Topic: Innosilicon's A4 Dominator, 1.2W/Mhs 14nm ASIC and miner, open for Partners - page 12. (Read 48989 times)

Just as a heads up to potential buyers of the A4.  Some of the early Batch 3 miners are now in some forum members hands and they are still reporting dropped cards and restarts.  I will defer to those members to post their results here as I don't want to add to or take away from what they are seeing. 

So if you are thinking about getting an A4 I would suggest waiting unless your willing to take the risk.  Right now it appears that Innosilicon has a plan/policy that is going to leave small purchasers of the Batch 1 and Batch 2 miners to take them to an electronics expert to swap out the MCU at our cost, or for the bigger buyers that bought in large volume they are saying they will ship out a flash programmer jig for them to flash their units.  Again not something for the faint of heart in either scenario.  It appears at this time the support from Inno is non-existent for the B1 and B2 miners.  Innosilicon should be swapping out miners boards that have been corrected to resolve this issue instead of laying this at the feet of customers.

As of this time they(Inno) have reported that Batch 3 miners were fixed, but early reports here are indicating that is not the case.  So if you are thinking about buying A4 miners I would not recommend it at this time until they get this sorted out or you will be in the same boat as "we" the early pre-buy customers and left to twist in the wind with no resolution in sight if your miner has issues that requires correction of the miner firmware itself.  SD card updates have not resolved the issues with these miners. 

So this is a buyer beware NOTICE until Inno gets this sorted out.   

Hey Papasmurph,  Which image version do you need? 

Hey there, who can provide support for my messed up image for innosilicon dominator. PI does not assign any address to pi on network . That happened after i have changed IP on webgui...

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/innosilicon-a4-dominator-setup-guide-revamped-1680082

I do not have one (yet?) I helped with the group buy and talked with them about the group buy but got ZEC gpu setup (lovely 2 year warranties)

likely just as silly as an A4 or two..but where I'm at now..anyway what i was told on the above date...worth a shot yet if you plan on getting one

worse they can say is the group buy is over

The blades do drop periodically. I have not noticed a pattern yet.
A simple reboot does not fix the issue, it requires a power cycle to get the blade online.
I have resorted to a switched PDU so that a job on the pi can detect when blades are offline and send a command to the PDU to cycle power on the PDU port.

Thanks for the update. Do you have any problem with your unit? I did read the other thread and look like there is some problem with balde dropping ?

Well I'd try the main page. They only sell them if you are lucky in lots of 3 at 1800 each w/o shipping wire xfer only just on wire xfer put on when you
contact them on main page that this is a 'bitcointalk group buy' you could get lucky and it still works

otherwise I THINK it is 5 units min buy and 2100 bucks ...but could be just the 5 units at above price

anyway that is how it WAS done ...and told to me (i considered it) Sunday Oct 30th

so heck it is worth a shot...maybe the password will work

send chloe (sp?) an email in sales on their main page

below is this threads main page with info but you will have to contact sales on the page I guess no prices etc listed

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1523298.0;topicseen

http://www.innosilicon.com/

Where can you get that miner ?

Ive updated the php file for the miner web page, nothing which will affect performance or stability, but only GUI features.
I added another pool, and im thinking about adding a pool swap button, similar to the old A2 way of switching pools. Cleaned up some of the english, and correctly numbered the pools as 1-4 rather than 1-1.

I had to do that "mount the SD card on a linux system" edit thing on my A2s when I got them from Zoomhash - they had the *last 2* octals of the IP address written on them, but NOT the FIRST 2 - and it turns out they were all on the Class B subnet range and were ALL OVER that subnet.

 I've never been able to SSH into them - but they've been rock-solid reliable since I got them set up on the RIGHT subnet for *MY* network.

Yep, stupid move by Inno to lock down the pi account. As for setting a static IP, you can mount the SD card in Linux and edit the network config file, or simply allocate a new IP to any device you currently have that's using the .254 address and use the UI. That's simple to address if you have some basic IT skills. I've been mining for the past 6 hours on Prohashing using no extra password arguments and my 2hr average is 281.5 Mhs.

I have to say that I strongly suspect that Inno have added some thermal protection to the A4 which limits voltage when they get too hot, as I've experienced a card stop working a couple of times, and different cards each time. This seems to happen in the high 40s. I can't confirm it yet, just suspicious.

My A2's were brilliant, just set and forget. Some times it was months before I even logged on to one, they were that stable. As long as the pool was showing good hash rates I just let them run.
Hoping the A4 will be just as stable. 

i agree, but would like to throw in the "admin" problem of these new a4's :/
it seems users are not only having trouble with the miners being set to default gateway (wow), but also users having trouble, if im not mistaken, ssh'ing into them/a.k.a their OWN hardware? 
BUT, let noone forget the rock steady (IMO), stability of innoscilion's miners. (the a2's are stable as shit, almost 4 years later, WITHOUT MODS)**
SO., All in all, i think the A4 is a good buy, given the next few weeks dont report owners saying their's went up in flames heehee (what's up with that microscopic documentation? lol )




**yes, they had the same "growing issues" as these a4's off the bat but there's no denying they are of the "never quit" variety, as compared to the RMA kings Bitmain

I think that's getting closer and really does show what a good buy the A4 is.  The completed auction you're referring to was for a batch 1 300 MHs Titan with no power supplies

Here's what the buyer said "This batch 1 miner runs a little above 300MH, but it does fall to 250-260MH after a few days, but a quick reboot puts it back up to 300MH. This miner has never once been overclocked, but it has that option for those who choose." 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Titan-Miner-KNC-Batch-1-300-MH-Scrypt-Litecoin-LTC-Bitcoin-BTC-Digibyte-/262627666129?hash=item3d25d428d1:g:ehYAAOSwvzRX0Emo

Given the track record of Titans and the stated instability, I'm amazed that he sold it for $2800, but lets look at this as more closely.

Titan: 300Mhs @ $2800 = $9.33 Mhs
A4: 280Mhs @ 1800 = $6.43 Mhs

Hmm, one is 3 years old, 40% more expensive and has a history of failing dies and burnt out PCIe connectors whereas the A4 is new, has a 45 day warranty and Innosilicon has a good track record with many very happy A2 owners who appreciate the reliability. I'm ignoring the cost of PSU's and freight because they kinda equal out.

Titan 300Mhs @ 1200W = 4w/Mhs (I've read they can actually use up to 1590W OC'ed to 325 Mhs)
A4: 280Mhs @ 1080w = 3.85w/Mhs

Not much difference there, Inno have not improved the efficiency much with their 14nm dies so it's a draw on electricity cost.

ROI: I used to use online calculators like the one above but then I worked out that mining a multipool that pays out in BTC is much more profitable. Zpool paid 0.00011381 BTC per scrypt-Mhs yesterday. Whatever hardware you buy, with BTC=$728 that's 0.08285368c per MHs less electricity.

An A4 @ 280Mhs would return $23.19 per day and a Titan @ 300Mhs would return $24.85 per day
Less power at $3.60 per day and lets call it $19.50 and $21.00 per day respectively so 1800/19.50 = 92 days to totally pay for the A4, whereas $2800/21.00 = 133 days.

Like I said, amazed anyone would buy a Titan for $2800 with no PSU's and known issues vs buying a a new A4. If you choose to stick with mining LTC exclusively your ROI will be longer, but given any consistent benchmark, the A4 is much better proposition IMO.

To make a fair comparison as of today, the price of a Titan now on Ebay is about $2800 and those outfitted with Gentarkin software are rocking along nicely.  Continuing to use your logic, the residual value would be~ $500 at the end of the same period due to the age of hardware.  That leaves $2300 to recapture.  Using LTC as a baseline, the increase in difficulty for all scrypt networks is going to decrease returns as the number of A4s come online.  Therefore the new ROI would approximate to September 2017 (worst case).  Bump that $4/LTC to $5 and it drops back to June 2017.
http://www.vnbitcoin.org/detailcalculationltc.php?name=LiteCoin_Mining_Rig&startdate=2016-10-31&costperunit=2300&wattperhour=1250&gigahazarate=270000&daytoincrease=3&testlopfirst=2&diffincrement=0.0268&bitcoinperdollar=4&electriccostinput=.11&begindifflevel=51699

I'm mining LTC and move it to BTC when the ratio gets at least 0.0006 LTC to BTC which would mean
$4.20 usd not the 3.94 it is now

I used to wait till 0.008 LTC to BTC but with all the new coins like ethereum etc out there ..that
speculative cash has gone elsewhere

I am within 1,000 bucks to the bank of paying off with BTC made so far about 2,750mh of my 3,050mh
with this years equip and some towards used.

using www.litecoinpool.org/calc

at current my winter electric of 11c kwh and 3050mh and say 13,000 watts on titans and 3.94 LTC price
I am getting below

24 hours   30.55957031 LTC   120.40 USD   34.32 USD   86.08 USD
7 days   213.91699219 LTC   842.83 USD   240.24 USD   602.59 USD
30 days   916.78710938 LTC   3612.14 USD   1029.60 USD   2582.54 USD

$2,583.54 after rent/expenses/electric per month

the above pool has NO fees and pays out 103%..thus I just wait and move coin (over expenses)
and thus the plan or way I've played it since Nov 8th 2014 Of course holding and moving it
at the right time to BTC also is a guess/hope etc for this to work.

IT all depends on what the price of LTC say is next year (or BTC that drives such) If we are looking
and/or what amount/price and such and of course WHEN you get the equipment. (dumb luck plays
a role)

at $5 LTC say.. well a lot of the A4 and other dubious purchases would be forgiven quickly

With the price of LTC where it is at none of these high priced miners are going to ROI (even the used ones), seems like a fools gamble.

Do any experienced miners who are mining for profit still mine single currencies like LTC exclusively?

I'll be mining a multipool like Prohashing and with current payouts per Mhs at 0.000065 BTC or more (http://poolpicker.eu/table), a single A4 running at 270 Mhs returns approx $12.28 per day (BTC = $700). Subtract power costs (1.080Kwh x 0.11c x 24 = $2.85) and that leaves $9.43 per day profit.

In two years, I would imagine a fully working A4 will still be worth $750 (3 year old A2's are still selling for >$600 today(but not for much longer)), so my ROI target is actually only $1150.

$1150/$9.43 = 122 days ROI and then every day until the day I sell the A4 is pure profit after electricity costs.

Of course it's very likely that payments will drop as network hash rates increase but even a 25% payout decrease will still leave plenty of profit for an A4.The same can't be said for Gridseeds and A2's without cheap power however. Once the various scrypt network hash rates start to rise and payouts decrease, these less efficient miners will cease to be viable.

The same thing happened with A7s when A9's came out. It's not as immediate in the scrypt universe but the affect will be the same.  Of course Titan's will stay viable for much longer but lets keep in mind that these cost $9,995 new and were fraught with serious delivery and quality issues.

LTC has been pretty stable around $4 (with a brief surge to $5ish) for a year now.

 I don't see ANY issue with an A4 achieving ROI - just won't be in 3-4 months like some miners managed in WAY BACK days.


 If you want high pricing, consider the original GridSeed 80 blade units at $3000 - those probably NEVER DID achieve ROI for anyone, and I suspect most of the ones that sold at $1600 a couple months later never achieved ROI either.

 I don't anticipate an A4 managing to ROI in the "current conditions 9 months or so with very very cheap electric" as the network hashrate and difficulty will climb once they start shipping in numbers, but I DO anticipate them achieving ROI in 12-18 months timeframe as long as LTC pricing doesn't collapse (and right now, it's CLIMBING to follow Bitcoin's recent rise, as usual).


 If you don't like the high A4 pricing though, and your electric is cheap enough, A2s will be profitable for quite a while longer (just not AS profitable as over the last yeah or so). For that matter, the Gridseeds are still marginally profitable if you have VERY VERY cheap enough electric, though I suspect not for a lot longer.

LiteGuardian has always worked well for me.
As I recall, they were one of the few pools that never had issues with the Alcheminer....

I am just running a bunch of A2s but I have found Prohashing to work pretty well so far, now if I could just find parts for my A2s that seem to be dieing off slowly.