Bitcoin Forum

I have read here that the quality of Antminer isnt always the greatest. At the prices these things are selling for now. Down time is not something the average person can really afford to have. Is it safe to say that the Avalon miners have better quality and less breakdowns than the Antminers?

I've read great things about the Avalon's reliability and not so great things about Antminer's, but it will vary depending on who you ask. Some people have batch 1 (Q3 16' I believe) S9s still running fine, and others get machines DOA.

In terms of downtime, it's a problem for everyone, not just the "average person". For example, if 5% of your machines arrive broken and you ordered 20 machines then odds are 1 will be DOA, if a farm orders 200 then odds are 10 would be DOA. I guess the bigger problem for the little guy would be if they ordered 2 machines and 1 was broken, versus if a farm ordered 200 and 10 were broken. Little guy's batch is down 50% on mining power versus the farm's which is only down 5%.

Other than reliability the thing I like more about Canaan than Bitmain is that when it comes time to order a large number of machines I can place a bulk order with the manufacturer, versus having to fight with smaller miners to get a piece of the batch. Currently, if you are ordering less than 60 machines you have to go through an authorized reseller. Also I like that Canaan accepts wire transfers and not only BCH like Bitmain does which is bullshit.

My .02  ;)

I do like that Canaan accepts wire transfers. I think Blokforge will even take a credit card order. That makes it a lot easier when you don’t have much crypto. I only ask because I can’t just throw 20 grand at buying miners. I only started this a month ago and have to earn the money to pay for the miners. I only have one miner so far and it’s an S7. If I can gather the funds to get another one. I just want to make sure I choose wisely. If that’s possible.

I don't think past experience is a predictor.  Since the 8 series is new there's no way to gauge it's reliability before the fact.

My experience is that S9s are very poor.  6 months in we are down maybe 30% in hash rate.
L3+ have been much more reliable though.

S-9 suck
S-7 not that good
S- 5 a little better
S-3 really really good

Avalon 741 not that good
Avalon 721 good
Avalon 6 good
Avalon 4.1 really really really good

So following the trend, Avalon 821 suck :) I wonder how are we going to keep mining SHA256 if things keep going in that direction.

If you have very very cheap power, then the avalon is a better choice. Avalon burns more power and costs more per hash(even when the device itself costs less), other than that there's no problem.
Unlike in Antminers, failure rate has increased considerably. On top of this, customer support is almost non-existent. Whereas Canaan's support would most likely solve(or at least try) your problems within hours.

Power isn’t too bad. Under .10 cents per Kw. Sounds like Avalon is it. Even if it’s failure rate was no better than an Antminers. Better customer support makes it much better. I really like mining. I feel like I can really be a part of this by mining. I feel like it’s not as easy now to get into it like it was last year. I will press on though. I am waiting for the 821’s to be released. If I find an S9 that is working and isnt too overly priced I may buy one. I’m just not going to get crazy with them I think.

We do tend to overexaggerate things a bit but as long as there isn't a whole lot of competition in the mining scene companies will continually slack off with quality. We'll keep mining, but miner breakage rates will continue rising if there isn't much incentive to make miners better and not with cheaper equipment to increase profit margins.

I’m guessing it’s probably easier and cheaper to fix miners that are doa than invest in higher quality right from the get go. Plus some customers may try to repair it themselves or may have purchased through a reseller which won’t be covered under warranty with Bitmain at least anyway.

From personal experience I never had an issue with the S5 or S7 series miners. Can't say for the S9's, but apparently a lot of people hate them

What are you talking about? They rarely get an S9 back for repairs, quality must be awesome! Or maybe their process around the "warranty" is so fucking terrible, that people prefer getting them fixed in other ways, instead of shipping the entire unit back, for a fortune, wishing to see it back some day not more broken than before sending it :)

Edit: Yeah, easier to don't give a shit if you can get away with it...

Same shit, different year. When I first started mining all of my stress came from Black Arrow (and a little bit from BFL). The only stable gear I was able to get my hands on were ASICMINER blades and cubes... and a whole lot of U1 sticks  :)

Getting back into it after a 4 year hiatus and am shocked at the concentration of power in Bitmain's hands, so will not do the S9 thing. I am only running an S3 solo right now, but hope to get serious if I can get my hands on an Avalon 8x or two (or hit a block!)

Good luck mining solo. You’ll be dancing to the bank if you hit a block.

I never had a significant issue with the S5, but my sample size was small.
I've seen quite a few folks with medium-sized S9 deployments talk about 20-30% failure rates (sometimes "one board fail" is counted as a miner fail by them though, even though it's actually a PARTIAL fail).
I've not seen ANY folks with more than a few Avalon miners talk about that kind of failure rate - normally they talk about 5% or less (and again, ONE board failure = miner failure to those folks).

So what’s the deal with Bitmain? Is it the design or poor assembly practices? Maybe the manufacture rate is affecting the quality.

Based on the issues with the first few S9 batches, and the existence of the T9, the primary issue they seem to be having is "chip to chip variation" is VERY WIDE on 14/16nm node processes when one is trying to push the chip as hard as Bitmain is doing.

 Based on the issues they had with the S7, they may also be trying to push the thermal density more than they should be.

So in your opinion is this a QC issue or a development issue with the chip just can’t handle the load?

many  believe  that  due to size of chip 14/16nm   and high power sent to it  that it can not help but have power leakages.

there are 189 chips  doing  13.5 th

there are 189 chips doing   1400 watts

Intel has  the i7 6700k  and it had a higher fail rate then previous

  that was their first 14nm chip and it did have  a higher failure rate  then previous  cpu's

it was the first intel cpu I ever fried  out of 300 or more used in builds.

I would love the next design to use less power  and less chips  and run cooler.

 Combination - they try to run the chip too close to it's "lowest voltage" and the variations cause them issues - which their design QC hasn't gotten a good handle on.
 They also have a very poor design on their airflow management.
 They are too happy with their "way compact extreme heat density" design, and would probably have a lot fewer issues if they went to a larger chassis to mount everything in, with GOOD airflow management design - something closer to the old Dragon miners or the Innosilicon A2.

 I can't speak to the physical QC of the S9 as I've never owned one - but I've NEVER been fond of "glue-on heatsinks" in ANYTHING ELSE I've suffered through that had those things.

Do you really need the chassis Bitmain uses? Could you buy an S9 and pull the boards along with the control board and put them in your own chassis with better cooling? Aren’t they all just sitting in there?

You could probably do that - if you don't mind voiding their joke of a warrenttee.

Ha, that will be the least of my concerns, as you say it's a joke. I'll refuse to create an enclosure though, what's next, program my own controller? Fuck them.