Hello everyone,
I have been a terraminer owner for slightly over 3 months now, and it has been really solid this whole time,, until a week or two ago,,. I noticed that the temps had been getting higher and higher. CTA1 Core 2 was always the hottest. After browsing these forums I had found a thread about replacing the thermal paste, I had decided that my issue was likely the paste. I took the terraminer apart 1 core at a time, carefully cleaning all the old paste off with cotton balls and q tips with 99% Rubbing alcohol. (1 core at a time) after cleaning I applied Antec Nano Diamond, and carefully reassembled.
After going over everything carefully, I put the lid back on and fired it up.
At first all was well all core showing,, But then I noticed CTA0 core2 Temps were climbing fast it got to 110 and then the GUI statistics module for CTA0 Completely disappeared from the page, leaving CTA1 hashing away. I rebooted and then no asics were detected with status E code 10. I rebooted again and After a few minutes CTA1 started mining normally,, and the temps were even good, about 20 Degrees lower then they were before I had changed the paste, the hashrate was holding steady at 808 GHS and the temps were in the lower 70's.
So I began visually inspecting the machine while it was running, and I noticed that the leds on the CTA0 board would all flash on at the same time and then just go off, over and over like it was trying to boot up but not making it, the fan on the front of the machine also throttles up slightly when the lights flash on, and then down when the lights flash off,, and its an eternal loop,, like every three seconds,, normally the leds on the boards scroll from right to left if you're facing the front of the machine. The leds on CTA1 were normal,,,, The leds on CTA0 as I said all flash on and off at the same time once every 3 seconds.
So I looked at the PSU lights,, They are green,, both of them. So then for whatever reason, I pulled the black 3 pin plug from the waterblock on CTA0 core 2 (Upper Left corner of the machine),, and as soon as I did that the leds right half stayed lit, while the other half started scrolling normally,, CTA0 core 1 was now showing up on the GUI again. It started mining. Temps were again good actually even cooler than the other side running at 56 degrees celcius 403GHS,,,
At first I started thinking that the pump on CTA0 core 2 had gone bad,, so I switched it with the pump from CTA0 core 1 and then disabled Core 1 so That I could see if a different pump ould allow for CTA0 core 2 to fire up...... IT did not, same thing as before all leds on cycling from off to on evey 3 seconds with a slight throttling of the fan on that side.
That told me it wasnt the pump after all and that I have messed something up,,, but I cant find anything wrong,, and It seems odd that I can get CTA0 core one online by disconnecting core 2's pump ( which disables core 2),,, Ive tried everything,,, Power stepping,, Firmware rollback,, factory reset,,, same result everytime.
Currently its hashing at a total of 1214 GHS CTA0 core 1 404 GHS at 57 degrees normal fanspeed and pumpspeed,, and CTA1 810 GHS with both cores doing great with temp highs from 70 to 80 degrees celcius, normal fan and pumpspeeds as well.
So on the bright side for the most part the thermal paste change fixed my temperature issues for now,,, So each working core is basically performing again the way it did when I first got it,, andd of course the problem is that now I cant get CTA0 core 2 to work at all..
The pump speed does show for core 2 as 0 in the GUI, but then it doesnt show CTA0 core 2 anywhere,,,,
Anyhow does anyone know of a fix for this or is anyone familiar with this issue? Any help would be appreciated, Im offering .25 BTC to anyone that is able to lead me into solving this issue. Thanks.
I would have to say the chips are shutting down from getting to hot. Had the same happen to me after reapplying paste. I tried MX4 several time with different results each time. Tried thermal pads with no luck. Then I went with Liquid Pro and all is well. Hottest core now is 64°C.