I've never had hands on a Dragon or miners using that exact software setup, but I can't see any indication there that something is going wrong. I notice that your difficulty is down at 16, which should be increased to 512 or 1024 and might help some problems. Next step would be to try another of the big pools (btcguild) @ 1024 to see if you can't eliminate the pool.

I received a generous refund for both the unit and postage.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=904408.0 Probably another case to review

You can blame the 'spam' on users purposely spamming as to why those threads become what they become, but at the same time it doesn't change what the threads become. It was more than a WEEK after when I posted the screenshot that virtually every single SPTech thread was at the top of the front page, because the same few users kept bumping all of the threads at once.

I still don't think you understand why I argued that the practice was not a good thing. Its to retain that level playing field. How could a new or small company compete with a larger company giving $1000s and $1000s of products away so they can layer the front page? And on the flip side, you would have been complaining just as hard when larger companies were spamming even more threads than you could have. Bitmain could have posted literally 100s of threads if you had your way and review 'parties' were allowed. Its not a good practice, not a good idea and not something that should continue.... as you've said in private but seem to be saying the exact opposite in public.

Regarding your claims that you receive different admin policies to any other company because you don't spend on advertisement, please break that into a separate meta thread. Its a serious allegation and (if true), needs to be dealt with.

Regarding some of your posts being deleted, its because they often don't add information/content and are too short. You can't simply quote someone elses post and say "Thanks" when the post wasn't written towards you and you'd had no interaction with that thread beforehand. I have no say in this policy as its a policy and working standard of the forum which we all have to adhere to all the same. Again, if you feel like you're being singled out then you can post a meta thread so a tribunal of peers and admins can discuss the problem and if things need to change.

One of the things /hardware is suffering from at the moment is that users are spilling out of different threads by asking too many questions. I tend to get flamed when posting that they'd be better off in the S2/S3/S4 threads etc, but that's where they belong. The whole point of these centralised support threads is it keeps the boards clean, reduces the time for a user to get support and centralises the knowledge base and information.

The solution is more timely moderation, but that's not really a solution in itself as there are only so many mods, so many hours they can spend on here. CK did a great job of helping to clean up things when he was made a mod.

My setup guides act as a box to mining reference guide, they're not meant to be entirely exhaustive for 99.999% of people and anything and everything they could ever encounter towards that miner. Just because I don't publish pages and pages of test data doesn't mean its not being taken in different simulated environments and verified. That gets condensed into the miner specifications (as a validation of the manufacturer's rating), because 99% of users don't need raw data. I also don't think you understand the amount of time required to process that quality of photos.

Now, to answer your other concerns (which, including this discussion are heading towards OT-ness), there has to be a reason to post on the forums and keep things going. I could move my threads off site and monetise them there, but then that harms the community. The majority of the products I review in the modern market don't get close to paying for their time via the unit's value. Studios charge up to $1000 for the photography I do and up to $400 for the product 360s I've started doing when you put multiple products in at once. Tldr, expensive.

By offering exactly the same service to all manufacturers - big or small - it provides an even playing field which gives everyone to show off their wares in a sterile environment. Then, the review thread transforms into a setup guide, providing everything customer needs to go from box to mining. And then, if a customer falls into difficulty they can post their problems and they'll be dealt with as soon as I'm available. Advertising, (all $1000 of it a month...) helps pay for a portion of that environment and level playing field.

My threads are also published and then they drop off the 1st and 2nd pages until they are needed. When a customer has a problem, they post, I answer and it drops off again - they're not in the way unless they're being specifically utilised. If only one thread is being utilised, then only one thread is on the front page etc. That is different from posting 10-15 threads simultaneously and juggling to keep them all active at the top of the front page at once. Additionally, the majority of the traffic comes from Google searches, which brings external users onto the forums and keeps the ecosystem on bitcointalk healthy. The guides do not rely on the front page to garner views, hence some reviews with only a few replies have 1000s of views.

Now, to answer your other accusations - which should be in a scam accusation thread... can you provide an example company to which I show veiled aggression towards because they don't 'pay me'? I would also very much likely to highlight YOUR actions involving HashCoins, as I did nothing but provide a level playing field by not jumping to conclusions. In contrast, YOU decided that what they were doing was impossible, and so without proof YOU left them negative trust. Imagine if when you were establishing yourself [even though they have 9-12 months trading history...], someone else decided they didn't like what you were doing and dumped negative trust on you and called you a scammer - without giving them a chance to prove anything? You decided that they were a scam, until they could prove anything. You acted as prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner in one move. Now, are able to explain what I did (by saying don't jump to conclusions....) was so heinous?

imgur bypasses the proxy, so that might be why you're experiencing it only on imgur.

I'm not going to start another waffle thread with you again. You can look pages back regarding discussion on an S3 to S5 upgrade kit. tldr S3s are still viable, so it would make no sense to upgrade them today.

Its to create a new SD card using someone elses .img file. If for whatever reason you can't get the upgrade to work, someone might be so kind as to upgrade then provide you a copy of their .img so you can write directly to your SD card.

Yes that's correct. In the future double check the hash rate displayed on your pool to make sure its the same or near enough what the miner is displaying. After all, what your pool displays is what you end up getting paid on.

I'm not sure what is going wrong here, but the S1 + S3 and S2 will have different firmware formats because S1 + S3 uses a proprietary controller while the S2 uses BBB architecture.

I've never ever heard mine beep. And looking at my pictures, I don't think there even is a buzzer on them because they're BBB based.

I don't see anything in the OP about S1 to S5 upgrade kits? 

Those bulk lots are often sold on behalf of customers, it doesn't mean they are owned by Bitmain.

You don't have to buy at any price or at all. If you don't like the offer, you're more than free to not accept it.

Turning individual chips off is not a software or firmware based function, it requires expensive on PCB hardware to enable that.

If you're moving them to Switzerland just to host, why wouldn't you just host in CN or buy cloud mining (HashNest etc)?

That was coming from a SpondooliesTech group buy organiser, of course he's going to accuse Bitmain of XYZ....

"omg miners are untested"
"omg hashrate went up, its definitely bitmain"
"omg why are you testing miners"

 

Just ignore him. He's angry at Bitmain because an admin deleted some of his posts.

Its not in the best interests of the customer. I ran the numbers and you can fit about 200 S1s into a fully laden LD3, which is ~800-900kg. Its highly unlikely that any country will have 200 of anything going to it on the same day, so customer orders would then have to be held. Once it arrived in the destination country, it would then have to be delivered to another national warehouse, where its emptied and individual boxes are relabelled, and then reshipped. The turnaround would take 1.5-2.5 days depending on courier pickups, for the boxes to re-enter the courier network. Then, Bitmain has to pay to have them shipped a second time.

So you've said $2 per S5 for 1/3 of the way round the world.
Fixing your size estimations to actually make them fit, it becomes $6 per unit.
Fixing your destination so they actually arrive in the right country becomes $10 per unit.
Fixing your speed of delivery to match UPS becomes $20 per unit.
Having units delivered to a national warehouse, handled and relabelled becomes $26 per unit.
Then handing each unit back to an air courier once in the destination country (for the US) or by express land) becomes $40-55 per unit.
This all assumes you've got 100% occupancy and on every single day or near enough you can fill an LD3 per country.

Meanwhile, you just increased the time of delivery to the customer by 4-7 days.

Not on all S3s, and probably on even less C1s. They don't all have variable voltage control.