Hi all,

Here's my backstory: My Antminer S7 batch 7 units had 6 out of 9 boards burnt out within 2 months (back in January/Feburary). Since they were still covered under warranty, I sent them to Bitmain China to repair under the warranty, and spent about $200 shipping the boards for the RMA. It took one month to get the boards back from China after they were "repaired."

Within 30 days, the exact same boards I got back from china under the warranty burnt out again (I've got Batch 8 miners that have been absolutely great since day 1 with no issues). When I pulled out the boards from the miners, every single one of the boards I got back from China under warranty has heat sinks fall completely off.

Rather than go through that trouble again, I decided to send them to Bitmain USA and pay a fee based repair. (bitmainwarranty.com)

They were delivered on June 4th. One month and 4 days later, I still have no idea what's going on with my boards. The last time I heard from them was on June 30th when they said the advanced tech needed to take a look at them. They said the boards couldn't be repaired via normal repair process and needed a "deep repair."

First off, why were my RMA boards dead from bitmain china within a month after I got them back?

Secondly, why are those same boards unrepairable for Bitmain USA, and why is it so painful to get any response? I never overclocked them and ran them in a server room... my RMA'd boards should have never died again within 30 days.

5 of the 6 boards I sent had no burn marks and falling heatsinks. One of the 7 had a slight burn mark under one of the heatsinks. And yet all of them are "unrepairable" and need a "deep repair?"

Has anyone had luck with BitmainWarranty (US fee-based repair)?

The last time they posted on the forum was back in June 13th, so that doesn't make me feel any better.

Hi guys,

I have one IBM 2880W PSU not working. The top green light turns on when I plug it in, but the bottom light does not, and the fans won't turn on.

Do any of you have any ideas on what's wrong? Do I need a new fan pack? If so, where can I buy one?

Thanks again all for your help!

Got it. So shame on me, and everyone else who bought a batch 1-7 from buying, because Capitalism. Spare me the economics lesson kind sir.

My argument isn't "I'm hopping mad because I spent too much money."

No, I'm saying "we're all fools, and Bitmain is ruining the industry." And they're ruining it in the exact same way you tried to school me - "Bitmain sells S7s for the price the market will buy at. Its capitalism 101."

Even if that price means a 50% discount within 2 months.

If we were talking about anything other than a unit which is meant to consistently create an economic product for the owner, then I'd be totally on the same page with you. But the S7 has made me realize that the smartest people in the room are the ones who stopped home mining, and never bought an s7 in the first place.

Bitcoin mining is NOT scalable. And certainly not profitable. And with equipment already obsolete in less than 60 days - with impaired ability to resell for a reasonable price, not something you can really maintain (unless you like losing money for a loud heater in your room).

It's game over folks. The S7 is the destruction of the hobby miner.

you could look at the larger scale and see its exponential growth, doubling every 3-6 months. If you bought the S7 thinking difficulty wasnt going to go up, you were crazy.

It happened with the S1, the S3, the spondoolies Sp3X, and with the s5. every new generation of hardware and better efficiency is constantly replacing the old gear. you didnt buy an S1 right? you knew the s7 was the one that could make money.

and the price went down a lot in bitcoin (>50%) but in dollars only about 20% due to USD/BTC
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Oh trust me, I've been mining long enough to understand how difficulty spikes are to be expected. And in all honesty, I'm not even complaining about the new hashing power (I was discussing that because the other guy said I didn't know how to properly calculate difficulty raises as it relates to my ROI).

My single frustration is about bitmain lowering the price for the s7 to half of what I paid less than 3 months ago.

Case in point, I paid $5,154.42 for 3 batch 7 units that shipped on 11/27/15. Including shipping, that's $1,718.14 per unit.
I also paid $4,677.23 for 3 batch 8 units that shipped on 12/9/15. Including shipping, that's $1,559.07 per unit.

Less than 60 days after the shipping of my batch 8 units, batch 10 units are selling (before shipping) at $805.04 per usd (based on current btc to usd ratio).

Am I the only one that thinks bitmain is turning their backs on the miners for doing this? I truly could not sell my batch 7 or 8 miners at a breakeven at the moment, even if I factor in how much btc I've made in the last 60 days, because they're still selling units.

When has bitmain ever lowered price by 50% in subsequent batches of miners in less than 60 days and kept selling batches in the past? In my experience, antminers usually sold out quickly, and there was a limit to production. They kept price consistent. The other antminers didn't decrease in value by more than 50% in less than 60 days, like what's happening right now.

you should not blame Bitmain for your decision to buy overpriced miners and not being able to predict reaslistic ROI times
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Well, when the s7 came out, it was not overpriced. Hence, I did not buy an overpriced miner, given the timeframe. It only became an overpriced miner when bitmain decided to sell the same unit for half the price less than 3 months later. And yes, I can blame bitmain for poisoning the resale well, because no one who bought a miner when the s7 first came out would have ever thought that bitmain would lower the same price on the same miner to half in less than 3 months.

Who would want to buy an s7 at my breakeven price? I can't sell it for a breakeven price on ebay if I wanted to, because bitmain is selling a brand new unit for less on their own website, with a brand new warranty. Do you see my frustration now?

And when it comes to predicting realistic ROI time, who could have predicted the bitcoin network would jump from 471 petahashes on november 11th, to 1,066 petahashes as of today (less than 3 months later)?

To give you an idea on the massive increase in hashing power in 3 months alone, on April 29th, 2014, the bitcoin network had 57 petahashes. On that same date in 2015, the network was at 340 petahashes - it took an entire year to gain slightly less than 300 petahashes in power.

Fast forward to August 8th, 2015 - the network was at 377 petahashes.

less than 5 months later, we are almost triple that.

Between the bitcoin whitepaper coming out in 2008, until August 8th, 2015... it took 7 years to get to 377 petahashes. And we tripled all of the hashing power that took 7 years to build, less than 5 months after that point.

So you tell me how someone could accurately predict something like that?

In my opinion, I think it's safe to finally say that the industry is killing itself. Since Bitmain is the undisputed champ in the manufacture of the mining wars, they have serious weight and influence over the difficulty and hashing contribution to the network. Before this recent s7 mayhem, you'd be able to ROI and maintain some reasonable level of difficulty so you can rely on a certain level of revenue over time. But now, it's impossible to calculate and scale effectively.

For example, I ordered my s7's in the middle of November. On November 11th, the difficulty was 65million. Less than 3 months later, the next estimated difficulty hitting in 3.2 days, is 144 million (more than double). But the price of bitcoin hasn't doubled during that same time frame either.

Furthermore, each new batch of miners is significantly cheaper than the last. The batch 7 miners I bought cost me roughly $1450 each. 3 batches (and 4 months later), the price is half that.

So how can a bitcoin miner be able to predict an ROI anymore? It's impossible.

I see the antminer s7 price drops as a sign that bitmain doesn't care about bitcoin, or the miners anymore. They care about making money and adding as much hashing power as possible. Because lowering your s7 price by 50% within 3 months when you know the miner who bought 3 months ago didn't make $750 in bitcoin during that same duration of time, is just plain wrong.

This is the sad state of affairs for miners now. You used to be competitive for 6-12 months with equipment. Now, you're not even competitive a month later. And with resale values kept low in the interim, since bitmain is still selling versions for 50% less than what you paid, we're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

At least you're able to get an RMA request response. I've had three batch 7 miners with faulty controllers only running 1 hashboard since friday, and no response to my RMA. My 5.05th miners are now running around 1.6th each, so I'm down about 10th overall right now

I'm a little frustrated with what bitmain is doing here.

10th batch is only $780? What about all us miners who bought batch 1-8 before the difficulty skyrocketed, for 2-3x what the batch 10 miner is selling for?

At the current difficulty, most of us don't even have a prayer to ROI anytime soon. And if we want to get out of the game and sell our equipment for something even close to a break even, we're stuck because bitmain is selling almost the same thing for $780 each.

For the love of science, bitmain.... please stop making more s7 miners. I'm begging you. All of us batch 1-9 suckers are screwed at this point.

change logs? what do you mean?

Ok, I think I've narrowed down the problem to the controller. I've tried changing out the PCIe cables, putting the miners on the cables on the right side, and nothing worked. Then my buddy tried plugging the batch 7 into the controller on one of the batch 8 miners, and then we were able to see all of the 3 boards show up (but it wouldn't hash).

The really unfortunate thing is that the batch 8 miners will not run more than 1 miner on the same controller like the batch 1-7 miners can. Hence, I'm stuck.

Tried updating the firmware today, to no avail.

Now I'm playing the waiting game on the RMA to have a response by bitmain. I submitted the ticket on friday, and still haven't heard back today yet.

Anyone else having the batch 7 controllers fry consecutively like this?

3 IBM 2880 PSU with Jabberwock mods

The batch 7 uses: 1278 W (at the wall, with APW3, 93% efficiency, 25C ambient temp)
The batch 8 uses: 1293W + 10% (at the wall, with APW3, 93% efficiency, 25C ambient temp)

I'm pretty sure the batch 7 numbers are off, but with these numbers we're at 2571W per PSU for a platinum rated PSU.

I've been running these miners since the middle of december with no problem... until now.

How do I post pictures?

Also, it's not the power issue. I have a 100amp subpanel running 208v, and plenty of extra juice for more. The breakers didn't trip either.

Hi folks,

I'm having a really bizarre situation happen with my 3 Antminer S7 Batch 7 units. This morning all three of them were blinking and beeping, but then they started working again with no problem. Just for good measure, I unplugged them and plugged them back in about an hour later.

7 hours later, I check on them and discover that all 3 units are having problems with Chain 1 and 3.

Before you blame the PSU, let me tell you my setup:

3 S7 Batch 7
3 S7 batch 8
3 IBM 2880 PSU with Jabberwock mods

I have 1 batch 7 match a single PSU with 1 batch 8. Hence, Each PSU has a batch 7 and 8 connected to each other, and that's it. In other words, each batch 7 is connected to a completely separate PSU, yet all three of them have issues with chain 1 and 3.... each one.

Can any of you guys help me figure this out? Since it happened to all three (and the batch 8's connected to the PSU are running perfectly), what could be the problem? What are the odds that all three are having the same exact issue, on the same exact chain, while the other batch 8 units are running perfectly?

I got a text message from a guy named joe in another state who wanted to buy all of my Bitcoin at a 12.5% premium, and pay with VENMO. It was tempting, until I did some research and saw a bunch of people get ripped off this same way. Apparently they will do a charge back 2 days later, and you lose your Bitcoin and your money.

I offered to sell to them at fair market price (not a premium) if they use a third party escrow. He had every excuse why he didn't want to do it (I found someone else who's willing to do it at a 13% premium if you don't wanna work with me, yadda yadda).

DO NOT SELL BITCOINS VIA VENMO, AND DO NOT SELL TO THE NUMBER 516-661-6797!

I've got them running on 208v actually. I've got a 100amp subpanel just for mining.

That's what I'm looking for too. Maybe I'll end up using the 2000W PSU and be very careful about picking quiet fans? Not sure.

I'd still love to hear how to add the two fans to the top of the 2880w PSU I have right now. That might solve the problem entirely.

I'm calling them scammers (unless there actually happens to be a real unit that someone in this forum gets their hands on in February). There have been countless threads talking about these folks, and the overwhelming consensus is that these guys are a scam.

I do find it interesting how hard they are trying to convince everyone that they aren't a scam tho.

Until someone gets a live unit in their hands, I think they are also a scam. I certainly wouldn't give these guys a penny unless another senior member on the forum got a unit to test, and could vouch for them.

Would the 1300 run my batch 7 miners tho? I've read the actual usage can sometimes spike up to 1400w on batch 7

I was on ebay, and saw the following ads:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bitcoinminer-20-000GH-20TH-MADE-IN-GERMANY-PREORDER-/191756551371?hash=item2ca594c4cb:g:9pgAAOSwAKxWaGs5
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bitcoinminer-10-000GH-10TH-MADE-IN-GERMANY-PREORDER-/191756540547?hash=item2ca5949a83:g:9pgAAOSwAKxWaGs5

Clearly the ad creator wrote it originally in German and translated it.

Also, when you look at the yesminers webpage, they now have an image indicating they have these miners in stock.
https://www.yesminers.de/en/mining.html

Either these people are desperate scammers that won't go away no matter what the circumstances, or it may be worthwhile to wait until January to see if someone gets one of these live units themselves.

Here's my concern: with the current difficulty being as high as it is, with the halving coming up very soon, if these units actually do exist, they will badly damage the existing ROI on an S7's, Avalon 6's, etc. That is scary (or if you have a bunch of these, you'll feel excited).

Something to keep your eyes on folks.

Yeah that would be too spendy for me. I have 3 S7's currently, and another 3 coming in (batch likely by Friday. Hence, 6 EVGA PSU's blow my budget out of the water.

I've seen the Delta 2000W PSU without the breakout board for $30 on ebay (and the breakout board is $45 I believe), so since I already have all of the PCIe cables I need, all I'd need is more C19/C20 cords, and some fans. I don't know how expensive fans are, but My guess is that I can probably get everything I need for around $100 each PSU.

OR, I can add those additional fans to the top like Jabber suggested. Jabber, when you have a moment, could you please send me those schematics and how they work? Thanks!