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Topic: Revive a Dead Antminer S2 with Beaglebone Black Rev. C (off the shelf) (Read 13486 times)

sr. member
Activity: 325
Merit: 250
After trying various memory cards, images, the lot, ALL i done was pull out 2 cards, powered up and i could see the blue leds on near the ethernet port, inserted other 2 cards back in, entered pool details and its working...WTF !!
legendary
Activity: 2030
Merit: 1076
BTCLife.global participant
Where is Bitmain's tech support when this thread need it so much?..
vdr
newbie
Activity: 3
Merit: 0
after installing the full beaglebone, did anyone try connecting keyboard, mouse, monitor?
is there room in there to do it?
newbie
Activity: 2
Merit: 0
Has anyone tried the Rasberry Pi route yet?

There must be cheaper options than the Beaglebone Black Rev. C from Adafruit.com

It seems like major hardware overkill for the job..

Thanks for all the info
newbie
Activity: 27
Merit: 0
My Antminer S2 is down too, and a new SD card doesn't help either. I'm new to computers, bitcoin mining and electronics so I don't really see myself doing all of this to replace the beaglebone.

Here's my question: does anyone think a raspberry pi could take over the beaglebone's job ? If I just connected it to the control board of my S2 ?

I have BFG miner on my rasp and it says among others : drivers enabled : antminer

Many thanks for any advive !
Pierre

Sorry for not replying sooner. I doubt a RasPi will work. I haven't tried and honestly don't know how much the beaglebone is actually doing that's specific to it's hardware, and how much is just generic linux stuff.

If you've got a RPi and are willing to risk it, pop a new SD card with the image in and see what happens. It would be a cheaper replacement for sure.

As for BFG miner and it's antminer driver, I'd suspect that's more geared toward the antminer u1 and u2 USB asics. But if you try it and have any luck, it might save people some serious trouble.

hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 501
Great instructions. Hopefully I will never have to use them.
newbie
Activity: 1
Merit: 0
My Antminer S2 is down too, and a new SD card doesn't help either. I'm new to computers, bitcoin mining and electronics so I don't really see myself doing all of this to replace the beaglebone.

Here's my question: does anyone think a raspberry pi could take over the beaglebone's job ? If I just connected it to the control board of my S2 ?

I have BFG miner on my rasp and it says among others : drivers enabled : antminer

Many thanks for any advive !
Pierre
newbie
Activity: 27
Merit: 0
Hi everyone,

Just to confirm that this approach works. A power surge killed off my beaglebone (no blue light on it). I bought a Rev.B on Amazon (it is cheaper than Rev.C and the only difference is the amount of onboard memory).
Booted up the new BBB and checked that it works: connected the power through USB cable, accessed the web-interface.
Then I shut it down, inserted the SD card with S2 image. It booted immediately from the SD card - no hassle.
After that, I inserted it into the S2 and it works flawlessly.

Good luck everyone!

Awesome. Glad to hear it's working for people.
newbie
Activity: 30
Merit: 0
Hi everyone,

Just to confirm that this approach works. A power surge killed off my beaglebone (no blue light on it). I bought a Rev.B on Amazon (it is cheaper than Rev.C and the only difference is the amount of onboard memory).
Booted up the new BBB and checked that it works: connected the power through USB cable, accessed the web-interface.
Then I shut it down, inserted the SD card with S2 image. It booted immediately from the SD card - no hassle.
After that, I inserted it into the S2 and it works flawlessly.

Good luck everyone!
member
Activity: 73
Merit: 10
How hard was it to get the Beaglebone off the AntMiner IO board?  I am OK with soldering, but this look a bit tough? 

Also, do you know of any way to test the ethernet port on the Antminer board?

All of my S2's suffering a power surge yesterday (via a lightning strike) and I think it may have shorted out the connection - my cable modem and router were killed and I had to replace them.

My S2's boot - the LCD comes on and the IP address shows (192.168.1.99), but it never appears on the network.  The green lights for the hashing boards never light up, but the ones on the control board do.  None of the lights on either ethernet port (I/O board or the external one) ever light up.

I tried reflashing the SD and that didn't work.

Any suggestions? 

do you see any blue lights near the network port on the beagleboard ? if not then your beagleboard is gone... but since your lcd is showing some text I am guessing your beagle board might be functioning partially ..but its network stack/ship is shot.... however seems to me you need to replace the beagleboard..

Beagle board comes off easily as its plugged onto the main IO board not soldered ...
member
Activity: 73
Merit: 10
The other image might be a waste of your time then. It will only automatically boot from the SD card on a reboot. A power cycle will require you to push the Boot switch button on the Beaglebone.

If you're powering down the S2, plug a wall wart or USB power supply into the Beaglebone to keep it alive while you do whatever requires the power down. Once you've applied power to the S2, remove the 5V power from the Beaglebone as it will pull power from the S2 IO board at this point.

The reboots from the SD card save the settings right?



I will check again .. but I know cold power cycle were loosing the settings as well .. with this new image I am hoping it will save the settings om the SD card like original 'beagleboard+sd card' comb does ..
I was not able to try the new image last night.. but will try it tonight..

Thanks

OK I can confirm that when using the '1l1l11ll1l'  image it saves the settings on the sd card even after a cold reboot .. or a cold start after saving the settings .. only issue left is after a cold start I still need to press the boot button on the beagleboard.. whcih is a pain since I have to take out 2-3 hash cards and put them back while the system is on...  I don't have access to a live USB or live 5v external connector for my S2 ( beagleboard) where it actually resides physically for hashing...

hot reboots are fine.. and I am back to hashing at full 1TH+
newbie
Activity: 60
Merit: 0
How hard was it to get the Beaglebone off the AntMiner IO board?  I am OK with soldering, but this look a bit tough? 

Also, do you know of any way to test the ethernet port on the Antminer board?

All of my S2's suffering a power surge yesterday (via a lightning strike) and I think it may have shorted out the connection - my cable modem and router were killed and I had to replace them.

My S2's boot - the LCD comes on and the IP address shows (192.168.1.99), but it never appears on the network.  The green lights for the hashing boards never light up, but the ones on the control board do.  None of the lights on either ethernet port (I/O board or the external one) ever light up.

I tried reflashing the SD and that didn't work.

Any suggestions? 
member
Activity: 73
Merit: 10
The other image might be a waste of your time then. It will only automatically boot from the SD card on a reboot. A power cycle will require you to push the Boot switch button on the Beaglebone.

If you're powering down the S2, plug a wall wart or USB power supply into the Beaglebone to keep it alive while you do whatever requires the power down. Once you've applied power to the S2, remove the 5V power from the Beaglebone as it will pull power from the S2 IO board at this point.

The reboots from the SD card save the settings right?



I will check again .. but I know cold power cycle were loosing the settings as well .. with this new image I am hoping it will save the settings om the SD card like original 'beagleboard+sd card' comb does ..
I was not able to try the new image last night.. but will try it tonight..

Thanks
newbie
Activity: 27
Merit: 0
The other image might be a waste of your time then. It will only automatically boot from the SD card on a reboot. A power cycle will require you to push the Boot switch button on the Beaglebone.

If you're powering down the S2, plug a wall wart or USB power supply into the Beaglebone to keep it alive while you do whatever requires the power down. Once you've applied power to the S2, remove the 5V power from the Beaglebone as it will pull power from the S2 IO board at this point.

The reboots from the SD card save the settings right?

member
Activity: 73
Merit: 10
I had that same problem when I loaded the image to the local storage. But it worked fine when I put the ubuntu image on the local storage and booted from the SD card.

Try putting this image on the SD card (image is from 1l1l11ll1l, credit where credit is due)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16075357/bitmain.img.zip

I don't think it's much different, but it may make things click for you. Once it's on try rebooting and see if anything sticks. You'll need to upgrade the firmware once it's on, but it worked fine for me.

You may be right about the difference between rev B and rev C. I really couldn't tell you.

Maybe rev B will let you install it tot he local storage and save settings. I'd try the image above from the SD card first though.

You're not completely powering it off are you? I just rebooted from the web interface and it seems to know to boot to the SD card unless I completely remove power.







Ok I will try the this other bitmain image..

Yes I am doing a full power cycle .. cold starts...  soft reboots from the web interface works fine and it boots from the sd card
newbie
Activity: 27
Merit: 0
I had that same problem when I loaded the image to the local storage. But it worked fine when I put the ubuntu image on the local storage and booted from the SD card.

Try putting this image on the SD card (image is from 1l1l11ll1l, credit where credit is due)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16075357/bitmain.img.zip

I don't think it's much different, but it may make things click for you. Once it's on try rebooting and see if anything sticks. You'll need to upgrade the firmware once it's on, but it worked fine for me.

You may be right about the difference between rev B and rev C. I really couldn't tell you.

Maybe rev B will let you install it tot he local storage and save settings. I'd try the image above from the SD card first though.

You're not completely powering it off are you? I just rebooted from the web interface and it seems to know to boot to the SD card unless I completely remove power.





member
Activity: 73
Merit: 10
Sorry, I just logged into my router to find the ip address. Keep in mind though once you boot into the Antminer image it will default to 192.168.1.99. I wasted a lot of time overlooking that.

ok so I have every thing configured but 2 problems:

1) I cant get it to boot automatically to sd card.. and I have to press the boot switch every time
2) I cant get it to save the miner configuration setting  ..every time it reboots I have to enter the pool settings again as well as the ip address , I am running the latest firmware 'initramfs.bin.SD-20140619.tar'

after temporarily solving the above 2 issues..  it starts hashing again ...

Not sure but it could be due to Rev B of beaglebone
newbie
Activity: 27
Merit: 0
Sorry, I just logged into my router to find the ip address. Keep in mind though once you boot into the Antminer image it will default to 192.168.1.99. I wasted a lot of time overlooking that.
member
Activity: 73
Merit: 10
I don't imagine the version should make much difference, they're basically the same except the Rev. C has more onboard storage.

Also want to point out another nice feature of this setup is that you can keep the beaglebone on despite removing power from the rest of the S2 by connecting a wall wart or USB 5V power supply.

step1

How do you extract the .xz file in windows ?   7zip says its not a valid archive .

http://s3.armhf.com/debian/raring/bone/ubuntu-raring-13.04-armhf-3.8.13-bone20.img.xz



never mind I had an old version of 7 zip... latest one works with xz

how do you go to step 3 i.e. how do you ssh when you boot form the sd card ? what is the IP address ? I tried 192.168.7.2  but no go...

ok figured it out.... you may want to add in step 3 to look for  ip address for 'ubuntu-armhf' in your router and then ssh in to that
member
Activity: 73
Merit: 10
I don't imagine the version should make much difference, they're basically the same except the Rev. C has more onboard storage.

Also want to point out another nice feature of this setup is that you can keep the beaglebone on despite removing power from the rest of the S2 by connecting a wall wart or USB 5V power supply.

step1

How do you extract the .xz file in windows ?   7zip says its not a valid archive .

http://s3.armhf.com/debian/raring/bone/ubuntu-raring-13.04-armhf-3.8.13-bone20.img.xz



never mind I had an old version of 7 zip... latest one works with xz

how do you go to step 3 i.e. how do you ssh when you boot form the sd card ? what is the IP address ? I tried 192.168.7.2  but no go...
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