Bitcoin Forum

Hi I have 2 S1 Antminers from bitmain & i was just wondering if anyone has had any problems with overheating (To the point of melting my power supply lead & Main Point)

I have a Strider Gold Evolution 1200w (80 Plus Gold)

http://silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=321&area=en (http://silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=321&area=en)

So i know it has plenty of power to push 2 x S1 miners, I plugged in 1 x 8 pin pci-e plugs which on the other end have 2 x 6 + 2 pin connection.

I put 1 x 6 pin into one miner & from the extension of that cable i put the other 6 pin plug into the other blade.

I did the same with the other blade with another plug.

So now i have both miners running along nicely for about 3 weeks and started to notice a weird smell coming from my miners & what had ended up happening was the plug in the power supply had started to melt & the lead to the miners plastic had all started to melt away.

Im going to take some pictures later today & put them up i just wanted to know if anyone else had the same thing if not started a fire??

I remember having the same problem when overclocking technobits hexc 20 gh miner so i had to downclock it to stop it from melting down.

http://i59.tinypic.com/j74wt1.jpg

http://i58.tinypic.com/5bv6ro.jpg

http://i62.tinypic.com/246ucjq.jpg

http://i62.tinypic.com/2nl5zqo.jpg

Pic's here!

What sort of environment are they in?  Do you have air moving around them?  What kind of temps are you seeing on the chips?

Environment = Ventilated bedroom. Fan it came with plus an extra one i installed on the other end to pull the heat away..

Temps between 40 & 48 approx.

The melt down happened on the power supply side not the miner.

The pci-e plugs i was using had was one lead from the power supply to 2 lots of 6 pin plugs on the other side.

My new way i'm running it to be safe is using 2 new pci-e power ports but i'm only using 1 lead with one blade, One the opposite blade i've used 2 x 8 pin cpu power leads, They just have 4 black & 4 yellow leads on them, so i chopped of the adaptor on one end and manually wired in the leads as stated in the guide from bitmain.

So now each blade has its own lead and plug rather than try to use 1 lead to power 2 blades...

U'll see what i mean when i post the pic's!

I'm confused.  The specs for that PSU state it has 4 6+2 PCI-e and 4 6pin PCI-e.  The S1 only needs 2.  Why aren't you using a single cable for each blade?  You've got plenty of PCI-e connectors, and 4 separate plugs on the PSU for them.  Why are you using, or trying to use, 2x8 pin CPU power leads?

Ill show u in the pictures...

Won't be long!

I know just what you did.. the cable on the psu side was 8 wires.

the cable split into 2 6 wire plugs you used 1 cable and it went from 8 to 12 wires.

  this means 4 pos and 4 neg  became  6 pos and 6 neg


 the problem is very simple  the 4+4 =8 pin side can not carry 360 or 400 watts.

you were just beyond its capabilities  so it took 3 weeks to show up.

   

Exactly... The only problem was i didn't know how much each rail would hold till this problem showed up.

So now each miner has 2 blades and both require a power lead to each blade.

So i run 1 lead each to each blade which = 4 leads.

Just a heads up to others out there cause u could burn your house down....

Yeah, each blade on it's only lead back to the psu.  Do not split them, share them, etc.  the 6 pin pci-e plugs are meant to carry a max of 75watts.

If you are splitting it across 2 blades, you are pulling about 350watts...

There's only a single rail on that PSU.  Philipma1957 said what I was thinking you did... and hence my confusion as to why you did it since the PSU has plenty of cables - and inputs (4 PCI-e plugs in the PSU) - to drive them both safely.

The simple fact is you pushed too much power through two cables that should have been handled by 4, and as a result melted things.  I'm glad you caught it prior to any damage to your home or yourself.

yeah those cables 8 to 2 x 6

 can do 300 max  

 they have 4 x 18 gauge pos wires   at the psu  an 18 gauge wire will do 75 watts so 4 will do 300 watts (so pulling 360-400)

is just too much for 24/7/365 use...  The op was very lucky.  Just think if he had been off on a 3 day weekend at the Jersey Shore  he would have come back to a burnt out house.

Just a heads up regarding the technobit miners.  Under no circumstances should you connect more than one miner to one line, even though each line on a PSU has multiple plugs.  The same logic would apply to the Antminer S1.  The seller of the technobit miners advised us not to try to cut power from CPU power connector.  
  If you connect two miners to one line, then that cable will feel twice as hot when you touch it, compared to having just one miner connected.  I have an auxillary fan to the side of my technobit miners to add extra cooling to the power connectors, the 4 pin molar plugs are the ones most prone to melting from overheating.

yeah not only not enough wires in the four pin connectors.  they are  very often 20 gauge not 18 gauge so it is a double whammy for melted wires.

Oh god, this is basic miner knowledge! It's even basic knowledge for PC/GPU enthusiasts. One PCI-e cable per connection.

Sorry i know my pc inside out and back to front but when it comes to power volts amps & watts.....

I am very inexperienced.....

That said, This is the reason i am posting this as a warning to others...

I just thought big power supply 1200w 2 pci-e cables would pull enough power down...

We are not all experienced - Electricians or Miners...

Ok now thats out of the way can u tell me how much power i'm using here per lead per blade??

2 units,

Each S1 has 1 x 8 pin from the power supply to the connectors on the miner u need to screw them into & 1 x 8 pin pci-e to 2+6 pins on the plugging into miners pci-e port.

I've got an Antminer S3 miner i wanna put on the same power supply if thats possible??

OK... you're asking if you can put an S1 and an S3 on the same PSU? (the one you showed pictures of in the first post)?

Well actually 2 x S1's plus an S3

If ur saying that the S1's are 350w, 2 is 700w

Plus the S3 is 370w = 1070w

It is a 1200w power supply.

In an earlier post you stated that you are not an electrician.  That doesn't mean that you can't start trying to think like one.  That means trying to err on the side of "more than adequate" power supply for each of your miners.  I wouldn't be thinking: "What is the maximum number of things I can get away with connecting to this PSU, including my brand new Antminer S3".  I would be more like: "I will be using 1 good quality PSU to power my new Antminer S3, and that PSU will not be supplying power to anything else."

You will need 6 PCI-e connectors to power them all.  The S1 at stock clocks is 360W, so 720 for both.  The S3 will be about the same 360.

So... you have a 1200W PSU that has at least 1 of the 4 PCI-e connectors melted, so you're going to try to push 6 connections out of 3 ports.

The short answer to your question is no, don't do it.  You got lucky and caught the potential meltdown last time.  Do yourself a favor and get another PSU.  I'd suggest the EVGA G2 1300W.  It has 6 PCI-e inputs (8 total plugs) and will handle the 3 just fine.  Or, if you really want to ensure you don't blow things up, get 3 separate PSUs.  Why tempt fate by trying to push as much as you can out of a single PSU?

The page for the Antminer S3 also states that you connect 2 PCI-E connectors for normal operation, or 4 PCI-E for overclocking.   It also recommends against connecting more than one PSU to a single Antminer.

If I were you, I'd have your current power supply checked out before continuing to use it.  Can't tell what has been damaged by the heat, and 1200w power supplies have plenty of current and can start a fire if some of the insulators are melted inside.

500-750W power supplies are cheap, pick up 3 of them, one for each miner, and if you don't split your leads, you should be okay.

You don't have to be an electrician or scientist to know that power=current x voltage.  If you know how to read, you might discover that the 'power spec' of your power supply is a 'global' number for all voltage rails, not the 12V rails that are relevant to your miner (Antminer S1). Saying that your PSU has 1300W capacity is irrelevant to its use for a miner. You need to find the detailed spec of your specific power supply and check how much each rail and each power connector can provide.  Make sure that your power supply capacity (with a safety margin) handles the specified load of your miner.
IMHO using so called 'modular' power supplies is wrong, as the extra interface connectors are an additional opportunity for failure (guess what melted in your case - the 8 pin 'modular' connectors).  Using a power supply with 'hard wired' wiring is 'less tidy', more reliable and cheaper.

As pointed out earlier, consider yourself lucky that the only thing melted are those connectors/wires.
Thanks for sharing your story.

Cheers

This statement is Not entirely correct.  Bitmain says not to connect more than one PSU to a single Blade. The S3 will have 2 PCI-e connectors per Blade. It will be fine to attach one PSU to one blade and a second PSU to the second blade. Now with that in mind, multi 12v rail PSU's most likely should be treated as Separate PSU's with regards to populating all 4 connections on an S3. In other words be mindful that 12v rail#1 could power one blade and 12v rail#2 should be on blade#2.

And i would say good luck to you....

I have an S1 & an S3 connected to the same power supply, Works no problems... My rig's aren't overclocked so no dramas...

If S1 Push = 400w & S3 Push less than 400w then a 1200w power supply is fine...

I'd even go as far to say that a corsair 1000w power supply has all the modular plugs u need to run 2 x S3's off without a trouble in the world.

But you stated you wanted to run 3 miners off one supply, it may work with a 1200W supply or it might just melt down the weakest modular connector, either way 1000W isn't going to work for your stated 2XS1 + 1XS3. Once again, a 1200W PSU needs to be "VERIFIED" as to what the 12Volt rating is "SPECIFICALLY"because 1200W rated PSU is the COMBINED power of all rails, 3.3V+5.0V+12V+12V EPS+5.0V standby+5.0Vneg+12Vneg=1200Watts Rated Peak Power or is it 1200W on the 12V rail constant.