Bitcoin Forum

Hi All,

I have plenty of dead S9 550 MHz hash boards and I'm looking to have them fixed.
I tried contacting bitmain warranty but they are not responding for last 15 days. The boards are located in EU.
Or maybe I can find some reliable tutorial how to diagnose and repair dead hash boards.

Michal

Hi,

I have a dead s9 board too. Tried to contact bitmain warranty too (automated reply then nothing else).

I am in the EU too.

What I would like is to be able to send the board to someone to get it repaired then get it back. Bitmain China want the whole miner sending back! It's still functioning on 2 boards and doing 9Mh/S. Why send it back? It will cost a fortune and mean the miner will be off line for 2 months.


Anyhow, just sharing your pain.

G.

I'm in UK and have two dead boards in my Antminer S9, I'm thinking about buying a hot-air surface-mount rework station at about £1,000 just to change the easily obtainable power components in the hope that it's not the circuitry under the security glue that's faulty. If you have several more bad S9 boards and I can break a couple of them perfecting the fix process then PM me.

Not quite sure we're talking about the same kit though as you say 550 MHz and mine are about 4 THash per board.

If you go down this route please let me know if you're going to offer repair service to others, I've got a dead s9 hash board....

Remember that the s9 board is a string design board. Any single failure point will cause it to stop working, most often this presents itself as a single bad chip. The problem with this is you cannot source brand new s9 chips to do the repairs properly.

... And you can't just "shorten the string" due to how the IO voltages are generated and split between the chips. Well, you can, but not without major surgery.

Easiest repair is Bitmain, unfortunately. Or sell them to someone willing to fiddle. I wouldn't be willing to risk not being able to fix a board with no spares on-hand, otherwise I would offer to have a look. If anyone would like to donate some definitely dead boards, however... :)

Cheers,

Allan.

How much expensive repair 1 board ? and how many time need ? .

Sounds interesting. Just be aware that the chips are 0.4mm pitch MLFs with glued on heatsinks and no well done self-centering pads.

If the repairer only has experience in power devices hot air / IR reflow, I would suspect he is going to struggle to get the accuracy and paste requirements down for these chips.

Good luck though!

Hi Guys,

if anyone has a broken S9 or T9 hash board with BM1387 chip which doesn't work, I'm happy to buy.

cheers

I am interesting to know since when do you use it ? It is not supposed to dead so quick...

I too am interested and based in the UK, why cant Bitmain just release Hashboards for sale so we can keep a spare lying around???

Well you could buy 3 spares, by getting a new miner :-)

As to fixing the boards, it's complicated. I've fixed S7's, Avalons, Titans, and a bunch of other technologies, the issues usually come down to either damaged support components or extrusions of solder under the hashing chips shorting the SCL lines. Both are usually fix-able, but require some serious expertise with rework stations, air tools, and pre-heaters. Which I kind of have.

If anyone would like to send me a few broken S9 boards I would be happy to look at them and see what's going on. I haven't done work on them in the past because Bitmain had a fairly good warranty process but if that's gone now.....

C

Most hashing MLF/QFN type chips have a pretty big center pad to wick heat and/or 2 pads in the center to provide +12 and ground. Soldering around the edges is difficult, but not too too bad. The key is a very good flux and proper board pre-heating.

I'll have to take a look at the S9's. The real nightmares are sub .4mm BGAs.....

Hello,

Did you manage to find anyone who can repair your boards?
Have they burned out with physical signs of burning on the boards or have they just stopped working ?

I was wondering where you are located.  Maybe I can drop by or at least have a friend come by to see the boards.

Thanks
AJ

I'd like to try my hand at fixing some dead hashboards.  I have a reflow station, hot air station, etc.  I've even reballed and replaced bga fpga devices so that part is not too bad for me.

Let me know what you guys have, and the symptom.  I can't make any promises but I can buy the board from you, and if I get it running, you could buy it back at a slightly higher price to pay me a fee.  That seems to protect everyone fairly.

How about $100 deposit per board?  I pay it, you send the board and I'll start working on it.  Send me a pm letting me know what you have and what it does.

Likewise I have been doing a fair bit of work with S7's and now have my rig set up for S9's. If you want to send a board in for review, either post here or pm me for details.

Quick thoughts:
1) If it shorts out/shuts down a power supply I can probably fix it.
2) Make sure the board is warm and not cold before trying to start
3) If the power plugs are burned I can fix that as well.

C

Where are  you located?

i have 550 mhz batch.  One by one hash boards went down.  First was middle then slowly the last two  I then purchased a new controller to find that wasnt the issue.  Seems the led never comes on the hash board.  I check log its trying to push the voltage but nothing happens..  I check with multimeter and it jumps from 9.5 volts to 0 several times then it will stop.  So it seems its trying to supply voltage to start up.  I have 0 knowledge in this area.  But im willing to take a risk and send it to you in the hopes you can do this repair for others aswell.  I will send whole s9 to you.  But in the event nothing can be done i will need this back.  AS you may not be aware they are selling next to a 1000$ usd on ebay for broken non hashing units.  Regardless i want it back one way or another.  If you cant do it maybe someone else will come along later. 

If you do think you can repair i would like to know upfront cost to do so before proceeding.

Thanks for considering.

BR
Doug

They're series.

You should research a bit more before attempting to repair these.

Can't you get a board repaired/replaced by bitmainwarranty for $250.  I think the eBay prices are a little inflated these days.

I suppose if they are series(as logic ICs should NEVER be) and they are shorting to ground you're going to get a lot of burnt connectors and I am seeing a lot of those here and on eBay. But slowly going out one by one that has to be completely unrelated to power delivery, unless it's the power supply is sending noisy power then there is no causal relationship between the first going out and any others, they are just all the symptom of the one continuous PWS malfunction. One other option , and that one is causal , when the first chip goes out it doesn't truly die it just goes insane, sending spurious signals throughout the whole power bus killing the others one by one (haha, I should call this the zombie theory ). Since you think I should do some more research maybe you could point me to the data sheets or maybe the schematics, lol thats funny.

I live in the United States, but I've been doing repairs all over the world. It's pretty easy to ship stuff over here, I recommend in-country Postal service or DHL as they usually do a good job. UPS is blah, bordering on dingbats. I always ship stuff Priority Mail myself.

If I can't fix it of course I return it; it's yours. I just request shipping charges back, and there's no charge if I can't fix something. Payment is due after I fix and test it, and if you're really not satisfied I'd do a refund.

I'll PM you shipping information and such. I really should build a website one of these days. Powered by Edlin....

C

Um.......

Think about it: The string of chips is powered by a buck/boost power supply on the board......

You can download the Datasheets for pretty much all the parts on the board other than the hashing engines, and due to a screaming lack of creativity newer chips are surprisingly similar to older ones which do have documentation online. As for schematics, there's really a limited number of ways these things can go together and you can go a long way by fuzzing the logic boards. Just takes time and patience.

C

thats great i look forward to working with you.  I also live in united states so shipping be decent.  I have no problems at all with your terms.  I really appreciate you trying to work your magic on this machine.  Also would rather see a member other than bitmain figure this out and make some $ in the meantime.

Thanks.,. Ill get with you via PM

BR
Doug

You watch ipadrehab and you want schematics. They are not public - not like Mac not public, like "don't exist outside of Bitmain for >S4" not public. The chain is very real and very much how it's implemented. I am unsure of how much University education is worth given the above statements. Research and learn first. Buy your own kit and repair it before offering a "no-win no fee" service which will end in tears.

I would seriously suggest not sending boards to people who don't have a proven track record with antminers or at the very least modern ASIC miners.

I'm buying back defective S9 board if you are interested

Interesting read for those actually doing repairs. Getting flux out is as important as getting it in - and it's quite badly constrained on this design if you don't get the board fully up to reflow through the entire via.

http://www.aat-corp.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/QFN-Design-Considerations-to-Improve-Cleaning-2013.docx (http://www.aat-corp.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/QFN-Design-Considerations-to-Improve-Cleaning-2013.docx)

Guys, changing ethernet cable from a right angled one to a normal one apparently brought my dead hashboard to life... Perhaps try that first?

This occurred on 2 of my miners lol, 2 hashboards total.

I have three dead boards. Looking for someone to repair them. I PMed lightfoot but haven't heard back yet. Anyone else having any luck getting a repair job done?

Depends what is wrong?

Million dollar question. If I only knew. lol.

Just been busy with Titan controllers (everyone's running Neptunes all of a sudden), Christmas, and Eggnog. Lots of eggnog....

Hello, I'm working with the computer and other electronics hardware for many years - have a lot of expensive soldering and testing equpment, I can repair this boards. I'm living in EU so you can easily send it to me. My email address: dan911@wp.pl

Ok, eggnog all drunk. I just also fixed a pair of S7's and a bunch of Neptune controller boards so once I get these titans completed I can take a look. In the meantime I have another thread about my findings on S7/S9 boards, some of them have real quality control problems (if the heat sinks are not all lined up you will have serious airflow issues for starter. Factory problem). The thread is at:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2650906

C

Hi guys. I work with some farms in Asia, and they have a lot of broken S9 cards. I was thinking about switching chips around to fix some boards. Have anybody donne this? Is possibility to buy a tool to identify a broken chip?
All ideas are welcome! Total, I am talking about 20-30 S9, so it’s parts available, and money to save.
Regards, Jan

Sure, you could take live chips from a donor device and use them to replace dead chips.  The rework is not trivial, though.. you must remove heatsink and epoxy before soldering the new devices.

Do you have experience in this kind of rework?  It's is more than just buying a hot air station, unfortunately.

Sort of. I regularly replace 324 pin BGA FPGA units, and can handle most types of QFN packaging. The trick is to use the right kind of flux and take one's time. That said, heat sink removal isn't difficult (the pre-heater can bring the board up to the point where the glue softens), new heat sink epoxy can be found, and although it's deep, pulling the chip is do-able.

However I don't have spare boards yet. So if you have a single unit that needs fixing, it might be better to contact the bitmainwarranty people and see what they charge until I get one.

Well, if you want to send some of the boards over I'd be happy to do triage and take a look at them. Sometimes it's not the chips, sometimes it is, and sometimes the board is wrecked from a chip fire (and thus a good source of parts).

Let me know via PM if you would like me to take a look, if there's that many boards to look at I can give it a go.

Anybody knows where can I get new hash boards for Antminer s9 14TH? And if it is possible how much does it cost? I live in Greece and one of my hash boards is off.

Ebay is usually the go-to place, but make sure you can return it if it doesn't work. So what's wrong with your board?

Emmm... Today I just get from statistic this:
http://image.prntscr.com/image/SgfI1yY7SVOBLfo9xWD7LQ.png
I tried to reboot, restart, default setting - no result.
In kernel logs I have:
So, I'm looking for replacements.
On Ebay I tried to find but no hash boards found for S9.
I wrote to BitMain but they have holidays until 25th January and no answer.
So maybe anybody knows or have got any hash board new ?

Hi,
I live in the UK.

One of the boards has stopped hashing on my 14Th s9. It's been running beautifully 24/7 for the last 8 months.

I wonder if anyone knows of a reliable, and reasonably quick, repairer in EU, (or anywhere else for that matter).

I did send a board to Bitmain Warranty last year and they did a good job repairing it, but it took 8 weeks  for the round trip to Colorado and back to the UK.

Please PM me if you have any information.

Did bitmain warranty explain the exact problem with the board before they fixed it? and how much did they charge?. I would also be interested in any information on repairers closer to the UK as I also have a dead board on my S9.

Bitmain Warranty did not say what the problem was. The board they repaired is still running fine 3 months on.

I was a bit surprised as I thought they may just return me any old repaired board but it was actually the same board I sent out there. I recorded the board serial number before it went and the same board came back Smiley I did have to mail them quite a few times for status updates and the were a bit slow replying to mails.

It cost me £18 to ship to the US $175 for the repair, $25 for the postage US to UK and then, the real stinger, £46 import duty.

If you look real close to you see any new chips? Board modifications? I'm doing S9 board repair and the problems that cannot be seen cosmetically are always the most difficult. I'm always gathering information on past repairs (there's no sense in reinventing the wheel).

When the board came back from Bitmain Warranty I had a good look at it and there were no signs of anything being done! Having said that when I took it out the miner there was no sign of any issues.

I now have 2 boards that have stopped functioning, (from my other S9) both power up but show a shorter than normal ASIC status list of 0000 0000 in the miner status web page.

I have switched around control and power cables, but all attempts result in the same display output.

I was just about to send them off to Bitmain Warranty (strangely re-branded as myRig.com, I guess the real Bitmain objected to the use of their name?)

Are you still fixing boards? PM me.

I also have an S9 hashing board that’s stopped working. I’ve put it up on eBay if anyone wants it who fixes these things

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F302616735752

Remember that the s9 board is a string design board. Any single failure point will cause it to stop working, most often this presents itself as a single bad chip. The problem with this is you cannot source brand new s9 chips to do the repairs properly.

Don't forget to add the hidden cost of having your entire machine gone for a month.
BTW I did do a little research and found these chips are in fact not powered serially just as I suspected(the data lines may be tho). I am very close to finishing my research and hope to have a turnaround half of bitmainwarrantee.

Im also looking for UK repairer, really doesnt seem worthwhile with just one board out losing mining time and cost involved?

Today, 2 of my S9s gave me an unforgettable morning: for one asic,2 boards are not responding, and for the other 1 board is not appearing.
The boards don't show up at all in Mining Status.
Strangely enough, they both failed while switching from BCH to BTC. I find they extremely bizarre.

https://imgur.com/a/Yp4d5 (https://imgur.com/a/Yp4d5)

I don't know what I should do with them now, as they are only 1 month old ...
Should I send them back as they are still under warranty, keep them like this.

Seems like a big hit as losing 3 HB translates to wiping out 1 out of 3 miners completely.

For S9 you need to ship the entire machine to bitmain for warranty, details here: https://shop.bitmain.com/workOrderGuide.htm (https://shop.bitmain.com/workOrderGuide.htm). I sent a board to myrig.com for repair, they got it on Dec 26th and I'm still waiting, so I really can't recommend them at this point. As for a new account here asking for your boards...  ::)

Right now Bitmainwarranty is the best bet for fixing these. They seem to do a pretty good job, but they don't post anything about how they do it or what the root problem is.

Which is fair enough, I respect that.

That said I operate on a different model: Information is free, work and skills are paid for. Thus I'm posting all of my repair stuff in my "Hacking (whatever it is) for (fun and profit, because it needs to be done, I'm bored, etc) threads.

At the moment I can fix some issues, and am getting closer to fixing all the categories of problems, I just figured out how to isolate and swap bad hashing chips (and there are those). Once I get reliably over that hurdle I should be able to add antminer S9's to my list of things that can be fixed (and anyone else with the skills can do it too, more people fixing these things the better for home miners and such).

Keeps me out of trouble :-)

Hi, one of my hashing boards of Antminer S9 is seems to be broken, so I'd like to send it to you for repair if you can fix it. The issue is unknown, the whole miner worked several weeks after returning from Bitmain's warranty, but one of board's temp (chip2) in miner status was 15 and fan worked full speed (6000 rpm) all time. Then after powering off/on this one board just disappeared from miner status. Resetting, flashing new firmware, rebooting, reconnecting and changing cables, replacing another APW3++ and ethernet cable - nothing helped. So, I don't wanna send a whole miner to Bitmain again, as they want for even paid repair. Do you think it's possible to fix it without a whole miner?

Best regards

You can claim the Import Duty back if product went for repair outside the EU

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/outward-processing-relief-opr

Does anyone have schematics, board layouts, parts list?

The boards I shipped BitmainWarrenty(now MyRig) that they received on December 12th were just shipped back to me repaired.  Hoping to get them in the next couple of days. 

Already started. Heres the growing S9 parts list.
Schematics? lol, in your(our) dreams, seems there's a new board version every couple months. (Just to make things worse.) I can tell you the chain order doesn't appear to change. #1(zero) starts by the IO connector and ends with the bottom row near the huge inductor(also the chip with its 'busy' pin connected to TF LED).
 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2963970.0  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2963970.0)

MM, this is awesome. Thanks for doing this.

I looked up one of the components in their latest PSU so I'll give you the data. There are two of these thermistors in it. It's labeled 5D-15.

HERMISTOR NTC 47D-15

Abstract: NTC 5D-15 MF72 Power NTC Thermistor MF72 Power NTC Thermistor. The MF72 series Power NTC Thermistors provide inrush current suppression for sensitive electronics. Connecting a MF72 in series with the power source will limit the current surges typically created at turn on. Once the circuit is energized the resistance of the MF72 will decrease rapidly to a very low value, power consumption can be ignored and there will be no effect on normal operating current.

I have S9 12.93TH hashboard sent to bitmain HK for repair (out of warranty), they said it cannot be repaired anymore. WHY cannot? anyone know who can repair this? in US?

Did they offer to replace it?

Look 3 posts above your query... You answer is there.
Or, Google "antminer s9 hash board repair" for even more options.... Why does it seem no one these days knows how to use a search engine?

So is there anyone that repairs these in EUROPE? I did google and nothing showed up.

Hi, yes there is. Which part of europe are you at?

Just thought i would also add for all u guys that had/have/will have boards die after switchin coins or after losin power and so on chances are ur boards can be saved. Often times the boards will run fine hot which causes the solder to expand and when u reboot the miner or change the coin the miner stops hashing and runs the fans full speed which cools the boards back down causing the solder to shrink. Once it shrinks it isnt makin contact with the pads somewhere so the miner shuts that board down. Its usually as simple as that in those situations so please stop assumin the change in mined coin or ne thing else caused ur miner to stop workin...its just because it stopped hashing in general.

As for other guys/gals with other issues...well that can be ne number of other things so i will leave that to the other dudes handlin those questions lol.

Our team is setting up a company for repair in Norway and Iceland in Europe. We will be there in July 2018.

You can google miningpuppets if you are seeking for more info.