Topic: T17/S17 malfunction: cases, solutions, remedies, RMA history - page 16. (Read 6919 times)

Hello, I have been reading every single answer to this interesting post. This is because I have also been framed by Bitmain with those S17+ antminers. I have some background in electronics and analyzing those intermittent failures that these miners have just got me a little confused, specially during a time that I checked control boards and data cables by disconnecting back and forth. At times the miner was full throttle mining just to drop after few hours. That in electronics is called a "cold soldering". Although there are not visible cold solderings I discovered that the soldering material that is being used on this S17 have 2 problems.

First, high amount of lead and low proportion of tin, and of course zero silver in the soldering material. This can be observed under the microscope used to soldering circuit boards. All of the solderings showed a greyish mate color and no shinning finish.
 
Second, below normal temperature of the soldering material, also leaves traces, specially on the hashing board chips. Also analyzed under the microscope there are traces that look like an sponge along with tiny cracks surrounding the chip's area at the surface of the hashing board.

So, this takes me into the conclusion that somebody at Bitmain's is trying to cut ends and by doing this they have compromised 50% of the S17, T17 series. The use of soldering with high percentage of plumb just tells me that they are throwing the cheapest crap they have to solder the components on those miners. Also they are trying to reduce electricity costs by not heating well enough the soldering material melted at the trays and this is specially true because the soldering material with higher proportion-ratio of lead instead of tin and silver takes colder temperatures to melt.

So taking all this into consideration I really recommend to all of those that are willing to throw the money into shipping costs, customs fees and no mining income, just don't do it because Bitmain still uses the same bad quality materials to fix it.

Since that soldering material is all over the hashing and controller boards is just a matter of time chips keep coming off the boards, the only and costly solution is to desoldering them all and soldering back with a good quality soldering flux, other than that those miners will keep failing over and over.

Basically most of the S17 series are doomed.

Mar 5, 18:20 CST

Dear *************

Thanks for your consultation!

why did you not ship it back in Feb we found you consult with us in Feb if you send back to us at that time it will meet the DOA
We checked your miner did not belong to the DOA now, due to you did not create the repair ticket  and send it back to us in time which we have advised you before
4. Please ship back them within 30 days from Order Ship out date, otherwise the devices cannot be treated as DOA.
we checked your SN which is exceed 30 days warranty
and for the DOA the 30 days is calculated from shipping date to creating repair ticket date ,but you still not created the repair ticket in our system

Wait, you can actually get a coupon because you had to cover shipping expenses to their service location?   I haven't read that info anywhere.

I wtb a couple of psu fans for my t17, two of then are not working

w40s12bmd5 from nidec

12vdc 0.64a

https://www.nidec.com/en/product/search/category/B101/M111/S100/NCJ-W40S12BMD5-5/

Anyone knows where to buy?

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Since I posted this a short while back, I feel it is only fair to post an update since the response from Bitmain has been reasonably impressive.

After a few days of initial troubleshooting (back and forth communication with Bitmain where they asked me to try various things to fix the problem), they asked me to send the units to their repair centre in Europe. I know from following the tracking number that the faulty units arrived at the repair centre on Wednesday 3rd June. On Thursday 4th June I received a notification from Fedex of 2 brand new replacement units being shipped from China, which duly arrived here on Tuesday 9th June. They would have been here Monday 8th if it wasn't for a delay in customs.

The replacement units are working perfectly. Whilst it's not good that I received two faulty units initially, in their credit they have replaced them very quickly and with no complications.

How was that a pretty good service?  , did they refund the shipping fees he paid to send those faulty hash boards to Europe? did they compensate him for the days of mining he lost? ya "pretty good" is a bit of a broad word, but for Bitmain to do it, I guess it's outstanding because we are not used to that kind of "okay service".

With that being said, and despite that not being the best thing one would expect after paying a fortune for mining gear, I consider danieleither to be a lucky client who got VIP treatment, your chances of receiving the same thing are not so high.

danieleither, glad you got your gears to run with all three boards, wish you luck with them.

That was pretty good service on their part. 

Recently purchased 2 x S17+ 70TH, April batch but delivered in May due to delays at Customs. Both machines worked fine initially, then dropped a hashboard. One machine after just 1 hour and the 2nd unit after approx. 2.5 hours, very disappointing Spent several days back and forth with Bitmain support doing everything they asked but to no avail and now both units have been shipped back for repair.

I also have a complete coorespondence with Bitmain tech support, Jessica L. I can post it if you guys are interested. All they have done is given me a generic trouble shooting list and not answered any of my specific questions...

Mikeywith, what really disturbed me is the part the guy says, "Because new miners rarely have such problems in China, it is likely that they have been injured during transportation"

Mikeywith, what really disturbed me is the part the guy says, "Because new miners rarely have such problems in China, it is likely that they have been injured during transportation"

So how do they transport the miners within Mainland China? By teletransportation as in Star Trek? Scotty beam up the miners to Shinchong farm? Nahhh they ship them the same way the do to other parts of the world.

So thinking about the way that people operates, cheating and lying all the time, I have come into a conclusion that Bitmain have two assembly lines, one for their own farms and customers within China, the other for the rest of the world which is low quality and compensates the extra costs invested into the "domestic production assembly line".

Moreover, they don't want more competition so they take your hard earned money, send you a crappy machine and in 3 months max you are out of the business either because you ran out of money or you are not willing to spend more in some other brand of equipment and in the top of that you have no working miners either.