Very sorry for the inconvenience.
May you turn on the miner can confirm whether it can work well? Provide us the screenshot of Miner status as reference.
S5 hasn't been sold for long time and there is no used ones. due to factory is still under construction, there is a lot of dust.
Sorry for the troubles.
"

so basically if the miners work y r u complaining?? well im pissed because i had to clean this shit off these "brand new" miners and they i get dick slapped in the face by an excuse that has been used for years now.......they have been saying this factory is under construction since the s1 days.....and even then if this is from a few hours of them running y is not every asian in that place dead?? the buildup in their lungs from a single days work should kill them if this was true but hey none are dead so what does that tell ya?? they also have the nerve to imply working miners r worth the same used and new?? so will u buy my used g35x and pay me the $50 grand it cost brand new?? i highly doubt i can get away with that one and i bet the first thing they would say is "but its used" and once i say "but turn it on and make sure it drives" they will just walk away so y do they think its ne different with every other product sold anywhere?? no one should pay new prices for used equipment and no one should get sold something based on untested lies and then get ignored when they want compensation for their fuckup.

resolutions i will accept:

1. full/partial refund for miners bought based on ur lies so basically 8 s5's

2. new miners for free (not 8 new miners im not greedy and unreasonable) to offset the shit u dropped on me 2 times in a row!

3. everyone with an s5 order before batch 4 gets a patial refund for your lies.....every batch of s5's gets a partial refund for the non quiet feature that is clearly also a lie!
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