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Yes this is another bitmain warranty thread, to serve as a buyer beware for anyone looking to spend $1000's on an investment in their miners at this time.

I purchased some B1 S7's in August (and 7x more in the months/batches afterwards).  They didn't ship until October (like everyone else, this was a piss-off, especially after not receiving any real compensation).  In December, 2 months after receiving them and getting them online, one of them caught fire.  It was being powered by a server PSU, using all 10x PCIe cables (as Bitmain makes sure in warranty info), the server PSU was a dual DPS-2000BB (DPS-4K setup) and was powering 2 of the S7's as well as an S5 at the time.  The only machine that burned was the one B1 S7.  So I contact Bitmain USA first (hoping to save some time on shipping, etc) with an explanation of the problem and pictures.  They eventually referred me to Bitmain repair China, as they wouldn't handle it.  So I send the same information off to Bitmain China, who try to tell me it was past warranty (even though it was within the 90 days from when they actually shipped, though they marked the order as shipped 10 days prior to them actually shipping...), but eventually conceded since I had made contact prior to that warranty period expiring.  So after some back and forth, I finally get the package sent off February 10th.  I sent it with a service that did not have tracking, which I admit at this time was a bad idea.  My reasoning was I didn't want to dump any more money than required into this, given the horror stories I have read about Bitmain's refusing warranty, and the fact that they had already tried weaseling their way out of this claim before even receiving the miner.

So fast forward 5 more months, and I just received notice today after constantly bugging them about finding my package, that it did arrive over a month ago and they received it.  They have now advised me that they do not cover burnt boards under their warranty, and that they would offer me $20 off the purchase of an S9.  I am lost for words...

Here are some pictures of the miner as I found it, running alongside 8x other S7's, 12x other S5's, all off the same style of PSU (IBM 2880W and DPS-4K PSU's), none of which had ANY problems of the sort:

http://i63.tinypic.com/f398jm.jpg
http://i67.tinypic.com/2a3vw8.jpg


This failure did NOT occur due to internet shortage
This failure did NOT occur due to PSU problems (as attested by the fact that the other 2x Antminers on the SAME PSU had no problems whatsoever)
This failure COULD have caused my building to burn down
This failure was NOT covered by Bitmain's warranty despite it being un-preventable and within their allotted warranty period.

Buyer beware, Bitmain's equipment can fail unexpectedly and without clear cause in a dangerous way, and they will not take responsibility for it.  My failure rate was 1 in 9 S7's, or 11.11%.  I would not trust them with your investment, as it only takes 1 failed miner to lose all chance of ROI.  The S9 is built almost identically to the S7, and could be subject to the same risks that caused this miner to fail.  I hope others come forward with their failures as well to bring the issue to light.

More pictures of the boards after disassembly:

http://i64.tinypic.com/2ihwb3a.jpg
http://i66.tinypic.com/2h6yt89.jpg
http://i64.tinypic.com/2crauc9.jpg
http://i64.tinypic.com/2crauc9.jpg

http://i65.tinypic.com/2la955z.jpg



There have been some concerned tossed around about the potential quality of the boards used in the IBM 2880W and DPS-4k PSU's.  This was on a DPS-4K PSU along with another S7 and an S5, and drew enough power to eventually trip the breaker.  If this isn't a testament to how much thermal load the circuit boards can tolerate then I don't know what is, who knows how much power those boards were drawing when they shorted out, but it was certainly a hell of a lot more than they were rated for as shown by their self-destruction.

to go along with my studies of gear.  under clock does help

my evidence of the s-9

my batch 1 was rated at freq 650 runs pretty well at freq 600 fans set to 90%

my batch 2 was rated at freq 600 runs pretty well at freq 600 fans set to 90%

but monster external fans needed


my batch 4 was rated at freq 600  runs like silk quiet cool but setting is  freq 462 a severe undeclock  this allows for low speed quiet fan action I am set at 35%


I propose that all s-9s should be underclocked for safety if you have them as I think they are pretty hazardous at full speeds.

but of all the thread this one below is really frightening.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1522621.0  this looks like even an underclock would not have helped

WOW!!! This is really bad luck!!!

That should be up to Bitmain, not the end-user.  Otherwise they are just like Spondoolies with the SP20 and selling us over-inflated numbers, which is extremely unethical.  I for one refuse to under-clock brand new gear and diminish any chance I may have had to ROI due to the manufacturer's (lack of) warranty policy and principles.  That is why I will not buy any more Bitmain gear.  You can barely ROI with it while using their published information, how the fuck do you have a chance if you have to under-clock it before even spinning it up?  Phil I know you have seen the light before and have said it yourself, but you were tempted by their new gear.  They are shady as fuck and don't deserve our business, by buying their gear we are enabling them to keep these shady practices up and artificially drive up the price of hardware, which is also harming new players in the game.

I understand you.  they are pretty hot boxes with lots of power.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1512186.0

4 s-9's and 1 s-7

the s-9's are all clocked to  freq 600 fans set to 90%

technically the batch ones are downclocked as they are rated to freq 650.  which is not happening until  the cooler fall weather.


the fans needed to keep gear close to cool not cool close to cool.

https://i.imgur.com/JEaCvrq.jpg

Man that was an EPIC failure!!! I have not seen electronics burned like that in a LONG LONG time,very sorry for your loss  :'(

But...you guys are the last "at home" bitcoin miners,unless the diff drops or the btc prices goes up ALOT (like to $900-1200).

The halving is in 3 days & btc has not risen dramatically for a few days now,it could change but I doubt it.

Best of luck Finsky  8)

No offense, but I sincerely hope that's not the case. Or at least not for much longer.

So what happened exactly? One of the heatsinks fell off and one of the ASIC chips started burning ?

Maybe that's why they started showing the ASIC temps in the S9, so if it goes over a certain value, the miner shuts off.

This is the same trick KNC Miner pulls. They do this in order to maximise THEIR ROI while once released to the public, they leave the crumbs for you guys to compete. This is the reason why i do not like to mine anymore unless you are located in a country with good facilities and cheap electricity.

I really don't know  ??? ??? ???

I always did the shake test before hooking miners up, I had one that had loose heatsinks that needed to be re-applied with thermal adhesive (It was a B6 S7)

If one of the fans failed, one would think the controller would have shut the miner down once chips hit >80*C.  I'm not sure how many temperature sensors there are, but I would have thought the same would happen if one heatsink came loose in the middle and overheated, though I could be wrong.  As I mentioned in the S9 thread, I sent the controller and 3 hashblades out for warranty in February, and the only explanation I received (yesterday) was "Sorry ,burnt board are not cover in warranty ."

It is a bit disturbing how it failed in a "burn down the house" sort of way, but hardware is going to fail.  All of it.  No matter how well made too, it will eventually fail.  The real warning here I think is the inability to provide the warranty and the cavalier manner in which they treated the whole warranty claim.  That's my 2 bits anyway.

EDIT: I understand also the idea that they don't want to warranty burnt boards because they can't be sure just what people are doing in terms of what PSU's they use, how many connectors, and so on.  But in this case I think there is a strong enough case for the failure being the miner and not the PSU or the end user.

None taken,just being kinda sarcastic.

But home mining is just about done,unless like phil you have free electric(or almost free)  ;)

I went back to GPU mining,ATM it is more profitable,soon not soo much.But no ASIC war crap to worry about & GPU's resale value hold pretty well  ;D

Interested on your thoughts on why it appears that three boards burnt simultaneously and separately? Didn't stop mining during overheat, controller issue, OC'ing or your PSU giving a funky '12V'?

Honestly I have no idea.  The only thing that occurs to me is that it would have to be controller related somehow, otherwise the overheat protection should have kicked it off.  Same goes for a fan failure, loose heatsink, etc. If it was a power regulator or something board-level, it should have been isolated to one board.  But all 3 boards burned from the inside out, due to what appeared to be shorting. Something happened in which the over-heat protection did not do its job. If it was interruption in internet, I would have seen it with the other miners (or at the very least seen a disruption in hashrate at the pool).

As for 12VDC input voltage, I was using 2x DPS-2000BB (DPS4K setup) together that was powering the failed miner, another B1 S7 as well as an S5 at the time.  None of the others suffered from any kind of failure, and are still hashing to this day.

I understand hardware failures happen, it's life.  I'm just frustrated about their poor communication, late shipping of the miner, trying to claim it was outside of warranty because they falsely marked the order as shipped ~10 days before a label was even created (and in this case it would have made the difference), that they mishandled and lost my package for a month or more (and I had to continuously email them to look for it, that they are denying warranty on a machine that clearly suffered catastrophic failure not related to normal usage and that they feel that offering a $20 (or 1%) discount somehow rectifies the fact that I lost over $1500 on a machine that failed inside the warranty period (in no specific order).


That's what I would like to know as well.


Agreed.  I mean, even if they would have shipped me an S7 7 months after mine failed, and I still had not a snowball's chance in hell of a ROI, at least it would have been an act of good faith.  In this case they are completely copping out and it's infuriating, especially after wasting so much of my time.  This clearly shows VERY poor ethics on their part.

Realistically, IMO they should send me out an S9, I would even pay a difference of ~$500 or slightly more to offset the fact that I did earn some mining revenue from the S7, but I still wouldn't be as far ahead as if that S7 would have been hashing the entire time.  To make matters worse, I was solo-mining at the time and didn't want to give up, so it could have made the difference between solving another block between then and the halving, although that's getting pretty far into suppositions.

This angers me so much, why cant Bitmain just admit they cocked up

seriously bad luck dude

I am so sorry for what happened to your miner.

Way back in the day, when I bought my first product from Bitmain, I remember being well aware from others here on this forum, that if I by chance received a faulty product, I'd be on my own.

I've seen elsewhere on the forum, where people were bragging about their warranty coverage -- and was hoping that things had changed.

Personally, I am shocked  that they are not standing behind their warranty -- especially with such a knowledgable miner as yourself.

Hopefully, someone at Bitmain stumbles across this thread -- and "fixes" things for you.

Thanks for posting about such an unfortunate turn of events -- I'm glad that the fire was contained and didn't cause greater damage.

I am really impressed that neither miner next to the burned up one were affected. In fact, I am impressed the whole house did not burn down.

Generally the materials used won't support combustion so unless something really catastrophic happens, the worst case should be as pictured. I don't remember what the certification series is called but I think boards are meant to self extinguish within 10 seconds or so.

True, I am aware of those facts and I agree with you. I think you are referring to the FR-4 materials grade designation for PCB construction. However, that does not preclude surrounding items, i.e. shelving or other objects depending on material composition, from catching fire.

The self extinguishing ratings only apply  after the ignition source/condition is removed. In this case after the mains breaker feeding the PSU tripped shutting off power to the (massive) short. Odds are the PCIe power leads were the only thing setting a limit to the power being fed into the short circuit. This miner was tied to a 4kw psu no? If safety is a concern, um, putting a couple 1200-1300w loads on a single high energy source demands fusing EACH of loads to just over whatever current they take, for an s7 that equates to 110-115A to prevent exactly this sort of thing from happening.

Yes because of how they work fuses introduce a voltage drop, if that is too high then using DC circuit breakers is the only option.

Now as what started the meltdown by apparently shorting out the incoming 12V power planes...  Would certainly be nice to know. This also points to one of the few advantages to feeding each miner from a PSU more closely matched to its power needs. Certainly could still have a catastrophic failure similar to this but at least the maximum power that can feed the failure point is far less and more in line with reasonable worst case design considerations.

I have used finksy gear.
And I have used optimizer gear
And I have used sidehack gear
And I have used Pete m gear.

Along with evga 1600 t2 1600 p2 1600 g2 1300 g2

Seasonic 1200 plat

And more.

To me. The s-9 needs to be run under clocked with the 2k watt boards. Using the IBM dps-1600
The IBM dps-2000 or the IBM-2500 psus. At freq 500 to 600 depending on the batch number.

Bitmaintech has dropped from freq 650 to freq 550 batch 1 to batch 5.

My guess is they are having issues ruining the gear in summer heat.

Right now I am running two batch 1 s-9 at freq 600 in the array with finksy 4k board and two dps -2000
So far okay.
1 s9 batch two at freq 600 with evga 1600 p2
1 s9 batch two at freq 600 with dps-1600 optimizer 2k board
1 s7 batch one at freq 600 with evga 1600 t2

And
1 s-9 batch 4 at home freq 462 with optimizer 2 k board and a dps- 2500

Hmm, a thought...
Problem: If using a (really) big psu or a bank of 1+n load share ones there is a need to limit power feeding each load.
Fuses not good choice due to the voltage drop they introduce.
DC breakers in the >100A range give very low vdrop but are very expensive.

So... how about incorporating electronic fusing into these high current breakout boards like the ones for 4kw IBM supplies. Say 2-3 banks of mosfets driven by adjustable current monitors (1 bank per-miner attached)? Just dial in the desired current trip point and problem solved. Near zero vdrop and response times from almost instantaneous to whatever is desired.

Oh Sidehack and friends, up for a new project? ;)

Sure, if there's dev money and a guaranteed market. I don't want to say it's not a good idea, but you're also doubling the cost of something that's already a race to the bottom.

No doubt about higher price vs an unprotected breakout board but -- when dealing with any supply capable of putting out 3-4kw or more I'd definitely pay the additional cost for peace of mind. To me it would be a nice selling point and considering there are pics a bit back in the thread to show the consequences of not having current limits methinks it should be an easy sell.

Don't suppose there's a way to monitor a few loads and externally trip a PSU's internal current limiter is there? IF there is a limit sense input that could shut down the PSU's internal DC on/off FET's that would certainly help with cost but then also becomes an all or none on situation.

S9 consumes approx. 1472W or let's say 1500W running at 650 mhz.

dps 2000bb output is more than sufficient to power it.

yes you mentioned to you only but i do not see any issues at all & there is no need to down clock them in fact those passed warranty, i oc them by a tad.

even with summer heat. over here OAT is around 37C indoor after some diy evap cooling it's around mid to high 20's C hot noon.

been running all sorts of miners since then for about 3 years.

so far so good, fingers crossed though.

i run them around 70 deg C board temp with dps 2000bb + jabber's board overvolt to 12.5V - 12.8v on load.

they run fine even on the s7's.

Having PDUs with individual breakers gives me some of my peace of mind on the AC side.
I purchased the pdus I am running from Finksy and they are 12 AMP for each power supply.
12 AMPS is more than what is needed for each line going to the doublestack 4k b/o boards with 2000BB power supplies, but the 50 AMP breakers feeding each PDU are coming off their own subpanel which has another breaker in the main panel. Everything needed to be is at 80% or less. I run a mix of 2880 power supplies with the 4k doublestacks and "knock on wood" perform a good deal of preventative maintenance.

I will be the first to say there are many people on this forum who know a great deal more about electronics than I do, but I have also done a great deal of forensic "after the incident" troubleshooting of fires with electronics and air / water cooled components.

Finksy what were your temps averaging at the time it happened?
What firmware version was it running?
I believe you stated it was a batch 1, correct?
What was your fan setting set at? Was it checked with a value or unchecked with an empty field?
How long do you think it started before it was noticed?
Does it appear it started with one board and then moved to the others?

From what I see in the pictures it looks like the same or very similar to the issues we saw with S5s running away and burning up.
I hear you that the internet didn't drop, but I do not see a single 12 volt line causing this. In my opinion the guy saying one connection loose causing this is obviously not familiar with the scenario and is trolling you.

I have an S5+ running right now off a 4k doublestack which has been recently moved back to my main mining room. It was running in a room with very little ventilation. The temperatures in that room were easily 110 F ambient and I had it overclocked to 368 freq. Even right now it is at 362 freq, and I could go higher. I don't know how much higher but the temps have and are not limiting me. It had .0016 hardware errors at 368 over a week or so. I am confident using this power supply setup due to the variable input voltage has a great deal to do with being able to get another 1.2 - 1.4 TH out of that unit, and like I said, I am confident I could go higher. I'm sure the efficiency was probably closer to an S4 heh. When I run it at stock in my main mining room it never has a hardware error. After a month it has shown negative hardware errors and I usually give it a reboot when I see something odd on any miner.
I believe the S5+ miners were cherry picked hash boards. notlist3d had extreme success with his. Although I think Tupsu had problems with hashboards. I remember seeing very positive comments on the S5+ miners. There were not many sold, and it was a few days before the S7s went on sale and then we waited, for what? 6 weeks for batch 1 after the S5+?

I stripped my S5+ and most S7 miners. Yes I broke the warranty seal but the S5+ instructions clearly stated to confirm the heatsinks were not loose. I was unable to do so without removing each hash board. So I did.
I have not done this with my S9s, I have done the shake test but I do not feel near as confident as I did when I removed each board and inspected it.

I am considering placing my worst performing S7 boards in this S5+ chassis just to see how they perform. I don't know they will fit, but I think it would be good to see how they perform.
I have a couple of later batch S7s which run hotter than anything else, even the S9s.

Which my first S9 has / had one hash board which produces 95% of the hardware errors. That was temperature related. Once I cooled that hashboard down the errors dropped. It is back on the same power supply, same cables, running at stock 650 freq. It is strictly temperature related. I even spoke with Phil in the main BM S9 thread and I downclocked it with very little change. IT was my temps which looked fine. If they go over the 90ish range that board starts climbing much faster with errors.

My Batch 1 and Batch 7 S7s run perfect, but my batch 14, 15 units run hot as hell. I have swapped the physical locations, power supplies, cables, etc and nothing changes unless the temperature is lowered.

I pushed the S5+ so hard because I really didn't care anymore. I should have taken it offline by now anyway and I have fire protection where miners are. When I pushed the S5+ so hard it was in a room by itself on a metal rack sitting on concrete with a metal roof. If it went, it went.
(You might remember me doing something similar with 13 S3s on one 2880 power supply. Just to see kind of thing. No fire, but all of the S3s would not maintain their speeds.)

I keep the miners spaced out, but obviously the S5+ chassis are all connected. It is the coolest running setup I have. It always shows the lowest temperatures relative to other S5s, 7s, and now the 9s. Obviously there is more heat to dissipate with the 7s and 9s and the standard s5 "case" was a POS.
I think keeping the miners separated on metal racks allows for better heat dissipation. 
My main mining room has more CFM available than what is required. I keep one fan off most of the time and only use a single exhaust. There is another exhaust available at the top of the room.

Enough about my pressing of temperatures, but I do think your issue was temperature related in some way. Be it a runaway control board, etc., but I think you probably had one hash board which failed, pulled down the temperature limiting if it worked at all anyway, which I know mine has worked on a couple of S7s (I am using the latest firmware.) I know I said the S5+ handled the heat well at nice overclocks, but my S7s do not. They do not even run stock well at high temperatures. Ambients of 110 F require underclocks of my later batches. If I am unable to constantly monitor temperatures I downclock all S7s and S9s. 

Bitmain should be willing and able to give you a proper diagnosis. I have no doubt they could, but I also have no doubt they will not. The only real help I have ever received from Bitmain came via Yoshi and his connections which obviously carries some additional price. Not that he always charged me for assistance either, but I have always offered, and I have paid extra for miners. I plan to do so again with Yoshi and I will pay more than the BM website price I'm sure. It is a peace of mind not having to deal with inadequate support and even then there can be some issues I would never put my customer's through, or expect to deal with myself. Unfortunately I believe Colorado and California have their hands tied in many different ways, but Yoshi does what he can and has the ability to do more. I have previously said the support issues with Bitmain start at the top in China. It is a shame home miners are limited in our offerings. I firmly believe there would be a vast difference if there was a company in the West offering products. The competition would force it to be handled better.

I have heat issues with my Avalons as well. They actually did some good work with their last firmware release. I can put in the latest Pi image on a different SD card and the unit stays running, but using the one which came with the unit once the temps hit 93 it no longer mines or connects to the unit until it has been rebooted. This is also using the latest MM update.

I would be shocked at some of the trolling responses you received except I received many of the same type when dealing with Bitmain over an S4 purchase. I was not only screwed over by Bitmain, but many of the forum members who I thought would see and understand a situation where Bitmain had responsibility to do something but those forum members do not allow negative attention to be cast on Bitmain. It is only the few here who have always been honest and consistently present solid facts that provide a realistic opinions. Normally, it is the same people who are actually familiar with electronics / electricity, or at a minimum have years of experience running miners themselves and understand the behaviour through repetition. You do not have to understand how something works if you have seen the same behaviour hundreds of times. An open flame igniting an oxygen leak burning rubber lines will cause a fire every single time. If you see it enough you know what caused it and do not try to explain it away as being caused by a lack of coolant flow. That scenario looks completely different and burns in a completely different manner, but usually people need to see all of the parts to make a proper diagnosis. 

It sucks to realize you simply have to deal with being treated the way you have, pay more than others for your gear, or, not mine.
All I can say now is as a businessman, I know how many people have simply unplugged their miners and walked away from bitcoin mining or maybe bitcoin all-together. Most people will not go to the lengths some of us have to try and get assistance and many less will come to the forum and share the full details of their experience. This is especially true with some of your potentially best customers. If they cannot find a path of least resistance they give up and move on. Kind of like their fuse blew, or breaker tripped... there is no resetting it... they are done.

Sheer luck.

http://i64.tinypic.com/2crauc9.jpg

Gotta love that Ching-Chong Chinese quality.  At what point does their cheapness and unwillingness to manufacture safe devices equate to highway robbery and criminal neglect?

i suppose at the point where their gov's will allow other countries to persecute Chinese criminals ;\

i am loving the cheaper hardware on the market right now with the 1/2, but threads like this stop me from building a farm
they make just what u guys show and say, cheap Chinese crap, but sadly it's easy to see why, noone especially the ones who make the hardware have an interest in it lasting.. ;(

We've had burnt units from loads of manufacturers, and given that Bitmain sells miners in the 10,000 - 100,000, its surprising you don't see more issues appear.

It was on a metal frame rack above concrete flooring, nothing combustible within ~2-3 feet.  The pictures in OP is misleading, as there is a metal fence and a wooden rack on the opposite side about 2.5 feet away.




While I agree that they are guilty of highway robbery in terms of price gouging due to lack of competition, I don't think they build miners of poor quality.  KNC Jupiters were infinitely more dangerous from the factory than any Bitmain product.

Responses in bold


NotFuzzyWarm, you certainly make a good point about incorporating circuit interruption for the 12V load side of PSU. I just don't know if it would be economically feasible though.  Interesting how we don't see much of that even in standard ATX applications with dual-GPU's, even though it is possible for a similar failure in a high-end gaming build for example. 

Just want to bump this thread for another user who's experiencing the same bullshit as I did:

No disrespect or dismissal to anyone's situation here but here goes:

My .02:

I believe Bitmain should honor their warranty, especially if they expect customers to remove hash boards -- effective disassembly of a miner, to send back to China for repairs. Bitmain should just honor the warranty unless they can prove without a doubt the customer abused the product or clearly violated some terms of their warranty agreement.

If Bitmain has no proof or cannot provide proof of this violation, Bitmain should by default replace it at their cost for the sake of simple customer service.

My .03:

I would be just as upset as everyone here if I experienced the same thing with my miners and I AM upset to hear about these events happening. This type of business practice wouldn't be acceptable in the United States. However since Bitmain is in China AND pretty much has a monopoly on mining Bitcoin and anything else SHA-256, we as "small-scale" miners pretty much have to roll with their punches if we want to play in their pool.

I've been fortunate thus far to have no issues with my miners but I tell myself each time I purchase one "there is no warranty when I buy this thing" because every piece of evidence I've seen from Bitmain regarding their warranty says that I would be better off using the paper for bird droppings.

My Conspiracy Theory:

I think since the S9 is such a new and "limited production" item that Bitmain doesn't actually keep a reserve of parts in stock for your every day customers, they reserve the parts for the large scale customers and when they are out of stock, they simply "void" the warranty for the little guys knowing that all they will do is come to a place like this and complain about it when that complaint will really have no effect on their business, their profits, or their day to day operations because they are in China and they could care less what the rest of the world thinks of them.... they got their money $$$$ and who out their is going to regulate or question their business practices? The Chinese Government?! ... I will stop right there with that punch line, LOL.

Evidence of this conspiracy theory can be observed by the fact you never see Bitmain doing jack shit about threads or posts like this anywhere, even inside of threads they started themselves.

In order to change the view of Bitmain its going to take a majority of people to exercise the power to NOT make a purchase until something changes.... or its going to take some serious competition from another company to force Bitmain to go out of its way to win our money over someone else. Until then, they could care less about the "small-scale" miners of the world.

What I'm doing in my "Small-Scale" Mine:

At this time, I have no plans to purchase anything more from Bitmain. The only way I will buy anything with a Bitmain brand is if I find a "can't pass this up" deal on something that is used or 2nd hand.

What I am doing right now is focusing on alt coins and then converting those profits back into BTC. Sure it's more work but the power vs profit is better so far for me, long term I'll be shutting down my remaining S7's entirely in favor of altcoin miners that I built with GPU's.

Why I'm sharing this opinion and perspective:

• I share this because I hope someone that is new out there to the world of mining reads this and makes some decisions a little better than I did when it comes to first time investments in mining equipment
• I hope that maybe someone at Bitmain reads this and realizes that the future for miners isn't with Bitcoin and the Tide is changing.
  

I know what happened.

PSU Failure, the other units didn't die because \#physics

Okay, so according to OP, he was running it all off of a DPS 4kw unit.

Red flag-ish here (you shouldn't run a singular rail across multiple systems), but let's keep looking.

"3 S9's"

Um....red flag, that takes up over 3800 Watts by Bitmain's numbers....so you're running the PSU at 95.6% and some change. HUGE RED FLAG

You should never run over 80% full load capacity on any power supply for Bitcoin mining (Constant load), power supplies aren't meant to run at >90% continuously.

So that sucker was going to fail....you know how these guys fail? Voltage goes crazy, either way up, or way down. Now typically the voltage drops and most times, this can be caught by a computer, which will shut down, but not a Bitcoin Miner, no sir....you know why?

Because #efficiency, that's what. People wanted more and more on smaller boards running at lower voltages at smaller manufacturing sizes.....so, we have buck converters.


You know what they do? They jump up the voltage. Up up up!

So your power supply begins to fail, the voltage starts to drop and the power doesn't change, remember, those thirsty boys need 3825 Watts!

But wait! The lower voltage means something has to increase, and that's the amperage.

Here it comes.......12V @ 1275 = 106.25 Amps (35.41 per buck converter).....now 11V @ 1275 = 115.9 Amps (38.63 per buck converter)

Poor mr buck converter's startin' to heat up, his coils are getting toasty, singing the enamel, but it's holding.

10 volts

Crap, Mr. Buck Converter's coils are getting red hot, the enamel is burning off....HOLY...............

Poor Mr Buck converter.

The wires all short, now that 4000 W power supply just became an ARC welder, He's blowing through the amperage required to weld 1/4 inch stainless steel!!!!!

KABLOOM! (ARC Flash) consumes everything in it's path.

But what about your other miners?

Why didn't they die?

The answer is they likely experienced some damage to their coils, but the miner that died saved them, electricity follows the path of least resistance, once that one circuit board started dying, it took it all.  (Replace "Missile" with "Voltage" and "Giant" with "S9"....tears man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXy3f6f9DxI)

Sucks bro, but it happens when playing with fire. I used to run stuff near 100% until I learned about the 80% rule, burned up a PSU and nearly lost my motherboard. Sucks you have to learn this way though.

Not sure what all those "#" are for, but it makes me read your reply in the voice of a teenager.

Buck converters do not jump up the voltage.

When you talk about the bucks frying, do you mean the bucks in the DPS2K or in the miner? Because I've load-tested a DPS2K at 196A total output for seven days in July heat with zero problems - not bad for a PSU rated at 165A. I've had them running 110% rated output for six months straight with no failures. They're friggin' tanks. If you mean the bucks in the miners, well, the output current is completely independent of the input voltage; the RMS inductor current can change a bit as you shift the input voltage closer to the output voltage but I think it actually decreases the peak inductor currents so the RMS actually gets more favorable and less heat is generated.

ˇHi,TupsuThe following is your order of scrap equipment:03320160813070114259mCdrl8rX06EC

RepairDetail ID 03520160813070114279oxTnD8GD06AC
    Name Hashboard S9(14T 650M)
Damage Causes    PIN is lost in circuits board

What the hell does it mean ?
Damage Causes    PIN is lost in circuits board

I have pictures taken before shipment.
Do not see anything that would be missing.

http://static1.nagi.ee/i/p/989/89/24747331003902_s.jpg (http://nagi.ee/photos/photo_sizes.php?id=24747331&size=o)
View original size - Click on the picture
http://static1.nagi.ee/i/p/989/89/247473333d1c0d_m.jpg (http://nagi.ee/photos/photo_sizes.php?id=24747333&size=o)
View original size - Click on the picture

Link
http://nagi.ee/photos/photo_sizes.php?id=24747333&size=o
http://nagi.ee/photos/photo_sizes.php?id=24747331&size=o

Your board looks clean as a whistle. Same as mine.
Mine has writing on one label as if the factory rejected the board.
Your label was not written on but your item truly looks good.
https://i.imgur.com/NcWerU1.jpg

Have they ever explained anywhere what that PIN is? I would guess it's a MacGuffin they made up to have a universal justification for denying warranties in otherwise passable cases.

Customer Service-Overseas Today at 14:30

Dear customer,

Your hash board was damaged physically before we received it. It may happened in transit.
If you need the picture of the hash board, I can send it to you.

Yours respectfully,
Quentin

 Well I am not so sure  they now offer paypal which seems like they want to do something good about warranty.
I just don't want to think the warranty issue is as terrible as it appears to be.
All that happens is more people shift to Eth coin mining since  pc gear has real warranty. Any good businessman like bitmaintech has to see that they are Helping GPU mining with the current warranty issues they have.

https://i.imgur.com/ogAyWQe.png

Bitmain is currently testing payments with Paypal. If you are using PayPal to pay for your order, please note the following before proceeding:
1.We only support Paypal to Paypal payments. You have to register with Paypal to be able to use this feature.
2.You can pay for only one order using PayPal. You can NOT pay for a second order using PayPal until Bitmain decides to expand the use of Paypal
3.The order can only contain 1 unit of the each product type. For example:
The order CAN have 3 items in total: 1 AntRouter R1, 1 Antminer S7 and 1 PSU.
The order can NOT have more than 1 AntRouter R1 or Antminer S7 or 1 PSU.

I *think* PIN is the barcode sticker. As in Part Identification Number. I don't see one in the pics of Tupsu's boards.

I feel like it's a mis-translation and actually having to do with communication at board-level, kind of like a mis-described PIN diode or something similar. Either way it's utter bullshit in terms of invalidating warranties.

I don't see how accepting PayPal has anything to do with warranty, and it's clear that they're concerned about people taking positive (and warranted)  action against their bullshit warranty policy which is why they won't allow S9 sales, or even multi-unit sales through PayPal.  They fear accountability. Phil you can refuse to think whatever you want, but the fact of the matter is they treat you differently due to your presence on the forums, which was clear from you getting some compensation for one of your units after kicking up a stink about it. Bitmain is clearly short-sighted or arrogant to believe that they will never have enough competition to justify accountability to their customers right now.  But people do not forget, and when someone else comes along they will choose them over Bitmain if they had a negative dealing as well.

I have serial number on the board

http://static1.nagi.ee/i/p/989/92/24748127953520_l.jpg (http://nagi.ee/photos/photo_sizes.php?id=24748127&size=o)
View original size - Click on the picture

Well I do the give away on the diff spec thread  I promote BTC that way.  Been a few thousand dollars given away.
It does get me some benefits.

But I don't see them to be this short-sighted.  They have been pretty brilliant with gear  other then the warranty issues. I talked about the compensation on the s-7 from OCT until May  and kept buying s-7's for clients. All I wanted was a discount on the s-7's I kept buying they ignored me for months.

I still like the gear but the warranty issues have created a demand for Gpu mining Right now  at this moment the best way to mine a BTC is build a gpu rig and mine Eth coin then dump it to a speculator for BTC.

Bitmaintech has been a big factor in this happening.  I do not understand their reasoning for the anti warranty behauvior.

HeY I saw your gear burn.  This is my third bad piece of bitmaintech gear. A lot of others are freaking out with bad warranty service.

I have 2500 watts left in the solar array.

 I can go s9 , avalon7 or eth coin mine >  if I lived on the solar array site I would be more eth coin then any other mining.  Mostly due to the warranty  2 years for all the pc gear  vs 90 days for bitmaintech gear.

This is a huge plus for mining gpu coin. = FACT!


I just do not understand why bitmaintech feeds into it with poor warranty service.

BTC is not 50x ETH in market cap  more like 9.7x  so it is not impossible for a bigger shift to ETH over the next months.

http://coinmarketcap.com/

and eth hash rate is at 4.8 th  which is a lot of cpu's  40   rx 480's =  1gh  x 1000 = 1 th  so  40,000 rx 480s are 1 th about 200,000  rx 480s   that is 50,000,000 usd worth of gpus  actually more since a lot of miners other then rx 480's are in play

https://etherscan.io/charts/hashrate

and there is 683 gh in ETC hash rate https://ethc.coin-miners.info/#/ about 28000 rx 480's or 7,000,000 in mining gpus

so 58,000,000 in gear as of today.  that would be 40,000 s9's which may been sold since 40,000 s9's = 520ph.

So the gear value of btc mining gear is ahead of ETH+ETC but not by much.

Maybe btc gear world wide is 4 x the price of ETC gear
 

Where is the picture with high resolution and with a serial number and damage ?

 Customer Service-Overseas Today at 11:11

Dear customer,

Sorry to keep you wait.
As you can see in the attachment, two heat sinks of the hash board dropped off, which lead to the PIN lost in circuits board. The hash board is likely to be hit in transit.
Our engineer have tried their best, but it is no use. It can not be repaired anymore.
We suggest you to make a claim to your logistics agent.

Please find our returning policy in the attachment.

Yours respectfully,
Quentin

_________________________________________________________________________
http://static1.nagi.ee/i/p/989/99/2474990511024e_m.jpg (http://nagi.ee/photos/photo_sizes.php?id=24749905&size=o)
View original size - Click on the picture

You got no luck at all Tupsu  :(

Hope you get it worked out with them  ;)

So a PIN does NOT mean the barcode sticker I'm guessing  ::)

They sent me the instructions. But I still do not know what
exactly  is PIN.

http://static1.nagi.ee/i/p/989/99/2474992109a6ed_l.jpg (http://nagi.ee/photos/photo_sizes.php?id=24749921&size=o)
View original size - Click on the picture

 Customer Service-Overseas Today at 13:32

Dear customer,

Sorry to keep you wait.
I have asked out maintenance team to provide the resolution image.
Once update, I will let you know.

Yours respectfully,
Quentin

....................................................................

Tupsu Today at 14:07

Even if it is my haschboard, Why do not the pictures taken when a loses radiators was detected?

See Request #12212 what I opened, when you got the package.
You got the package 2016-08-07.
To get these injuries , Box had to be physically damaged, bruised or open.
Why then did you not informed of the injury courier companie?

If there was no external injuries on the box, it could not have happened during transport. The same could be happen during the repair process.

How can you be sure that it happened during shipping not during repair ?

I'm not saying it's not well deserved with everything you contribute to the community, I'm just saying it would be difficult for you to give an accurate account of Bitmain's warranty situation when you aren't necessarily the norm. They clearly respect your presence on the forum.  But this:
Is just not representative of my -and by the sounds of it many other customers'- encounters with Bitmain's warranty department.

Tupsu, I'm sorry man.  That is really shitty, and I feel for you.  I'm to the point where if I can't justify a purchase of 100+ units, it's just too risky for me. And they don't deserve that kind of business. We should've got into GPU mining months ago.  :-\

If you are reading Problem Type, then  one of the problems in the list , which must be filled before sending,  is:
heat sinks dropped (marked blue from me)


.... 
Read more here
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=914354.msg16032214#msg16032214

They never should of left the S1/S3 design.. blah.  I like the S1 the best because you can see the blades it is neato.  The best part is those two designs are very robust.

The Antminer S7 is a piece of shit. I have purchase 6 total and had nothing but problems. Hash boards stop working, powering them up and ASICs are shooting flames out the fan, etc., etc. I will never purchase an Antminer again until they get their shit straighten out. All they do is blame everything else (P/S, Internet connection, etc.) Yeah Bitmain, my Antminer went on fire because I lost Internet ! You are absolutely correct !! Jerkoffs. I will do my research on the S9 but I assume they are just as shitty, if not shitter because instead of being out $300 - $400, you will be out $1500 ++

I stayed away from the S9, and it sounds like I may have been wise to do so.  The performance on them is good (w/TH) but from everything I've heard, they have been more unreliable than the S7's were.  I just can't justify the kind of risk from unreliable machines like that, if you don't have 100x units then the risk of having 1 fail will eliminate any chance you have of ROI, I know it did with me for the S7's I bought.

Actually this is a known issue with the S7s and firmware on or before Nov 2015. I lost 40 units to a failed switch once. All you have to do is upgrade the firmware to the May 11th/23rd 2016 firmware and that will not be an issue.

The unit in question of mine that erupted into flames had updated firmware, and AFAIK no loss of internet connection.  The point is more-so that Bitmain will use anything to try denying warranty even within their short warranty period.  They tried denying me on time period (even though I had started the RMA process prior to warranty ending), on internet (dozens of miners on same switch), PSU (even though 3 units were connected to the same PSU...) and finally because burnt boards are not covered under warranty, even if they fail due to problems with the hardware (I don't even know where to start on that one  ??? ??? ???).

I have seen a few odd machines here and there catch on fire for no apparent reason. I know they did not coat the s7 boards with nay protective material and you can actually build up enough dust to short out the boards. Corrosion is also a well known killer of s7 boards. If you have high humidity that could be a cause for concern as well.

Haven't had a single issue with my 5 AMD GPUs................. :D

Good Luck all!!!  ;)

Yeah it's a real shame when they don't lose 80% of their value in a year too!   The more GPU rigs I build, the more I wonder why I didn't start doing this sooner  ??? ??? ???

And if there was a LocalEthreum.com I wouldn't need Bitcoin at all!!! But LocalBitcoin.com is the only way get to my earnings on my paypal  :(